Overcoming Multiple Tragedies

This is the Truth Network. When you hear the word overcomer, what immediately comes to mind?

Wow, today overcoming two brain trauma injuries, car accidents, as well as an abusive marriage, only to become a storyteller, artist, author, historian, you don't want to go anywhere. Stay tuned. Ladies and gentlemen, the following contest is set for one flaw.

Introducing first, from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, the Russian nightmare, Nikita Kolob. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. Always interesting topics and discussions and amazing interviewers. And today, a unique opportunity to talk to Mona Balgi, who is an author, artist, a historian, a podcaster of her own, a storyteller.

Mona, welcome to the Man Up show. Well, thank you for inviting me. It's what an honor. Well, it's great to have you here. I know, I know it's kind of funny when we first started communicating because we had met at the, I believe if memory serves me well at the NRB in Nashville, Tennessee, there at the Truth booth and got your card and was just fascinated by your car course.

Then you sent me some of your story and I'm like, I got to get around the show because, you know, you are, you, to me, you epitomize the words overcomer when I'm reading over and reviewing your story. And so from, from storyteller to artist, author to historian, gosh, I'm not even sure, Mona, where I want to start, but let's start with kind of where you're from and just tell us a little bit about your family. Um, I was born in Burton, Michigan, which was a little town outside of Flint, Michigan. My mom and dad had graduated in 49 from a little school. That's not even existence anymore, but the family came here in 1840 to Genesee County, Michigan.

And I didn't know they had lived in the same settlement house from 1840 to 1972. And my great grandfather died. So I love family history. I just love to, you know, because every year, because my dad's dad and my dad's mom, two brothers married, two sisters. So we were all about family because so you had, my dad had like 10 double cousins. And so I just liked older people.

I'd like to learn the history of where they came from. And so you can have a place to come go to, you know, and so, and I don't know, I'm just different. I was dyslexic as a kid, so I didn't really excel in school very much. Didn't read very much because you know, you just don't, you go to math and that, but it's just so interesting how you learn about a family history and then as I got older, cause I did genealogy for like 30 years as a, you know, as a hobby between building houses, rental properties, you know, and all the other crazy things, raising five kids that I had under the, from under the age of 27 years old. And so it's just fun. Life is fun. And I always like to make people smile and wherever I go and my mom and dad were like that. And so I think I picked that up from them. But I have three sisters, they're valedictorians, real smart.

And I was always like the out person, you know, and I just said, okay, fine, I'll go clean the yard. That's good for me for so forth. So here's an interesting little side note. So you grew up with three sisters, so four girls, I raised four girls of my own. So wow, I get that. And I lived to talk about, I survived, I lived to talk about it.

I joke a Mona and I say, you know, I swam in the estrogen ocean for many years, but uh, no, no drama in, in the home underneath my roof. My son would say, because I had five kids and one was a boy and uh, he goes, and so they, everybody says, well, he was spoiled. And I says, well, he had to be because you know, otherwise we would have knocked him out or whatever. Right. That's right. Now Flint, Michigan, I actually, which you probably wouldn't know this, but I have a little history in Flint, Michigan in my prior profession.

Those who know what I did for a living prior to giving my life to Christ and becoming a radio show host and podcaster. Um, I, I did professional wrestling Mona and actually wrestled in Flint, Michigan in Flint, Michigan. Yeah. So with the IMA probably where you came and my son wrestled all the way up through high school because you know, my husband said, you can't be like a girl. You got to wrestle.

So you had to be, that's right. Got to, got to do the man thing. Got to do the guy thing. So, so, so there's a lot, Mona, you gotta, again, you got a fascinating story. Uh, and, and we can dive into some of this.

