In today’s episode, Angie Austin speaks with Rachel Kirschneider about her book ‘The Widow Chose Red’, an inspiring narrative on faith, family, and resilience. Rachel shares the emotional story of her husband’s ALS diagnosis and the profound impact on their family. With themes of love and courage, she reveals how her strong faith guided her through life’s toughest challenges, encouraging listeners to find strength in spirituality.
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hello there, friend. Angie Austin here with The Good News. You may have heard Jim talk about one of his new books. He’s gotten like 60 out and he was talking about his new coach book. Well, he also has a dog out, a book out called Think Like a Dog. And his co-author is a woman I speak to every week when I call Jim, Beth Sharp. Welcome, Beth.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you for having me. I’m thrilled to get to talk about dogs with you. And I know you’re a dog lover.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
Fun for me.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. And Jim had told me that you rescued dogs and, you know, you’ve worked for Jim for many years. So first, give us a little background about you and your dog rescuing and how long you’ve worked for Jim and what you do there at the Narrative Television Network.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Well, I had a stray that walked onto our property years ago when we first moved to Oklahoma, and I just had a great time with him taking the classes and realizing that you can teach dogs to do all kinds of things. And then I wanted another challenge, but I wasn’t ready for the commitment of another dog, so I started fostering dogs for a local rescue. And I just had a blast. I ended up getting a reputation for, you know, they’d give me the dogs that had some issues. And I did not know what I was doing at all, but I just learned and read and helped them the best that I could. And we had a lot of success and moved. At this point, well over 100 dogs came through my house since probably 2007-2008. And I really kind of got bit by the bug and decided to go ahead and pursue a certification in dog training. And so ever since then, I’ve just loved soaking up information and learning more and more about dog behaviors. And then eventually, yeah, I just started my own little side business where doing dog training and help with behavior.
SPEAKER 04 :
So you’re a certified professional dog trainer, and the book, the full title is Think Like a Dog, Understand Your Dog’s Behavior, Improve Communication, and Apply the Same Principles to Every Area of Your Life, and you and Jim wrote it together. So go ahead and talk to us about, you know, give us an overview of the book, and then let’s break it down a little.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. So what I think, the book was Jim’s idea, and When he said to me, Beth, I think we should write a book about dogs, I thought it was a little crazy because, first of all, as far as my – I’m like, I don’t have anything new to say. There’s a million books about dogs out there, and you don’t even have a dog. I didn’t know what he was talking about. But as he described his idea that I would talk about sort of the dog behavior perspective, and then he would add how it applies to our – human life because I have to tell you in the 23 years I’ve been working with Jim we talk about a lot of different things throughout the day and I have this uncanny and perhaps annoying ability of turning every topic around to dogs and I’ll say oh that’s just like dog behavior and then we’ll talk about it and I think that may have sparked the idea in his mind and then I realized him adding that touch at the end of how it applies to the human world really, I think, makes it special. And then I started to think about, you know, I have some, there’s things that I talk to clients about all the time that I wish they knew. And it really comes down to think like a dog. I tell people that all the time. Think like a dog for a moment. It’s hard to see what our, it’s hard to look at our dogs through any perspective besides our own as human beings. You don’t understand. Why are they peeing on the floor? Why are they chewing up the pillows? So I think when we can think like them a little bit, it helps us come to the solutions a little bit easier.
