Love In The Hard

Love in the Hard: Transforming Struggles into Hope and Renewal

• Cindi and Patrick Pistelli • Season 1 • Episode 1

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What if love could transform the toughest struggles into moments of profound growth and beauty? We're Patrick and Cindi Pistelli, and in our debut episode of the Love in the Hard podcast, we open up about our journey through life's rocky terrains, from navigating past traumas to the challenges of blended family life. As partners in both life and faith, we've faced hurdles that tested our unity and beliefs, yet found strength and hope in the power of love. Hear Patrick's reflections on his time as a pastor and the lessons learned during his hiatus from ministry, alongside Cindi's candid account of her quest for identity after trauma. Our personal stories serve as a beacon of hope, reminding you that even in the darkest times, you're never alone.


Our podcast is a testament to the belief that God's plan can turn broken roads into beautiful destinations. Discover how "Love in the Hard" was born from divine inspiration, guiding us through the intricacies of marriage and business collaboration. We explore the transformative power of consciously choosing love, a philosophy that emerged during a pivotal counseling session and has since been the anchor in our lives. From talks on overcoming imposter syndrome to insights on healing from past trauma, we share practical tools and heartfelt encouragement. Join us on this heartfelt journey as we offer messages of hope and resilience, uplifting those facing their own trials with the promise of redemption and renewal.


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Cindi:

Hey friends, welcome to Love in the Heart, where we share our journey of resilience, faith and transformation, diving into raw real-life challenges like overcoming past trauma, self-doubt and building a strong, loving family. All with the hope of inspiring others to see God's hand in their own stories. All with the hope of inspiring others to see God's hand in their own stories.

Patrick:

We are Patrick and Cindy Pistelli, and we are here to remind you that you are not alone. There's hope even when life feels tough.

Patrick:

So grab a seat and let's get real

Cindi:

Welcome to our very first episode of the Love in the Hard podcast. My name is Cindi. I'm alongside with my husband, Patrick, and we're just really excited to get to share this with you. This has been on our hearts for about seven years and we knew that God put it on our hearts and we just didn't do it. At the time, we didn't feel like the time was right. So now we're here and the time is right. So we're just really excited to be able to connect with you, help share our story and connect you with other people through their stories. So, whether you have been in the Valley, whether you're in the Valley now or whether you're going into the valley, sometimes we just need hope to help us along the path.

Patrick:

Yeah, that's right and, like you said, this has been on our hearts probably since our first date, and I think we'll talk more about that in a future podcast. But we've been through a lot blending families, we've experienced some trauma, big life changes, both in our marriage and even before we met. We've seen how God works, though, even in those hardest moments, and so we're going to be sharing some of those stories and we are inviting you to join the conversation with us as well.

Cindi:

Yeah, we're just wanting to give you a little glimpse into who we are and why this has been on our heart and what you can expect in future episodes.

Patrick:

I guess this is probably a pretty good time to introduce ourselves. So I'll go first. I am Patrick, I am a dad, I am a husband, I love music, I have the absolute worst bad dad jokes, and don't be surprised if at some point during this podcast, you hear me just break out in song, because I have a tendency to do that from time to time. So just one of the fun, goofy little, quirky things that Cindi and I like to do together. I'm also a pastor. I have been a pastor for parts of the last 20 years. I took an eight-year hiatus from the ministry. We'll share some more details about that in a later podcast as well, about going back into the ministry. Cindi was instrumental in helping me to get to that point and following what God had called me to do.

Patrick:

So that's a little bit about me.

Patrick:

How about a little bit about you, dear?

Cindi:

Yeah, so my name is Cindi, and now I'm just going to be honest. I have always struggled with this question of who I am, because for so long and I think for many people who have walked through trauma, they don't actually know this question or how to answer it. We can say a lot of things of what we do, so I've always answered this question truly like oh well, for the last 23 years I've been a massage therapist, or for the last 11 years I've been a realtor, and those are things that I do. But who am I? Truly? I am, you know, a follower of Christ is who I am. So I have the other titles as well. I'm a mom, I'm a you know, we have a church, so I, you know, alongside with they're going through their hardest times.

Patrick:

And that's probably one of the biggest reasons that we feel like God has called us to do this podcast. It's because of the heart that my wife has to encourage people that are going through times of difficulty, and God brought us together for this purpose. We believe that, and so we're excited to lean into that, into what He's called us to do. So, hun, what's one big lesson that you've learned about loving the hard that you want to share with our listeners.

