Trina Boice: Parenting Truths from an Imperfect Parent
Although she won the award of California Young Mother of the Year, Trina admits she is not a perfect parent. She shares lessons learned parenting along her imperfect road.
Tamara K. Anderson interviews Trina Boice about life as an imperfect parent and the lessons she has learned along the way. Today we discuss:
Miscarriages
The “Whatever” Mantra
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Don’t Be Afraid to Go Deep
You can find Trina on her social media platforms of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. You can also find her on the following websites:
Here is the transcript of Trina’s episode:
Trina 0:02
It went from pretending to really connecting with my child. And it was a really hard conversation. There were lots of tears that were shed. But in the end, lots of hugging, and a greater appreciation for the paths and the journeys that we take and how different they all are.
Tamara Anderson 0:28
Welcome to Stories of Hope in Hard Times, the show that explores how people endure and even thrive in difficult times, all with God’s help. I’m your host, Tamara K. Anderson. Join me on a journey to find inspiring stories of hope and wisdom learned in life’s hardest moments.
My guest today is a doctor and a number one best-selling author of 31 books and was named the California Young Mother of the Year, an award which completely amuses her four sons. She teaches online for Brigham Young University and creates online courses at lifelonglearningeducation.com. She’s also a movie critic at moviereviewmom.com and has a daily podcast on Alexa called Daily Inspirational Quote with Trina. She worked as a legislative assistant for a congressional representative in Washington DC and was given the Points of Light Award and Presidential Volunteer Service Award for her domestic and international community service. She’s taught classes at the famous Lake Cordon Bleu Culinary College, and she says she has the weight gain to prove it. If she told you everything that she really does, she’d have to kill you. Basically.
I am pleased to present Dr. Trina Boyce. Trina, are you ready to share your story of hope?
Trina 1:57
Oh, thank you for having me, Tamara. You know, I adore you. And for those listening, I’ve known Tamara for, I don’t know, two, three years now. Right?
Tamara Anderson 2:08
Something like that. I can’t remember. But it’s been fun. So question, Trina, how in the world did you end up being named California Young Mother of the Year? I mean, I know that people are named mothers of the year. I always imagine them to be like these perfect moms. I know that’s not the right image I should be putting in my brain. But I guess when you get an award like that people assume that’s what it is. Why don’t you tell me a little bit of background on that? Were you the perfect mom?
Trina 2:47
Oh no, absolutely not. I always say I look really good on paper. But the title is awarded by a wonderful organization called American Mothers Inc. I was involved with it when I was living in Georgia. Then I moved to California and I was still involved. Then one year I actually received that honor.
But it’s kind of tricky. Because if they just said, “We just think you’re great, have this award,” that would be wonderful. It’s kind of a little bit of a competition, because people can nominate a bunch of women. From all those women, they have to pick one winner. I didn’t like that experience, because anybody who loses feels like oh, well, then I guess I’m not a good mother. That’s absolutely not the case at all. All of the women were absolutely incredible. They often look for women that have a lot of kids, look good on paper, but are really involved in their communities, have a platform and have something that really speaks to the world and the time. I was involved in a lot of things. That’s why I say my kids just laugh at that because they know I’m not a perfect mother at all.
Tamara Anderson 4:12
I think everybody’s kids could testify that their parents are not perfect parents, you know all the kids out there. It is a juggling thing. I think we all have good days and bad days. I think we’ll probably talk a little bit about parenting successes and failures.
Trina 4:32
I can share a lot of failures with you that is for sure. So I have four sons, and they’re all awesome. When I was young I actually had a dream that I was going to have four sons and I dreamt of them outside in our backyard. We had a basketball court in our backyard and I saw these four guys. They were tall. They were playing basketball. I just loved watching them play because you could tell they were getting such a kick out of being together. I just thought, “Oh, I can’t wait to meet them.” So when I got married and had my first baby, we thought, “Well, let’s have a boy because everybody needs a big brother.” So boom, we had a boy. We’re like, “Well, that was easy.” He was awesome. We’re like, “What’s everybody complaining about?” So then we said, “All right, you know, ready for another one.”
