Author Hadassah Treu Discusses Her Book, Draw Near

In this enlightening episode, I sit down with Hadassah Treu, award-winning author of "Draw Near: How Painful Experiences Become the Birthplace of Blessings." Hadassah, an international blogger and poet, shares her profound insights on finding hope and strength in life's darkest moments.

Key topics discussed:

• The hidden gifts in hopelessness and how they can readjust our misconceptions about God
• Overcoming anxiety through understanding the fear of the Lord
• The transformative power of wrestling with disillusionment in our faith journey

Hadassah opens up about her personal experiences with depression, panic attacks, and unfulfilled desires, offering listeners a heartfelt and authentic perspective on turning pain into purpose. This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to deepen their faith and find meaning in life's challenges.

Don't miss Hadassah's practical advice on strengthening your relationship with God and her invitation to explore "Draw Near" further. Available now on Amazon and other major book retailers. And get a sneak peak at one of the chapters by going to her website https://onthewaybg.com/my-books/

Meet me on my Facebook Page at Terri L Hutchinson

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Transcript

Terri: 0:00

In today's episode, I am with Hadassah Treu, author of Draw Near, How Painful Experiences Become the Birthplace of Blessings. Hadassah is an award winning international author, blogger at onthewaybg. com, poet, speaker, motivator, holding a master's in international relations. She is the Encouraging Blogger Award winner for 2020 and the Literature Award winner of the Municipality of Pazarchik, Bulgaria for 2024. Hadassah is a contributor to several faith based platforms like Compel, Proverbs 31 Blog, Koinonia, and over a dozen award winning devotionals and poetry anthologies. Hadassah is passionate about encouraging people to draw near to God in the dark valleys of life. Her writing is featured on[in]courage, The Upper Room, Proverbs 31 Ministries, Her View from Home, Living by Design Ministries, Thoughts About God, Today's Christian Living, and other popular sites. Hadassah, who lives in Bulgaria, and I were introduced via mutual Facebook friends, and I have been following her for a few years. When I learned of her book launch for Draw Near, I ordered it immediately. Draw Near, touches the pain points of the heart while presenting the hidden blessings within painful experiences. Hadassah, it is wonderful to have you on the show.

Hadassah: 1:55

Thanks so much, Terry. It's really a pleasure and an honor to be here with you. And I want to congratulate you on launching this wonderful podcast. I am praying for this beautiful ministry, and I'm sure that your podcast will bring a lot of hope, comfort, and joy to the listeners. And I'm really, really honored to be here with you. And thank you for this beautiful presentation and also for the presentation of my book. I really appreciate you joining my launch team, and this was such a big help. You know, every author needs a launch team, people who really believe in the book that buy the book, promote the book, read it, and also promote it on their own, channels and this was really an incredible help and I'm so thankful for each member of my launch team. And I'm also happy to hear how you speak about the book because this really touches my heart. This is really the joy of every author to to hear and to see that all the efforts, all the the work, and this is also a labor of the heart. It's not just work. This is a labor of the heart. That this has a fruit, that this was not in vain, and it really touches other people's lives, and this is really wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for your words.

Terri: 3:19

Of course, Hadassah. There's a ton of reasons why I love this book. But the prominent reason is how it's organized. Here's why. You present different types of painful experiences along with its hidden gift in each chapter. The format of your book is such that I don't have to read chapters in consecutive order. I love that. I select the painful experience pertinent to me. And this makes it a timeless book to go to again and again. I really wish you could see my copy of your book. It's filled with underlining and personal comments. And unfortunately, we can't cover all 13 chapters in today's show. But I chose three of the hidden gifts as our focus. All right?

Hadassah: 4:16

Yes, I'm really excited what you have chosen. And yes, this was the idea of the book, to make it like a reference book, to make it like an evergreen book. And for sure not every painful experience will speak to every reader with the same intensity. But I think for everybody there is something and yeah, I'm really now excited what you have chosen. Yes.

Terri: 4:42

So the first chapter, it's titled The Hidden Gifts in Hopelessness. This describes the three periods in your life when you faced hopelessness and depression. In each case, you end up turning toward God and your trusting God created significant healing. You write the misconceptions you had about God were revealed and then replaced by godly truths. So, explain how hopelessness helped readjust your misconceptions about God.

