Compassion in the Curriculum: How one teacher is using her story to help at-risk students

Well, hey everybody, and welcome back to Qualified, the place where incredible people share their stories of overcoming great adversity and loss to inspire you and give you hope. I'm Michelle Heaton. Well, with each guest I interview for the show, I'm always amazed at the level of strength and resilience I encounter, especially given the circumstances of the loss as they endured. Many have lived through deep trauma, have tragically lost children, spouses, siblings, parents, and also physical abilities and even limbs, and each and every time I am simply amazed when they are able to share with you the lessons they've learned as they manage to move forward in life with a new perspective and positive outlook. But what I learned about my guest today truly moved me and made me realize once again that we're stronger than we think we are, that when life throws hard stuff at us, we can survive. It will be hard, really hard, but we can make it, and then we can use what we've been through to help other people. And that's what this podcast is all about. So let me tell you a little about her. She's a Kansas native turned California girl. She's a wife, a mother, best-selling author, speaker, educator and Ironman athlete. But one of her greatest attributes has to be survivor. Her name is Suzy Ryan and it's my great privilege to have her as my guest on the show today. Welcome to Qualified Suzy. I'm so honored to be here. I'm so excited. Wonderful, okay, Suzy. Well, I finished your book this week, as you know, and I couldn't wait to talk with you and to delve into this discussion. So thanks again for agreeing to come on the show. So your book called Saving Summer is a novel that follows the chaotic family life of a very young girl all the way through her college years. Can you just tell us why it was important for you to write this book?

I've been trying to write this book since I was young. I've been trying to tell my story because when you live through trauma, you know that there's another side. You're going to get to the end. And I kept thinking when I was growing up, even though I wasn't educated in English well, and I needed to somehow share this, which I equate to God, because why would I even think that, why would my mind even be going down that path? But when I became older, god spoke to my heart and said I need you to tell your story. I want to redeem your story. I want to use your story to help others. And it was difficult because it's a novel, but it's based on my life and the suffering students told me and unfortunately and I'm very authentic I was more of a people pleaser than I even wanted to admit. So to share my story, God had to say I need you to please me, Suzy, you need to be a God pleaser. No more people pleasing. And I need your story. I'm going to use it and I know that it's going to change you by obeying me Now with that, you say, ok, God, let's go right. And then I got serious in completing it and now I am so honored to be on your podcasts, like I said, but that God would count me worthy to use my suffering to help others. How could I have said no?

So you said you're suffering. But you said it's a novel. So I read the book. How much of the story is about Suzy and how much is about Summer? How much did you embellish? If you could tell me?

Such a great question. So I did get permission for anybody. So I'm starting to sweat a little bit, which is good, because you got a great question there and in the story that was based on a real character. I got their permission. I got their permission, but I did say I would not tell about their lives. So you'll see in the story, when you read it, you'll know why. But for my life I will tell you. It's all true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true what Summer suffered. I did suffer that. And I will tell you one thing that I suffered that I never told anybody, because you tell people little things, what you think they can handle. And one thing, and this is the most shocking maybe not, it just depends on the reader, but in the book, actually, at the age of seven, I'm raped. I say in the book I'm eight because I was worried that people would not believe me, because my beta readers, who read and tell me what you think or what they think of your book, they said how could that have happened? And not that they were being disrespectful, but it's so shocking. So I moved it up to eight, but I was really seven. I never told anybody, Michelle. I never told anybody. And the book I say I'm not going to tell anybody. I never told anybody until I wrote the book. It was so traumatic, it was so hard and I could not process it. And one of my last editors said you didn't come to fruition about rape. That's not fixed in the novel, because in a novel you can do a lot of tweaking and compilation characters. And I said to her it's because I wasn't over it. When the novel is, I'm still processing that, but getting it out in the light, out of the shadows. So now I feel so empowered because people who have read it, so many people, have come up to me and said as young children they were raped and no one talks.

