The John-Henry Westen Show - A Heart-breaking Witness For Life - NO WAY To Assisted Suicide ｜ ALS Patient Kirsten MacDonald

00:00:00.000 I climb up on a wheelchair, kiss your cheek and brush your hair.

00:00:09.880 Mommy, it's even hard for you to breathe this air.

00:00:23.720 Hey, my friends.

00:00:25.700 You know, I often get to share stories.

00:00:28.660 It's really my privilege to share stories of amazing, heroic people.

00:00:34.480 But you know, I think that this story that you're about to hear is probably going to be

00:00:41.520 one of the most moving stories you've ever heard.

00:00:44.980 And it's a real privilege for me because it deals with friends that I've known for many,

00:00:51.360 many years, friends that have inspired me in so many different ways.

00:00:56.660 And when you hear this story, I want you to share it with all the people, you know, because

00:01:02.240 it's going to be a story of amazing hope.

00:01:06.340 Yes, amazing hardship too.

00:01:09.020 But incredible, incredible faith.

00:01:12.580 Hey, friends.

00:01:13.340 This July, we at LifeSite are celebrating 25 years of service to Life, Faith, Family and

00:01:17.940 Freedom with a gala in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

00:01:21.180 So especially for those of you who couldn't join us in the United States, LifeSite is gathering

00:01:26.500 our whole team and a few very special guests in the pro-life and pro-family movement for

00:01:31.800 a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at our newly announced 25th anniversary Canadian gala.

00:01:38.080 LifeSite's star video reporter, Jim Hale, will be there with an onstage special with the 16-year-old

00:01:45.080 Canadian pro-family hero, Josh Alexander.

00:01:47.600 Experience LifeSite's Faith and Reason show live with Father James Altman and Liz Yor.

00:01:54.020 And you'll be able to interact with our reporters from all over the world, including U.S. Bureau

00:01:59.840 Chief Doug Mainwaring, Canadian reporter Anthony Murdoch, and Rome correspondent Michael Haynes.

00:02:05.840 You'll also hear keynotes from LifeSite co-founder Steve Jelcevac and myself.

00:02:10.520 So RSVP for the 25th anniversary Canadian gala now.

00:02:14.660 And don't miss the opportunity to get a live, in-person, studio experience of LifeSite's

00:02:20.560 top news show that broadcasts every Friday at 8 p.m., Faith and Reason.

00:02:26.340 Seating is very limited.

00:02:28.220 So RSVP and get your tickets today for LifeSite's 25th anniversary Canadian gala in the beautiful

00:02:34.840 Hilton Toronto Markham Hotel this July 18th.

00:02:38.660 To buy tickets for the 25th anniversary Canadian gala, visit gala25can.lifesitenews.com.

00:02:47.740 I look forward to seeing you there.

00:02:49.760 God bless you.

00:02:52.920 David MacDonald and Kristen MacDonald, welcome, welcome to the program.

00:02:57.680 Thank you.

00:02:58.080 Let's begin as we always do, with the sign of the cross.

00:03:00.280 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.

00:03:07.900 So David, I actually want to start with your story, because we go back so many years.

00:03:14.440 If you wouldn't mind telling us your story from the beginning, because that started us

00:03:21.520 in a friendship from the very first time I heard about you.

00:03:25.480 I love who you were, and how you came to the faith, and how strong you were in it as

00:03:33.020 a guy who was alone in terms of relationship, but living all for the Lord.

00:03:37.740 But get us there first.

00:03:39.560 Well, sure.

00:03:40.320 So I grew up in a family that, you know, science was our God, and my parents, it wasn't

00:03:47.920 a very peaceful home.

00:03:49.000 My parents would sometimes play Frisbee with plates and, you know, that kind of thing.

00:03:53.120 And it was also, you know, we heard a lot of religious words in our family, but they

00:03:58.520 weren't used in the right context, if you know what I mean.

00:04:01.500 So, you know, my father was a radical atheist.

00:04:06.780 He really was against anything that, you know, he thought it was very anti-scientific.

00:04:12.420 So that was kind of the context of growing up.

00:04:15.440 I just grew up in a rough neighborhood.

00:04:17.160 There were car bombings and, you know, that kind of thing.

00:04:19.680 And I had a tremendous desire to get attention.

00:04:24.940 And the first way I got attention was learning how to get beat up.

00:04:28.060 And so I got beat up in school a lot as I was growing up, and there'd be big circles

00:04:33.860 of people around me.

00:04:34.600 Wow, they must like me, right?

00:04:38.100 But, you know, it was very traumatic, too, at the same time.

00:04:41.780 You know, it's funny to look back on, but it's very tragic also.

00:04:44.480 But I found a much better way to get attention was I had a talent in music, and so I picked

00:04:50.200 up the guitar at eight years old, and I excelled very quickly on it.

00:04:53.460 And in my teenage years, I went out and started playing on the streets for money, you know,

00:04:57.840 with my guitar case open on Spark Street Mall in Ottawa, and, you know, that kind of thing.

00:05:03.960 And then I got picked up and got a record deal at 18 years old, and I got a bit of airplay.

00:05:09.640 And then I went down to Club Med Bahamas.

00:05:13.140 I was sent down there after playing in Montreal for a bunch of concerts in Montreal.

00:05:18.340 I got picked up by an agent and sent down to Club Med, and I played there for six months.

00:05:23.100 And then I got picked up by CBS Records and a couple of other people were down there,

00:05:28.320 and they liked what I was doing, and they said, why don't you come to New York?

00:05:30.840 And so I went to New York City, and I auditioned for a Broadway show.

00:05:35.180 Well, first I did produce some rap music in Harlem, which was an interesting journey.

00:05:39.900 I could, you know, they called me the Mighty Whitey.

00:05:42.900 And, you know, so I did the string arrangements and, you know, that kind of thing.

00:05:48.340 And got a show on NBC TV where we did a preppy rap.

00:05:53.440 So I was producing rap records, and then we went to preppy rap for a white kind of rap,

00:05:56.680 and that did pretty well on CBS Records.

00:05:59.860 And then I got cast in a Broadway show, and everybody said, you're an actor.

00:06:03.560 I said, oh, yeah, sure, I'm an actor now.

00:06:06.200 So I was in a show.

00:06:09.520 I played Mick Jagger in a show called Rock and Roll the First 5,000 Years,

00:06:12.780 and then I went on to the show Cats, the U.S. National Tour of Cats.

00:06:16.180 I did a show called American Passion with Robert Downey Jr.,

00:06:20.680 and, you know, so that kind of generation of actors.

00:06:24.580 And things were really going well for me.

00:06:28.140 I thought, you know, man, I've arrived, right?

00:06:30.740 And, but I soon realized that there's a lot of ways you can get shipwrecked in life.

00:06:37.280 And, you know, I didn't know the Lord at all back then,

00:06:40.360 and I was very, very promiscuous, and I was involved in three abortions.

00:06:47.960 And so I basically sacrificed my children on the altar of my ambition.

00:06:54.580 So I, you know, and the interesting thing is, is the universe and Jesus and God,

00:07:04.480 the rules that govern this world we live in,

00:07:07.920 we're all subject to whether we believe them or not.

