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Give Her Wings: The Story I Couldn't Tell

Season #3

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Key Takeaways:

      • Elle Arters interviews Megan Owen about Give Her Wings: a nonprofit Megan started.
      • They discuss the impact it has had on them and why Megan left it behind

Notable Quotes:

      • "I know that there [are] probably wisdom and seasons and speaking and not speaking and sharing your story and not sharing your story and deciding when and where and with who. And I just love that this seemed to be the right season and the right people." — Elle Arters
      • "[O]ne of my favorite parts about Give Her Wings was really being, what my friend would call, hands in the dirt. Like not being afraid to drive to go see this woman who was hurting and assess her needs. You know, being able to manage a phone call from a woman who might feel pretty unhinged and feral because she's desperate and not having to judge her." — Megan Owen
      • "Everything was gone. I have no copies of anything that I did. ...if you go to their Facebook page, there are pictures of all of my friends that I did the Academy with. And I'm not in any of those photos. Like, I don't know how to describe that feeling. Like you've been scratched out of something. Like you didn't ever exist." — Megan Owen
      • "...I counted 142 women who reached out to me that I had helped through Give Her Wings. They reached out privately, they sent texts, they shared their stories right there on the [Facebook] post. And something healed in me and just broke open and said, 'Megan, you were erased from all of everything with Give Her Wings, but nothing you did was erased.'" — Megan Owen

Resources:

MEGAN: (0:03) This is Pretty Psych, the podcast where we discuss and deconstruct the impact of Evangelical Christianity and cultural phenomena on the psyche, the deep and sometimes uncharted territory of the mind. We venture into raw, rough, and sometimes triggering moments, but we know that through this what we will find will be pretty fascinating, amazing, and pretty intelligent. My name is Megan Owen. I'm a pastoral trauma counselor, and I have spent decades studying the science of human behavior. I draw parallels between therapy and connection to God, self, and others. I love what I do, and I will walk hand in hand with you through the fire to help you find healing and rest. Most importantly, I want to bring you home to yourself. 

(1:12) Hi friends, Megan Owen here with Mountain City Christian Counseling. Welcome to Pretty Psych. Of course, I have my dear friend and amazing co-worker/colleague, Elle. Renee Arters here. She's joined me today for a very special podcast. I pitched the idea of talking about something that's been happening not just in my life, but also in Elle's life, and she liked the idea. And then it was actually Elle's idea to say, you know what, why don't we sort of flip the script this time and do something different, and I will interview you, Megan, which I don't think that's ever happened. Maybe a couple times many, many years ago, but I'm excited about this and nervous, of course. Welcome, Elle.

ELLE: (1:59) Thank you. Thank you. I mean, I can understand that, of course. You've taught us this, and we all know what it's like to share something that's very vulnerable, and it's very valuable, and I wanted to say right off from the bat, thank you for trusting me with it, and I know you're trusting the audience and the listeners, so thank you for finding us trustworthy, and we're going to be committed to being trustworthy to your story, and thank you for just letting me have the honor and privilege of holding space for you. I do just want to say real quick, I just want to acknowledge, my goodness, you have listened to so many stories from hundreds, thousands, probably, of women at this point, and you just do it so, so well. You always do it without judgment, with belief, and with support, and I just feel really blessed to be able to hold space for you this time, so this hour is yours, and yeah, I'm excited to, I know some of this story, I know there's going to be stuff that I don't know, and I'm excited to hear it all, so are you ready to get started?

MEGAN: (3:16) Yes, thank you, Elle.

ELLE: (3:17) Okay, we had found out earlier this week that there are some changes going on to a non-profit that we used to be involved in, and more specifically, that a non-profit that you had started way back in 2012 called Give Her Wings, so I would love to hear a little bit more from you on, like, how that all got started.

