#4 The Balm of Gilead

Michael Crawford here, State Director of Missions for the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware. We’re at the annual meeting November 2019 and I am with a very distinguished guest. Dr. Bergina, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you do, your full name, and we’re going to get into some good stuff today.

Dr. Isbell:

I am Doctor Bergina Isbell and by training I am a board certified psychiatrist. I’m also a speaker and an author and a new hat that I’ve worn probably for the past three years is a mental health coach.

Michael:

Very cool. Now we had the privilege earlier this morning at the annual meeting to do two breakouts on raising kids in the midst of Christian ministry. And it was a lot of fun and I think was really helpful. I got a lot of good feedback about that.

Dr. Isbell:

I’m so glad.

Michael:

And one of the things you said in there that really stood out to me was in regards to I was addressing when parents should pursue professional help or when they should get it for their children. And you kind of brought out this really, I think, insightful nuance about sometimes there’s a stigma amongst us as Christians about mental health, seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist, and you brought out a perspective of kind of mental health coaching and how that has maybe made people more open. Would you talk a little bit about that?

Dr. Isbell:

Absolutely. It actually came from an encounter that I had with a patient about five years ago who happened to be an older African American male, and I said that on purpose because in the African American community, there’s definitely a fear, especially among the older population, as it relates to healthcare in general. You think about Tuskegee experiments and things like that, those are very real for folks. And also there was an air of institutionalization for almost any reason. I’ve looked at some books from state hospitals and they have hysteria as a reason for institutionalizing a person. So when you think about that, that would explain why some people, again, of certain cultural backgrounds want nothing to do with the medical institution in general, but very specifically, they steer very clear of psychiatrists.

Dr. Isbell:

And then you add to that the church, and there’s been, and unfortunately this has been propagated for some hundreds of years, the idea that if you have certain illnesses, it’s of the devil, it’s satanic, it’s because of something that you’ve done, it’s your cause, it’s a weakness or a moral ineptitude. So again, you have some people, particularly of the faith who think, “Well, I can just pray my way out of this or fast my way out of this or it’s demonic and I just need to cast it out. And it’s okay.” And I’m not saying that … The Bible speaks very really of these things. Obviously Jesus cast out demons. Obviously there were instances, where he did tell the disciples some things come not but by a fasting and prayer, but not all things. And there were definitely instances in the Bible where he did use medicine.

Dr. Isbell:

So just in talking about medications in general, one of my first areas that I love to go to is John 9:6 where Jesus healed a blind man. And I think there are at least three instances in the Bible that I know of Jesus healing blind people. And it’s interesting that in one area, he just spoke and the man was healed. In another, he spoke and he touched the man and he was healed. But in John 9:6, he does three things. He speaks and he touches and then he spit on the ground and he made a balm and put on the man eyes. And so in my mind, that’s the equivalent of a medicine. And so Jesus, if he could use a medicine, I mean, and he is the balm of Gilead after all, I’m completely content as a physician being able to use medicines. But not everybody sees it that way, especially when it comes to psychiatry.

Dr. Isbell:

So to speed the story up a little bit, I saw this gentleman and he basically said, “I don’t really think I need to see you. Yeah, my diabetes is out of control. Yeah, my doctor doesn’t really know what else to do with me so he sent me to you, but I don’t need to see a shrink. I don’t need to see a quack, no offense.” And I said, “None taken. I’ve been called worse, so I’m okay with that.” But I said to him, I said, “Well, you don’t want to see me as a psychiatrist.” I said, “That’s okay.” I said, “How about if you see me as your life coach?” And he said, “That I’ll do.” He’s like, “I’m totally fine with coming to see you as a life coach.” A little light bulb went off on the top of my head and I thought, “You know what? This is probably a way to reach people who, for whatever reason, don’t feel comfortable coming to see a psychiatrist. And maybe they really don’t need to see a psychiatrist, but they need some additional assistance. They need some help.”

Dr. Isbell:

This particular gentleman, he didn’t actually have a psychiatric disorder, it’s just that his diabetes was out of control and he did literally need somebody to coach him along. And so that’s what I did for about six or eight weeks and he got better. So I thought after that, this is something that would likely be able to benefit lots of people who have chronic illnesses or chronic medical needs, particularly as they relate and kind of cross over into psychiatry.

