Anna Strasburg’s Run Across America: One More Mile on Empty, Finishing the Race, & Why She Did It

“If, and only if we do something will the lives of the most vulnerable around us be saved.” ~ Anna Strasburg

Guest Bio: Anna Strasburg started running across America to end abortion and found herself homeless and exhausted. At times she even feared for her life, but in each trial, she witnessed God’s faithfulness. She and her team weathered barren deserts to snowy mountains, the bone-chilling iciness of winter to the dehydrating heat of summer, unbearable loneliness to unbreakable friendship, and a weak faith to an unwavering confidence in God. Anna is now a national pro-life speaker, author, wife, and mother.

SHOW NOTES: 

• Website: https://if-life.org
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/projectif2016/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhyQ9oPdbBo
• X: https://twitter.com/Projectiflife
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/annastrasburg.life
• Anna’s Team
  • Nick Hoduski
  • Megan Maier
  • Sarah-Marie Sherbon

REMARKABLE LISTENER SPECIAL OFFER(S):

• Save up to 80% on EVERYTHING you order at MyPillow.com/Remarkable with Free promo code, “REMARKABLE”. Yes! Save a ton of money on all 250+ quality, comfortable, cozy American products at MyPillow.com with Free MyPillow Promo Code, “Remarkable”. Enjoy and be ready to sleep better than you ever have!

CORE THEMES, KEYWORDS, & MENTIONS:

• PreBorn Children, ProLife, protection, adoption, pro-life movement, protecting the weak, abortion, running, runner, running with a cause, pray, seek God, feeling empty, run across America,  relationship with God, religion vs relationship, fulfillment, satisfaction, joy, 3,000 mile run, planned parenthood, fear struck, monarch pass, rainbow, never quit, persevere, knee injury, pro-life movement, adoption, foster parenting, weakness, family, love, support

For more Remarkable Episodes, Inspiration, and Motivation, please visit https://davidpasqualone.com/remarkable-people-podcast/. Enjoy!

Transcript

Anna Strasburg’s Run Across America: One More Mile on Empty, Finishing the Race, & Why She Did It

Would you live in a van for over a year, sleep outside, run across America, endure tons of hardships and suffering physical pain for what you believe in? Today's guests would and did check out the episode now. 

The Remarkable People Podcast. Check it out.

The Remarkable People Podcast. Listen. Do. Repeat. For Life!.

The Remarkable People Podcast.

Hello friends! Welcome to this week's episode of the Remarkable People Podcast, The Anna Strasberg Story. Today you're going to hear about a young woman who had a calling, [00:01:00] had a passion, had a supportive family, and lived out what she believed. What she did is she believes in pro life She loves God. She loves people.

She has a heart to protect children. So she ends up running across America over months, maybe even over a year, living in tough conditions, being in pain, suffering mentally, physically, emotionally, but also having huge blessings. And you're going to hear about her journey and why she did it. And how you can too, because no matter what situation you and I are in, we're all given the same 24 hours in a day.

And this young girl not only lived a full life and then went to college and then got out and ran across America, wrote a [00:02:00] book, does public speaking and is on fire for God. But then she got married, she had four children and now she's fostering children. All because she practices what she preaches. And she's preaching what God says.

So whether you're a Christian or not at this point, this episode will give you motivation and hope. Some of you will listen to say, you know, like, she can do it, but I can't. That's a lie. Some of you will be, she can do it, I can do it too. Or some of you are like, well, okay, what do I do? What's the next step?

In this episode, you're going to learn that next step and how you're going to communicate with God and how He communicates with you. And you're going to basically just take it day by day. But Anna's going to talk about her story, how she did it. And again, like our slogan says, listen, do, repeat for life.

Don't just listen to Anna's story. Do. Apply the good in it, in your [00:03:00] life. Repeat it each day so you can have a great life in this world, but most importantly, an eternity to come. So you have a specific God given love and purpose and place in this world. This episode with Anna will help you fulfill it. 

[00:03:17] INTERVIEW Anna Strasburg 27 APril 2024: Hey, Anna, how are you today? Doing great. How about you? Man, I'm fantastic. Remarkable even.

So I just spent a minute or two telling our listeners about you. A piece of your story and they're pumped to hear it. Before we get started though, with your story, if you were to talk directly to our listeners all around the world right now, different countries, different cultures, different experiences and backgrounds, they're going to get a ton of gold nuggets along the way in your story.

But if you guarantee them one message of truth in one item, they can take away from this episode, apply to this life and be better people. What would that be? [00:04:00] I would definitely say that pursue God and he has great plans for you. That no matter where you come from or what your difficulties have been or what you've accomplished for good, that God has a specific plan for your life, that he created you and that you are fearfully and wonderfully made and that God has a purpose.

And when you submit to that purpose that God has for you, your life could not be any more full. Now, it doesn't mean it's going to be easy, but it couldn't be any more full. God gives us purpose and God enables us to fulfill the purpose that he sets before us. Beautiful. I couldn't agree more. So what brought you to this place?

Obviously you're passionate about it. You've seen the Lord in your life, but let's rewind, start at the beginning, go chronologically through your life. The good, the bad, the ugly, the pretty, the pretty ugly. Everything that happened, you know, all things work together for good to those that love God, to those called according to his purpose, right?

So go through your life story and we'll stop along the way and ask questions and hopefully [00:05:00] we'll connect and help the listeners who are in the same situation and then they'll figure out how to achieve and overcome too. Sound good? Sounds wonderful. Where were you born? What was your upbringing like brothers, sisters, foster house?

What, what was your upbringing? So I was born to a very wonderful Christian family. My parents are just amazing, amazing. Love God. Pursue God with all that they are. My dad's a teacher and my mom stayed at home and poured her whole life into raising us to be godly and to, to seek after God for what he has for us.

So I was in a very, very loving, healthy, good home. I went to a Christian school where I had very loving parents. Good positive influences. And through all that nurture, through all that love, I just knew that God had created me with a very big heart for other people. A heart filled with compassion for others.

A heart that, where I just wanted to love and to nurture and to protect as many people as I could. But fast forward [00:06:00] into probably my fifth grade year, So like I said, being raised in a wonderfully godly home where my dad is just a renowned and beloved history teacher and my mom just filling our lives with as much love as any child could ever hope for so that set me up to be able to love others because I was so bored into as a child.

And then in fifth grade I had this extremely passionate pro life teacher who just loved everyone around her but had this unabashed. Unfearful desire and passion to save pre born children. And somehow every verse we memorized and every, just about every project we did in my fifth grade classroom somehow came back to the sanctity of life and the importance of laying our lives down to save those who are weaker than ourselves.

Even the Bible verses we memorized. Psalms 139 became a huge part of my life. How God, even how I opened, how God made us fearfully and wonderfully. His works are wonderful that God knit us together in our mother's womb. And then even a verse you just referenced, Romans 8, [00:07:00] 28, where God works all things for good.

Those were two verses that I learned in that fifth grade classroom that just stuck with me. And I just knew from that moment on that I was going to dedicate my life to protecting those who are vulnerable, to protecting those who are weak, and into protecting those who God has called me to protect. And that was honestly a big start of my pro life journey.

