Blinding Suffering: Kelly & Tabitha Kapic

Last week, I talked to this beautiful 35-year-old mom with two little kids married and she came up to me crying and said, I just have to thank you for family life today.

I listen to it every single day and I feel like I can't get through a day without it and you've brought me life and hope. I mean, you're getting teary talking about her. Because it means so much. We're behind the microphones, but to hear how we are meeting the needs of people, that gets me excited. Yeah, and we get emotional because we've been there.

Yeah. I mean, you've got little kids running around the house, you're exhausted, you're screaming back and forth with your husband. I mean, the stress that's on young families, we know.

And maybe you're at a point where you're shaking your head thinking, I remember those days. And now you're in a different phase and you have margin and you can take a breath and wouldn't it be a great Christmas present to give back to this ministry that's giving life to these young families? Yeah, we want to encourage you and invite you. Join us.

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Yeah. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today.

How does a person navigate suffering? The reason I ask you that is, you know, when my little brother died of leukemia, I was seven. He was five. You know the story, but I didn't know it was unusual. We never one time talked about it in my family. You never talked about his death, suffering, anything. Never talked about it. I mean, I literally walk in that house and a priest was walking out and he said, your brother has just passed. And there was never a conversation.

Which is crazy, too, because there's not a listener or a person that will not experience suffering on this planet. Oh, for sure. Kelly Capp is with us. But even better, he's got his wife this time, Tabitha. So welcome to Family Life Today, especially Tabitha. You've never been here before.

It's beautiful. We're going to talk about one of your books. How many have you written, Kelly? A few. A few?

Come on, Tabitha. How many? 15?

Like written, edited? Yeah, it's above. Yeah, we're on number three. So we're rookies. And tell our listeners, what do you guys do? I teach at Covenant College. I've been teaching there since 2001. And then I write and speak and that kind of thing. I am the director of innovation at the Chalmers Center at Covenant College.

What's that mean? So the Chalmers Center helps the church and Christian nonprofits to truly walk alongside the poor and poverty. And you have two kids.

We do. Jonathan and Margot. Well, your book, Embodied Hope, a Theological Meditation on Pain and Suffering, is something that's not just theological, it's personal as well. And you opened the book with a story of your own marriage and your own suffering in your own life. So tell us that story. Tabitha and I got married in 1993, lived in different places and didn't have kids until 2002.

And then in 2008, there were some things happening. And we discovered that she had cancer. And then she went through various, you know, surgeries and about a year later was declared cancer free.

We didn't know if it was cancer or not. And I was down the mountain off the mountain in Chattanooga getting groceries. And as I'm putting them in my car, it's starting to rain a little and my phone rings and it's a doctor telling me it's cancer. And I, you know, asked some follow up questions because I immediately knew I needed some information. And then at some point I said, can you call my doctor, the doctor who saved my life, who kept pushing because she thought something was happening? I said, could you please call her because I'm all out of being able to talk right now. And he said, sure. And we hang up and I didn't want to call Kelly.

The kids were three and five. I was just going to be 10 minutes up. So I just drove up the mountain. It's a terrible feeling to have the weight of knowing you're going to announce something so bad to your family.

Kelly, what? You ended up driving down the mountain. I was up with the kids and I just all of a sudden, I don't have these a lot. I just felt a panic.

And I tried to call Tabitha and tried to call Tabitha and nothing, nothing. And then finally I just grabbed the kids. I was like, we got to go. And I didn't tell them what was going on. I threw them in their car seats, started driving down the mountain thinking, I'm going to see her on the side of the road.

At this point, we didn't know there was cancer. You thought I'd been in an accident. I thought she'd been in an accident.

I just had this very bad feeling. And then as we're driving down the mountain, we see her driving up and she just kind of give a little smile and pointed like, go back, go back up. So we went back up and then she didn't say anything at first. I unloaded the groceries just a little bit crying just like I got to keep it together. And I had got pizza. And so when they came back, I just said, I'm fine because I knew like, let's just eat this meal because it's not going to change the outcome. We ate the kids.

I said, you guys get to watch videos. So they went and watched and I said, well, it's cancer. And so that started us in that difficult path with little tiny kids and not really knowing.

We got through that and the church is very good at things like short term cancer. We were so well supported. It was amazing.

I knew about community, but just the tip of the iceberg. It was beautiful how our church family, Covenant College family all surrounded us. And the kind of things that helped were really interesting to me. So one brought us flowers and maybe some fresh fruit and there was an inchworm on one of the bouquets. And I remember just playing with that with the kids and being so comforted by something like that.

By the inchworm. Because it was life going on outside of what we were experiencing. It brought joy. It brought joy for the minute and a distraction from probably the pain possibly.