MEGAN: (3:44) In 2011, my kids and I escaped a very abusive relationship in a different country, from a different country, back to the U.S., and I had expected that I might have support from my own family, from my church, from my friends, from people who knew us, and by the time we landed the plane going from Europe to here in Colorado, my kid's father had called my family, told them I was crazy, basically, and I didn't have the support that I had hoped to have. I don't know what I expected, but what I didn't expect was the harassment that I received, the discrediting that happened, the emails, the pastor showing up on my door, and I found myself in a shockingly horrific place and in poverty. Within a year, we were in a better place, the kids and I were, and I had started being open and writing about my story, really based on someone else's counsel to me, because I had been so discredited that I decided and chose to go somewhat public, and what I found were countless women who were going through the same thing, who were being harassed by their churches, who were being told to go back to abusive relationships, who were told that they were not being honest, and that they just wanted an easy way out of the marriage, which is, as you and I both know, that's not an easy way to end a marriage, to take the children and leave and just hope that the courts will believe you when you share your story, right? And so I started writing for another blog that sort of picked up on my story that was pretty popular back then, I don't know if you remember that one, and by that time, I feel like maybe you and I had connected through another small group that we found online, which you and I have talked about before, and that was a lifeline for us, and then while I was writing for this other blog and was kind of finding my sea legs for this new way of living, I decided that I wanted to raise money for one of the mamas who had written in. And so the founder of that blog, that was, you know, we're talking a long time ago when blogs were like a whole big thing, he was in her area, so he went to visit her, sort of vetted her, came back and told me what was going on, and then with a couple of cool cats, we raised $2,000 for her one month. And I was like, oh my gosh, I can raise money for people.

ELLE: (6:56) That was fun.

MEGAN: (6:58) And we were able to buy, he could buy mattresses for her kids, because I guess they were sleeping on the floor, and it was a home that had, you know, it was mice and just, it was just gross. And so we were able to get them mattresses and blankets, she got a new haircut, she got some new clothes, we helped her get started with a resume, sort of taught her how to break out on her own. And it was thrilling to me, to my soul. It was energizing, I found that I loved it. And then there was another woman the next month, and we did it again. And I feel like we called it something like, she is worthy or something. And then we just kind of started naming the mamas because we didn't want to make it public who they were because of the dangers they were in and the harassment they were receiving. So this kept going for several months. And then eventually, we incorporated into a non-profit called Give Her Wings. And I became the executive director of it. And it was amazing. It was a startup. It was exciting. I never drew a paycheck or anything like that. This was just, I wanted to give to women what I didn't receive. And that was emotional support, financial support. Just people saying, you're not going to hell was a big deal for me. So it was just, it was an amazing experience. And it just kept growing, Elle, as you know, because you were there, you witnessed this whole thing. And some people like kind of fell away because we'd sort of break open and then we'd grow again. And then we would break open a little bit and then we'd grow again. And people sort of came and went. We had a fantastic reputation. We were legit. Financials were public. It was, I loved it. It was wonderful that you and I didn't have anything like this. So I created something like this for other women because it was so devastating to be so alone in that situation. And having been taught that we were, I mean, we were homeschool moms. Yeah. We didn't know we could do hard things yet. We just found ourselves being spiritual widows with orphaned kids.

ELLE: (9:20) Yeah, no, that's exactly it. And I forget too at that time, you know, just how few people really understood what we were walking. And so not only are you through Give Her Wings, like not only were you meeting people like practically, you know, through finances and that emotional and physical support, but even just having language like that, just being able to validate and attune what we were experiencing, which was this spiritual widowhood and yeah, like trying to raise orphaned kids, even though, yes, that wasn't literally what our experience was. Just having that language, having somebody who really saw that and creating a space was extraordinary. I remember when you started that. And I think I know we've shared this before. I think we met the year before. I remember when this came kind of into, you know, living in real life, into this, like you said, this like kind of official, you know, incorporated nonprofit. And I even remember becoming a, like a mama, a survivor mama. Yeah, I know there were like different tiers and different needs. And I remember one year in particular, yeah, just to have that community and the support and the encouragement from your other volunteers that were part of the staff. It was just so beautiful. You could feel, you could just feel the compassion and the belief and the trust and the safety. That was just such an extraordinary blessing to have. Not everybody could offer that. So I'm thankful for that. I think it's amazing. I'm saying this because I don't know that I've even slowed down to consider like how much growth and how much you guys were able to do in just a couple of years, because I'm thinking of in 2014. So that was only two years. Yeah, you guys were able to support so many. Now, I know this continued, of course, growing and different ways of expressing that ministry. I remember 2019 is when you had posted about, hey, I've got one, I've got some website needs. Does anybody know how to do anything like that? And I have this idea, this dream for a next huge project for Give Her Wings. So one, I wanted to ask you, I guess, before I get too far ahead. What's curious during that season from 2012 to 2019, if you could just share one or two of your favorite memories or accomplishments, and then maybe that kind of leads into 2019.

