03 - The Hall

Narrator: 0:02

Welcome to Grace Among Us, the podcast where we unearth the many faces and places of grace and share stories of the power of grace in our human lives. Our desire is that this will inspire you to see grace in your own life and share it with others.

Carri Adcock: 0:18

Hi, my name is Carri Adcock, and I am a mentor with a passion for showing high achievers how to make space and enjoy the ride so they can make the impact that their heart desires with their life back.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 0:38

Thank you, Carri. My name is Ebony Gilbert and I like to talk about grace. And I don't get to do it during the day because I am doing a normal 9-to-5 in corporate America. And then I get to do things like this in my spare time where I get to interact with you all, and share stories based on my personal experiences of how grace has shown up in my life.

Carri Adcock: 1:03

Thank you, Ebony. So let's talk about grace.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 1:08

So, I think where we left off, last time, you were telling us how you first came to see grace as grace.

Carri Adcock: 1:20

Mm-hmm.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 1:21

And the conversation got very well spirited, and we went in a different direction. But there was something you said about having to wait six months before actually recognizing it as grace. And that six-month waiting period is what I want to talk a little bit more about today. And I'd like to share with you what that looks like to me and hear from you what it meant to you. But that's the hard part. Right?

Carri Adcock: 1:56

Right.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 1:57

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just flip a coin or throw something in the air, and when it lands it lands as grace and it says G-R-A-C-E and you know what it is? And there is no confusion. And there's no waiting period. That's not how it works. That's just not how it works often.

Carri Adcock: 2:15

That is correct. And that's why we're here to talk about it, right? To point to it. Yes. "Hello! I'm grace! Incoming, incoming! Get ready."

Ebony C. Gilbert: 2:27

Doesn't work that way.

Carri Adcock: 2:28

Uh-uh.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 2:29

It'd be great if everything in life worked that way, if the person you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with shows up with a sign on their forehead that says, "I'm yours," that would make life easier. If every job you ever applied for came with a banner that says, "Not you, but you," it wout make life easier. It just doesn't work that way.

Carri Adcock: 2:47

It doesn't. And how much fun would that be?

Ebony C. Gilbert: 2:55

Let's experiment for a week and see if we like it. It can be kind of fun. But who knows? Who knows?

Carri Adcock: 3:04

I think that's a whole other episode, Ebony. The great experiment.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 3:09

The great experiment, where life is easy and things are obvious. It doesn't work that way. And sometimes the things that feel so close can feel so out of reach. And that's scary. For me, it's very scary. It gives me total fear when I feel like the thing I need the most I can't put my hands on, and I don't have a way to get to it. And the things that you need, like grace, feel out of reach. What do you do? And how do you find it again?

Carri Adcock: 3:48

That's a good question. And what I'd love to start with is I heard you speak about "The Hall."

Ebony C. Gilbert: 3:59

Yeah.

Carri Adcock: 4:00

The wait, possibly like a taste of grace. And then all of a sudden, it's like,"Where'd that go? Wait a second. What happened?" And now there's this void or something where it's just not there anymore. So I would love to hear what that feels like, what that has looked like, or an experience that you've had with that space.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 4:37

Yeah, I can talk about that a little bit. The wait, the W-A-I-T, quickly begins to feel like a weight, W-E-I-G-H-T, and it gets heavier the longer the weight lasts. Last year--well, for two or three years--I had stomach cancer. And in 2020 I had a clean scan for the first time in two years. And we were celebrating, and it was great, and I never felt better. I still have the same symptoms; I still had the same problems, and they became increasingly worse. So I had to wait until it showed up, until someone could validate what I knew I was feeling. That's a whole other conversation. I knew I was feeling it. I knew it was real. But there was no validation. The validation finally occurred, which felt really good, really good.

Carri Adcock: 5:42

Yes.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 5:43

But there was no solution. And I just didn't believe that God validated this awareness, so this thing that I knew was happening to just leave me. There was no solution. And I felt like I was in a waiting period. And it felt very heavy, because it was my physical health. And I was declining rapidly. And I was being seen by every expert in every medical journal. And I was going from pillar to post looking for a solution, looking for help. And I wasn't getting it. And that waiting period, to paint a picture here, I have a timeline: In July 2020 ,clean bill of health on paper. Right?

