Surrendering My Wife to God with Kevin Wells

Kevin Wells had a failed brain surgery. Then his wife, Krista secretly started binge drinking red wine to cover her hidden shame. 

This began years of a long, dark night in Kevin and Krista’s home and marriage.

At first Kevin’s spiritual practices left him frustrated-until Kevin learned to grip onto Christ in a way he had never before and completely surrender his wife, marriage and family to God.

Hear this profound story of redemption and how one man--by the grace of God--goes to the ends of the earth for his wife and children. Be blessed with a sacred blueprint of how to let God save when everything seems lost. 

Kevin Wells is the author of “The Hermit: The Priest Who Saved a Soul, a Marriage, and a Family.”

Transcript:

Lindy Wynne (00:01.87)

Welcome to Mamas in Spirit, a podcast pointing you towards God in everything you are and everything you do. I'm Lindy Wynne and it's a blessing to be with you. Hello everyone and welcome to this Lenten series, the seven mini retreats in a podcast. This time for us to take pause and hopefully by the grace and glory of God heal. That is the title of this series, which didn't come to me until after recording four or five of them because

This podcast, hopefully by the grace of God, is just Holy Spirit driven and just an offering of our hearts to the Lord. And we are so blessed to be here today with Kevin Wells. Kevin, thank you for joining us.

Kevin Wells (00:43.453)

Lindy, it's wonderful to be with you.

Lindy Wynne (00:45.694)

Well, and it's so funny, Kevin, because often people in my life will say like, I feel like I've spent so much time to you, Lindy, because I've been listening to all these mini retreats. And I'm like, that's not really fair, because we haven't spent time together. And I long to spend time with you. But it's so interesting you coming on today, because I spent the last week reading your gloriously beautiful book, The Hermit, The Priest Who Saved a Soul, a Marriage, and a Family. Kevin, you are not only an incredibly talented writer, I...

Kevin Wells (00:57.322)

Go ahead.

Lindy Wynne (01:15.21)

I'm blessed to read a lot of books for Mamas in Spirit and just in general in my life. And it really keeps me accountable to reading. you have a gift. By the goodness of God, you have a gift of writing, yet you have a gift of a heart for God. And so I first just want to thank you for this book because it's like this podcast, it's very vulnerable. And it truly is like an unveiling of God at work in your heart and your life and your marriage and family.

Kevin Wells (01:43.179)

Well, thank you, Lindy. As you and I know, all gifts are directly gifts from God. So whatever might bear fruit in my life is purely of God. So praise God for the fact that I was able to, I guess, discern very, very early in life two things. I love to play sports and I actually like to write. I just sort of followed the course of both.

And so this will mean nothing maybe to your viewer, but when I realized that I wasn't going to be a professional athlete, I didn't have the talent to play professionally, I said, well, what do I do? I said, well, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to merge the two. And I became a sports writer, and I covered Major League Baseball. And after a while of doing that, I got into what really I am.

thank goodness I sort of sank my love for writing into and that is writing of the faith. And I think over the years, maybe I've written, I don't know, 3,000 stories on sports, but it's these books and articles on the Catholic faith and of Christ and all the tenets, all the beautiful tenets of what we know to be of God that I really love. So yeah, it's wonderful to be able to.

Proclaim God through books like the hermit or other books that I've written and we you know We need to we we need to do whatever we can do in the way God's gifted us So I guess my little way is through writing

Lindy Wynne (03:19.414)

Yes, praise God. And that reminds me of something you wrote about in your book, and that's that God wants total intimacy with us. And so from sports writing into writing about what's most dear and precious to you, it shows your own pilgrimage. So in that Spirit, in the Holy Spirit, can you please open us in prayer?

Kevin Wells (03:38.792)

Sure, Lindy. In the of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Heavenly Father, we want to ask for a graced, open and candid conversation for the next hour or so, however long, Lord, you'd it to proceed. Help all of our words to be touched by you. Help the Holy Spirit to...

flow between Lindy and I and for those listeners that or I should say viewers that may be watching right now, I pray dear Lord that anything that the two of us discuss, maybe a couple things would penetrate and pierce their hearts and maybe even conscience to say, know what,

this is something that feels like is leading me to conversion or maybe even reparation or maybe even I got to make a change here or there because Lord we're all fallen sinners and the only reason Lindy and I do things like writing our podcast etc is because we all want to get to know you dear Lord and we all want to sort of share our stories with others because we love you so much so dear Lord we just ask that you bless this podcast and let it bear fruit amen.

Lindy Wynne (04:54.152)

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Lindy Wynne (05:00.004)

Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for that beautiful prayer, Kevin. And I love your humble heart. And in reading your book, before you start at the beginning of your story, I want to just read one quote from your book. And it's, burden was simply to keep watch from the other side of the wall.