Michael:

So let’s suppose there’s a pastor or a woman who’s in ministry or just someone’s happened to listen to this podcast and they said, “You know what? That resonates with me and I would be interested in that kind of mental health coaching. I’m a Christian and I don’t know if I can just go to any therapist or psychologist or psychiatrist and trust them.” And they say, “You know what? Man, I’d like to learn more about that.” How would someone do that with you? You have a website or something like that?

Dr. Isbell:

I do. The easiest one is actually my name. It’s www.drbergina.com and it has two separate sections underneath that. Once you go on the website, you can certainly reach out to me in terms of coaching, but I know that some people will hear the broadcast or live streams that I do, teachings that I do on Periscope or YouTube or Facebook and they’ll say, “You know what? I’m not quite sure what I need. I don’t know if I need coaching. I don’t know if I need psychiatric care.” There’s a link there that actually takes them to the psychiatric site. And I would definitely want people to have a conversation with myself or any other person that they’re thinking about working with for at least 15 to 20 minutes to get an idea of what you need because I’ve spoken to folks and I’ve said to them, “You don’t seem like there’s a psychiatric illness here and coaching definitely seems like the way to go.” But sometimes I’ll talk to a person and there is an active mental health issue or mental illness and we need to address that first.

Dr. Isbell:

So the difference between, in my mind, the difference between psychiatric care and coaching is that psychiatric care, there is a diagnosis. I am saying that you have clinical depression, you have anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder. There’s a diagnosis and we’re going to treat that, not necessarily with a medicine, but we’re going to provide treatment for that. So there’s an illness and we’re making it better. We’re getting you back to a place of health and wellness. For coaching, it’s, “Well, for the most part I’m doing okay. I’m functioning well. There’s not a formal diagnosis of a mental illness, but I feel like there’s more. I’m struggling to kind of keep my head above water. Things are falling through the cracks. I don’t need a medicine. I don’t need therapy. I don’t need to be hospitalized. But I could definitely have someone come alongside me and just kind of make sure things are going well.”

Dr. Isbell:

The one area that I would give an example of that is the autism coaching work that I do. And she is very free with her ability to have me talk about her, but one of the young ladies that I coach in Texas, we get on the phone and she shares some of the things that are going on in her life, some of the struggles that she has. And she tells me what the goal is, where she wants to get to, and then I literally, I’m a coach. I don’t go out and make the plays for her. I don’t run the ball for her, but I give her the strategy and I give her the ideas and then I check in with her and I make sure that she’s accomplishing the goals. And she just blows me out of the water because I’ll give her something, I’ll give her an assignment. Literally two weeks later she’s just like, “Okay, I’ve accomplished that.” And I love that. And that’s exactly what a coach should be doing. They give you the play, you should be able to run the ball, make the touchdown, and you come back and you celebrate together.

Michael:

That’s amazing. I think what an amazing resource. I’m going to tell you from my perspective as I’m working, still working through some of these issues, and I think you probably agree with what I’m about to say is I think the church has a tendency to be dismissive of physical issues and exaggerate spiritual issues. So as you said before, we’re going to pray through everything, which we should pray through everything. But sometimes if you go without water for six, seven, eight days, you can keep praying, but you’re going to die. You got to drink some water. You know what I mean? It’s just not that … It’s pretty simple.

Dr. Isbell:

Exactly.

Michael:

And so I think what’s exciting about that though is that there is a sense of whole-ism. It’s not either or, right? When we taught church planters, we told them that soul care is holistically addressing every part of you so that you can love God and love people. Because anything that gets in the way of doing that, we want to try to deal with whether that’s a mental issue, a spiritual issue, it could be emotional, it could be physical, it could be if your knee is at a level 10, it can kind of get in the way of you loving God and loving people. You know what I mean? And what I love hearing when you’re talking is you’re talking from a holistic point of view. In other words, sometimes people listening to this podcast, they have their guards up for the script. As you said before, “Hey, I don’t want to be checked into … I don’t want you to get the police and get me wrapped up and thrown in a place because I’m struggling with anxiety.”