We both thought we needed to have four, because we came from siblings of only three kids in the family, and somebody was always left out. So we were convinced we needed to have an even number and two wasn’t enough, and six was way too many for us. We wanted another boy, but we thought if we have a girl, great, then we’ll have one of each. But if we have another boy, they’ll be best buddies. And we had another boy and they’ve been best buddies. In fact, that son was born on my bedroom floor, delivered by my husband by accident, because he was born so fast. Then the third time around, we’re like, “Well, you know, a girl would be fun,” but I kept thinking about that dream. I’m like, I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be a boy.
In fact, I had had some miscarriages. I was struggling a lot with my body to produce a healthy baby. I had this miscarriage and I was just overcome, I was distraught, I was depressed and anxiety, and all of that, and just couldn’t snap out of it. Part of it was hormones. My body was finally pregnant when I lost that baby. And so for a long time, my body was like, What happened? Where’d the baby go? And I was reading books and trying to get comfort from something.
Then one morning, I was laying in my bed, and I heard a voice. And it was a young boy’s voice. And he said, “Mom.” That’s all he said. But in an instant, I knew that my next baby was going to be a boy, I knew that was him, giving me comfort, and just saying the one word, “Mom,” he let me know he was okay, the timing was going to work out, my body would recover, everything was under control. It gave me just incredible comfort.
I was able to pull out of that, get my body together and then have him and, and it was so fun to meet him, when he was finally born, and to watch his life unfold. To see out of all of my kids, he would be the one to speak through that veil that separates us between Earth and beyond to say, “I’m here, I love you.” And that’s how he is today. So affectionate and sweet. Not that the other boys aren’t affectionate and sweet, but there’s something very unique about him. So then I just figured, okay, this dream is actually coming true. So I knew the last one was going to be a boy as well. Sure enough, I have my four boys, they all did play basketball, and more importantly, they love hanging out together. So that’s my little story.
So I do a lot of business in China. The country policy has changed. Now they’re allowed to have more than one child, but for many years, they had a one child policy. When I would give presentations, they would announce me or introduce me as being a mom of four sons. People would freak out. It would blow their minds. They would just say how much they were struggling with one and they would just say, “You must be an amazing mom.” I’m like, “No, let me give you the scoop.”
So my second son, the one who was born at home by accident, he loves video games. When he was a kid, all he ever wanted to do was play video games. I know that’s not unique. But he just was obsessed with them. I, as a good mother, I would always say, “No honey, that’s enough video game playing for today. Why don’t you go off and develop some talents or some skills or hobbies for your future career?” I was always trying to teach my kids to get some skills that are marketable. I really struggled with him. The other kids would be, “Okay, fine.” They would go out and play and they’d be happy but that was just his big love was playing these video games. Well guess what that son does for a living now?
He designs video games at a company called Blizzard, which is a hugely popular, successful company. He does the 3D animated artwork that go into the video game called World of Warcraft that Blizzard produces. He loves it. It’s his dream job. What does a parent really want but for their child to be happy and productive and contributing to the world? That’s what he’s doing. So when I would speak to these Chinese parents, I would always say, “Just calm down. First of all, everything’s gonna work out fine. But listen to your kids, because they have something in their heart, they know what they want to be and do and give and have in their life, and you can support them.” Not that I didn’t support him, but I thought he had to go in my direction. I had a certain path that I wanted him to follow in. I didn’t know anything about video games, or even art really, for that matter. It’s just been such a thrill to watch him use his God given talents to truly do something that was not on my radar at all. He makes a great living. I’m so proud of him and so happy for him.
Tamara Anderson 11:14
Wow. So how do you do that, Trina? Because I know it’s not easy for parents to nudge and nurture and try to help kids as they’re making decisions about what they want to become and be when they grow up. What advice would you give to parents who are struggling with this?