And a big I was already a Christian, but a big start in being pushed towards living the way that Christ would call us to live. And then as that, so in fifth grade, you're feeling this. Some people, you know, I'd say most people, they're kind of floundering through life, even in their forties. And there's people who right off the bat from a young age, they know exactly what their place is in life and what their calling is and to fulfill it.

So when you were talking about this with your parents and your friends, did they agree? Did they be like, You're crazy. What were they thinking at that point? My parents were excited. My parents are so [00:08:00] faith driven that they would say things like, whatever God calls you to, that would, that's the best place for your life.

We would love for you to live by us and to stay by us, but wherever God calls you. We are, we would be the happiest for you, the most joyful for you if you pursue what God has. And so I knew my purpose was to do something pro life, but I didn't know what that would mean. And that honestly became the next over a, you know, many, many years, struggling with what God would have for me and how God would call me to defend the weak.

So I love God. I, I led in high school. In different ways, trying to bring people closer to God. And I even tried to lead in a pro life way, but I honestly didn't know how. So I got a group of my friends to write letters to birth moms who had chosen life for their children and either kept them or put them up for adoption.

But through all of this, I just felt like God had called me to something bigger. with the pro life movement and with protecting the vulnerable and I didn't know what it was. And so fast forward into college and I [00:09:00] started talking on campus about the pro life movement. I would do presentations. I would I was studying to be a math teacher.

So I would use the teaching rooms where we were supposed to be doing like math presentations and I would pack them out with a pro life speech and talk about fetal development and why God calls us to protect the weak and explaining abortion procedures for most people who had never even heard of I heard much detail about abortion and I just, I felt like I was trying, but I felt empty.

And I'm also a runner. I've always loved to run and play soccer and do sports and things. And when I was a sophomore I was training for a half marathon, another one. And I was just using that time to pray, to seek God. And so as an aside, like I would challenge any of our listeners that if you want to pursue what God has for you, set aside time to pray.

Set aside time to seek God and to genuinely ask Him, What do you have for me? Because if you aren't sitting down and being quiet, I mean, I say sitting, I was running while I was praying, but if you aren't taking a specific time, that you are just seeking [00:10:00] God. And I was a busy, busy college student, so one of the main times that I prayed was the couple hours that I was running.

I would just run and run and beg God. To show me what he had for me, to how I could be more like him. And it was during one of those runs, I was on a 10 mile training run for my race, and I told God, I was like, God, I kind of feel like a fraud. I have been pro life my entire life. I, I love you so much but I'm studying to be a math teacher, and I kind of feel like a fraud telling people to be pro life.

And yet doing nothing about it, I felt very empty in my calling. And so at the end of that run, I was in a finishing sprint. I always like to finish as fast as I could and I cried out to God and I said, you know, God, I don't know what you want me to do. If you want me to be a math teacher, I will try to be the best math teacher that, that I can be.

I will study. I will love my students. I will bring animation and excitement to the classroom. But God, if you want me to be pro life, then show me how. You have to show me because I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I don't know how I can make a difference. And I don't know what I, what I can do to fulfill what you've [00:11:00] called me to.

But God, if you want me to be an math teacher, can you take the pro life passion out of my heart? Because I don't want to care if I can't change it. I don't want to care if I can't fix it. And I don't want to care if I'm just going to be talking about it for the rest of my life, but only talking in name and words, but never action.

Help my action meet these words. And at the end of that finishing sprint right before I got back to my college campus, I felt God lay it on my heart, run across America for the pro life movement. And in that moment, I knew my calling. I knew exactly what I was supposed to do. And so another admonition about prayer is pray genuinely, pray honestly.

We serve a very big God who can handle our honesty. And I was honest with God. I told him, I was like, I don't want to care if you don't show me what to do. And God answered in that moment. We serve a God that is bigger than our doubts and bigger than our fears. And when we articulate what we're feeling and fearing in prayer, God comes through and he answers.

And so that kind of took me to knowing my calling, knowing what I was going to be able to do, and knowing how I was going to be able to do it. And it was beautiful. [00:12:00] It was just very encouraging and exciting. So it took me to knowing what I was going to do after college. All right. So now a couple of things I want to stop and talk about, and then we're going to move forward with your story.

First is you grew up in a Christian home. And to most people in America, that makes somewhat sense, but we have people from all over the world. Different culture, different worldview. So what does it mean when you say to grow up in a Christian home? And then what's the difference between someone who grows up in a Christian home and they are a Christian?

They are Christ like. So the Christian home I grew up in, I would say Some people grow up in a Christian home, but it's only a name. And I would say that was not true for my family. I saw my parents live their lives as daily sacrifices for God. My dad pouring into his students and teaching them the gospel even through history every single [00:13:00] day.

Making his decisions in light of how to best influence students on how to best lead them to Christ while teaching them history, how to equip them with a worldview that puts others first through his history classroom. And then seeing my mother, who is so gifted and so capable, pour those giftings rather into things that like into herself, pour those giftings into her six children.

Daily patience, daily loving, daily nurturing, everything that she did to help us know that we were loved, that Christ loved us. And to nurture, nurture us. She was such, she is such a nurturer. She still takes time to pour into our lives and she dedicated everything that she had into raising us six children with all that she had.

And so I think the difference is you can be raised in a Christian home even, even when it's amusing as mine and still walk away without Christ. Like it is very possible. So the difference is that you make a personal decision for Christ, that you make a personal decision that [00:14:00] he is your first love.

And, and the cool thing about Christianity is sometimes, you know, Christianity, it's a bad rap. Like it's a religion and Christianity to me is not a religion. Christianity to me is, is a relationship. Christianity is the best, the very best part of my life. Knowing God is what has directed me from the beginning.

Knowing God is what has made my life so sweet. And so fulfilling. It gives me purpose. In a way that no other thing. I love climbing mountains. I climbed right Rain Mount Rainier when I was in my early twenties. I run marathons. I run ultra marathons. I've written books. I do public speaking. I do these different things, but nothing, nothing is fulfilling, nothing is satisfying besides God.

God is a fulfiller and God is what makes life beautiful. God is the one who gave me the ability to climb a mountain. God is the one who gave me the joy in running. God is the one who gave me the ability to write a book. Without him, all of those actions are hollow. Without him, everything will be forgotten.

Without him, [00:15:00] my life has no meaning and no purpose. And there is no accomplishment that I could strive for. That I would have meaning apart from knowing that I am serving God and that my life is, is literally a living sacrifice for him, everything that I do, ensuring that I'm honoring God and that I'm protecting his children and leading his children to a life that isn't a life of captivity.

That isn't a life of servitude, but a life. That is lived with so much joy. That's one of my favorite things about the Christian walk, is because we have fulfillment, because we have purpose in God, it gives us so much joy to live the way that Christ called us to live. Amen. And that is the truth because you can have all the religion in the world or grow up in a house, but that doesn't mean you have that relationship personally with God.

So for all of our listeners, when Anna's talking about a relationship, I mean, she does, she talks to God, she reads her Bible, God talks to her. And once you've trusted Christ, not just believed in Christ, but trusted him, the Holy Spirit indwells you and says, you have an unction from [00:16:00] the Holy One, you know, all things, right?

So there's more power in us with the Holy Ghost. And there is David Pasqualone, Remarkable People Podcast, Listen. Repeat. For Life!.

