How Faith Carried Jenna Schutt Through Her Healing Journey

Ali Atwell: Hello everybody and welcome back to the Autoimmune Mom podcast. Today I have a very special guest Jenna Schu. I still I still said it wrong. ⁓ She's ⁓

Jenna Schutt: No, you got it. You got it, girl. Go.

Ali Atwell: Okay, good. She's a mom of two. ⁓ she has a systemic ⁓ mastocytosis diagnosis that she got when her children were in diapers. very, rare, and she has been had this diagnosis for eight So a ⁓ of ups and downs, I'm sure. And we're gonna dig right into story, Jenna. Thank you so much for being here. ⁓ And let's Start with ⁓ what life was like right as you were being diagnosed.

Jenna Schutt: Sure, yep. So, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here and talk a little bit about my story and about what I've gone through and lived through. So you talked about it a little bit already, but I was diagnosed between seven and eight years ago. right after I had my second son. He was just after he was born, I got mastitis very, very seriously, to the point where they said I was triggering all the sepsis screens, ended up in the hospital. And I think that's really where a lot of this ⁓ started ramping up. But I got better after all of that. And then a few months later, so my son was about six months old, my oldest was maybe just turned two. I started having all of these stomach issues. And I went and had all these testing done. And ⁓ originally the oncologist that I saw had thought this was a B cell lymphoma, which he said it's very treatable, it's curable. And so that was the diagnosis that we were kind of walking towards until all of the testing came back and the testing showed that it was not a B cell lymphoma, but it was the systemic mastocytosis, which everybody has mast cells inside of their body. So that is a normal cell that people have in their body. That ⁓ those are the cells that cause the histamine release when we have allergic reactions. But in mast cell disorder, specifically this one, the percentage in your bone marrow is way higher than what it should be. It shouldn't hardly register at all, if at all, unless you're having an allergic reaction. But 25% of my bone marrow was filled with these mast cells. So a fourth of my bone marrow was full of it. ⁓ and so it gotten into my lymph nodes. It had gotten into the place where my bones actually started to change, kind of like something was eating away at my bones. ⁓ my liver And my spleen were enlarged. And the reason why I was having all these stomach issues, I was later told by a GI specialist that he said the lymph nodes around my stomach were so enlarged it was like a BOA constrictor around my stomach. And so I was having all these symptoms because of that. So through all of that, ⁓ I was diagnosed with my both my kids still in diapers, very little. and so you start to have all those thoughts. ⁓ that are less about you and more about your children when you get diagnosed with these things and you're a mom and you wanna be there for your kids and you want all these memories with your kids and so you start thinking about all the what ifs but in a sense of yourself as a mom. So will I be there for my kids? Who's gonna take care of them? Am I not gonna make it through this thing and they're gonna grow up with someone else as their mom, which is just a whole

Ali Atwell: I don't know.

Jenna Schutt: Horrible thought to have, but those are all the things that try to start running through your mind when you get this diagnosis that you're told, like this is a one in a million diagnosis. I was sent to Mayo Clinic because of how rare it is. And I thought, okay, well, at least, you know, Mayo Clinic, they're gonna see this fairly, you know, often. And he even told me, he was like, This is we still only see this a few times a year. We don't see this very much, it's not seen very much. ⁓ so having all of those things and being a mom was just a lot of of pressure and I put a lot of that pressure on myself.

Ali Atwell: Yeah. I can imagine. And the stress of it all, I'm sure, does not do anything for your condition. ⁓

Jenna Schutt: Stress is very much a trigger. So any type of stress, ⁓ even heat, cold, any of those things can cause those flare ups of mast cells.

Ali Atwell: Yeah. That is insane. I didn't realize that the heat and the cold could make a big difference for that. I mean, I I moved to South Carolina to get away from the cold because it made such a difference on my body, but and it's more steady weather here. ⁓ so that's interesting. So let's talk about what you what your early diagnosis and what it your home life looked like with your kids. You know, were you able to to did someone else have to do the day to day with you or were you able to be there?

Jenna Schutt: was still able to be there for as much as I could. When I was first diagnosed, it was more in a dormant stage. And so at that point it was more antihistamine medications and things like that to help control what those mast cells were doing and pouring out into my body. But very quickly it went from a dormant stage into an aggressive stage. So when that happened, my kids were still very young and then it was starting oral or IV chemo. So I did eight rounds of IV chemo during COVID. So it was COVID, I had two young children and I was doing IV chemotherapy. So I had to sit there by myself. ⁓ And then because of my condition, which is bone marrow, the chemotherapy that I had to have had to deplete my bone marrow in order to fix the problem. And the bone marrow is where you make all of your immune fighting cells, your white cells, So I like to say that I felt like find China in your grandma's closet at a toddler birthday party. Like I felt very, very like not safe because there was all of these infections that were going on popping up everywhere. And then I'm here walking around being completely depleted. And chemo in and of itself just

Ali Atwell: Yes. Go in there.