SPEAKER 04 :
What are some of the examples in the book that are some of your favorites of maybe the comparison between dog behavior and one of the lessons that Jim teaches through his encounters with celebrities and CEOs, et cetera? So give us some of your favorite examples.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I have an example that’s not even in the book. It’s one I just did this weekend where I was working with a client who’s – The five-year-old dog, they have a horrible time at the groomers and the vet. The dog just cannot tolerate that at all. The professionals are at risk of being bitten. He wears a muzzle, and they still have to hold him down and force him to have these procedures done, which he needs. But it’s a horrible experience for the dog. So you can imagine every time they do that, it just gets worse and worse. And so five years of this, and they try to do some stuff at home, and they get bit. So they call me in, and I spent my first session with them this weekend. And by the end of the 90 minutes, they were able to hold the dog, just pet him, and then lift up some hair that was totally covering his eyes and clip off some hair above his eyes. And the dog was just having a blast. Wow. Because during that time, he’s never met me, but we formed a relationship. And that is one of the main points of the book, just creating that contract of trust with your dog. And so I built that. I let him make all the choices. He can approach me when he wanted to. I wasn’t going to reach for him. And when he did come over to me, there were chickens. It was rewarding for him to do that. And then he could walk away and decide to come back if he wanted, and my petting would become a little more firm and and more assertive, and then as I would pick up the hair and pretend to cut above the hair, just getting him used to each piece of it and sort of fostering the relationship before I just grab him and try to do something to his body, which is pretty rude. If I did that to another human being, that would be not very polite. And so I think, and when I watch Jim’s work, he is so excellent at nurturing relationships
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
And, you know, sending cards and letters. And it’s kind of the same thing so that people trust you and they confide in you and you have a relationship together. And you can always accomplish so much more together than you can on your own. And it’s really the same way with our dogs.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I mean, you’re right. It is a relationship that we work on. It’s funny because my mom, everybody in the house calls me the Pied Piper because the three dogs and the two cats follow me everywhere I go. So if I go outside, they follow me, even the cats, and they come in, and the cats are like dogs. They’re ragdoll cats. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them, but they’re kind of like dogs in a cat suit. Anyway, my teenage daughter, Faith, said, Mom. I know how to find you because you’re always with the pets, but they’ll follow me just like they follow you. I said, okay, that’s fine. And so she walks into the room, she’s calling them all and none of them will move, right? And she goes, okay, well, then you go to the other room. And so I walked into the other room and I mean, they get up so fast. It’s like ridiculous. You know, they’re right in my heels and she goes, oh, brah. She calls me brah. She goes, brah, that’s ridiculous. I’m like, well, I’m with them every day. I work from home and I feed them, you know, so that’s like a big, you know, part of it that, you know, I feed them. But, you know, I want to ask you since I, you know, have this advantage of having you as an author and a dog trainer on the phone, I would say the two biggest things I have a problem with at our house are for some odd reason they chase one of the cats and but kind of aggressively, you know, and the other day I turned and Chi Chi, my little Pomeranian had, I heard a little bark and she had a mouth full of white fur from S’mores, the cat, like a mouth full of fur. Now S’mores has so much fur, Chi Chi didn’t hurt him, but he definitely got a chomp on the fur. What can I do to get them to stop chasing the cats? I say no every single time. I don’t know that I isolate them and I don’t spank them, but they know I’m right in their face and know and I’m very aggressive about saying no and they know I’m not happy with them and I’ll ignore Chi Chi then and turn my back on her because I’m so irritated that she scared the cat and chased it off or grabbed a mouthful of fur. What do you recommend when you have pets to do something like that? They don’t do it to one of them, oddly enough, because that one’s kind of submissive, but the other cat’s a little bit not quite as submissive and they really go after him.