Michael:

If you’re a pastor, you don’t want to come forward because, well, you don’t want to be disqualified. Oh, you’re dealing with anxiety? Well, you’re not fit. So I really like that your approach is more, I think, biblical. It’s more holistic. Hey, let’s get in there and assess what you really need. Now if you really need something, you really need something. But if you don’t really need that, you don’t really need that. And I love the emphasis that you’re placing and I want you to talk a little bit more about this, because I’ve heard you say this a number of time. I’ve heard you speak probably three or four times now, not including the online stuff when I’m trolling you online and getting some gems from you. But you’ve referred time and time again, the usefulness and the blessings and how helpful community is. Having people, not necessarily professionals, but just people you can talk to. Could you talk a little bit about that too?

Dr. Isbell:

Absolutely. So we’re created for community, right? God said it’s not good for man to be alone and gave Adam Eve. And when you look through the Bible, there’s always a time where God will speak to a person and ask them to do something. But usually it’s in the context of community. Let’s look at Moses. I’m studying Moses and Zipporah right now and their relationship. You look at Moses, he said, “I want you to go back to my people and I want you to tell Pharaoh to let my people go.” Okay, not just let this one person or let this one tribe, everybody all within community. I want you to go and I want you to tell them. So he’s all about community and all about relationship. My husband and I, we talk a lot about our peccadilloes and things. And when we’ll talk at different times, I’ll say to him, “I thank God that he put me in your life and that you’re put in my life so that we can grow each other and reveal character within each other in the context of community.”

Dr. Isbell:

If you are completely isolated, you probably aren’t growing. And I know there was a time where we had priests and monks who were just kind of going out to hermitages. And that’s a nice thing to have some quiet time with the Lord. I definitely think we need that. Absolutely. We need those moments in the garden. But again, even looking at the hymn In The Garden, I come to the garden alone. And then he says, “I spend time with the Lord.” But then by the end of the hymn, it’s like the Lord is sending you back. It’s he’s sending you back out to be in community with other people. I can only think of one instance in the Bible, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but one instance in the Bible where there was one person and he was without community, and that was John the Revelator. That’s a very unique instance. Other than that, we are meant to be in community.

Michael:

Yeah, it’s powerful. I like to tell people about the preeminence of the relational paradigm, which simply means that everything’s relational and everything that matters’ relational, God’s relational, the church is relational, salvation is relational. If you extract relationship out of the universe, the whole universe falls apart because even inanimate objects are related to one another via gravity, speed, weight, time, all that kind of stuff. It’s just a powerful principle. You’re passionate about a lot of things, high capacity, but you’re also really passionate and you talk about people with different abilities. Not necessarily disabilities, people with different abilities. And there’s something, well there’s two things I want you to talk about. One is just that, your passion for people with different abilities. But the other thing I want you to talk about is you talked about how we typically view depression and despair and anxiety as negative. And I’ve heard you a few times say, “Actually, there’s some positive aspects about that.” Can you speak to those two things?

Dr. Isbell:

Yes. So I have two children who are on the autism spectrum and I went through a period of time of just intense regret and mommy guilt about things that I wish I had done better or sooner. My daughter wasn’t diagnosed until she was 13 after her brother was diagnosed. My son was in a hospital. He spent 30 days in the hospital when he was four months old and then went on to have about four brain surgeries. So we’ve had some aspect of different ability in our home for at least the last 10 years. And initially, I remember feeling like I was completely overwhelmed and just drowning. And I remember sitting back and after allowing the Lord to just kind of do some heart work and just go to him as a loving father, literally just crawl up in his lap and just weep and allow myself to be held. After I did that, I remember him just basically saying to me, “You’re a psychiatrist. You’re educated, you’re trained, and if you feel this way and you felt this way, can you imagine what a person who doesn’t have your training, doesn’t have your educational level, doesn’t have your understanding, doesn’t have the family that you have or the support that you have. Can you imagine what they’re going through?”

Dr. Isbell:

And so I started doing small things, just reaching out to other families, support systems, any patient that I had, and it just kind of grew from there. So the majority of the work that I see in my psychiatric practice is PTSD and trauma. I’ve done that for years. But when I get word of mouth cases, it’s almost always disability work because they know I’m a parent of a child with a disability or a different ability and they also know that I have a heart to see them reach their full potential. Okay? I don’t think institutionalization has to happen. I really don’t. And if it does, I think it needs to be the right type of institutionalization with the right type of staff who really have a heart for ministry.