Jenna Schutt: completely wipes you out, makes you so tired. And just trying to do that while being present with my children was really difficult. And I think for me especially, I put a lot of my value and my worth into me as a mom. What can I do with my children? I homeschool my children. I cook all my meals. I do all of these things. And I felt like that was part of who I was, not just I'm Jenna and a mom, but I'm Jenna mom. Like that was me. And so to have part of that taken away and to have part of that be not who I was, because now I'm a cancer patient. Now I'm a chemo patient. Now I've got this rare disease patient. And that had to be present too in the middle of it all was really difficult. It was really something that I had to lean on my faith.

Ali Atwell: Right.

Jenna Schutt: with and say, okay, God, I'm gonna have to give some of this to you because I can't hold it all.

Ali Atwell: Right. You had no choice.

Jenna Schutt: Right.

Ali Atwell: And I think when when we think about the hardest things we go through, we have to we have to relent. We have to sometimes it's asking for help, sometimes it's leaning on our faith. Most of the time it's leaning on your faith for me. But being willing to say this is not anything I can control the way that I envisioned this perfect ad vision of motherhood that I thought I was going to have, for me I was some similar. I just really All I really ever wanted to be in life was a mother. Like I had a master's degree and I did all the things. ⁓ you know, but I was just waiting to meet somebody and to have a family and be a mother. And then this happened right as I was getting married. So like it looked, not one day of motherhood looked the way that I had anticipated it to look. And fighting that, I I fought it for a very long time. And I finally had to, as you said, just I had to give it to God. Like I can do this, I can. He's given me this for a reason and I need to figure out what the reason is and lean on it and accept it. And once I did that, I I'm not kidding, things changed for sure. ⁓ as far as my information. Go ahead.

Jenna Schutt: And I think, yeah, I talk about that a lot with ⁓ my devotionals and things like that, that as far as choosing faith and choosing peace and choosing joy in the middle of those hard seasons, I have always said that I don't feel like the Lord ever wants us to deny the reality that we're in. So this is where we are, this is where I was, and I'm saying, okay, God, this is the reality that I'm in, but then we can anchor ourselves in him.

Ali Atwell: Mm-hmm.

Jenna Schutt: What he says about us, what his word says about us. And what the Lord was teaching me is that the limited capacity that I had during those times of weakness didn't limit my love. It didn't limit my worth. It didn't limit who I was as a mom, how much I was able to do for them did not equate my love for them. And that illness and that diagnosis, that may have changed my life because once that I feel like it was a before and after. Before I was this person, and then after the diagnosis, all of these things change. How you're labeled changed. You become a a cancer patient. You become a chemo patient. But I'm still a mom. I'm still Jenna. I'm still me. And it doesn't get to define my whole identity. And I had to learn how to be honest with the Lord of where I was at by still saying, okay, this is my reality.

Ali Atwell: Right. Yes.

Jenna Schutt: but I'm gonna anchor myself in you and I'm just gonna take those next faithful steps and not let that fear and all those what ifs have the final word.

Ali Atwell: Right. I think I think a lot of people with these types of diagnosis, they do live in fear for all a lot sadly, a lot of them live in fear for the rest of their lives. And it's such a negative place to be. so I'm interested in a ⁓ how were able to make that switch ⁓ Like you had faith before all of this,

Jenna Schutt: so I like to say that I was kind of in the womb and I was attending church services because my grandpa and my dad were both pastors and now my husband and my father in law are pastors. So a lot of lot of faith. Lot of faith going on. But ⁓ there's such difference between faith knowledge and living out that faith. So it's wonderful to have that knowledge, but if you have knowledge but you don't know how to apply it.

Ali Atwell: Yeah. Yes.

Jenna Schutt: what good is any of that knowledge. And so that is really something that I teach is how to take that faith from knowledge faith into practice faith. what did that look like for me, right? So

Ali Atwell: It will I I don't think people realize that. I think people just think people ⁓ have faith and that's it. They're just ⁓ that's they just have it. ⁓ But that's very, rare for somebody who a little person, you can see it almost like the rare people that have the faith ⁓ at and they're little and they ⁓ they carry through high school and they're they have it. They're born with it some way, I don't know. But for the rest of us, we actually do have to work at this relationship ⁓ and There's a lot of trust in that. So I think that's a great point that, you know, having it, understanding up knowledge of it and living it are two totally different things.

