Legacy Changer: From An Empty Childhood To A Redeemed Future

What's the Story
Written By Matt Edmundson
 

Guest: Kristen Hallinan

Kristen Hallinan is a sought-after writer and speaker, passionate about helping women redeem the pain of their past and move towards a healthier and more hopeful future. On mission to equip women and support families, Kristen previously worked as Director of Development for MOPS International. As a mom of four and a passion for families, she enjoys working with teen moms, crisis pregnancy centers, and serving as a pre-marital mentor with her husband Shawn in Dallas, TX. Legacy Changer is Kristen’s debut book.

Here’s a summary of this week’s story:

In this episode of our podcast, we're exploring Kristen Hallinan's incredibly moving and faith-filled story. It's a real-life example of how God can turn even the most challenging childhoods into futures full of hope and promise.

Kristen's tale is deeply woven around her relationship with her parents, particularly her dad. Following a tumultuous divorce that created a wide chasm between them, they went 12 years without speaking. Kristen shares how this long silence left a huge gap in her life. But then, driven by a new sense of purpose and a need to mend bridges, she reached out to her dad. Let's just say, things didn't pan out as she'd hoped.

The Importance of a Father's Role

What really hits home in Kristen's story is the vital role a father plays in his daughter's life. It's about more than just family dynamics; it's how it shapes a daughter's view of men and her understanding of God as a Father. For Kristen, reconnecting with her dad was as much about finding peace with her earthly father as it was about deepening her relationship with her Heavenly Father.

The Power of Family

Kristen's journey underscores the incredible impact that family – even if it's not our own – can have. Her path to healing began with the kindness of a friend's family when she was only 12. Now, Kristen and her own family extend that same kindness, opening their home and hearts, demonstrating the life-altering power of love and acceptance.

Redemption and Transformation

At its core, Kristen's story is about redemption and profound change. It's a beautiful illustration of God's ability to redeem not just individuals but whole families and marriages. It's about what can happen when we let God work within us and through us.

Embracing the Legacy Changer Within

Kristen's transformation from a challenging childhood to a life filled with redemption is a narrative many of us can connect with. It's a call to look past our histories and embrace the possibility for growth and change. We all have the capacity to be 'Legacy Changers' in our lives and in the lives of those around us.

In this episode, Kristen doesn't just recount her experiences; she offers insights and guidance for anyone looking to change their legacy. Her story of faith, forgiveness, and resilience reminds us that our past doesn't define our future. We have the power to rewrite our story, one step at a time.

Tune in to this inspiring episode where Kristen Hallinan shares her heart and her incredible journey. It's a story that's sure to touch you and challenge you to re-examine your life and relationships from a fresh perspective.

Connect with Kristen Hallinan:

Also listen to:

At Crowd Church, we are committed to creating a space for you to explore the Christian faith, regardless of where you are on your faith journey.

What happens at Crowd Church?

Every week we livestream our online church service, we add extra content like this What’s The Story Podcast, we have weekly online community groups that meet up and all of that good stuff. You can find our more about everything that goes on at Crowd by browsing through this site and you can reach out to us via our contact page.

Come and Join In!

Are you interested in joining in with what is happening here at Crowd? We would love to meet you!

Any questions? Please connect with us via our Contact Page, or via WhatsApp: +44 7984 530 429

  • Sadaf Beynon: [00:00:00] Hey there and welcome to What s the Story. We re an inquisitive bunch of hosts on a mission to uncover stories about faith and courage from everyday people. In doing that, we get the privilege of chatting with amazing guests and have the opportunity to delve into their faith journey, the hurdles they ve overcome and the life lessons they ve learned along the way.

    If you enjoy our podcast, don t forget to subscribe and sign up for our weekly newsletter at our website, whatsthestorypodcast. com. It's your direct line to the latest episodes and detailed show notes delivered straight to your inbox. What's the Story is brought to you by Crowd Church, who fully understand that stepping into a traditional church might not be everyone's cup of joe.

    Crowd Church provides a digital sanctuary, a safe space to explore the Christian faith where you can engage in meaningful conversations rather than just simply spectating. So whether you're new to the Christian faith or in search of a new church family, visit [00:01:00] crowd. church. And if you have any questions, just drop them an email to hello at crowd.

    church. They would love to connect with you. And now, let's meet your host and our special guest for today.

    Matt Edmundson: So I am with Kristen Hallinan. Oh yes. Welcome to What's The Story. Kristen is a sought after writer and speaker who is passionate about helping women redeem the pain of their past and move towards a healthier and more hopeful future, which to me sounds. Like an awesome thing to do, I'm not going to lie.

    She's on a mission to equip women and support families, has previously worked as the Director of Development for MOPS International, we'll get into that because I didn't know what it was. And she enjoys working with teen mums, or moms, at crisis pregnancy centres and serving as a premarital mentor with her husband, Sean, in Dallas.

    Texas. Cue the music if you're [00:02:00] from a certain era. Now, "Legacy Changer" is Kristen's debut book that is about to come out. We're going to chat about that and you can find her other writings and publications like Relevant Magazine and The Joyful Life. Laughing with her and chasing her helps, we're chasing her four children, should I say four children, I think that's more than enough helps burn off the calories she consumes of her favourite treat, homemade gluten free churros.

    Now, Kristen, welcome to What's The Story? I've been looking forward to this and chatting to you since we met, so thank you for coming on.

