Divorce, Addiction, and Cancer: PATRICIA DOUCET's Testimony of Unshakable Faith

What happens when life throws you curveballs and your faith is tested? Join us for an inspiring conversation with Patricia Doucet, an author and speaker who has battled cancer, endured two divorces, and borne the weight of judgment. Discover how Patricia found strength in the unwavering belief that God would never turn away from her.

In this powerful discussion, we explore the importance of resilience and taking responsibility for our actions during our darkest hours. Patricia bravely shares her experiences with suicide attempts, hospitalization, and a life-changing trip to Florida. Together, we examine the roles of blame and forgiveness in the healing process and the challenges of owning our actions.

As we dive deeper into Patricia's story, we discuss the vital role of forgiveness in moving forward. Learn about her upcoming Christian living book/memoir and her favorite Bible verse, Psalm 34:18. Listen as Patricia shares the most important lesson she's learned: to accept God's love without seeking reasons why He couldn't or wouldn't love her. Don't miss this emotional and uplifting episode that will leave you feeling inspired to overcome your own struggles and embrace the love and support around you.

0:00:00 - Navigating Life's Trials Based on Faith
0:13:00 - Overcoming Adversity and Taking Responsibility
0:19:55 - Forgiveness, Faith, and Moving Forward
0:32:44 - Resilience and perseverance

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Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Life's Trials Based on Faith
• 13:00 Overcoming Adversity and Taking Responsibility
• 19:55 Forgiveness, Faith, and Moving Forward
• 32:44 Resilience and Perseverance

Transcript

0:00:00 - Speaker 1
I attempted to follow all the rules until I was in my mid-fifties And I kind of fell apart in midlife. I say I crashed and burned. It was inevitable to happen. I was in a marriage of thirty years, three beautiful children, pretty much grown up by then. And one day I just put my head down on my lap and the tears just hit my toes that were sticking out of my slippers. I remember and I just said God, i just cannot believe, i can't do this anymore. 

0:00:35 - Speaker 2
Hi, i'm Ruth Hovsepian. Welcome to the Out of the Darkness podcast, where we help you navigate life's trials based on faith and difficult truths. Today we're talking with Patricia Doucet, an author and speaker. A few months ago, patricia and I met and have gotten to know each other And, interestingly enough, she has introduced herself to us by saying she found herself living in her mother's basement at the age of sixty-one, trying to figure out life. Patricia has had a very interesting life. She has been married and divorced twice. She has gone through cancer and survived it, and now she is happily married and she is writing a book. Please join us today to find out how she has gone through all this difficulty and made it. Welcome. Patricia, i am thrilled that you have been able to join me today on Out of the Darkness and I cannot wait to have this conversation with you. 

0:01:41 - Speaker 1
I am happy to be here. Thank you, Ruth. 

0:01:44 - Speaker 2
My pleasure, and you and I have met taking a master class and I think that there was a connection there. Plus, we are both Canadians And, as we talked about earlier, it's that connection of two Canadians meeting in the world of Americans which creates an instant bond, i believe. So I think we have quite a bit to chat about today. There's a lot of similarities in our journey in life And I think that those of us that have gone through certain things in life see the humor in things and see how we have persevered to get to where we are. So just a little background of, perhaps, where you have come from, what kind of an upbringing you had. Was it a church upbringing or what was it? 

0:02:44 - Speaker 1
I grew up in church, taking my feet from the pew, taking everything in church was my life. Whenever the church doors were open, we were there. It was good for the most part, except I had a lot of rules, a lot of do's and don'ts and I was very religious about following those rules And that I got into trouble with a lot of that later on because it was pretty impossible to live up to the standards I had for myself. So that was my beginning. 

0:03:18 - Speaker 2
You know that's interesting about the rules and following them, and I was the same type of child. I was afraid You know one of the things I chuckle when I think about it but we were taught to pray as children And one of the times we were taught to pray was before going to bed, and when we went to bed we would pray and I would ask for forgiveness for my sins. Well, you know, you're a kid, you're a child. You go to bed, you forget, you fall asleep or you fall asleep while you're praying. And I remember very distinctly a couple of times going to bed and not praying And the fear that was in my heart that I would die in my sleep without asking for forgiveness. 

0:04:09 - Speaker 1
A child? 

0:04:11 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I can relate, And you know one of those, and I think that that's the case with us, those of us that grew up in a church. I had the same problem when it came to divorce. Now, you and I have had that journey, but one of my issues with it was what will the family say, what will the church say and what will God say to this decision? And I'm not even talking about what the marriage was about or whatever, It was just that act of divorce. How did you, how did you deal with that, Especially someone who follows the rules, Patricia. 