00:07:11.120 And that was something I didn't realize.

00:07:13.120 So the laws against, you know, the moral, you know, case against abortion that God makes

00:07:22.000 is still subject to those who are involved in abortion, whether or not they believe it or not.

00:07:27.480 And that's what happened to me.

00:07:28.480 So my life started to collapse.

00:07:30.360 I started getting into addiction.

00:07:32.240 I started using more and more cocaine, alcoholism, bulimia.

00:07:36.960 I was vomiting up to six times a day.

00:07:38.420 And so I got really sick.

00:07:41.640 I was doing a show on Broadway called Baby, which was very ironic

00:07:44.820 because it was about three couples who were having children.

00:07:46.800 I was just involved in abortion.

00:07:49.120 And I think the dichotomy of me playing somebody who was expecting a baby,

00:07:54.400 you know, on Broadway and just having gone through abortion was, you know,

00:08:00.560 the cognitive dissonance that I would get was just, you know, incredible.

00:08:05.560 So addiction started coming down.

00:08:08.940 I lost that show.

00:08:11.040 I injured my voice on the U.S. National Tour of Cats in Philadelphia.

00:08:17.240 And that was the end of my career.

00:08:19.540 I blew my voice out as a result of, you know, bad living and getting sick and pushing too hard

00:08:25.480 and living, chasing after the North American dream of, you know, let me get famous

00:08:33.180 and, you know, then I'm going to work out all my other problems, my emotional problems.

00:08:38.100 So came back to Ottawa with my tail between my legs.

00:08:41.360 I went on a search, a journey, and I ended up in that search looking at the New Age

00:08:47.820 because people in Hollywood and in New York are very attracted to the New Age.

00:08:52.000 And there's a really good reason for that because the New Age doesn't make any moral demands on us.

00:08:56.800 So, oh, wow, I can get spiritual and I don't have to do anything.

00:09:00.640 Well, you know, what's not to like about that, right?

00:09:03.300 And so that's kind of how I did it.

00:09:06.440 Now, the reason I sound like this is because of the injury on my voice.

00:09:08.920 And so I went from there to this search and I was just about to give my life over to a guru

00:09:16.600 named Swami Satchitananda.

00:09:18.660 And I was really serious because I wanted this search.

00:09:21.180 I was seeking for truth, you know, and I got lost in Montreal

00:09:24.500 when I was going up to meet this guru.

00:09:27.840 And I got off the bus and I saw this big, huge church.

00:09:35.800 I didn't know the name of it at that time, but it was St. Joseph's Oratory.

00:09:39.640 And I went in and I walked around what I now understand to be the tomb of Brother Andre.

00:09:44.180 And I had an experience there which was very profound.

00:09:48.360 And I went up to the third floor and there was nobody in the church at all.

00:09:51.680 And I just lay in front of the cross the way I did prostrate in front of the guru,

00:09:57.500 you know, when I was doing the following yoga.

00:10:01.400 And I just lay in front and I heard myself say this little prayer.

00:10:05.160 And I didn't know Christians.

00:10:06.600 I didn't know anything about Christianity.

00:10:08.520 But I just said, you know, Jesus, I don't know you.

00:10:14.660 I don't know your people.

00:10:16.180 I don't even know if I like your people.

00:10:17.460 But I believe you know me.

00:10:23.580 And then I just put my head down on the ground and face forward.

00:10:29.460 And I gave my life to Jesus at that moment.

00:10:33.900 And I felt this incredible power come over to me at that point

00:10:37.400 where I just felt like I was rejuvenated.

00:10:41.840 And so that took me on a brand new journey.

00:10:45.800 And I lost all interest in the new age and everything else.

00:10:49.260 I got out of all of the bad living that I'd done,

00:10:52.400 involved in many different journeys,

00:10:54.980 even in the LGBT community for a period of time.

00:10:58.140 You know, I just felt the Lord calling me away from all of that.

00:11:01.100 And it's just like, no, I'm calling you away to a new destiny.

00:11:05.700 And so I went from there to, you know, finding out where I would belong.

00:11:12.480 And I had an experience with Our Lady that brought me to the Catholic Church

00:11:17.000 because I went to the other churches, which I thought were really great

00:11:20.040 and they had a lot of life.

00:11:20.860 But there was something about this mother, you know.

00:11:24.480 And I just, so it drew me into the church.

00:11:28.000 And I began my journey in the Catholic Church.

00:11:30.440 And I went back to university and I got a degree.

00:11:33.420 And I went, I did music a little bit on the side.

00:11:36.440 And then on a Christian, my voice came back for 10 years.

00:11:40.180 And so I did 10 years of Christian music.

00:11:42.100 And that's when you met me, John Henry Weston.

00:11:44.040 And so I was touring around.

00:11:45.520 And I think we met in India.

00:11:48.940 We were playing at the Divine Retreat Center.

00:11:51.260 And there's about 3,000 kids there.

00:11:53.740 And I was doing a show and you were doing talks.

00:11:56.960 And so I toured around as a Christian musician, got some airplay.

00:12:01.340 And I was going to live a celibate life, living the teachings of the church.

00:12:05.920 And I really think it's important for everybody to understand,

00:12:08.200 teachings of the church is no sex with self, you know.

00:12:11.660 Like it's so, so important for single people to maintain that purity with self 0.94

00:12:16.040 because masturbation just dulls and clouds your spirituality,

00:12:22.820 clouds our relationship with Jesus. 0.96

00:12:25.020 Father Bob Bedard, who was a great priest, used to say, you know,

00:12:28.320 it just clouds our relationship with the Holy Spirit.

00:12:32.240 And so, you know, I was living a pure life for a number of years,

00:12:35.860 living the teachings of the church and staying away from porn

00:12:39.380 and staying away from all these different things.

00:12:41.940 And then I injured my voice.

00:12:45.380 And right around that time, I'd met Kirsten.

00:12:48.560 Yeah, let me, you know, what I found fascinating was I remember meeting you

00:12:52.640 and I remember you having stories about being able to witness.

00:12:57.560 One of the most fascinating things was you were able to witness in LGBT communities

00:13:03.200 or regular communities that you've been celibate for so long

00:13:06.380 and that would make people's jaw drop.

00:13:08.400 If you can tell us a little bit about that.

00:13:10.140 Well, I would just assume you're lying. 0.97

00:13:11.660 Like if you say, I don't masturbate, they're like, you're lying. 0.84

00:13:14.720 There's no way. 0.95

00:13:15.320 Everybody masturbates, right? 0.99

00:13:16.780 And it's like, it's like, no, you've met somebody who doesn't masturbate 0.99

00:13:20.140 and you don't die from sex. 0.92

00:13:21.860 It's not like air.

00:13:22.800 It's not like, it's not like air.

00:13:24.840 It's not like food.

00:13:25.860 You're not going to die if you don't get sex, you know? 0.89

00:13:28.880 And so I think in our, in our over-sexualized society, we have to understand that, you know?

00:13:34.080 And so we can live the purity of the church and still have a full life.

