76. Mercy In Christian Marriage: Surviving a spouse's porn addiction with Mary Lenaburg

Happy Easter, Sisters in Christ! Thank you very much for your patience!

Motherhood, migraines, colds etc. have unfortunately slowed down our podcast production for the past couple of weeks. We sincerely appreciate you coming back to listen to our podcast. We hope it blesses you, that the stories of the women and men in Christ encourages and inspires you!

For Divine Mercy Sunday, Sheila spoke with best-selling Catholic author Mary Lenaburg about how her family’s caregiving cross coincided with addiction struggles that nearly shattered their 20-year marriage, and then became a road to surrender, mercy, and renewal. We follow the turning points that made healing possible through prayer, counseling, the sacraments, and a hard won choice to keep fighting for love rooted in forgiveness, mercy and life-giving sacrifice.

• framing spiritual life as a battle where Christ wins the war 
• Courtney’s seizures and caregiving stress changing the family’s life 
• turning from trying to fix everything to living the present moment 
• the crisis night that forces a choice and starts the healing path 
• therapy, marriage counselling, spiritual direction, and retreat work 
• learning forgiveness without weaponizing the past 
• Theology of the Body insights on love versus lust and objectification 
• confession, freedom, and renewing wedding vows as a marriage milestone 
• grief, hope, and seeing her daughter
• reclaiming midlife purpose and offering wisdom to younger women 
• body image, personal style, and dressing with dignity 
• clean beauty, non-toxic skincare, and why ingredients matter 
• where to find Mary’s work and products

May I ask, what can we pray for you? Please feel free to drop in the comments below on our YouTube channel, and please say a prayer for Camille Mendoza, the talented mother in British Columbia, who designed our podcast logo. She was just recently hospitalized for a serious medical condition. 

I invite you to share this with another Catholic mom today. Please subscribe to our podcast on YouTube channel and please spread the word. Let's be brave. Let's be bold and be blessed together.

Mary Lenaburg's ministry can be found on her website, along with the Crunchi beauty products (I'm sorry, it's only U.S. shipping, friends)

https://marylenaburg.com

https://www.instagram.com/@marylenaburg

Mary is also on YouTube and all podcasting platforms with the Mary and Jerry show!

https://www.youtube.com/@marylenaburg

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-mary-and-jerry-podcast/id1700993240

Thank you + God bless!

Transcript

"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."

Sheila Nonato 0:00

" I am the way, the truth and the life." The Gospel of St. John Chapter 14, Verse six: Tthe path to Heaven and to Holiness is clear in the Gospels. It's the path of Jesus, the path of the Cross. How do married couples remain faithful to their covenant to each other? How do they withstand the storms of life and the spiritual attacks on our marriages? These are questions we will look at this week in this raw and remarkable interview with award-winning Catholic author Mary Lenaburg. How can we emulate the love of Christ in Marriage and what does Christ teach us about Divine Mercy that we can apply in our daily lives as housewives and mothers?

Sheila Nonato 0:44

Hello sisters in Christ. Welcome to the Veil and Armourr Podcast, and I'm very excited to bring you this conversation with Mary Lenaburg. Mary is a dynamic speaker, bestselling author, and devoted mother to the beautiful Courtney. Courtney's blessed, albeit short life on earth, was a gift to her family. On the other side of this gift were the physical challenges of caregiving. Courtney lived with daily seizures and in and in the beginning of her young life, it was a challenge for Mary, her husband Jerry, and their son Jonathan, to adjust to this medical diagnosis. As it was new to them and didn't know where to turn to. Mary and Jerry turned to self-coping mechanisms leading to addiction, food for Mary and porn addiction for Jerry. How did the brokenness of their marriage become transformed after Mary realized the brokenness of their relationship on this divine mercy Sunday.

Sheila Nonato 1:44

Let's hear this powerful story of love, sacrifice, forgiveness, and mercy. Thank you very much for joining us Sisters in Christ, and I look forward to sharing this very beautiful, very raw and honest conversation with Mary Lenaburg. Thank you and God bless.

Mary Lenaburg 2:03

OPENING QUOTE: So I, I think of, of life sometimes as a battle. Right. And I recently heard Father Colomba, who is a CFR Franciscan, um, missionary in Ireland. He said, isn't it awesome that Jesus won the war? He won the war by losing, by losing His life, right? He offered His life for us so that we might be free, free of original sin, free of the. The gap that stood between us and God the father, that sin created in the Garden of Eden. That's why He came to repair that gap, to repair that relationship, our relationship with the Father. So I think of God has won the war. The war has been won. We don't, we don't have to worry about that, but it's the cleanup battles. It's the battles for our hearts and our souls that are still going on until one day we are with him, and the world comes to its end. As the Lord will decide and, and we can be together with him for an eternity if we choose wisely and if we live lives of virtue and of hope, and of faith and of love. When you've learned to surrender your entire life to him.

Mary Lenaburg 3:10

SECOND QUOTE: And it wasn't like I freely just gave it like, "Here's a gift, I surrender. No, it was like I surrender. But no, but no, I, I can do it. I, I can do, no, but I surrender. No, but I can't do it." But it was just this tug of war for a long time before finally. I, I surrender because I don't know what else to do. And there was a piece that came with that. Did anything else change? No. She still had seizures. Our marriage was still on shaky ground. Our son was still struggling, but there was a peace, and I can't explain it 'cause it's a piece that is beyond understanding. And when you know that you know it's of God and then you just put one foot in front of the other and do the very best you can and he takes the rest.

Meet Mary And Courtney’s Remarkable Story of Faith and Healing

Co-Host 3:54

Hello and welcome to the Veil and Armour podcast. This is your host, Sheila Nonato. I'm a stay- -at home mom and a freelance Catholic journalist seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the inspiration of Our Lady, I strive to tell stories that inspire. Illuminate and enrich the lives of Catholic women to help them in living out our vocation of raising the next generation of leaders and saints. Please join us every week on the Veil and Armour Podcast, where stories come alive through a journalist lens and mother's heart.

Sheila Nonato 4:24

Welcome to the Veil + Armour podcast, Sisters in Christ and Happy Easter! He has risen! I am humbled and honored to have award-winning Catholic author and international speaker Mary Berg. Would we be able to start off with a prayer, please?

Mary Lenaburg 4:38

Absolutely. Let's begin. In the Name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Father God, we thank you so much for our time together for this conversation. We ask that you allow the Holy Spirit to come upon, um, both of us that, uh, he is able to guide our conversation to, um, guard our tongues so that we bring forth nothing but goodness and grace. We ask our lady to cover us with her mantle of protection over the equipment, over, um, the technology, and that she may always walk with us in grace and beauty and femininity, uh, as her daughters as we pray together.

Mary Lenaburg 5:20

Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Father, son, holy Spirit. Amen.

Sheila Nonato 5:36

Well, thank you very, very much for that. And I'm sure a lot of our listeners and viewers know who you are. You're an award-winning author. You're the beautiful wife of Jerry, an American military vet, a devoted mother to Courtney and Jonathan Clean, Beauty Advocate, and Catholic Fashionista host, host of the Mary and Jerry Podcast. And you're featured in the "Worthy of Wearing: How Personal Fashion Expresses our Feminine Genius" book. And I've been trying to find this book. I have it. Um, I sort of rearranged things, so now I can't find it. But yeah, I'd love to talk about that as well. Um, but first, can you start, start off with, there's a quote on your. And, um, it says, "To be free and live free is a battle, but is a battle worth fighting. God has already won the war." Wow. That's, uh, those are powerful words. Why did you choose that quote?