Jenna Schutt: Yes. And I think that's the crossroads that I found myself in when I was in the hospital bed. And I remember I called my husband and I was having just all this panic and all this fear because I'm in the step down unit, which is right next to the ICU. I'm in and out of consciousness. I have a newborn at home. This is when I was diagnosed with the messitis and the sepsis and my youngest was not even a month old. I mean we're talking not even a month old. I am in the hospital. And I remember just calling him and saying, I don't know what to do. And this is someone who grew up in church, grew up, knew, knew the knowledge, knew the verses, knew the knew it. And I I was, I don't know what to do. Help, help me. And I remember him telling me basically what I teach now, which is anchor yourself in God's word. What does God say about you? Put that in the forefront of your mind. Instead of these fearful thoughts. And so he told me, get verses on your phone, get teachings on your phone, get people who have lived through it on your phone and just listen to it. And that's what I would do. I would put it under my pillow. And those were the things that I was putting in the forefront of my mind. And really, what that is, is training your brain. You're training your brain into what you're going to think about. And that's really the whole thing behind the joy reflex is to train your brain. To go towards faith, peace, and joy as your first response instead of your plan B or your last resort. And that's where I started. I started as this is my last resort. I don't know what else to do. And through time, I built that habit and I built that response. And so I don't want anybody to look at me and say, she just had this thing, she knew it, she did it all. It was so easy for her. No, no. I had to practice it. I had to work on it. I had to train it. And

Ali Atwell: Right.

Jenna Schutt: through that experience is how I'm able to talk about it now today. And it wasn't something that just overnight or a light switch, it was flipped. It didn't happen that way. I worked at it. I trained it. And I still have times where those silly things or thoughts or fears try to pop up and I have to get myself by the ear and say, no, go back to what you know, go back to that anchor, go back to the Lord.

Ali Atwell: Clear. Yeah. Well, and I would assume that people would look at you and think that it came easy because of your background, because of who you were raised by and who you were married to and you know, ⁓ yeah, of course, she was saved, you know. But so it's it's really wonderful to hear and ⁓ this is what I love to find and on when I talk to people is the different things that worked for the different people. And I I ⁓ I would venture to say that most people don't think about faith as being a healing tool.

Jenna Schutt: Yeah, right. Yes.

Ali Atwell: you know, you get these diagnoses, you go to your doctor, they give you a medication, you try it, you tr you know, you move on, you do this surgery, you do that surgery. But are we really leaning into the power of prayer and you know, what that can enfold? It's it's it's a it's kind of a mind blowing idea for a lot of people. I grew up in an area where I grew up in the Northeast. We were I grew up in a very Christian Catholic household. ⁓ And I had I loved my my what am I trying to say? My childhood and I you know, I felt very connected to my church and all that. But in the northeast you don't talk about God. So we went to church on Sunday and that was it. Nobody else talked about it all during the week. And then when I moved to Charleston, South Carolina, I was like, This is like a breath of fresh air. We are free to talk about Jesus and everything that comes along with it. And so in my diagnosis sixteen years ago, I was not living that type of healing path. I I didn't think my mother would always say you need to pray for a healing and I was like, okay, whatever that that means, because I didn't know. So I would I would love for you to share anything suggest for anyone who wants to sort develop this relationship with God and ⁓ see where it takes them.

Jenna Schutt: Yeah, and a lot of times I talk about that faith and medicine don't have to be an either or. They don't have to be that. They can be an and also. So if if anybody is the poster child for having medicine and faith at the same time, it's it's your girl because I did all the medicines, all the things in the natural, and I did everything in the natural that I felt peace about doing. But I still stood on what I believed in the spiritual. So when you're talking about praying for healing, believing for healing, saying those verses over yourself, you can do that while you're doing the medicine. One does not negate the other in any capacity. And so I think that sometimes there can be that shame or that guilt that comes over people who are in the faith realm and say, because I'm taking medicine, I must not be having faith. And I am in the complete opposite.

Ali Atwell: ⁓ yeah.