You're going to run across America. So as a dad, you know, that's like, that's crazy. My daughter's gonna run across America. What? You think I want her to serve God, but I want her to be safe. So talk about you telling your family, how did you prepare for this journey and how did it go? So like I said, I was a sophomore and I really felt like God was calling me to graduate and just plan for two years, you know, train.

It obviously takes a lot of training physically, to get ready for a 3, 000 mile journey like that. That's going to be taken on foot. So I went home after my second semester, sophomore year. [00:17:00] And I told my parents and they definitely were a little nervous. I could tell, but I, they never told me, they never let on how nervous they were until I finished the journey, which was such a blessing to me.

Cause when I first told them that they had the same response that they've always had. When I left home from Kansas and went to a college, I'd never even visited because I felt called to go there. They were so open and joyful for what God had for me. So then when I told him that I was going to go run across America.

They said, do what God has for you. And then they did their best to help make sure I was safe. They bought, you know, camping supplies and food and all of these different things to help me be successful in the calling that God had. And it wasn't until much after that my mom and dad expressed how much fear they had for that calling, how much fear they had watching their, you know, 21 year old little, 21, 22, 23, during the journey, little girl, like, Graduate college and, you know, live in a van and go across the country all these different states that were very hostile because it wasn't even a message that was well received.

The hostility just about [00:18:00] being pro life was already a lot to handle, let alone the vulnerability of living in a van and updating people where I was. As I went across the country, so there was definitely a lot more fear than they let on. But when I went on the journey, my understanding was the excitement that they had for me.

And then afterwards understanding the parents heart of that fear. So it was, it was definitely very encouraging from them. And then you talk about a van. So did you have someone travel with you that would follow you just for emergencies or something happened, record it? Yeah, so I've graduated college and went back to my parents house and I'd been doing fundraising through college, but I was, of course, mostly around broke college kids.

So we didn't raise a ton while I was in school. But when I went home I spent a lot of time praying and ensuring that this is what God had for me. I've told everybody in my life that this is what we're going to do and decided to throw a launch party and just start right in the middle in Kansas. Because financially speaking, it was, I was going to have a team of three other people.

My best friend, [00:19:00] Megan from college, who was just brilliant with details. My little brother, who is just an incredible athlete and was going to help train me and make sure I did my core workouts instead of just running every day. And then my older sister, Sarah Marie, who was going to run our website and do that kind of media stuff and just very, very gifted at that kind of thing.

So I did have that team. So we threw a launch party and said, Hey, we're leaving. We're going to go. I know we don't have. A ton of support yet, but we really feel called to go. And on that day, God brought in 2, 000 and a conversion van for us to live in. And so we started living in that van across the state of Kansas.

That's where I'm originally from. Started right in the heartland and I started running west. And my prayer continually was, God, this is what you've called me to. I will do everything I can to fundraise. I will do everything. To spread the pro life message and to spread your word. But God, if we run out of money, I'm going to take that as a sign that we can't go any further.

So God, please provide like you said you would, please fulfill the calling through me that you've called me to. And so I took off [00:20:00] literally from my parents front doorstep. I literally ran off their steps and started running west and I would run as far as I could. And get picked up in a van. And then we just lived in the van across the entire state of Kansas.

And it was an incredible first state. It was 400 miles long. We lived in that van. We had no hosts for the entire first state and no speaking engagements. And to be honest, that was incredibly difficult knowing that I'm called to speak, knowing that I'm called to do this run, but it was almost like a quiet season of God preparing me, God preparing me physically for the Rocky Mountains.

And what was ahead with not only the Rockies, but the canyons in Utah and the deserts in California. And so it just became this season of, we literally, like I said, lived in our van. And when we'd come across a body of water, like a lake, we would take a bath and live in the van. So sometimes not showering for up to two weeks.

It was very, very trying, very difficult season running 10, 15, 20 miles a day until eventually I made it all 400 miles across that first state, and [00:21:00] finally made it to the Colorado, Colorado border. So there's four of you living in the van. Plus we also had a hundred pound German shepherd for part of it. Oh man.

And then once you would run, they'd wait for you and then drive and catch up? So at first I would run a mile and they would wait for me each mile just to make sure I was safe. But when my little brother decided he would start running with me, he's, like I said, he's a phenomenal athlete. So he went from running one day, he'd run with me and because of an injury, the other day he would cycle with me.

So he was started being with me. So I could. Run. And then the other two teammates could work more on social media and our website and actually the Pro Life Outreach portion, scheduling events, trying to get us hosts so we could have somewhere to stay. So they were able to focus more on that in a coffee shop while my little brother and I, he, I ran the whole time, but he would either run or bike with me and encourage me along the way, pack snacks for me and just, you know really support me throughout the journey.

So yeah, so there was a team of four living in a van. There was only room for three in the bed, [00:22:00] so it was the three girls in the bed. And when we were in like a Walmart parking lot, my brother would sleep on the roof. And when we were in like a more secluded area where it was more private, he would just kind of camp out on a sleeping bag on the ground, no tent or anything.

So it was a pretty wild, pretty wild start. That's awesome. All right. So now you guys are doing this. It's, you know, it's, you're doing it together, but at the same time, there's a lot of just hours on the road. And what's going through your head as you're running, Anna? Well, there was a lot, a lot of loneliness.

Just out there running you know, 20 miles is, you know, with breaks close to four hours of running. And I was hitting 20 sometimes every single day, five days in a row. And then taking a couple of days off. And the state of Kansas was definitely a growing season for me, learning to trust God, learning to, you know that God had a reason, even if I wasn't speaking, even if I wasn't spreading the pro life message the way I thought it would be, that God was strengthening me to just trust, just be like a [00:23:00] child and just trust that God has good things coming because it was amazing as soon as we hit the Colorado border, Our mission just exploded in a good way.

It just grew exponentially. I started speaking multiple times a week all, all across the state of Colorado. Hosts opened up across the whole state. So we went from never showering until we found a body of water to Being in Colorado with, with constant hosts and not, we did a lot of camping too, but a lot more hosts than we had speaking engagements so many that it was just, it felt like we were finally spreading the pro life message and I would speak.

And I always said I would speak anywhere that God opened the door. So youth groups, churches, Bible studies schools Anywhere that God had, I would spread the pro life message with my team, and I just really saw God opening doors and hearts being changed, and people coming up to me with stories of their abortions they'd never told anybody, or teenagers saying, hey my friend's pregnant and I'm so thankful I heard this so I can help them choose life.

Just all the things I always dreamed of. In terms of the [00:24:00] Pro Life message started happening and started, got started opening those doors in Colorado, but there was also a lot of fear during that time because each step I took across Colorado drew me closer to the Rockies, and as a Kansas girl, that was pretty intimidating to know I was going to be running the Rocky Mountains.

Yeah, altitudes alone change is crazy. So let's just reflect on a couple of things. When Anna uses the term host, that means people that are trusted and vetted and allowed her and her family to stay with them, feed them, care for them, and it was a safe place, right? So, and it cuts expenses. But Anna, when you keep talking about pro life and about what you are actually running for, and there's someone out there now that they're listening to this.

They could be in India. They could be in Indiana, you know, anywhere in the world. If they're pregnant and they're considering abortion, let's just stop right here. What are, you know, your thoughts on life? What are your thoughts on [00:25:00] abortion? So at the moment of fertilization, we have a unique human being who comes into its existence.