I just want to highlight for our listeners. I mean, everything from overcoming, I know you had said two, two car accidents, brain trauma, um, you know, uh, uh, a marriage that was, you know, had some challenges along the way. Imagine that, uh, married for 37 years prior to your, your husband passing. Um, and, and I know more recently, you know, you've been nominated, uh, for walk of faith by the red letter awards and, and, uh, dive into some of that for us. So, you know, what, what would you like to share on, on being an overcomer? Well, it's overcoming dyslexia as a kid, cause you know, I didn't know how to deal with that. So I was grounded in summer five foot.

I failed my English class cause I was terrible at English. Um, anyway, so then, um, getting married, I was pregnant, got married and he told me he'd learned to love me. So I said, okay, that's great deal for me.

And, uh, because you know, I, I'm a deep lover, just like how I love the love of the Lord. I, I knew that I was, I wasn't raised in a Methodist church. Um, I got saved at 16 and I just, you know, after all the crazy things you do, and then I got backslid and gun, I went off to college and that wasn't good. So I got pregnant, quit college and got married.

And I had five kids by the time I was 27. Well, six months after my, we had moved back home cause my husband had actually went to Bremen Bible training center in Oklahoma. And we came back to Michigan and he came down with diabetes and he just was, how could that happen? We just gave everything away and we went to Bible college to follow him. He got, he's a Catholic and got saved when he was got after we got married and got baptized in the Holy spirit and that, you know, and all that. And then after he came down with that, he wouldn't regulate his blood sugar.

So he's like bipolar craziness. Um, and so I had five kids and then when my youngest was six months old, we had just finally got it together to get a car and we had had it like 12 hours. I took the kids to grocery shopping, the four year old and the six month old in the front seat cause that then you didn't have a car seat order, you know, in the eighties. So, uh, she's in the little ones in the pumpkin seed and the other ones sitting on the armrest, you know, and then some, there was a five car pile up on a highway going into a next one cause the guy couldn't get his load underneath the bridge cause it was too big. So I had just gotten past this accident cause I seen it, I had to slam on my brakes and got past it. And uh, so some person that had her license only or she's just 16 and her dad and her in the car, they hit me so hard.

This big, huge, you know, the grocery getter station wagons as we call them, um, hit me so hard. It bent the frame, but God picked my car up instead of hitting, you know how you have the cement wall right there under a bridge. Well, he picked me up and put me in the grass. I didn't hit a pole cause that's the side the kids were on and, but my seatbelt didn't work. So I had a really bad whiplash and I got a brain stem injury, but I was so scared of what my husband was going to say.

I was like a mile and a half from my home and I told the police after we got back in the car and I drove to my house and back the car into the garage so I couldn't see it. I told the kids, don't say anything until after dad's eaten. You know, I wanted to make sure his blood level was a little, um, regulated. Right. Yeah.

Right. And so then after that brain injury, um, I had the whole left side of my face was numb. I couldn't talk very well with third speech and it was getting worse. They, and they tried to chiropractor tried to fix my neck and stuff and he said, it's just going to fuse together cause there's nothing else we can do. And then neurologist on an Ann Arbor told me that, well, you know, you're just going to have to learn to have pain and you're going to have to be, you know, cause you have a brain stem injury and you got to learn to walk and talk again. So she said, you need to do something for you because of what was going on with my husband. So I went to modeling school because you learn to walk and you learn to talk cause when you do runway, you have to walk straight and it's to music, which music is a mending thing.

I love music of all kinds. Um, so I was able to, um, you know, God, I, and then I remembered we just came from Bible college and then after about a year and a half of a migraine every day, I said, okay, Lord, I hear you cause they couldn't stop it. And I said, okay. And then he reminded me of the name of Jesus is above the name of the name of everything. So in Jesus name is above the name of arthritis, cancer, pain, anything. So every day, if I got up and I could feel a little bit of pain coming out of my head, I would say, no, in Jesus name, you've got to go.

Jesus name is above the name of pain. So I spoke to it because we create our word or world with our words. So if we talk negative all the time, you're going to have negative life.