Well, I'm glad you actually brought that up, because reading that part of the book just tore my heart out and thinking of you, thinking of what I thought was an eight-year-old girl, was just horrific. And I know that it is the reality. People don't like to talk about that stuff. People don't often like to talk about grief and loss, but those of us who have honored, it need to talk about it and it's healing to talk about it. So for me to read that it was very difficult, but my heart was breaking for you. So if you would, I read about that incident. It was in a home where a mother was drinking using drugs for other family members. There was so much emotional and physical abuse. You even talk about a lack of food and things like that, the whole environment. Could you just kind of describe for us that environment that you grew up in?

Yes, it was an alcoholic environment and it was difficult, but God blessed me with some inner joy and optimism and cheerfulness and I just bounced along knowing tomorrow's going to be a better day. Now there are consequences because you can see and I know your audience can't, but you can see I travel with food all the time. I always have food, I always have food and I have water. I never go anywhere without it because I was hungry and now I have great genetics. But it's not a good thing when you've got great genetics and you're not getting food. It's rough. It's rough and it wasn't personal. It was a very distracted home life. The kids were not. The kids were not how I raised my kids. Right, the kids were just part of you're doing what we do and the motto was do as I say, not as I do, and because I told you so. And that was the motto and it was really like being raised in the Lord of the Flies book, because the kids were raising themselves and when kids raise themselves, kids get raped, kids get in trouble, kids need parents, kids need parents at home, kids need to be parented and we were. We were, my parents were distracted and then my parents divorced when I was four, which was so traumatic for me, and then the stepfathers were very difficult and they were abusive. And so now you're in a situation where you're you're just fragmented. You're just fragmented, but through it all it's a book of hope when you read it, because, because God gave me the ability to know there was more and I was going to be okay, and I knew that from the time I was young. I knew it and he gave me my athleticism to carry me and I'm so thankful for that. But what that does when you and I call it I coined it performance based security. When you have a performance based security, it carries you until you can get healthy and heal. But it's a false God and it's a prison, because you're only as good as the last thing you've done right. So that's when my people pleasing came in right. I could only feel okay if I were pleasing people, if I were winning a race, if I had A's on my report card. That's how I got validated. So then it becomes your identity and to not please people is it's so uncomfortable that you do anything to not feel uncomfortable.

Yeah, oh, Suzy, I am so sorry to hear that and thanks for actually going deep and giving us all the details. As hard as I know it is for you. So you had to endure so much and I know how hard just divorce alone is on kids and with the pain of loss of the family unit and then the step parent dynamics, all of it's so tough. So in the book you talk about your younger brother that you love so much and then at some point in the story you talk about getting kicked out of the house by your stepfather and it was a terrible turning point for you and one of the biggest reasons was that you would have to leave your brother there in that house, but you had no choice. So you dedicate the book to your brother, Bart. Can you talk a little bit about him?

Is the most gorgeous, beautiful, kind-hearted, sweet boy, seven years younger than me, and I was the student at school that was achieving. So I was at risk, but you didn't know it because we always looked perfect. He was the kid at school who you knew was not doing well. He couldn't focus or maybe he didn't want to focus, he was floundering. So I felt like as seven years older that I, that almost he was my child and I wanted to take care of him and love him and be there for him, and it was a joy for me to do that. And he was funny. We would laugh so hard at the most random things and connect. And I think that's what I missed the most. Growing up in that chaotic environment I didn't feel loved. I did not feel loved. But from Bart I knew he loved me. I knew he loved me, and when you grow up and you don't feel loved, it is of everything that happened to me, not feeling loved was crushing, soul-crushing, and so I loved Bart with that love that I did get to pour into him. So when I did get kicked out, I think the saddest scene in the book for me to write was I knew when I wrote Michelle what was sad, because I had a hand towel by my computer and when I got really sad I'd put it in my eyes and I saw him. And then I'm a teacher, my day job, and I knew I had to get up and teach the next day. So I'd be like, ah, don't have time to cry anymore. I've got to put that down and got to keep writing. But after I got kicked out and you know, in the story you'll see how God did a miracle through a little small town who rescued and that risk kid and I'll always be thankful for them. But I had to leave my brother and I would have never left him had I not gotten kicked out. But even when I was 16 and didn't know God personally, I knew that God had rescued me from that house and somehow I had to save myself. But that meant leaving my brother. So the next day when I got to school and by some phenomenal series of events, the next day, I'm dressed, my hair is washed, I've had breakfast and I've got lunch money and I'm at school the next day. No one even knows until I'm walking by the playground to the high school building that goes past the playground. Do you remember that scene. Remember when he came up on the playground and met us. Yeah, because he wants to know when I'm coming home.