Trina 11:39
It is hard, and I appreciate your recognizing that. You’re in the thick of it too, because I am really young. Three of my kids now have their careers, they’re adults, they’re moving on with life. They have made some great choices and have done some really cool things. My youngest son is still right in the thick of trying to figure out who he is, and what he wants to do for his life. Probably my best advice would be to expose your children to lots of different things. I think most parents are pretty good at saying, “Let’s sign up for piano lessons and soccer.” Sometimes they grab hold of that becomes their thing. Other times, it just is not their thing. So you move on and say, “Let’s try this. Let’s try that.” I have to applaud my dad because he did a great job of that. He was constantly exposing us to travel or different restaurants or different activities. It helped me as a young girl know that there’s a whole world out there of really cool things. Some things I liked. Some things I didn’t like. So to just constantly offer up new things to try.
My kids, not once in their life, ever told me, “Mom, I’m bored.” I know a lot of kids say that, and not to my credit, but they knew there were so many things out there to try and so many super cool, exciting things to try. Even with my young son, we do that. For example, he is really interested in spirituality. He has not committed to one religion, even though he grew up with my religion. I absolutely allow each of my kids to choose what settles best in their heart, as long as they have some kind of a relationship with God.
At one point I had a son who was like, “There is no God.” I said, “Nope, that’s not fair.” Just because you can’t prove that He’s alive or dead, He is there. At least say you’re an agnostic, which means you don’t know for sure, and allow that window or that door to open. So with my youngest son, he is interested to see what is out there, what are all my choices. We go to a lot of different churches and synagogues and mosques and different forums and firesides and devotionals, and meetings and gatherings of all of the different events that happen in my city. I live in Las Vegas and we’ve got just a lot of really cool stuff to choose from. We attend an interfaith forum every fall for eight weeks. They offer different religions or leaders from different religious groups to come and teach a little bit about their religious dogma and doctrine. I love that and I love sharing that with him because we have these fantastic discussions. We don’t always agree on everything. But I’ve tried to work very hard at making sure all of my communication with my kids is open and to let them know I am supportive of whatever you want to do, as long as it’s not illegal or unhealthy, or, you know, really crazy.
I think it’s important to really be open-minded and to be willing to try stuff yourself too. When we started traveling to China, one of my sons that I took with me absolutely fell in love with China. He was at university at the time. As soon as we got back from our trip, he enrolled in a Mandarin class. Now that is one of the great loves of his life. He even went on to marry a lovely girl from Hong Kong. So we have this fun international flavor in our family now. We really have to learn Mandarin much better than what we know right now. But I love that your kids can expose you to things that you never would have imagined before. So I’ve absolutely learned that.
Tamara Anderson 16:01
Wow, that is that is amazing. I love how positive you are about that. It hasn’t all come as smooth sailing. I know you were telling me before we even started the podcast about how sometimes your kids take a different path than you would have imagined that they will take. You told me the example of your youngest being done with high school when he was a sophomore? Why don’t you share that story and tell me how you were able to work through that as a parent, and help him even though it wasn’t the path you would have chosen for him?
Trina 16:39
Right now, for me personally, education is extremely important. You announced that I have a doctoral degree. I do. That’s how much of an academic nerd I am. Of course, I expect all of my kids to get straight A’s, be on the honor roll, on the Dean’s list, in university, graduate with honors, keep going, all of that. My three oldest kids have done that. Although my second one took a detour. For a while, I didn’t think he was going to. In fact, before I tell you about my younger son, I really think it’s important that I mention that you need to show respect to your kids. You expect them to respect you. In other words, everybody recognizes that your opinion has value, even if it’s different. Your lifestyle choices have value even if they might be different. So my second son, who’s this incredibly successful artist at Blizzard, actually got hired before he even graduated with his animation degree. I said, “Oh, but you have to get that degree.” For years, I bugged Adam, “Don’t forget to get that degree.” He was only two classes shy of getting his actual bachelor’s degree in animation and computer video design and all of that. He’s like, “Mom, I just don’t need it in my industry. Talent is what’s more important.” But I kept persisting. Finally, I backed off and said, “You know what, not everybody is going to get a degree and that is okay.” He was successful, doing what he loved, so I stopped bugging him.
That next year for Christmas, all the kids and my husband pulled out their cell phones and they’re like, “Okay, open up this next present.” I’m like, “Why are you all surrounding me, what is in this box?” They all knew and I had not a clue. I opened up the box, and inside was a graduation cap and a diploma. He had called the university, worked it out with his professors, and got those two classes finished and got his degree and I just burst into tears. I had really resigned myself to saying, “You know what, it’s okay if he doesn’t get that degree.” I really, truly meant it and believed it. But I gotta tell you, I’m thrilled still that he got that degree.