Hadassah: 5:23

Yes hopelessness is a powerful thing because it really pushes you to examine yourself and what you believe and what you hope for and where you stand. And it pushes us to to lean on something secure, on something tangible. And in my case it pushed me to once again to Struggle with my own beliefs and questions like, for example, what do I really believe about God? What do I believe about myself? Who is God? Who who am I? How does my future looks like? What is my future? What can I expect from the future? Will my deepest longings will be ever satisfied? Will the, will the emptiness in my side in my heart will be filled? And yeah, a lot of questions. And most of all as you mentioned this was the second, the third round in my life. When I struggle with depression and hopelessness. following immediately the death of my husband. And this was really a heavy time, but I understood that God's intention was surely not to destroy me or to destroy my hope or to destroy my faith, but actually more by shaking my faith, shaking the foundation of my beliefs to make me more resilient, stronger and to help me once again to move into the eternal arms and once again to lean on him, to trust him without having clarity, without having certainty, without having answered questions. But this definitely led to a deeper faith and to a stronger, I would say, unshakable foundation of faith. So there will be always shaking in our lives and I think hopelessness is one of the instruments that really causes one of the most violent shakings of our lives, of our hearts, and also of the foundations of our faith. And we all know that God's purpose for our lives, and we want this too, is to have a house built on the rock. So we want this, and we should not be surprised when severe storms come. And ceilings will fall, walls will fall, we will be covered with debris everywhere. But it's really a matter of the foundation. And hopelessness pushed me to, to do exactly this to to embrace my faith in the Lord, to embrace my hope in Jesus, because Jesus is our ever present hope, stronger, really to grasp it, to hold on it and never to to let go of this hope. Because the truth is that there is no hopeless situation. As long as we Focus on the Lord because he is the center and the meaning of everything. He is ever present. We can't exclude him because he is everywhere. And as long as we stay in this truth, there is always hope. There is always hope. And even, even if everything in this earthly life turns against our expectations, We still have the hope of eternity. We still have the hope of redemption and of restoration of the whole creation. We can't even imagine this. I know this. I try to imagine it. We can't even imagine it. But this is our hope. There are a lot of more things to come and there are no hopeless situations on this Earth. No.

Terri: 9:17

Oh, I just, I, yes, you're right. I I think of a time in my own life when I thought it was, I was despairing, despairing, and that was only going to take me spiral downward, downward, downward. And so I knew my other option was acceptance, turning, you know, turning toward God and seeing how he could salvage this situation. And of course He salvaged this situation. But like you said, if we have that foundation, if, if we are anchored, that's what anchored not anxious is about that we are anchored,

Hadassah: 9:56

Yes.

Terri: 9:58

and that our trust is anchored in the Lord. Well, there's no more solid foundation than that. All right, let's move on to speaking of foundations. There's, no place that you need a foundation more than when you get hit with anxiety. So, in your chapter on the hidden gifts in anxiety. I felt your pain. I have suffered panic attacks. And how you described your suffering of panic, this touched my heart. You write, the core of your being is disintegrating, out of control. And in my case, it's as if I'm imploding without a voice to express how badly I'm suffering. And what this tells me is the experience of panic cannot be compared. In this chapter on anxiety, you talk about fear of the Lord as a gift and catalyst for healing. Please share your insights on this.