00:13:39.500 And it's true. 0.56

00:13:40.260 Many, many times people were just jaw dropping.

00:13:43.320 You mean you don't use porn?

00:13:45.440 It's like, no, you know?

00:13:47.200 But I had to do a lot of, you know, accountability and working with other people

00:13:51.200 and getting in groups of people and, you know, working together with others

00:13:54.960 to avoid porn and all that kind of stuff.

00:13:57.520 It's not just, it's not like you just, you know, wake up one morning and go,

00:14:00.620 oh, I'm, you know, this is great.

00:14:01.920 I can be free of this.

00:14:03.160 No, it's an effort to live the teachings of the church

00:14:06.960 and to relate to other people who are trying to live the teachings of the church

00:14:09.440 and hold each other accountable.

00:14:10.380 So, so that was, so that was a journey there.

00:14:14.820 And, and when you stop doing all that stuff, it's amazing.

00:14:19.320 The miracles that happened in your life.

00:14:21.840 Because I remember you were then at this point,

00:14:24.440 you were also singing for the March for Life very often.

00:14:28.380 Yeah.

00:14:29.880 Ten years in a row.

00:14:31.100 Yeah.

00:14:31.700 Ten years in a row.

00:14:32.480 I always wrote the theme song for the March for Life.

00:14:34.360 And so we started out with 700 people the first year

00:14:37.520 and it went up and up and up and up and up by 2010.

00:14:41.040 We were up to about 20,000.

00:14:42.960 And, and then we did the March for Marriage, which had 25,000.

00:14:46.580 And I wrote a theme song for that called One Man, One Woman.

00:14:49.840 And, and so, yeah, it was a, it was a great experience.

00:14:53.820 And to see the witness of the Canadian people really on fire for the truth,

00:14:59.500 which is a great thing to see.

00:15:00.400 And it was amazing because at that point, I thought, what an amazing fellow.

00:15:08.540 He's given his life to Christ.

00:15:10.340 He had this past that, yep, I came from a similar kind of a past.

00:15:14.540 But, and I was at this point married with lots of little children.

00:15:19.140 And I thought, wow, look at David.

00:15:21.900 He's living the life, the same life, giving over to Christ everything.

00:15:26.400 But he's sort of alone at home.

00:15:29.520 And I remember you saying about how you're totally celibate, which is great,

00:15:35.220 but you've also got no one in a way.

00:15:38.640 And I'm like, wow, is that ever tough?

00:15:41.020 But I remember you, you're steadfast.

00:15:43.360 Like any priest would say, yep, I'm just given to a life of celibacy.

00:15:46.740 And you thought, at least when I was talking to you,

00:15:49.620 you thought that was going to be your life.

00:15:51.660 Yep, I thought I was going to be playing music and doing my testimony

00:15:56.360 until I couldn't do it anymore.

00:15:58.320 And I had no plans of getting married because I'd had a word from Our Lady

00:16:02.460 early on that was, well, you don't want that, you want me.

00:16:08.160 And so I thought that I was called to a life of celibacy.

00:16:12.140 Now, the interesting thing is Our Lady would have to do something bigger than that 1.00

00:16:16.100 in order to get my attention.

00:16:17.620 And she did.

00:16:18.960 What happened?

00:16:19.500 I remember meeting you, Kristen.

00:16:25.120 And in all honesty, I thought, wow, that's like such a beautiful lady. 0.52

00:16:31.960 And I was so happy for you.

00:16:34.280 I said to our Lord, I was like, thank you.

00:16:38.640 Because if anybody deserved a good, holy, and beautiful woman like that, it's David.

00:16:44.560 I was so, so happy for you.

00:16:48.220 I was too.

00:16:49.500 So tell us what happened.

00:16:52.120 So I was just coming back from a concert.

00:16:56.620 I think it was in India.

00:16:58.760 And I was stopping.

00:16:59.580 I stopped in the Holy Land.

00:17:01.460 And I did a tour of the Holy Land.

00:17:03.120 And I went to the Church of the Annunciation.

00:17:06.120 So this is where tradition, the Catholic tradition, says that Mary said yes to the Archangel Gabriel

00:17:11.040 to give birth to Jesus.

00:17:13.660 And so I was there, and miraculously, it was empty, except there was a choir rehearsing on the second floor.

00:17:22.300 And so there's this beautiful music in the background as it was sitting in this place where the Archangel Gabriel,

00:17:28.160 where tradition says Archangel Gabriel came to Our Lady, and she said yes to birth, you know,

00:17:33.240 to give the conception, the immaculate conception of Jesus, right?

00:17:36.380 And so there I was, and I was sitting cross-legged on the floor and just praying.

00:17:42.580 And then all of a sudden I heard, and I had known about Kirsten, and I was trying to avoid her because I was really attracted to her.

00:17:47.860 And I was trying to, you know, I'm like, I'm celibate.

00:17:49.960 I'm, this is not my path.

00:17:51.580 I have to just, you know, not pay attention to her.

00:17:54.620 And, you know, but I wanted to pay attention to her.

00:17:56.900 It was one of those things, you know.

00:17:58.640 And then I heard this voice in my head.

00:18:01.280 It was Our Lady.

00:18:02.260 And it was the same voice as I heard 25 years early, is you don't want that, you want me.

00:18:07.080 And I heard, David, I want you to marry Kirsten.

00:18:12.900 And then I heard it again.

00:18:14.180 I heard, I want you to marry Kirsten.

00:18:17.580 And then I heard it the third time.

00:18:19.660 I want you to marry Kirsten.

00:18:22.880 And then at that last time on Kirsten, the choir started, stopped, and the bells started ringing.

00:18:29.720 And I'm like, what is going on here, right?

00:18:34.360 And I was looking around like, you know.

00:18:37.760 And all of a sudden the love I had for Kirsten just burst into my, you know, from my stomach right up into my whole body.

00:18:45.560 And I just felt, wow, I have permission to go forward with Kirsten here.

00:18:51.680 And so that was, you know, Our Lady, you know, giving us the go-ahead, you know.

00:18:58.080 This was of me.

00:18:59.380 And so all this time, Kirsten was on an interesting journey because she was a missionary, an evangelical missionary, who had a dream about the Eucharist.

00:19:13.520 And she had been taking communion each day using like a cracker because she believed John 6, you know.

00:19:21.720 And in her evangelical church, they were talking about that.

00:19:25.660 And then she had this dream where her version of communion was held up against the Eucharist.

00:19:30.700 And she was looking at the two of them.

00:19:33.040 And she heard there's depths and treasures in this thing called the Eucharist that you're not getting in what you're doing now.

00:19:41.100 And she woke up.

00:19:42.320 She's like, I think that's Catholic.

00:19:44.140 Oh, God, defend me from deception, right?

00:19:49.180 Right?

00:19:49.760 And anyway, it began a long journey for her, a difficult journey because she didn't know a lot about the Catholic Church.

00:19:56.620 And she, so her road, as I was moving towards marriage, she was coming into the Catholic Church.

00:20:03.240 And I was put in contact with her because I have a Catholic website called Catholic Bridge that, you know, helps people understand the Catholic faith and things like that.