Cindi:

I think the biggest lesson that I have learned is just there are going to be hard seasons and when those hard seasons come up, it's really important to choose love in that, because we're all going to go through the emotions of just different things and if we simply go on emotion, it's easy for us to just want to throw in the towel and give up. But choosing love through the hard times means that you're relying on faith for one, but you make a conscious choice to love through whatever it is you're going through, and when you're able to do that, you're going to be able to see some pretty amazing things come out of that. So that's probably the biggest thing for me is just being able to choose that in hard moments. Okay, so let me ask you a question why do you think this podcast is important and what do you hope that people will get out of it?

Patrick:

First of all, I think this podcast is important and what do you hope that people will get out of it?

Patrick:

First of all, I think this podcast is important because God told us to do it, so we have been running from it for a while, but I think, as I look back at our story, both since we've been together and before we met we have both experienced some things that we took with us, and I think that is so prevalent in so many people's lives. One thing we've heard as we've talked to people about this podcast is how necessary they think this is, because so many people struggle with this and they don't even realize it. So we go through things in our lives that fundamentally change who we are and how we see the world, and so I think the experiences that we've had in overcoming and the reality is we're still overcoming If you want to experience some challenges in a marriage, then try to build a business or do a podcast together, because there are definitely some challenges there that you'll. I believe our story can help other people and other couples and other families who have walked the path that we've walked, and so we can share some of our trials and some of our victories, and even some of our mistakes, to help them, and so I think that's what I really hope that people get out of it as well is that I hope that they come away with this with some hope, and, ultimately, I hope what they find is that if we keep our faith in the right place and if we trust in what God is leading us to do, that at the end of our story there can be a happy ending.

Patrick:

Our wedding song was Broken Road, and it was such an appropriate song for us because we had walked a broken road, but the road didn't remain broken. We are two broken people that God has seen fit to put together, and he has taken our broken parts and he's created a beautiful picture, and I hope that people can see that that is possible for them as well. So, as we've talked about this with people that we know and even some people that we don't know, the question that we get more often than anything else is what does love in the hard actually mean, and where did you get the name? And so Cindi's going to tell us a little bit about that story, but let me just say it was a process to get to that point. There were times that I would throw things out, she would throw things out. We were not aligned, not on the same page whatsoever. But when she mentioned this, we both, just like the spirit, just said, yes, go. So why don't you share a little bit about the story of where loving the hard came from?

Cindi:

Yeah, yes, I should clarify. We didn't like the names that were being thrown out and so occasionally we would actually get in some heated discussions on just finding a name. So when we finally prayed about it God, made it very clear that this was the name. And when I think about where it comes from, a year, year and a half ago I'm not sure when now but

Cindi:

I was actually counseling with somebody, and whenever I counsel with somebody I really listen to the Spirit to guide me and tell me what to say and I remember just saying you know love in the hard. And it didn't make any sense to me, because usually when you would say that you would say you know love through the hard times, or love you know, it just didn't come out love in the hard. And so it just seemed very strange to me.

Cindi:

But this person was going through a very difficult time in their marriage.

Cindi:

They were going through a very difficult time blending a family and just really struggling, and so when I mentioned to just love in the hard, it was really neat because several months later I had a chance to talk with this person and they said that the marriage was going great, the blending of families was going well and every time that something got tough, every time that they were struggling, they just kept remembering love in the hard and they would choose love, even in that hard time. And when you again like I said earlier, when you do that, you can see some amazing things happen, because all of a sudden, you have walls that are starting to break down, you have healing that's starting to take place. But it starts with us. It starts with that choice. It starts with choosing to love even when the things around us are crashing, even when the the walls are, you know, seem to be like going up stronger, and it starts with us. So when we finally sat down and prayed and said, okay, god, what do you want for this name? And it just came to us within minutes, it was Love in the Hard.

Patrick:

t was an immediate peace between the two of us that, quite honestly, we had been struggling with this for months, and once that name came out, we were both just yes, that is absolutely it. So there's a much deeper meaning behind love in the heart than what you might initially think. That's such a powerful example of what Love in the Hard really means. It means to choose love even when it's not easy, when it would be simpler to walk away. But when we prayed and that name came out, it was just, it was perfect. And this is exactly what we want to talk about how God can help us love through the hardest moments and bring redemption in our personal lives and our families and our marriages, in every aspect of our lives.

Cindi:

So that's the story behind our name Love in the Hard. It's not just a phrase, it's a way of living, a reminder for us to just lean on God and choose love in the messy, in the tough, in the hard seasons, and, honestly, that's exactly what we're going to be diving into on this podcast.

Patrick:

Yeah, I mean, let's be honest life gets hard, Marriage gets hard, Parenting gets hard, but we've seen time and time again that God has a way of working in those hard places to bring healing, strength and even joy in the midst of the trial. So we want to share those lessons with you. We're going to share some stories, some practical tools and we want to give a whole lot of encouragement and give you some hope that there is more on the other side of your trial.