Jenna Schutt: thought process of that, that you can still have strong faith. You can still have mountain moving faith while taking the medicine and doing everything in the natural that you need to do. And I talk a lot about toxic like positivity, right? So like bumpers, what I call bumper sticker faith. So choose joy, faith over fear. are all amazing statements. Those are great. Nothing against those things. But What does that look like in real How does that work? What does that mean to actually have faith over fear, to choose joy? And so when I'm talking about these things, I like to talk about a framework of how how I actually do that and how I actually take steps towards that. And so the biggest framework that I have is the first thing I always say is, and I talked about it a little bit, don't deny the reality. That you are in. So see the reality that you're in. So my reality was I had this incurable diagnosis. But it could be anything for anybody. So this is not something that is specifically for healing. It is for people who have financial issues, relationship issues, grief issues, all of those things. Any of those things, nothing is too big for him. Nothing is too big for the Lord. So define whatever it is that you're in. And then anchor yourself in what God's word says about that issue. So for me, it's that I'll live and not die, I'm healed and not sick, those things. But for other people, it could be that the eyes of your understanding is open, that you have wisdom, that you have more than enough abundance if it's a financial issue, and that there's peace, there's peace that passes all understanding, that you have a sound, disciplined, renewed mind. There's all these verses. And I think I've seen people who take that advice and they want to run with it and they want to get like pages and pages of verses and Bible verses. ⁓ that's wonderful. But it can become very overwhelming to see pages and pages of verses or you get on, you know, Google and you're looking up verses and you just see all of these. And so I say pick one or two that speaks to you. And you're gonna know it. You're gonna feel that inside when you're reading that verse and you're like, wow.

Ali Atwell: ⁓ huh.

Jenna Schutt: That is for me. So pick one or two of those and then do the next faithful step. And so that next faithful step can be a lot of things. It can be going to church. It can be finding a faith community, reaching out to your faith friends, saying those verses over yourself and saying that those work for you too. It can be ⁓ saying prayers, it can be listen to a devotional. It can be any of those things. You don't have to take the whole staircase, but just take the next step. And as you continue to take those next steps, you're getting further and further up the staircase to where you want to be. And when you're talking about really what it is is neuroplasticity, is what we would call it in the nurse world, where you're training your neural pathways to go towards something else. So when that fear tries to hit.

Ali Atwell: Yeah. Yeah.

Jenna Schutt: Or you're in the doctor's office and they're telling you all of these things, these diagnoses, these medicines, all this stuff. And your mind wants to immediately go to the worst case scenarios, the what-ifs, the fear. You're training your brain to say, okay, that's the reality, but stop and anchor myself in what I have been preparing myself for. So these confessions, the his word, what he says over me. And when you can anchor yourself in that. Then, right, so what does an anchor do? It keeps you from being swayed, the boat from being swayed by every wave. So everything that's trying to hit you, you're anchored there in the Lord. And that's really what I teach is the framework of the joy reflex, what I call the joy reflex, which is a reflex, right? You're training your body to be reflexively going towards joy and faith and peace. So you think of a reflex, it works without thinking, without it works automatically. So if your hand is going over something hot, you're immediately going to reflexively pull back. So when your brain starts to go towards something that is not good, you want it to reflexively go back to what you've trained it to, which is that face.

Ali Atwell: That veg. I love it. one thing else I wanted to kind of talk about is this idea of ⁓ your self worth being tied to all of this and like am I even worthy of a healing? Am I even worthy of, you know, growing more? You know, those types of things. I I f I felt that at at one point I I can distinctly remember going to a healing service and being like, There's so many more people out here that are so much worse off than I am and I'm not Am I worthy of this? Is this even ⁓ the right thing, you know? ⁓ so I think a lot of people in our community here at at the Audio Me and Mom podcast ⁓ feel this sense of worthiness and whether or not, you know, this is something even available to us. So

Jenna Schutt: Well, I think the first thing I would say is I have people tell me that all the time. They'll say, Well, based on what you went through, I don't even feel like I can say anything to you about what I'm feeling or what I'm going through. And I always tell them, stop right there, because your pain and your journey is valid. Doesn't matter what someone else went through, doesn't matter what I went through, doesn't matter what anybody went through, your life experiences, your pain, your condition, your disease, whatever that is, is valid to the Lord. And it is valid to me because what I went through doesn't discount what you're going through right now. And you are worth having just as much faith, just as much peace.

Ali Atwell: A thousand percent.

Jenna Schutt: Just as much joy, just as much healing as anybody and everybody else that are there. And it says in Luke, just some Bible verses, it says in Luke, fear not, so don't be afraid. You are more valuable than my sparrows. So the Lord is saying, you are valuable. You are valuable. You are. And that has nothing. If you look at that verse, there is no what I call a qualifying qualifier word. So it doesn't say if.

Ali Atwell: Yes.

Jenna Schutt: You do this. If you're a great mom. If you have this. There's not a qualifier. It's just you are valuable. You are worthy of what he has for you. And don't let anybody else discount it because of their experience, because their experience isn't your experience. And I think it is just important for people to hear that.

Ali Atwell: Right. Yep.