So as I had learned that in 1982, I learned to finally get it in my head out of my hind ends and say, okay, this is what you need to do. You need to speak the word. Cause God said that he created the world with his words, right?

And, and if you talk bad stuff, that's what you're going to get. So I went to Philippians four and I went in there where God tells us to think on these things whatsoever is true, lovely, just, and a good report. And if there's any praise or any virtue, that's, that's what you think on. And then it says, you can't just skip in the middle and says, I can do all things through Christ.

You got to read the whole chapter four. It says, rejoice in the Lord. Always again, I say, rejoice, think on these things. Then you will have the peace of God. And then he will supply all of your need according to riches and glory.

You can't just skip around. So Philippians four was one of my mainstays. I love to sing the song, the mind of Christ and other things. And then also Ephesians one, Ephesians one talks about how God opened our eyes to the understanding of your word so that we can do what you've called us to do. And since I was passing out and falling down, so about, I'd say two and a half, three years where I finally was pain-free in the side of my face, actually the pain in my face where I couldn't, it was numb and that, and that was going away because God's word is true. And you got to eat right too. You just can't say, okay, I'm going to take all these drugs because they had me on a lot of them and think it's going to work, which you can do it that way. But I knew that I had to eat healthy because I just had five kids in seven years. So I knew my body was probably a little out of sync. So that was the first walk of faith.

And then after my husband wasn't getting it together and I said, you know what? I need to go to college for myself because I was raised in a Methodist church. I didn't know who Jesus really was.

I just knew, you know, he died on the cross rose again on Easter Sunday. You know, we knew the basics, but when you get a personal relationship with Jesus, Oh my gosh, it's so awesome. So I went to Bible college at Rhema, but we went back to Oklahoma in 1994.

I told my husband, he could come with me or he could stay, but we all came down there. And so I was able to go to school. I was able to work at the ministry, work in prayer school. And then with the healing from the brain injury, I was able to get a 3.8 grade point average. And we had to read 500 pages, um, per class, you know, for each class for two years. And I'm going, that was a miracle just in his house because I'd never read a full novel in my life.

Only thing I read was the Bible and the medical journals. And then I was, we went down there, we stayed, I worked in, um, I had radio broadcast me and I went to college and got my FCC license because I wanted to be closer to the Holy Spirit. Cause every word that we speak is in the air. Every, and God says, we're accountable for them. And then you got the radio and you got the, all the waves of everything is there like a molecule of a table.

It doesn't stop moving because I mean, it's so moved so fast, it's solid. So I wanted to know how to tune in to the Holy Spirit. So that was my goal. And then I, when I got done with that, I did short radio work with lesser summer on ministry. And I'm not bragging about me because it's nothing that I could have done without God. He healed me. He saved me from the crazy stuff that I'd done in my life. And then we moved back home and my husband was going, my husband was going blind because of his retinopathy. He wasn't taking care of it. So God, we found a doctor that helped him save his sight. He, he realized that God was, you know, on the throne still. Um, I mean, he went to church with us and stuff, but he just, you know, he just, because he had come from a background of abuse. And when we get married, we need to know that it's, it's not going to be easy because you have two different, totally different family raising.

And if you don't know anything about it, you learn the hard way. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. And then I got saved. Then I came back and was caregiving for my family because I lost like 25 family members since I came back from Oklahoma in 2005. And, um, but, and then my husband died in 2015 and I was actually, I was teaching school substitute teaching school at the time.

And I had a second accident. Cause I, cause you know, when you get yourself out there too much, because my kids said, oh, you're not grieving dad's loss, but it was hard to know how to grieve that. Cause you know, it was so abusive for so long. What everybody does that differently. Right. I mean, I mean, there's no cookie cutter approach to grieving. Everyone has to kind of figure that out for themselves. Right.

So, Yeah. And when you lose your parents, both sides, your cousins, your aunts and uncles, and your best friends, you know, and all these things are passing away. And so God has given me such a heart or, cause my mom used to always go to everybody's senior because she knew everybody.