00:20:14.640 And so she was sent to me by somebody who said, well, she has a lot of questions.

00:20:19.440 David might be able to answer those questions, right?

00:20:22.040 And so that's how the whole thing, how we got to know each other.

00:20:24.680 And so we started that journey.

00:20:27.900 And Kirsten at the time, of course, she was running about 5K and she was, you know, super athletic and all of that.

00:20:36.180 And so we went on this journey.

00:20:39.340 And I was 48 and she was 43.

00:20:42.400 So for you guys who are not married, there is hope.

00:20:46.240 Okay?

00:20:46.960 There is hope.

00:20:48.040 Don't give up.

00:20:48.980 You know, so I was 48 years old and Kirsten was 43 and we'd gone through a number of, we got married and it was a beautiful marriage.

00:20:59.320 And we could feel the anointing on it and both of us just really sensed we were going in the right direction.

00:21:07.460 And then, you know, we weren't thinking that we were going to be able to have children because Kirsten was older.

00:21:13.920 And we had a couple of miscarriages, three miscarriages.

00:21:16.780 And, you know, that's very traumatic.

00:21:17.860 She got married when she was 43.

00:21:20.320 Yeah.

00:21:20.660 And then you had a miscarriage, three miscarriages.

00:21:22.440 Three miscarriages in about two years.

00:21:25.160 Okay.

00:21:25.940 And, you know, very difficult.

00:21:27.520 But I have to tell you, a miscarriage is way different feeling than an abortion.

00:21:34.800 There is, like, people who make that comparison between miscarriage and abortion, there is just absolutely zero comparison.

00:21:42.200 Like, there's a sense of sadness but a sense of gratitude when you're involved, when you have a miscarriage.

00:21:51.260 But with an abortion, there's regret.

00:21:54.760 Deep, deep regret.

00:21:56.160 And, of course, the spiraling until we accept responsibility for it, addiction.

00:22:01.720 You know, I think the incredible proliferation of pornography among men these days is hugely dependent on the proliferation of abortion that men are involved with. 0.94

00:22:11.960 And when men start owning up and taking responsibility for the deaths of their own children, we're going to see healing from pornography.

00:22:22.360 And, anyway, so it's a very different feeling, the feeling of the miscarriages and the feeling of abortion.

00:22:34.480 So we did have the sadness around miscarriage.

00:22:37.120 And then we had two years of absolutely nothing.

00:22:38.640 And we thought, well, I guess that's it.

00:22:40.920 And then we were on a trip to Poland.

00:22:44.740 I was speaking for work.

00:22:45.660 I was doing work for people with disabilities and working in technology for people with disabilities.

00:22:52.800 And I went to Sweden to speak.

00:22:55.500 And I stopped.

00:22:56.480 We stopped in Poland.

00:22:58.220 And we went to Our Lady of Czestochowa.

00:23:01.060 Now, Kirsten went in there. 0.97

00:23:03.100 And we went to a mass there.

00:23:04.640 And Kirsten had an experience with Our Lady.

00:23:07.960 And Kirsten had a lot of baggage around Mary. 1.00

00:23:10.620 You know, and she would be glad to tell you this, I'm sure.

00:23:13.560 So she had a tremendous amount of baggage around Mary.

00:23:17.740 And she was nervous about Mary.

00:23:19.500 But after this mass, she felt this incredible experience of her, like, grabbing Mary by the shoulders and kind of shaking Mary and saying, help me, help me.

00:23:30.360 And she didn't know what she was saying help me for.

00:23:32.660 And then she started bawling her eyes out. 0.96

00:23:36.260 And she felt this kind of warmth come over, I believe, and this kind of sense of Mary's presence.

00:23:43.520 And then she came to me and she says, I've just, something's happened with me and I don't know what.

00:23:47.460 We got back from Poland.

00:23:51.240 We found out we were pregnant.

00:23:52.160 And, you know, we were always very shy about it.

00:23:55.920 How old is Kirsten at this time?

00:23:57.680 She was 48 years old.

00:23:59.480 So the doctor, the OBG, said, well, congratulations, you just won the lottery.

00:24:07.900 Because if you line up a thousand women and, you know, you might get one who's going to have their first baby at 48. 1.00

00:24:16.240 Wow.

00:24:16.760 You know, so it was a, for me, it was a bona fide miracle of Our Lady intervening in Kirsten's life.

00:24:25.580 And so it was a bona fide miracle.

00:24:28.600 And, and, but two days after that, we got a biopsy back and she had breast cancer. 1.00

00:24:41.240 So.

00:24:42.000 So she's 48 years old.

00:24:43.700 And you've just been told you won the lottery by the doctor.

00:24:47.760 Yeah.

00:24:48.200 And two days after that.

00:24:49.700 Two days after we get a biopsy back that she has breast cancer. 1.00

00:24:54.420 Why was there a biopsy in the first place?

00:24:56.160 Because she'd had a, she'd had a, a lump underneath her, underneath her armpit.

00:25:01.640 About a year earlier, we went to the doctor and said, don't worry about it.

00:25:04.420 It's nothing.

00:25:05.000 Don't come back, you know, unless it grows.

00:25:07.040 And it wasn't growing.

00:25:08.560 So it was just kind of there.

00:25:09.980 But just before we left for, for Poland, I said, I think you should go and get that biopsy.

00:25:17.100 So we did.

00:25:17.980 And that's, the biopsy was just before we went to Poland.

00:25:20.520 And so we got this thing back as we returned.

00:25:22.780 And so we're faced suddenly with this dilemma.

00:25:27.340 And I can tell you, having witnessed this up close, that I am married to a saint.

00:25:36.160 That she, she basically said to the doctors, I don't want any chemotherapy.

00:25:44.040 The chemotherapy is going to wreck the baby.

00:25:46.060 And they did have types of chemotherapy where they said, well, there's less intervention.

00:25:52.260 It's a lower dose and different things like that.

00:25:54.380 But all of the studies that we saw were very short term and they were very mixed results.

00:25:59.980 And so we were not, you know, I was like, Kirsten, this is going to be your, your call.

00:26:05.680 Because there's nothing immoral about taking medical treatment, you know, when you have cancer.

00:26:10.400 She said, absolutely not.

00:26:13.500 She said, no, I'm not going to do that.

00:26:15.080 So what they did was they took the, the cancer out underneath her, her arm.

00:26:20.280 It was the breast, right in this part of her breast. 0.67

00:26:22.240 And they took it out in this first trimester in the doctor's office because they couldn't get in an operating room quick enough.

00:26:29.580 And she did it under local anesthesia, not general anesthesia.

00:26:32.840 And they'd never done that before.

00:26:35.260 So it was a first for the doctor, for the surgeon.

00:26:37.380 And they were really, the surgeon, I have to say, they really played well with us.

00:26:42.180 And they were really helpful.

00:26:44.880 And so they took it out successfully.

00:26:48.960 But they wanted her to take chemo afterwards because they said the treatment wasn't complete.

00:26:53.320 But she didn't want to do any of the drugs or any of the chemo or any of the radiation afterwards

00:26:57.060 because she felt it was going to interfere with the health of the baby.