0:04:58 - Speaker 1
Well, i attempted to follow all the rules until I was in my mid fifties and I kind of fell apart in midlife. I say I crashed and burned. It was inevitable to happen. I was in a marriage of 30 years, three beautiful children, pretty much grown up by then. And one day I just put my head down on my lap and the tears just hit my toes that were sticking out of my slippers. I remember and I just said, god, i just cannot do this anymore If the whole world turns against me. I just needed to know will you turn against me? And he didn't. I knew he wouldn't, but it was a journey from there, because it's not. It's not something that we ever wanted to happen. 

0:05:46 - Speaker 2
Of course nobody does, but sometimes No one goes into marriage. thinking of divorce now. 

0:05:53 - Speaker 1
And I often thought that God loves marriage. He created marriage and he and he, and it's still the best thing to do to stay together till death. do you part if you can. But I began to realize that the two people in the marriage are still more important than the marriage institution itself. The marriage institution must work for both people, you know so. 

0:06:18 - Speaker 2
It's a hard decision. It's a hard choice to make, but you know I I've, you know I I got divorced quite early on in my marriage We were just a little over seven years, you know, or going on to eight almost, and it was hard because my kids were very young but, I learned as well that, you know divorce, i think sometimes we put it on a pedestal as believers, as an institution, that we must adhere to whether we can or not, and it was, you know the guilt that I lived with for the longest time. 

Yeah, it's not a healthy way of thinking And I think that spoke volumes about my where I was in my faith And that's a very personal thing that you know. I believe that was in my case. I don't think that it's necessarily the case with everyone, but in my case I think it had a lot to do with where I was in my faith. I wasn't really walking that, you know, my faith out at the time. So divorce was sort of like Oh my goodness, if that also comes into play, i'm lost, i'm doomed you know That's worse than forgetting your bedtime prayer. 

0:07:42 - Speaker 1
Exactly Yeah. 

0:07:44 - Speaker 2
Exactly, i've lived with. I've lived with those rules. And I have to say, you know, now I realize that at 57, almost 58, that I was walking the faith of my parents and my grandparents, i was not walking Ruth's journey in the Lord, right. So I think that's where all of those hangups were coming from, because I didn't have that relationship. It was by proxy, right Through my parents and my grandparents. So how, how, how did you recover from from this? And you know what was it like for you. 

0:08:20 - Speaker 1
Well, i can tell you some of the things I went through prior to that, and a little bit after that, as a result of trying to live up to the standards that not necessarily God gave me but I gave myself, or learned here, there and everywhere I I couldn't do it. None of us can do it, and I didn't do everything right, of course I didn't. But just trying to caused a lot of anxiety and depression And sometimes we self-medicate and I got into. After my first divorce I got into addiction with alcohol And I knew better than that because my father was an alcoholic. The Lord delivered him from that before I knew him. So I knew it was in my genes and not to do it. 

So here I was in my late fifties, battling, being addicted to alcohol, and I knew better self-medicating. Can you imagine knowing the Lord, since you're five years old? but you know God was still there with me. through all of it I had a sense of betrayal from all of this happened. Up to that point in my life I had been affected by narcissism, which affected me, low self-esteem, not being good enough, and so when I came to midlife I felt very broken And so I've kind of coined the phrase. I went from broken to beloved. Now, god always did love me and I still am broken to some degree We always are, until we get to heaven. But my identity is not that of being a broken person in our. My identity is that I am the beloved daughter of God, and that's the difference. 

0:10:06 - Speaker 2
Now, I love what you said, that it's your identity is not on the broken part. It was a struggle for me as well, and I too acted out in my forties. For 15 years I started, and it's hard, especially when you know that what you're doing is not just wrong because it's wrong in every way, but also it goes about against everything that you've been taught and it goes against your faith and it goes against the base that you've created your life on, and it's a hard thing to overcome. But I love that. Broken to beloved To me that is, those are sweet words, because I too I'll speak for myself I never thought that I would be a beloved again because I was so broken. 

0:11:10 - Speaker 1
So broken, fractured in many, many pieces. And after my first divorce, i remember looking visualizing myself as a broken glass doll on the floor in many, many pieces, and I remember looking at her, thinking that she couldn't put herself back together. She just couldn't. And there came a point where I started the journey of putting myself back together with God's help and allowing him to put me back together after being a very fractured and broken woman. 

0:11:44 - Speaker 2
And you know, I know that you have also had with all of this, you've also had to deal with a physical brokenness as well. Can you tell us a bit about that? 

