NRB Chronicals 2022 - Behind The Vault Door

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Simply go to Geico.com or contact your local agent today. All right, we're in our big chronicles 2022 like oh my goodness it behind door number one every time this case behind the vault door. There's somebody that God has given them a passion, an insight, a way to see him that they only uniquely see and then God gives them the courage and whatever to share that in beautiful ways. And so such would be the case for Cindy LeFevre.

Like she's my favorite, I can tell you already. LeFevre Yorks wrote the vault door like immediately. Am I locked out of this deal? So vault is the third installment in the door trilogy that I wrote. The first book was the side door and it was inspired but not about 20 years of special needs parenting. Oh really, so you're a special needs parent. Yes, so my kids are adopted, I have two sons and my first son is neurotypical and he's on his own, lives in Denver, he's 25. My special needs son is 23 now but he around age two wasn't really developing and we found out that he had severe autism. And so you don't know this but I actually teach special needs son school head for about 22 years of adult special needs folks.

I don't want to call them kids but we're all kids, they probably think of me as the biggest kid of all so I have a great deal of joy. I can't tell you all the things these guys have taught me, way more than I ever taught them. You try to teach a special needs person humility one time, just go ahead. They're there to teach it to you, right? It's interesting that you say that though because we were at a church where we actually kind of got kicked out. I understand it now but at the time it was really kind of a sucker punch because that's the time when you need your church the most and in that particular faith tradition they had infant baptism and they made promises that they didn't keep. I'll never ever forget, you're going to like this story and maybe I shouldn't tell it because people know what church I go to but anyway we got a new pastor one time and our special needs class is kind of back through the Bible came and filmed it because they got really neat stuff coming on.

God's blessed it and we have a lot of students. So we get a new pastor and he comes in and he's looking through the class and he says, man it's so wonderful that you keep these folks so their parents can go worship. And I said, do you know what's even more wonderful? That you keep those parents so these kids can worship and if you want to watch worship, let me just tell you, I put my 25 or 30 up against whatever you got in that sanctuary on any day of the week and he looked at me like.

That is so beautiful. But that was his opinion. He didn't realize that man, these folks can worship in ways that like nobody can. Because it comes from the purest place. Right, it's complete humility like my soul cleaves to the dust.

They get that they live there. So true and I really feel like now that whole thing happened to get me out of a place that was lacking oxygen and put me in an environment where I could grow and my children could be looked after. And my oldest neurotypical son, he was in the band at church and he was in an awesome youth program where he still connects to the mentors today at 25 years old and that was just all part of God's plan. So I completely hijacked this interview. But anyway, Side Door was the first book and then I wrote The Trap Door. So go back to how that related to how God was working in your life when you wrote The Side Door? Well I couldn't really write The Side Door while my child was still at home. I mean I worked on it a little bit but then that's a whole other miraculous story which I have on my blog called The Domino House because the Lord works with the dominoes.

And he's a podcaster and a blogger. We got all that. That's right. I'm getting a little ahead of myself. But The Side Door was birthed by the notion that you're walking along your path. You've made up your mind where you're going. And the Lord's like, we're going over here in this side door now.

And I'm like, I don't think I want to go over there. This is where you're going. So I wrote that and then I actually wrote all three books in a ten month time frame and the Lord multiplied it in a loaves and fishes manner and I ended up being all three books instead of just the one. But anyway, The Trap Door is the second book and it's about you're walking along again your own path and then all of a sudden you fall into the abyss.

And you're like, how did I get down here now? So it's all about how to embrace God's divine deliverance. And then the third book I refined during the pandemic and it's called The Vault Door, Securing God's Truths and Promises in the Vault of Your Heart. So you had The Side Door, which I get that God's going to like, OK, you thought you were going over here, but you're going over here. You had The Trap Door.

I've definitely enjoyed that a couple of times. How about The Vault Door? Is that the place that you would never let him?

How does that work? The Vault Door is more a place, sometimes we have to secure things in. And during the lockdown I did a lot of contemplation about that because that was a dark time, right? I don't know about you, but in that first week or two I'm like, are we even going to be alive in a week?

I wanted to make sure that if anything like that ever happened again or is going to continue to happen, and let's face it, we don't know what's going to happen. And thankfully as Christians we don't have to worry about that, but even so we've got to remind ourselves, don't we, about God's truths and promises so that we can secure that in the vault of our heart and retain the hope that we need to move on. Oh, I get it now. And oh, is it so true. I don't know if you've ever heard this, but it's really cool. In Hebrew, your soul is called an afesh, and it literally is a believing machine. Like, it's lot in life is to believe something. Like, your soul is believing something.

Wow. And so, when you believe something about God, especially His word, you see your soul takes that into the vault. And it grows roots, right? And if you were to see it in Hebrew in actual letters you can see that it's like those seeds that are planted in good soil, that it has to do with faith. But it has to do with belief. And so, when I see that in the title of this book I just can't go, but wow, I mean, that's really absolutely wonderful. Well, it's been a journey for me, and I love how the Lord never wastes a hurt, right?

And I just want to be an encouragement to people. Actually, my books were considered, you know, very briefly, but they were considered for Alcoholics Anonymous because these books really deal with how to overcome adversity in a way that a lot of books don't. And especially a lot of books written by women. You know, you go to the bookstore, the few that they even have anymore, and you see the hearts and flowers. I mean, my books have a different kind of cover, right?