Cause they lived in the same town in the same county their whole life. So I just think when we have that, that grieving process is something there's a 10 step thing, like there's a 12 step thing and everybody does it differently. Like you said, but after you said, but after, um, after I had the second car accident and that was in 2016, um, I was, I was saying, I'm going to grieve for a year, Lord, then I'm going to start doing ministry again. Cause I wanted to get back to ministry cause my kids had went on 50 countries on the mission field with T mania.

That was something they wanted to do and got provided for that. And, um, so anyway, I was able to, um, I had the second one, I broke 12 teeth. I broke my chest, um, another brain injury and this one was in the thalamus. The other one was in the back of the brain. So, so it's different. So then you got to get all these things going on at your brain at the same time.

And it's like, okay, God, now what? Well, I think I was a little bit stressed out because I was on like three or four different boards. Um, you know, volunteering my time. So I didn't have to be at home. I don't know.

I was doing a nonprofit for the historical society and, you know, trying to learn our history of our school. And, um, so I slowed down. Sometimes, you know, God said he slows you down. He will, but I lived, but I lived and I was knocked out. I was in the hospital.

I couldn't use my right arm. So then, um, because of the post-traumatic and the grief and the, you know, the anxiety disorder and the major depression, it was just like, and they had me in all these medications, which is, you want to sleep, you don't want to do anything, but God, he came through again and I was able to get healed. I'm still working on some things I do because I have to do exercises, but I got off most all the medications. I'm only on one now with a 14. So that's great.

Now your body has, you have to eat right and trust God. He's going to take you through this. So my journey is that I just didn't quit because I knew that I got to help somebody and tell them that Jesus loved them.

And every day, if I just go out and tell somebody to smile because they're loved and give them a hug, that's, that's what I liked. The letter, the red letter award thing was I met at the NRB and Carla Jackson is doing that. And everybody should learn about it. The Christian it's, it's sort of like the Emmys and the, and the Oscars, but it's all Christian based. It's not about us.

It's about how God did it. And so it was, it was an honor for her to nominate me. And I said, well, it's not nothing to do with me.

It's only God. Cause I, and like my one friend said, did you, cause I didn't want to accept the nomination. She go, he goes, well, did you heal your brain? And I goes, no. He said, did you save your life twice in car accidents? And I goes, no. And he goes, well, it ain't about you. It's about God.

And I goes, okay. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Would your company, business, or you personally like to partner with me in supporting Kolof for Christ Ministries, the Man Up Show and Man Up Minutes. Go to kolof.net and click the donate button.

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Go to eyeassociates.com for more information. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Yeah, clearly. And for our listeners, let's just pause right there for a moment, uh, uh, Mona. And, and because for our listeners, wow, I mean, just a quick recap from 37 years of marriage and, and, uh, you know, faithfully walking through that, even through the challenges and trials of, of marriage and, you know, and, and you several points I made notes that, that you, you brought up one, you know, the abuse during the marriage, of course, he came from a home of abuse, right? So sometimes we do unfortunately carry that forward into the next family. Um, but you were faithful in that talk about a walk of faith, faithful. And in walking out to overcoming two brain injuries, I wrote down, what's interesting. You said, you know, when you got married, he said, learn to love me. And, and I wrote down love as a choice, right? A lot of times people, you know, in fact, I've had recent conversations about the, you know, the expression falling in love and, and not that that's not possible that, you know, that, that, that feeling is certainly a part of relationships.

But then, you know, the honeymoon's over and, and, you know, the, if your feet hit the pavement and then it is a process of learning, uh, to love, you know, another person. And it's something else you made, you referenced Philippians and of course, Philippians chapter four, verse eight is what you were quoting. And I wrote down words matter.

And you're exactly right. Words do matter. People don't understand just how much our words matter. And if anybody spends any length of time around me, you know, you mentioned speaking negative words all the time.