Hadassah: 11:04

Yes, I'm sorry that you also experienced such panic attacks. This is really one of the experiences I don't wish anybody because we all struggle with anxiety, with worries, but panic attacks are a monster in itself, I need to say. This is really a debilitating experience, and it's not only the fear or the worry, it's exactly this feeling of losing control of not having control over your body, over your mind and whatever. This is really awful. And then also the fear of the next panic attack because you don't have control over this too. So this is really awful, but I have good news. And the good news is that healing is possible. It can be long, it can be difficult, but with the Lord, it's possible. And today I can really testify that I'm not only completely free of panic attacks, but I'm also free of the fear of panic attacks. This is even a greater victory. I need to say this is a greater victory. Yes. And in my journey of healing one aspect was definitely this growing in understanding of the fear of the Lord and what it means for me. Because the fear of the Lord is really the greatest antidote and the greatest anti anxiety therapy that can ever exist, I need to say. It's the healthiest fear and it dispels all other fears and worries. And the Bible says about the fear of the Lord that it's the beginning of all wisdom and it's also the source of life. This is really a very strong definition. But what is the fear of the Lord? Mainly I think it's an attitude of our whole being, it's the attitude of the heart, how we see the Lord, how we think about the Lord, and what part of our mental and emotional energy is focused on the Lord. So this is for sure an attitude of deep reverence, deep love, and worshiping the Lord. When I think about the fear of the Lord, I always imagine one scene in my mind. And this scene is, I imagine myself in the throne room described in Revelation. And yeah, what it would be like and to see the, the Lord in His glory, in His throne room and, how would I feel. So, I, I want to use my imagination for this because this helps me. to dispel all other fears and worries. And this is awesome. I think this is a good practice to, to ask the Lord to sanctify our imagination and to more often imagine ourselves in his throne room, because this will help us a little bit to see him as he is to see him as the absolute ruler of the universe, of the ruler over life and death. The Sovereign Lord who holds everything in his in his hands. And when we know that this is our Lord who loves us extremely, unconditionally, unfathomably, then, of course, this brings peace to our minds, peace to our hearts, and my favorite, I need to say my favorite psalm, my favorite line, which extremely helped me during the panic attacks is, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? I love this. And this is really the truth.

Terri: 14:42

You're right Hadassah, it is truth.

Hadassah: 14:45

And this is a huge relief. because we are limited beings. We know very well how weak and how vulnerable and how fragile we are and that we really don't have control and abilities and wisdom and strength over many, many things in life. So this is a huge relief. And when we do this, this actually opens the door and free us. It frees space actually in our minds, in our hearts to embrace to accept. to see God's plan, God's purpose, God's best will for us and to move actually in his timing and most important in his strength. And this of course results in peace and in joy and in expectations because, because we know that God's plans are good. We know that he wants our best and we know that with him supported by his strength, And walking on the path he has for us will surely bring joy and will surely bring good fruits. And this is really great. And I think in my case part, I need to say this to see the, the, the link, the correlation in my case my panic attacks were also connected with a very strong, I need to say, controlling desire. to become a mother at, at that time. And this was actually enslaving because this controlling desire, or I would say an obsession actually took a great space of my mental and emotional energy in a certain period of time. So something good had turned to a certain point into something bad because no obsession is good, we know this. It drops our freedom. And the way, the way back was this, really to surrender my desire and longing to God, to accept His will for my life, because not having a biological children doesn't mean that I'm still not able to fulfill my call to mother, because every woman has this call to mother, and we can mother in a lot of other ways and how the Lord opens the way actually. And this was wonderful because from one point of view, I released this pressure and then I accepted this call to mother in the way God has prepared it for me because he has a path for me. And this can only bring joy and happiness. This is the truth, only joy.

Terri: 17:21

And you're right. There are many ways we can mother as one who also, does not have children due to infertility God gave me the opportunity to be a, a children's director. And I had more children than I could imagine, but you know, I, that was not on my radar, right? I wanted a baby, but he gave

Hadassah: 17:46

Yes, amazing.

Terri: 17:47

children a way. So, yes, I know it is amazing how it all works out. Okay, so let's take a look at the Hidden Gifts in Disillusionment. What I love about the chapter is it points directly to the core issue, and I do talk about this on Anchored Not Anxious. We want God to act the way we want, the way we expect. And if he doesn't do what we expect, profound disappointment and disillusionment sets in. What are your thoughts on how disillusionment is related to the depth of our relationship with God.

Hadassah: 18:31

Actually deeply related and directly linked. I think the deeper the dissolution moment the deeper our relationship with the Lord can go, and what I mean by this is disillusionment actually is wrestling with God. It propels us to wrestle with God. And wrestling with God is an inevitable part of our faith journey with the Lord. We can see in the Bible that really all big faith heroes in the Bible. major episodes of wrestling with the Lord. So Jacob, David, Job, Jeremiah, and also in the New Testament. And this is important because this wrestling helps us to put things properly in proper perspective. When we are disillusioned with or disappointed with the Lord we had the things upside down because the relationship is a little bit unbalanced. We want Him to act as our, I don't know, genie in the bottle or whatever. And it's the other way around, actually. We are the one who needs to who want and need to do His will and do what he wants and not the other way around. So I think wrestling and going through different phases of disillusionment or different phases of disappointment with the Lord helps us only to deepen our relationship with him because we see him as he is. We see also where we are standing in this relationship and this can can only, um, only lead to deeper trust, deeper faith, and also deeper intimacy with the Lord. And we see this also in the, in the case of Job. I just want to give this one simple example because at the end of all this, wrestling with the Lord and all his questions, doubts and anger and pain and everything. We know the Lord showed himself up to to Job and he didn't give him answers, but he gave him the ultimate answer his presence and a deeper revelation of himself. So at the end, Job said, and these words for me are really crucial. They are, they are marking a milestone. He said"I have, I've only heard about you, but now I see you". So now I see you. And this is, I think what the Lord wants for each one of us. When we go through phases of disillusionment that we wrestle with him, but we come out of this wrestling with new revelation and with deeper faith and deeper going relationship with the Lord.