Mary Lenaburg 6:30

Well, I

God Has Already Won the War

Mary Lenaburg 6:31

chose it because I, as a military spouse, my husband served active duty in the United States Navy for 12 years. He was a, um, United States Naval Academy veteran and an aviator for the Navy. Um, you know, you, I, when you marry someone who is a historian, military historian, you hear the, the war a lot like, you know, um, Sun Tzu in the Art of War, Clausewitz's Rules of War. Like, so it's, I've been surrounded by it, but I also grew up in a household where both my parents were navy veterans, my fa of the Vietnam War. And, um, so they ran their house in a very, very specific way. And, um. I just kind of grew up with six brothers and a sister. So I, I think of, of life sometimes as a battle, right? And I recently heard Father Colomba, who is a CFR Franciscan, um, missionary in Ireland. He said, "Isn't it awesome that Jesus won the war?" He won the war by losing, by losing his life, right? He offered his life for us so that we might be free, free of original sin, free of, um, the, the gap that stood between us and God, the father that sin created and the Garden of Eden.

Mary Lenaburg 7:47

Um, that's why he came to repair that gap, to repair that relationship, our relationship with the father. So, um. I think of, of God has won the war. The war has been won. We don't, we don't have to worry about that, but it's the cleanup battles. It's the battles for our hearts and our souls that are still going on until one day we are with him. And the world comes to its end as the Lord will decide and, and we can be together with him for an eternity if we choose wisely and if we live lives of virtue and of hope, and of faith and of love. And so, um. Yeah, and I think of also sort of the battles in my own life. You know, uh, my father was a, um, functioning alcoholic till I was 19 years old. So there was my childhood and some of the disruptions and drama in that and how that formed me as a young woman.

Mary Lenaburg 8:44

Then entering into a marriage very young at the age of 20, um, and going through four deployments, having children, miscarrying two children, and then with our daughter Courtney, when she was six weeks old, she began having grandma mal seizures. And that changed the trajectory of our life and our marriage. And, um, for the 22 years that we had her with us, you know, she taught us how to love. She taught us how to love without condition, and it mirrors God's love for us. We don't, we can't do anything. To earn God's love. We have it because he created us in his likeness and image, and he loves us and he breathes that life into us. But we don't prove our, we don't have to prove ourselves to him. We, he just loves us. And Courtney showed us what that looks like in reality in day-to-day form, because there was nothing she could do to earn our love. Yet she had it. She had it all. And so, um, in writing my two books Be Brave In The Scared and to Be Bold, uh, in the Broken, I kind of explored the, the brokenness and where the fear came from and where the doubt came from.

Mary Lenaburg 9:52

And when you have a child like Courtney, what it does is it, it exposes all the weaknesses in your life and in your marriage. And in my marriage, uh, it challenged us from the very beginning and exposed addictions in my marriage, my husband to pornography and myself to food. And so we brought all of our. Family of origin, drama, trauma, whatever, into this marriage. And then the marriage imploded because of what was happening with our daughter and what was required of us as her parents and caregivers. So, um, life is a battle and God's already won it, but we gotta stay in it so that we can offer our best efforts as gift to Him for what he is already done for us.

Sheila Nonato 10:37

Wow. Um, it's such a beautiful story of redemption and of going through the, the Cross since we just came out of Lent and now at Easter. Um, how was that for you to carry that Cross, um, of having to, I guess, develop a new role, the role that you had to be a caretaker for your daughter, um, and how did you, how did you approach that role? Um, how did you carry that cross?

Compassionate caregiving and an unforgettable trip to Lourdes

Mary Lenaburg 11:10

Uh, not well, not well. It was, especially in the beginning. Um, for the first seven years of Courtney's life, I think we just, we wanted to fix her. We wanted, like, she was a, a car with broken pieces and parts, and we needed to fix it, you know, which is our human inclination. We, we don't just readily accept hard things. We wanna change them, whether that means change them or the situation around them, or change ourselves and how we respond to them. There's, there's change somewhere. And it wasn't until we took her to Lords, we were able, in the year 2000, able to take her on a healing pilgrimage to Lords. And it was our, our experience there. Um, and what happened when she went Lourdes is a place, uh, in Lourdes, France, where St. Bernadette, uh, saw our lady appear to her. And this is where we get, um, the immaculate conception. You know, when our, when Bernadette asked. The woman who appeared to her, who are you? She said, "I am the immaculate Conception." And so, um, our experience there, what happened when we went into the water, these healing baths and how the Lord spoke to us, how Our Lady spoke to us through Courtney and what we experienced, and the idea that, um, Courtney was a suffering servant. Like she knew her job was to love and be loved.

Mary Lenaburg 12:35

And it was our job as her parents to be her hands and feet because she, she had work to do. Everybody has a mission. And even if you are differently abled than another, you still have a mission because every worth has dignity. You know, every life has dignity and worth. And so her mission was to love and to teach us how to love without boundaries. To teach us how to receive love without boundaries. And she drew people in. You know, she didn't speak, she was cordically blind, she was wheelchair bound, so she was non ambul ambulatory. Um, and yet people were just drawn to her, to her smile and to her laughter. Um, she brought a sense of peace to our home, which you wouldn't think when you have like 20 seizures a day. Like it would be peaceful.

Mary Lenaburg 13:21

But it was just, it came to the point where it was like, oh, it, it's just seizure. These things happen. We monitor, we we are with her. Yes, they got scary. Yes, there were many visits to the ER and to the ICU. And no, it wasn't easy at all. I, I didn't sleep through the night for 25 years. I still don't sleep through the night. It's just my body is, has been trained. Right. But it was beautiful. And I can say that with all sincerity, it's been, this year, it'll be 12 years since she passed away, and. I wouldn't be who I am today. I wouldn't have written the books that I've written. I wouldn't be out speaking and sharing the testimony that I have. If I didn't have Courtney, I don't know where we'd be. I don't think we'd still be married.

Mary Lenaburg 14:07

I don't, I don't think our marriage would look anything like it does today, because she, she kind of drew us in and we became a team and we had to learn how to trust one another and we had to learn how to rely on each other and to communicate well with one another. And that alt was very painful to go through. Um, our son was very challenged, um, with it all. It was very hard for him. But now he's a father and he understands a little bit more because he holds his own children and he is like, oh yeah, I get it now, where he didn't before. And that's a beautiful thing. But, um. How did I do it? I, by God's grace, I took it. I learned how to be in the, the present moment, the sacrament of the present moment is what I call it. And, and I, I still live that way. I, I don't plan five years out. I don't know who I'll be in five years. I don't know who I'll be tomorrow by lunch. So therefore I stay today. Mother Teresa used to say it all the time. Yesterday is gone. Today is, uh, tomorrow is a gift that hasn't been given. So you have today, so live today. Well, and I, I try very hard to stay there.