MEGAN: (11:53) Yeah, so for a long time, it was just three of us. Dawn was our treasurer and Kelly was our creative director. And then I did basically everything else, all the fundraising. And during that time, I mean, the whole thing, I got to experience growth and come up with that language also. Like people didn't know you could divorce somebody for abuse and still be a Christian, you know, like I didn't know that. And this is just the paradigms in which we all were, which were really quite fundamental, conservative, that sort of thing. And I didn't use the word cult for a long time. I didn't even use the word abuse when I left. I just knew I was dying inside and my kids were being hurt. And so, you know, all of that, I got to grow. The three of us had a great time and then things shifted. They just kept shifting and changing. And then we had volunteers and I loved having the volunteers. I think as far as memories, I guess sort of overarching, one of my favorite parts about Give Her Wings was really being what my friend would call hands in the dirt. Like not being afraid to drive to go see this woman who was hurting and assess her needs. You know, being able to manage a phone call from a woman who might feel pretty unhinged and feral because she's desperate and not having to judge her. Just having permission to be at mercy ministry. End of story. And not, you know, not saying, oh, well, is she, you know, it sounds like she's crying in front of her kids or it sounds like she's, you know, she's had to do some pretty desperate things to make money. And that doesn't seem, you know, just we threw all that out the window and said, we're not, we're just not going to judge. Our whole job is just to love these women. And so, you know, some of those earlier stories really stick out. I remember a woman in Maine whose children needed blankets. And I had a friend in Maine and that friend went over and saw her and she was like, yes, this woman is, they're cold. And so to be able to share a story and say, hey, we have a woman whose children are cold. And we got her blankets and that one of those kids was maybe 2 years old. He went on to college because of that experience. He went on to college and studied nonprofits and started his own.

ELLE: (14:36) Oh, wow.

MEGAN: (14:37) So that's, you know, just those things. Yes. We paid a chunk of bills for women who needed to keep their heat on or have their rent and all of that. But those little things that just were moments of desperation where we could be like the Holy Spirit and Ezer Kanigdo into their situation to give them what they needed at the last second. That was my favorite part, I think.

ELLE: (15:03) I can totally see that. That's beautiful. And yeah, I can't really honor you enough and say thank you enough for how much you, how fiercely you love. It's so genuine and how like you were saying, just how you were willing to do that without judgment. It was you have been one of the least judgmental people I have ever met. It has been healing for me personally. It's healing to watch it. And I think alongside of that, I just think of all these stories that you're sharing right now, my own and just others, just how much dignity you've brought to them too. And we're at our personal lows of lows when you're a mom who can't even like, you're struggling to find blankets and you're struggling to keep the electricity on and the heat on and some of these basic needs for your children. And you know the background noise of what people are thinking and to have somebody come in and just offer full acceptance with that dignity. Yeah, I just wanted to take a moment as I was jumping out at me just to honor that.