So right when that sperm and egg meet, you no longer have two separate parts with a mom and dad, but you have a unique child. With their own DNA, and that child is distinct from the other 8 billion people on the planet. That child is distinct from anybody in all of world history and anybody in the future history, the future to come.

That child is completely unique. They have their own hair color, their own eye color, their own gender, their own ethnicity. That child is so distinct from the mother and father that even if you were to take a Hispanic embryo and implant it in a white woman, that child would still be born Hispanic. That's how unique and distinct from the mother this child is.

So what I also want to tell you is if you're pregnant and alone and you don't know what to do, there are resources. I will help you find resources. There are pregnancy centers across the nation who will give you a counsel, who will give you free pregnancy advice. Who have ultrasounds to help you know how far along you are.

They will meet you when you have your baby with diapers and cribs and car seats and whatever you [00:26:00] need. There's also other organizations like LetThemLive who help you if you can't meet your rent. There are so many organizations out there that have So when people feel like they want a choice, this is the choice to choose life.

This is the choice to embrace the life that God has given you. And there are so many resources. I think the, the pro choice side has a lot of fear to it, but this is a time where we don't have to be afraid because people will come alongside you and meet every single need that you have and protect you.

And your child as well. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And something to think about, like, whether you, whatever position you are, whatever side you are right now, think about this. If you took baking soda and vinegar, it's when you mix them together, do you guys ever do the science experiment where bubbles, right?

And have you ever done that? A lot of people use it for the volcano models in school, right? At the moment [00:27:00] the baking soda and vinegar touch, the reaction happens. And that's the same thing as the egg and the sperm. Life begins at the moment of conception. And that's science, that's common sense, that's fact.

But a lot of people just don't think of it that way. And the other thing I want to talk to you about, and just point out what Anna said, is these These centers to help you so many resource centers for single moms and single dads. But we're talking about the actual pregnancy and the mother's carrying the baby and it's could be scary and it can be intimidating.

You can have everybody around you telling you get rid of the baby, but there's fake centers too. Like there's a big one called Planned Parenthood. And that's not Planned Parenthood, it's Planned Murder. Correct me if I'm wrong, Anna, but you, what are your thoughts on Planned Parenthood? That their revenue is based off, off of taking the life of people's children.

So it's not, it's not going to be a resource to help you choose life. It's not going to be a resource to help you [00:28:00] mother. And there are very, very, very, They are very much after making a profit off of, off of killing your child. So protecting your, protecting the life already growing inside of you, nurturing that life, will happen if you go to a pregnancy center.

But if you go to Planned Parenthood, their job is to is to convince you to have an abortion and to convince you that this is the best decision for you. But the thing is that when you're already pregnant, that you're not planning your parenthood. Like, you're already a parent. Like, you already have a child inside of you who needs protection, who is vulnerable and weak and needs you to be strong.

And when you go to Planned Parenthood, they're not just fixing your problem. Like they say, they are ending the life of your child. So you either are going to deliver a living baby, By visiting a pregnancy center, or you'll deliver a dead child at a Planned Parenthood. Either way, you'll deliver a child.

Either way, you're already a parent. So it is not planning your parenthood. It is ending the life of your child. And so, not, not allowing yourself to [00:29:00] go to a place that makes, that literally profits off the death of your child. It's going to be a huge step in the right direction, but heading to a place that's going to say, hey, there are options.

We are actually here to support you. We are actually here with prenatal care. We're actually here to help you know how to budget so you can raise your child. Oh, or we're here to help you know how to do adoption and help you pick proper parents for your child. Those are the kind of people you want to surround yourself with.

And so finding, finding these real loving godly centers that are going to come alongside you is definitely where you need to go. Yeah, and for, we won't get too deep in the weeds on this, but for centers like Planned Parenthood, ladies and gentlemen, it sounds like, who would do that? Man, there's a lot of evil people in the world.

Remember, God is good. And Satan fell, he's a fallen angel and he convinces and, you know, misery loves company. He's taken as many people down as he can and he confuses, confusion, darkness hath blinded their eyes. So he makes people think that they're doing the right thing and they're [00:30:00] steadfast. I'm going to do the right thing.

There's nothing wrong with killing a baby. It is. It's murder. And these centers, like Anna said, make money and profit off killing babies. So when you come in, they don't care about the situation. They don't care about you. They're just trying to program you to kill that baby so they can make money off it.

And we don't have to go into all the details. This is a conspiracy theory. You can Google it. There's all the information of how they make money all over the internet. And it's disgusting and vile and they're murdering for money. That's what it is. It's not about best for you or your child. It's money.

So go back to what you're doing to stop this, Anna. So now you're running, you get through the first state, you get to Colorado, the Rockies, super intimidating, right? Mile high city in Denver. And that's in Colorado alone. And you're running, but now you're getting speaking gigs and you're getting, you know, all this attention.

So is it making your run harder, easier? Where are you [00:31:00] going from there? So the speaking engagements were actually, they were an encouragement to me. So they, they definitely helped. It showed me that, that we were making a difference, that we were covering ground, that people were starting to hear about our journey.

And because I'd already run 400 miles, people knew I was committed. I think some people were wondering, Oh, this is a new organization. How can we know that they're real? And after running 400 miles they started to really know that I meant what I said when I said I was going to run across America.

So the speaking engagements made it easier. The hosts, especially the kind people. who opened their homes. They were just church members of churches that we contacted. We didn't know them, but they opened their homes to us, enabled our whole team to stay in their homes. They fed us, and just took, took care of us.

It really was one of my first experiences really being embraced by the body of Christ, really just being embraced. Feeling the hands and feet of Christ take us in when we had no home, when we had nowhere to go. And during this time, so I started in the summer, but by the time I made it into the Rockies, it was, it was fall.[00:32:00] 

So the temperatures are dropping. I'm climbing in elevation and the whole time I'm, it's getting easier because of hosts. But we were, like I said, spending still a lot of significant time camping. And I actually, so Denver is the mile high city, but. I was originally going to go through Denver, but I thought elevation was so much higher.

So I went through Southern California on Route 50. And the highest elevation I was going to have to face was 11, 000, I think 315 feet or something, 11, 000 plus feet. Which is still extremely high. Still incredibly high, and it was called Monarch Pass. That was, that was the highest elevation I was going to have to face.

So slowly I start running in the Rockies, and I'm entering in through Canyon City, and my mileage starts to lower to 10, 10 12 miles a day. It was the most I could crank out at that elevation, especially, you know, being from Kansas going to college in Florida where there's not a lot of elevation. I tried my best to train in mountains when I could but I, I really had a hard adjustment to the elevation.

And the thin air and the cold weather. [00:33:00] But slowly I found my stride and I began to, to run the Rockies with confidence. But then it came to Monarch Pass, the base of Monarch Pass, and my little brother was, was running at this point with me. And there was a 20 mile approach to the top of this elevation of 11, 000 plus feet.

And I just stood there completely fearstruck, like just unable to get myself to run. And I just remember there were just these beautiful hills all around me and the weather was cold. And I just. I don't know that I can do this. I don't know that I can run to the top of Monarch Pass. And I still remember he put his hands on my shoulders and he prayed a really quick prayer.