You'll find whether it's on social media posts or these shows or anything else I do preaching from a pulpit, you know, I try to bring a very positive, challenging message at the same time. And, and one other quick note, teen mania, you probably wouldn't know this, but I actually traveled the, as a, as a keynote speaker for teen mania about 20 something years ago, uh, for a couple of, three years, uh, for their major. Yeah.

Katie loose are so wonderful. My kids started in 94 and went to 2005 with team mania. Okay. So, so I would have been, I was, so I would, would have been there like, you know, around 2001, two, three, somewhat somewhere in there. So it's possible your kids may have heard me speak at it and acquire a fire, acquire the fire. And, and my daughter Tawny and I actually went to Costa Rica one summer on a team mania mission trip. So that's pretty amazing. I know you said 50 trips they made 50 different countries, 50 countries. Cause sometimes when my daughter, the oldest one started in 94, um, she actually was in the Navy too and retired and retired from that. But, um, they went and I got backpacking trips and they would go on more than one country at a time.

Like she had an Israel tour one time, but it's brown and Katie loose is so wonderful. And actually I hooked up my ministry with them cause I have a nonprofit, um, M and M ministries international with my ministry that I started in 97. Um, take a minute, take a minute. Tell us about that for, before we run out of time, take us a minute.

Tell us about that real quick. Well, I started after I graduated Bible college, I went to South Africa to work with Ken Copeland, um, and the prayer team their first time they went to Johannesburg. So that was a really blessing to be able to go over there for 10 days and volunteer over there. Um, I worked with the prison ministry and common ground ministries.

Um, there have been still, they're still going 40 years and I just did with them at St. Louis for the, um, St. Louis parade this year for the fourth. Um, so I, and I had had to stop for a while cause there was so much conflict going on in the home. I didn't want to do my ministry, but I still have my ministry and I revitalize it now. And I'm going back out. I used to speak in women groups and we used to sing and, um, talk about, um, how you can, how you can manage those, you know, cause I never, when he would yell, I would never talk back.

I would just sit there and listen to a lecture for four hours or whatever. But I figured that was the only way I could figure out not to make it worse. Well, that's a problem. That's a proverb actually. And I just discussed this the other day, a gentle answer will turn away wrath.

So whether you realize it or not, you are actually exercising a proverb that a gentle answer and, or, and, or, you know, one of my favorites and we're not saying anything. And so, so, cause I know, so I know you're doing a lot helping now helping others overcome trauma and grief and mental health issues and that sort of thing. How can people find out more or is there a website, uh, Mona that people can go to and find out more about what all that you're doing? Well, Mona's journey is my website.

I haven't finished the webpage yet, but I wrote my first book on history and I took me three years because I was at when I, after I had the accident, I, I couldn't write or anything cause I couldn't hold a pencil who has my arm problem. But anyway, so I wrote it, it's called, remember when it was in the papers, I'm all over the internet on that. Um, and then I took it and made it into a book and it's called our hidden settlement and it's available anywhere online. It's been printed in Australia and England and, um, all over the America. It's in Barnes and Noble and Amazon and all that too. Um, but so I did that and it was like my way of starting to get back to where I am. And now I'm writing my journey through Psalms 23 and it's called my journey through Psalms 23 by Mona bulky. So anyway, that one is the one that's coming out.

I'm working with Amazon right now to finish it. But if you put my name in Mona bulky, it's crazy to stop. It's will come up because I've been volunteered at my city. I brought a Wolverine to the state cause it's our school.

Our school is a third oldest school in the state and no one knew that. So if you just fill my name in, you'll find all kinds of stuff until I get my webpage done. But I come in, I speak all over. I've been in like, I was in seven different States, um, before May and June and July. So I just got home in Michigan, but I'll speak and share what I can to help people.