00:27:00.940 And so, so Odessa was born nine months later.

00:27:04.140 And it was a successful, you know, Odessa was perfectly healthy.

00:27:09.240 You know, and it was funny at the time when we were pregnant with her, the doctors were like,

00:27:13.260 well, you know, you are kind of old and you do have cancer.

00:27:16.720 You might want to do a test to see if there's Down syndrome, you know.

00:27:20.240 And I say, what would you want to do if there was Down syndrome?

00:27:22.660 What would you be recommending to me to do?

00:27:24.480 You know, knowing full well what they were thinking of, right?

00:27:27.920 And I said, that's okay.

00:27:30.080 I work with people with disabilities.

00:27:31.340 If I have a disabled baby, it's perfectly fine.

00:27:33.580 It will be fine.

00:27:34.260 Thank you very much.

00:27:35.920 So we didn't do that.

00:27:37.400 But our baby was perfectly healthy.

00:27:39.780 Odessa is, you know, bright.

00:27:42.380 And, you know, at five years old, she was reading all the Chronicles of Narnia.

00:27:45.720 And, you know, reading in a grade four level and doing great.

00:27:50.280 And so she turned out fantastic.

00:27:54.220 And Kirsten has been a saint.

00:27:56.620 And we had six years of complete freedom from the cancer.

00:28:01.400 And did you want to say something, Kirsten?

00:28:04.960 Yeah.

00:28:05.540 Okay.

00:28:05.860 So we're going to pause for Kirsten to say something.

00:28:08.660 Hello, friends.

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00:28:50.520 Two, sorry, second trimester.

00:28:57.180 Oh, yeah, okay, sure, yeah, there's a, we had a real miracle in the second trimester, sure.

00:29:01.540 Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

00:29:02.780 I can mention that.

00:29:03.660 So in the second trimester, we had another kind of a miracle.

00:29:07.340 So we had to take out three lymph nodes.

00:29:13.160 When I say we, I mean Kirsten had to have three lymph nodes taken out right underneath her armpit, 1.00

00:29:18.640 right at the edge of her breast, because they wanted to see if the cancer was spreading.

00:29:22.800 And so they called them sentinel lymph nodes.

00:29:25.560 It's a new kind of technique where they just take a couple of them rather than, you know,

00:29:28.940 a whole clump of them to look for.

00:29:30.720 So that was a good thing.

00:29:31.620 It wasn't as invasive.

00:29:32.680 But we did the surgery locally again, not under general anesthesia,

00:29:36.120 because she was pregnant in the second trimester with the baby.

00:29:38.640 And it was a critical time with all the features of the baby, you know, growing.

00:29:42.520 And every day I would pray for Kirsten.

00:29:49.080 I'd put one hand on her breast and one hand on her womb where the baby was. 1.00

00:29:55.080 And I would say, Lord Jesus, I just ask that you would let Haman die on his own gallows,

00:30:01.580 like the story of Esther, and let Mordecai be exalted, you know.

00:30:06.260 And I would think of the baby as Mordecai and the cancer as Haman, you know, going after the innocent life, you know.

00:30:13.640 And every day I would do this.

00:30:15.400 And I was reading the Bible, 360 at that time, you know.

00:30:19.300 And it's an interesting thing to come back to after saying that.

00:30:23.240 So we had, in the second trimester, we, she went in, she had the surgery. 0.84

00:30:29.960 They said it's going to be very, very painful.

00:30:32.960 You're going to experience, you know, lack of movement.

00:30:36.640 And here's a bunch of Tylenol 3s.

00:30:38.360 Here's a bunch, you know, if you need morphine, we can get that and all that kind of stuff.

00:30:41.620 And she got home from the surgery of getting these lymph nodes out.

00:30:45.880 And she just saw the picture of Our Lady of Chesterhova, which was where she had the miracle with Odessa, you know, the conception of Odessa.

00:30:54.400 And she said, Mother Mary, if it's okay with you, I'd really like to be free of pain here.

00:31:01.180 You know, I don't really want to have a lot of pain.

00:31:03.740 And it was just a simple prayer like that.

00:31:05.120 And she had no pain after four hours, after the first set of, you know, the local anesthes wore off.

00:31:15.080 And then the epidural wore off after about 15 hours.

00:31:18.200 Nothing, no pain, full movement.

00:31:20.480 And it was just like, that is a miracle.

00:31:24.180 Like, I witnessed a miracle.

00:31:25.460 I said, if there's anything, if I've ever seen a miracle, that's a miracle.

00:31:29.380 And I said, I don't think the cancer's going to come back.

00:31:33.600 I don't think we're going to hear anything more from Mr. Cancer, you know.

00:31:37.100 And so as we came up to the birth of the baby, I was reading the Bible.

00:31:45.540 And I was getting into the book of Esther.

00:31:47.220 And I'm like, I think I'm actually going to be reading this story of Hayden and Mordecai, you know, around the time.

00:31:55.520 But I think we're about a week early.

00:31:56.860 And I still just did my 50.

00:31:58.380 I do one, I do, you know, one chapter a day, you know.

00:32:01.780 And I'm just going through.

00:32:03.660 And then she had the baby a week early.

00:32:06.840 And then on the day that our baby Adessa was born, Haman hung in his own gallows.

00:32:15.340 And, you know, you can't make this stuff up.

00:32:17.620 It was just, you know, it was a miracle.

00:32:20.020 To me, it was just an assurance, you know, of his grace and his love for us.

00:32:26.880 And so, you know, we just thought, okay, so Haman's hung in his own gallows and we're done with Haman, you know.

00:32:35.220 So we had six years free of cancer.

00:32:37.760 And then we moved out to the Muskokas from Ottawa. 0.65

00:32:41.860 And Chris was running 5K in the back and she started to trip.

00:32:47.860 And I thought, oh my goodness, I think maybe there's something going on with the cancer.

00:32:51.460 And after a difficulty with the medical system trying to get a doctor, we couldn't get doctors anywhere, even with these kinds of symptoms and previous history of cancer.

00:32:59.880 I went to a private clinic for an MRI and they said there's no lump, so that's really great.

00:33:09.880 There's no masses, but there's a shadow that we don't understand too much these days because it's early days.

00:33:15.460 But sometimes it indicates the ALS.

00:33:18.780 And so they recommended us over to a neurologist.

00:33:21.820 And finally, when we got into the system, we were good in terms of getting the care we needed.

00:33:27.640 And Kirsten went to the clinic and, you know, they diagnosed her with ALS.

00:33:35.980 For those who don't know, what then is ALS?

00:33:38.760 So ALS is otherwise known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

00:33:43.420 So the most famous person with Lou Gehrig's disease or ALS, of course, was Stephen Hawking, who was the astrophysicist, who was, you know, radically anti-Christian.

00:33:52.980 And I think about Kirsten as the antithesis of Stephen Hawking, you know.

00:33:57.980 She doesn't, you know, she's not big on all the science stuff, but she, in the spirit, boy, she is a, she's as masterful in the role, in the world of the spirit as Stephen Hawking is

00:34:08.160 in the role of astrophysics, you know.

00:34:11.100 She just is a mystic.