Yeah, yeah, and you left him a note.

I did leave him a note. He wants to know when I'm coming home and I know I'm not coming home. I'm sorry that was so rough On his face, the abandonment of that. I thought you loved me, I thought you loved me and now you've left me because that's how I felt and I had to leave because I got kicked out, I was forced out. But to abandon him like that, I that scene, writing that scene was almost too much for me, but it healed me because writing and taking it out of the shadows and putting it into the light, it heals. And who else has had to really save themselves? For instance, in the plane the oxygen mass comes down and we have to put it on first before we can help someone. So you have to save yourself and and, but I getting kicked out, god saved me because I was never, ever going to leave. I would never have left him.

I think, if I remember correctly, you know your stepfather told you to leave and you didn't do anything wrong. He just wanted you gone and it was very difficult. Like you say, and I just I don't even know if you're if you could go there to tell us what ultimately happened to Bart.

I will. He didn't really have friends and he was such a handsome boy and he was winsome and fun, but he was very insecure. So he, he didn't, couldn't blossom, he couldn't, he just he lived in my shadow, he hung out with me and he ended up getting into drugs and he ended up trying to kill himself three times and then he finally killed himself. And what I can't say in the book, because why tried to? But it's hard to write that kind of pain. When I got the news, I screamed so loud that the neighbors came to see if I was okay. I could not stop screaming. It was so incredibly there's not anything in words the loss of my baby brother. And then you have the guilt oh my gosh, I should not have left that house until I did. Oh my gosh, how come I didn't see I was the last one to seem alive? Why didn't I try harder? Okay, then I'm now. I'm the people, please are right. Now I'm being hard on myself and you'll see in the book how God helps me. You never get over it, but he helps you get through it and that's that's a with a beautiful part for me to write in the book, because that's what God did for me. But I also kept this picture of Bart when I'm writing the book and it's one of those pictures that follows you. Hmm, you know the saddest thing about death not the saddest thing there's. Somebody said something spit, you don't have as many pictures as you wish you had. Oh, tell me Right. So I have this picture that he is so happy in it and he's looking at me and I knew from heaven. He was looking at me and saying I knew you live both of our lives together and you would make my life count. And that's what motivated me, through the hand towel of tears, to write our story, because it redeems it. It redeems it, it keeps his memory alive. Every time you ask me about Bart, his name is still alive, it's, he's still making a difference and his life has made a difference because it's what made me become a teacher. I was in sales. I was in sales because I didn't want to be hungry anymore. I wanted to make sure I had a job where I could. I could support myself, no matter what. And then, after Bart and you've, you don't, like I said, you don't get over it, but you readjust yourself to what's really important, and it wasn't important selling product anymore. It just didn't matter. So I went back to school. I had a business degree. I went back and got my teaching credential and that's what made me be a teacher. Look for at-risk kids. Look for the hurting that hide in plain sight. Look for the kid bouncing up and down needing attention Is that was me? Or looking for the one cowering in their seat Because that was Bart and we together, bart and I, have made a difference for kids.