MEGAN: (16:14) Yeah, like we give with dignity. We have to give with dignity. And the reason that people don't always feel judgment for me, I'm sure sometimes they do, is because I was so harshly judged during this time. And when I was given things, it would be a bag of clothes left on my front porch for my kids. And it was clearly, you know, holes in the jeans or canned food that people didn't want. You know, like a pastor brought his two kids over to bring us a pizza that didn't even feed all of us. And the daughter, he brought the daughter over so she could experience what it's like to not be privileged. Wow. And so those experiences stayed with me. And so it was so important to teach everyone to give with honor and dignity, never judging, never judging. And that's why, that's why I did it that way. Because I know how it feels. And I know you do too. I know you do too.

ELLE: (17:23) Yeah, it was definitely an eye-opening experience into like just a poor community or a needy community. Yeah, I think it was eye-opening to see in our circles. Yeah, our judgments, our thoughts on why or how a person finds themselves in a needy position. And we realized just recognizing how you can be there for all kinds of reasons and it doesn't take away from the inherent value you still bring, of course. And that that should be matched as well. So yeah.

MEGAN: (18:02) Single moms leaving abuse in those cultures, there's a learned helplessness that we have. And that's not a, that is not a condemnation. We don't know yet what we're capable of. And so I saw Give Her Wings as a bridge. Okay, we're going to help you and then show you what you're capable of.

ELLE: (18:20) So yeah, I love these stories. I remember a lot of these stories. But I'm curious, when did you kind of see maybe some shifts or changes happening behind the scenes in Give Her Wings? There is kind of a temperate, you know, temperature shift or a change away from its mission or attitudes or I don't know. Tell me a little bit about that.

MEGAN: (18:44) Well, we had grown quite a bit by, you know, 25,000 followers. By then I had developed the Give Her Wings Academy, which you and I did work day and night. My gosh, you and I put so much time and effort into that, Elle. And that was in an effort to have steady donation income because I was doing all of the everything. And I was getting burned out just working 24-7 for donations. And this created, you know, I think a good income of like $3,000 a month by the time I left in order to keep it going. But it was about a year before I left, there had been a couple of people brought onto our board who were more on the conservative side. They seemed to have a heart for moms, but were not trauma-informed, did not ever experience what we had experienced. They were complementarian. And so I started noticing that temperature shift. We brought both of them onto the board, which I wish I had never allowed to happen because they outnumbered people pretty quickly. And then with that, I saw more from that same pocket, from that same area, they were coming in on the board, wanting to bring in their own volunteers. And the mission started to become lost. And I found myself going from passionate ambassador for those who were hurting to trying to keep the board happy, trying to keep our constituents happy, trying to take care of our mamas and their kids, trying to keep our volunteers motivated. And I discovered that everyone was my boss and I was exhausted. And the big mistake was kind of bringing, allowing a married couple onto the board, but also just kind of letting everyone have their own ideas of egalitarian or complementarianism or whatever, actually created more of a problem than I realized because while I was over here thinking, yeah, everyone gets to have their own opinion, they were thinking everybody needs to have our opinion. And so they kind of seemed to set about on this mission of transforming this hands in the dirt mercy ministry into something that in their mind was more biblical. And as a result, the mercy ministry lost its mercy and I could feel it. And then there were whisperings. And as much as I tried to keep communication open, I could see what was coming. And so that was during the time where we were putting the academy together as soon as it was running smoothly and this was new. No one had created an advocacy course. This was the first one that we knew of like this. And once there was enough kind of going into the coffers of the nonprofit, that's when I stepped down. I had lost that sense of passion because the exciting real true passionate ministry had been replaced by people who were conservative and stuck. And you just can't always bring something back to life when people's egos and power get in the way. And that's what happened. So I took a course on transitioning well. I helped them to find, we actually hired somebody from the volunteer board who had finished her degree in sociology and was an advocate in her, a woman's advocate for the police station in her area. And she was young and had fresh ideas and it was exciting. And she came here to Colorado and I trained her over a weekend and walked with her and did my best to make the transition graceful, which people have told me that's how it came across because I still wanted women to get what they needed. And I still believed in it, hoped in the mission, felt that this with this new executive director, she was on board, but this couple had so infiltrated every area that they'd already been in contact with her. So you can imagine like the pain I felt when I took her to the airport where I thought she was going back home to Washington. And instead she went straight to that couple's house where they retrained her. And so that was very painful. And during that time, Elle, I was going through another huge life crisis of my second husband leaving us.