Carri Adcock: 6:40

Right.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 6:41

January 2021, I'm really sicknd, and I know something's not right. March 2021, there's minimal

validation: 6:55

"That might be something that looks tricky here." July 2021, full validation. So it took a year from clean bill of health on paper to July of 2021 before there was validation that "Okay, we missed something." It took a full year.

Carri Adcock: 7:16

Wow.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 7:17

Then from July 2021 through September, which doesn't seem like a really long time, but that's a long time to go something is really, really wrong with you, and you have no answers. Because if you think about it, if your throat hurts for more than 24 hours, you're going to go to the doctor.

Carri Adcock: 7:33

Absolutely.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 7:34

So we're talking about two months of"It's validated, we know it's there, something's happening, it's urgent, we've got to do something." Two months later,"We have no idea what to do." So that was a long waiting period, and it felt heavy. It felt very, very heavy. And I needed some grace because I wasn't at my best, because the heavier it got, the heavier my mood again, the harder it was to operate with faith in grace and keep my hope and it felt out of reach. It felt very much out of reach. God felt really, really far away. I could still hear him. I knew he was there. But it just wasn't happening the way I thought it should happen. It wasn't happening the way...and I'll tell you something, when other people around you start to lose hope...

Carri Adcock: 8:30

Ooo, yeah.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 8:32

...it hurts a little bit more. Because there's always that one person in your corner who's like, "It's going to be okay." When that one person starts to worry, it gets really, really, really, really heavy. So let me speed it up here.

Carri Adcock: 8:50

Let me ask you one question before you speed it up. Can we put a pin in it for a second? It's sad in the hallway. So it's like you got validation, but there was no solution to Yeah. Sad?

Ebony C. Gilbert: 8:56

It's really, really, really sad. And it's begin with. Then you got more validation with no solution. In this heavy...I heard a heavy, but are there other emotions that go with the hall? lonely. And I spent a lot of time and doctors' offices in waiting rooms, literally in waiting rooms. And it's easy to get frustrated in a waiting room because you don't know what's happening behind the door. I have no idea who needs the great physician more than I do. I have no idea what emergencies are happening. I have no idea that they have to prepare the room a certain way for me to come into it. I don't know what preparation and what things are happening behind the scenes. So, in this figurative waiting room, I had no idea certain things had to be lined up in my life. I had no idea that other things had to move in a rack so that the people who needed to take care of me could be available to take care of me. There were so many other things coming into play. And in hindsight, now that the book is written, I can read those chapters. At the time, those chapters aren't written in a way that I can see.

Carri Adcock: 10:21

In a way that you can see. You're absolutely

Ebony C. Gilbert: 10:24

I don't know how the book ends, I don't know right. how the story ends, and I'm frustrated, and I'm sad, and I'm lonely, and I'm feeling crazy, and I'm losing my mind. And now I'm physically ill. And there's so many things happening each day, that I'm really having to rely on a daily dose of grace and mercy just to get me through the day.

Carri Adcock: 10:47

I hear ya, I hear ya. Thank you. We can remove the pin, and you are going to speed it up.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 10:54

Speed it up. October--well, September--I meet a surgeon, a very thoughtful surgeon, who agrees to take my case, and he proposes a solution. But it's so not what I wanted to hear.

Carri Adcock: 11:11

It's not the package, is it?

Ebony C. Gilbert: 11:13

It's not the solution, it's not the chapter I thought would be written. And the proposed solution is to remove my entire stomach, which is a very complex procedure with a lot of reconstruction and a pretty onorous recovery. So now I have to reconcile this solution that really wasn't on my plate. And we went through with it and my waiting period was over. I was able to come out of that waiting room and get what I needed. And then as that chapter was being written, everything else made much more sense. But that waiting room, that hallway, so many things that were close to me, so out of reach. But, you know, in the midst of all of that, I didn't lose my mind. And it's not because I'm strong. Because I'm not. I felt very weak; I felt very, very weak. There was grace, it was there. I didn't see it as grace.

Carri Adcock: 12:23

Mmm.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 12:25

I didn't see it as: "Man, I am covered and protected." I didn't see it that way. But there had to be because, logically, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense at all. And the surgery happened in October. And you know, here we are in April, and I'm alive and well. There was a series of additional waiting rooms and hallways since then, but I had a better perspective because I knew what that space looked like. And I had a little bit more practice in that space, but it felt out of reach. And it was scary. And even though it was there, and it was operating, and it was keeping me, and it was protecting me, all the other things that were not right, all the other things that were not going the way I wanted them to go, seemed so much bigger than the things that were protecting me in that moment.