At this point, the pain was just acutely emotional. So we watched the Sound of Music, I think the musical before surgery day. And I just tried to be normal with the kids. I think we might have set off some Roman candles.

Just something I like to do. And then my mom came from California. We did the surgery.

The kids, I remember we had picked out toys at our aquarium in Chattanooga, a leopard shark for Jonathan and this brightly colored fish for Margo. So that when they came to see me in the hospital, they got these things. And then my mom took them to California so we could have recovery time. And that was a powerful moment for you. Yeah, I do remember being in the hospital and grandma and dear friend, I watched them walk across this bridge at the hospital. And they didn't know.

But when I watched them walk away, I just lost it. And then I was in the hospital, she was asleep. And we had a pastor come, a dear friend and very nice. He wanted to check on me. And he came in and sat down and I tried to say something, I started to lose it. So we thought, let's go in another room.

So we went out to kind of this waiting room. And literally for about 25 minutes, every time I try and say something, I couldn't, I just lost it. I was just bawling.

And finally, and he did great. And finally, he just put his hand around me, hugged me, prayed for me, and then let me be. But that's all I needed him to show up and pray.

But I really I like I could not get it together. And he didn't need you too. And he didn't need to say anything. And that was really important.

One of the things we learned, just presence matters. It makes me remember something I didn't handle well. I was just trying to keep it together myself walking through this. And I told him, which I regret, I said, Kelly, look, I just need you to keep it together. If you need to go break down with Jay, his best friend or someone else, that's fine. But I need you to keep it together. And I wish I hadn't done that.

Why do you wish that? Because we're in this together. He had cancer too. And I still think you still work to recover from that because I sort of got through the processing of cancer. I sort of I don't think you ever can process it, but I kind of was done.

And I felt like it took you so much longer. And I think it's because not only were you the watcher, which we came to learn is such a difficult role, but because you were like, OK, I have to keep it together. So I mean, did you feel like you had to keep it together because she said that?

I don't know. I mean, that was a sign like, OK, she's caring enough. She doesn't need me to lose it in front of her. But yeah, that's an interesting complexity where in marriage you value vulnerability. But there are times when you love one another by actually protecting one another.

That can go sideways and be a problem. But friends were very important. Let's just say that.

Yeah. When you said that Kelly was the watcher, when you said you were the watcher, what does that mean, Kelly? One of the difficult things that I've experienced through this and learned and have heard from a lot of others is we rightly focus on the victim, the person who's going through these things and they are the center of it. But caregivers are in this very difficult space, whether they're caring for an elderly parent, a spouse, a child. And it's not the same as the person going through things, but they have leukemia.

They have cancer, not literally. But that has really made us pretty empathetic for those watchers, because no one's watching you in that sense. And the church tries to step up. But yeah, that's kind of what we mean.

Yeah. And I think it has given us eyes to look for those people, the people who are beside the ones who are suffering or in pain because they have a heavy load to bear. I mean, what do you say to a, you know, there's married couples listening right now and maybe struggling with could be cancer, could be a different diagnosis. You've walked through it as a married couple.

What's your advice to a married couple, either to the spouse that has the cancer or the watcher? For us, one of the big things we can circle around to this later with a different conversation. But we do sometimes think the whole conversation needs to be about healing, physical healing.

But actually, one of the things I think we would say is one of the gifts of marriage and or just a deep friendship, if you're single going through these things is you're actually struggling with faith. You're struggling with is God good? Does God give a rip? Is he care? Is he absent? Or is he present?

What is that like? And I do think in a marriage, as you're thinking about all that goes with cancer, or whatever it is, you also are wrestling with your faith. And I think you need to be there for one another, because sometimes the person who's suffering is actually the person who has the faith. And the caregiver doesn't and sometimes it's the opposite. It's not always a caregiver who's strong. That's a misconception. And I would say, oftentimes, I hear people going through cancer specifically, being encouraged to fight and to be in the battle.

And there's a lot of encouragement to do that. And I never that did not resonate with me. I just wanted the doctors to do their job. I felt like I even wrote a poem about it. I felt like a battlefield over which a battle was being fought between cancer and doctors and medical professionals. I just felt like I had to submit to it. And that was not a great feeling either. But I never was able to be comforted by that warrior language, because I knew I couldn't fight it.

For me, the care of the church because we couldn't pray very effectively. If anyone out there is going through the diagnosis part, this is the most chaotic, terrible space to be living in. Because until you know what you're dealing with, it could be anything.