Kevin Wells (05:02.139)

Amen.

Lindy Wynne (05:22.939)

to die to everything I had once hoped for and to begin to hope again in a different supernatural way. So if you could start at the beginning of your story.

Kevin Wells (05:34.519)

Boy, you picked out a bell ringer quote right there. I guess where I'd like to start is here. I've never thought of myself as a supernaturalist. I was raised in a large Catholic family and we all, and praise God, we're all still faithful Catholics today, all 10 of us. And I think a lot of us are daily communicants, et cetera. So I was very lucky, but mom and dad,

We prayed the rosary and we prayed as a family, et cetera. But it was always like, hey, your faith is your faith. We don't need miracles. You miracles, of course, are real. mean, Jesus can do whatever he wants. So that's kind how I grew up. But I do believe this book. So, Lindy, as I was mentioning earlier, I've written five books and I don't believe I wrote this book. And so what does that mean?

What happened was this, just cutting to the chase and trying to abbreviate the story that I'm sure we'll get a little into the nitty gritty of it. So I had brain surgery and failed, actually failed brain surgery in 2009 and should have died. I survived and it opened up a mother wound in my wife, Krista, a mother wound of shame. So how does that happen?

Lindy Wynne (07:01.703)

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Kevin Wells (07:02.455)

Kevin comes home, let's kill the fatted calf, my husband didn't die. Well, anyone who has a near-death experience, I should say anyone in the right mind, if he survives it or she survives it, will come home and say, dear God, thank you for showing me my soul and the fact that I was very close to...

the judgment seat. I was close to facing you and in my own case, you know, I wasn't a bad guy. I was a Catholic. I was, know, I was I don't think I was caught up in any real mortal sin. However, I wasn't set right for God and I felt like there was a lot more in my tank. I could have loved Christa better. I could have done more. could have. So when I got home, you know, I do what any guy would do, especially an old athlete like me. And I said, Lord, now I go and live for God alone.

So everything now is yours. And really, I began to really try and pursue that in certain ways. Pouring out more love for Christa and my kids, more rosaries, double rosaries, daily mass, prison ministry, you know, all the stuff that, all the heirlooms that a Catholic man would do who was close to death. And what happened was it opened up this wound of shame in Christa that she didn't know she had it, or she thought she kicked it to the curb years ago, and I didn't know she had it.

Krista wasn't mothered, let's just say, the way a little girl probably would hope to be as a little six, seven, eight year old girl. And Krista saw me going places that she thought, well, I can't go there. I don't know if I can go there. Why is Kevin changing? And in her shame, she began to secretly binge drink red wine. hitting the fast forward button right here.

Lindy Wynne (08:54.79)

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Kevin Wells (09:00.597)

We lived in a dark night for many years. And it was during the year of 2020, COVID-19, when a holy priest who's now a consecrated hermit, who has turned over his life as a Holocaust. He now, as we speak, as I speak right now, he's very likely in either prayer, penance, or some form of mortification. He's in a cell, living in a cell no larger than your childhood bedroom where he's given his life over to God, really in reparation for

Lindy Wynne (09:24.294)

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Kevin Wells (09:31.04)

the culture of the West and even the church. And he, during COVID, when much of the Catholic church put a moratorium on the sacraments, the masses, et cetera, well, he remained open for suffering souls like Christa. And it was that year that she was healed five years ago. And when he left a year later to offer his life, know, it's rare, but there is a...

Lindy Wynne (09:59.622)

.

Kevin Wells (10:00.799)

or there is a vocation as a consecrated hermit. So St. Anthony of the Desert, centuries and centuries ago, that's who Father Flume is and he was allowed by his ordinary, his bishop, to do this. So that's how he's going to spend the rest of his life. I will never see him again. Christ will never see him again on this side of eternity. So Christus said when he left, Kevin, I want you to tell the story.

Lindy Wynne (10:04.685)

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Kevin Wells (10:29.937)

of what he did for me during COVID. So if anything like this ever happens again with a pandemic, cetera, that you can show the muscular witness of a priest who doesn't shut down, who finds way to tend to people like me in my brokenness and my woundedness and where I needed to stick my nose in front of the monstrance one or two or three hours a day. needed daily the Eucharist. I needed weekly confessions and intensive spiritual direction because

If I didn't have it, without that medicine, the blood of Christ poured into my soul, I could have fallen back into my old habits. Because Christa was improving, 2018, 2019, was 2020 where everything shut down and he didn't because he knew of Christa and again, folks like her. So she said, show the world Father Flume, show what he did, this heroism he showed during COVID that healed me from my demons.

Lindy Wynne (11:00.481)

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Kevin Wells (11:27.257)

And after months of saying no, can't do that because I'll put your junk out on the street and you don't know how bad that's going to be, Kristen. And she said, Kevin, I don't care about my old skin. You know, it is what it is. Expose me so I can expose Father Flume. So I wrote the book. And here's why I think I didn't write the book. I thought, and Krista thought, that the book I wrote, when it was finished, she saw it, she cried a lot.

