April 30, 2026

After The Story | Episode 44

After the Story - Choices Like Rivers - Episode 44

This podcast discusses each chapter of Choices Like Rivers and each episode is posted directly after the book episode. This corresponds to Chapter 16 Section 1.

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There is a term called self-fullifilled prophecy. I believe it is very true. I’ve actually seen it many times throughout my life. We create our world by the words we speak. We hear those words, believe those words, and we assist in their fulfillment usually unknowingly.

Sharon was just like Job in this situation. The thing she feared the most came upon her. Fear creates the same as faith does. Fear is faith in the negative.

We can feel the anxiousness as the time has come to go back to the courtroom. The last hug of Molly Sue and then her being ripped away was symbolic of what was about to soon happen.

And then the unspeakable did. Sharon lost Molly Sue. To say it crushed her or devastated her is a weak way of describing what it did to her.

It didn’t just rip a wound through her soul, but through a soul that was so gaping with previous wounds that it might just be irreparable.

Everyone in Sharon and Molly Sue’s life is feeling the pain of Molly Sue’s loss as well. They are also feeling the pain of seeing Sharon’s devastation, but they are powerless to do anything about it.

Sharon insists on Will leaving her alone. She pushes and pushes him away until he finally relents and leaves. You have to ponder at this. If I were he I would have at least stayed there, but in another room. I would be close with her, but allowing her room, space.

Her insistence for him to leave was an echo of when she rejected him before. It was a painful repeat of years past, so he left misreading the signs once again.

He fell back into work which is often an escape for men, and sometimes women too. Think about work and you won’t have to think about painful things.

Sharon has no fight left in her. It takes will and determination to keep going and to keep fighting, and hope. But hope unfulfilled is horrific and sometimes, many times it is just easier to stop hoping.

She doesn’t even have the strength to move much less think about tomorrow. Left to her own devices she would just lay in bed and waste away. She has lost the will to live with Molly Sue gone.

Have you ever felt that way? Sometimes even the most positive person has moments which are so crushing it seems impossible to keep breathing. Some don’t.

I hope that if you are in that painful place you can find someone to reach out to. Know that those feelings are fleeting and they will pass. There is someone out there that cares even if you don’t believe it so.

The national suicide and crisis hotline number is simply 988. Call it today if you need help.