ELLE: (23:52) Yeah, when I think back 2019 to 2021, you had like a very intense two year period. Give Her Wings was strong and it was doing well and he had just kind of produced this academy. So offering this whole other additional support, transitioned it. I can't imagine how like shocking and confusing maybe, I don't wanna put words in your mouth before your life kind of changed in 2021. Can you share just a little bit about how you process that transition knowing afterwards like, oh, this did not transition the way I thought it was going to.

MEGAN: (24:32) I think in a lot of ways, I kind of put it away. Because I was working some hard jobs, COVID hit. I was a chaplain in the hospital during that time. And I just stopped looking at everything. I couldn't look. I think I just was like, okay, God, you're doing this, you're in charge. I've stepped back, it's not my baby anymore. I need to not be involved so they can make healthy transitions because I learned that that's how you do it. You're out of the picture, totally fine with me. But then what started happening was kind of soul crushing. So after I was a chaplain, I started working at the suicide hotline for Colorado during COVID, there was a need. I wanted to help a woman who had called in and she was a Christian. And I was like, I know the ministry for you. So I went to the website and I couldn't find all my years of blog posts. You know, I don't know, seven, ten years of everything that was out there to help people that I worked so hard on that I poured my life's blood into. I couldn't find anything that had to do with anything I had done. But all of everything that I had written, all the art that I had done, all of the course, everything was there. But I had been erased from the website. And it was just this wave of re-traumatization. I don't know how to describe it. My friend, Sarah McDougall mentioned yesterday that it was like, she said, when you are erased and your intellectual property is being used and you see it everywhere. I saw it everywhere on other people's pages that I didn't know. It does something to you. Again, that sort of, I'm not a real person type of feeling. I don't know how else to describe it. I remember sitting there and just putting my hand on my face saying, I'm still here. I am still here. And then that just kind of started this shocking. I reached out to that couple and they were like, oh yeah, it was a misunderstanding. It was just gone. Everything was gone. I have no copies of anything that I did. And then I would see, like if you go to their Facebook page, there are pictures of all of my friends that I did the Academy with. And I'm not in any of those photos. Like, I don't know how to describe that feeling. Like you've been scratched out of something. Like you didn't ever exist.

ELLE: (27:23) Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's so bewildering. So bewildering to hear you share that. And I can only imagine, of course, what it was like to be living it. I was thinking on it a little bit. Like I would assume, when you were transitioning, giver wings from your hands to somebody else's, I mean, we can see, and you spoke to, of course, like how valuable the nonprofit was, every individual woman and her children. When you say it's your baby, the focus isn't like on the possession. It's because the baby is so valuable, right? I'm certain that when you transition that, you assumed, of course, these people are going to value this baby as much as you do. And they're going to do different things. They're going to have different visions. And that part's fine. Yeah, but that whole entity in itself was what's so valuable. You were transitioning that with respect and trust in those people. And it struck me that they didn't just transition from you, but kind of just full-on abandoned you. And of course, that would be jarring. That would be unexpected. That would be confusing. And then, of course, as a survivor who's already experienced this kind of betrayal with people that you trust, with your community, having already gone through that lift, through that, to have to do it a second time is just, like you said, soul-wrenching. But then to also have that experience with people who were trained to know exactly how to care for someone in this situation. It's so disorienting, to say the least. I know the intensity felt far more than just that. But it would seem to me to be so incredibly disorienting. And painful and hurtful. I was thinking too, I know you had referenced 2021 and life kind of exploding for a second time for you. Can you share a little bit about what happened in 2021 and how that related with your Give Her Wings experience?