00:34:12.760 And, you know, she would pray three to six hours a day, many days.

00:34:18.220 And she still, now she prays six to eight hours a day.

00:34:22.060 And so, you know, Kirsten quickly moved.

00:34:27.620 The ALS was very fast moving.

00:34:29.980 And so in these last two years, she's gotten to the point where she can't move her feet or her legs, her hands, she can't move her hands.

00:34:39.300 And she was able to talk for a while.

00:34:43.520 But now she uses communication device. 1.00

00:34:45.920 So she looks at the keys and the keys will type ahead, will guess what she's trying to say.

00:34:50.880 And then she can choose what the choices are.

00:34:53.120 So it's, you know, I have a background in assistive technology for people with disabilities.

00:34:57.360 It's like, it's like God was like preparing me for this moment.

00:35:01.200 You know, Jesus was like saying, okay, you know, you're going to need everything you've learned, you know.

00:35:05.500 So, so she communicates that way with us now.

00:35:10.740 She's 100% present.

00:35:12.460 She says the greatest thing about ALS is she can pray all day now and nobody bugs her.

00:35:15.780 So, so she still is very, very active praying.

00:35:21.120 She prays for our world.

00:35:22.480 She prays for different things.

00:35:23.340 And she feels also that the Holy Spirit guides her in prayer.

00:35:26.060 And she has a very particular spirituality, which I feel it's a real privilege to witness because I, you know, I've traveled a lot in evangelical circles and in the Catholic circles.

00:35:37.460 When I was doing music, I was hanging out with a lot of evangelical and evangelical world.

00:35:42.720 And I've never met somebody with a particular spirituality like Kirsten.

00:35:47.540 A lot of times she'll go into prayer and she doesn't know what she's praying for, but she feels like the Holy Spirit is using her to do stuff.

00:35:56.080 But she doesn't know what it is.

00:35:57.760 It's like it's being, she's being prevented from seeing it, but she knows when she's finished.

00:36:02.520 And she feels extremely anxious if she doesn't finish.

00:36:06.620 It's this very particular spirituality.

00:36:09.260 And I feel very blessed, you know, to, to witness it.

00:36:13.880 I'm trying to say it the best I can, but it's something like that.

00:36:19.040 And she, you know, and she's been very, very strong in bringing up her daughter.

00:36:26.200 So, you know, we, she gets communion almost every day.

00:36:29.400 Uh, and, uh, you know, I bring it to her and, uh, and, uh, she, uh, and our daughter now is, uh, you know, very active in the church.

00:36:39.420 And, uh, and, uh, you can ask her anything about the Bible and she, you know, she knows all the stories and everything.

00:36:45.780 It's great.

00:36:46.340 And this is all a result of Kirsten's, uh, mama bear.

00:36:50.780 You know, she's like, my daughter is not going to be part of this culture.

00:36:53.700 You know, she's going to be part of your culture, Jesus, you know, Jesus culture, the real Jesus culture, right?

00:36:58.720 And, uh, and so she is really, um, like a mama bear around that.

00:37:04.120 So we homeschool her and, uh, and she's doing great.

00:37:07.660 She's, you know, reading level, uh, you know, level of French.

00:37:11.540 Um, she reads like an adult in French and she speaks French fluently.

00:37:15.140 I started her in French video early.

00:37:18.020 And, uh, and so she's doing great, uh, you know, in all, in all ways, our daughter.

00:37:22.300 And, uh, and so this is where we're facing right now.

00:37:25.960 And Kirsten is, you know, it's a very fast moving, uh, ALS. 0.99

00:37:30.400 And, uh, we're, you know, of course, praying for a miracle.

00:37:33.620 You know, we know the Lord is capable of her.

00:37:35.540 We don't know whether the Lord wants her there with him or whether he wants her here with us.

00:37:40.080 But, but we know he has good plans.

00:37:43.180 He has good plans for her.

00:37:44.860 And, uh, we're just, you know, praying that the Lord's will be done.

00:37:48.600 But of course we're praying for her to be healed.

00:37:51.080 You know, of course we want that.

00:37:52.980 And we've seen miracles in our life before.

00:37:55.640 We just don't know what, what kind of miracle the Lord's going to work this time.

00:38:00.040 You guys send out a newsletter to, to friends, to family.

00:38:04.740 Um, and, uh, on the latest newsletter, uh, Odessa sings a song with you.

00:38:10.380 I heard you brushed off your, your, uh, guitar and, and, uh, started that up again.

00:38:16.140 Tell us about that.

00:38:16.800 Yeah, so, you know, when I got married, I, uh, and after I lost my voice, I really didn't see a lot of purpose in me continuing the music that much.

00:38:24.240 And I, you know, I was very active writing pro-life songs.

00:38:26.700 And if anybody wants any of our music, it's pro-lifemusic.com.

00:38:30.640 You know, you can just go to pro-lifemusic.com and you'll see our stuff.

00:38:33.960 Um, but, uh, did that for many years, right up until about 2008.

00:38:39.820 And then, uh, after that, I didn't do hardly any recording at all.

00:38:43.480 I only wrote one song for Father Bob Bedard in 2012.

00:38:47.180 And then I didn't do anything, uh, for the last number, you know, 10 years.

00:38:51.780 And so, uh, and I hadn't recorded for 15 years, but I just figured, I'm going to try this.

00:38:57.760 So I updated my, my computer stuff.

00:39:00.420 I had all the old software.

00:39:01.800 I dusted it all off.

00:39:02.960 It was a big pain to get it all up and running again.

00:39:05.060 So I have a little recording studio.

00:39:06.780 I'll show it to you a little later, uh, in my room.

00:39:09.200 And I, you know, these two screens and, and, uh, I laid all the tracks down.

00:39:13.660 And, uh, then, uh, Kristen said, I think Odessa should sing this, my daughter.

00:39:19.700 And me being like a perfectionist, I'm like, oh, I don't know if I want to, you know, and I said, yeah, let's do it.

00:39:25.620 And so, uh, so, uh, Odessa sang it and I think she did a fantastic job. 0.68

00:39:31.640 And, uh, and so, uh, we've recorded the song.

00:39:34.680 I really liked the way it sounds.

00:39:35.880 And, you know, if your readers want to give it a listen, we'd love for you to listen to it.

00:39:39.900 Oh, let's, let's do that now because I think that this is so touching.

00:39:45.720 Uh, in fact, when I heard it, I was like, oh my gosh.

00:39:49.960 Um, I knew I had to come out here, uh, because you need to listen to this.

00:39:55.620 I climb up on a wheelchair, kiss your cheek, and brush your hair.

00:40:06.100 Mommy, it's even hard for you to breathe this air.

00:40:14.040 Mommy, I read you stories of the saints of old, the greatest stories ever told.

00:40:24.520 Mommy, I think you're the greatest saint I know.

00:40:32.040 You're a miracle, you're a miracle, I'm a miracle, I love you with all my heart.

00:40:42.520 You saw like an eagle in the spirit.

00:40:53.000 You're whole like a lion of Judah.

00:41:01.820 You're a jeweled sword in the hand of the Lord.