Jenna Schutt: That just because you hear my story and you think, ⁓ I haven't been through a stem cell transplant. I haven't been through IV chemo with kids and diapers. I haven't had a blood clot in my jugular. I haven't had hemorrhagic shock. Okay. But you've had what you have, and you're in your life, you're in your body, you're in your own story. And that is valuable to the Lord. That is valuable to me. That is more than enough.

Ali Atwell: Exactly. Yeah.

Jenna Schutt: to be able to have these things for yourself. It doesn't discount you.

Ali Atwell: I love message. thank you for sharing it. ⁓ let's talk a little bit about what life now looks like as a mom. I mean, I know you s you ha went through a lot of treatments, but we're s I think we I like to give some hope to those that are in deep dark despair ⁓ and their early diagnosis. 'Cause I don't that there's many worse than what you just said. Yours was pretty bad. ⁓

Jenna Schutt: Yeah, no, I get all of that. I think the most important thing just to interject before I start about where I am now is that when I talk about joy in the middle of things, that I literally mean I had joy in the middle of all of this. And you can ask people that were around me, you can ask my doctors, you can ask my family. I was always told, Jenna, you are always laughing, you are always joking, you are always smiling, like we can come in the room and we can tell you anything and you still have joy.

Ali Atwell: Yeah.

Jenna Schutt: And so I want to say that that is possible despite your circumstances. So you don't have, I think a lot of people think of joy as circumstantial. And that is happiness. And I'm not talking about happiness. I'm talking about true joy. And when you look in the Bible about joy, it says the joy of the Lord is your strength. What does that mean? It's not my joy, it's not coming from this up here.

Ali Atwell: Mm-hmm.

Jenna Schutt: The Lord's spiritual infusion of joy. So that is something you get from Him. And when you have the Lord in your heart, it already says the fruits of the Spirit, which belong to you if you're a believer, is what? Love, joy, and peace. Those are the first three. Those are yours. Those are yours. Those aren't, those aren't circumstantial. Those are yours. So as far as right now, wherever you are in the middle of it. Joy is available to you. It is yours. Peace is available to you. The Lord says you have power and a sound, disciplined mind. Again, there's not a qualifier to that. You have that availability to you. It is yours for the taking if you decide to can make that yours. already. You just have to go out and grab it. ⁓ A lot talks about how sometimes we think, Well, I can't say that I have these things that I don't have. So how can I say I have joy if I don't have joy, right? But he always likes to say, Well, if you have an animal like a dog, and they're way across the road, and you say, Come, come here, come here, come here, well, do you have that even though it's not right there? Yeah, you have it. You're calling it to you. What already is yours. You know you have it. It says you have it. You have the papers that show you have that dog. I'm just gonna say dog you have that dog. So when you're calling that dog to you, you already have ownership of that dog. You but the dog's not with you right that second, but it's Yeah, it's calling it to you. So what is the word? The word, the Bible is your ownership papers that you have. That joy, you have peace, you have access to that joy. So when you're saying, I have joy, I'm speaking joy into my life, you're calling ownership to what you already have to you. And so I think that's just important to clarify that because a lot of times with faith, we get that like, well, how can I say I have it if I don't have it yet? Well, but you do have it. You have the ownership papers, you have it in you.

Ali Atwell: Right.

Jenna Schutt: But you have to call it to you, you have to bring that out. You have to pull that out. It's in there. And so as far as where I'm living now, getting back to your original question, I have been ⁓ so now I'm in the survivorship, what they call survivorship, which is a post-transplant life. And I actually do still deal with graph versus host disease, which is a lot like an autoimmune disease, but because

Ali Atwell: I love that message. So thank you for sharing that with us. Yeah.

Jenna Schutt: The immune cells are attacking my healthy tissues. And after a stem cell transplant, it's considered alloe immune. So I don't know if you've heard that before, probably have, it's considered an alloe immune disease because the donor cells are reacting against my body. And so I deal with a lot of inflammation, a lot of things that are very similar to ⁓ lupus, things like that.

Ali Atwell: How you

Jenna Schutt: ⁓ with inflammation, flares, fatigue, a lot of medications, a lot of appointments. I take immunosuppressants. I'm also on a new IV infusion therapy that is supposed to help with the kind of like immunotherapy. So I still am in very much in it, but I still choose to show up. I still choose the joy. And I look back where I was seven years ago and I know, okay, I'm so much better than I was then. And I'm still dealing with issues, but I feel like the Lord showed me these things that we've talked about for the last 40 minutes. And when I was in the middle of it, I never thought I would be here today, that I'd be talking to podcasts or any of this. Like that wasn't I was just in survival mode. I was just in, okay, you got two babies and diapers and you're doing IV chemo and we're just gonna see what we can make for supper tonight. Because

Ali Atwell: Yeah. Right.

