Podcasts about our pain

This week I speak with Sherrie Pilkington who enters into various aspects of life as a daughter of the One True God.  She dearly loves her 2 grown sons and 2 daughters-in-love but it's her 6 grandchildren that keep her young at heart and the sound of joy in her laugh. Known for pondering the hard things in life through the lens of God's heart, she shares her revelations through her podcast, Finding God in Our Pain. Sherrie and her guests do not shy away from the hard questions about the reality of pain and suffering and the good God we profess. After unexpectedly losing her husband in early 2018, whom she had been with for a little over 33 years, she now knows that God speaks beautiful things in the dark. Through her website (alifeofthrive.com) and her podcast she wants to let people know that they're never alone in their pain because God enters into the darkest of valleys and will gently shepherd each one through. Links:Website: https://ALifeofthrive.comFB: https://www.facebook.com/ALifeOfThriveIG: LiveLovedThrivePodcast - Finding God in Our Pain: https://findinggodinourpain.podbean.com/*Theme Music “Blessed Time” by Ketsa 

Erica Komisar is a clinical social worker, psychoanalyst, and parent guidance expert with over 30 years of private practice experience. She is the author of books such as, ‘Chicken Little the Sky Isn't Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety'.   In this conversation, Erica and Steven discuss topics such as, how the mental health crisis is impacting children, how attachment disorders are created in childhood, the dangers of the falling birth rate, and how daycare may cause future issues for your kid.  00:00 Intro 02:21 Erica's Mission 08:12 Who Are Erica's Patients? 09:35 How Have Social Changes Influenced Parenting? 13:00 Is the Role of a Mother More Important Than That of a Father? 16:30 Why Are Fathers Important From a Biological Level? 23:20 Erica's Unpopular Ideas About Parenting 25:17 Family Diaspora: Raising Children Without Extended Family 27:31 Can Raising Children Away From Extended Family Be Justified? 28:30 Voluntary Childlessness 29:25 Attachment Disorders 33:40 How Do Attachment Disorders Manifest in Adulthood? 34:54 Choosing a Partner Based on Attachment Styles 36:20 Predicting Relationship Success Based on Attachment Styles 37:53 Does Having More Children Correlate With Neglect? 39:19 Decline in Birth Rates 41:23 What Is Unique About Relationships With Your Own Children? 43:12 What Contributes to Growing Infertility Among People? 46:45 How Did Erica Manage to Balance Work and Motherhood? 48:48 Should Fathers Be the Stay-at-Home Parent? 51:18 Harlow's Study on Rhesus Monkeys 53:38 The Challenge of Motherhood in Poor Socioeconomic Conditions 57:36 Does More Paid Leave Equal Better Childcare? 59:10 Connection Between Upbringing and Success in Adult Life 01:01:40 ADHD: Why Has It Risen So Much in the Past Decade? 01:07:40 We're Medicating ADHD Wrong 01:09:26 The Top Stressors We're Exposing Our Children To 01:11:29 Is ADHD Hereditary? 01:16:50 What's Wrong With Medicating Children? 01:21:15 The Link Between Stress and ADHD 01:22:23 What to Do if a Kid Screams in a Supermarket 01:25:54 The Different Types of Trauma 01:32:43 Same-Sex Couples Taking Roles 01:38:50 What Should Career-Driven Mothers Do? 01:42:08 Not Everyone Can Do This Stuff 01:45:25 Children Don't Need Other Kids Until the Age of 3 01:47:00 Ads 01:48:59 What's So Important at 3 Years Old? 01:55:32 Can I Repair My Trauma and Brain Past My 30s? 01:58:44 Our Pain and Trauma Are Rooted in Childhood 02:02:33 Is "Daddy Issues" a Thing? 02:06:33 Are We Taking Men's Purpose Away? 02:10:42 Men's Testosterone Drops When They Become Fathers 02:13:03 What Happens When Men Become the Primary Caregiver? 02:16:22 Should We Split Schools Into Genders? 02:19:11 Testosterone Decrease 02:21:12 Raising Healthy Kids in a World of Technology 02:24:45 The Importance of Being Present With Your Child 02:25:48 What Should Employers Do? 02:27:22 Do You Realise How Controversial the Things You Say Are? 02:28:02 The Reason All of This Is So Personal to You 02:30:58 What Does Your Obituary Say? Follow Erica:  Instagram - https://g2ul0.app.link/pwv9PCz0lRb  Twitter - https://g2ul0.app.link/2EKsgfB0lRb  Website - https://g2ul0.app.link/OPtiA4a8lRb  Erica's book - https://g2ul0.app.link/7rANACv0lRb The The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards here: https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb  Follow me: https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: ZOE - http://joinzoe.com with code BARTLETT10 for 10% off WHOOP - https://JOIN.WHOOP.COM/CEO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new MP3 sermon from Hopewell Associate Reformed Presbyterian is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Training to Repent in Our Pain Subtitle: Family Worship Speaker: James Hakim Broadcaster: Hopewell Associate Reformed Presbyterian Event: Devotional Date: 11/19/2024 Bible: Amos 5:1-17 Length: 21 min.