It's almost impossible for your heart to live in that kind of condition in any healthy way. And so really supporting people through diagnosis. And I think that's a time often when we're not sharing with others, because we're waiting to find out what it is. And I would push back on that to say, you can't do this alone.

Don't try. Find people to even walk with you through that terrible part. The diagnosis part is so rough. And it can stretch out for a long time, years for some. Now that it affects your, you talked about it, Kelly, the faith part, how did that and you write about it in your book, the longing and the lament part?

Yeah. You know, walk us into that valley a little bit. Yeah, I think, you know, it's interesting to me, I'm thankful that in the last 10-15 years, finally, evangelicals are starting to talk about lament, but it's not been an area we've been good about. And we're very uncomfortable with this idea of asking God questions, crying out, being frustrated.

Why do you think we're uncomfortable with it? Honestly, some of it's I think, in evangelical world, it's kind of happy, clappy, upwards, onwards, stronger, better. And even the language, there is something to the like, fight this fight of cancer. There's something true about that. And then there's something that's very painful people haven't thought of, because when you're going through it, if it's not going well, then are you just not trying hard enough?

Right, some of that. And the Psalms, 40% of the Psalms are laments, they have questions like, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, which is pretty stunning, which is, you know, listeners will realize that's on the mouth of Jesus, he cries that lament. And so because our songs in worship, corporate worship don't tend to we don't include laments. I mean, imagine if 40% of the time in church, we're singing lament songs. But what happens is they're not like that. So when pain and suffering comes to your home, or to you as an individual, we actually don't have the spiritual muscles for it.

We haven't developed those. And people say, Why should I sing a song of lament when I don't feel sad? Or when I'm not asked? It's the same reason you praise God when you don't feel like you should praise God, right?

There's something to that kind of thing. So really, learning what it means to lament to ask God, where were you? Why did the wicked prosper?

And we're not you know, what those kind of honest questions are all over in the Bible, but we're uncomfortable with them. Tabitha, what did that look like for you to lament? It really felt more like survival. It was just surviving. Some of the things I said to God at those times, I remember it had a biopsy. So this is before we knew the diagnosis and I had this little roadster, a Mazda Miata, top down, drive the back of the mountain, this beautiful, windy, ribbony road. But I just kind of, I laid on a rock and I was watching the clouds go over. I'm just like, Hey, if you think that I can't handle this, God, you are absolutely right. So I can just tell you right now, I cannot do this. And did you always have your kids, three and five year old in your mind?

Yeah. I had never felt so weak in my life. Just being so physically weak, you know, through that and through the surgeries and treatments. That at the time was something that I could not get comfortable with and cried out to God about. And I didn't learn my lesson. I don't think that's the lesson actually, but you should explain because in 2010, she got through cancer, was declared cancer free.

By the end of 08. And we were kind of like, praise God, this is okay. That was really hard. You have the emotional emotion.

You're out of the valley. Got through it. And then she called and her leg wasn't working. And basically in the summer of 2010 to the end of this day, she deals with chronic pain and fatigue. And that took six years to get a diagnosis from the Mayo Clinic. And yeah, I read the diagnosis. I can't even say the words. Can we share the kind of cancer that you had?

Yes. It was a rarest form of breast cancer that exists. Normally for women who are in their 70s and 80s will get it. And for me, I was in my 30s. And so what was the leg complication? So do you remember the horrible earthquake in Haiti in Port-au-Prince? So my organization I was with at the time, Medair, is a humanitarian organization and we responded in Haiti. And so starting in January of that year, I was doing 14, 16 hour days trying to get people and supplies in and out of a destroyed country. And fast forward to May, I am downtown meeting with pastors trying to beg these pastors to plan a church in this city we're working because there was no church in Jacmel, Haiti at the time. Then I met with someone from Liberia.

I was trying to get her to be on my board so that we could be more effective. And I'm noticing my whole left side of my body is feeling weird, arm and leg. And I'm kind of leaning through these talks and I'm like, am I having a stroke? What's happening?

Just kept going through them and it was growing all day. And I get in my car, which was this little car with the five speed, and I'm not being able to use my limbs like normal. I went to text Kelly and it's like I had to think really hard to get my hands to do what I wanted them. I had shooting pains up one leg.

I'm like, how am I going to press in this clutch? Texted you. I don't know how I'm going to get home, but I just figured it out, drove home and by the weekend it had spread to the other side and it has never stopped. So we were in a diagnosis time then for six years that time. Here you are waiting again for six years. Yeah. And I would say, I mean, what would you say is worse, the chronic pain or the cancer? You said this instantly that cancer was for us because it was a non-terminal. It was easier to walk through then it's been 13 years now and it's not going anywhere. So I mean, this morning to get here, to be honest with you, it's been a hard morning. Oh yeah. So I can hear it in your voice and you look great, but the truth is, I mean, part of what's interesting is like she looks great and people would never know and sometimes I will say like, how do you feel about that? Because it frustrates me.