Mary Lenaburg 15:17

So that's, how did I do it? I did it with God only with him. That's the OI can't, there is no way we would be still married and still even like each other if we didn't have Jesus in our life. And if he wasn't at the center of our marriage and he wasn't at the center of our marriage back then. We had to choose to bring him in and ask him into our marriage. And that's where a lot of our healing and restoration happened was, um, was through the Holy Spirit and through our Lord's presence and through the sacraments, marriage counseling, personal counseling, spiritual direction, marriage retreats. I mean, we, oh my gosh, we did it all. We've done it all.

Sheila Nonato 15:59

And so was there a point before you did the counseling and all that? Like, was there a crisis point where both of you looked at each other and said we we're gonna seek some help? Was there something that happened?

Mary Lenaburg 16:13

Yes. So

Addiction Crisis And Choosing Help

Mary Lenaburg 16:14

we had, our son had, um, he had bitten someone in preschool and so he was removed from preschool. He had gotten upset about something. Somebody had taken a toy and, you know, he was four overwhelmed with his emotions and he bit someone. And I remember sitting in the principal's office on a little chair. And she was explaining to us that, you know, maybe he needed to see a counselor and so forth. And I just remember the humiliation of that moment. Like what had I done as a mother that, what did I do wrong? I hadn't done any, he was a four-year-old little boy whose sister had just gotten out of the ICU. He was scared. He was alone. He was, he just wanted the toy and nobody to bother him.

Mary Lenaburg 16:58

And he didn't have the words or the emotional capacity to explain it to the world. And yet I took it on as my personal failure. And that night, uh, what I would do when I would in be in that mental head space is I would eat. And so I made three pans of brownies. I ate two full pans of brownies and then one pan I left on the stove so that my husband would think, oh, I made brownies. And they were there because what he was doing was he was downstairs in the computer and he was consuming pornography. And I had had enough. I went to the bathroom that night and I tried to throw up and I couldn't make myself throw up, and I just began to cry. I was on, we used to have one inch white penny tiles in the bathroom I'll never forget.

Mary Lenaburg 17:44

And I was just on the floor and I was weeping. And he comes upstairs and he is like, what? And I'm like, I, I can't do this anymore. You, you go downstairs and you look at porn and you do these things and, and I'm up here with the two children and I am, I'm, I, I, I cannot, you have to make a choice. I have to make a choice. And I am choosing my own mental health and I am choosing to bring our children up in a home where there are no crazy people. 'cause I feel like a crazy person right now. I, I should be com I, I was this close to a total breakdown, mental, emotional, physical. And I said, you have a choice tonight, and you're making it tonight. You're either gonna choose us. Or are you gonna choose porn? And we have to get help. It means we're gonna go to marriage counseling. It means we're gonna go to therapy. It means we're gonna, I, I don't know what you, I mean, we didn't know. There wasn't anyone to ask. We didn't have Jason Everett or, uh, Matt Frdda, or, you know, um, we didn't have any of those people. They weren't here yet. We had our parish priest who, when we went in two days later, because praise God, Jerry made the decision to fight for our marriage.

Mary Lenaburg 19:06

And he began his journey to freedom from pornography. And I began my journey to freedom from that. But I remember sitting in my pastor's office and he just, his eyes got really big and he is like, well, um, I'm happy to meet with you and pray for you. Uh, I don't have any experience with pornography addiction. I don't know what, I don't know. Which was devastating because I thought of all people you hear confession, all the, you can't tell me we're the only ones that are in this hell. And it just wasn't spoken about. I mean, this is, gosh, this is 31 years ago. It's not spoken about then like it is now. Praise God that it is now. So we began a journey. We, we found a marriage coun. He, he found us a marriage counselor. We started individual therapy, went to marriage counseling and we did that for the next seven years. Solid. Um, he ended up leaving the military. Uh, we settled in civilian life. We bought a house.

Mary Lenaburg 20:12

Um, Courtney's seizures continued to, to not improve, um, but we were better. We were on more solid footing. And then when our son went through kind of, um. His own anger and frustration with God, and why does it have to be so hard? And why is she suffering so much? He was a freshman in college, and so at that point we were prepared in a different way to be able to enter into his healing with him and say, okay, I, I know what this feels like. I know this is hard, and I know you don't understand it all, and dad and I don't understand it all, but we do know that God is good and that he doesn't make mistakes, and that he chose you to be her brother, you to be her protector and her friend, and that's a beautiful gift to have. So yeah, that's, that's what we did. There was just a, there was a night, there was, it was Tuesday. I know it was Tuesday, and a decision was made. We struggled. It was not easy. I don't want to give the impression at all. I mean, there was a se almost seven months where we were not intimate with each other at all because we were so broken. And so, um, just struggling with how we felt about the other and who led who down and who led who to who astray. And, you know, you wanna place blame. And yet there was enough blame on both sides to go around. And again, we were bringing trauma in from our families of origin and how they handled marriage. And yeah, it was, it was, it was a big, big, horrible pile of yuck, but God right in the middle of it.

Sheila Nonato 22:00

Wow. That sounds like, um, a spiritual battle. Yes. And it's, um, very courageous of both of you to start at that level, the spiritual level that you. You decided you're gonna turn your hearts to Christ. And, uh, root, root, your marriage in Christ. And as you were saying, it's really the cross. You know, it's, your marriage is not the cross, it's the difficulties, um, that, you know, life happens and it's just really just a bold, courageous decision to turn to each other and to turn to the Lord. Where does that come from? Were you very religious growing up?

Mary Lenaburg 22:44

I, okay, so I grew up in a Catholic household. My father's a hundred percent Irish. My mother's a hundred percent German, so it's an Icelandic iceberg. Married. A volcano. So it was a very, they loved each other. Tremen. I mean, my mar my parents' marriage was a good marriage. It was volatile at times because of the two individuals involved. My dad would kind of blow up and my mom would go quiet. But that's just how they, they handled, you know, conflict. Um, and as my mother would say, tell you now, was that the best way to handle it? Probably not, but that's what they knew to do. Right? We can only give what we know. So I grew up in a household where you did not quit.

Mary Lenaburg 23:26

If you chose to do a sport, you followed it all the way through, through the season. You were not allowed to quit. If you were gonna play an instrument in fourth grade band, you were gonna play that instrument all the way through the school year, and then you could quit, but you had to see your commitment through. My parents were very big on that and so, you know, how did we choose courage? Neither one of us wanted to fail. Like there had been no divorce in our families. Nobody had gotten divorced. And I wasn't gonna be the first one to put up on my hand and say, we're getting a divorce. Like, I didn't wanna lose, like I hate losing. And God knew that about me. He knows that about me and he knows that about my husband. And so he used how he made us and kind of revealed in those conversations, well, I'm not quitting. Are you quitting? No, I'm not quitting. You know, like we're stubborn, stiff-necked people. And he used that so that we could see, okay, well if you're not gonna quit and I'm not gonna quit, then how the heck do we fix this?

