Dare to See – Discovering God in the Everyday with Katie Brown

This inspirational and uplifting podcast by TV Host and Author Katie Brown shares both her stories and other people’s stories about how they have seen God’s work in their everyday lives. Finding God in the Everyday with Katie Brown is a great source for connecting with God.

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This is a podcast where we discuss those moments where you feel like God might be whispering to you or you get some kind of answer to a prayer that feels so direct.

You feel like God and the Holy Spirit walk in right with you.

Today, I want to read to you a story from my book called Dare to See Finding God in the Everyday.

And this story is called A Basement. And I start with a Bible verse from Zeke Will 46 one Eastern Standard version. It goes like this. Thus, says the Lord, the gate of the inner chord that faces east shall be shot on the six working days.

But on the Sabbath day it shall be open. And on the day of the new moon it shall be opened.

It was a breezy, cold fall Saturday, and I had flown to Ann Arbor to surprise my mom and dad, who were attending a University of Michigan football game.

I arrived at the stadium and sat right down next to them.

It was fun to see their shocked and thrilled faces.

However, it was more than just a casual visit to see a game. And my parents. It was a visit to come to check on my mom. She had been diagnosed with cancer and had just had a radical hysterectomy at the University of Michigan Hospital, which was about five hours away from a small island in Michigan where they lived.

When I saw her that day, it took my breath away, not because I was filled with joy, but because I was filled with fear. She looked so thin, so frail.

My fragile mom was staying with my younger sister, who lived one town over from the University Hospital, which made hospital visits a heck of a lot easier. After the game, my dad returned to the island for work while my mom slept in my sister’s basement. The next morning after the game, I left my hotel room early to pick up my mom from my sisters to take her to church.

I remember it was dark and there was a brisk chill in the air. I found my mom still asleep. I gently woke her. It was all I could do not to scoop her up right there, right then and cradle her. She woke up, stood up and forced herself to get dressed. It was excruciating to watch. I felt so helpless, so frustrated.

So at a loss, everything felt wrong. My mighty mother seemed beat, seemed meek, seemed gone. She and my father had been engaged in a four to five year struggle, not concerning health. That challenge was new. Their years long debate was about how and where to live. Now that they were empty nesters, my father still needed to work. But I think he wanted and needed a change. So he left his law practice to run a boat line which took passengers and freight to an island in Michigan. His new job meant my mom had to relocate to the island. I mean, both of them did. We’re only bikes and horses and buggies were allowed. The island booms with life in the summer and is desolate in the winter. Dad liked his life there. My mom liked it, too, but she missed her busy year round life. They had many a heated discussions about when, how and where else they could live so that my dad could commute to work, but mom could be on the mainland and have more robust days. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, my mom, she loved the island for its beauty, its community, its history, but the dark and long winters could get her down at times. Dad, he dug in his heels. They were staying put all year round. He insisted. It was really odd to watch my parents having trouble helping themselves to witness them, having arguments, making life choices that were not propelling them forward. They were stuck. And now this. Now this illness. They needed relief, but clearly they were not moving towards seeking it. These were my parents. They were my king and queen.

Yet now these larger than life parents of mine, they seem small, lost, needy.

There in that dark basement, it hit me.

It was my turn, my place. My role to step in and do what ever they could not.

I didn’t limit it.

I didn’t converse with anyone. It was instinctual, primal, maybe even impulsive. Mom, I said, we’re going to go to a different kind of church today.

We’re going to go to a church called the first day of the rest of your life. God’s gonna be with us. And as we kind of search and plot. Mom, today I’m buying you a house. I’m getting you off of that island. I’m finding you a place to rest close to your doctors.

Oh, Katie, don’t be silly. You’re not buying me a house. Yes, I am. Yes, I am.

Today in Ann Arbor, which is the home of both yours and dad’s alma mater, the home of an award winner. Nene Giant Hospital.

Dad loves it there. You love it there. Katie von Weisburd.

Crazy. We’re living on the island. Fine, I replied. Continue to live on the island. But when you’re not when you’re down here in treatment, you’re going to stay in the house. And I’m going to buy for you today. Then she said, you cannot afford that, Katie.

I got a crack.

She’s thinking about it, I thought. See, Mom, I said that’s where you’re wrong. You see, I was about six months into filming of my hit TV show on Lifetime called Next Door with Katie Brown, and I was making enough money to make it happen.

Yes, ma’am. I said defiantly, I can afford it. I’m single. I know nothing about the stock market, but I do know something about houses. So I know it would be a great investment. No. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.

Katie, she said as she shook her head, I can’t let you do that. You don’t have a choice. I’m buying you a house to day.

Your father doesn’t want to live there. He wants to live on the island. Mom argued.

So let him. But you. You need to be by your doctors. You need to be in the thick of it. You need to be in an active church that you love. And I am. Arbor has all that. So, yeah, I am. I’m buying you a house. Oh, Katie. She sighed. There it was again. I felt a bit of an opening. So I quickly followed up with. Today we’re finding a house. If you want to live in it, great. If not, I will look at this as a great investment in a groovy college town.