Jenna Schutt: What can I fix that doesn't require me to stand over the stove for an hour because I can't do that right now? And so the Lord was putting these things in me as I was walking through it that now I have the energy to share and the energy to pour out into other people. And I'm so thankful for that because I'm so much further than where I was, even though I'm still in it.

Ali Atwell: Yes. Th well what I love about women and mothers is that we're always looking for ways to help other people. Like most of us are ⁓ wanting to take our experiences and whether it's through our children or through our communities or whatever, but we're some way wanting to make someone else's experience a little bit better than the one that we had with the knowledge that we gained in the muck of it all. And I'm finding that to be so true. I can see it in you for sure. But how did you h w was it a slow process to now I'm gonna turn this into a webpage and a book and devotional? Like how did that whole thing come out?

Jenna Schutt: Yeah, it was a slow process. I wrote the book. Like I it probably took me about a year to write the book because I was writing it right after I had my transplant. And so it was as I had the energy to do it, as I had the capacity to do it, I did it. And so was chapter by chapter and word by word and nights when I was sitting with my children.

Ali Atwell: Yeah.

Jenna Schutt: And we were just having family time on the couch and I would just be writing as as much as I could. And so it really did. It took time, it took effort. And now I'm on that that phase where I'm trying to to build that visibility of what I'm doing now. And sometimes it I'll be honest, sometimes I feel behind. I feel behind because I didn't use those seven years. You know, social media was there, but I wasn't using social media to bring attention to my story or bring attention to myself or

Ali Atwell: Mm-hmm. Right.

Jenna Schutt: what the Lord was showing me I wasn't there. I was in survival mode. I was in no.

Ali Atwell: Well, you you didn't have the capacity to do one ⁓ one other thing. And it is a lot of work to be socially available with whatever message you're trying to get out there. It's not easy by any

Jenna Schutt: Yes. It is. It's not easy. No. But you know, when you feel and I'm sure you feel this way too, when you feel called with this message that you feel like the Lord has put in your heart to share, and just like you had said, my heart is to help other women. My heart is to help other people and to use what happened to me and is still happening to me to encourage other people so that I didn't live through this for just to be alive.

Ali Atwell: Yeah.

Jenna Schutt: Like I'm alive, praise God. I there is nothing against that. I was able to get through it, and that is enough in and of itself to to give glory to God. But at the same time, I don't want it to just be that. I want to be able to say, This is available to you. This is for you. Like what God showed me, I can help walk you through what He showed me to benefit yourself to.

Ali Atwell: Well, you can grow his kingdom through your suffering and that's really what it's all about. And I you know you you do you do it in such a natural, easy way that it's it it's almost like well you feel drawn to to whatever I I feel drawn to you and I wanna check out your book and I wanna check out I'm like, Okay, this I you know, you you you have such a nice easy flow about about yourself. I think you're gonna make big waves and you'll you'll you'll make some big impact and even if it's one person's life, isn't that enough? ⁓ that's that that's kind of my whole spiel here and what I want to do and how I see this podcast going is like just connecting women so they don't feel alone. That's kind of my bottom line. You're not alone and there are so many different tools, so many different avenues that you can use. and I I I just really love I love everything. So your website is Jenna Shoot dot com.

Jenna Schutt: Right, I know. Yeah. Yep, just my name. Then she talk out.

Ali Atwell: And okay. ⁓ and I'll put it all in show notes and stuff, but you have a d a free devotional for download?

Jenna Schutt: I do. I have free devotionals. It is comes to your inbox every single month and it's a month long devotional. And it the way that I have it set up is a story about me, what I've gone through, and then how that can apply to your life. So I go from the story into a lesson of, okay, great, that worked for you. How does that apply to my own life? How can I apply that? And then it has journal prompts. So I do journal prompts of like and it's just three times a week. So It's not like you have to do this every day because I feel like that's way too much. ⁓ so it's like three times a week when you're thinking about it, reflect back on this and see see yourself in this way. And then I also give resources on those c scripture confessions. So every ⁓ month I'll have eight Bible verses that we use and I'll turn those into your own things so you can call those things for yourself. You can speak those things over yourself. And I do that for you, so you don't have to try to figure out what to say. All you have to do is look at it and say, this speaks to me and I'm gonna speak that over myself. And then with those, they come right to your inbox. There is no cost. I don't, I don't have anybody pay for anything. I don't, that's not on my heart. ⁓ and so then I have that and I do ⁓ weekly lives on YouTube where I discuss that week's devotional and I call it my faith friends community. So it's just people coming together, ⁓ women coming together to see each other in whatever journey they're in. And meet each other where we're at and talk about how the Lord can do things in your life. And that's really what I offer. That's really my heart. ⁓ the book that I have isn't published yet. It's we're we're working on that. And there'll obviously be more on my website as that comes. But when you know you were talking about how I talk and how I am, that's really how I wrote the book. I write, I wrote the book, How I Talk, and I write the book, and I have I have people ask me that. Did you write it the way you talk? I do. I wrote the book the way I talk. And I'll tell you something that not a lot of people know about the book. So little insider. ⁓ at at the end of every chapter, I I have a little thing, yeah, a little insider tip. ⁓ I at the end of every chapter, I have something that is like I was sitting with you having a cup of coffee. What would I say to you if I was sitting with you, sitting right next to you, and I was explaining this chapter of my life, what would I say? Like, what would I say to you? And so