Cindi:

So that's just a little bit about us. You're definitely going to get into our story in the next episode of kind of how things started and how we've journeyed along our path, but we now want to just talk about what's next. What can you expect from this podcast?

Patrick:

Yeah, we're going to dive into real life topics that so many of us face, but we don't always want to talk about, you know, things like navigating blended families, dealing with trauma from the past, overcoming imposter syndrome. That's been a big one for us. It's probably one of the reasons that we've pushed this off for seven years. We just didn't feel like we had the answers, and it wasn't until we realized that God is the one that has the answers, and so we just want to share some lessons on learning to trust God when life doesn't always make sense.

Cindi:

Yeah, and on this podcast, we aren't afraid to get vulnerable. I believe truly that it's in those vulnerable moments that we are able to truly help somebody else. There's a phrase that keeps coming up for me, and it's, "things don't matter, people do. And without being able to get vulnerable and without being able to just kind of get into the hard moments and have real emotions that come up, you know it's sometimes hard for people to really be able to relate or even just trust who we are, trust that we've been through this

Cindi:

Blending our families, I'm going to just tell you that was hard and you know it's not something you're prepared for.

Cindi:

You think that you're going to go into something and it's going to be just easy and smooth sailing.

Cindi:

And you know we had five other people that we had to think about in this process and those emotions were very real, and so I'm excited to, in a future episode, we get to actually interview our kids and we get to hear from them on what that meant for them and what that looked like for them. So you know we're also going to be walking through loss together. We've had three miscarriages and you know that was, that was very tough, but the thing that's amazing and that we've seen time and time and time again, is, every time we're going through something so difficult, every time we're going through something extremely hard where, honestly, we just don't feel like we can move forward, God shows up in a big way and you know, and we're able to see blessings now, now that we're through it, that we never could see then and, honestly, it's just made us stronger, it's made us more compassionate towards others, it's changed who we are, to be honest.

Patrick:

And you want to talk about vulnerability, put a microphone in your kids' hands and let them talk. It's going to be interesting to see how that one turns out. But it's not just about us. We are going to have some incredible guests that are going to join us over the course of this podcast to share their stories of resilience, faith and hope as well.

Cindi:

So I do want to add, because today that this is launching, it's actually a very special day for me. It's the 27th anniversary of my oldest daughter being born, and so I found it very fitting to launch a podcast on her birthday, because her getting to this world was very, very difficult and the enemy had other plans and tried to steal that. But she was able to push through. She was able to come, but in the process I also lost my father 13 days before she was born. So another example of just going through a really super hard time. But how God showed up because you know, He knows the beginning from the end and He knew when I conceived her what was going to happen, and He knew that we were going to need her birth to get us through one of the hardest moments that I've had to go through.

Cindi:

So I'm just excited that that's the day that we're launching is on her birthday. I just find that very fitting. The bottom line for this is we just want you to know that you're not alone in what you're going through. There's healing, there's love, and when it feels impossible, whether you're married, whether you're single, whether you're a parent or just trying to figure what's next we just want you to know that we're here for you.

Patrick:

But, I mean more than anything, we want this to feel like a safe space. Understand that we're not perfect. We are figuring things out, just like you, but we do believe there's beauty in the mess, and we'd love for you to be a part of this journey as well. So if there's a topic that you're facing or a question you have, reach out and let us know, send us a message or connect with us on Facebook at Love in the Hard, we want this to be a space where we can have real, honest conversations together.

Cindi:

We've got some great episodes lined up.

Cindi:

The next time we're going to talk about our story, how we met and, like I said before, just the path that has gotten us to where we are now. You know, we'll share a little bit about how we even got to the point of us meeting, because it's kind of funny that God was in the works on that one for about 20 years, before we even knew each other existed. So that's coming up. Next, again, we also have an episode with our kids, so definitely stay tuned for that. That's going to be an incredible episode, I hope. But you know, thank you so much for joining us on our first episode. We really, truly are so excited for this journey and we hope you stick around. If you've enjoyed this, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.

Patrick:

And until next time, remember love is worth it, even in the hard.

Cindi:

God bless.

Cindi:

Hey friend, thanks for listening. If you got something out of this episode, be sure to follow or subscribe to Love in the Heart on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you listen, so you never miss a new episode. Please take time to leave a review, especially if you listen on Apple Podcasts. This will help more people access honest conversations about building lasting relationships, resilience through life's hardest moments and mindset shifts to overcome self-doubt.

Patrick:

And if you're really feeling it, go ahead and screenshot this episode on your phone and share it on social media. Tag us at Love in the Hard on Facebook and Instagram and we'll be sure to reshare your post. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time you.