Oh, yeah. They're pretty edgy, but you know, men end up liking them, which I was surprised about because I thought, oh, just only women are going to read them because a woman wrote it. But I get letters from men, and they go through about this page on page 42 or whatever they want to talk about their experience. And so, it really draws people out. It draws people in because I'm dealing with the adversity, and I'm authentic and transparent about it, and then they can apply it to their own life, and that was really my goal. So, speaking about things that get in your soul, I got to tell you this. I heard this. Actually, I do a devotion in an old folks home.

I have a lot of things I get to do every week. And so, I was reading up stuff that I like to hand them out papers, and I came across this, and it got in my soul because I believed it immediately. It said that if you ever consider the word guidance, that it ends in dance. And if you want to dance with God, you better let him lead or he will step on your toes. Oh, I love that.

Right? And that's what we do. The whole thing is a dance, and the closer we dance, the more we got to realize if we don't turn it over to him and let him lead, we're going out the side door.

We're going down the trap door. I mean, as far as I think about your book titles, I couldn't help it. That is kind of what God has had for me for some reason the last couple of weeks to think, yeah, this is so cool. And what this is, the vault door, is a ten week. Ten weeks isn't a long time, but what a transformation you can have, right? Because if they're taking this ten weeks and they're putting it in their heart, in their vault, their soul.

Yes. And the other thing about them that a lot of people really gravitate to is the fact that each one is about three minutes to read. And you can definitely spend more time. It's like any quiet time, right? There's verses you can look up, there's personal storytelling, and all kinds of ways.

I've always thought about maybe I should start writing a study guide for all three, but I haven't gotten there yet. But I think you're onto something with your dance metaphor. I think there's a book in there for you. Because when you said that, I thought to myself, you're right, God needs to be the head of the dance, but you better make sure nobody cuts in.

Oh, wow. I'm not going to write any books. God never called me to write books. If he does someday, then I'll know. But feel free to jump on.

Maybe somebody else. It wasn't my idea. But I just think it's really neat. And when my soul grabs onto something like that, it goes into that vault.

And it stays there like this is something to consider. It's beautiful. And I'm so glad that you had the courage to step into that adventure, the courage to podcast, the courage to blog, and put yourself out there. Because how many special needs moms, how many folks have gotten comfort from God, right? And so now you can comfort others with the comfort you were comforted with, right?

Yes. And also, I'm very authentic about some of my feelings. I had a moment when I found out my two-year-old was autistic.

We had infertility problems, my husband and I. And I always thought I was so magnanimous. Oh, Lord, I don't really care that my baby doesn't look like me. And I'm like, well, wait a minute.

I didn't sign up for this autism thing. And I remember standing on a grassy knoll that terrible day. I found out he had it. And there was this cold wind and it blew through my hair. And I had this terrible notion that came into my head, you know, let go of his hand and you won't have to watch him anymore. You know, I knew he'd end up on a milk cart and I wasn't really going to do that. But that moment of terror that something that dark come into my head and my heart, even if it was just for a millisecond, I'm like, oh, no.

And the Lord helped me and, of course, I didn't let go and you didn't end up on a milk cart. But, you know, really, it's very embarrassing to tell and admit stories like that. And I think it's really helpful. Oh, I could tell you unbelievably embarrassing stories about what special needs folks have taught me. Yeah. Because I had this one boy. Oh, man, I got all these people waiting. I got to tell this story.

You got to hear this. Okay. So this young man, he was severely, severely special needs and went in a wheelchair and, you know, that skinny and his head, you know, in one of those things where he's cocked like that, his name was Joshua. And Joshua was completely non-vocal, except to every once in a while, he would scream and he would go, like this what he would do. Well, he had a tendency as every time I begin to teach. Right. There you are.

And it's pretty hard to keep autistic people's attention to begin with. And so and then all of a sudden, Joshua was like, you know, and so we did this thing like walk through the Bible. So that, you know, I went through a year of this. And to me, Joshua was annoying.

I mean, he was just annoying. And his mom would come in. This is Joshua's favorite thing in the world to come to Sunday school class. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. So that first year we had a Sunday school class.

I mean, this Christmas party. And usually we would do the walk through the Bible stuff and show the parents what we've learned and all that. And so we're going to do this. And of course, right as soon as I start, Joshua goes into his way. And I'm like, oh, now here we go. And his mom says, Joshua, it's not your turn. And I went, oh, you pompous idiot. Joshua has been trying to participate in the class this whole time, and you never gave him a turn.

And so I listened. And then the very next day after this was a class. And so at the beginning of the class, I looked at Joshua and communicated with him for the first time. Right. Because he'd been in my class, but he was never a person. He was somebody that was over there screaming.

Right. And I said, Joshua, I am just sorry. Like, I can't believe what I've done to you. And I said, buddy, it is your turn.

Oh, that's so sweet. And he let's go. And once I understood every class, Joshua had his say. And he would only do it when it was his turn. He knew exactly what was going on the whole time.

And he only lived about eight months after that. Because unfortunately, with a lot of special needs folks, they only have so much time. Look how sweet and invested you are. You see the deal? Yeah. I get it. Believe me. And actually, I know this won't be a part of what's recorded, but I would really like to know how many parents.

I'd love to mail you some books maybe for the parents. Oh, this is recorded. It's going out. I send every little detail. You do? Okay. I figure my audience knows I'm whatever I am.

And they, you know, they'll listen. So thank you, Cindy. God bless. You too. And thank you for your work. Your book, again, The Vault Door, Cindy LeFave, yours. Okay, thanks.