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, it’s a great question, because a lot of people have that problem with animals, whether it’s a dog and a cat, a dog and a dog. First, I talk about this in the book a little bit, about how you’re telling them no, but, well, why don’t they understand no? Well, you know, we are assuming that they understand that means don’t do that with the cat. But it could mean any number of things. Maybe it means don’t run across the kitchen floor. I mean… They know you’re upset. They may not know exactly what it is about. And so that tends to be not the greatest approach. So what we can do is, first, what I would always recommend in these situations is nobody in the home, not the humans or any of the animals, should be uncomfortable or worried about that someone’s going to pounce on them at some point in the moment. So the first thing I would set up is, and I talk about this in my Easy Button chapter, is setting up management. Let’s make a space where the cat can always go, where they’re totally safe from the dogs, if we don’t do 100% separation. But let’s just give the cat a place where they can be calm and chill out, and they don’t have to worry about the dogs following in there, and they have everything they need. And then we just take some time and let the cat get calm. get used to it and sort of recover from the stress of always worrying about if the dog’s going to come after them. And then a lot of times if you just give them enough time where the cat has time to de-stress and not worry about the dog, sometimes that is enough having separation for a long period of time and maybe always, right? But you can actually do some sort of training and behavior mod stuff where we teach the dog when he sees the cat to go to his spot. Or any time the cat goes by, you can call your dog over and do a treat scatter on the floor. I throw a lot of food in my house. We call that, I recently heard, we call it the find it game, right? Find it, and then I throw food on the floor and the dog’s looking down on the floor. And it also tends to be a calming behavior as they sniff up all those little things. So we use that a lot at my house. But I recently heard it referred to as the duct tape of dog training because you kind of use it all the time. I mean, the UPS truck comes up, oh, we’re throwing food. The cat’s running by, throw food and get the dog doing something else besides, chasing the cat because here’s the problem when we tell our animals no it’s very hard to it’s sort of abstract for the animals oh i’m not supposed to do something well what do you want them to do instead so we need to ask ourselves what do we want the dog to do instead when they see the cat do you want them to come running to you do you want them to run to their crate let’s think about what we want them to do and then how can we make that happen How can we pair those two things together, the cat running by and the dog doing something else that isn’t chasing the cat? Because they can’t chase the cat if they’re running to you. They can’t chase the cat if they run into their crate.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, when you talk about, you know, tossing the food or whatever, it’s interesting because I just went on a – it’s just an odd sidebar. I went on a tour in Nashville, and we got hush puppies, and I’ve never had a hush puppy I liked, but at this barbecue place, they were really good. I’m like, these are delicious. And the guy leading the tour says, you know, folklore says that the reason these were created during the Underground Railroad era, that when slaves were trying to escape and they were, you know, trying to get through the woods here and there and, you know, different hiding places – and they were trying to get away from dogs, hush puppies were thrown, you know, scattered for the dogs to go chase after the pieces of food. So they were hush puppies. And so I actually believe it. And I’ve read that there’s like, well, they’re not sure that’s true, but it makes complete sense to me. I mean, it’s a cheap piece of cornbread that was, you know, thrown in some oil. And so you’ve got your pockets full of those and you can throw it to get the dogs away from you. I certainly would go after the hush puppy rather than the person if I had a chance. Exactly.
SPEAKER 06 :
That is a great story, and exactly. I mean, that’s how you get a dog to do something else. Sometimes it doesn’t work every single time, but it’s pretty good that you have a high probability that the dog is going to go after the food.
SPEAKER 04 :
You’re doing a hush puppy. Exactly. Tell us, Beth, we don’t have much time left. What do you want people to take away from the book after they’ve read? What would be your dream for people to take away from Think Like a Dog?
SPEAKER 06 :
My dream is that they build a relationship of trust with their dog and don’t ever sacrifice it. Don’t lie. Don’t pretend you’re going to – don’t rattle the treat bag and then don’t give them a treat. Don’t lie to your dog. Continue that contract of trust throughout your life, and that will pay dividends whenever you go to do things that are a little more difficult.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, I love that. When the kids are teasing the pets and they’re like teasing them. I’m like, don’t do that. When you show them a treat, you’ve got to give them a treat. Thank you so much, Beth Sharp. Again, the book is Think Like a Dog. Understand your dog’s behavior, improve communication, and apply the same principles to every area of your life. Beth Sharp and Jim Stovall. Thanks, Beth.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
Hey there, friend. Angie Austin here with the good news. Speaking with Rachel Kirschneider, The Widow Chose Red, My Journey with Jesus, John and ALS. Her sons were 10 and 14 when her husband, John, husband of 21 years, was diagnosed with ALS. He was in his late 40s and her faith really got her through this. You know, there’s something really interesting in your book that I thought you should share in addition to your faith. I know you didn’t tell your boys right away about the diagnosis that your husband had this fatal illness. At 10 and 14, I can understand that. How long did you wait and why did you wait?