Ali Atwell: Insider.

Jenna Schutt: That's part of the book is you're getting me. You're getting me. Like that's that's who I am. That's what that's how I talk. That's how I am. And I always say, like, you know, just that's it, that's me. That's that's your girl. That's me. ⁓ yeah. So and then on my website I do have the free resources and free tools to help you train, start to train yourself. So I have a seven day joy reflex guide, and then I have like a three minute stop the spiral. So if you're like,

Ali Atwell: For yeah. Yeah. ⁓ I love it.

Jenna Schutt: If your brain is doing this and you're like, I don't I can't do a seven day thing, you can get that three minute thing and it's just walks you through like three steps, how to get control when you're spiraling. Because sometimes you're there. You're at you're in a spiral and you're like, I can't do a seven day I I I just need like the next three minutes, what can I do? So I have those resources available for free.

Ali Atwell: Yeah. I love that. and if there's somebody who's maybe doesn't have any faith that is listening to this episode and they've they're very intrigued

Jenna Schutt: I would say that everybody starts somewhere and there is no shame in starting where you're at, because when you start where you're at, you only go up from there. Like if you're starting at the bottom of the staircase, there's only one way to go and that's up. And the only way to do that is to take that next step. So you don't have to take the whole staircase. Don't look at the whole staircase. Just look at the next step in front of you and take that next step. And sometimes that next step is just finding a faith community. It is finding a faith friend. It is finding a faith church. It is finding something that you can listen to on your phone. It's, you know, almost everybody has a Bible app on their phone. If you don't, you can download them. They're free. And find a Bible verse. Just one. Just has to be one verse that speaks to you. And start speaking that over your life. And I think a lot of times people will see that and they'll like, I can't add one more thing. I can't add one thing to my life. And I I get that. I've been there. I think us moms have all been there. I had two under two. I've been there. and so what I like to say is when you're driving, you can speak that over yourself, When you're if it's something, it's the easiest thing to do is to add it to what you're already doing.

Ali Atwell: ⁓

Jenna Schutt: So if you drive at every stoplight, say that verse or that thing that you're speaking over yourself at every stoplight, and then you say, Okay, every time I hit a stoplight, I'm gonna say that. Or if you are, you know, you're a believer, but you're, you know, younger in your faith, but you still pray in the morning and you pray over your food, that's still five times a day, four or five times, depending on how many times you eat. So add that to your prayers in the morning, add that to your prayer at night. Even if it's

Ali Atwell: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jenna Schutt: Just saying it twice a day, you're saying it two more times a day than you were before. There is no guilt, there is no shame to start where you're at. That's what everybody has to do. Everyone had to start somewhere. I had to start in a hospital bed with sepsis in and out of consciousness. And I did it.

Ali Atwell: ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ Well, here's a question for you. Did you ever pray for yourself health wise before your diagnosis? Like I would that was never anything that I prayed on before I got sick. I would never you know, I might pray but help me through this situation, but never focus heavily on ⁓ and I was somebody who was an athlete and relied on my body every single day, but I never ever had that thought to pray for my own health. ⁓ so it's just interesting.

Jenna Schutt: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ my our pastor is very much in that like faith like you should he always says like you should be speaking something about your health and your finances over you yourself, your body every single day. Something every single day. So he's taught that. So ⁓ I would yeah, yeah, we would do that. ⁓ but you know, I still was diagnosed. I still, you know, and I still think that that probably helped me at some point.

Ali Atwell: So you are you had that.

Jenna Schutt: But to think of too, go back to that, I had the knowledge, but to apply that knowledge in a situation where I really needed it, because when you don't need it and you're not there yet, and you're thinking, Okay, I believe that I'm healthy and I'm strong and all of those things, and you're speaking that out, but how much faith was being applied to that when you didn't really need it? You know, it's like, okay, now I need it, now I need to draw into it. But I like to say too that

Ali Atwell: Mm. Right.