MEGAN: (29:39) So David left us in 2021. Our marriage had completely disintegrated. It was COVID or the tail end of it. And just because by the nature of him having been their stepfather, there was no real spousal support or anything like that. Hear this man and told me I never want you to have to work. I never want you to have to work for money. You know, I always support you and there I was, you know, thankfully I'd done my CPE chaplaincy training and I did have my education and, you know, all my qualifications to do the things that I am doing now. But there were a couple of really scary months in there and we were at ground zero again financially. And, you know, it's interesting as I didn't ask them for help financially. I needed it and I wanted to. All I asked is that they share one of my posts for the practice I was starting. That's what happened. And they just, they just wouldn't help me. And that's when I knew, wow, like if they can do this to me, they've lost their heart. It just felt like the ultimate betrayal. I never asked anybody for anything except that. And then of course, my close friends got together and raised money for me. That was where I got to experience what our mamas experienced, which is here's a chunk, here's an encouragement. And we believe in you. It was more emotional than anything. I mean, we needed the finances, but the emotional piece was we believe in you and we support you and you're not alone in this. And that was enough to say for me to say to myself, I am clawing my way out of this pit. That's what I'm doing. And I wanted to be responsible with what I'd been given. And that's what happened. Now, I forgot about this, but actually Heather Elizabeth's group did something similar for me a couple months later on a smaller scale, but it made a difference. It made a huge difference. It was so encouraging. So I got to, I got to receive not from the entity I had started and founded, but from my friends. And that was powerful. That was so powerful.

ELLE: (32:24) It is so bewildering because I remember that. I remember hearing, I mean, I had a whole bunch of feelings and thoughts, but one of my immediate, and I do not mean to make this about me, but one of my immediate responses was, Oh my gosh. Well, okay. We need a rally immediately because one, I mean, obviously like I know what that's like. I would want to do that, but, but even more so like, well, of course we're going to rally around Megan. She's the one who's been doing this for hundreds of other women. Like this isn't even, this is a no brainer. This is just an instinct. This is just a response. Like, of course we're going to do that. And I'm super grateful that I got to see other friends behind the scenes that were like, Oh yeah, absolutely. And they jumped on board with that same desire to love and support and encourage and speak truth and speak dignity and speak everything you just said. Gosh, that was only like six months, six to eight months after I left Give Her Wings. So it's pretty shocking even for me to know, like, how did we go from at least on paper, at least like we were still serving people, you know, for sure. When, when I was there, but to then go from, from that to, I don't know, hearing your story and there's not that instinct on their end to want to help and to help the one who founded it. I'm not doing a very good job explaining it, but I, I just witnessed the, the, the shocking kind of hypocrisy and the lack of care and compassion. It's so jarring for you to be right back and not back, but for you to be in that clear position of need that this ministry is supposed to minister to and having been the founder of it and for them to turn their backs and walk away and say, no, no, thanks is, I just don't have the words.

MEGAN: (34:31) I'm glad you're saying this. No, I, this, this hits you too. And all of the people who served with me, who are looking at it now, who, who also reached out to me in the past couple of days and, and shared their own stories of things that I hadn't been aware of about how they were disappeared from their position all of a sudden with no explanation and just the, with coldness and a lack of care and just in a power trippy way. No, this affected you too, because the work we were doing was real. You saw me like almost every day I felt like, and I was doing this, I'm dealing with this. And, you know, like it was, it was very personal, I think, which is why it was such a wonderful experience because there was no veneer of anything. What we were doing on the inside did match the outside. And so that was shocking for you. That was very painful, no doubt. And yet we look at all these stories, you know, we, you and I have t-shirts or hoodies or something that have all of the names on the back of it, of the women that we served. We get to have that experience. That will never leave us.

ELLE: (35:50) Yeah. Thank you. Were you able to get to a resolution of sorts or is it kind of like our, yeah, like the other, other times in your life, right?

MEGAN: (36:01) There's no resolution. I didn't reach out to, and, you know, I would reach out when something would happen. Like I got a message from somebody a couple years ago who said, Hey, have you heard of this nonprofit Give Her Wings? It was spearheaded by this couple. And, you know, that maybe you could join with them. And I just wanted to scream.

ELLE: (36:25) That is wild. Yeah.