Carri Adcock: 13:28

I hear that. It's like there's a big fat amplifier on all the worldly stuff. All the detail. And the doubt, and the "what if," and the "why," and the "this isn't cool."

Ebony C. Gilbert: 13:49

I went through a long period of time where I had to stay home, I had to just isolate and stay home because my immune system wasn't strong enough. And to me, it felt like punishment. The moment, in hindsight, it was protection.

Carri Adcock: 14:04

Yeah.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 14:07

It was protection. It was protection and preparation. So I think, full circle, when we talk about things being out of reach in the hallway, in the waiting room, I think the question for me, just based on the experience I

described, is: 14:21

"What am I being protected from right now?" And I don't have to know the answer to that. Or, "What is what does God preparing me for in this time and space? How is he getting me stronger for this next thing?" And I'm a competitive individual, so if it feels like practice, if it feels like training, if it feels like I'm being coached, that just makes me better for the game. And I could wrap my mind around that a little bit better than just wasting time waiting. So when it's out of reach, I immediately tell myself: "No, it's not. It's here. It's here for the taking. And it's operating. And it's up to me to see it and call it what it is." The long answer, Carri.

Carri Adcock: 15:19

Soomuch good stuff. As you were speaking, again, I love images. As you were speaking about, protection and preparation and you're in a hall, because there's some transformation that is coming for you. And sometimes we've got to take a knee during that time. We don't want to. I don't want to. I don't get it. Hey, come on, can't I just do everything and have this transformation that's coming? And the image that came to mind is like when you see a restaurant, and all of a sudden they put brown paper on the windows, and you can't see in anymore. And it says "Closed for remodeling."

Ebony C. Gilbert: 16:05

Precisely.

Carri Adcock: 16:06

Yeah. And it's like, I wonder what the outside world is like? I wonder--some people--I wonder what's going to happen? What's going on in there? Sometimes when you're behind the brown paper, it's not so cool.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 16:26

It's not so cool.

Carri Adcock: 16:28

However, yeah, go ahead.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 16:31

I can't see out of the brown paper, but people can't see in it, either.

Carri Adcock: 16:36

Yes.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 16:37

And that's where the loneliness sets in.

Carri Adcock: 16:39

Yes, it's that perceived isolation.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 16:44

And that's when you've got to look up. Because there's nowhere else to look.

Carri Adcock: 16:49

So, I would invite anyone who is listening to this, if you resonate, or you have found yourself in a hall before, what have you done? Or, what do you see? Or, if you want to share about the hall you've been in, we would love to hear.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 17:18

During that waiting period, I had a ritual every day, I would wake up, and I would say, "God's going to fix it. I don't know if it's going to be today or tomorrow, but he's going to fix it." And I had to say that until I believed it. And I started believing it. It didn't make sense, but I started believing it. And then it turned into: "Whatever the outcome, he's going to fix it and it'll be okay." Because it really was better than the alternative thought of: "It's over! The brown paper is never coming down!"

Carri Adcock: 18:01

Yeah, this is it.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 18:02

This is it. This is it. That just didn't roll off my lips very well.

Carri Adcock: 18:10

That's another beautiful P to punctuate the journey of the hall. It feels like punishment. It really is protection and preparation for what's coming. And in that place, it's to find a way to praise while you're waiting.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 18:40

Praise is the way we say, "Thank you." There's a song I listen to and they say that: "Praise is the way we say thank you." And you're thanking him for what he's going to do, what he's doing behind the scenes, what's happening outside of that hallway. Have you ever been through a tornado drill in school?

Carri Adcock: 18:58

Yes.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 18:58

Or a storm drill? And you get under a desk or you go in the hall, you literally go in the hallway, the protected space where you can't see anything? And you're protected and you're covered. And you have no idea that buildings are being blown over. Cars are flipping through the air, because you're in this protected space. And you have to thank him for that you have to thank him for that protection, whether cars are flipping over or there's reconstruction being done, whatever's happened. There's something happening bigger than me. And I have to trust that I'm being protected in this space.