Lindy Wynne (11:55.493)

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Kevin Wells (11:55.599)

And I cry a lot because it's a raw. As you know, Lindy, it's untamed. We thought that we showed what Father Flume did for Christa. And after the book was published, well, actually, I'll say this. I gave the manuscript to four readers, like a theologian, a couple of priests, and someone else. And they all got back and said the same thing. They said at different times, they said, Kevin, we know what you thought you did.

Lindy Wynne (12:00.544)

.

Kevin Wells (12:25.2)

that you wrote a book about Father Flume and what he did for Christa. And yeah, you did that, but you didn't write that book. You wrote a book about marriage. And I thought the first guy got it all wrong. I said, well, he missed the plot. He didn't get it. You know, I never really liked that guy anyway. And no, I'm joking. No, but then the second person, third person and fourth person said, Kevin, your book's about marriage. So I think the Holy Spirit took the pen and wrote. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. One sec, Lindsay.

Lindy Wynne (12:43.459)

Yeah.

Kevin Wells (12:59.863)

One second here.

Lindy Wynne (13:01.719)

You're fine. I can easily take it out.

Kevin Wells (13:04.485)

Okay. So what happened was, and then the book was published and people really married couples from all over the country, even outside the country. One of the first women that contacted me lived in Japan. they said, Kevin, I don't want to get too much into it, Lindy, but they said, you portrayed...

sort of the sacred blueprint of what a spouse does in the dark night of the soul, in the dark night of marriage, how a spouse must climb mountains with his wounded spouse on his back, how he must descend valleys with his spouse on his back and never give up and sort of say, Lord, you will heal my spouse. Help me to love my spouse the best I can, really.

by nailing myself to the hard wood of the cross where there's no consolations, there's no marital entitlements, there's no good days or good stretches. Lord, it's dark. But, but I remember my vows and I remember how you loved, you loved from the cross pouring yourself out and Lord help me to pour myself out. anyway, this book, The Hermit, Lindy is, is I think has spoken, praise God, has spoken to a lot of suffering.

called married couples that are dealing with wounds.

Lindy Wynne (14:32.161)

Yes, thank you for sharing that. And that's what I wanna dig into, Kevin, because this is a witness-based mini-retreat and a podcast. And what I also see is that Father Flume didn't save just Christa, but Christ saved you both. Christ saved you both. And I hear that when I read your words. so thankfully I've got these quotes that I can read so poor Kevin can know where we're headed.

Kevin Wells (15:00.472)

It's okay. It's okay. It's all good. Bring it on.

Lindy Wynne (15:01.952)

Welcome to Mamas in Spirit, Kevin.

Okay, here we go. So first you talk about the endless passion play and you just talked about the dark night of the soul. And in the very beginning of the book, it reminded me of Lent. This was your Lent. This was your own small p passion, Kevin, for many years. And I want everyone to know that Kevin and Krista have three children and at the time they had three young children. And so to imagine this household and imagine

these quotes, these things that you've said from your heart, Kevin, about that time. You said that you were in the midst of a long, dark night. And like I said, this was for many, many years, the endless passion play of destructive behavior and the pattern of her secretive drinking. I told him, which was a priest earlier on the trip, about the isolation, what felt like a supernatural force of evil pressing down in my home.

And then this quote, it really touched me. And I'll explain why. I needed to persevere in loving Christa unburdened of any of my habitual emotional hangups. I couldn't enter until I surrendered Christa, the future of our marriage and her complete healing to God. When you talk about emotional hangups,

You talk about the dark night, the dark night of the soul. You talk about a heavy, dark force down on your home, your home with three precious young children and your wife that you love so desperately. Kevin, I want you to imagine, because I know this is the case, there are women and men, we have brothers in Spirit, papas in Spirit who listen to this too, who are listening to this, who are in the middle of that, Kevin. Like they're in the middle of that lent.

Lindy Wynne (16:59.786)

in the middle of that dark night with no reprieve. Like you said, there were no good days. There's no good days. And it may not even be in people's marriages. It could be in other situations of long-term suffering with illness or mental illness or infidelity or anything else of the sort. Can you create a picture first, Kevin, of what that dark night was like for you? And then we're gonna move into how Christ, the divine physician reached down.

Kevin Wells (17:10.965)

Thank

Lindy Wynne (17:29.739)

to help you.

Kevin Wells (17:31.861)

Well, sure, Lindy, that's a great two-step question there. So for starters, the ugly part. Well, so you know after a while that Satan wants not only to burn you to the ground, he wants to burn your family to the ground. Not only that, he wants you all in hell. So I sensed early on, I really did, that in my own situation, I'll speak candidly now that...