She's like, well, I don't actually also want to just look broken down or whatever, but she'll get out of the car with a handicap thing on and people will look at her like, what are you doing? But anyway, it's all that to say, it's just the chronic pain has been massive in terms of wrestling with God and thinking through those things. Much more challenging to my faith, challenging to the way we wanted to parent and do life together. There was a hiking mom and all that, and then became the reading mom. Yeah, we would go get lost in the woods, the kids and I. All of a sudden that just went away. That's how I thought I was going to raise my kids.

We were going to be outdoors together and they just went without us, which is fine. But I became the reading in bed mom. In your heart, you didn't want to be that mom. You felt like that's not who I am. I wanted to be that other mom.

Yeah. And it was like two years of intent. That was when you're in bed the whole, I mean, it's always been pain. Working with Medair still, but I did a lot of two years from bed and I knew there was this moment like I could turn my face to the wall and be done. I could get some doctor to give me some drugs and be out of here. And I knew I didn't want that for my kids because it was just so numb you to everything. There is a point at which I think you can't help but do that.

And I've told Kelly, there's been times where I'm just writhing in pain. Like those still happen and that's a different kind of way to live. Yeah.

I mean, how, how do you walk through that? Every day your pain and suffering tries to be your identity. Now it is going to shape your identity, but every day is fighting to not have that be your whole identity and to rather say, my identity is in Christ.

You're beloved. Yeah. And sometimes I just need people to speak kind words to me because pain, emotional pain and physical pain travel the same routes in our body, the same nerves. So I think when you're in a lot of pain, you feel like you've done something wrong because it feels like a physical punishment. And I think that people in chronic pain, which 25% of adults have some kind of chronic pain. There is a lot of pressure feeling like this is my fault. It's something I've done. If I change my diet, change this.

And I think it's just a fight to hold on to. I'm a person. God loves me. I can still do things. I can pray for people. I can write notes. I can do whatever. But yeah, fighting for your identity apart from the pain you're feeling is a tough fight.

It's going to be different for everybody. I'm Shelby Abbott. I've been listening to David Ann Wilson with Kelly and Tabitha Kapic on Family Life Today. As someone who suffers from chronic pain myself, I have chronic sciatic nerve pain because of degenerative disc disease, I really understand what Tabitha is talking about. In fact, I got kind of emotional listening to her because it's true. I really appreciate her words of empathy.

I feel seen and cared for in something as simple as that. Really, really grateful for her and for Kelly's ministry as well. Kelly's written a book called Embodied Hope, a theological meditation on pain and suffering. In that book, Kelly helps us to understand suffering and how it can be turned into the image of Jesus, bringing us renewal and understanding, participating in our hope, which is our King Jesus.

You can get a copy of Kelly's book Embodied Hope at familylifetoday.com. You know, it's always good to get perspective on why we do what we do. So here's the president of Family Life, David Robbins, to help you and me with that. Isn't it interesting that when problems surface in our families, the enemy makes us believe that we are all alone. We think that we're the only ones with this problem. Well, God never intended for us to walk our journey alone.

God made us. He wired us to live in community. And at Family Life, we made it our mission to reassure families that you are not alone. As a result, for countless listeners around the world, Family Life Today has become a trusted companion. On every program, we invite you to sit at the table with Dave and Ann, to engage in God honoring conversations about the relationships that matter most to you. And now as we finish another year together, I'm asking you to come alongside Family Life in an all out effort to reach more husbands and wives, sons, daughters, aunts and uncles who sometimes feel alone in their journey. Gratefully, we've received an incredible matching challenge, meaning that every dollar you give today will be automatically doubled in size. So now's the time to give to Family Life Today, because right now your year end gift will stretch twice as far. In Hebrews chapter 10, the writer says, and let us consider how we can stir one another up to love and good works, encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. And the reality is the day is drawing near. So let me hear from you today.

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Trilia was a guest earlier this week, and I'm thrilled that this is going to be something that we send to you when you partner with us. Again, you can go to familylifetoday.com and click on the donate now button at the top of the page. Or you can give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329.

Again, that number is 800 F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And feel free to drop us something in the mail if you'd like to. Our address is Family Life, 100 Lakehart Drive, Orlando, Florida, 32832. Now tomorrow, Kelly and Tabitha Kappik are going to be back with David Ann Wilson to explore the theology of suffering, chronic pain, and finding our identity in Christ. That's tomorrow. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of David Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.