And he looked me in the eyes. He said, yes, you can. And so I began running. And mile after mile passed and the air got thinner and the temperature dropped and it began to rain. And yet still mile after mile, step after step passed. And that rain turned to sleep. And I kept running. Switchback after switchback.

So those are the steep turns carved into a mountain that help you be able to go up [00:34:00] something so steep as a mountain. So switchback after switchback passes. Hill after hill. No downhills. No relief from the constant uphill incline of Monarch Pass. And finally that sleep turned to snow. And the snow was clinging to any exposed skin and just burning my skin and my eyes and my throat.

Anything that wasn't covered. And my legs burned and my lungs burned and on I ran. And finally, I came to this one switchback in particular, and I just remember thinking, I can't, I can't continue on. I don't know how I can run Monarch Pass. And I stopped, and I was defeated. And I just, I felt like God had called me to something that was too hard.

Running across America, It was too much for a girl, for a girl from Kansas. And I just remember my little brother didn't even miss a beat. He just kept running just a few strides ahead of me. And he said, what are you doing? And I said, I can't. I just yelled at him over the wind and the cold and the snow.

And I said, I can't, I can't do it. And like I said, without missing a beat, he kept running and turned back and he said, yes, you can. And something about him [00:35:00] having run the steps before me, I was able to pick up my feet once more and run that next switch back. And what's so funny is it ended up being the last switch back of Monarch Pass.

And I made it to the top of Monarch Pass, 11, 312 feet. And I stood at the top and the snow began to calm. And I looked back over my shoulder, panting, exhausted, just worn out from this constant uphill climb. And I looked back over my shoulder from where I had come. And there was this rainbow across the sky.

And in the Bible, God's, God has the rainbow as his symbol of faithfulness. That he is going to keep his promises. And to me, a weak Kansas girl who couldn't find her purpose unless crying out to God to direct me, to guide me, so dependent on God that even when I was doing what he called me to, I still felt like quitting.

But we serve a God of faithfulness, a God who keeps his promises, a God who says, I will call you, but not only will I call you, but I will provide for you. Even when you're alone. And I felt so alone on Monarch Pass and so defeated on Monarch [00:36:00] Pass, but those words from my little brother, yes you can, reminded me of that faithful promise of God.

And I'll never forget the rainbow of his faithfulness across Monarch Pass as I stood there at the highest point of elevation of my entire journey across America. Yeah, and I think that's such a great, I mean, what a blessing you have God, you're your brother, but most people, Satan attacks them right before the greatness, right before you get to the finish line, right before you get to the, you finish the hardest part, that's when Satan tries to convince us that you need to quit, you can't make it because he's afraid of you, he's afraid of God, and you are on the last switchback, you know it, and Satan was trying to convince you, but thank God he sent your brother.

To give you the kick in the pants you needed, right? Definitely. Yeah. All right. So now you're at the top of the mountain. Where do you go from there, Anna? So that was over halfway across [00:37:00] Colorado at that point. And like I said, it was fall, and fall was slowly flipping into winter. So one of our sponsors sent a whole new pack of, like, I was, we were sponsored by someone who represented Saucony, so we got new Saucony winter clothes, and we were so excited to enter into Utah.

Now, I knew Utah was going to be a part of the journey, but to me, Utah was nothing to be afraid of, because Utah was just this little blip. It's after the Rockies. The Rockies, everybody told me would be the hardest part and everybody joked that it would be all downhill from there, from the Rockies. It's all downhill.

And technically speaking, it is all downhill to the ocean, but they weren't considering the treacherous landscape ahead in Utah. So, we made it to Utah. Winter was the end of November, early December. It's freezing cold. We're not in the northern Salt Lake City part, we are in the southern, cut out canyons, barren, rural, no people part.

So again, we go from this high point of constant speeches and constant encouragement, and yes, believe me, difficulties, high elevations, strenuous [00:38:00] mountain running, that was incredibly hard. But now we're in barren Utah with no people and no hosts and lots of people warning us about all the dangers. So we had an extremely kind pastor at the end of Colorado, Pastor Liming, an incredible man of God.

He prepared us a lot for the wilderness ahead because he spent a lot of time there and got us, you know, multiple five gallon, six, seven gallon water containers. He filled our trunk with firewood gave us a lot of face masks and warm things to keep, to enable us to be able to continue on. But even with all of his preparation and all of his I wouldn't say fear, but his admonishments about what lay ahead we still had no idea what was coming.

So we ended up, like I said, running through Southern Utah and we came to this one spot in particular called the Burr Trail. Now the Burr Trail is on Bureau of Land Management land, which means no one lives there. It's government land that anybody can live on. And during the summer it's pretty busy, but during the winter [00:39:00] they said you could go weeks without seeing a soul on the road.

And it's this 80 plus mile stretch of wilderness land in the winter. And the roads were literally cut out of canyon walls, where sometimes it was up to 14 percent grade, which if you don't know grades, that is extremely steep to be running. And what, as we were driving onto the burr trail, so I'd run and then we would.

So we're driving back to where I needed to be running on the Burr Trail because if I didn't make it clear, I never missed a step. So we would mark off or know exactly, find out the landmark of exactly where I left off. So I would never miss a single step. So my run would be continuous from coast to coast.

So we're heading back to my spot after. Spending the night somewhere, and our van hit a patch of ice on this Berenber trail, and our van spun. It started fishtailing at first, and then spun around several times on this ice patch, and then slammed into a tree, a cedar tree, and it was trapped. It was partway down, so the road was flat, [00:40:00] and then it was almost, it wasn't a ditch, but it was a very steep hill down into the cedar tree, and our van was smashed sideways against the cedar tree facing the wrong way.

And we had been through a lot at this point of living in our van and living in extremely close quarters with each other and just the spiritual warfare that's extremely difficult to endure. And how long time wise, what was the timeline? Like how many weeks was it at this point? Roughly it was months.

This was months at this point. So, This is about five months into the journey at this point. So July to about December at this point. So five months of living with the same people in a van. We actually sent our dog home a couple months earlier because it was just too much to have him in our van with us.

We'd brought him along initially for protection, but it was just too tight of quarters. So like we're cooking over on open. Over a Coleman cook stove, or if we're camping, we're cooking over an open fire. We are roughing it at this point. No showers, nothing. Just anywhere we could find under any open tree, we would set up a tent or we would sleep in our van.

So it's been a lot at this point. [00:41:00] So we get our van smashed into this tree, and the My, my brother and I get out to assess and we realized like, we're going to die. Like, we're going to die here. There's no one coming. We are stuck here for who knows how long. They warned us that this road was somewhere we didn't want to get in an accident because no one comes on this road during winter.

It could be weeks until we're found. And we don't know that we have anywhere near the food supply to support our team for weeks. Plus our van is sideways, lodged into a tree. So we can't even sleep in our van to fight off the freezing cold temperatures, well below freezing in Southern Utah at this point.

In December, so my brother and I start arguing and I was like, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm not, I'm not upset. I don't know what to do. And so we start, we start bickering and frustration and mostly fear driven that we are about to die on this trail. And we have no idea how to get our van out. So I start taking as much gravel as I can from the sides of the road, because the road was paid, but the sides had gravel and I was taking gravel, any rocks I could find to try and stick it under the tires to get it out.