Back to my youngest son. He is quite an intellectual but he could not stand to sit in a classroom one minute longer. So at the end of his sophomore year, I got invited on a speaking tour. It was my very first trip to China. I said, “Would you mind if I brought a couple of my sons with me?” I didn’t think that they would say yes, but they were like, “Of course.” I was like, “Really? I mean all expenses paid for all three of us?” They’re like, “Sure.” So my two youngest sons are both break-dancers. So I said, ‘Hey, here’s the deal. I’ll give my boring speech. Then my kids can like dance and entertain the crowds, so that we felt like we were royalty with the audiences just going crazy, not for me and my boring speeches.” The kids would come out and we felt like rock stars, they would swarm us and want our autographs. They made us just feel like Hollywood celebrities or something. Who wouldn’t love that? It was awesome. That’s why we all immediately fell in love with China because we were treated so well. My youngest son is looking at that, like, “Huh, I could stay in China and be a rockstar, or I could go sit in math class back in high school.” We came home from this speaking tour and he lasted two days and said, “Can’t do it, not going to do it.” I’m like, “What? That’s not the plan.” We really battled, but I could tell that this wasn’t going to work.
When we were in China, I spoke in a lot of different venues: at tea houses and a huge amphitheaters and libraries and schools. I talked about a lot of different topics. One of the schools that I spoke at had this fantastic principal. I just adored him, fell in love with him instantly. I got on WeChat, we started talking and I said, “I don’t know what to do. My son wants to go back to China.” He’s like, “Send him here. I will pay him to teach English in my school. I’ll pay him to teach hip hop dance to my students. I will personally give Mandarin lessons and teach him about the culture.”
I’m like, “Are you kidding me? That is just too good to be true.” I think in any other circumstances, I would have really hesitated. But because I knew him, I trusted him, I could completely visualize where my son was going to be. I felt really comfortable with that. I said, “All right, let’s try it.” So my son and I got on a plane and flew back to China. I stayed with him for about a week or so. My son just blossomed. Before, he was all depressed and mopey and, “My parents are so stupid, and I can’t wait to get out of Las Vegas.” Just worst attitude ever.
Within minutes, really, of being in China, he just blossomed. I thought, “Okay, this is not the path that I would have chosen. I never would have imagined sending my 15-16 year old son to the other side of the world without me.” But that’s where I say parents have to be really open minded, because every child is different. Every child’s path is different. Of course, a lot of prayer, and counseling with good people led me to this decision where I felt like that was the best thing for him at the time. So that’s what he did. It was funny, because at first when I flew back home, I was like, “What have I done?” I was sad, and I missed him. But then I was like, “Wait a second. I’m an empty nester. Now, we can travel and do whatever the heck we want.” So my husband and I kind of celebrated that moment. For a time we thought we may have lost this son to China, because he loves China so much. But we also thought, “Well, if that’s what it’s gonna be, that’s what it’s gonna be.”
Tamara Anderson 23:37
Yes. Oh, my goodness, this has been so much fun. Trina, we’re going to take a quick break. But when we get back I understand you have a mantra that you have developed from all these crazy experiences with your children, and life. I was wondering if you would mind sharing with us that mantra and a couple of other tips you’ve learned from parenting along the way.
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And we’re back. I’ve been talking to Trina Boyce about everything from miscarriage to parenting children and sending them to China when things don’t work out. And we were just getting ready to talk about your mantra, Trina, before we went for commercial break. Tell me what is the mantra that you have developed with all of this craziness that you’ve dealt with ups and downs in your life.
Trina 25:35
I’ve kind of developed my mantra over the years to one word, and you’re going to laugh when I tell you this word, but my mantra now is, “Whatever.”