I think after several years it was like, know what, is the help's not coming. Krista won't seek AA, she won't get counseling, she won't do this. So there was, you know, was escape hatches for me to kind of say, you know what, the kids are getting older. They're going to see that mom's unhealthy. But I began to say, you know what, no, I can't, I will not abandon ship because I think in a, I'm gonna use the word, in a feminine man,

would abandon ship and Satan wanted me to give up and I knew in my heart if I gave up that not only would could Christa end up dead, but I would end up a mess because my wife's no longer with me and now I'm elsewhere and my kids would be like, what happened to mom and dad? So Satan wanted us all in hell. So I knew even in the desert,

in a practical way, I wasn't going to leave and I wasn't going to ask Krista to leave. And there's a lot of machinations to that of what I needed to determine for the kids' health and Krista's health. can get, your viewer can read the book. But as far as the oppression, yeah, so I'll say this, Lindy. I don't know about like, you know, pornography or drug addiction or other addictions, but I do know with the alcohol, because I saw it,

Lindy Wynne (19:09.569)

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Kevin Wells (19:26.232)

Satan is directly involved with alcoholism. I saw sides to Krista that were of a different dimension. If you knew Krista, you know her to be kind. Her nature is pleasant. She's sort of shy. She's always the one that is the kind one. People will say she's humble. Her nature is just like a country girl essence, just very kind. And I saw the inverse.

Lindy Wynne (19:39.104)

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Kevin Wells (19:53.133)

And it wasn't just like when she was drinking, it was just throughout the day. So I knew that Satan had her. Like this was diabolical. So that's when I began to understand that it really wasn't in a certain way Christa. It was what she had allowed herself to keep doing, to kill the shame. So once I got a hold of that, I'm like, well, you know what? Satan's all over her, so you definitely can't abandon her.

Lindy Wynne (20:08.736)

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Kevin Wells (20:21.059)

It doesn't matter that you don't have marital entitlements. It doesn't matter that you're miserable. It doesn't matter that everything is pressing down and you can't get your mind in the game at work and you're watching your kids baseball game and you're thinking about it. You know, get over it and go stronger to God because God is sovereign and there's no limitations on what the Holy Spirit can do. And he loves Christa far more than you do. And he can stick his finger into this and to cure it in a millisecond.

So do not give up on really the cardinal virtue of fortitude, but also the theological virtue of faith. So I had to sort of blend the two. Faith, God, you are good. You know it all. You see it all. You'll handle this. But I also had fortitude. I think it's 1808 in the Catechism. I had to press on. I had to persevere. even, I think the Catechism says fortitude, even to the point of death.

Lindy Wynne (21:08.127)

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Kevin Wells (21:19.583)

And so that was that. mean, so essentially that was what I had to do. Now, the solution was this. I began to understand and I say this to your viewers. One of the strangest, one of the most mysterious passages I believe in scripture is from Paul when Paul said, you know, I rejoice in my suffering because I make up for what is lacking in the cross of Christ. You know, what the heck does that mean? Because

Lindy Wynne (21:41.404)

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Kevin Wells (21:49.231)

Christ accomplished all from the cross. didn't need anyone else. God sent him down to redeem all of humanity through violence. He took away our sin. Well, I think what Paul was saying there, and hopefully theological or biblical scholars would say the same, is Jesus wants all of us.

attain this intimate friendship with Him, to sort of send Simon of Cyrene home and say, Simon, give me the cross now. Because I want to experience what it is, what it was for Christ to experience the horror, the violence of the Passion. So I want to participate in a way

Lindy Wynne (22:35.391)

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Kevin Wells (22:39.086)

with what Christ did in nailing himself to the cross for all of us. So I don't know why Christ is asking me for this sort of strange providence of participating in his cross, but when I understood that part of this darkness, part of this time in the desert was a participation in whatever way he wanted to use it, know, old friends that died in a state of mortal sin that might be in purgatory.

one of my friends who was suffering in a marriage or whatever. But I sense that if I tried to bear the cross, let's just say without too much complaint or without too much distress, and matter of fact, to flip it and to deal with it with sort of a lightness or, know, God, it's miserable, but you got this. Like, you're going to handle this. And that in a way, I was participating in what Paul said.

Lindy Wynne (23:30.685)

Yes, praise God that you pressed on and

Kevin Wells (23:38.568)

And I rejoiced in it, as Paul said, because in a way, it was working in the ways that we can't understand on this side in building the kingdom of God. So once I got that, that really helped me press on.

Lindy Wynne (23:57.934)

And I so appreciate that you said that like without you being too miserable or complaining too much or whatnot, because you spoke somewhere else too in the book about how you realize that like some of your own behaviors were kind of putting the rock more firmly over Christa's tomb. That's me paraphrasing that part. And I love that too, Kevin, because...