Carri Adcock: 19:36

Absolutely. And I love that. There's something happening that's bigger than me. It reminds me...it's another pointer to grace, that grace is not on a specific timeline. Grace and time do not operate together. Time is totally irrelevant. It's that hall.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 20:02

I think that's those are the high points, those are the high points. There were lots of mini waiting rooms and hallways along the way. But was it ever out of reach? No, it wasn't. It wasn't, it just didn't look the way I wanted it to look.

Carri Adcock: 20:22

Absolutely.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 20:24

I still had to find a way to say thank you for that. Because I'm not where I want to be. But I'm a step closer to where I'm supposed to be and a step farther away from where I was. So, I'm still on the people-mover. I'm just not going as fast as I want to go. But there's something else happening that's making that thing that I need right for when it is available.

Carri Adcock: 20:55

Patience, there's another P word. Thank you for such a great description of the hall. What has helped me...I've been in quite a few halls. I really keyed off of that idea of isolation. It's like, okay, for whatever reason, grace is nowhere to be found, and what's wrong with me? And one of the most important things that has happened, the first hall that was a really long hall, that I was referencing last time in our last episode. And at the time, I didn't understand that it was a hall. I had no idea; I thought my life was over. Pretty much, and it kept getting worse. And like, wow, this is it.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 22:06

This is it.

Carri Adcock: 22:09

Exactly. And I probably exacerbated that hall for quite some time. From the perspective of I didn't ask for help or let people know I was in a hall.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 22:29

I am right there with you. Because you don't want people to know....

Carri Adcock: 22:36

Right.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 22:36

...that it's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. That it's not good.

Carri Adcock: 22:42

Absolutely.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 22:43

When someone says, "How are you?" your first inclination is to say, "I'm good." And I'm not. I'm not good.

Carri Adcock: 22:51

Yeah.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 22:51

So yeah, the isolation.

Carri Adcock: 22:54

Absolutely. And this hall that I was in for about six months, where things kept seemingly getting harder, and more isolating. And oh my gosh, I'm like, kind of at my wit's end. It was the motion of actually letting somebody know and asking for help that allowed me to get out of the hall. And for those, if anybody is relating to being in a hall and either being embarrassed to say something, or "It's not that bad," or "What will they think?" Please, just know it's okay to speak it. So, I'm finding that grace loves community, too. Grace loves celebration and acknowledgement. And the more I acknowledge grace, it seems, the more I see it. When it's out of reach, what do you do to find it again? Gosh, 16 years ago, I was at my wit's end, the hall, and I had a friend who said, "I choose joy. I may not feel it, but God provides it, so I choose it." And when she said that to me, it was like I was just in shock. How the hell--excuse me--do you do that? I think I said something to that effect. And then I said, "Can you say that again?" And I wrote it down, and I folded it up, and I put it in my pocket.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 25:18

I've got joy my pocket.

Carri Adcock: 25:21

Exactly. And every time I started to feel that the walls were closing in and it was dark, I would pull that out and I would speak it. "I choose joy. I may not feel it, but God provides it, so I choose it." Sometimes I have to acknowledge grace without seeing grace.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 25:51

That is true. because it doesn't show up with letters on its forehead sometimes.

Carri Adcock: Neon sign: 26:00

"I am grace! Here I come!" It reminds

me of a saying: 26:06

The sun does not have to announce itself.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 26:15

It doesn't. Just because we don't see it shining doesn't mean it's not up in the sky.

Carri Adcock: 26:20

Exactly. Exactly.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 26:23

It's there. One last thing: In that hallway, I kept expecting it to come to me. I needed, I needed, I needed, and I needed. What do I need? And the truth of the matter is, in hindsight, the chapter is written now. There were so many moments and times where it was flowing through me and somebody else needed it. And I just needed to be in the right place at the right time to do what I was supposed to do. And it wasn't about me receiving, it was about me getting my courage up or me getting my armor right so that I could understand and appreciate when it was coming to me. It was more of the preparation again, like I said, but even that was ordained. And it wasn't even about me. It wasn't about me, it wasn't for me at all times. It all worked together for the good of me, but it wasn't always about that. Now that I know how that chapter played out, I'm going to reference back to that book and that chapter the next time that hallway or a different hallway appears.

Carri Adcock: 27:34

Absolutely, absolutely. And to your point, it's that idea that some of the most painful parts of my life are my absolute greatest asset.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 27:52

That's why you've got to speak it, because somebody else needs to hear it.