Mary Lenaburg 24:27

And as for turning to God, I, we did because we had nowhere else to turn. There was nobody in our family we could go to. Nobody had had these experiences that we knew of. Um, there certainly were, we weren't gonna go to our friends because that's a big fail. So you, if you're not gonna go to your family and you're not gonna go to your friends and you didn't know perfect strangers yet, you hadn't figured out the counseling situation or whatever, who do you have left? Like, it, it's kind of when St. Peter says in the gospels, you know, when Jesus says to him, you, you know, you're gonna go, you're gonna betray me. And he's like, but where would I go? You are the Messiah. Like, where am I gonna go? Like, you're here. I'm gonna be here. And I, I kind of think of it as that. Like, neither one of us knew where to go and so therefore we didn't, we stayed. Um, and it was, it was it exceedingly challenging? There were a lot of late nights of conversations, a lot of tears, a lot of hurt feelings, a lot of words that I wish we could take back because words have power and they define, and for a long time we were defined by pain. And then of course, in the middle of all of this, we have a toddler. Uh, not well, he was five, four to five.

Mary Lenaburg 25:45

And then we have this little girl who's, we still have no answers as to why she's having seizures. Her diagnosis for the entirety of her life was seizure disorder, origin unknown, was never known. We never got, that was her diagnosis. There must have been a brain injury at some point, somewhere, either in utero or in the first few weeks that caused these seizures. So you're living in the unknown and you're living in crisis. You're living in from one seizure to the next seizure. Like your whole world stopped for those 40 seconds. And then as she got older, they went on longer. So nothing else mattered in that moment. Just getting, keeping her breathing. Just keep her breathing. Just keep her breathing. And that's how I lived for those 22 years, every single day. Just keep her alive, Lord. Just give us one more day. And when you've learned to surrender your entire life to him, and it wasn't like I freely just gave it like, "Here's a gift, I surrender. No, it was like I surrender. But no, but no, I, I can do it. I can, I can, I can do, no, but I surrender.

Mary Lenaburg 26:54

No, but I can't do it." But it was just this tug of war for a long time before finally, I, I surrender because I don't know what else to do. And there was a piece that came with that. Did anything else change? No. She still had seizures. Our marriage was still on shaky ground. Our son was still struggling, but there was a peace. I can't explain it. 'cause it's a piece that is beyond understanding. And when you know that, you know it's of God and then you just put one foot in front of the other and do the very best you can and he takes the rest.

Sheila Nonato 27:33

Wow.

Forgiveness Without Keeping Score

Sheila Nonato 27:34

Um, yeah, that's, that's just beautiful. Um, I can see why you're such a brilliant author. Just so many wise words, um, that you can share from your experience, from your lived experience. Um, when did forgiveness come?

Mary Lenaburg 27:57

Forgiveness came, I think complete and total forgiveness. There were moments along the way where I forgave and where he forgave me. Like where, where there was a conversation of, of something that had happened or mishap relapse. He was watching porn, I was baking brownies, like whatever it was, where we would kind of catch the other one and that person would turn around and say, I'm so sorry. Would you please forgive me? And we would, we learned how to let it go to forgive. You know, you don't forget because you don't wanna repeat it again. Right. But like that forgiveness of, I'm not gonna hold this over you, I'm not gonna use it as a baseball bat to beat you up in the midst of a fight. I'm not gonna, no, we're not gonna do that. And we learned that through therapy. We learned how, you know, better communication skills. We still have to work on our communication skills. Even 38 years in, we still have to be aware of what we say and how we say it, and the tone that we use because, because of our past living experience. Um, but there was a, we went, um, our pastor had, um, asked us to be marriage mentors. Which

Confession Freedom And Renewed Vows

Mary Lenaburg 29:05

I still laugh. Um, it was 2008 and so this is eight years after we went to Lourdes. Um, and several years before our daughter passed and they were starting kind of like a marriage mentorship program at our parish. And they wanted couples that had faced adver adversity but had come through it with the Lord at the center of their marriage. There had been healing, there had been wholeness, you know, that were on steady ground and we were, at that point we were on steady ground. And um, part of it was we had to go up to BlackRock, Pennsylvania to where Christopher Rest was teaching Theology of the Body.

Mary Lenaburg 29:42

And that was part of our training to be marriage mentors. So we went to BlackRock, Pennsylvania, and on day three of our training, we were there for seven days or five days. I dunno. Um, day three, Christopher West was going over the difference between love and lust, lust. Is when I am thinking only of my own pleasure, my own needs of me, me, me, me. That's where objectification comes in. That's where the sting of the, the addiction to pornography, that's, that's the root of it. "It's all about me. It has nothing to do with you. You're just here for my pleasure, right?" Love costs you something. Love is for the good of the other. No matter what it costs you. You love that person. You will do their good.

Mary Lenaburg 30:37

And there is something that happened to my husband in that conversation, in that kind of wrestling out where he had kind of an epiphany, I guess you would call it, and he got really quiet and he stopped talking. And I was like, oh, I don't know what just happened, but here we go. And I had, I had tears in my eyes because he had gone on to explain that this is where objectification of the spouse comes in. This is where we begin to use our husbands or our wives, whoever has this issue, um, as we objectify them, we use them as a prostitute. Um, they're there not because it's a fruitful marriage and it's a full and free marriage and that, you know, every time you're intimate with your husband, you're renewing your wedding vows. But when it's connected to this, uh, to lust, it's not a renewal of the wedding vows. It's an objectification of the spouse.

Mary Lenaburg 31:33

It's a using of the other. And that, that, that sunk deep for him. And so after that particular lecture, we were given the opportunity to go to confession. And we were, we were going to confession with some CFR priests who had been trained. In sexual addiction and, and things of these diff different natures that you would be dealing with at this type of conference. And so I went into confession and father looked at me and he said, I want you to start with the very first sin that you can remember sexual sin in your life. And I'm like, but I'm, I'm not the one that started with it.

Mary Lenaburg 32:09

But then I realized in this process, as he is asking me these questions, I started reading romance novels when I was in the seventh grade. And these were not the nice romance novels, these were the novels that described all the things. So I had already been exposed to pornography. I had already been, I already had a very active imagination. I had already had, you know, these experiences. And I'm like, oh my goodness. So when I walked into my marriage with this experience that I hadn't categorized as addiction to porn or as exposure to pornography, it was just a romance novel. And then that path that we took to together. I was afraid he would leave. So I, I, I gave in to what he desired. I'm like, oh my gosh, I have responsibility here too. And so I was able to work my way through that. It was 45 minute confession. It was an intense confession, one of the best confessions of my life. But when I walked out of that, I was free. I was free. And so I went onto the back porch and Jerry, you know, was also in confession with another priest.

Mary Lenaburg 33:24

And I, I kind of had, I had tears in my eyes 'cause I felt so, like I had lost 50 pounds in 20 minutes. You know, like I just, it was done. We were done. We weren't going back. It was done. And, and there was no temptation there for me. There was no, it was just done. It was healed and the Lord was making it whole. And I was trying to figure out how, how do I tell Jerry that? Like, it's done. I'm free. I'm free. You're free. We, you can be free too. Did you, you know, that's what I wanted to tell him. You can be free too. And I had tears in my eyes and he came out, he stood next to me, but he didn't look at me. And I thought, oh, wow. Did we make it to this point where he is gonna say like, it's over.