0:12:01 - Speaker 1
Yes, i was 35, with three children under 10, and I had thyroid cancer, developed thyroid cancer, had two surgeries at the age of 35. One surgery at the age of 35. It came back again at the age of 40 in five years, and I had two major surgeries And it was, you know, a radical neck surgery where they stripped a lot out of my neck, and at the time I always have to say this when I talk about the cancer. The last time I went out, they put me under the. The surgeon cupped his hands, like this, on my face and he said ma'am, i've neglected to tell you through all of this that when you wake up, you may not have a voice. And now, when I'm sharing what the Lord has done for me, i often remember that he did give me my voice and I'm trying to use it for him as best I can. 

0:13:00 - Speaker 2
You know you've been through some difficult times. How did you persevere? Where did that strength come from for you to go take the next step, whether it was dealing with cancer or divorce? What was it that gave you that strength? I? 

0:13:24 - Speaker 1
had to go a little bit further to reach a little bit, fell in the ditch a little more after that, after a second divorce with a very short marriage that I went into too quickly after the first one, first divorce. So if one divorce isn't bad enough, two is it will really knock you down when you're trying to do everything right. So after that I moved into my mother's basement at age 61. We're getting to be a big girl now, 61. I don't mind telling my age. Hey depends on when you were born. And I had a suicide attempt. I was driving my car and I just was crying out to God. I've tried to do everything right and in trying to do it right I made so many mistakes and nothing works out And I'm just going to end it all. Just the only thing that matters now is would you take me to heaven? That's all. And long story short. I ended up in the hospital There's a long story there, but I'm shortening it up And the doctor that looked after me. 

When I told him what was going on, he said ma'am, if I was going through that, i'd be crying too. He said I'd be wanting to end it all too. But I'll tell you what we're going to do. We'll put you in the hospital overnight, which they did The next few weeks. I knew I had to do something. So the turning point came when some friends invited me to Florida for a couple of weeks. It was like 30 degrees sunny every day. The sun really shone on me. 

And I had a turning point at that time because I realized that my entire life I would always be saying to God, but I tried to do it right And I got a list out and I started to write the list down on what did I do that was wrong? Where do I take responsibility in this? And I had a whole list of things that I did to contribute to my brokenness And I think the healing could not start as long as I was blaming everyone. The healing could only start when I started to take responsibility for my contribution to what I had contributed to my brokenness. Now, sure, others have contributed and we can blame them, but we had our part to play. Too often I can never say always we have our part to play in cases of abuse or any of those things, but often, if we're honest with ourselves, we can. 

And so it came to the place of repenting for my part in all of it, repenting for trying to fix things myself and self medicating a lot of ways and blaming others, and on the flip side of that, i had to forgive myself, forgive others. There's no healing without forgiveness. So I came back after that two weeks a new woman. That was the beginning, and after that I just took one step after the other and we're up in 217 now 218, and the Lord really has helped me put my life back together. So now I try to encourage other women who might be in that same place that I might have been. Circumstances might be different and they will be, but the brokenness, the shame and the emotion is the same. 

0:16:50 - Speaker 2
You know blame. Just to go back to that area, blame is a huge factor in many of our stories, right? So I've come to realize that we can do this in two ways. We either always blame others or we can come to understand that we need to take ownership of our actions. I can take ownership of what others do, but I need to take ownership of what I do. 

And that was a difficult one for me because it was easy for me to blame the circumstances around me And that was one of my faults. You know, one of the things that I did was I was blaming others or other people, their attitudes towards me or their actions towards me. But when I took it to the Lord, when I like you, you know, was broken and you know I, you know when I say broken, i never thought of it as that China doll that you talked about, patricia, but what a visual that was. When you said it, i saw it and I thought, yeah, that's what it was like. You know, like I, i could see myself that way, broken I was. I was not that person that I had ever imagined myself to be. 

And who, who imagines themselves? you know, because I too, i used I, i didn't self-medicate with alcohol. I used alcohol to numb myself, desensitize myself, get rid of the inhibition so that I can do what was my self-medication? and that was sex and pornography, which you know is a whole other type of, you know, self-flatulation. Right, you're, you're just yeah, i think I used the wrong word, but you know when you're beating yourself up, but you know what I mean. It was, that's what I used. But, yeah, i had to come to grips and say Ruth, you're in this position For no other reason. But you took that first step, right, and now what are you going to do about it? 

0:19:13 - Speaker 1
You know, sort, of like What have I had to do with our decisions? 