Dr. Isbell:

In terms of the depression, I remind people that depression itself is an emotion like sadness, happiness, joy, love, they’re all emotions and God has gifted us with emotions. If we were emotionless, if we could not feel, that could be very dangerous. There are some medical conditions where people, they don’t have the nerve endings like the rest of us, even kids with autism, their pain tolerances can be incredibly high, very sensory overload in some cases, deficient in other cases. So can you imagine if you could not feel? If you couldn’t feel, you’d burn yourself. There are people, again, with forms of leprosy where their fingers fall off because they hit them or they damage them and you don’t even realize that they’re damaged. So you actually want to feel sadness or grief. You want what breaks God’s heart to break your heart. You want to be sad and about these things. Look at the prophet Jeremiah. Look at Isaiah. They were sad and had states of feeling depressed in terms of the mood.

Dr. Isbell:

That’s very different from clinical depression. Clinical depression is a diagnostic categorical illness, problems with sleep, appetite, energy, concentration, and it’s a constellation of symptoms. It’s not just one star, it’s an entire galaxy that put together, okay, this is what depression is. Same thing with anxiety. We can feel anxious or nervous, but to live in a constant state where you’re afraid to get out of the bed and your heart’s pounding and your vision is blurry, that’s a different state and God doesn’t want that. He does not want that.

Michael:

Yeah. That’s so well said. I’m just sitting here thinking about, one, all the years I was without that knowledge. And then two, what a blessing that type of thinking has been in my own life. And then just trying to get that stuff out to other people. Sometimes I think that we really have this thing where sadness is bad and we’re just so anxious and so in a hurry to get rid of it at all costs. And as you refer to Jeremiah, Isaiah, how about the book of Lamentations? Ecclesiastes, there is a time to weep. Jesus wept. Sadness is part of this life. And I feel that sometimes God wants us to sit in that and learn from it and kind of, yeah, be shaped by it, be transformed by it.

Dr. Isbell:

I agree. And I learned that from a 14 year old, a 14 year old patient that I was seeing. I remember him telling me that he was sad and he did have a diagnosis of depression. And I said, “Well, what can we do to make you feel better? What could we do to make the sadness go away? If you could do something to get rid of the sadness and the depression, would you? And what would you do?” And he said, “You know what? Right now I wouldn’t do anything different.” He said, “Because right now, there are some really bad things going on in my life and there are some difficulties that my family is having.” And he said, “And I think it’s okay for me to just acknowledge that this is how I’m feeling and just sit with it for a little while and then make a decision about what I want to do.” And I thought, “Oh my Lord, out of the mouths of babes.” 14 year old. 14 year old patient. And that stuck with me. That stuck with me, that that’s exactly right. Again, God wouldn’t have blessed us with this variety of emotions if he didn’t want us periodically to experience the full range of all of them.

Michael:

What do Christians need to know about medicine and mental health?

Dr. Isbell:

Glad you asked that. So the national council on complementary alternative medicine is where I went to to look up medicine. First, I always go to the word first if I can. And when I looked up what a balm was, a balm was basically what we used to call a salve or ointment, lineament. It was basically some type of ointment and it had additional medicine in it so that it could be more easily applied and would stay wherever you put it. And so they’ve been using those things for centuries. Again, Jesus is the balm of Gilead. So I went over to see what our present day medicine has to say about it. So lots of times people think a pill, a tonic, potion is a medicine and that’s it. Well, according to them it is anything that you put in your mouth or on your skin for the purpose of preventing or curing an illness. That is very broad. And guess what? It includes things like foods, nutritionals, vitamins, herbals, supplements. It includes acupuncture. It can include a variety of other neuro-stimulatory things. Anything that the FDA doesn’t clear or approve, it covers all of those things.