    Kristen Hallinan: me too. Thanks for having me.

    Matt Edmundson: Now, that gluten free churros. is your favourite treat, I'm not gonna lie, you've not sold it to me, yet

    Kristen Hallinan: I've been diagnosed with celiac for about 20 years now. So gluten free is something I'm used to and I miss churros so bad. So when I learned how to make them at home, I [00:03:00] was a happy camper.

    Matt Edmundson: you'll have to send me the recipe, because there are members of my family that are also gluten free and there are certain food groups which I fully appreciate you do miss if you can't eat gluten I'm excited to see what that actually, or to, to taste those. So if you send me the recipe, I'm going to, I'm going to ask my daughter to make them.

    So you're, oh yeah, do it, totally do it. So you're in Dallas, Texas. Have you always been in Dallas, Texas?

    Kristen Hallinan: No, we lived here for about five years. We lived in Colorado for the rest of our marriage and I was in California before that.

    Matt Edmundson: California. So you've gone from California to Colorado to Dallas, Texas. That's quite a, that's quite a change.

    Kristen Hallinan: Yes. Wildly different cultures and it's like completely different countries.

    Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. It's having been to all three, I can see that. Now, Dallas is obviously the home of barbecue basically, isn't it? It's just it's, every time I go to Dallas there's a place that a friend of mine, I go stay with a friend of mine, a guy called Rich Rising, [00:04:00] who is an absolute legend.

    He lives in Dallas, Texas. And we always go to this barbie. I wish I could remember the name of it, but I really can't. But it's this place where, They, there are the sort of the, you've got to remember I'm British, right? I just, I'm not used to the sheer size of these things. And they have barbecues, which are the size of small sheds, don't they?

    And they, the, just the fact that they have 20 of them side by side. Is extraordinary and you walk around them to get into the restaurant and

    Kristen Hallinan: I think I know the one you're talking about. Yep.

    Matt Edmundson: What's the name of it? Because I've

    Kristen Hallinan: Is it called heart eight?

    Matt Edmundson: Yes!

    Kristen Hallinan: Oh yeah, that's one of our favorites. We learned that barbecue is a whole food group here that we knew nothing about.

    Matt Edmundson: Yeah, a whole food group. I love that. So yeah I, when I was over there, the first, very first time I went to Dallas. Rich said to me, what do you want to do? And I said, honestly, I want to go dance on the lawn of South Fork Ranch. [00:05:00] Just because of the team. I grew up in a certain era where Dallas was on TV every weekend.

    We used to watch JR and Bobby and all that sort of stuff when we were kids. And and yeah, I went to visit South Fork and I managed to dance on the grass. And there's a video of me somewhere on social media doing this.

    Kristen Hallinan: I love it. That's awesome.

    Matt Edmundson: You should do it too, it's quite cathartic.

    Kristen Hallinan: Yes, I should.

    Matt Edmundson: So tell me about your Your Christian journey. Obviously we, you've gone from California to Colorado to Dallas, but Christian wise, did you grow up in a Christian family? Was there maybe an event for you later in life? How did that happen?

    Kristen Hallinan: Yeah, I did not grow up in a house of believers. My dad was and still is an atheist today. And my mom, she was raised Catholic, but we never heard the name of Jesus in our house. It wasn't something that she brought into our childhood. And I truly thought that Christmas was Santa Claus. I had never heard anything other than that.[00:06:00]

    And so it wasn't until I was in seventh grade and got invited over to sleepovers on Saturday nights with my friend, we'd go on Sunday mornings. Her dad was a pastor of a little church that was planting in a local high school. And so we'd go and set up all the chairs. I'd sit there and listen and had no clue what he was talking about and felt a mixture of nervous about it because I knew my parents were uncomfortable that I was going and hearing all these things and then also like the strange draw towards it that I just knew there was something here that I was totally fascinated by and wanted to learn about.

    But I. I never ended up really understanding at that juncture in my life. It was more the way that family loved me that stuck with me because it was just so different than anything I'd ever experienced.

    Matt Edmundson: That impacts on you then, just going to church, not really understanding, but being invited along, being loved by a family. That was a profound thing for [00:07:00] you, or was

    Kristen Hallinan: Yeah, it was because my house that I grew up in was pretty just emotionally cold and distant and my parents had a lot of big feelings, but my sister and I weren't really allowed to. And a lot of just hypervigilance, looking over our shoulder, taking the temperature of the room at all times are we in a good mood today, or are we in a bad mood, and what can I do to try to circumvent this mood that is walking into the room right now?

    And it was like walking on eggshells all the time in our house. And at my friend's house, in contrast, they would sit and play family games and they would laugh and they had nicknames for each other and they had inside family jokes. And just all of this was so foreign to me. And even the discipline was done in love in their house and they included me in that discipline.

    And I felt so loved by those loving boundaries that they put in place. And so it was just. An experience that opened my eyes for the first time, but like maybe all [00:08:00] families don't have to look like the way my family looks like.

    Matt Edmundson: I know we're going to get into this in some more detail, but the, how old were you when you, sorry, when you were going to church with your friend?

    Kristen Hallinan: Seventh grade, so I think 12.

    Matt Edmundson: Okay. So 12, about 12 years old. So is that when you? As Evangelicals like to say, became a Christian or was there more to the story?