MEGAN: (36:31) And I reached out to the couple and they were, they got defensive. Like they didn't even say, you know, it just, there's been no resolution until a couple days ago. Oh, what was it the day before yesterday? I haven't had peace about it. I've had a lot of anger, which is just to cover for my grief and pain. Just like you just said, it was so well stated. It wasn't, it wasn't that I owned it. It was that it seemed like they took that baby and said, we need to make this baby into a conservative cookie cutter nonprofit. And they took out anything that was merciful. They don't believe women now they say, well, did that come from a credible source? These are the stories that I hear now. There's nothing personal.: This couple went behind the scenes. You don't see them, you know? And so it just, it just, it felt violating and I managed to be okay. Most of the time, you know, obviously I rebuilt again and here we are having rebuilt. Finally, I'm finally able to even stop and think and talk about this, but a couple of days ago and you saw this and you supported me and you helped me reword it. And, you know, just a couple of days ago, I was able to make this post and share my story on social media. And I honestly wondered like, is anybody even going to see it? Am I going to get backlash for it? And instead I counted 142 women who reached out to me that I had helped through Give Her Wings. They reached out privately, they sent texts, they shared their stories right there on the, on the post. And, and something healed in me and just broke open and said, Megan, you were erased from all of everything with Give Her Wings, but nothing you did was erased. Nothing you did was erased. In fact, there was a woman who shared a story about a piece of art that I think I sent her and then she sent to someone and that person started their own ministry. And then there was, they were all these people who started their own nonprofits because they took my course and women who were helped who are now like thriving with their kids. It's like they just all got on there and decided they were going to remind me of the work that I did.

ELLE: (39:20) I'm so sad to know for how many years you went invalidated and questioning and questioning. Like, I think what I did was purposeful. I'm pretty sure I have these memories and that's real, but to have the leadership and the voice for Give Her Wings essentially mirrored back a completely distorted reality and a distorted truth about who you are and in your role in it. Yeah, I can imagine how quiet and just kind of desolate feeling that may have been. And I know I had, I had texted with over the last couple of days in response to all that, just seeing story after story after story, being able to speak back to essentially the lies that were being communicated either directly or indirectly with words or without words to you, but to have all these, all these words of truth showing up and just honoring and thanking you for everything that you did. And I know I shared with you too, like just your partnership with the Lord, your availability to that. And like, here's my gifts and strengths and here, and Lord, I trust that you can do even beyond what I could do in my own strength. And like, that's what was striking me too, when I got to read through some of those posts, like in one that you just shared, you know, you, you painted something, you ministered to this one woman who then took it and did something else with it and then took it and did something else with it. And that's, that's like, that's that joy and excitement of doing something like this with the author, the source of life. It was like, oh, I can, you know, I can multiply this so over and over and yeah, to, to know like that's part of your legacy is beautiful. I know that there is probably wisdom and seasons and speaking and not speaking and sharing your story and not sharing your story and deciding when and where and with who. And I just love that this seemed to be the right season and the right people.

MEGAN: (41:27) I wanted women to be helped. I saw every once in a while that somebody was being helped. I didn't want to mess with that if people were getting what they needed. And now it seems as though Give Her Wings is being absorbed into another entity or something like that. And it's just not what it was. And so because of that, I do feel like I can be open. I just didn't expect the outpouring. I think I thought there was some sort of like element of shame because that's, that's how they made me feel. When I reached out to see if they could just share about Mountain City Christian Counseling, and they wouldn't. It was, there was just this shameful tint to the way they spoke to me. And then I'd been erased. And that's, that's how it feels. You feel like, wow, that was so easy for them to just discard me. And that's when I realized firsthand that they'd lost any mercy or grace that, that they had had before. And yeah, it's been five, six years. I don't know how long it's been, but this is the right time. I did need to know what I was made of and what I could do with very little support. And of course, Elle, you don't like me to make a big deal about this, but you were one of the few who supported me. Like I could call and, or I could text. I never call.

ELLE: (42:57) I’d pick up a phone for you.