Mary Lenaburg 34:06

Like, you know, I came to a different conclusion kind of thing. I, I just didn't know. So I'm standing there, it's a beautiful fall day. Leaves are changing, and I'm like breathing. And I'm, and, and I, he finally just quietly said, did I make you feel that? I'm like, what are you talking about? And he goes, well, Christopher said, did I make you feel like you were a prostitute? And I had to be honest. And I said, yeah, you did. And then I explained to him my confession. Like, but I also understand this. I had responsibility guy there, there was something already in me, right? It, it, it's not a hundred percent on you. And he looked at me and for the first time in this whole, gosh, 2008, we had been married 20 years in this whole experience, he asked for my forgiveness and I fully and freely forgave him. And I asked for his forgiveness and he fully and freely forgave me. And then he asked me to marry him again. And I said, I would be the honor of my life. And so we renewed our wedding vows right there on that back, that porch and BlackRock, Pennsylvania.

Mary Lenaburg 35:26

And that I can tell you is a pin in our marriage where everything changed. Everything changed, and our daughter would be gone six years later. But the two people that walked her to Heaven were very different people from the ones who greeted her when she first arrived.

Sheila Nonato 35:46

I don't know what to say. I'm, it's just so much grace, um, so much beauty in what you have spoken, the beauty and the brokenness. Um, and then the healing. And I'm just in awe that your daughter was sort of the glue that kind of held, that held. I mean, of course, Christ, but that also held you all together because of her innocence, her the gift of her life. And when I mentioned the cross, I didn't mean the person is the cross. It's, you know, the illness is there and the, the work that you have to do in terms of caring for the person. But n never the person, the person is always a blessing.

Heaven Glorified Bodies And Hope

Sheila Nonato 36:32

And I was reading a book, um, about miscarriage. Um, I'd, I'd had a couple as well. And, um, the person was asking, if I see my baby in heaven, um, will she be full? Will she be fully formed? Will she be able, uh, not disabled, but or the opposite of disabled? Would she be, would God heal her or would, would, in God's eyes, would she be full, full already in the brokenness that she didn't, he didn't need to fix her or anything that she's already. Made beautiful in his eyes. Even if in our eyes in the world, um, you know, Instagram and all that, the social media where we have a different, maybe a distorted view of beauty, um, you know, Botox and all that. Um, but in heaven there's no such thing as disabled or are able because we are all made in God's image. Mm-hmm. And he doesn't see that. He doesn't see ability or disability. Correct. Um, he erases that. Um, w how, how do you, how do you think you would see your daughter in Heaven? How would you, how would she appear to you?

Mary Lenaburg 37:41

So, uh, she has, I, I've, I've dreamt of her. I can see her. Um, when Courtney passed away, she was five foot eight. Tall, slender, really curly corkscrew, blonde hair, blue eyes. I think the big thing for me was Courtney could never walk here on earth. Like she never, she was in a kind of like a walker, but she never took steps on her own. And she never spoke. Like I, she never said mama or papa. And so, um, I always imagine her running like she is running, like our lady called over in the garden to the south end. She's like coming, you know, like running. And I remember one time in prayer after she had passed away that I was apologizing to God. I said, "I hope you're okay with it. That like the first person I would like to see is Courtney. Like, I wanna see you, but like, I wanna see her."

Mary Lenaburg 38:39

And it was so funny 'cause I had closed my eyes. It was an adoration and on one side of my head it was Jesus' voice who said, "Mary, of course you wanna see her. She's your daughter! Who gave her to you?" I, I, of course, I, yes, I understand that. And then I heard Courtney's voice over here going, "What are you an idiot? This is Jesus. Like, Ma, come on. Like, you got your priorities all screwed up." You know? So that's the kind of thing that happens in my head. But yes, we'll have glorified bodies. You know, I'm not gonna, I mean, I'm fascinated to think of what my glorified body will look like, but you know, she's perfect.

Mary Lenaburg 39:18

But then she was perfect here. When God looked at her, he saw perfection. He doesn't make mistakes, right? He allows what he allows for purposes and reasons we may never understand. That's why it's called a mystery of faith. It's a freaking mystery. And it's not one we can solve. It's not a who done it that we're gonna figure out. Right. But I really believe, like people say, I have so many questions to ask. God, I have no questions to ask God, because I know that when I get there, please, Jesus, when I get there, every question will be answered. Everything I needed to know, well, I'll know.

Mary Lenaburg 39:55

And everything I need to answer for, I will have to do that as well. And that's the part that, if there's anything that makes me feel nervous, it's that because I know what I've said, I know what I've thought. I know what I've done. Am I forgiven? Yes, I am. But there's reparation, there's, there's, there's a cost to that. And I'm very aware of that as I get, especially as I get older. But no, I see her running. She's just always moving, always moving, running, chatting up a storm. I can. Yeah, it's gonna be great.

Remembering Courtney’s Joy And Personality

Mary Lenaburg 40:31

Beautiful. And, um, can you tell us a little bit more about her? Did she have a favorite, you know, outfit? Um, what, what did she like to eat? She hated peas. Okay. Hated peas, would spit them out. Never liked peas. Um, she was a huge fan of chocolate, loved chocolate, anything sweet, smooth, like a cheesecake, a chocolate mousse, you know, she loved that. Her favorite meal was meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans.

Mary Lenaburg 41:03

I don't know why. It was just her favorite. Um, and she would, she always looked like a bird because she couldn't see you. She was cordically blind, so she would follow your voice with her mouth. So you'd be like, here you go, Courtney. And she'd be like a bird searching for the food. Like, where is it? You know, she loved food, loved to eat. Um, unfortunately. About five years before, before she passed away, she couldn't eat anymore. 'cause her, she didn't protect or swallow. So any food she would take in, she would take directly into her, her lungs. And that led to pneumonias and, and, and very challenging things. So she had a G-tube that we would viewed feed her through. So that was hard.

Mary Lenaburg 41:43

Um, hated shoes, loved soft, comfortable clothing. Despised having a bath or her hair washed. She had Shirley Temple curls, corkscrew curls. And so you had to put a detangler in it. And she just hated having her head touched. She would like swat you like a fly. And she would make these noises like Chewbacca. She'd be like, like, get it all. Stop, stop touching me. She loved to snuggle. She would curl up in your lap and her head would be right here. And we always, um, the Lord gave us such a beautiful, beautiful gift. On the day that she passed away was the Feast of St. John the beloved, December 27th. And there is of course, the beautiful Da Vinci painting where John is resting his head on the, our Lord's chest because he was his beloved. And I thought, of course, you would choose to bring her home on this day. She was born on the, uh, August 18th on the Feast of St. Helena of the Cross, and she died in the Feast of St. John, the Beloved. And so she never left the cross. She was always there with him. And, uh, only God can write that story.

Sheila Nonato 42:55

Yes. Um, what do you miss most about her?

Mary Lenaburg 42:59

Her laughter. Her laughter. She, because she didn't have a lot of control over her voice. Her laugh was loud, like very loud. Think of a frat party and you're three sheets to the wind and you're the loudest. Laugh in the room. That was Courtney's kind of laugh, but when she laughed, you knew she wasn't in pain. You knew she wasn't scared, she was happy. And so it was a gift. And so when she would laugh, everybody would stop. Her teachers would stop, her therapist would stop. My husband and I, we would all stop and we would just be like, you're laughing. And you'd just be in this beautiful moment of joy with her.