Hmm, well, I mean okay, my mind is just exploding with questions but you also, you dedicate the book to Bart, your brother Bart, and you talk about him in the book as a fictional character, sort of like yourself, and it just blew my mind that you know everything that you went through and you got out, like you said, a family helped you and then you had to endure the pain of him staying there and then the guilt of thinking I think your mom even tried to blame you for his death and all of it and then you become a teacher. So, like you said, you're using everything that you went through to help other kids. It doesn't take it away, but you're doing something with it. So I know there's another young man named Jack that's in your dedication and I want to know about your relationship with him and why he's dedicated in the book.

I love Jack. Jack was my seventh grade student and I did write a story about because the book is full of stories that I did things wrong. And one of the things I did wrong when I was a freshman I got in a car with a girl this is true and her brother and I did it so she would like me and she's a composite character, but that scene is true that I did get in the car with a certain girl and two blocks down the Kansas endless black gravel road, she flipped the car, there was no glass and we walked away from it, which was a complete miracle. So I wrote this story, just this story, as in a chicken soup for the soul segment, and read it to all my students. So I did it as a teaching moment. Should Mrs Ryan get in the car in the middle of the night, sneaking at 14? No, Of course the kids know the answer. And then I say, did Mrs Ryan get in the car? And they say yes, I said I did because peer pressure, I needed her to like me. So I read that to all my students. Jack would have been in that classroom when I read that, hoping, and I'd asked them hoping, what am I hoping for. And then one student would say that we don't make the same mistake. And I said, exactly, I'm being vulnerable. And that was so many years ago. I mean, what 40? Even talking about it today, I start sweating. In front of the classroom I start sweating, and I always have to take off my jacket and say, OK, I'm sweating because I made such a foolish mistake. I remember what it felt like to think I was going to die and thinking it was my own fault because I knew better, but I got to live. So, seventh grade, Jack is now 15, and he makes, getting ready to be 16,. He makes a foolish mistake. So he's almost 16. And he gets in the car in the middle of the night, right at the beginning of COVID, with a bunch of kids. They're in an SUV in two blocks from his house. A girl without a driver's license or just a permit which doesn't matter, Nourkees, you're not supposed to drive in the middle of the night she flips the car and Jack flips out and dies. Oh my gosh. And not just one of my students. A student that was sunny, optimistic, went for the hurting kid. It was popular, was smart, savvy, athletic, handsome. People gravitated towards him because he had such an easy-going vibe that he wasn't wanting to be popular. He was popular. He wanted to look for the hurting student and I love that about him. So at his candlelight his beautiful mom, Joe, who happens to be my neighbor she said keep my Jackie's memory alive. And I understood, because that's what I do with Bart. I need to keep his memory alive, I need to talk about it. I need you to know Bart. I need my readers to know Bart. Bart's still cheering for me. He's from heaven. There is my sister and I thought to myself, as I'm writing this book and really now serious about finishing it, I thought I'm going to write about Jack and I'm going to write him into a scene and the real boy's name was Johnny, who I took to Star Wars with my brother I don't know if you remember that scene in the book and I wrote Jack into it and Jack steals the scene. Because Jack stole every scene he was in, because he was so beloved and full of optimism and energy, everything, and so I wrote that in and I felt like no rush of pleasure I think I can even verbalize at keeping his memory alive and his mom has been so supportive and I did the soft book launch and she came and talked about Jack and it was all these people and I stood back and looked at her and I thought we did it, Kept his memory alive, and we're doing it right now.

And now I got to interject because you've given me permission. I started the podcast because of losing my son, Sean at 17, who sounds just like Jack. Just that kid that was gorgeous and funny but didn't want to be popular just was because of the person he was. And then they die and it just hurt so bad. It hurt so bad and I would always mention Sean in my podcast and then I realized I don't want to take the attention away from the story of the person who I'm interviewing, but I just want to take a minute and honor Sean as well, because I think you could appreciate that, right, Suzy?

