Written by Jeremy Hawkins
I first heard Dr. Jenae Nelson’s story on a podcast1. After listening to it, I shared it with Lynnie and told her that this is someone I would love to feature on her blog. Lynnie liked the idea, and thankfully, so did Dr. Nelson! I think Dr. Nelson tells her story better than I can and I encourage you to listen to it2 for yourself. What you see below are excerpts from two accounts with follow-up questions asked during a Zoom call. I hope you learn as much as I did from and through Dr. Nelson.
Experiences Worth Talking About
Dr. Jenae Nelson is completing her first semester as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Brigham Young University. Her educational background is in Developmental Psychology with research interests related to gratitude. When I asked her what she would include in her bio she replied that she is a less-than-average person who has gone through some extraordinary things. She mentioned that through God’s power, mercy, and grace, He has decided to make something out of her life. He had a vision for her and she was smart enough to follow when He called her. I disagree with her claim to be a less-than-average person, but I do see her as a humble, intelligent, faithful follower of Christ with many experiences worth talking about!
Experience #1
Dr. Nelson’s upbringing was a difficult one. By the time she reached her teenage years, her life was not headed in a positive direction due to personal choices and to those she acquainted herself with. She used the term “very self-destructive”.
In speaking about that time, Dr. Nelson said,
“[My mom] had faith. She taught me to pray. … She would try to read the scriptures with me, but I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. … I grew up with just my mom and my sister. There were some really, really hard times. There was a time when we were homeless and we lived in a homeless shelter. We lived with family members. My mom had severe mental illness and couldn’t work. We were on government assistance.
At that time in my life, I thought that there was no way that God could be real because I couldn’t see any evidence of Him in my life – or at least [any evidence of] a loving God. I thought that if God is real then He has to be loving and I don’t see a loving God in my life. I looked around and I saw nothing but ruin.”
In the midst of all of this, Dr. Nelson’s mom decided to move from the Seattle area to the other side of the state. She felt that doing so was the best thing for her daughter. Dr. Nelson did not want any part of that. With the help of her friends, she devised a plan to run away. However, before executing her plan, Dr. Nelson had a dream where she saw two distinct paths before her. One was dark and was full of things that scared her. The other was light and full of happiness. She knew at that point that she needed to stay with her mom in order to follow the light path. Despite not being happy about it, she courageously abandoned her plan to run away and instead moved with her mom.
Not long after the move, Dr. Nelson learned who her biological father was and took the opportunity to go and live with him. (Up until that point she and her mom thought that her biological father was a man who had no interest in being involved in her life.) In her words, “[My father] wanted to do right by me, and seeing the things that he was willing to do for me opened me up for the first time in a long, long time to God and to God being real and to God’s love. My dad spoke so openly about his faith. So did my stepmom. They were amazing examples to me. I started to think maybe there’s something to this God stuff. Maybe God is real after all because it was this miraculous event for my dad. I grew up without a dad entirely, but then all of a sudden, this man, my dad, came into my life. He cared about me. He wanted to be involved in my life. It completely changed my worldview. It made me see things through the lens of maybe there is a God. I decided for myself, nobody told me to do this. I decided that I was going to pray and that I was going to find out if God was real, and I got a very real answer to that prayer.” This change in viewpoint and the choices that resulted took her further down that light path she saw in her dream and changed her life forever.
Experience #2
Some believe that Dr. Nelson planned from day 1 to be a university professor and that she is now living out her dream. That is not the case, as being a university professor was not always the plan. Dr. Nelson actually took a nontraditional approach to her education. She and her husband decided early in their marriage to have children and to forgo schooling (for Dr. Nelson), at least for the time being. Because of fertility problems, it was two years before they had their first child, a child she referred to as “a complete and total miracle.” All of her pregnancies ended up being high-risk and they were able to see afterward that holding off on schooling had been a blessing.
Once she was through her pregnancies, Dr. Nelson felt she needed to continue to postpone her education in order to be home with her kids before they started school. When she was in her 30s, she and her husband decided the time was finally right. Despite some negative feedback from those around her, she went to school, completing her bachelor’s degree, graduate school, and a post-doc.
Lessons Learned
I loved two particular thoughts that Dr. Nelson shared associated with these pivotal life experiences.
- God gives her ‘the next little piece’ when it is needed. Taking this approach has put her where she needs to be. In her words, “gratitude runs deep there” because if she had been left to her own devices and circumstances, she would not be where she is today. Recognizing that she doesn’t deserve anything makes gratitude easy.
- The freedom to choose which path she takes has always been hers. God has given her guidance a piece at a time, she has made her choices, and He has put her in a place to do good and use her talents. In her words, “God said ‘I think I have a good idea for you’ and I was smart enough to listen.”
Gratitude
As our time together neared a close, I asked Dr. Nelson a question that took our discussion in a different direction. I mentioned that in writing our blogs, Lynnie and I had not come across a grateful person who didn’t believe in God (or a similar higher power). I asked Dr. Nelson if that was her experience as well. She replied that she has not met someone who is grateful who doesn’t believe in God but has met those who believe in God who are not grateful. This intrigued me. Dr. Nelson followed this statement by explaining that there are two different types of gratitude. She referred to the first type of gratitude as divine entitlement, which manifests itself in the idea that of course I am getting blessings … I am a good person. Dr. Nelson said that with this type of gratitude, blessings don’t feel like a gift, but more of a right or a payment (i.e., transactional). The second type of gratitude she referred to is more relationship-based, a feeling of indebtedness. She explained that when we begin to see life in this way, viewing blessings as gifts, gratitude becomes a natural outcome that makes us want to give back to others in order to show our gratitude and continue our relationships.
Spreading Light
Dr. Nelson has used her life experiences for good, which I so admire. She had help along the way in finding her purpose and she desires to do the same for others. Dr. Nelson believes that “everyone can get lost and need a bit more light in their life.” She’s doing what she can to help others find that light through her research and work with gratitude, for, as she told me, “a happy life is not a pain-free or problem-free life, but one in which we see things as a gift.”