Carri Adcock: 27:56

Absolutely. So, I think we have covered the hall for now, for today.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 28:06

What's the purpose of the hall? It's a connector; it connects one room to the next.

Carri Adcock: 28:14

Absolutely. Protection, preparation.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 28:21

Preparation.

Carri Adcock: 28:21

Transformation, renovation, remodel.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 28:29

Maybe it's even rest, you know? Maybe just a little bit of rest.

Carri Adcock: 28:33

Maybe.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 28:36

Final thoughts, Carri. What'cha got?

Carri Adcock: 28:37

Oh, you beat me to it! Final thoughts.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 28:39

I know; I was trying to beat you to it, because I knew you were coming to it. I was like, "Oh, I'm going to beat you to the punch."

Carri Adcock: 28:46

My final thoughts are I want to encourage anybody who is currently in a hall, speak it out. Speak it out. Ebony, you gave some really good tools, perspective on how to be in the hall gracefully, to remember it's most likely a time where we know very little and so, the more that you can ground into what you do know, the empowering things that you do know, that is enough. We cannot move it along any faster. However, in my experience, I can gum up the works by staying silent. So those are my final thoughts. How about you?

Ebony C. Gilbert: 30:05

I'm just going to put a period at the end of the sentence. You said it.

Carri Adcock: 30:09

I love it. It's been fun today. Thank you.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 30:15

Thank you.

Carri Adcock: 30:19

All right, grace out.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 30:22

Grace out. See you soon.

Carri Adcock: 30:24

Okay.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 30:25

Bye. Here we are! The after show!

Carri Adcock: 30:34

Because that's how it works. Grace is not linear either. So as we finish the podcast, or the recording this time I heard that there were some other ideas that had really sparked after. So, Ebony, would you like to share one?

Ebony C. Gilbert: 31:03

Yeah, I will. I will. In the middle of the waiting room, the hallway, I attended a retreat, a wellness retreat, for three or four days. A bunch of people I didn't know. Not very well, anyway. It was vegetarian; I'm not a vegetarian. It was on a mountain, literally on a mountain. It took me outside of my comfort zone. But I felt compelled to go. And I went and on--I don't know if it was the last day or the second-to-last day, towards the end of the retreat--I had formed a relationship with the attendees and one of the attendees asked me if they could pray for me. And I was overwhelmed with the grief of what was going on in my life. And I " come up with something in the moment that would sound good or cool, so I just had to tell the truth. I said, "Yeah, you could pray for me." She said, "What do you want us to pray for?" I said, "Well, I want to be healed."And after I said it, I felt silly. And I thought, "Oh, this is going to get weird." And I took it even further, because these thoughts are going on in my head. But I can't stop my mouth from saying these things. I want to be healed forever. I don't want a bandaid healing; I want a forever healing. And these ladies proceeded to lay hands on me and pray for me, which actually just saying out loud right now gives me chills because this was different. Even for me, this was different, and it felt strange and mystical. But I was at my wit's end. And I needed help. And I needed community; I needed support. And they prayed. And I soaked it, and I received it, and we all believed together, and God heard us. I think he was hearing me before, but he heard this a little louder. Because literally the next week, things started to go in motion. Things started to happen. And it reminded me, I was thinking about this, Carri, when you said you have to give it a voice, and you have to have community, it needs community. I needed help, I needed people to know that I was hurting and I needed some help. And I needed some extra prayers. And I needed some extra support. And when I took that leap, and I want to point out that it did not feel good, okay? Nothing about this felt comfortable or normal or natural.

Carri Adcock: 33:49

Mm-hmm.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 33:49

But I knew I had to do it. And after it happened, things started to fall into place. And I started to see grace a lot more. And I started to be more thankful. And I started to praise even more in that waiting room. It didn't feel so constricting. And on those days when I couldn't see, or I couldn't understand, or I couldn't lift myself up, or identify grace to pick me up out of the pit, I had this community to help and it made all of the difference. And then weird stuff started happening like hummingbirds would come fly in front of my face and just twirl around. And all kinds of stuff started taking place that if I described it, you'd think I was even weirder than what you probably think already. But I couldn't help but think of that when we were talking about the isolation, the loneliness, because for me that was a pivotal moment when I gave it a voice...