But there was this mix of [00:42:00] Mud and slush under the tires. And every time my brother tried to pull forward or reverse away from the tree it would just shoot rocks everywhere and shoot mud and ice everywhere. So eventually he gets out and he takes our saw that we use for our fires getting wood for our fires and he starts cutting down part of the tree, trying to dislodge our van.

So he cuts as many branches to, to get, to get for our van to be able to get out. And tries again and again and again and again, and we cannot, cannot get our van out. Multiple attempts later, we decide, you know, let's just try to stick our tire chains underneath and see if they'll get traction. And even if it shoots our tire chains out, because we didn't have them on at this point, because we didn't know how icy it was.

So we stuck our tire chains on and it tries again and again and again. And no matter what our team does, we cannot get our van out until finally we're like, let's try one more time. We stick the tire chains under and somehow by the grace of God, our van got enough traction and it shot out of that. Out of that hill and back onto the road.

And then of course. We put our chains on right then and there, knew we were never gonna mess with icy Utah roads without our [00:43:00] chains on again, and proceeded. But our tire chains kept slapping the inside of our van because none of us lived in a place where you need a tire chain, so we really didn't know how to put them on.

So we keep getting out of the van and having to re zip tie part of the tire chain down, trying to keep it in place. And during one of these times, I get back in the van, and we're all If you can understand living with the same people for a lot of time, we loved each other, but this is a tense moment. Like, we all just thought we were about to die and now we're finally back on the road.

So we're all very heated and silent, just perfectly silent with fear and just the stress of what we just went through. And then I feel in my pockets and I realize my phone is gone. And I was like, Oh, shoot, what happened? And so we circled back around and I'm like, I must've dropped it when I got out. And it turns out we had run over my phone with the tire chains and completely smashed it to smithereens.

So just like a super, incredibly frustrating, pick up the broken pieces and just like throw it in the van and we keep going. We're like, let's just keep going. It doesn't matter. You know, if I don't have a tracker for my running, it's okay. Let's just keep going and get out of this wilderness as fast as we [00:44:00] can.

This 80 mile stretch. So we get up further ahead and my little brother's knee injury was so inflamed at this point, he could not run and he had a, he had a cycle for a lot, a lot of this journey, a lot of this from this point on. So we're trying to pump up the bike tire and we go through seven inner tubes, seven, which is a lot to pump up and install into a bike over and over and over again.

And it gets to the point where I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to go running. And when the bike is pumped up, you catch up with me. So I go running, I make it about three miles. It's still no sign of my little brother. He hasn't come, he hasn't joined me, he's on the bike. I'm like, what happened now?

So I start getting really fearful that something else went wrong. And I go back and they have gone through every spare tube that we have. And somehow by somehow, creating some, some, whenever the tires were created, a manufacturing error all of the tires were broken, but none of them would inflate.

And so Nick has no bike. My phone is trashed. We all, we smashed part of our van and like it's, it wasn't terrible, but it was like smashed in and the logo came off and just all these things going wrong. And we're just trying to make it [00:45:00] through, through this desert point. And it was another time of just realizing that like God calls us to things that are going to be hard.

And to be honest, to this day, I don't know. What, what the reasoning was. There are so many times where I know that there was fruit from the suffering we went through, but in this, in this instance, I just knew the only thing that I could think of that was good was God strengthening our faith. God saying, what I call you to, even if you don't see the fruit in Utah or the prayer that was put over Utah, as you ran through there and there were no speaking engagements in Utah till the very end, I was with you.

I was with you. I was your protection so that you could get out of the car wreck. I was your protection so that you could continue on. So we ended up finishing the state of Utah not even 200 miles long, if I remember correctly. Maybe it was right at 200 miles. But very, very difficult. The hardest portion of my entire journey.

I thought it was going to be Colorado, but Utah took the cake and it was the hardest, hardest season of suffering and difficulty. And. Literally just living in a [00:46:00] tent while it snowed all around us over and over and over again. It was an incredible state and God did work many miracles, but it was definitely one of the hardest seasons I've ever been through.

But knowing that God had called me to this run was what gave us the fuel to carry on. Nice. And then where does your journey go from there? So after Utah, Nevada and Arizona passed pretty quickly. We moved slowly into spring, which came quickly cause we were running so far south. So it got warm really quickly, which was honestly a pretty good shock to our bodies from being in the winter.

And we made it to California. Now, California was the last state. It was about 200 miles across. And it was very very spiritually difficult. They were, even though we had tons of friends in Southern California we had no hosts and we had no speaking engagements. Throughout that state. So we had gone in Utah, Nevada, and Arizona and had some speaking engagements and had kind of gone back up to having a lot of people.

But California was very quiet, a very quiet 200 miles of, you know, 95 [00:47:00] plus degree heat days, sweating so hard that salt crystals were constantly forming on my face. I was passing out, throwing up all the time from overheating drinking two liters of water every single run and still not, not feeling satisfied.

And we get to this point where normally I would just run on the side of the road, but California denied us access to run on the interstate. So I actually was running on these hills. So they actually use dynamite to blow out the road, but I had to run on the hills beside it from what was left over from the dynamite.

And these hills are covered in sand and cactus. At this point, my brother is riding on the interstate way ahead of me because he's on a bike, but I couldn't, couldn't because I was running. So I'm running on these giant hills. And as I went up the hills, they were so steep that I constantly wondered if I could, if I could keep running.

Like, does this even count as running that's so steep? And then on my way back down, they were so steep in the opposite way that I constantly felt that I would fall on my face. And then I did. I fell down and I tumbled through cactus and thorns and rocks all the way down this giant hill. And I ended up in a ditch, a [00:48:00] dried out, cracked ditch at the bottom of this, this sand hill.

And I looked down and I was completely covered in dirt. I hadn't showered in who knows how long. Salt formed all over. So thirsty, so dehydrated, so overheated. Blood was seeping out of my cuts all over my body. And again, I had that question for God. Is this what you called me to? Is this what you called me to when you asked me to run across America?

To be alone in a ditch, completely covered in dirt and alone. And then in that moment, I felt God lay it on my heart that this is going to be the battle for abortion. That there are going to be great moments where you summit Montauk Pass and there are going to be hard points where you're making it through the desert of Utah.

There are going to be moments of victory. There are going to be moments of hardship. And then there are going to be moments where you feel completely alone as you defend pre born children. But! If, if and only if, you are willing to rise again, are you willing to rise again one more time for the pre born?

Are you willing to rise again one more time for the most vulnerable? And if you're willing [00:49:00] to rise again for them, that's how abortion will be defeated in America. And that's honestly, Why that title One Mile More stuck out so much to me is because every single time I felt defeated, every time I felt like I could continue on, God just, God reminded me one mile more.

And covered in blood and dirt and sweat, I rose again from that ditch and I ran again. And what was amazing is when I thought I couldn't run one more mile, God that day enabled me to run 10 more miles. The 10 I had already run hitting 20 miles in the barren deserts of California. And it was just this confirmation and testament of God's faithfulness and God's goodness, even in the hardship, if we're willing to persevere and pursue what he has for us.

So California ended by me jumping in the ocean. I'm right north of the Santa Monica Pier outside of Los Angeles. I jumped in, felt the ocean. It was one of the most amazing moments of my entire life. Finishing 1, 700 miles running across America without missing a single step. And that was [00:50:00] 10 months of my life running those 1, 700 miles.