I feel such truth coming from you, like being on the other side of this screen and like listening to you and some of our, those gathering are listening and some are watching. Yet what I feel is like this deep, deep truth and that you did choose like the nobility of the Lord, which is very inspiring in this moment in time. And I think probably, you know, eternally that's something of the Lord to make.

to make the noble choice and to choose to honor one's covenant, even when there's nothing to receive directly from that other person for a time or for a very long period of time. Yet at the same time, you still have this gift of humility that not all your behaviors were necessarily where you felt like God was calling them to be. Can you speak to that too because

I've been married for almost 25 years, Kevin, and we've been through all kinds of things ourselves. And we've gone through seasons that have been miserable for different reasons, because of chronic illness and things of the sort and medicines that can kind of steal a spouse away for a long period of time. And just that double edged sword of medicine and other things as well. And so I feel like God is even doing a work in my heart and this is probably a lifelong, it is a lifelong thing, Kevin, because we're so

You know, we're human, we're not divine. We're 100 % human, blessed by the gift of the divine in our lives and our hearts and hopefully our souls. And so for you, you were also taking responsibility for yourself. And I wanna bring that up because this is Lent, yet we're always called to look at ourselves and see ourselves as we are. And so can you talk about that? Because to me, it would be so easy

Lindy Wynne (26:18.586)

because Christa's drinking and all the things that came from that both day and night, it would be so easy to just compare and be like, well, I'm not doing that. Well, this is on her. But yet you still saw yourself your own part in it. Could you speak to that?

Kevin Wells (26:35.784)

Of course it was a part in it. Initially, and remember when I survived the failed brain surgery, I shouldn't have lived and I survived. I was really growing in my faith in certain ways and let's just say in a practical way, I was doing concrete things. Some of your MEN viewers would understand Exodus 90 and that man is you.

So there was cold showers, there was penances. And so when Christa began to suffer, I began to intensify some of these things and intensify prayer too and more measures of love for Christa. And I would just try to do everything I could do to help it. And I realized after...

Lindy Wynne (27:06.109)

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Kevin Wells (27:32.753)

quite a bit of time, I don't know, three, four years that it had nothing to do with me. And I kept looking at me. what I wasn't doing was I wasn't surrendering everything, all of it, to God. And as I mentioned, when I did it the old way, I'm gonna take a month of cold showers and I'm gonna fast Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

What would happen was I'd grow more frustrated because when Krista not only didn't heal, but her own addiction was getting worse, I would grow angry. I wouldn't show her my anger because I knew that would just make things worse, but internally I was angry. like, what's going on? So I think Krista oftentimes would expect me to come home from work.

Lindy Wynne (28:03.228)

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Kevin Wells (28:31.366)

when maybe there was a bad night the night before. And she was like subconsciously screaming for me to have the eyes of an understanding husband, despite what the previous night was. But instead my eyes were guarded and I began to see that I was lacking trust in her. I didn't, it was, and you know, I was, and I think I wrote, it wasn't so much that I was Thomas who doubted

but I was Judas who portrayed her because she was screaming for me to love her despite the fact that she was in a tomb. So when I finally realized, what are you doing? Like get your head off yourself and start going directly to God. that's really, and I won't get into it too much here other than to say really things began to change in a grace-filled way when I pivoted to meditative prayer, contemplative.

Lindy Wynne (29:01.783)

you

Kevin Wells (29:30.756)

prayer where I really began to learn just to really act and try and resemble beloved John and just speak like a little child, a little six year old boy with a baseball cap on, you know, who trusts his dad and says, you know, father, I'm hurting right now and I'm going to just rest my head against your heart. And I'm not going to say anything because you know it all. I need your help.

You know, things are bad and it's pretty dark in this place. And so I'm not going to say anything. I'm not going to ask for anything. I'm not going to be introspective about what I'm doing wrong or what Krista did last night. I'm just going to rest my head against your heart. And that's when I began to really gain peace and I began to go light throughout the days. And if there was a bad night or a bad string of nights,

I was able to maintain sort of that interior, Teresa of Avila, that interior castle was able to sort of still go a little bit chamber by chamber with peace and overcome the cabinet of wiles of the devil. He's got endless wiles in that cabinet of his and I can more clearly see through meditative prayer how to beat him back, how to stiff arm him by just going back to Christ and laying my head against his heart.

Lindy Wynne (30:54.886)

Yes, and if I'm not mistaken, you talk about the sacred heart, staying close to the sacred heart and that was really the transition that you made was that mindfulness, that intentionality, that contemplative prayer every single day of your life. And it sounds like a surrender. Like it really moved me when I read that quote about like surrendering, like surrendering all expectation of yourself, your family, your marriage, like everything to the Lord.

just laying it all at Christ's feet and staying close to his sacred heart.