    Kristen Hallinan: Yeah. There was more to the story. So shortly after that, my mom and sister and I moved to Colorado to move in with my grandparents when my parents were getting a divorce. And so I did high school there and more or less forgot about everything that I had heard during that time in the church because it hadn't really settled into my heart yet and was not until I went to college in Colorado and was totally rebelling.

    Just living an out of control life that I used to say I don't know what got ahold of me, but now I know it's the [00:09:00] Holy Spirit got ahold of me and was like, you got to knock this off and turn this around because this story doesn't end well the way you're going. And so I took myself to church. I had just remembered, that's what, my friends family had done, and they seemed to be living the life that I really wanted on the inside.

    And so maybe I'm going to find something there. And so I didn't have an invitation. I didn't have a friend to go with. I just started showing up and. The school I went to is CU Boulder, and it was the number one party school in America at the time, and so when people hear that I became a Christian at CU Boulder, like that is not a normal story.

    Matt Edmundson: Okay.

    Kristen Hallinan: But that is where the Lord got a hold of me.

    Matt Edmundson: That's super powerful. So how old are you at this point?

    Kristen Hallinan: I was 19 at that point.

    Matt Edmundson: Okay. So you've moved to Colorado, your parents got divorced, you get into the party scene. And. God gets a hold of you when you're 19. I just love this, and in the most unusual of [00:10:00] places, and you come to this realization, life's not on a good trajectory.

    So you just take yourself to church, no one invited you, you just went along. Wow. Wow. So how did you feel? There's so many questions around this, right? Because I, and the reason why I've got so many questions is because I have a similar story. Okay but I'm curious, how did you choose what church to go to?

    Because there's so many different types of church, and what was that sort of first experience like for you going into the building?

    Kristen Hallinan: I'd heard of a campus ministry that would hold just like a college church night on Tuesday nights. And it was in a really old, like hundreds of year old church building. It was a first Presbyterian of Boulder. And I, so I showed up to the Tuesday nights and walked in and didn't recognize a soul.

    And so just sat in the very back corner by myself and, [00:11:00] on the outside felt like super uncomfortable. Just felt like everyone must know that I don't know what to do here. But also there's such a depth of sadness on the inside that it was almost like, I don't care how silly I look. Like I've got to figure out.

    Something else has to be the answer.

    Matt Edmundson: So you go into the college campus, how long were you going to that for, the Tuesday night? Was it? Was it a case of the first week, God totally zapped you, or was it more of a gradual kind of introduction?

    Kristen Hallinan: gradual. Yeah. It took I would say a couple months until I was ready to say, I believe full heartedly and I'm on board and I'm not turning back.

    Matt Edmundson: Wow. So if someone had said to you, were you a Christian before you went to school and started going to those kinds of things, would you? How would you have answered that question? I'm curious there [00:12:00] because I would have said I was because of the country that I had grown up in and because of the assumed I'm a Christian because I'm British and therefore a member of the Anglican Church here.

    Looking back, I would say that I had some element of faith. Whether it was enough to call myself a Christian or not, I don't know. But for you. What would you have said had someone asked you that question?

    Kristen Hallinan: I would say for sure. No, I just, I couldn't even have told you like what does it mean to be a Christian? What is a Christian? I would have had no clue. So yeah, I would say no. There was no element of me praying or me, even legalistically, like me trying to behave because I wanted to be a Christian.

    There was just none of that.

    Matt Edmundson: So when you did, then you go to the college campus does life in it takes a couple months, right? But after, during those couple of months, is the does life change dramatically? Are you at peace with yourself? Has God done a work in you? Has the pottying stopped or is life.

    Still the same mess, but [00:13:00] there's a bit more hope somewhere in the middle of it.

    Kristen Hallinan: Kind of somewhere in between. I would say I was freed from my addiction to chasing boys as validation of my worth. And so that was healed. And it was not long after that I started dating who now is my husband and he was raised a believer. So I feel like God, and I had known him for years and years, but God didn't give me a blessing on that becoming a relationship until I had a relationship with him.

    And. So in that sense, life was very different because I wasn't chasing anymore, but I still had so much pain that I just didn't even understand at the time. And it would be years from then until I really started to unpack it.

    Matt Edmundson: when you say you had so much pain, if you don't mind me asking what was the pain? Was that from the house? You mentioned about growing up and seeing a difference with the Christian friend when you were [00:14:00] 12. Was it from that, was it from something else? Was it a combination of things?

    What was the pain?

    Kristen Hallinan: from that and from my parents divorce it was a really messy divorce and there were threats and restraining orders and. All sorts of, it was just a really long, drawn out, ugly process. And I didn't talk to my dad for 12 years after that. And so the just the feeling of betrayal and abandonment, and then in combination with.

    Here's my mom, not trying to take care of these girls, but she herself has so many wounds from her own childhood and from her marriage that was a mess and just falling apart, and she just became even more emotionally distant to my sister and I, so there was really not a lot of anywhere for me to understand what was going on or a soft place to land, and so I put on a tough girl badge, like I'm, this just all means I'm really tough and I'm really strong and I can get through anything, and I think really it just meant.

    I'm really [00:15:00] wounded and I haven't dealt with any of it.

    Matt Edmundson: yeah, it's amazing how those two things go together, isn't it? And having, when my parents got divorced, this was back in the eight, I appreciate I'm probably a little bit older than you, Kristen when I was a teenager during the eighties, which I have to say was the best decade.