0:19:17 - Speaker 2
Amen, amen. I don't, you know, and I don't blame it. You know I've had people point fingers at people, you know, and say, oh, this happened because of this. No, no, let, let's. Let me take ownership of my own mistakes, because that's the only way I believe that I will move forward, that I will go Absolutely, you know, and the first step was renewing my relationship with Jesus Christ, with my Savior, and that had fallen way behind. I know it was. You know I was at someone else's altar, i was not at the altar of Christ, you know. And and the other thing that you said that struck me is the forgiveness part, and can you talk a little bit about more about that? Because forgiveness is something that we we can maybe easily forgive others, but we don't as easily forgive ourselves. 

0:20:18 - Speaker 1
You're right, and sometimes it's such a big thing to forgive others because we have what they did wrong way up here. 

0:20:25 - Speaker 2
Right. 

0:20:26 - Speaker 1
And what we did wrong down here, you know. But when we can forgive them for all the biggies, then we realize that our our things, the things we did maybe weren't so little after all. We might have been able to. We might have just set ourselves up to be in the situation we are Like. Sometimes, when you have low self-esteem, you set yourself up to lose or to be mistreated in some way or to be left out, because you think you deserve those things in some way. So you have to ask the Lord to forgive you for for thinking so little of yourself, to set yourself up for some of these things. I hope that makes sense. 

It does a big one for me. 

0:21:09 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, i think so too. You know, um, i Think I was able to forgive Others around me, as you said, a lot more readily than I was able to forgive myself. It took a lot of time, a lot of prayer being on my knees, to understand that I had to forgive my And it's weird to say that right, but yeah, it is forgiving ourselves right and giving ourselves that compassion and that to say, yeah, you, you messed up. Now, you know, stand up and move forward. You know, i know, that you have been writing a book as well. Can you talk about about that book and and what, what prompted you to write it? 

0:22:03 - Speaker 1
Well, i Just to back up a little bit before I get to the book. I am remarried, 2018 and a wonderful man and The Lord's been really good and he answered a lot of my prayers for a home and you know, because I felt very homeless for a while and all the things just came together when I started to take ownership and was honest with myself And you know what we had talked about right then my mom got cancer and we had to look after her. 

We had a big flood. They went through that and then my husband got cancer my new husband, wow 2021, and they're both fine. Now the troopers They're both fine, which brings me to the book. So When everything was shut down because of the pandemic and my husband was home because recovering from cancer, i had scraps and pieces of paper and stories and notes and I've been forever going to write a book and I thought This is the time. 

So in the past three years, starting in 2020. I began putting my life Together in a book. Just as God was putting me together and had been putting me together, i thought, okay, it's my turn to put it together in the book. So I have a Christian living book, teaching book, slash memoir with bits and pieces of my story to Encourage others. And my favorite verse in all of this is is Psalm 3418 the Lord is close to the broken hearted and he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. That has been my favorite verse through all of this. So I've been working on it for a while and hit a little bump in the road, so I'm hoping it to be published the end of summer, early fall. 

0:23:54 - Speaker 2
Well, i know that I'm looking forward to it, because I've gotten to know a little bit about your, your story, over the last few months, as we've gotten to know each other, and I think that This is a story and you know something that everybody needs to hear. We all come at it from a different way, but You know you, everybody's voice is unique to themselves and I think you have a. You know an amazing story and an amazing You know It's not just the story, it's what you've done with it right, and where you are today. So What is one of the most important lessons that you've learned over this journey of you know, going through? 

You know that this, this little girl who had to follow the rules, had to break the rules a couple of times. You know not one, but two divorces, but you know what third time's a charm, and You know and you, you're mad you've married a wonderful man and now you know, hopefully health-wise to you. You know you are at a good place and What you know. What is the most important lesson? What is it that brought you here? 

0:25:15 - Speaker 1
I Think the most important lesson was I finally accepted God's love for me, without looking for reasons why he couldn't or wouldn't love me. I finally said it's okay to accept his love, and Sometimes I think it's not that He doesn't love us because he does, it's that we don't accept it. We don't let him love us, yeah. 

0:25:43 - Speaker 2
Is it perhaps because we don't think we're worthy of his love? Yeah, and do you believe that a biblical foundation is what helps us when bad things happen? Do you think that that's what helped you? 

0:26:06 - Speaker 1
For sure, because all the pieces are in place. We might have got things wrong along the way, and God understands and knows that, but the pieces were always there for us to fall back on. 

0:26:18 - Speaker 2
Yeah. 

0:26:18 - Speaker 1
So I think so yes. 