SPEAKER 05 :
We chose to wait about a year, Angie, because John was not, to the naked eye, John was not that symptomatic. You had to look really closely to see that his foot was dropped and his gait was off. So the boys, you know, they didn’t really see anything. About a year later, and we needed time to fortify ourselves. There’s so much shock. Imagine if you were given the diagnosis you’ve got two to five years to live. What would you do? How does that even compute? You have a disease of which there is no cure. There’s no option. There’s no treatment. There’s nothing. You just really manage the progression and wait to die. We needed, John and I, John and I needed some time to figure out how to process this and kind of get our heads around it. We only told our immediate family, which, you know, lived, mine was in Australia, his was in California. So because we knew, too, Angie, you know, good news travels fast, bad news travels faster. And we knew the minute that we told those boys that. You know, they’d be telling their friends, my dad’s been diagnosed with this thing, ALS. And we knew that the tsunami would start. So we had to make sure that we could fortify ourselves. And so it was interesting. About a year later, John was getting more symptomatic. They could tell something was wrong with dad. And we sat them down. And there were three questions that my youngest son, Jake, asked. And the first one was, Dad, are you going to be in a wheelchair? And he answered yes. And then, Dad, are you going to get out of the wheelchair? And John said, probably not. And then Jake asked, are you going to get better? And it was at that moment that my husband just fell apart. And I said, you know what? You know what, boys? We serve a great God, and He can make Daddy better. And we are going to pray every night that He does. But in the meantime, our job is to take care of Daddy as best as we can. And that was all we said, Angie. We did not, you know, Daddy’s going to die and da-da-da-da-da. No. We didn’t lie to them, but we didn’t throw up on them either with all of this other information. Mm-hmm. Now, also remember, too, at this time, the Internet didn’t exist. Social media didn’t exist like it does now. So the boys, they didn’t have access to all of that, which was a blessing, an absolute blessing. But sure enough, within 15 minutes, I got a text. Rachel, Sam says, John told him, John’s got a, are you sure about this? And I said, yes. And I got, you know, the OMG back. And then, you know, and then it was like wildfire, right? So we found ourselves actually trying to comfort some of our friends because it is a shock. We’d had a little more time, but it was still a difficult thing to do, no doubt.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, so you had moved 15 times in seven years with your husband of 21 years. You were in Minnesota at the time, and obviously you hadn’t lived in places very long if you moved that many times for his job. You’re with all these wonderful Minnesota nice people, and you end up staying there even though you hadn’t been that entrenched in the community, and they just completely embraced you. And, you know, in terms of your relationship with your sons and their faith, talk a little bit about how they handled this diagnosis. And then I really want to get into, you know, the title of the book, too, The Widow Chose Red. So let’s start with the boys, their faith, and their journey, because I’m sure that was extremely painful for you.
SPEAKER 05 :
It was difficult. And I think the hardest thing for us as parents, right, is when we don’t have the answers, right? they’re asking questions. Why does this happen? Why is Daddy sick? Did God make Daddy sick? You know, these are the kinds of things that you just kind of go, okay, let’s sit down and talk about that. And also framing it in a way, when you’re 10 and 14, there are different places in what they can comprehend as well. And so, you know, but we were a very faith-based family. You know, the boy’s went through confirmation. We had been in church all of their lives. But it’s also about bringing home a concept that may be somewhat abstract and making it real, right? And so I think they were able to watch their dad and I have our own conversations in prayer time with Jesus and pour out our hearts. And, you know, we model that for our kids. They see what we do. They pick up on every little thing. And, you know, even now, you know, even now my boys are like, Mom, you are like completely sold out for Jesus. Do you think you want to be an influencer? I said, yes, I want to influence people for Jesus. That’s what I want to do. And, you know, but they have both gone through their own struggles as they’ve grown up, and they’ve dealt with their grief very differently now. And even today, though, I can see in their struggles and how they’ve handled it, their own reliance on their belief and knowing that he never leaves us. He never leaves us. We may feel alone. We may feel isolated. We may have questions, but he is always there with us no matter what. And even though we may not get the outcome that we want, when we want it. You know, I remember a pastor telling me, Rachel, you have to be prepared. John may not get healed on this side. It may happen on the other side. And, you know, I very clearly said, well, you know, miracles still happen every day, and I’m trusting that. And I did for a very, very long time, Andy. But I’ve never once, you know, I’ve never once been mad at God. Like, why did you do this to me? My question, why not? You know, I mean, why not? So, obviously, I’ve waited a while to share this story because I had to go and raise my boys after John died. And being a single mom with two young boys, that’s a whole other, that’ll be the second book. But this, I chose to wear red because red is the color of love. It’s the color of passion. And it is also the color of fire, which is represented in the flame of the Holy Spirit. And one of my goals is to remind each and every one of us about the supernatural power that has been gifted inside of each one of us, which is the power of the Holy Spirit. which I believe so many of us forget that we have and that we can call upon when we are in those moments of crisis and have no idea what to pray for, what to ask for, how to do it. That’s when we can say, okay, Holy Spirit, you take over. Please intercede for me.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, I just… A lot of it I can’t even wrap my head around, so I can see why you waited to write it, but I can see why you wrote The Widow Chose Red, My Journey with Jesus, John and ALS, because you told me that the Lord was so real to you and such. I don’t even know how people get through things like this without their faith.