    Ever. I just want to point that out. But my parents got divorced when I was, what I was quite young, maybe nine, 10, I think somewhere around now. I don't really remember it. It wasn't, it was different to yours in the sense that there was no restraining orders. There was no, they tried their best to look still.

    Friends, in front of me and my brother, behind the scenes, maybe things were a little bit different, but on the whole they, they worked really hard to try and create some sense of, we don't love enough, each other enough to stay married, we'll be civil to, to each other and we would visit my dad once a week, but the rest of the time we spent with my mum, and I [00:16:00] think my parents divorce changed how I viewed my mum I think I became much closer to my mum yeah.

    More so than my dad in many ways. So my, I think my experience in a lot of ways was different to yours. So I, but it was hard enough in the eighties saying, my parents are getting divorced when you're at school. It must've been horrific if that divorce then was. was angry and bitter and all kinds of stuff mixed in as well.

    Kristen Hallinan: Yeah, my dad showed up at one point and the truth I'll never really know, but what we were told was that he was threatening to kill my mom and my grandma. And so that's when the restraining order came in place and he wasn't paying child support and I think got pulled over on a traffic stop and they knew this.

    So he got tossed in jail and rights were terminated and. from there on out, we just didn't speak of him. [00:17:00] And there was just this piece of me that was so confused. And I think Satan just used that to speak lies to me. Like he didn't stay because you weren't worth staying for. You weren't worth loving.

    And I just. I took those narratives into the rest of my life and into the rest of the relationships I was in. And even into my young marriage, it was really affecting me because I just expected my husband to leave all the time.

    Matt Edmundson: Wow. Wow. I was going to say, I had, see, I think that your dad, I have two sons and I have one daughter. So we stopped at three. Three was more than enough for me. I think you're very brave now for and to be fair, if I'd have had my daughter first, I don't know if we'd have had any more children. I love the bones of her, but for the first two years of her life, she was a nightmare.

    And she quite enjoys me telling that to people now. She's quite proud of that fact. But what I can say [00:18:00] is my daughter is now. Just about to turn 17. And so I, the relationship with my boys is different to the relationship with my daughter which I think is an obvious statement, when you think it through, it's of course, I'm going to be different, not in terms of favoritism, kids might argue differently, if I'm honest, but I don't know, not in terms of favoritism, but just in terms of.

    I think how you are with them. So my boys was, we were boisterous. We would wrestle a lot. We still banter each other. And my youngest son, my middle child, Zak always makes fun that he can, his muscles are bigger than mine now and all that. It's just good fun. And and I'm super proud of both my boys.

    But I think how a dad is with his daughter is different. And I think in many ways how a dad is with his daughter [00:19:00] defines how she sees men going forward, and I think that relationship is super powerful. So here you are. Your dad's had a restraining order against him, he's in jail, things are not great.

    Were they great before the divorce, did you, would you

    Kristen Hallinan: Yeah, they were, my parents were always at each other's throats. We had, my sister and I had suitcases packed in our closets that we would take when Things just got yucky again, and we were going to leave for a couple of days. So it was always chaotic. My dad would often retreat away during Christmas or a birthday celebration because he just didn't want to be with anybody.

    So dad would be in the room and we would pretend everything was fine without him. So no, it was not good before either.

    Matt Edmundson: So you see your friend then, when your Christian friend, who I'm assuming had a pretty reasonable relationship with her dad and you're thinking this is what family could look like. Was that really the first time you saw that [00:20:00] actually maybe you are missing something and maybe life isn't normal in your house?

    Kristen Hallinan: Yeah. Cause when you're a kid, you just assume this is what a family is. This is how life goes. And yeah, that was the first time that I had spent enough time and had been relationally invested enough with another family to see that this feels so different.

    Matt Edmundson: It's super powerful this because we, Sharon and I, we've been married 26 years this year and she's not killed me yet, which I feel like is a win on both levels if I'm honest

    Kristen Hallinan: That's a major win.

    Matt Edmundson: Yeah. A super win, especially for me. And we've had a pretty open house throughout our marriage.

    In other words, we've, we're we've always got people around and sometimes Have keys to the house that I don't even know and they just turn up and it's all hello and it's that kind of thing and I remember we've always tried to do family We've always tried to do extended family and I appreciate in the church.

    There's often quite broken people, you know the And so I've always [00:21:00] tried to adopt is the wrong phrase, but do you know what I mean, just welcome in, do the extended family thing and just get people in the house. And so we've done that. And I remember one time a girl had been coming around our house for a little while, a young girl.

    She was lovely student age. She brought a friend. And her friend came round, and actually not too dissimilar story to yours in terms of family background. And she sat there, and it was Easter, and I remember saying, oh, did you get an Easter egg? She's no. And she was maybe in her early twenties at this point.

    I'm like, no, that's just totally wrong. So we went and I got some chocolate and did all kinds of stuff. And we invited her back round, but she never came back. To the house and I was really curious, this really struck me actually, it was a really powerful moment for me because I asked a friend, I said, why is she not coming back did we upset her in some way?

    And she went, no, not at all. She just couldn't cope with the fact that you were such a loving family because it's totally not her experience, and all it's done is shown her what she's not had growing

    up.

    Kristen Hallinan: Yeah.