MEGAN: (43:02) You'd be like, she's, she's dying. It's an emergency. She's calling me. But yeah, so yes. So I could text you. I could reach out. I couldn't give very much at the time cause I mean, two jobs and eye tumor and kids and all the things I was dealing with, but boy, when I needed it, you were there, you were always there. And a couple other people were always there and it, that's all it takes. I swear one, two, three friends that see you and know who you are.: Like actually like you saw me at my worst and you still know who I am. You know that my motivation is good, you know, like, yeah. So that was powerful. That's carried me. It's carried me.

ELLE: (43:50) Gosh. Well, thank you for sharing all that with us. And thank you for just pouring out your heart. And I know I've said it a handful of times, but thank you for your, yours also one of the most generous people. I know you, you give time, you give your talents, you give, like I said, you give your heart, you give your muscles. And I'm, I was just delighted to know that people were giving their things to you for that. And, and I'm confident, like I, I'm excited just to continue to see what you do. You're always, you're full of ideas and you've always got new projects and creative ways to keep doing what you started with at Give Her Wings because it was an organic ministry. Like I said, it's an organic ministry that, that came from your heart and your heart with God. And that never ends whether or not it's labeled, you know, with Give Her Wings or it's labeled with another nonprofit or it's labeled with another company or whatever it is. Yeah. That heart of mercy and leadership and the faith I think that you instill in people keeps going. So I'm excited still to see what else is coming after this season.

MEGAN: (45:07) Well, we're doing it together. We're doing it together, Elle. You're a huge encouragement to me always. And I, you know, I, if you guys want to see my post, you can head on over to my page on Facebook and read what I wrote, which felt very brave at the time. The other thing I want to mention is that I have a painting that we're going to share of a woman who is just openly receiving grace and mercy, like it's water being poured from heaven. I'm having it framed and I am going to give it away to people who decide to donate to a nonprofit that I really can get behind. I know Heather Elizabeth, nothing has been compromised. She has managed to keep the vision the whole time. And she helps single mothers who are leaving abuse and who are being harassed by churches and family. And, and it's called the Honor Project Movement. And we will put the links here. But you can go to heatherelizabeth.org and pledge to be a monthly supporter of single moms who are leaving abuse like Elle and I were 15 years ago. And you'll be entered into a drawing to win this painting that you will see attached here. And so, you know, we're going to take the next, I don't know, month from until end of July. And then we're going to have one of Heather's grandkids draw a name from a bowl to win this painting. So please go over and make a monthly pledge. You will not regret it. You'll get to see all the cool things that she does locally and nationally. She gets, even gets crisis counseling help for these women. And sometimes she goes through Mountain City Christian counseling. So that's pretty cool too. So yeah.

ELLE: (47:13) That's so great. That's exciting. Well, thank you again. Thank you for sharing your story. It deserved to live outside your body. You know, you experienced it and then it deserves to be processed just like the rest of our stories have needed that. And you deserve that too. And I'm so grateful that you shared it with us. And thank you for letting me do this. That was fun. Thank you for letting me be the interviewer this time.

MEGAN: (47:41) It's really unusual for me to be able to share a story. And I don't know why I think everyone else gets to, and I don't, you know, so it's really healing for me to be able to do this. All those stories I received plus this right here has done something for me. I'm not ever going to be the same. So thank you for letting me release that  Elle and for just being there and knowing me and always being with me. Thank you. I love you so much. 

ELLE: (48:15) All right. Thank you.

MEGAN: (48:18) I hope this conversation has encouraged deep thought as well as helped you draw parallels between therapy and your connection to God's self and others. If you'd like some one-on-one time with me, unpacking some of your most precious life stories to find healing and rest, contact me on mountaincitychristiancounseling.com. To help this podcast reach more people, do subscribe and review this podcast and share it with someone who would benefit from healing and rest. My name is Megan Owen, and thank you for listening to this episode of Pretty Psych. Catch you next episode. And in the meantime, do find healing and do find rest.