And if they want me to talk on a topic topic, I can probably see if I've done it before. Well, you've got a lot of, of, of history. I'm not, I'm not surprised that you're a historian. You have a lot of history, uh, and, and have, have, as I said, early on, uh, overcome quite a lot. And for those who are wondering, you're like, all right, Mona bulky, how in the world do I spell? Okay.

So it's M O N a just for the, just for the record for you listening out there, M O N A B A L L G E. And, uh, so, so look up, uh, look up, yeah, you put that in Google and you'll find all kinds of stuff. My, my book is our hidden settlement and all of the stories that I put on about the United States history, I got to write during COVID all about it. So that's why I wrote the book and our hidden settlement is all about how we had inventions, the history of holidays. And, you know, I had to do a weekly column. So that was my way of mending my brain to get it together.

Cause I couldn't get my brain and my hand to write the story at the same time. So it was like a healing thing and using God's word all the time is the best way to live and worship and music and a man that'll heal anybody's broken heart. Well, you're, you are speaking my language right there. Cause I tell people between building relationships, spending time soaking in worship, which I did on the way here to the studio today. Uh, I always do prior to, to all of these interviews, prayer before the shows start.

And of course the word of God. And, and I'm excited to see how this new project, uh, your journey through Psalm 23 mental health recovery is going to impact, um, uh, people's lives and, and just your story itself, Mona. I really appreciate you being a part of the show today. Yeah.

I appreciate you asking me to come and, and the red letter award is something that everybody can go to and they'll see there's like 36 categories of things that will come and Carla Jackson, she's on Facebook too. Um, but as long as we know that love is worth fighting for love is, and if you want love with Jesus, it's not going to be like a walk in the park. He's going to love you no matter what you do. But if you really want to know him, you got to fight for that. The devil is going to try to knock you off your path every day. So my path through Psalms 21 or 23 is if you're in the pit of the mud bath down in the valley, it's still about God. And if you're on the top of the mountain, it's still about God. So you just got to keep walking in the choices that you make every day. You don't want to be off too far because then you got to come back.

Yeah. At the end of the day, at the end of the day, it truly is all about him. Sometimes we set our gaze too, too often on ourselves. And of course the world kind of inundates us with that. It's all about you.

And, and, uh, but you bring up an interesting, you know, point in Psalm 23, though I walk through the valley of death. Right. So, so yeah, we're not going to be, you know, just cause we fall in love with Jesus doesn't mean, you know, we're going to be, uh, you know, uh, uh, sequestered from, or, or protected from, I'll say that from, from, um, from attacks or fiery darts or, or just the world itself. Right. So you.

Right. Because you got to wear your armor every day. He says, put on the armor of God. And it's every day because we are living, especially you can see it now before you might not have seen it, but it was there. We are in a spiritual warfare every single day of our life. When you wake up, that's why it's like you said, bursting in the morning, you do some, even if it's only five minutes. Yep.

Give him a good morning, Father, when you wake up every day. You know? Yep. Yep. Full, full, full, but hidden in plain sight.

The, the warfare is real and it's hidden in plain sight. Mona Balgi, storyteller, artist, author, historian. Uh, what a fascinating story. Thank you so much for being on the Man Up show today. And thank you so much for having me.

And I wish and pray that your ministry goes far out and reaches many to heal their hearts when they're broken. Thank you, Mona. And thank each and every one of you day in and day out or weekend and week out. You're so faithful to dial in the tune into the radio show and sending people over to the Man Up podcast.

Go out today. My challenge for you go out today, take be encouraged and challenged by Mona's story and go out today and live a God filled and have a God blessed day. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers, support, and generous gifts. May God bless you for your continual contributions.

Go to coloff.net and donate today. If you are enjoying the Man Up show, would you help us spread the word? Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe, and leave a comment. Hi, Nikita Koloff. Be sure to check out the Man Up show, now available on television, broadcast, and podcast. Go to morningstartv.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings or better yet, download the Truth Network app today. Nikita Koloff here.

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