    Matt Edmundson: breaks in situations like that because There is just, [00:22:00] I think in Christian terms, we, especially in evangelical church you, we talk a lot about winning the lost and all this sort of stuff and how are we going to do that and do we, are we inviting people to church and do we take people to an alpha course and that sort of stuff.

    And actually one of the most powerful things I've seen happen is when Christian families invite people around to their house and just be family. Do you know what I mean? And I think that's super, and this is what I'm hearing you say when you were around at your friend's house, right?

    Kristen Hallinan: We have tried to take exactly that stance because of that reason that I don't know. Where I would have ended up, I would think that God would get a hold of me somehow in a different way if it hadn't been that way, but I wouldn't have taken myself to church back when I was in college if it hadn't been for that experience.

    And especially when our kids bring around friends that are a little bit harder to love or a little bit harder to have in the house [00:23:00] I am just taken back there because I'm like, They need it more than anyone and we are just going to radically accept them and show them what love looks like.

    Matt Edmundson: How old are your kids?

    Kristen Hallinan: 6, 10, 14, and 16.

    Matt Edmundson: Oh wow, great ages. We did this thing when our kids were growing up, because I was super keen that if my boys especially, and my daughter, were going to hang out with their friends, and their friends were like, where should we go hang out? I wanted their friends to be able to go, let's go to your house, let's go hang out there, because they felt like it was a safe space.

    And so we started doing all kinds of crazy things like fridge rights was a really good thing for us in the sense that just saying to kids when they've been around a couple of times, you have fridge rights in my house now, which means you can go to the, you can go to the fridge and you can take anything out of the fridge, as long as it's not alcoholic, obviously and when you're 18, you can do that.

    I don't mind, but but until then, just anything else is fine and you don't need my permission. [00:24:00] And I remember, yeah. I remember one guy going to the fridge, he was like 13, and I said to him, you've now got fridge rights to my house. And I remember him going to the fridge, he opened it, looked inside the fridge, then he looked at me, because I was watching him, and he said, I've got fridge rights, right?

    And I said, you've totally got fridge rights. And so they did, they would all come around the house, they would hang out, they would help themselves to stuff in the fridge, and we made a bit of a song and dance band. And to be fair, when I look back over it. Christian, I think they bought more food round to my house than they consumed.

    They would bring these cheap, nasty frozen pizzas and cook them in the freezer because I would refuse to stock them. But just having that environment where your kids feel like this is a cool place to, my, my friends want to come and hang out here, I think is just, is radically awesome.

    Kristen Hallinan: Yeah. That's so good. We try to do the same. And so our kids are just emerging into those ages, but they, yeah, we, sometimes I'm like, Oh, I wish I knew [00:25:00] how many table or places we're going to set at the table tonight. It would I just knew that everyone was going to fit in the car when we were going to go somewhere.

    The uncertainty of having a mixture of kids in your house all the time is a little bit stressful sometimes, but to me, it's totally worth it.

    Matt Edmundson: it's a bit chaotic, but totally worth it, because it's just a short time as well, and it's so you're, you become a Christian you, God sort of deals with you on the boy thing which is fascinating because one of the first things that happened to me when I became a Christian was the opposite, obviously with girls.

    I was, how old was I, 18, a similar age, 18, 19 when I became a Christian. And I, it was a big work in me, I think that God did. He's just no, I'm totally dealing with this first, dude you, there's just the rest of it will come, but this, no. And so you're like, okay. And so how, you mentioned you bought in some of that baggage, right?

    That rejection, that hurt, that betrayal from growing up [00:26:00] into your marriage. What did that look like in the early years?

    Kristen Hallinan: It looked like a, the idea of attachment, like we are attached to our caregivers early on. And if we don't do that, then we're either constantly trying to avoid conflict and avoid people and avoid vulnerability. Or we're like. Desperately seeking it. I think I was some combination of the two. I was desperately seeking validation and just wanting to know that I was worthy and that I was loved and I was seen cause I never really felt those things before.

    But then the minute somebody would get close, I was like no don't get too close and know all my things because then you're definitely going to leave me. So it was a lot of that in my marriage, a lot of anxious. Seeking validation from my husband and then also some stonewalling and putting up barriers of not really letting him see me because I was so afraid that he was going to leave.

    So it just created a lot of unnecessary conflict and confusion for [00:27:00] him because he didn't come from a house like that. He had two married parents and he didn't have those same feelings. And so he was often like. What am I dealing with here? And and then we started to have kids right away. And so you add kids to that.

    And I think that just magnifies whatever issues are already going on. And I quickly realized that I was repeating a lot of the ugly behaviors that I saw in my house, just like. It's because I didn't know a different way to love and I didn't know a different way to handle conflict and I didn't know a different way to communicate and so I was falling into those same traps and they were not working so I had a lot of work ahead of me.

    Matt Edmundson: There's no surprise they weren't working. It's . So when you were you and your husband Sean, right? His name's Sean. When you and Sean were I dunno how you, we would call it courting, it's very posh. Just a romantic term, isn't it? But courting [00:28:00] and it's all very nice and cute and lovely.

    And then I take it one day, Sean just pops the question and you're like, Oh my gosh, yes. Totally. Did you mentioned, we mentioned in the bio that you do this sort of pre marriage counseling with Sean. Did you have that before you got married? Did somebody draw your attention to any of this or was it a case of we're just young, naive and just believe everything's going to be fine?