Kevin Wells (31:29.953)

Lindy, I had no choice. In a sense, was Job in a pile of ashes. At one time, I think I heard the definition of, the truest definition of faith is when all you have left to cling on to is faith. Everything else is gone. So that's where I was. But we all want to be as practical as we can when we're 700 miles into the withering desert.

like, okay, well, there's no food, there's no water, it's gonna be 24 degrees tonight, I don't have a blanket, I gotta eat insects to survive. So what's the best way of survival? And all I knew was I am on the hardwood of the cross. I have nothing. But I do have this forgotten, this all forgotten theological virtue of hope and faith.

And that was the blazing furnace, like a little pinhole of hope that would sort of grow in me. Like, Jesus, I trust in you. Like, you know all this. There's nothing, I don't need to say anything other than just stay close to you. And as you said, Lindy, so well to your sacred heart. And so, yeah, that's the way it was.

Lindy Wynne (32:42.985)

Yes, and so

Kevin, we always want to help everyone gathered to hopefully understand this conversion, really this conversion of the soul, this conversion of the heart and this total return to God, which we're hearing in you. And then you talk about God's graces pouring out. Can you speak to that? Because you're in a very different place today than you were then. That that passion, in a sense, has come to completion. Praise God. All glory and praise be to God. That very long, dark night. And so

How did God's grace pour out and bring you to where you are now?

Kevin Wells (33:19.903)

Well, obviously the healing did, during that time, I began to understand what the Old Testament Desert Fathers did, what the Old Testament prophets did. So when Ezekiel and Abraham and Elijah and Moses were called deeper into the desert, by God, it wasn't a place for God just to

make them sand-whipped sufferers. It was a place for them to go deeper to encounter the heart of God. So I knew I was in a metaphorical desert. I could still eat dinner at night. I still had a job, a salary, and all the normal encoutrements that an American would have. But I began to realize that in this desert of no consolations,

that it was in a way a palace. This desert was a palace because God was inviting me to know Him in a violent, searing, very intimate way where He was almost saying, hey, we like to read about Jesus and the Passion on Good Friday and we go to Stations of the Cross, but I want you to viscerally feel it.

I'm not doing this to hammer you Kevin. I'm not carpet bombing you here, but I want you to love Jesus in this stations of the cross by sort of going station by station by station and Seeing him and have him look at you with those eyes that love you so much and say yeah Kevin I I did this for you and I did this for Christa and in a certain way you're experiencing a little bit of what I experienced so there was this intimacy and

And that's where the grace came. was this linear symmetry of, obviously I didn't experience what Jesus experienced in the Passion, but I was experiencing, it felt like a bit of it. So there was that friendship that bloomed and that was where the grace was.

Lindy Wynne (35:31.583)

Yes, praise God and

I think too, it's the whole idea too of being like a contemplative and action and in the sense that you were able to go to Jesus and lay your head on Jesus's heart to rest and abide in the sacred heart of Jesus. While Christo was very much like in the world and like struggling and grappling so much, but you had a covenant and the two shall become one and were bound by God. So it's like,

while you were bound to Jesus' sacred heart and still choosing to be bound to Christa, she was also being saved. She was also being saved by the grace of God. And praise God that she did end up, and this is in your book and everybody can read about it, she did end up going and getting help. And I appreciate how you share that there were highs and lows to that. There were fallbacks and forwards until there was a more complete healing for her.

And I so appreciate all of your authenticity, Kevin, and your sharing so transparently because we all live very real lives. And so it's very helpful to us. I wanted to ask you two about two last things. One is about your children. Because I just think about your precious little children and you and your heart for them. And I can't tell, but I think there might be a picture behind you of you holding one of them.

It's so far away. Is that one of your kids is a baby or am I just making that up in my head? Yeah.

Kevin Wells (36:58.553)

yeah, that's my first born. That's my first born. That's Gabby, yes.

Lindy Wynne (37:03.366)

Yes, Gabby. So it's so symbolic and providential that that picture is there because this is a real family and real life and real children. And here this was going on for so long in your home, this darkness. Can you tell me about your journey with the children and just loving them through it? Because I imagine that a lot of people listening are going through or have gone through difficult experiences where children need to

be protected and loved and ministered to and receive Christ through their parents.

Kevin Wells (37:38.925)

Well, great question. I fell into a routine where Krista would stay downstairs at night and she wouldn't, you know, we had spent our first nine years of marriage going to bed at the same time every night. when this addiction took hold, Krista stopped coming up. So what I would do is I would climb the stairs and I would enter the rooms. They would be asleep and I would

I would just kneel by their bedside really close to them and I would pray. say, know, dear God, know, things are collapsing now and I don't know what to do. But I ask you to protect these children, protect these children from seeing what seems to be a piecemeal disintegration of marriage. I don't want them to see this. They deserve a dad and mom and a marriage that's beautiful in the way you've designed it.