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I wonder the same thing myself. And here’s the thing too, Angie, because even as believers, we struggle. We struggle. We do. And God never promised us an easy time of it. I mean, all I have to do is remember what Jesus went through on that cross for our behalf. Who are we to think that we’re going to get through this world unscathed? Really? You know, but it’s all about how do we then, what do we do? What do we do with this? And how do we embrace it, which sounds really weird, but it’s true. Because, you know, I don’t believe that God made John sick, but I do believe that he allows us to be tested. Look at Job. Look how Job was tested. Look what was taken and done to him. And yet he remained faithful. He remained faithful to his God and still managed to give him all the glory and So I really want to encourage and inspire anyone who is finding themselves in a hard place. And we may not just get one. We may have to do this a couple of times. But what I know is that when you are faced with something this difficult and when you get to the end of the rope and think, I can’t hang on anymore, that’s when you cling to him and say, okay. I am surrendering it to you completely and totally. I have nowhere else to go. I don’t know how to do this. You are going to have to step in and be with me and show me how.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, on the cover of the book, you’re wearing red and you’re with your sons in their suits. Is that actually the day of the funeral? Is that the photo that you took that day?
SPEAKER 05 :
Absolutely. Absolutely. My sister took that photo on the spur of the moment. We were walking outside of the front door. I’ve had people ask me if that’s been photoshopped. No. Did I drop the two boys in? No. And both of the boys are actually wearing one of their father’s ties. So they may look a little large, but yes, that was the actual photo right before we were headed to the church that day.
SPEAKER 04 :
And you’re smiling. The boys aren’t smiling, but you’re smiling and you’re wearing red. What did that celebration of life look like to you rather than like a traditional funeral and you wearing red for love and red for the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, first of all, because they were the ages that they were, we had 600 people there and a lot of kids, a lot of kids. The boys, Jake’s football team, they were all in their jerseys. John’s lacrosse team, they were all in it. There was such solidarity with the community and all of these kids. So it was kid-friendly. I’d had parents go, is there going to be a body lane? I said no. John was cremated, photos, flowers. And the boys actually were part of the service. They recited a beautiful poem called The Dash. We had wristbands made with John’s name on it that said, Live Your Dash. So everyone was able to wear those. And then the boys wanted to have the reception. We had one right after the service. They wanted to serve pizza. Oh, wow. So we had pizza because that’s what the boys wanted. And then later that evening, we had a more formal, well, a celebration of life party for John that was more like what their dad would want it. Yeah. But it was a beautiful, and I will tell you, there are QR codes in the book where you can actually log into and watch the boys recite that poem. I had the presence of mind enough, Angie, to hire a videographer to be there to record it, because I knew I wouldn’t remember it right, and I wanted these boys to be able to hear the stories about their father, not only at the Celebration of Life service, but also at the party afterwards so they can hear people to this day talk about their father. Yes. Yes. And so we also had Pastor Greg, who baptized both of the boys. He was able to fly in from Chicago and be a part of this service as well. He’s a big part of our story. I think your readers will find it interesting how we met him as a young married couple. We reconnected with him. We started out in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. We reconnected in Chicago, and then he actually left. You know, it was part of a service for John’s younger brother who had passed 10 years earlier and then came back and did John’s service as well.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I want to have you back on the show because there’s so much more to your story. The Widow Chose Red, My Journey with Jesus, John and ALS, Rachel Kirschneider. Do you have a website that you can give us?
SPEAKER 05 :
I do. It is spiritedprosperity.com. You can also go to thewidowchoseread.com and order the book directly there. It is on Amazon. And proceeds from the sale of the book will benefit the Live Like Lou Foundation.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you, Rachel. We’ll talk to you hopefully next week.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you, Angie. Take care. Godspeed.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