    Kristen Hallinan: Yeah, no one did this. And we often joke now say, who let those babies get married? Because were so young.

    Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

    Kristen Hallinan: On top of us being young, and to me, not having a great model for marriage, his dad was passing away, and we wanted him to be at the wedding. And so we started sped up our engagement and got married pretty fast.

    And so we still had a year left of college for both of us to do and and we were married. So we had zero of this and we, that's why we're so passionate about it now because we're [00:29:00] like, do you know how different our first 10 years of marriage could have been if someone had knocked us upside the head with just having to think through some of these things and answer some of these questions?

    Matt Edmundson: So how old were you when you got married, in your early twenties?

    Kristen Hallinan: 20. I was 20 and he was 21.

    Matt Edmundson: Stone the crows. So actually you got married quite quickly after becoming a Christian. So you've gone from this chasing boys for validation thing, to that whole script being switched up and you're going, no, yeah, marriage is cool. That's quite a radical change quite quickly, I would have thought.

    Kristen Hallinan: Yeah too quickly, probably, I could have used some mentorship and guidance and learning in between.

    Matt Edmundson: So what did your mum and dad make of this when you came back in your early 20s and you're like, yeah, I'm getting married.

    Kristen Hallinan: My dad still wasn't in the picture, so he didn't know about it my mom was not thrilled and tried to convince me over and over to not go through with it we marched ahead.[00:30:00]

    Matt Edmundson: And we sure showed them. So the book that you've written then, "Legacy Changer", is all about this experience, isn't it? It's all about the lessons that you have learned bringing this level of baggage into both your marriage and your parenting, because you said you started to have kids pretty much straight away.

    I'm curious, Kristen, as you're going, at what point is the realisation dawning on you that actually there are some things which aren't right and some things God needs to do a work on here?

    Kristen Hallinan: It was between our second and third kiddos. We lost a baby and I was just not okay. I had been many months and I was still just, so not okay that I was not being able to care for the kiddos that we did have and I was a wreck. So growing up. My family had made fun of or shamed anything to do with mental health.

    So going to counseling or seeing a therapist or taking medicine or anything like that was for [00:31:00] fools. They were getting scammed into that. And but I finally reached a point where I was like, I don't care if I'm a fool, at least maybe I'm going to be a fool that can function. So I'm going to counseling.

    And so I showed up in a counselor's office and then. I was shocked how relatively quickly compared to what I had been going through that I began to grieve the baby and I was really healing from that and realized, okay, God has me here for healing for much more than the baby that, she kept going back to but let's talk about your mom again and let's talk about how you feel about your dad.

    And I was so confused at first I don't. We're here for the baby. Why does she want to talk about that? And so when we got past the baby and we started to unpack that, it was my first realization that Okay. I have some really deep wounds that I have not been acknowledging.

    Matt Edmundson: Wow. Wow. Wow. So When you started to acknowledge them and it started to come up in counseling, [00:32:00] what was that like? Was that quite a traumatic thing to deal with? Did you have to let yourself be vulnerable to that for a little while or was it a case of, okay I appreciate that they're there, but I've got these kids to look after and I'll sort this out in, in five years time kind of a thing.

    Kristen Hallinan: I would say it was a slow burn. I really wanted to heal it once I was aware of it, but I just, I wasn't sure I was strong enough. I didn't know how, and it took me like a very slow drip to just release a little bit more and a little bit more. And it really took a lot of years for me to even fully.

    Admit and recognize how unhealthy the relationships were. And my family was, and my upbringing was it was honestly many years. I'm trying to think exactly how many, I think maybe eight or nine years until I. I hit more of a rock bottom [00:33:00] relationally with my family and decided to do some trauma work. Cause you can do talk therapy all day long, but if you're not targeting like those memories that are held deep in your nervous system, then you're not releasing that trauma.

    And I was still, I was just always operating up here was my baseline. And so any amount of stress just pushed me right over the edge cause I was always up here. And what the trauma therapy did was really like bring my baseline back down. And so I had a much bigger tolerance for, just the stress that kids and marriage and life brings on.

    Matt Edmundson: How is your how is Sean with all of this? Because here you are, you get married as I don't mean to be disparaging, but you got married as kids, right?

    And,

    Kristen Hallinan: I think

    Matt Edmundson: and I'm imagining, especially if he grew up in a Christian house, and he had parents that loved each other and modeled that, which is obviously a different one to what you had.

    He's going to have a, he's going to have [00:34:00] expectations, isn't he? Really? That sound like maybe weren't quite met in that way. So I'm curious how was he dealing with all of this?

    Kristen Hallinan: expectations is the word that nails it. Like our expectations of each other could not have been more. Far off and not at all well communicated. And so he's constantly expecting one thing from me and what are these, all these enormous feelings she has all the time. 'cause his family, while it was significantly healthier than mine, it was.

    Veering on the edge of everything's fine. We don't really have big feelings that we discuss. And so he was like, no, thank you to all your feelings. And I was like, I desperately need somebody to hold these feelings for me and expecting him to be more than he was supposed to be. That should have been a role for.

    Probably some friends, definitely the counselor, and God that I was like totally not letting him in on it because I [00:35:00] saw God like I saw my dad, like I better put on a buttoned up, polished version of myself for him to love me and wanna accept me, and so I better not tell God, like all these ugly things that I'm thinking of feeling.

    As if he doesn't already know, but I held that view or like that fear with God for way too long.