Terri: 21:07

Yes, that's true. You don't wrestle with God

Hadassah: 21:12

Yes, yes,

Terri: 21:13

something. You know, you write that when we perceive God as the source of our hurt because of, of him failing to give or do, it is extremely difficult then to go to him for healing and help. And you talk about that you give two ways to cross this gap talk a little bit

Hadassah: 21:37

Yes, disillusionment or disappointment with God when we feel hurt or offended by him or angry with him is really an experience in itself because from one point we perceive him as the source of our pain, hurt, unmet expectations or whatever. But from the other hand, we know as believers that he's also the source, the only real source of our healing and of our recovery. So how do we do this? I think the, the main way, the really important thing to do is never ever to close the communication line with the Lord. On the contrary, we need really to push, to press and to get real with him. We need to get real with Him. Without masks, without pretenses, without anything. Just pouring out our hearts and He can handle it, first of all. And second of all, we can't lose anything because He loves us. Doesn't matter what we are doing or not doing or He knows us, he loves us, he will never stop loving us. So this gives us big freedom to be ourselves. We can be completely free in His presence and bring everything into his presence. So this is really the first thing. But this thing need to be balanced by the second way, because if we just talk about our feelings and thoughts this can also get us a little bit out of balance, because our feelings are not telling the truth. Very often not reflecting the spiritual truth very often. So the second way is we need to keep pushing to renew our mind consistently with biblical truth. We need to stay grounded with biblical truth. We need to let this truth light, enlighten us and help us stay grounded. So in this combination of pouring out our feelings and staying grounded in biblical truth, this I think is the best way to cross the gap and really get through this disillusionment, through this disappointment, and get what we need from the Lord. Actually healing, recovery, renewed faith, renewed strength, and deeper relationship with him. Actually, everything goes this direction. He wants us deeper. He wants us closer. He wants us that we know him better. This is and love Him better. Know Him better and love him better.

Terri: 24:12

I agree. It, it's all about just developing and deepening that relationship. That's what I love about my relationship with God is that I can be who I am. I can pour out my, you know, my hurt, my frustration, but knowing too that I need to be still enough and to listen for the response of how I can be healed through His word or, whatever he provides. Well, Hadassah, this is a powerful book and clearly illustrates the blessings found in painful experiences. Before we part ways, I have enjoyed this conversation with Hadassah. And her new book, Draw Near, How Painful Experiences Become the Birthplace of Blessings. Hadassah, it has been a pleasure. Now, where can listeners find your book.

Hadassah: 25:11

My book can be found on Amazon. So not only on Amazon. com, but also for international listeners on Amazon Germany, Canada, Australia, Belgium, I think UK. So everywhere on Amazon. Also at the site of my publisher, Calla Press Publishing. And also Barnes and Noble, Christian Book.Com, Target, Walmart. And I have also a proposal for the listeners because if they're still not sure if this book is for them, they can go to my website on the way bg.com/my news books, where in the beginning there is a possibility to download the chapter for free so they can read the chapter for free and see if this book is for them or not for them. And I also have a big, big request for everybody who is reading the book or who will read the book, or who already ready. To leave a review, please, please leave a review because this is so important to help the visibility of the book so it can reach more people and about this really, very, very helpful. Even if it's one, one sentence, it's really making the difference for the book and for the message that God entrusted me. So, thanks a lot for, for listening. Thanks a lot for this wonderful conversation. I really enjoyed it and it's really so great to to share not only about the book but to share our hearts a little bit and I really hope that this will encourage

Terri: 26:54

I'm sure it will, Hadassah. Well, until next time.