Sure. I was sounded really confident, but I had no idea what I was saying. It was true I could afford it, or at least I thought I could. I mean, I was planning on buying a house in Los Angeles for me. Surely a house in Michigan had to be less than that. I decided I would just put off by my digs and get my mom. And I believed. Eventually my dad settled. But it was Sunday. Most of the area was asleep and taken the day off.

Plus, I didn’t know anyone in or anything about Ann Arbor.

Furthermore, I had to back in front of the camera to continue shooting my show on Monday morning. So I had to fly out that night. No. Later, Lynnae and Marli, my two sisters, had gone to the University of Michigan. They had spent several years in Ann Arbor. So they might know someone. Nope. Marli knew no one. Next up, linny. Luckily, it turned out that she and her husband, who were living in New York City, had looked into moving back to Ann Arbor a few times. So she did have the number of a realtor who had shown them around. Lynnae said I hadn’t talked to her in years. But you know what? I still have her number.

Ring. Ring. Hello. I got her.

Hi, I’m Lynn Brown, sister. Yeah, I remember her.

She replied, I gotta buy my mom a house today.

I stated today. She laughed. No, seriously, I said, today. Sundays are busy.

Was her response. I’ll buy you lunch, I replied. What type of house? She asked. A cheap one. A fixer upper. That’s what I do, after all. A traditional one with a central hall. My mom, she loves the central hall, I explained. I was daydreaming that it could look and feel like the house mom raised us in.

Cause she missed it so much.

She said, I’ll buy you a house today too, if you help me out. I choked while holding my breath in hopes she would say yes. Oh, and it needs to be very near the university hospital. Preferrably within walking distance. I held my breath longer. Well, saying a little prayer. She said it was clear she was thinking, okay, let me see what I can do. But it’s gonna be hard to set up appointments because most agents are holding open houses on Sunday or with clients who previously scheduled appointments. I began to pray harder. God, this feels right. I believe I am following the Holy Spirit, I think is with me in this cold basement, leading me towards some kind of transformation for both mom and me. My mom needs my help. Help me. Help her. Today is Sunday.

It’s your day. We will walk in what ever direction as far as you need us to. We will walk towards the light. Please show us the path. Within an hour, we were in the car riding to the first house. My mom shook her head and mumbled to herself the whole way about had this idea was the first two houses?

Not so much the next one. It was a little bit closer, but too expensive. Katie. This isn’t just me. It’s it’s just not possible.

Mom grumbled. I prayed and I said, Is this a no go God? The fourth house? Well, the fourth house was on a dead end street, and my mom liked that.

I was a bit turned around as I really didn’t know the town.

But it seemed to me this fourth house that it was four or five blocks from the hospital right when we pulled up. I thought it was so charming that I found it hard to believe I could afford it. I walked through the front door, much to my delight. It had a central hall, a living room to one side and a dining room to the other. The exact layout of the home I grew up in, but scaled down. It was old and full of creaks and cracks, but it had great bones and beautiful vintage windows. It was a little house with everything I had daydreamed about.

It was perfect. It turned out that no one had lived there for two years.

For two years, I thought, what are the chances that a house this close to campus would be sitting on the market for that long?

For two years. For two years, this house had waited patiently for us for two years. This house prepared for our arrival.

Sold, sold to us.

Thank you, God. My mom’s eyes opened wide and wild. Katie, she scolded, I have gone along with this long enough. But no, you know what? I paid no mind to her. Talk or tone? And within a week, the house, it was all Rs.

Now, my dad was not happy that I jumped right smack dab into the center of their marital spat, but like I said, that Sunday’s lesson at the church of the rest of the first day of the rest of your life was this. It was my turn.

My mom and dad needed me, God and I knew best.

I mean, what are the chances? Who finds a house in a town they do not know. On a Sunday that they can afford that had all the qualities they wanted. And is located right smack dab where they needed to be in the beginning.

Only my mom lived there. But in time, my dad spent more time there than he did at his house on the island. My mom, she got better. And my parents marriage. It thrived in the garden of that college town with sporting events and intellectual lectures to pursue my day off.

My mom’s day of gods day was our day.

Our day for a new beginning, a new roof for my mom and dad, and a new role for me from cared for daughter to care-giving daughter. Within a few years, my parents purchased the house. A few years later, my father retired from that island to live full time in the university town. In the house we found on the Sabbath with the Holy Spirit helping a real estate agent answer the phone being our tour guide and opening the doors a few years later.

My parents added a first floor master suite so they could grow old right there next to the university hospital in a house with a central hall and I in the central role of daughter who turned Usher.

Now, I want to leave you with something to reflect on, something you reflect on that might bring you closer to this story and hopefully closer to experiencing your own blessed moments, when how have you broken free from a difficult place? How has God helped you define your new role and direction?

How has the shift been a gift?

And now there’s kind of ways, I believe, when you’re daring to see God every day that you can practice it. So how about this? Cultivate people thinking and habits that propel you forward. Call out and hang on to God’s hand so that you can hear the direction, a direction that will lead you to the next page of the rest of your life, no matter how impossible it might seem.

Thanks for joining me on this edition of Dare to See. Finding God in the Everyday.