That became a soothing nighttime ritual of mine. But something that your viewer should know is I would always, I mentioned this in the book, but I'm an old journalist, so I would always ask them a lot of questions on car drives to wherever, to sports games or the store, 7-Eleven or Wawa. And I would...

I would ask probing questions where, you know, kind of ones where a kid might not be able to discern. And I always told myself, as soon as I discerned that either Gabby or Sean, my two oldest, were saying, dad, something's not right with mom, that I was going to go home and take a sabbatical and protect my family. And that happened.

You know, looking into the nooks and cranny of Gabby's eyes one day, she essentially told me through her clumsy response that, there's something that I'm seeing about mom that's not right. And the next day, you know, thankfully I'm in a three generation business, contracting business. I told my brother Danny and I said, Danny, gotta go home. I need a sabbatical and I did.

Kevin Wells (39:58.421)

And, and Krista, you know, and Krista knew why I came home and, and she appreciated it. Um, and, and you know what happened when I came home, it got, it got better. It wasn't healed, but it got a lot better because, because Krista knew that she was a damsel in distress and our little white night was coming home. And, and, um, and, uh, so it was, was actually a beautiful time because little by little by little, um, Krista knew that her man still loved her and I loved her far more than.

This little demon that had gotten into her and so that's that's kind of the story with the children

Lindy Wynne (40:34.325)

Yes, that's so beautiful. when y'all went and talked to the children when Krista was going to go away to get help, it really moved me that your son Sean said something about only someone well would get help because I think Krista felt really ashamed about that you talk about. And so how beautiful out of the mouth of a babe and that that's so beautiful for all of us to hear here. Only someone well gets help.

Only someone wild gets help. That's a beautiful invitation for all of us to get help.

Kevin Wells (41:06.994)

Lindy, Lindy really quick, I told Sean that was the best line of the book, so thank you for saying that.

Lindy Wynne (41:12.883)

You can tell him that I thought so too. Yeah, fill that boy up. He deserves it. So the last thing before we close everyone today is there were a few times in the book that I got teary. And one of them was when you were alone and you talk about your mom. And this is mama's in Spirit and your mom had passed away. And we've had a chaplain on.

Kevin Wells (41:15.47)

Alright, I will. I'll pass it on.

Lindy Wynne (41:42.718)

who talked about how love is eternal. So when someone passes away that they're still with you and you don't say, loved that person, you say, I love that person because we're still tied by love. Who is God, God's self. And so I just wanna read this to everybody because this was in a very, very desolate moment for you, Kevin. And I just think this is so beautiful when we think about a mother's love and for all of us women here gathered, whether we're mothers.

or through biologically or like my husband and I through foster to adopt or adoption or spiritual mothers. And Kevin, you talked about the brokenness that Christa had with her own mom. Like everybody needs to be mothered. Everybody needs someone, the nurturing of a mother. And I think that we can really remember that as we navigate our days, hopefully close abiding in the sacred heart is to share the love of a mother, our blessed mother.

who had the only pure, immaculate heart of a human being to share that with all those we encounter. So Kevin, you said, as I leaned against the fence and looked into the remembered image of mom reclining beneath the shade tree, I saw her craning her head to look up at me. She saw her exhausted boy and concern and empathy bathed her face. As I allowed the consolation of mom's love to take hold, her pitting look turned into one of maternal instruction.

Kevin Wells (42:39.315)

Thank

Kevin Wells (42:44.497)

Thank

Lindy Wynne (43:06.804)

Patience, Kevin. God is very close to you now. Trust what I am saying. Love Krista in her trial. As she clung to you and you were dying, do the same for her in her unreachable place. As she believed you would live, trust she will too.

So beautiful. So beautiful.

Kevin Wells (43:30.965)

You're gonna make me cry, Lindy. I forgot about that part. You're gonna make me cry now.

Lindy Wynne (43:36.252)

I cried at that part. I could cry right now about that part, Kevin, thank you so much. And I felt like reading your book, which everybody can get, The Hermit, The Priest Who Saved a Soul, a Marriage, and a Family, and there's many more layers to this. And I do believe that it will speak to your soul if you read this book, because it goes so deep. And Kevin and I were talking before we started, and you said, Kevin, about something about if life is too easy, like how are we encountering God?

Like this life is not meant to be just a walk in the park or the ballpark. I feel like I should say to you, Kevin, you know, and it's in these trials and in coming to really understand. And you talked about the rugged cross. Like it's really when we begin to surrender our lives by the grace of God and really experience situations like these circumstances like these and

cling on to the Lord, cling on to the Lord, like Kevin talked about, that hopefully and prayerfully we can come to know God and love itself, because Kevin, what I'm really hearing from this, the Easter Sunday and this, is that you're married to Christa, your children have their parents together, and you have come to know so much more profoundly the meaning of love, of true love, of God's love, because God is love. So.