00:41:08.980 You're grateful for every breath you breathe, to have me sitting on your knee.

00:41:24.060 So many people praying you will be set free.

00:41:32.540 We've had miracle upon miracle.

00:41:37.480 So many people praying you will be set free.

00:41:38.960 We are a miracle, he will be set free.

00:41:56.020 Look the Lion of Judah 0.95

00:42:01.640 You're a Jew who's sold 1.00

00:42:05.020 In the hand of the Lord 0.94

00:42:09.520 In heaven the battle is raging

00:42:16.120 Michael cast down Satan

00:42:19.320 Down here on earth you're a sword in spite

00:42:24.860 The victory belongs with the children of light

00:42:30.680 And you soar like an eagle in the spirit

00:42:40.860 You soar like an eagle in the spirit 0.92

00:42:50.180 You're a Jew who's sold 1.00

00:42:54.000 Like the Lion of Judah 1.00

00:42:58.840 You're a Jew who's sold 1.00

00:43:02.280 In the hand of the Lord

00:43:06.000 Adessa, that was really beautiful singing.

00:43:12.240 Adessa, how old are you?

00:43:13.820 Seven.

00:43:14.620 Seven years old.

00:43:16.040 Wow.

00:43:16.420 What's your birthday?

00:43:17.840 February 23rd.

00:43:19.320 Oh, excellent.

00:43:20.740 So you didn't turn seven that long ago.

00:43:23.820 Okay.

00:43:24.220 Um, what is for you, uh, the favorite thing about your mom?

00:43:31.880 Well, that she's almost a saint, really.

00:43:34.240 She is a saint.

00:43:37.440 Beautiful.

00:43:41.040 And, um, you've got a very happy family, do you?

00:43:46.600 Mm-hmm.

00:43:47.260 Yes.

00:43:47.920 Yeah.

00:43:49.160 And what's your biggest wish?

00:43:52.540 That she'll be healed again.

00:43:55.140 Mm-hmm.

00:43:55.720 That she could run around.

00:43:57.560 Yeah.

00:43:59.140 And, um, tell me, do you love Jesus?

00:44:05.580 Oh, yes.

00:44:06.840 Mm-hmm.

00:44:07.940 Now, your daddy said that you know lots about the faith.

00:44:11.680 Would you mind if I ask you some questions?

00:44:15.200 Yeah.

00:44:16.040 Put her live on TV.

00:44:17.800 Okay.

00:44:19.200 So, if I were to ask you some of the books of the Bible, like, who are the four gospel

00:44:27.460 writers?

00:44:29.020 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

00:44:31.160 Ooh.

00:44:31.900 Is that too easy?

00:44:33.040 She can actually give you all the books of the Bible if you...

00:44:35.520 No.

00:44:36.460 Go ahead, Darren.

00:44:37.120 Okay.

00:44:37.360 Just give me the first five books.

00:44:39.560 Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges.

00:44:49.820 Wow.

00:44:50.740 Okay.

00:44:51.960 So, what's the...

00:44:54.500 Oh, here's a really super hard one.

00:44:56.120 Are you ready?

00:44:56.680 This might be super hard for you.

00:44:58.320 What are the last two books of the Bible?

00:45:02.960 Um, John and Revelation is definitely the last one.

00:45:07.340 Um, Revelation.

00:45:10.140 And, uh, I forget the other one.

00:45:12.580 I forget.

00:45:13.640 She had to go through her whole song.

00:45:15.160 Third John.

00:45:15.800 I think it's third John.

00:45:17.080 Third John.

00:45:18.060 Yes.

00:45:18.620 Third John in Revelation.

00:45:20.260 Very good.

00:45:21.020 That was a super stumper on purpose.

00:45:23.180 Wow.

00:45:23.900 Okay.

00:45:25.120 Um, hmm.

00:45:27.580 How do I get you now?

00:45:29.340 All right.

00:45:29.920 I'm going to think of a really, really hard one.

00:45:32.560 Hmm.

00:45:32.880 Hmm.

00:45:34.680 Here's one for all of the, um, all of the modern scripture scholars.

00:45:38.800 Who wrote the book of Hebrews?

00:45:41.240 The Hebrews? 0.89

00:45:41.880 That's very good.

00:45:53.260 That's probably what they'd say.

00:45:57.260 All right.

00:45:58.220 Who wrote all the letters?

00:45:59.460 Who wrote all the letters?

00:46:01.100 The people who wrote the, who are named after them.

00:46:04.500 Yeah.

00:46:05.160 Who wrote Romans?

00:46:06.180 Do you know who wrote Romans?

00:46:07.480 The Romans? 0.92

00:46:09.860 Oh, that's just Paul.

00:46:11.120 Yeah.

00:46:11.600 First letter, like, Paul to the Romans.

00:46:14.120 That's what I meant.

00:46:14.660 Paul to the Romans.

00:46:15.240 Right.

00:46:15.820 And that's Hebrews, too.

00:46:16.900 Or at least, so says tradition, but not the scholars.

00:46:20.200 But anyway, that's great.

00:46:21.920 Awesome.

00:46:23.120 Now, you read the Bible yourself?

00:46:26.260 Yes.

00:46:27.240 Really?

00:46:28.160 Don't you think that's super hard?

00:46:29.280 It's a super thick book.

00:46:31.140 Yes.

00:46:31.980 It is a super thick book.

00:46:33.140 And it's, um, we have, like, this, um, kid's Bible that, um, we actually have a few.

00:46:39.840 And it's like, um, when we finish one, we just go to another one and then we keep doing

00:46:43.900 that over and over.

00:46:44.980 My dad said it took three years to read the whole one, like, the whole huge one.

00:46:49.680 Yeah.

00:46:50.540 Beautiful.

00:46:50.980 And, um, if you had a, something to say to kids whose mom or whose dad are sick or maybe

00:47:02.820 passed away already, what would you say to encourage them?

00:47:07.120 I would say that just pray about it.

00:47:09.240 It could really happen.

00:47:11.180 Mm-hmm.

00:47:12.620 And what keeps you a happy child?

00:47:16.040 Well, just knowing that she'll be healed again.

00:47:21.720 Mm-hmm.

00:47:22.620 Yeah.

00:47:25.100 And, um, what do you make of heaven?

00:47:29.700 What is heaven for you?

00:47:31.900 Well, it's where God lives and it's where all the people who love God are when they die.

00:47:37.660 Mm-hmm.

00:47:39.420 And what would you say of your mom and dad?

00:47:41.880 Do they love God?

00:47:43.020 Yes.

00:47:44.340 Yeah.

00:47:44.740 Mm-hmm.

00:47:46.820 You are a beautiful child and a child who's very, very blessed.

00:47:51.420 And the greatest blessing you can have as a child is holy parents because they give you

00:47:57.380 a holy faith and they've obviously done that.

00:48:01.660 Thank you so much, Odessa, for speaking with us and for singing for us.

00:48:05.720 You're welcome.

00:48:07.540 So, Kirsten, one of the things that is, uh, I mean, someone in your situation, first of

00:48:13.540 all, I'm so amazed at your faith.

00:48:15.640 Mm-hmm.