Oh, I am so grateful you did. And here's my vision right now we have Sean, we have Jack and we have Bart, and they're up in heaven and Jack has taught them all to surf or maybe Sean knew how to surf because Jack was a surfer and they are surfing the crystal sea and they are so happy and they're cheering from above that we're making their life count. We're making their life count and redeeming it. And Jesus says to you well done, my good and faithful servant for the podcast, because you gave me a platform to talk about Bart. You give Joe's Jack a platform to be remembered. And those boys, those teenage boys who died as teenagers. They would never come back because heaven's so rockin' great, but they're stopping as our cloud of witnesses to say go, yes, and they're getting back on their oh. They probably don't even need surfboards, they're probably just with their feet surfin' their crystal sea and lovin' life Right Right and because their death was used for something good, exactly.

You know, Suzy, you mentioned Jack and it's such a sad story because I know he was in your class and he was so loved by so many. Is there a story that you can share with us about a child that you were able to identify as maybe being at risk, that you were able to help kind of come through a bad situation?

His name is Damien and he was also my seventh grade class and then I taught sixth grade and also seventh grade about five years ago. Damien was suicidal. Damien was bright. I knew immediately he was an at-risk kid. He walked in with an attitude but he was bright. He would not do his work, but he was closed, and he had a really neat mother who was a teacher. So I was a little confused and I loved Damien and I said to him I know you're bright and I know you've got something going on that you're not able to either understand or tell me Otherwise you wouldn't be acting out in class. That I want you to know I love you. We ended up not literally, but he was on the train tracks twice trying to kill himself. That's how desperate he was. And then he got into drugs and I've not done any drugs in my life. I saw way too many drugs. I saw so many lives destroyed by drugs. That was the beginning of the end for my brother. So I made a choice that I was going to stay free from drugs. So I could tell, though being around him, that he was doing drugs. So think about he's young, and this is actually the next year when he's in eighth grade. So I found him and I had the counselor pulling out of his class and bringing him to my prep period, which is our period off for teachers. And I said once you're my student, you're always my student, and I know you're doing drugs and I'm worried about you and I know we got you off the tracks. And he said I'm not suicidal anymore. I said but somehow you're using these drugs because you've been in so much pain and I don't know your pain and I understand it. But I'm going to fight for you. I'm going to fight for you. You are not going to do drugs. They are not your friend. I said I wish I could tell you all I knew about drugs, but I can't because it's not age appropriate. I said but I want you to know I understand somehow you're trying to meditate and medicate yourself with drugs. And he was aloof and he kind of sauntered out and then he came back. And then he came back and he came back. He had more issues that I kept loving him. Then I saw, well, then he came back when he was in high school to my class and he brought his girlfriend and he said I'm an, a student.

You're proud.

He wanted to show me how well he had done and I said I always knew you're going to make it, because I always told him this is going to be used for good. I'm okay. I can't tell you everything that happened to me, but I'm okay and I'm here to tell you you're going to be okay and you're going to use it for your destiny to help others.

Thank God for teachers like you, Suzy, and thank you because it seems like kids today. They're just going through suffering more and more, yeah, more and more suffering, and we have social media and so many other things that you and I didn't have, in addition to drugs and the bullying I don't know, but my heart breaks for kids like that and I'm so happy to know that you're there. So, anyway, thank you for your obedience and doing what you're doing and listening to God's voice. Yeah, so proud of you.

Thank you. I appreciate that and I want you to know, the only reason I was able to help Damian was because I had suffered and I could feel it. I can feel it with the kids. I could feel it and he knew, I knew, so he could trust me. So when he was in eighth grade and he got into so much trouble in eighth grade and he would say they would take his phone away and for the day, you know, he's just, he's gotten so much trouble and they would try to take it and he was so stubborn and he would say I will not give it. The only person I'll let have it is Mrs Ryan. And so they would have to come over and bring me his phone and then he'd have to come back and give it. But I knew that's because he knew I loved him and I took that as an encouragement that I was making a difference and I prayed for that kid and that was what I could do. And I know God got ahold of him and his story is a success story. And then I got to be part of the healing team and what that does, michelle, which I know you know that redeems your story. It doesn't make it right but it makes you know what the enemy meant for evil. God is using for good and counted you worthy to suffer so it can be used for good.