Mary Lenaburg 43:42

And I, I also miss very much the weight of her body in my lap. Like she would curl up after a seizure and she put her knees up here and, and she was a skinny, long thing. And she would just fall asleep safely here and we would rock for hours. And I miss that a lot. I miss that a lot. I mean, I miss her. Somebody said to me one time, would you want her back? And that's a complicated thing to ask a mother who's lost a child? Would I want her back as I wanted her back? Absolutely. Is that how she would come back? Probably not. She would be still the same, Courtney. So why would I want her back if she is now free? If she's now safe, if she's now loved for an eternity, why would I do that to her? I, that's, that's for my, you know, that's selfish. That's my selfishness. Um, does my mother's heart desire to hear that laughter again? Absolutely. Every single day, every moment of the day. I would love for her to have met her, her nephews. I would love for her to have met her sister-in-law. I think they would love her and they would care for her beautifully.

Mary Lenaburg 44:57

But that wasn't how God wrote that story. And I can either hang on to what I want and the bitterness of that, or I can hang on to the joy of what I had. And, and when you have stood by your child's grave, everything in life changes. Your priorities change what you're afraid of, changes what you are willing to do. Changes. Everything changes. It shifts because you know what's most important and what's most important is people, not things, not money, not fame, not calendar, none of that. It's people and the legacy of love that you can leave behind for them and that's all that matters.

Sheila Nonato 45:46

Yes. Um. So this testimony that you have just beautiful, so beautifully shared with us, is this going to be part of the third book that you're writing?

A New Book On Resilience

Mary Lenaburg 45:57

So all, there are always parts of, pardon me, uh, Courtney's story in every book that I write. So I've written these two books. Be Brave In The Scared, be Bold In the Broken. The first book is really about our marriage and our family and what happened. Courtney is born, this is what happened. She's the thread throughout the book. The second book Be Bold and The Broken is more stories of my childhood, things I experienced in adulthood that took me back to childhood and where the Lord healed that.

Mary Lenaburg 46:25

And this third book that's coming from Ascension is all about restoration and redemption and resilience. How can we live a resilient life? Well, the Lord left us his advocate, the Holy Spirit, who is a superhero of encouragement. So it's resilience and redemption through walking with the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. So, uh, there are stories that will make you laugh, stories that will make you cry. Courtney is in there as always, but um, it's just a book on I, what I found, what God was asking me to talk about was I'm in my late fifties, right? I have more time behind me than in front of me. And yet when the world tells me that is that I'm old and that I am, my usefulness is gone because I'm not producing what I used to produce. I'm not doing what I used to do. So you're just okay, you're just hanging out till you die. And.

Mary Lenaburg 47:22

That was challenging to me. I was, I was really hit with that about two years ago, and I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm just getting started. Like, I learned all of this and now I wanna tell you all of this, and I wanna accompany you as you walk your path. And I wanna pray with you, and I wanna pray for it. Like I'm just, what? I'm not done. No way am I done. And yet, culture tells us, especially as women, that as soon as we stop producing babies and while we wait for the grand ba grand babies, this is what we do. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. My sister's in Christ. No, no, no, no. Listen to me and hear me well. There is beauty in age and wisdom in age and grace in age that our younger sisters need.

Mary Lenaburg 48:09

That's why they call it a Titus to womanhood. It's about wisdom, it's about experience. It's about, um, letting go of all the things that used to hold you captive. 'cause it just doesn't matter. Other people's opinions of me are none of my business. None of my business. It's a them problem, not a me problem. And I spent 35, 40 years wrapped up in that. And so there's a freedom that comes with it and you're just like, sorry you feel that way. Um, I'm not going to stop doing what God asked me to do because you feel that way. That's a you problem, not a me problem. Or as my friend Catherine says, that is not a salvation issue. I am not gonna lose my lunch over it. So there's a gift that comes with it and I think. There's a whole generation of women who have service to give, and you don't see them on stages in the church. You don't see them. You see the young ones coming up and then there's a huge gap. And I feel like God is really asking me to be bold and to step into that gap and say, wait a minute, we have power here. We have wisdom. We have a wealth just like our brothers in Christ. Do we have a wealth to offer? So let's do that. We're not done yet. We're just getting started.

Sheila Nonato 49:37

Yes. And with all of the experiences that you've had, all of the, the challenges and the triumphs you have, you have a lot to give. And please do give it because we are often clueless and running into the wall not knowing what to do. So, and we do need, uh, faithful. Stewards, faithful servants of God, faithful leaders who are rooted in what you were saying about perseverance in prayer, perseverance in faith, and perseverance in the Lord, and an openness as surrendered to him. There are a lot of false prophets out there, so we have to be careful. Um, if you want to guard our hearts, guard our faith, um, and also guard our own, I guess, image of ourselves as we are created in his image and likeness.

Style Confidence And Feminine Genius

Sheila Nonato 50:28

And I'm just also thinking about a lot of the young women, as I mentioned the, the book earlier Worthy of Wearing where you were, you look fabulous in your beautiful outfits. And I was just wondering what, what made you want to join that project and what did you want women to take away from that?

Mary Lenaburg 50:45

Well, first of all, the author, Nicole Caruso, was a dear friend of mine. Now she's a good 15 years younger than I am. And as she was kind of writing this book all about the feminine genius and that, you know, we are worthy of wearing the nice dress and we don't have to be in the athleisure all the time. Like we can elevate our style because you're dressing, um, the temple of Holy Spirit. You only have one body. and we as women get stuck in body image issues from a very young age. Pardon me. And, um, for me, because of my, uh, disordered eating, I gained a lot of weight quickly in my late twenties and into my early thirties. And then I was in a trauma cycle with my daughter. A crisis, crisis, crisis. And so I didn't lose that weight. And I love fashion and I love clothes and I love statement earrings and lipstick. And I'm a girl's girl. I love it. But I also love a great hockey game.

Mary Lenaburg 51:43

So don't get me wrong, I can go both ways, but I just, um, I feel like fashion. Your personal, everybody has a personal style. They might say, I don't have a personal style, I just wear black. Great. That's a personal style, that's a choice, right? Um, I think when, when you look at a woman who is confident in what she is wearing, her shoulders are back, her head is held high. She might be 50 pounds overweight, but there's a confidence with her because she loves what she's wearing and she feels it's, it's, um, complimentary to who she is and what we wear says something about us.

Mary Lenaburg 52:23

You know, if you see someone who's in this flowy dress with the sandals and, and, um, the little pearl buttons that go down and she kind of has a flow to her and, and a daintiness to her that's telling you something about her. Someone who likes a bold, you know, outfit, like a leopard print and bright red lipstick and big bold earrings that tells you something about her. And when Nicole asked me to be a part of this project, um, it really was the idea of what does femininity look like as you age? Because I don't know if you've been to a mall lately or shopped online, but you reached the age of 45 to 50. And all of a sudden you're supposed to be in Loungewear for the rest of your life.