Dr. Isbell:

That’s pretty broad. That’s pretty broad. The person that will say to me, “Well, I don’t want your medicine,” but they’re taking over the counter herbs and supplements, guess what? Not really any difference because you’re still ingesting it. And I remind people, and this is just my little spiel, and this was the area that I spent the longest time when I wrote the book Victory Over Depression, I spent the longest time there because I definitely wanted to speak to people who like using natural remedies. Even natural remedies can cause allergies. Even natural remedies can cause side effects. Aspirin, Tylenol, any of those things can cause upset stomach or diarrhea or constipation or lightheadedness or headache or dizziness. I sound like a commercial for a medication, but any of those things can cause that. St John’s Wort, it’s a natural remedy that we can use for depression. It can cause those things. When people are like, “Oh, I really don’t want to use a manmade pharmaceutical.” Well, most of our original manmade pharmaceuticals were herbals that they just packaged and now sell. Aspirin originally was from tree bark. Digitalis, which we use for the heart, comes from the digitalis flower. So again, God created these wonderful things for us to be able to harness and use and we thank him for the wisdom that he’s given us.

Michael:

Yeah, that’s awesome. I was born and raised in California and had the privilege to grow up, for a lot of my adolescent life, near the beach. And we’re in Ocean City at the annual meeting, BCMD, and we’re near the beach. And when you talk about therapy, it’s interesting, I’m preaching through Matthew chapter nine and it says Jesus went about healing every disease and every sickness. And the word healing there is the word where we get therapy from, therapeutic. And I was just thinking about when you’re talking about that for me, when I’m down or anxious, as soon as my feet hit the sand, you might as well have loaded me up on a real good pill or something. And when I hear the ocean, it’s therapy. I’m home.

Dr. Isbell:

I am with you on that one.

Michael:

It’s decades of hearing the ocean, the smell, the way the sun comes off, the atmosphere that’s around the ocean, the birds, the wind, how the wind blows, there’s something about it. And it’s interesting, we’re talking about these types of things. People would think we’re getting a little spooky, but it’s actually biblical. It’s funny because you think about where God showed up and where people went. Mountains, oceans, lakes, water, deserts. Zip codes matter to God. Place matters to God. Someday I want to write a book called Place because it’s interesting because place does matter. Even where God put us on the earth, you know what I mean? How he constructed the earth for us to dwell. There’s something about our environment. The environmentalists are right on some stuff. There is something about our environment that is in and of itself therapeutic.

Dr. Isbell:

It is, absolutely. I tell people to get a daily dose of medicine, D-O-S-E, which stands for dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and either endorphins or epinephrin, whichever the E is that you prefer. And every single one of those you get naturally and almost every single one of those you can get from your environment. Again, the D could be dopamine. It could also be vitamin D, which you get from the sun. Dopamine you also can get from setting a goal or setting a task and then accomplishing it, so going for a hike, going for a walk, going for a swim. All of those things will increase dopamine. And then going back and rehashing it in your mind and thinking about it and resonating even on a past success can increase serotonin.

Dr. Isbell:

Oxytocin is the bonding hormone, so go hug your neighbor anywhere and you can get that or have those bonding experiences. Again, some people will hike for the purpose of getting to the top of a mountain to just see the plateau on the top of the mountain or to see the beautiful fields or the different areas around. All of those things will increase oxytocin. And endorphins, of course we know, go for a good run. Go outside and go for a good run or a good walk or a good hike. There is one that’s, well, it is still in our natural environment because it comes from cacao, but chocolate, dark chocolate will also increase those.

Michael:

That’s why I like Reese’s peanut butter cups so much. I’m just telling you.

Dr. Isbell:

It’s not dark chocolate, though.

Michael:

It’s close enough.

Dr. Isbell:

It’s kind of close.

Michael:

I mean, it is what it is.

Dr. Isbell:

They need to make a dark chocolate version.

Michael:

They have.

Dr. Isbell:

They have?

Michael:

Yeah, but it was discontinued. Yeah. I don’t know.

Dr. Isbell:

Bring it back, Reese’s.

Michael:

Yes. Now, this is so profound. I get in trouble because sometimes I get too transparent with when I’m talking to church planners. I was talking to a group of church planners a year ago and we were talking about this very thing. I was like, “You guys need to get outside. You need a walk. I know some of you guys are introverts now, but you got to get outside.” Spurgeon said the next best thing to grace is fresh air. Lot of pastors who are listening to us right now love Spurgeon, but they don’t like that Spurgeon. He said the next best thing to grace is fresh air. Get outside, smell it, take it in, let your pores … “But I was asked, someone said, “Well, how do you deal with mental health issues?” And I said, “One way is I swim.”

Dr. Isbell:

Absolutely.

Michael:

And then someone said, “Well, what has it done?” I said to them, “I swim to live. And I’m not afraid to say it anymore.”