Jenna Schutt: It's much easier to learn how to swim in the calm water than it is when you're in the middle of a rip current, right? So that's why no matter where you're at, start where you're at. Because it's so much easier to start now than to start in three months from now when it's harder, when there's more things, when there's more 'cause there's always gonna be stuff. There's always gonna be busyness. Moms know I'm right in the middle of we just went through May Simber and now I'm in like

Ali Atwell: Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah.

Jenna Schutt: the trenches of baseball games and baseball practices, soccer. We had soccer and baseball at the same time. So it's like, you know, you just start, you just do it. You just do it. No.

Ali Atwell: So Yeah. You just you have no other option. And and it's a good thing to teach your young kids, like let's pray for our health every day and get that habit going when they are young and healthy and you know ⁓

Jenna Schutt: Yes. Yes. And I speak that over my kids too. You know, I speak it over them. But I also every time we go to buckle in and go to leave our house 'cause we live in rural Nebraska, so ⁓ it's almost a thirty minute drive about anywhere you want go. And so I'll say, Okay, who's praying? And one of my kids will just they'll pray. They'll say we have, you know, protection as we're driving, we're healthy, we're you know, all the things every time we get in the car. And that's just a habit that we've made and that those are another thing. It's like we're already going somewhere.

Ali Atwell: Right.

Jenna Schutt: So let's just add a prayer onto what we're already doing. And that's just a simple way to start building your faith. It doesn't have to be this huge ⁓ meditation moment, like an hour or two hours of

Ali Atwell: real before let go, ⁓ let's talk a little bit about your children and their experience through your ⁓ diagnosis and treatment and all of that, if you don't mind sharing ⁓ Yeah.

Jenna Schutt: ⁓ no, I don't mean ⁓ well when I was diagnosed, they were very little. So we really didn't share a lot with them. We would tell them, I'm going to a doctor appointment because that was at the level they could understand. And now that they're a little bit older, they understand a little bit more. Like they understand my brother was my donor. So they say, Why why did you have a transplant? What is that? And I'll say, Well, your uncle's cells

Ali Atwell: Very little.

Jenna Schutt: were put into my body because my body wasn't doing right things. And now his cells help my body to do the right things. So we very much explained it on their level, but we were always very careful because I never wanted them to live in fear of what's going to happen to mommy. Is mommy going to be here? Is ⁓ something bad happening with mommy? And I can remember one time my mom helped me a lot. My mom helped me a lot and so did my mother-in-law.

Ali Atwell: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jenna Schutt: And one time my mom was FaceTiming me, praise the Lord for FaceTime. I was in the hospital bed. And my mom was FaceTiming me so I could see my children. And I remember my oldest was like, Mommy, why do you have a pillow at your doctor's appointment? Because he didn't know I was in the hospital, said, Well, know, just in case I need to rest. I need to have my pillow. You know, so we you you kind of meet them where they're at, ⁓ and you know you're ⁓

Ali Atwell: Yeah. Yeah.

Jenna Schutt: I always feel like my job is to protect them for what they're not ready yet for. And when they are ready to hear more, to be that person who will walk them through those things in a way that is going to help the narrative so that they understand this is all true, but we don't have to live in fear about what that means. And there's lots of times where I'm like, mommy needs to rest. We all need rest. You know, we all need rest and I just need a little bit more rest right now. I'm gonna go rest. You come rest with me. Things like that. And so I think that's really where we have done it. We we've really been led and our pastor says this too, to follow peace. And so we just followed peace throughout that whole thing. What do we have peace about our children knowing about this right now? And what don't we have peace about? And a lot of it was just that narrative of we're gonna walk this out and we're not gonna be afraid. But we're gonna walk it out wherever we are and we're gonna be doing it together.

Ali Atwell: Right. We're not victims here. We're we're yeah, I love it. Well, Jenna, that's amazing. I think I think you know, the the hard part is is dealing with the children and a lot of this stuff and I've struggled with that. My my kids don't know me one day without it, so as I said, it it it is what it is. We're very open and honest, but at an age appropriate level and living in fear is no way of living, so thank you so much for being here.

Jenna Schutt: Yeah, exactly. Yes.

Ali Atwell: I've really enjoyed our conversation. I can't wait to check out your website. and I would love to have back when your book is live. We can ⁓ I can read it and then we can talk about that. That would be amazing. awesome. ⁓ Okay, ⁓ well, I'm gonna hit ⁓

Jenna Schutt: I love that.