Yeah, that's very humbling, isn't it?

It's almost more than you can even take in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In your book you talk about all the medals you won for running track and I know you've been an athlete for a long time and I mentioned the opening that year at triathlete. But I also read and you and I didn't talk about it before, but I also read that you had a couple of heart incidents. What I mean is that was that a random thing? Is it significant? Is there anything that you want to mention about that that's significant to all of this?

It's very significant and because I should not have had a heart attack. I have no plaque, I have no heart disease, no one in my family does. I have no issues. I'm an Iron man. So you think about what my body, what God gave me, and a great body, the Iron man it's. One day you know, you swim 2.4 miles, you run, you bike 112 miles and then, just for fun, you throw on your running shoes and you run a marathon. So my body is rock and muscular because it was my dad's and I'm so thankful I'm strong. So when I had three heart attacks in a week and I didn't think they were because how would I have a heart attack? Because just it wouldn't happen. The last one occurred in the pool, in a master's workout. I flipped, turned and I heard a voice that said stop swimming, get out of the pool. And in the book, when I'm getting ready to take a bunch of girls driving with a permit, just like the girl that was driving when Jack died. That's why I don't judge, because I did the same thing until I heard a voice, not knowing it was Jesus at the time. But when you hear a voice like that, you obey, and so I stopped that car right when the voice said stop. And I got out and we were getting ready to go into that, that sinkhole size Olympic pool. So God spared me. So when I heard this voice in the pool, after three of these incidents and a heart attack is painful, it is like a TV is on your chest, you're sweating, you're cold, you're hot, you're sick, you're feeling nauseated, it's, it's I was really in avoidance, which heart disease is the number one cause of women's death, and men, women don't usually go and get checked out because we think that we're okay, and that was me. So when I finally did, they still could. After the voice, my daughter drove me to the urgent care. He couldn't find anything. They sent me to the ER. They couldn't find anything because my Iron Man's heart, that God gave me, was still protecting me when I had a SCAD event, that is, spontaneous coronary artery dissection, which means one of my arteries is shredding. My shredded artery that dissected was my main artery, my LAD, which is called the Widow-maker's Artery because of all the widows it makes. So my phenomenal cardiologist, Dr. Carr, was so wise because if he would have sent me home, I would have died, if he would have gone in and ballooned me and you know, just get rid of the plaque. It was shredded. So he gave me three extra long stents and it gave me my life back and I was able to—I don't do Ironman's anymore, I can do anything, but I'm careful with everything just because I want to be wise. But how this connects is then I go back to school and I'm in a training and I hear teachers you need to identify at-risk kids, because if you don't and there's no one in their corner because it only takes one person to love a kid then they grow up and they have—are you ready for this, Michelle? Unexplained heart issues and physical issues and premature death. And I was in that room and I—my mouth dropped open and I said this is my story. This is my story and this is why I know God had me tell my story, to go back to let these kids know if I'm the only one. They are loved and they are loved. Now we know for sure they're loved by Jesus. I can't say that in the public school, but I do love my students and once they know that you love them, they can learn from you and then they come and share their stories. Now, sometimes I've had to call CPS because I'm a mandated reporter. But this is why God brought me into the classroom, so I could share my story, so we don't have more kids growing up from that constant pressure of not feeling loved, of the anxiety of being tense for the next thing that's going to happen, so they can heal Gosh.