00:48:16.240 Your smile that you still have now.

00:48:19.400 Um, you're such a blessing.

00:48:22.780 Mm-hmm.

00:48:23.080 And, uh, I wanted to ask you a kind of a hard question because this is probably the, the

00:48:32.820 poster situation.

00:48:34.300 They call you the poster child for, you know, um, euthanasia, assisted suicide, dying with

00:48:40.620 dignity or whatever they call it, because you've, you know, you had an incredible life.

00:48:46.400 And as David was saying, you're very active, ran 5k a day, every day.

00:48:50.160 And you've successively lost control over your ability to move at all and then to speak.

00:49:00.380 And now it's affecting your lungs and things like this.

00:49:02.500 And that's, that's what they'd say.

00:49:05.380 Oh, you want to be able to end that suffering before it ends itself.

00:49:09.360 No, no, no.

00:49:09.660 You want to take control.

00:49:11.840 What would you say to people like that?

00:49:14.320 And have you ever had that, encountered that already in your situation that you're in?

00:49:18.980 One of our PSWs recently told me that her end of life views have definitely changed since

00:49:34.940 working with our family.

00:49:36.820 Unfortunately, I wasn't near my computer to ask for clarification and she hasn't been

00:49:41.840 here recently to ask more.

00:49:44.600 Hmm.

00:49:45.660 Amazing.

00:49:46.180 So you think that perhaps she is moved in her, in the, in the direction of life?

00:50:00.020 Most.

00:50:03.120 Definitely.

00:50:04.640 Definitely.

00:50:06.340 Beautiful.

00:50:07.900 Most definitely.

00:50:10.520 What is for you?

00:50:13.460 Um, what motivates you today?

00:50:17.680 Because, you know, these are, it's a difficult situation and no one says that it's not.

00:50:23.360 What motivates you from day to day?

00:50:28.300 It comes from knowing the Lord and that I can completely trust him.

00:50:32.940 Beautiful.

00:50:34.440 Beautiful.

00:50:34.920 It may be difficult for people to understand, but I feel joy most days.

00:50:42.900 It comes from knowing the Lord and that I can completely trust him.

00:50:46.040 Amen.

00:50:58.580 Amen.

00:51:00.460 Amen.

00:51:02.260 Is there, is there anything else that you'd most like to say that I could ask?

00:51:06.520 However, of course, I have difficult days, mostly from the emotional pain of being unable to

00:51:15.360 connect with my family in a real way.

00:51:17.880 That's the real suffering.

00:51:22.640 Communicate.

00:51:23.420 I'm very thankful for living in an age with technology and being able to communicate.

00:51:27.960 And that, my friend, is the story of the McDonald family.

00:51:35.260 I had a last question for you, David, before we sign off.

00:51:37.880 Sure.

00:51:39.240 A lot of people, given your whole trajectory, which is just, it's an unbelievable story,

00:51:46.920 but a lot of people would be like, you've suffered like Job in many ways.

00:51:53.820 Because I know you suffer sort of through your wife, because of your wife, with your wife.

00:51:59.900 Yeah.

00:52:01.400 And yet, you're not rebelling against God.

00:52:05.060 No.

00:52:06.500 You don't, like, blame him or, what, just tell us in your own words, what is your reaction?

00:52:16.620 Because you've gone through, this is a life of suffering in many ways.

00:52:20.240 In many, many ways, a life of real joy.

00:52:23.760 But the suffering is evident as well.

00:52:26.780 Yeah.

00:52:27.980 I've always found that whenever I try to avoid suffering, it usually gets worse.

00:52:32.800 So facing it head on and just surrendering it to the Lord, just saying,

00:52:37.200 Jesus, like, I can't do this.

00:52:39.260 You have to do it.

00:52:40.200 And it's true. 0.56

00:52:40.860 There's many days when it's very, very, very difficult and it's a suffering.

00:52:44.300 But I'm not mad at him at all, because I just know that he has such a great plan for all of us.

00:52:50.160 And I look back on my life and I see all the miracles that I just know he has a good plan for us.

00:52:56.300 I don't know how that's going to work.

00:52:57.580 And I don't know what his, you know, his ways are not my ways, right?

00:53:01.800 So I just really trust him.

00:53:03.840 Um, you know, I have to dig deeper and I have to say that, you know, when, um, when I, I, when I got in a career of, of, uh, disability and working in that, I became quite successful at it.

00:53:17.220 And, you know, I started to enjoy being the guy in the room who people wanted their, his opinion, you know, and, and I could get a certain amount of pride from it.

00:53:25.860 And this situation, having had to stop work and to take care of my wife and to like really break down and to, to really start to look at what's really important, even in our walk with Jesus, you know, the material world is very dangerous world.

00:53:41.900 It's like, it's like Frodo carrying the ring to have any affluence or any success at all in this world.

00:53:47.640 And so the Lord is in this situation really reminding me that, no, I have to be dependent on him and the people who I respect the most, I have a whole wall of saints over there.

00:53:58.060 They were all really poor and they were all, they all really suffered a lot.

00:54:02.380 And so, so if I can just follow them and, and rather than rebelling against God and being angry at God, saying, God, I love you so much.

00:54:11.540 Teach me the lesson you want me to learn in this suffering.

00:54:13.980 I want to learn what you want me to learn.

00:54:17.160 Then I do way, way better than if I start getting resentful and all that stuff.

00:54:22.240 And so I'm very, very grateful to the Lord and we, we, we thank him, you know, we praise him in this storm.

00:54:31.060 You know, being here with the McDonald's, it's, it's quite something.

00:54:37.820 I mean, Kirsten, for all of you not hearing much of her, speaks very loudly.

00:54:46.960 I can hear her very loudly because she speaks love and it's a love first for Christ and then for her family.

00:54:56.800 And I'm just so privileged to bring you this story, people I'm so proud to call my friends.

00:55:07.960 And I want to ask you to, we've, we've put up a life funder for them.

00:55:12.840 Um, if you feel called to support this family, they'd be grateful and, uh, I'd be very, very grateful.

00:55:24.000 This has been just an awesome time.

00:55:27.760 And Jess, you want to say goodbye to everybody?

00:55:29.600 Goodbye.

00:55:31.680 Kirsten, can you say goodbye?

00:55:33.180 Goodbye.

00:55:33.660 From the home of the McDonald family, which have been so generous in sharing with us their life, their inspiring, love-filled life.

00:55:48.100 This is John Henry Weston for LifeSite News.

00:55:51.300 May God bless you.

00:55:52.240 And we'll see you next time.

00:55:54.500 Hi, everyone.

00:55:55.280 This is John Henry Weston.

00:55:56.400 We hope you enjoyed this program.

00:55:57.660 To see more like it, be sure to hit the subscribe button below to get all the latest content from LifeSite News.

00:56:03.680 Check the links in the description to read more and connect with us on social media so that you can stay up to date with all the latest life, family, faith, and freedom news.

00:56:11.960 Thanks for watching and may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - July 03, 2023

A Heart-breaking Witness For Life - NO WAY To Assisted Suicide ｜ ALS Patient Kirsten MacDonald

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