“Nov_10”. Released: 2024. The post Understanding God’s Purpose in Our Pain appeared first on Echo Lake Church.

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Rev. Kelly Billings shares, “The Power of Our Pain”. Pain isn't something most of us welcome yet it's a frequent guest—sometimes a lifetime companion. Pain tempts us to adopt a victim mentality. However, when we use the spiritual key that pain, like all of life, is happening for us, we open a doorway. On the other side wait guidance, wisdom, and possibility. This Sunday, Rev. Kelly Billings will explore the journey and power of pain. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

Lory Widmer Hess reads her review, "Listening to Our Pain," which discusses the book Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing by Jen Soriano. Lory Widmer Hess currently lives with her family in Switzerland, where she works with adults with developmental disabilities and is in training as a spiritual director. Her book When Fragments Make a Whole: A Personal Journey Through Healing Stories in the Bible will be published by Floris Books in 2024. Visit her website and blog at enterenchanted.com. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vita-poetica/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vita-poetica/support

As we go through hard times in our lives we find ourselves growing closer to God's purpose for us. If we keep striving in hard times and learning lessons that God wants us to achieve, we will find ourselves living in the prosperity of the unique abilities God has placed in us. Andy Howard is an Author, Speaker, Coach, and Co-Founder of his health practice called Taking Back My Life. Andy's passion is to help people to find hope in every day life. He is an advocate for physical health and also mental health awareness as he has known the heaviness of depression himself. While he is passionate about speaking and sharing his story, he also recently published a powerful new book titled “When Words Don't Come Easy: How God Redeems Our Stories, Gives Purpose to Our Pain, and Still Uses Us to Change the World.” You can find a copy of his book on Amazon by clicking here: https://www.amazon.com/When-Words-Dont-Come-Easy-ebook/dp/B0B8DVFVSD/   To find out more about Andy Howard, visit his website at https://andyhoward.com or find him on social media at @andybhoward 