I used to be really uptight. I would get stressed out and anxious if things didn’t go perfectly or exactly how I envisioned them. I think the word expectation has everything to do with your levels of happiness. As I sort of started dropping some of those expectations, not lowering my standards, but just being willing to accept different paths, that mantra of whatever kind of settled in my heart. I realized that if my son lives in China for the rest of his life, how fun for us. We always will have an excuse to go back to China because he’ll be there. It’ll be difficult, but if that’s what he loves, ok. Ultimately, he was there for about a year and a half, and then he’d had enough and he was ready to come home. Now he’s having a different adventure. That’s how life is. It twists and it turns, and you never know what’s going to happen.
Here’s another quick tip for parents: to not sweat the little things. Again, as a young mother, I was very organized. I had all my kid’s toys in color-coded boxes, and just everything had to be just so. The more kids that came, the less organized my house became. Kids are messy, that’s how they are. I couldn’t get angry at them. I mean, I did because I thought, “No, you should know how to color coordinate your toy.” And then I realized these are kids, you know, and I didn’t want to ever be the cause to stifle their creativity or anything like that. So pretty soon, I’m just like, whatever, if we can at least get the toys in any of the boxes, get the majority of the ones that will hurt our feet when we step on them in the middle of the night, I’m okay with that. That’s kind of when the whatever policy started to become real to me, and I realized they were happier. I was happier when I realized, you know, it just didn’t matter. So you just don’t sweat the little stuff. And as somebody once said, it’s almost all little stuff, you know, the most important things to concentrate on are their integrity, their characters, their values, and to be a person of substance that can contribute to the world and add positivity to the world and that kind of thing.
Tamara Anderson 28:29
I think you’re absolutely right. Oh, this has been so fun. I could just listen to you tell stories all day.
Trina 28:37
Here’s one more piece of parenting advice. Speaking about this child who was in China, one day, he had come home and he was off doing, I don’t know, whatever he was doing. He was out of the house. I was in his room. I think I brought in some laundry or something like that. I noticed on his desk, there was a journal or what looked like a booklet and it said something like “My China” or something like that. I knew that the principal had given him an assignment because I had asked him to give him this assignment at the end of his time there, to write down what he had learned from his trip, his whole experience there.
So I thought, “Oh, this must be what he wrote.” Honestly, I didn’t think it was a diary. I honestly thought it was a school assignment. I was eager to read it. So I started flipping through the pages and reading it, only to find out it really was a diary of sorts. He was writing his deep thoughts, and revealing some very poor choices that he had made while he was there. I was just sort of dumbstruck. I couldn’t believe my son who never swears was writing profanity in this journal, and he was angry about something and I was like, whoa, wow. Who is this child?
So I talked to my husband. What do you know? Do we confront him? How do we handle this? Because some of these choices were choices that we had taught him to never do, for example, smoking. That’s just stupid, it’s bad for your health, everybody knows it. But given all this new freedom, and given that he was surrounded by a culture that is full of smokers, he decided to try smoking, and he decided he liked it, which is even worse. So, among other things that he was writing about in this journal, I’m like, oh, how do we handle this?
Have we lost our son forever? I decided, with my husband, let’s just ask him, what did you learn, you know, not even mention that we saw this book or anything. Just ask what are some of the things you learned from your experiences? He started talking about this, that and the other all happy, all good. We talked for, I don’t know about an hour or so. And then finding my husband was like, “Okay, good talk.” I was like, well, wait a minute, do we say good talk and end it? Or do we say, “Okay, that was great, very surface level. Now, let’s get real and talk about the things we know you actually did do there and your choices?” So in my mind, I’m debating, do I just sort of hug and say, “Okay, great,” and then maybe confront him another time that I thought, no, we’re here. Let’s just do it. So I said, “Okay, let’s get real. Let’s have an honest talk.”
And wow, the conversation really changed, obviously. It went from pretending to really connecting with my child. It was a really hard conversation, there were lots of tears that were shed. But in the end, lots of hugging, and a greater appreciation for the paths and the journeys that we take, and how different they all are, and how as parents, our job is to support our kids, to help them learn life’s lessons. I would rather my kids learn life lessons without having to personally experience pain. But as you know, pain is an incredible teacher. I wouldn’t want my children to miss out on those lessons, simply because I’m shielding my kids from pain or sorrow or difficult challenges and that kind of thing. I know you would absolutely agree with that.