Wow, 10 months and 1700 plus miles, man. And you said Saucony sponsored you? So not the official company, but a rep of Saucony would just send us clothes as we needed them. Wow. That's awesome. Cause I was going to say for a company to not be woke these days, there's a lot out there, but most of them are cowards and they don't want to actually take stances.

And I was like actually going to be really impressed if they did, but I don't know much about Saucony itself, but the one, the lady who worked for them was a rep, so I would say she was probably, I would think it was her. I actually don't know Saucony's stance. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I mean, that's, that's what I'm saying.

Okay, cool. I mean, I'd love to think Saucony would get behind it, but. At the same time, who knows what their stance is, but thank God for that rep that provided you with that equipment. So, all right, so now you've finished a 1700 mile [00:51:00] journey. You and your brother and sisters are like, I'm sure like relieved, but now what's the next step?

What happens next in your life, Anna? So we hopped back in the van and we drove the 1, 700 miles back to Kansas. We did not run. I did not run back. A lot of people ask that question. Drove back because I'd already covered all that, and began running east. So it, that was a difficult, that was a difficult time because my knees started to, started to hurt when I got back to Kansas, but I was like, you know, whatever, like, I've been through some of the hardest things I could have ever imagined, so I can do this.

And so I started running, but I would hit 5 10 miles, which sounds like a lot, but when you're trying to cover the last 1, it was going to be 2, 900 miles total, that is very little, and it would have taken me so long to run the last 1, 200 with only 5 10 miles a day. So I kept trying to run, kept trying to push myself and eventually my boyfriend, but now husband, encouraged me to go see a doctor.

And I told him, I was like, I don't want to go see a doctor. Cause I feel like it means I'm admitting I'm weak. I feel like [00:52:00] it's means I'm admitting that I have injuries and I don't want them to tell me that I have injuries and I'm just going to keep going. And after he and my board and my dad and mom also encouraged me to go to a doctor.

So eventually I caved and I went to a doctor and the doctor Said that, I don't really remember what was, what specifically was wrong, but she, she was saying that like, if you don't stop running, you will never run again. Like you need to give your knees a break. Like if you want to be a runner in your old age, don't keep pushing them today.

And through the advice of my now husband, my parents and my board and my team I decided to switch to cycling and try to run when I could. What I didn't realize at the time was it would actually be a complete switch to cycling because my knees did not recover. They actually just in the past couple of years have actually fully recovered, but they, after those 1700 miles, they were not capable of running anymore.

So, very teary eyed, I hopped on a bike for the very first time to try to finish the eastern half the last 1, 200 miles. Now, what's really [00:53:00] neat is that God, like we talked about in the beginning, God does work all things for our good. And what I saw as a weakness, what I saw as a failure, what I saw as not keeping my word about running across America, all these things that I felt like I was not doing what God had called me to do, even though I physically couldn't carry on and then just keep that voice in my head that kept telling me that I was a failure for cycling the last 1, 200 All fell away when I realized that God was working good.

Because I was on a bike, I was significantly less exhausted all the time. When I was running, speeches worked and I did my best, but I didn't give very many because I was so tired all the time from running. But when I was on a bike, I can bike, you know, 30 to 70 miles every single day. And feel tons and tons of energy comparatively to running 10 to 20 miles.

It was just so much easier to cycle. Also the Eastern Pat, Pat portion is so much flatter and it has such a high population that we ended up not living in our van. We stayed with hosts all across the country. I covered miles so quickly that states felt like a, like a [00:54:00] flash because I was cycling so fast and so far.

And then speaking engagements started to open up like never before because the east coast is so, the eastern portion is so populated. And so what I thought was a failure and a weakness, God could still use. And God enabled me to speak all across the country. People started flying me to different events and opening doors.

And God was building me a platform to be able to educate across the entire nation about the pro life movement in a way I never would have imagined and never would have accepted a knee injury otherwise, but God knew better. And so I ended up being able to speak. So much during that portion and just really reach out to people across the eastern portion.

So I cycled at, I started out on a garage sale bicycle that my mom had in her garage that she got for like 30 bucks from somebody. And people made fun of me in the cycling community because to be honest, no hate on the cycling community, but they weren't super welcoming. But then as I went, Someone donated for, for me to borrow a 2, 000 Cannondale and man, that puppy could fly.

I could [00:55:00] cycle so fast. It was such a nice bike. One of my favorite and last stories was I was actually in the Appalachian mountains, very close to finishing. And I was getting to the point, you know, I could have a helmet on, but I was getting to the point where I was pretty confident on a bike after, you know, about a thousand miles on a bike.

And so I was going down these Appalachian mountains and, you know, they whined. I don't know if you've ever been in the Appalachians, but they, they're like a snake. And. So I'm winding through these mountains and I start getting down. I'm hitting like 40, 40 plus miles an hour which is pretty fast for a new cyclist.

And I'm, you know, getting as low as I can to pick up more speed. And I was just feeling that wind and like, God, this is incredible. Like just thanking him for how amazing it is. And then all of a sudden this motorcycle I don't know if you want to call them a gang, but like this group of motorcyclists come up behind me, and one of them passes me very carefully because it's so windy and I'm going 40, you know, on these windy hills, and another one passes me, and another one passes me, so I have three ahead of me, and one behind me, and, but I was going so fast, and the roads were so windy, that That [00:56:00] was actually keeping up with the three motorcyclists and the fourth one actually never passed me because I was going so fast.

So just for a little blip of a few minutes, I always joke that I was part of a motorcycle gang as I went down these mountains in the Appalachians. And I love sharing that story because there were a lot of hard parts of the journey, but there were also a whole lot of beautiful parts and a lot of parts that I got to see the U.

S. Firsthand, I got to do cycling, which is a sport I probably would have never picked up had I not had this injury. And just so many wonderful things and the fruit of, of God enabling me to spread the pro life message. Me, who I told God that I was weak and told God that I was not a public speaker and told God that I didn't know what I could do.

And I had no idea that God could use someone like me. Without talent and without strengths, but he could give me strengths and he could give me ability. So I finished that eastern portion, the eastern 1, 200 miles on a bike and ended up at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. So I jumped in the ocean and then gave my steps, or my speech, on the steps of Lincoln Memorial.[00:57:00] 

With about a hundred supporters who had supported me across the entire country. And I gave a speech where Martin Luther King Jr. once proclaimed civil rights, for African Americans. I was able to ask for rights for our preborn brothers and sisters. I was able to stand there and proclaim God's love for them and thank God for his faithfulness throughout our journey.

And it was one of the most surreal moments of my life, having completed the 2, 900 mile journey. And then to be able to proclaim God's goodness and God's faithfulness and that Reassurance in me, like I said in the beginning, that when God calls you to a purpose, He will provide. And God provided in a million more ways than I could ever share in a short podcast.

But God provides. God meets our needs. God enables us to continue on when we are weak. And that's the only reason that I became a USA Crosser was because of God's strength. Amen. And for the men and women across the country listening, You know, some of you are like, well, I didn't grow up in a Christian home or I had a horrible upbringing or, you know, I got this, I can't run.

I got one [00:58:00] leg, you know, who knows what it is. The message in Anna's story is God's always good. He's always there. He loves you and you can have your time. Anna's journey started with her spending time with God. That's it. She's praying, talking to him. She's reading her Bible. He's talking to her. And then she found her calling.