Well, that is significant, isn't it? That's such important information that was shared with you, as a teacher, about how trauma can impact the heart. You know, sometimes when we talk about grief, we hear that people have actually died of a broken heart after a great loss, and there's medical evidence similar to what you shared about that. The stress, the trauma and the constant emotional pressure can truly impact a person physically, and we need to be mindful of that. Wow Well, Suzy, I truly appreciate everything you've shared, because I believe there'll be listeners out there who will benefit from knowing that you've been through all of this and that you've not only survived, but that you're using it to help other people, and so I just want to summarize some of the great points that you made now. You talked about how your difficult upbringing caused you to become a people-pleaser, because things went well for you when you were doing what others wanted, but you realize now that, in reality, you need to be a god-pleaser and that in doing so, everything else falls into place. You openly and candidly shared about a deeply personal incident that occurred in your life being raped at the age of seven and you admitted that when you finally took that memory out of your mind and exposed it to the light that it was actually empowering, because you now know that your story can be used to help others. You suffered a great loss the loss of your brother, Bart, to suicide, and you struggled both in writing those words in the book and speaking them today in the podcast, because the loss was so great and your love for him so deep, which you were led to write his story to keep his memory alive. And in doing so, you said, your pain becomes less and less as time goes by. You explained what you learned and experienced firsthand about the impact of trauma on the human heart, and you now have an even deeper understanding of how trauma can affect a young person, and you're working tirelessly each day to not only educate young people but to love them and care for them with the love of Christ. You said you left your former job and became a teacher because you wanted to help out risk kids, and you shared about one of your students that turned his life around because he realized he was love, and that motivates you to keep doing what you're doing. So, Suzy, given everything that you've experienced, all of the trauma, the abuse, emotional and physical what other life lessons do you want to share with someone listening right now, who might be in a situation like you were in and needs hope?

This sounds counterintuitive, but I know it to be true and we know it's true because Jesus said it. My motto is forgive fast and love fiercely. We have to forgive fast because we can't let anybody's darkness touch us, hurt people, hurt other people. So the people that hurt me, they're hurt themselves and once you forgive, you're free, because free people, free other people. And I say these things like forgive fast. It is not easy and it is a choice, and God commands us to forgive so we are not turned over to the tormentors. That's in the parable of the unforgiving servant and I always thought what does that mean? I don't want to be turned over to tormentors. Now, I'm not telling you, I totally know what it means. But I think that when we don't forgive, their darkness torments us and it opens a door we want to keep closed in our soul. I don't want to have anything against anybody. I really know and this is going to sound also a little counterintuitive because I'm not saying it was easy but I know in my heart, my beautiful heart, with my that's here and with the three stents in my artery, that everything that happened to me, god is used for good. That doesn't mean it is good, but he's used it for good. It's made me who I am. It's made me the teacher I am. It's made me be thankful. It's made me get up every day and say something great is going to happen to me. Today I'm going to do something great for someone else today to smile, to be thankful. So all of that is venues for good. That helps me forgive, wow.

Forgive fast and love fiercely. I love it. Great lessons learned by the pain of deep loss. All good, Suzy. I just want to say thank you so much for agreeing to come on the show. I really appreciate it and before we go, I want listeners to know that they can go to your website, suzyryan. com to learn more about you and also to get a copy of your book Saving Summer. I'll put a link in the show notes to make it easy to find. So thank you again for being an amazing guest. I appreciate you so much.

It was such a privilege and I'm inspired by what you're doing, Michelle. I'm inspired by your heart. I knew from the minute I met you you had a beautiful heart that has been hurt but is even bigger because you've allowed God to use your heart for good.

Thank you, beautiful. Thank you so much. So, for those of you listening, Suzy's story is certainly a difficult one. She lived a hard life, devoid of the parental guidance and love that is so critical to the healthy development of a child, and, as a result, she endured horrific abuse that would leave lasting pain and scars, and then, later, she would lose her sweet brother, the one person who she loved and who made her feel loved when he took his own life. But the losses Suzy experienced ultimately strengthened her. She changed her career path and decided to become a teacher to help at risk kids. She finally mustered the strength to write her story, to demonstrate to others that they're stronger than they know, and she's thriving in her life today. You are stronger than you know, my friend. You may be struggling right now, but this path of pain can serve as a proving ground of resilience and courage that will encourage and uplift others one day. I pray that you would be encouraged today. You're listening right now because God intended for you to hear this message. Don't lose hope. Thanks for listening.