Dr. Isbell:

I’m glad you said that.

Michael:

I told them, I said, “I swim to live because to me that’s of God.” That’s not a quack psychiatric thing. That’s biblical. God has enabled me … Right now I have the capacity to swim in water from the strokes to the breathing, to the flip turns, to the gliding, to the accomplishments, to the stressors, to all of those types of things. It’s therapy, you know what I mean? I’ll say one more thing. I was riding, I cycle too, I do triathlon. So I’m cycling with this guy and he’s in his late 60s and he’s killing me. And so I said to him, I said, “Man, you’re a pretty avid about this.” He said, “Well, I went to go see my psychiatrist. And at the time, I wasn’t doing any exercise or anything and I was battling depression.” My psychiatrist said, “Why don’t you try exercising? And why don’t you try biking a cycle bike because it’s low impact and it doesn’t kill your joints?” And I was pushing back and the guy said, and he said, “The psychiatrist said to me, ‘Look, I can put you on pills or you can buy a bike. You choose.'” He bought a bike and he went back and he goes, “Man, it’s helping.” And I just was so encouraged by that.

Dr. Isbell:

It’s huge. Yeah, absolutely. Now it doesn’t work for everyone alone. I’ve seen people that have to do a combination of things. They’re exercising and they’re in therapy and they’re doing other things. They’re changing their structure so that it’s not such a depressive structure in their lives. They’re not working 12, 15, 16 hours and then doing something else and something else. So sometimes environmental things have to change and your circumstances have to change in some way. Your mindset is the first part. But I want to go back to what you said about the air. Because when you said that, I initially thought about getting fresh air, but then the very next thing that came to my mind is when you are sick and you have a wound, what’s one of the best things you can do for that wound? Give it air. Give it air. So from that perspective, if you have a hurt, if you have a hangup, if you have something that’s going on, exposing it, and you mentioned transparency, exposing it, not to everybody. Not everybody’s meant to handle what’s going on and not everybody’s meant to help. But find someone who’s a trusted source and expose that hurt, expose that wound to the open air so it can get healed.

Michael:

See, you’ve just proved my point. I’ve been telling everybody in the age to come, we’re going to have California weather. I’m just saying. Because you think about Adam and Eve. All right, this isn’t tangential. Stick with me. So they were in the garden and they were naked. Now you know it wasn’t no Maryland winter cold unless they had some crazy predator skin on, something that went away. I’m just saying I think being outside is something amazing. God created our first parents to be outside and I don’t think there’s a sin for being inside, per se, but I do think there’s something getting that sun and being out. And I think one of the challenges with this age is whether it’s our phones or Netflix or social media or being indoors, is we’re constantly driven indoors, locked up in boxes. Some of them are more elaborate than others. And I think that can, if we’re not careful, that can have a really bad effect with community, with relationship, with aspects of therapy, of just grinding it out in those little things.

Dr. Isbell:

It absolutely can. When you mentioned that, one of the first ones I thought about is how we discovered Seasonal Affective Disorder is first we started noticing it was during the time where it was darker, colder, absolutely. But in northern Minnesota where I did my residency and going up into Canada, you did see people who got severely depressed because they were stuck inside. There was no light, they weren’t able to get out and connect with other people. Cabin fever, it is a real thing. We don’t call it that but it’s a real thing. And I, one of my very first patients reminded me and said, “Hey, that this is a real thing, doc. Up in this area, you’re going to have to watch out for this because it’s cold here. People don’t want to … I mean, literally you’re running out, running from this place of that place. And then once you’re inside, you’re inside, you don’t want to come out.”

Dr. Isbell:

And that is honestly how depression can be as well. It can be so debilitating that you don’t want to do anything or let anybody in to your world. But you’re absolutely right. I think that being able to get out and invite other people in, in terms of community, and just one thing, one person, I’m not saying you tell your story to everybody. You don’t have to live stream it and broadcast it to everyone, but there has to be at least one person in your life that you can go and you can text or call or visit them or have them come and visit you and reach out for help and then take it from there. Just make that one first initial step.

Michael:

We could go forever, but we don’t have forever. It’s always a pleasure and a joy to talk with you.

Dr. Isbell:

Absolutely. I appreciate the offer and the invitation. Thank you.