Mary Lenaburg 53:13

And I'm like, no, we have to wear real pants with buttons and zippers. You know, we have to elastic, belongs maybe at 90, but you know, we don't, it's not required. Now, if elastic is your thing and athleisure is your thing that says something about you, you're into comfort, you're into working out, you're into being fit, you're, you know, whatever it is. But, um, I think everybody has their own personal style and it might take some time for you to find it, but it brings a confidence. To walking out on stage when I, when I choose an outfit to, to speak in. And when I am comfortable in that, it changes my tone, it changes my presentation, um, you know, to be able to try something new and different. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work, but there's, there's femininity is, is beautiful, but it looks different on every single woman. I, I have a larger frame. I have, I have kind of a bull in a China shop sort of. Frame. That's how I see it in my head. Is that how my best friend sees it? No. Is that how my husband sees it? No. But that's how I have always envisioned it, because I was very athletic when I was young, and I'm kind of a bold personality and I kind of challenge you and I kind of, I get in your face a little bit. Well, and my body is shaped that way. Like I just look like a fullback.

Mary Lenaburg 54:33

So I really struggled with this idea of daintiness, with this idea of elegance and grace because I didn't feel it in my body. And when I learned how to dress my body properly, that changed. And I am very feminine. My husband would call me the glitter queen. Now there will be people that will beat me that might not get that impression because of my personality, but the one who knows me best is like, you're the most woman's woman that I know like you. You know, I love being a woman and I love. All things woman. And I love being an athletic person. I love being an artistic person. I love being a, a bold and challenging person. I, I mean, there's lots of different aspects to me. I love motherhood. Um, I have a soft and squishy body. I, my grandson says to me all the time, you're so squishy, Grammy, I love you're squishy. Well, 20-year-old Mary would've been furious that somebody said that to her. A 30 5-year-old Mary would've been embarrassed. But late fifties Mary, she's like, I have earned that squishy buddy and I am so glad you're happy sitting in my lap reading 15 million dinosaur books. 'cause that's all that matters. I had a sweet little girl, one of my, my best friend's, um, grandchildren. We were eating Easter supper. And her mother is pregnant with baby number three, and she's about six and a half months, no, seven months pregnant. So she's getting close.

Mary Lenaburg 56:04

So she's got the little bump and she leaned over and she said, aunt Mary, your tummy's bigger than my mommy's. Now, there was a season where Aunt Mary would've been like, excuse me, that is so rude. Don't you dare. No, she's five. Okay. She's literally black and white. She sees something. So I leaned over and I said, I know. I said, that's the bread that your mommy made that we just had, that's over here. Over here's the chocolate bunny that I had for dessert, and over here is the ham that that your Grammy made, and over here. And she just laughed and she started looking at her tummy. She goes, and over here I have my jelly beans, and over here I have my, yes. It's just, it was funny.

Mary Lenaburg 56:54

But the Mary of today is not the Mary of 20 years ago who would've been horrified by that comment. And I remember my, my best friend said to me afterwards, she goes, thank you for your reaction to that. She goes, 'cause I didn't know what to say. And I'm like, she's five. She's telling the truth. And it's okay. I earned my squishy. It's okay. But, you know, I, I just, I love it. I love fashion and, and I love what it says about a woman. And, um, I think every woman is beautiful. I think every human is beautiful and we all, we all have our way of expressing the things that are important to us and what we feel inside. And fashion is one of the ways we do that. Yes. I just wanna say, Mary, you're beautiful. Thank. As are you my parents. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Um, yeah, I also struggled with this body issue, especially after having my children. Mm-hmm. And, and then I saw this quote saying, how can, how can you not like your body when it held the joy of life, the gift of life in you?

Mary Lenaburg 58:06

And I just started thinking, yeah, that's right. Like I was, you were saying I earned these roles. Okay. Like mm-hmm. You know, I am my, my, yeah. And think of how women who are not able to carry a child think of how they feel. Like I think of that often. I'm like, I had the privilege and the great blessing of carrying four souls in my body. And two, I got to deliver. My body is a strong body. It carried 125 pounds of my daughter for decades. Yes, my arms might swing back and forth and wave high to you. But I could go to the gym. I could tone that up. I can change that too. Right? I mean, we have the power to do that. It's not just, you know, it's, it's, it's looking at our body as the good that it has done for us and learning how to treat it with kindness and learning how to speak to yourself with kindness and to give yourself grace and know that you can change it. If you desire to change it, it is possible.

Sheila Nonato 59:16

Yes. I absolutely, um, it's all in, I guess, our approach and our mindset. Amen. And of course, helping with the help of God and always, and for me, the encourag of my husband, because yes, I need that little push. But, um, but yeah. So as, um. I don't know if other women, I probably other women have been feeling, you know, a little self-conscious after children or if they're stay at home moms. Um, and for me, I see my children, um, or my child now because two of them are in school now, but I still homeschool the little one. But I see him pretty much all day and there's nobody else. So, but, so, but I feel like I should, you know, my, I think my mom was the one who said, you should dress up for your husband. And I'm thinking, why, you know, the fam the former feminist in me is like, why? Like, uh, but now I'm thinking, you know what, maybe I should, I should also dress up for myself that, you know, there's also this kind of attitude when you wake up and then you're gonna face the day. Um, what, what tips can you, 'cause I usually, my husband says, you, you always wear black. And I'm like, yeah, because I wanna hide, unfortunately. I wanna hide things. Yeah. What, what can you, what advice can you give someone like me, someone out there also listening who was like, I have no clue about fashion. Mary, please help me. It's spraying. What do I do? Right?

Simple Fashion Habits For Moms

Mary Lenaburg 1:00:32

So you always wanna dress for the day. You desire to have. There are days where I put on the stretchy pants and the big oversized sweatshirt because I am seeking comfort. I'm seeking quiet. I'm seeking a hot cup of tea in a good book, right? Um, most days there's, there's something that I started about a year and a half ago on my Instagram page is, uh, put on your lipstick, pick up your cross and get started with your day. Right? What does that mean? That means take a moment, acknowledge the power of who you are and the grace and the beauty of who you are.

Mary Lenaburg 1:01:10

Put on your lipstick so you feel a little better and get started with your day. Like you, I know that when I'm in elastic waist pants for more than two days, I am not eating as I should, and I begin to feel icky, and then I put on my jeans and they tell me, oh, that chocolate bunny. You had two of them, right? They tell me the truth. My jeans tell me the truth every time. So I think it's just learning to be comfortable with your body, learning to understand that, um, I'm not gonna look like you're gonna look my squishy is different than your squishy, but your squishy is beautiful and so is mine. And for my friends that are very fit and, and muscle tone is important to them, um, we have to remember.

Mary Lenaburg 1:01:58

And for myself too, we have to remember not to make a God of these things, right? Thank God for your health, for your strength, and you know, do what you can do to take care of the temple of the Holy Spirit that he's given you. And the rest you let go of. So I, as a person who loves fashion, who loves color, who has never met a statement earring I did not love, or a great pair of shoes, my trouble is I tend to overdo things like I shop too much or I, when I, when I am seeking comfort, I tend to fall back instead of, instead of to the unhealthy ways, uh, sexually that I used to or with food, there's still the little shopping thing that like, fill that gap, fill that gap. We have to understand that that hole, that gap that we feel could only be filled by God. There's nothing else that can fill it.