Tamara Anderson 32:37
Oh, yes, absolutely. I think we do learn more from our hardest times than we do from the good times. It’s just, it’s inevitable. We learn more about ourselves, we learn to be more flexible. As you were mentioning before, we learned that things don’t always work out the way we thought or planned. I think we learn more about ourselves, our nature, our character, we learn more about the importance of taking care of ourselves, you know, there’s just so many things we learn through the difficult challenges of life. It’s amazing.
Trina 33:18
I think that it allows us to add depth to our character. So I mentioned I had had this first miscarriage. I had other miscarriages afterwards. But when I had had my first one, I thought that I was out of danger. You know, they always tell you after the first trimester, then you’re out of danger. But I had my miscarriage at five months pregnant. I mean, I looked pregnant. I really suffered physically, but emotionally especially.
At the same time, I learned that another dear friend in my church congregation had lost her three-year-old child to a fire. She was out of the house and actually attending a church event and had asked one of her other kids, to babysit, and the toddler had wandered into the garage, knocked over a can of gas. It leaked close to the water heater, the whole garage burst into flames. I mean, how devastating and my heart just sank. I just thought, “How on earth can I feel sorry for myself, I didn’t even know this baby that I lost and I’m feeling so much pain and agony.” I couldn’t even imagine what she was going through and my heart just ached, and I wanted to do something for her.
But I thought, you know, I can’t just show up with a casserole and say, “Sorry, here’s a casserole.” How could that ever balance out her loss? You know what I mean? Or even be a drop in a bucket of the tears that were falling in her life. Plus, I was still recovering. I was still on bedrest. So I thought, okay, I’m just gonna write her a letter, an old fashioned, handwritten letter and just pour my heart out to her.
I cried through this letter and prayed that she would at least know how much I loved her and admired her. I was so shocked when I got a handwritten letter back from her, quickly, I might add, and I just thought, wow, she is in the depths of sorrow and she had time to write me a letter. It was the most beautiful letter. I’ve still kept it because it was so inspiring. In her letter, she basically was comforting me, and she was the one with much, much greater loss.
Now I know we can’t measure someone’s loss. All loss is equal, if it causes you to struggle and have pain and all of that. But I was so touched by what she taught me in her letter. One simple lesson that I learned throughout that first experience of my miscarriage was that any act of love, no matter how big or small, matters. While I couldn’t reverse the clock for her, bring her child back, or do anything that would compensate for the pain that she was feeling, that simple letter that she gave me meant the world to me.
I had another dear friend who also actually lost a friend to suicide. This was one of my son’s best friends. We were devastated. And again, I was like, “What do I do?” I was living in California, she was living in Georgia, where we had just moved from. I thought, what can I do? What can I do? You can’t think of any physical thing that you could give somebody. So what I ended up doing, I was crying buckets of tears every day for them. I was going through boxes of Kleenex, and I thought, okay, surely if I’m crying this much, she is crying way more. So I got onto Amazon and ordered like, three cases of Kleenex boxes, like 1000 boxes of Kleenex. They arrived at their house.
She said she called me immediately and said that was the first time that they even laughed since their son died when they saw all of these boxes of tissue. Again, it was just a gesture, but I learned that the smallest gesture is worthwhile. Never tell ourselves, oh, you know, I don’t know what to say to that person, I will say the wrong thing. If you know someone who’s struggling or whatever, anything, a flower, a note, a sticker, a card, chocolates, ice cream. Chocolate and ice creams almost always do the trick. That was an important lesson to me. It changed how I took action on my compassion more quickly.
Tamara Anderson 38:09
Where did you come up with these ideas? When you say what you did I’m like, “Oh, that’s a great idea.” Were they things that you took to God and said, “God, what should I do?” And the idea eventually popped into your head? Or did you just brainstorm on it? Or did it just happen? What do you do? Because there are times when we have dear friends who are struggling, and we’re not sure what to do. What is your tip there?
Trina 38:45
That’s a great question. I think all of the above. In the case of the tissue, I was crying and going through so much tissue, and as I was praying to God, and asking, “What do I do? How can I comfort these dear friends?” the idea just popped into my head. That’s how inspiration works.