You can do the same thing in your life. Spend time with God, be moving forward, and ask him to redirect you if it's not the right direction or right goal. But at the end of the day, you can hear that Anna's journey was not easy. It was painful, right? I mean, there were times when it was just flat out painful.

Yes. Yeah, but she kept moving forward. She kept moving forward with Christ and depending on Him. And God put people, places, and things in her life to help her get through it. And he'll do that for you too. And that's not pie in the sky prosperity doctrine. That's [00:59:00] real fact. You know, we don't know what the journey is going to look like, but God promises we're always going to get to the destination.

And even on this earth, you know, average life, 75 years, what are we going to do with that 75 years to invest in the rest of eternity? So thank you, Anna. So now you, you, we can't finish the story there. Once you give the speech. And your journey ends for the race, so to speak. Where does your life go from there?

Bring us through to today. Okay. So just very sweet. So at the end of my journey my boyfriend then who just, I didn't talk much about it, but wrote me love letters across the entire country supported me when everything was wrong, when everything was worn, when I felt very alone, he supported me and loved me and encouraged me in God throughout the whole journey.

And the very end, he actually proposed to me at the National Cathedral in Washington, D. C., in a rose garden, and it was very beautiful and very wonderful. And after I finished the run, I went home and he [01:00:00] was still in grad school. So we, between, Years of his grad, of his two year degree. We got married we ended up having a baby right away, which I was thrilled about.

I just really love children. That's why I'm pro life. I want to protect children. So we had our a little girl right away. And then 13 months later, we were blessed with twin boys. So we had three and we weren't even three kids and we weren't even married two years yet. And then just 18 months later, we had our fourth.

So in two and a half years, we had four kids. So we had four before our third anniversary, and we loved it. All this whole time God had given me this platform for my run. So I ended up getting to a lot of public speaking. I still do. I ended up getting to travel. Across the country, as much as I can with being a mom, I really prefer to nurture.

I'm a stay at home mom right now, and I do public speaking when I feel okay leaving my kids for like a weekend, as quick as I can. I try to make them quick in and outs, and I try to [01:01:00] only do them once a month just to be with my kids, but I still have a platform that I get to use, and I love, love getting to speak on the pro life message and getting to spread Not only the pro life message, but ultimately the gospel that is our true hope.

And then, but after my fourth, I actually had a, a very severe hemorrhage and couldn't have any more kids, which for someone who loves kids as much as I do, it's very devastating, very, very difficult without going into detail. It was very, very difficult season after that. Finding out we couldn't have more kids, recovering from something so hard.

And that's when God, I felt like God called us to start fostering. So with four kids, you know, our oldest, when our, when our fourth was born, our oldest was two and a half. So God calling us to foster was a pretty intense call for us, to be honest. But now our, our, when our fourth, or sorry, when our first had turned four, so we had a four year old, two three year olds, and a two year old, we really felt convicted to foster.

So we actually have our first foster daughter with us. We've had her for, Almost three [01:02:00] months now, and we are so grateful. And it's just feels like, again, even in my weakness, even in my inability to have more children God has still enabled me to have a heart to love other children for as long as God lets us have them.

You know, whether a few months or years, whatever God has for us, that we get to love more. So right now that's, that's pretty much my life is loving on five little kids, five and under being a mom. And then, you know, I just get to travel and, Share the pro life message. My husband's a music teacher, so we just live a very happy, I would say mostly very quiet, except for the few speeches I do here and there between mothering.

Very wonderful life. So we're very, very grateful for what God has given us. And where are you headed next, Anna? And how can our, so basically, where are you headed next? How can our community reach you? And how can we help you? So I just do speeches as I get booked. So I, I just was in Utah at Weber State giving a speech at Weber University.[01:03:00] 

So I just kind of do speeches as I can with my littles. And I just, I love getting to share the Pro Life message. You can reach me at my website, which is if life. org. I also have a book called One Mile More. out that shares in a lot more detail kind of what we talked about today, but a lot more of the joys and the, and the struggles.

And then I'm also on social media under Anna Strasberg different handles of that, but different social media platforms sharing different clips about fetal development, different clips about life, motherhood and then God, how God has called us to protect the weak. Excellent. And we'll put links as always in the show notes, ladies and gentlemen.

So you can check that out and click right through. But, and it's been great having you today and hearing your story and thank you for just continuing to move forward. I mean, you're young, you got years ahead of you statistically. We don't know what's going to happen today, but statistically you got years ahead of you.

And ladies and gentlemen, we all have 24 hours in the day and you, [01:04:00] it doesn't matter who it is, you're Good, bad or ugly, that everybody gets 24 hours. So what are we going to do with it? Are we going to sit down and watch TV or are we going to go out and do something with the life God gave us? So that's up to you, but nobody has become great or done anything significant in life existing, just sitting there, right?

So Anna, thank you so much. And then before we go, any other final thoughts or words of encouragement or just something you've learned, a life lesson you'd like to leave with our audience? Just kind of again, what I said in the beginning is that God created each of us for a specific purpose and kind of what you're saying, don't, don't use it on things that are unfulfilling.

Just take the time to genuinely seek God and you would be amazed. People are like, oh, you public speak and you do this, but in my prayers before I did anything, I told God, like, I'm not a public speaker. I'm not even a good runner. Like, I'm not a top runner. Like, I'm, I could run far, but I'm not even an amazing runner.

Like, but if you can use me, use me. And then somehow God took these people. [01:05:00] Puzzle pieces that didn't make any sense to me. And he gave me the ability to use my running to support pro-life, which to me, never would've been able, you know, never would've made sense together. So God can take the puzzle pieces of your life, the things that don't make sense, your passions, your loves.

God gives you those desires on purpose, and he can use those things to work for his plan. He can use your gifts even if they seem simple and silly to glorify himself. Amen. And there's loving families all over the world that want. Children that can't have them and the lies that we've been programmed to believe that, you know, kill him because we have to, or nobody wants him, or, oh, you know, I have, I think I have two personal friends and you hear Tim Tebow's story.

The doctor's like, abort the baby. He's going to be handicapped. It's going to be a burden your whole life. And, you know, they're perfectly fine. You know, doctors aren't God. And while they have their, their lane, so to speak, a lot of them are, you know, look at this. The last five years of medicine, [01:06:00] common sense has clearly pointed to certain things and the government and medical profession has made advice contrary to common sense and real science, yet the mass has followed them.

So don't follow anybody but God, ladies and gentlemen, and Anna, I thank you for being here today and for following God, being Christlike. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on, David. I really appreciate it. Yes, yes. And ladies and gentlemen, share this episode with those you love. Reach out to Anna, check out her book.

And Anna, where's the best place to get the book? Amazon, your website, Barnes and Noble? Yeah, it's on both Amazon and it's on my website, if life. org. So whichever is more convenient for you guys. But yeah, you can, you can get an order right away. Awesome. So get that book, support Anna and her cause and the family, and hopefully you support pro life and like God says, be fruitful and multiply once you get the right spouse.

So that's it. I'm David Pasqualone. This is our remarkable friend, Anna. [01:07:00] If you need anything, reach out to Anna or myself through the website, through those show notes in your podcast player. We love you. Have a great day and we'll see you in the next episode.