Where can everybody get your book?

Kevin Wells (45:05.895)

Well, I always say, well, I'll hold it up since I have it in my hand. Look at my beautiful wife here. Look at that right there. Yeah. So you can go to Ignatius.com. Ignatius Press is the publisher or the old Amazon and it's at Catha Bookstores. But I always like to say go to, or actually, you know what? You can go to my website too. I think we sold over there at Kevinwells.org.

Lindy Wynne (45:13.948)

She is so beautiful.

Kevin Wells (45:32.13)

But Ignatius.com if nothing else works.

Lindy Wynne (45:34.93)

Okay, wonderful. And two invitations from this podcast is one for all of us on this Lenten journey is total intimacy with God. Kevin talked about laying his head against Christ's chest, against his heart, and for us to really desire that conversion, I think in Dr. Bob Schuetz, who opened the Lenten series for us, which if you haven't heard, I really encourage you to go listen to his podcast, his mini retreat and a podcast.

He talks about like the desire of conversion in one of his books and to really long for that and really hunger for that. And so for us to make choices for that total intimacy of God with God, because Kevin could have made choices to turn away in a million ways and yet he clung on and sometimes we just need to cling on. I think I've shared, I have a she shed chapel and in there, there's an image.

And actually one of my girlfriends is going through a very difficult long-term suffering season and I think of her a lot when I see this image, yet I have felt this before in my life too. It's the woman clinging to the cross. It's literally like she has one hand on the Bible, she's clutching the cross with her other arm, and then there's like waves that could pull her away on either side of her. And so for us to cling like that, cling to the cross, cling to Jesus, cling to God for that total intimacy.

And the second one is to do these readings that you talk about. You talked about St. Teresa of Avila today, there's also, you speak in your book of St. John of the Cross. Are there any other works that you would really encourage, Kevin, from your experience for us to read? Yeah.

Kevin Wells (47:14.38)

About a thousand. But yeah, I'm a reader. You know, where do I start? I'm going to say two things. One, I know you have viewers that like to read fiction rather than nonfiction. I'm going to suggest beginning to read if you're a fiction fan, Michael O'Brien. I believe and many others believe that he'll go down as perhaps the greatest Catholic fiction writer in the history of the world.

So I would suggest starting with Father Elijah by Michael O'Brien. It's been published in 27 different languages. I think after reading it, it will change you in some way. You talked about conversion. It will convert you in some way. As far as nonfiction, I'm going to start with the book that I believe everybody should read. It's by Dr. Ralph Martin, and it's called The Fulfillment of All Desire.

The Fulfillment of All Desire, a spectacular book on deepening one's prayer life and doing it in a Carmelite way. If you're not into Carmelites, no big deal. You'll still glean a lot from how the greatest Carmelites in the history of the church found God through prayer. So I'll just throw those two out at you.

Lindy Wynne (48:36.421)

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Kevin. And we are going to close in prayer. And everybody remember, in all of these podcasts, we bring up very, very intense different themes and different circumstances that people face. So know you can always reach out at mamasinspirit.gmail.com. Our chaplain father, John and I, we pray for your intentions when you send them. And we also pray for everyone who listens in general and who's part of this mamasinspirit beloved community. And then also we can also help point you to different

healing centers like the JP2 Healing Center and other places of the sort and other readings and other works and other programs to help you to hopefully by the grace of God be restored more fully to Christ the one who loves you most. So in that Spirit and the Holy Spirit let us close in prayer. In the of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Dearest Lord, I just want to thank you and praise you for this time. I want to thank you for Kevin's authenticity and openness. I want to pray for each and every one listening Lord or gathered here today.

You know what each one of us needs, Lord, and we all suffer and we all long for you. That's part of our experience here on earth, Lord. And so I just pray for a supernatural infilling and a pouring out of your love and your mercy and to each one of our hearts and our lives. I pray that we all cling to the cross. I pray that we all make choices like Kevin talked about today to ultimately glorify you.

so that whatever we're navigating in our lives, that we can look you in the eyes, Lord, the one who loves us most, the one who is mercy, the one who is truth, the one who is love, and make choices to help ourselves to be intimate and close to you and to be with you eternally. In your name we pray, amen. In the of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, amen.

Kevin Wells (50:21.766)

in my.

Lindy Wynne (50:25.816)

Everyone, we are getting close to the end of our Lenten series. There will be a seven week Easter series, because we want to celebrate Easter in the same way that we dive into Lent here. So I hope you'll join us for that too. Can't wait to be together again next time. This is Lindy Wynne with Mamas in Spirit. May God bless you and yours always.

Kevin Wells (50:49.681)

Thank you.