Sometimes it’s a feeling that that settles in your heart. Sometimes it’s an idea that just pops in your head. Everybody receives inspiration differently. Everybody reacts and responds differently. I’ve learned that for me, I’ll feel that warmth in my heart. Ideas will just come out. I have learned over the years whenever I have an idea, I have to write it down, otherwise I’ll forget it. If it’s an idea that I think doesn’t even make sense, I have to consider, okay, was that my idea? Was that inspiration and no matter how weird it sounds to me, I’m going to do it?
Like who sends 1000 cases of Kleenex to anybody? But at that time, it made sense to me. It turns out that was exactly what they needed. In fact, she said for about a year or so afterwards, she and her husband were both invited to speak at a lot of churches and events and talk about how to deal with suicide how to recover from such devastating loss. So she said, every time she would take one of my boxes of tissue with her and use it because she was still crying. But she also would share that simple message of just reaching out and doing something, because you don’t know if it could mean the world to somebody else.
Tamara Anderson 40:32
I love that. That’s beautiful. Before I ask Trina the final question, I just have to give you guys a quick spoiler alert. Next week, I’m bringing Trina back and she is going to share with us some amazing tips and tricks that she has put together for people struggling with stress, anxiety and depression, because I know that is something that we are dealing with a lot with the COVID situation. I just wanted to let you know that she is magnificent and has been so gracious to share this and she’s also going to share with you a free course that you can take that will help you or your loved ones if you’re struggling with this.
Let me ask you this, Trina, do you have a favorite Bible verse that has gotten through you through your parenting challenges, your anxiety and stress challenges and your miscarriage challenges? What is it that has resonated with you?
Trina 41:41
That’s such a sweet question to ask. I would probably say one of the shortest verses in the Bible where it says, “Be still and know that I am God.” What that tells me is he’s got it all under control. My life absolutely has not followed the way my plan was. I have had to release some of my ideas and release my tantrums when I didn’t get my way because I thought this would be the best thing. Of course, ultimately, his way is better. Because again, the reason we’re here on Earth, one of the reasons is to learn and grow and to develop qualities that will remind us of His Son, Jesus Christ. Our goal is to become like him. My plan probably wasn’t going to take me that direction.
God knew that and so if I can be still, listen for his inspiration, calm down, and not throw my pity parties and my tantrums and follow His plan then everything’s gonna be okay.
Tamara Anderson 42:55
I love that verse. That’s actually my daughter’s favorite verse. So thanks for sharing that.
Now Trina, there’s going to be people who want to connect with you after listening to all your amazing stories and experiences. What is the best way that they can find you?
Trina 43:10
On social media I’m Trina Boyce. I’m on YouTube. I’ve got four different channels.
Tamara Anderson 43:18
I will be sure to put those links in the show notes so that people can find you. Thank you again, Trina, for sharing such an amazing story with us today and teaching us parenting tips and strategies. I had a woman ask me, “Can you ask one of your guests to teach us about parenting strategies?” I think you’ve given us some amazing gems to think about today. So thank you so much for that, and helping us realize that we can cope with hope as well.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to today’s show. I know that there are many of you out there that are going through a hard time and I hope you found things that have been useful today as you listen to the podcast. If you would like to access the show notes from today’s podcast, visit my website. It is storiesofhopepodcast.com. That is where you’ll find favorite quotes from today’s episode and shareable memes and those are fun because you can share them with your friends on social media. You will also find the links mentioned throughout today’s episode so you don’t have to remember what those were. And also all the tips that were shared. Sometimes tips are shared so much throughout an episode you forget, “What were those great things?” So go to the show notes, storiesofhopepodcast.com to look up these fantastic resources. You know, if someone kept coming to mind during today’s episode, perhaps that means that you should share this with them. Maybe there was a story shared or a tip that they really, really need to hear. So go ahead and share this episode with them. May God bless you, especially if you’re struggling with hope to carry on and with the strength to keep going when things get tough. Remember to walk with Christ, and he will help bear that burden. Above all else, remember God loves you.