    Matt Edmundson: Yeah. It's interesting. It's so prevalent in the church in terms of how we view God that we have to put our best face forward. Yeah, when you read the Psalms and you read David and you even just read the book of Ruth and the way Naomi talks about how rubbish everything is, you're just actually, these are people quite real.

    And God's recorded this in scripture for us to read. No, it's okay. It's okay if you just want to just, don't stay there, but it's okay, and I think it's one of the hardest lessons for Christians to learn in a lot of ways, is that authentic realness with a God who is not mad at you if you just have some emotional feelings that you want to talk to [00:36:00] him about,

    Kristen Hallinan: yeah. And that he's big enough to handle it. There's nothing that I'm going to say that's going to make him be like I actually made a mistake adopting you as a child. I'm done with you.

    Matt Edmundson: That's it, you're out. Sorry, I'm out. Yeah. So you didn't talk to your dad for 12 years. What happened to, what happened there? Because that's obviously past tense, the way you talk about it. So I'm assuming you're talking to dad now.

    Kristen Hallinan: Yeah. We, Sean and I were doing a class at church and we had some mentors and I just began to unpack the whole situation with them and felt convicted that I wanted to reach out to him. Like I didn't know where he was, I didn't know what his situation was, and I just wanted to let him know that.

    I wasn't harboring like any act of resentment, and I just wanted to clear the air a little bit. I reached out to him and it was super slow building back of communication. [00:37:00] And I think there was an element of me that assumed that because I had changed so

    The last time he and I were in a relationship that my hope was that he had to o and I think there's some element of healing, but not what I was wishing and hoping for.

    It wasn't a new, going to be a newfound loyalty to me and love that I just really. Had wanted. So I think there was an element of grieving, probably what I had never really grieved in the first place that this is a relationship that's not going to ever be what I wish it was. We have some communication now, but I also hold a lot of really strong boundaries because I care most about my kids experience and want to protect them from.

    A relationship that they can depend on

    Matt Edmundson: yeah. Wow man, sorry to hear it, [00:38:00] it's just, my heart breaks when the bond between a dad and his daughter is It's shattered in a lot of ways, and I so don't want that with my own kids in any way, but I get how that alters how you view God, right? I'm my, I guess my question here for you, Kristen, is fast forward to the modern day, right?

    So we're recording this early 2024, your book's about to come out and. I'm guessing, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, so correct me if I'm wrong, I'm guessing your marriage is in a stronger place now than when you were in your early twenties.

    Kristen Hallinan: significantly.

    Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

    And your marriage is better, I'm assuming as well, as in much more fulfilling.

    You've obviously had to work through a whole bunch of stuff. I guess my point here is for anybody that's listening, actually going through the hard stuff is often quite worth it. Do you know what I mean it's a painful process, but for you it seems that actually now this has been a worthwhile [00:39:00] journey, both in terms of marriage and parenting.

    Kristen Hallinan: 100%. Yeah. We, and we have some kiddos with ADHD. We have a kiddo on the autism spectrum. So we have some just different dynamics too

    That if we hadn't figured out how to get on the same page and I hadn't been willing to do the work of healing, there is just no way I could be showing up as the parent that these kiddos need.

    And. God has just been wildly faithful because he knew the parent that these kiddos needed. And he also knew that I wasn't that parent yet and that I needed to grow into it. And he's just been so kind and faithful every single step of the way. My therapist said, Kristen, stories that start like yours don't usually end like yours.

    And I just think. That, put my story on a timeline. You can just point to so many spots where God was there. God was there. Even before I was having awareness, even [00:40:00] before I was, having a relationship with him before I was putting him in the proper spot in my life. Like he was just protecting me and protecting me.

    And I think that is the really cool part of doing the hard, messy work is until you're willing to do that, you also can't. See the full depth of how faithful God

    Matt Edmundson: That's so powerful. So what are some of the key, some of the things that you have learned along the way, obviously you're going to go into much more detail in the book about these things, and I appreciate that, but what, for you, what are some of the top things that God has really taught you?

    Forgiveness sounds like it would be one of them. But what are some of the big changes that you have seen God doing you? What were the lessons he taught,

    Kristen Hallinan: One of them is just about voice and relationally, because I just always felt like my voice didn't matter in my house growing up. And so it took me a long time to realize that God wants me to use my voice and that my voice [00:41:00] matters. And. I think he has taught me that in a way that's allowed me to parent my kids differently and to hear their voice, because I was not doing that in the beginning of my mothering years.

    But I think also a lot of the things that he's taught me about the brain and trauma and knowing that hard things happen to every single person, but why are some people left with trauma when others aren't? And it's a matter of how they're cared for. And if they were felt any sense of agency did my voice matter in the situation?

    Did I have an opportunity to get out of the situation? Did I have choices or was I just stuck to. tolerate this harm. And so helping my kids like identify their feelings and know what's happening around them and know that they have some agency over their body and their words that come out of their mouth and that they can affect the situation and that we're listening and that we care what they have to say.

    So all those relational things that I think God's been teaching us all along throughout the Bible, this is how God interacts with his people. And [00:42:00] he gives people a voice who had none and. Those lessons are all throughout scripture. But it's just taken me a long time to learn them for my own self.

    And I think that was really my heart with the book was all these things that I learned about myself because I finally learned about God is I just want people to have these tools much quicker. Then I had them.

    Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I'm listening to you talk and I'm trying to picture in my head the sort of 19 year old Christian sat in the back of the church. And then I'm trying to picture that today's Christians stood at the front of the church. And I'm curious what the sermon would be. Do you know what I mean?

    What would you what would that be about? Would it be about voice? Would it be about forgiveness? Would it be about all of those things? What would you say? And how to yourself in that church.

    Kristen Hallinan: That's a really great question. I think it would have a lot to do with story. I think God teaches us through so much through [00:43:00] story. And it's also a really profound impact of us understanding our own story. Cause it's hard to know. where we want to go or reorient our life to head somewhere else if we don't really understand where we've come from and what has brought us to the point we're at.

    And like over and over the stones in the Jordan and holding the jar of manna and. Over and over, God tells us to remember and to teach the next generation. And I, the things that I inherited into my story were really hard things and they weren't taught to me well. And I just really want to be teaching the stories to the next generation of my kids of a God that's so faithful.

    And yeah, it's true. That I went through all these hard things, but it's also true that God carried me through them.[00:44:00]

    Matt Edmundson: and it's one of those where the thing I like about your story is it's one of redemption, and the things which, I suppose the enemy meant for good for evil, God has turned for back. And you look at that and you go, that's just I'm sorry that you went through what you went through.

    But at the same time, I'm I'm grateful that God had brought you through it and here you are to tell the story to help others I think is quite extraordinary really. So what's next for you because I'm aware in my own life. If I'm, if, if I'm on a scale of one to 10, 10 being totally sorted out, God, you don't need to do any more work in me.

    I don't I'm definitely not there. But neither am I where I was. And so I'm on a journey. I'm curious for you, Kristen, what's next? Fantastic. Fantastic.

    Kristen Hallinan: I always say that I'm never going to arrive under the sign that says you've arrived to healing. Like you are healed. That doesn't exist until the other side of heaven. And so I think there will always [00:45:00] be more healing yet to have. And that's what sanctification is. Like walking more like Jesus the whole time.

    And I love writing and I love speaking. to Women, but I really love getting into their stories with them too. So I'm going to be doing some coaching and some one on one work and some mentorship because they're every, no matter what your story looks like, there are things that you can say.

    I love my family and I am. I want to be honoring to them, but also there are things that they did that didn't serve me well and that I can do different and better for the next generation. And so I think finding where you are on that scale and unpacking that has profound generational impact. And so when we're working with one women doing that, we're working with generations to come of what their stories are going to look like different.

    I'm starting my own podcast and getting into more of these stories. Yep. And so we'll just keep seeing where God takes me, but getting [00:46:00] into it with women, doing the dirty work with them is important to me

    Matt Edmundson: podcast

    Kristen Hallinan: up until now, because we're talking about all these things might've been true up until now, but they don't have to be going forward because God is in the business of redemption.

    Matt Edmundson: Love, love that. That's fantastic. Where can people find your book? Tell us a bit more about that, and how do people get hold of you if they want to do that?

    Kristen Hallinan: Yeah. Amazon, christianbook.com. Barnes and Nobles. It's available just about anywhere for pre-order right now. It launches February 20th and I'm on Instagram at @kristen.hallinan. My website's the same kristenhallinan.com.

    Matt Edmundson: Kristen Hallinan, spelt Hallinan if you're in the UK. Ha! Hall I Nan. Nan being a colloquial term here in the UK for your grandmother. Just, yeah.

    Kristen Hallinan: you just taught me something

    Matt Edmundson: I try. Ha! What do British people call their grandmas? Nan. That's what they call them. Nan, nana. Nanny. No, not [00:47:00] nanny.

    Nan. Although my kids call my grand their, my mum, they call her Nan. They couldn't quite say Nan, so they went Nan. That was cute and that stuck yeah.

    Kristen Hallinan: super cute.

    Matt Edmundson: Christian, listen, so appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your story and I if you're listening to the show and you want to reach out to Christian, do that.

    I'm sure she'd love to hear from you. Do check out the book but a super powerful testimony, man. So grateful for, what God's done in you and in the family and just hearing the story of redemption is super encouraging. So bless you. And thank you for coming on.

    Kristen Hallinan: Thank you so much for having me.

    Sadaf Beynon: And just like that, we've reached the end of another fascinating conversation. Crowd Church is a digital church, a community, a space to explore the Christian faith, and a place where you can contribute and grow. To find out more, check out www. crowd. church. And don't forget to subscribe to What's The Story on your favorite podcast app.

    We've got a whole lot of inspiring stories coming your way, and we really don't want you to miss [00:48:00] any of them. What's the Story is the production of Crowd Church. Our fantastic team is made up of Anna Kettle, Matt Edmundson, Tanya Hutsuliak, and myself, Sadaf Beynon. We work behind the scenes to bring these stories to life.

    Our theme song is the creative work of Josh Edmundson. If you're interested in the transcript or show notes, head over to our website whatsastorypodcast. com and sign up for our weekly newsletters to get all this goodness delivered straight to your inbox. So that's all from us this week. Thank you so much for joining us and we'll catch you in the next episode.

    Bye for now.

 
 

RECENT EPISODES

RECENT LIVESTREAMS

Matt Edmundson
Previous

Finding Healing and Forgiveness After a Car Crash that Changed Everything
Next

Guided by Faith: A Midwife's Triumph Over Burnout