0:26:21 - Speaker 2
That's wonderful. And what are you most excited about right now? I know what you're up to, but please share it with the audience. What is it that you're most excited about now? 

0:26:34 - Speaker 1
Well family-wise. My three children are adults and the relationships are healed. I have wonderful relationships with them and I'm so thankful for that. As far as the ministry that the Lord has given me, when I was young I did go to Bible College for three years and I always felt that the Lord had something for me to do, but I don't know that He could ever get my attention because I was just too busy trying to spin on the plates. But I think it's now in my life that He answered so many prayers and began to do just put me together in ways I never thought that He would. 

I have a heart for women, so I have a developing a speaking ministry as well, where I want to go and tell my story to groups of women. It doesn't matter if they're five or 50 women, it doesn't matter but mostly midlife women that come to life in midlife and they're broken and they wonder what for the next chapter? what now? How can God put all these pieces together? We might have had different jobs. We wore so many different hats and I know I did all through life. We could be here a long time talking about that. That'll be another day. But how does it fit all together And God has a plan. It's not too late. He's never late, and when He brings us to what He wants us to do, it doesn't matter our age. And now it's time to be obedient. So, step by step, i'm going to speak and continue to write this book, and maybe others after that if I live long enough. 

0:28:10 - Speaker 2
We say that That's a year, still A young chick, still no worries there. But, patricia, you also have something else. You also have a musical side to yours. 

0:28:22 - Speaker 1
Oh, yeah, okay, yeah. Well, when I was, you know, swinging those little legs of mine in church, i used to look at the piano player. I'm thinking, when I grow up I want to play in church. Well, i did do that over the years. I played in church. I was the main organist for a funeral home for many years, but now I play and I started a YouTube channel where I play the piano and just share some of my worship music And it's just a way of thanking the Lord and sharing my music to encourage others, perhaps, to use their creativity. 

Like everybody does something different and God has given us all gifts And we used to hide our gifts, you know and think well, who wants to? I never thought I would ever put that out on YouTube. It wasn't good enough. I can hear the mistakes and all that. I thought, well, god gives us our gifts not to hide but to share with others, and if we wait till they're perfect, we'll never do it. 

0:29:21 - Speaker 2
I agree with you, you know, i someone asked me the other day you know, did you ever imagine yourself where you are right now? I have to laugh at that. I come from a totally different world. I come from a world of technology, you know. I've I've been an IT, i've been in. I age myself when I say that I started working with computers before we had the personal computer or the Macintosh, and then I worked with cell phones before they were caught. I'm really aging myself here. 

But I come from, you know, like that kind of a background, a technology background, and in the last four, four years, five years, like you, you know, i felt led to write the book And it wasn't my doing, you know, it really was the Holy Spirit doing it. The first book was because of my sister that it even, you know, was put into a book form because she saw something there And you know she sent it out to her. You know her, her people, you know, and you know they encouraged me and they saw something there, you know. And now, now I I've discovered this passion to study and to write and it may, it may not be that good, but I believe the Lord has, has something there, you know, has a reason for me to be doing it. So that is what I'm doing. So is that my gift? I don't know. I know I have the gift of gab. I've been told, but you know. But anyway, i think that if we take even the gift of gab and use it for the Lord, you know, and for his glory. 

We can use that. And finally, patricia, what is one piece of advice that you can share with my listeners today? 

0:31:34 - Speaker 1
Well, i have an ABCD. I can say them really quickly. First of all, i'd like to say to them if they're broken in any way, first of all to admit. The first thing to do is admit. You can't run away from it, avoid it or deny it if you want to be healed. Second thing is to be real. 

I always say I'd rather be a genuine broken person on my way towards wholeness than a fake person pretending to have arrived. And the third thing is connect other like minded people that are on, have been where you are on the journey. Because it is true, when we're in the ditch and we're alone very often, that's when we meet God. But when we start to come out of there, we need connections with others. You know that's why God planned it, so connect with others. You need encouragement. The third one, the last one, the D one, is develop your God, given creativity, which we talked about, and last but not least, is make sure your prayer, your time with the Lord and reading the Bible is first and foremost in your life. 

0:32:42 - Speaker 2
Yeah, amen. 

0:32:42 - Speaker 1
Yeah. 

0:32:44 - Speaker 2
Patricia, i thank you so much for joining me today and sharing part of your story and your wisdom and your knowledge with my Out of the Darkness listeners And to my friends who are listening today. Please check out the show notes on connecting with Patricia Ducey And please subscribe and share to grow our community. Thank you so much, patricia. 

0:33:06 - Speaker 1
It was wonderful to be here. Thank you, Ruth.