Mary Lenaburg 1:02:54

And so when that begins to percolate in my heart that I know it's time to go to adoration, it's time to go to confession. It's time to spend a little bit more intentional time with him because something is off. There's something that he's trying to draw attention to. So I think, you know, fashion is what you give it. If, if it doesn't matter to you. Okay. It doesn't matter to you, great. But don't judge somebody else because it matters to them. And the same for those that it matters to me. I'm not gonna judge another woman 'cause it doesn't matter to her. It's okay. She's making a different choice. But, um, I love it. And I think it's interesting as I age how the changes of what I choose to wear something a little bit more comfortable, softer, natural fabrics compared to all the crazy prints and things that I used to do. Um, there's a, there's a quietness that comes and more gling that comes as you get older. At least for me, it's different for everyone.

Clean Beauty And Non Toxic Makeup

Sheila Nonato 1:03:56

And also I guess on the topic of fashion. Um, so there's this interest in clean beauty. Yes. Clean beauty products. And so you have, um, sort of a partnership with Crunchi. Can you tell us more about that?

Mary Lenaburg 1:04:09

So, Crunchi is a clean, uh, clean beauty. What do we mean by clean beauty? Um, what we have discovered over the past several decades is that the majority of our beauty products that we use, our shampoos, our moisturizers, our Vitamin C serums, all the things we use on our face, um, are toxic and they're hormone disruptors. So they, they have found that they've interrupted women's fertility cycles that they've brought on different types of cancers in people. So there's been all of these studies done.

Mary Lenaburg 1:04:38

And about 15, 20 years ago, there was a breakthrough in, um, formulating beauty products that were considered clean and non-hormone disrupting. And so crunchy, uh, out of, uh, the state of Florida is one of those companies. There have been several over the years, and there, there are several that you can find at Sephora. But this one, um, is a, is a, uh, direct marketing, um, situation. So when I joined them a two years ago, what I was looking for was, um, quality, high quality makeup and, um, skincare that had the highest efficacy available on the market, you know, with the crow's feet and the lines and things like that. And that's, it brought me to my research, brought me to Crunchi.

Mary Lenaburg 1:05:24

And so now I have this community of women who all believe in non-toxic living and, and, but wanna look good and want their makeup to last and, and want to have pretty eyeshadow and beautiful lip colors. And so we have all of that with crunchy, and we're all EWG certified. We're one of the largest brands that has the most of those certifications. So, um. And, you know, it, we're environmentally safe because our packaging, packaging is environmentally safe. And, um, it's just a, it's just an honor to, to work with them and to, uh, I love their products, the efficacy of their products.

Mary Lenaburg 1:06:02

And, um, I love that it helps me, um, leave a more sustainable earth. It helps me be healthier as a woman and I can pass it on to my younger nieces and ne uh, nieces and, uh, granddaughters one day if I have them. Um, you know that they can, they can protect their fertility by using safer products. Do you have a favorite product or product? I'm all about the lips. So there's two things in skincare. It's golden light peptides, which is kind of like Spanx for your face. So it tightens everything. And as we age, let me tell you, everything that used to live in Delaware now lives in New Mexico, and you need that tightening.

Mary Lenaburg 1:06:44

Okay. We gotta have that. And then my favorite makeup product is their, um, their, their lip products. I lo, IJI love. Blush and I'm, I'm like Irish skin, so I get red. So I, I use foundation to kind of cover the rub, but I just color, I think color really, really helps you look healthier. It helps you look younger. And so I love their lip products. Um, date night, which is kind of like a mov Pink is my favorite color. And, uh, they're, they're, because they're non-toxic. When you go to eat and you have the lip products on your lips, you're not eating the toxicity. It's, you know, it's, it's really, they're great products. I love them and I love the company, and I love that. Um, it's a debt-free company and, and it's led by two women who just wanted to find safer products so that they, you know, they themselves were big makeup people and, and everything was making their skin break out and, and giving them hormone imbalance. And so that's what started the company, which is usually what starts most companies is they're trying to solve a problem that doesn't have, uh, you know. Isn't solved yet out in the world. So it's been fun. I love it.

Sheila Nonato 1:07:55

Okay, well Date Nnight lipstick. That sounds like a good spring into Spring. Yes. Uh, where can they find these products, Mary?

Mary Lenaburg 1:08:02

So you can find them through, um, through me on Instagram @marylenaburg or directly through crunchy.com. Um, or on my website, mary lenaburg.com. You can find my books there. You can find where I'm speaking there as well.

Closing Prayer And Final Blessing

Sheila Nonato 1:08:16

Well, it's been an honour and such a good blessing, uh, for this grace-filled conversation. Um, did you want to close with a prayer?

Mary Lenaburg 1:08:23

Sure. Okay. I'd be delighted to. In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Thank you Lord. Thank you for this time together, for this beautiful conversation about resilience, about restoration, about your forgiveness, your mercy and your grace about your how you Lord, when we accept and surrender and give over our lives to you, how you. Take that gift and multiply it again and again and again. And we just thank you so much for this time together and for this encouraging conversation. And we ask, Lord that you, uh, look down upon Sheila and her family as she continues with this ministry. Um, you give me strength of purpose and will to continue as you have asked me to do. And for anyone that is listening, Lord, that this podcast brings them closer to you for it's all about you and building your kingdom. We offer all these things in your most precious name. Amen. Father, son, holy Spirit. Amen.

Sheila Nonato 1:09:23

Well, thank you very much Mary for it. The beautiful story of your marriage. And can I call her St. Courtney? Is that okay?

Mary Lenaburg 1:09:30

I do. Okay. Yes. Okay. She did not have, thank you. You St. Courtney. Yes. With a little s Yes, we certainly do. Yes. She's a great, um, intercessor. She's just so good.

Sheila Nonato 1:09:41

Thank you. Thank you so much for, for you, for the gift of your family and continued ministry. I, you know, truly believe you are touching hearts and souls and bringing encouragement and joy because there is joy in the Lord. Right?

Mary Lenaburg 1:09:57

There is it's, it's there is indeed.

Sheila Nonato 1:09:59

It's powerful. It's powerful. Thank you very much again, Mary.

Mary Lenaburg 1:10:01

You're so welcome.

Sheila Nonato 1:10:02

Thank you. God bless. God bless you.

Mary Lenaburg 1:10:04

Thank you as well.

Prayer Requests And What’s Next

Speaker 1:10:06

Thank you very much for joining us this week. We pray that Mary's powerful testimony has brought you hope and joy to know that love and perseverance and God's grace and mercy can transform our most challenging crosses through Him who is love and mercy. May I ask, what can we pray for you? Please feel free to drop in the comments below. On our YouTube channel, and please say a prayer for Camille Mendoza, the talented mother in British Columbia, who designed our podcast logo. She was just recently hospitalized for a serious medical condition. Stay well Camille, and we are praying for you. Next time, we will continue the conversation on conversion and the covenant of marriage. As Mary Berg mentioned, the date night lipstick. Let's explore that idea a little further with Keith and Estelle. Nestor. How have they been able to keep the spark in their marriage, which has seen Keith's radical conversion uproot their life in the Protestant church towards their new Catholic ministry for new converts? Stay tuned friends. God bless and have a blessed week.

Let's Be Bold, Brave and Blessed

Mary Lenaburg 1:11:37

Thank you for listening to the Valent Armor podcast. I invite you to share this with another Catholic mom today. Please subscribe to our podcast on YouTube channel and please spread the word. Let's be brave. Let's be bold and be blessed together.