Carri Adcock: 34:46

Absolutely.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 34:48

...when I told people I'm hurting. Even when I told my doctor, because I didn't even feel strong enough to tell my doctor how bad it was. They give you that whole "What's your pain on a scale of 1 to 10?" In my mind, it had always had to be beneath 5, even if I was sitting at an 8 or 9.

Carri Adcock: 35:05

Yeah.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 35:06

After I established this community, who gave me permission to feel, I felt empowered to have that same voice in other audiences. And once my physician knew how serious it was and what I was really feeling--because I was downplaying it, I was minimizing it--it increased his urgency. Right. Carri's holding up a sign that says, "Not as bad as..." because you're always comparing your current situation to your worst situation, or the worst situation you're aware of. So I

was thinking: 35:42

"Well, scale of 1 to 10, I went to work today, so it can't be above a 5. It's not as bad as it would be if I didn't go to work." So I would do these mental arithmetic...

Carri Adcock: 35:57

Calisthenics?

Ebony C. Gilbert: 35:58

...calisthenics to give an answer that lined up with the way I thought it looked, instead of just being honest...

Carri Adcock: 36:05

Yeah.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 36:05

...and being real and being authentic. And once I embraced that genuine authenticity, and spoke, and allowed myself to be vulnerable, once that happened, stuff started happening, and things looked different. But I had to get to that point.

Carri Adcock: 36:26

Beautiful, beautiful. I know it wasn't beautiful at the time, but just so beautiful to hear. And just a little bit of context, just because I know you a little bit, this was not your first go-around with cancer.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 36:41

No.

Carri Adcock: 36:42

How many blocks have you been around?

Ebony C. Gilbert: 36:47

Multiple.

Carri Adcock: 36:48

Okay. So the power--and this also was happening in July of 2021--so this was at the point that you spoke about where there began to be validation, right?

Ebony C. Gilbert: 37:02

Mm-hmm.

Carri Adcock: 37:02

And then it started moving. And then in October there was some swiftness to the process. Again, the image

is: 37:14

If you're a restaurant and you'vegot the brown paper on the windows, you don't want to have an open house and show people what you're in the middle of until it's all done. And when we're in a hall, we've got to invite people in.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 37:33

You've got to invite people in, but invite the people who don't mind putting on the hard hat with you.

Carri Adcock: 37:38

Yes! Absolutely. Absolutely. You don't have to invite everybody in.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 37:44

No. Be discerning. Use discretion. But when people don't mind putting on that hard hat and coming into your construction zone?

Carri Adcock: 37:53

If they understand they're coming into a hall, then invite them in.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 37:59

Invite them in. Invite them in. And then the surgery date became the grand opening. Oh my goodness, we're tearing the paper down. And I have never been so excited to go into a surgery before my life. I mean, I was the most happy, excited person in the hospital at 4am that you've ever seen, because, to me, that was the unveiling.

Carri Adcock: 38:19

Absolutely.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 38:20

This is what I've been waiting on. And it was, by far, the most dangerous thing I've ever walked through in my life. It was the hardest. But I was excited because I had been waiting, this unsolicited wait. And it prepared me for this moment in a way that I would not have been prepared for if it had happened the way I wanted it to happen.

Carri Adcock: 38:43

Absolutely, absolutely. And that request for forever healing, to be so bold as forever healing, that "Hey, I've been around this block, and I'm all done with the block."

Ebony C. Gilbert: 38:57

Yeah, I don't want to do it again in two years.

Carri Adcock: 39:04

Mm-mm. Mm-mm.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 39:04

So much grace.

Carri Adcock: 39:05

Yeah, absolutely. I am so thankful for the after show.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 39:11

The afterthoughts.

Carri Adcock: 39:12

Yes, thank you.

Ebony C. Gilbert: 39:14

Thank you.

Carri Adcock: 39:15

All right. I think we're all after-showed. You good?

Ebony C. Gilbert: 39:22

I'm good.

Carri Adcock: 39:23

Okay.

Narrator: 39:27

Thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know. We'd love to hear from you, and share it with a friend. Also, please be sure to subscribe so you're notified when a new episode is posted. We hope you're leaving with another pointer to grace, a new perspective that will light it up in your own life. Until next time, be well, be bold, be kind to yourself, and be on the lookout.