Join Ade and Rory once again in The Men's Room! This week the boys are discussing Crime and Gang culture alongside the wonderful Gideon Buabeng; a former gang member who turned his life around after being victim to a brutal knife attack. Gideon is now the Founder of Our Pain 2 Power, chairman of the Violent Crime Prevention Youth Board, award winning motivational speaker, representee of the Princes Trust Youth Advisory Board and thankfully has just enough time to join us in The Men's Room! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Pray First Instead of Last. Going to Jesus with Our Pain. A Devotional Look at  Martha – Day 2     Jesus works miracles in the presence of the poor, the sick, and the broken. It's who He is.    This audio devotional is a companion to the She Hears Bible Study, today's content is from Chapter 4- Martha- A Woman of Assertiveness.   Hey friends, welcome to the Hearing Jesus Podcast.   Do you sometimes doubt if you are truly hearing God's voice or if it's really your own? Do you wonder how you can know the difference? Do you struggle to feel confident in your relationship with God and what He says in his word? Do you sometimes feel stagnant or like you hit a wall in your spiritual life?   Hey, I'm your host, Rachael Groll: missionary, author, pastor, and life coach. And I have been there. I, too, was doubting God's voice in my own life. I, too, felt insecure about the things I thought God might be calling me to do. I wanted to make a difference in the world and be obedient to what God was calling me to do, but I wasn't quite sure how to figure out what exactly that was. I kept telling myself that I was wasting time trying to figure it out or waiting for Him to show me. Or that I wasn't qualified to do the things I thought He might be telling me to do.   The answer for me was found in the pages of the Bible, as I learned how to understand what it was actually saying. If you are ready to grow in your faith and to step confidently into the calling God has for you, then join me as we dig deep into God's word so you can learn to live out your faith in your everyday life.   Friend, you are loved, you are cherished, and you are His.   The Hearing Jesus Podcast will encourage and equip you to step into the calling God has for your life, living out your faith in the everyday. Together we will break down walls that keep us from growing spiritually. We will dig deep into our Bibles to understand and connect the Scriptures to our lives. We will boldly obey what God calls us to do, walking through doors that only He can open.   Join me for your daily dose of faith, honesty, and prayer.   Learn -> https://shehears.org Connect -> rachael@shehears.org Community-> https://www.facebook.com/groups/743928930315696/ Instagram-> https://www.instagram.com/she_hears/ Missions Support-> https://www.cotni.org/campaigns/rachael-groll FREE 7-Day Devotional: Desires of the Heart -> https://shehears.org/free-7-day-devotional/     Want to go a little deeper?   Purchase the She Hears: Learning to Listen to Jesus Bible Study on my Etsy shop here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/SheHearsShop?ref=profile_header   Also available on Amazon or wherever books are sold.   In this six-week study from the Book of John, Rachael Groll takes you on an in-depth exploration into the lives of six women Jesus knew. Women often deal with feelings of insecurity and unworthiness, yet the lives of these women show that Jesus values us, wants a relationship with us, and can use us to further His kingdom. In her warm, conversational style, Rachael ties together her life experience, knowledge of the Scriptures, and her compassion for women to encourage us and enable us to become the women God has called us to be.   Need to chat one on one? Snag a private session with Rachael: https://calendly.com/shehears/one-on-one-life-coaching-session                        

Do you know that life is short? Do you understand that planes crash, and people die, it is a fact of life? How often do you live life, thinking that you never know when this could be the last…? Why do so many people send so many flowers at funerals? Because Regret is more powerful than Gratitude. Be sure to Like and Follow us on our facebook page. Check out our website www.LikeItMatters.Net. On Today's Podcast of Living Life Like It Matters, Mr. Black wants to talk about life. Life is this journey that we are all on, doing it, our own way. We create meaning in, and throughout our lives. We need to occasionally check our luggage, to see if we have any unwanted ‘Stowaways’. Did you know that nobody responds to reality, we respond to our belief about the ‘reality’ of the moment? We respond to life according to the meanings we give things. Things like; our past, our pain, our promises, and our people interactions. The meaning that we give things and the focus of our THING, dictates the quality and quantity of life. Today on Like It Matters Radio Mr. Black will be joined by recent graduates of Leadership Awakening as they share the profound changes and realizations since graduating Mr. Black’s transformational training. Enjoy today’s Podcast titled, Flowers, Funerals and Focus. Tune into our new Podcasts every Monday and Thursday, and build the pattern for; Living Life Like It Matters. If you enjoy the show, please tell a friend or two, or three about it. If you are able to leave an honest rating and, or, review it would be appreciated. Subscribe and follow our Podcasts and build the pattern for; Living Life Like It Matters. Be sure to Like and Follow us on our facebook page. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"The Best use of Our Pain" ~ 2 Corinthians 1:4, 5: A Quick 15 w/Pastor Scott - Wednesday, January 19, 2022: Listen to this week's devotional and prayer moment with Pastor Scott.

Rachel Fahrenbach - Identity, Purpose, Belonging and the Sabbath Today's guest, author Rachel Fahrenbach has some valuable insight to share on what rest can do for you in all the areas of your life, and rest in the form of practicing Sabbath. Our conversation was based on her new book, Rest & Reflect: 12-Week Guided Sabbath Journal. Through her guided journal you will explore these 3 areas with God: Identity Purpose Belonging To me, identity, purpose and belonging are key areas that are foundational for us when navigating this thing called life. When those 3 areas are healthy we get to enjoy things like peace, clarity, and joy for the journey. This isn't a legalistic practice. It moves with the ebb and flow of life and it looks original to the families that define how they want to focus on God. It's truly a beautiful thing. Because resting in God is a spiritual inheritance that we have access to as His children, you know God has a beautiful exchange for us when we practice the Sabbath.  Anytime we draw near to Him He showers us with His affection and generosity. And He always gives more than we can imagine. God's value system is such that when we discover who He is in the type of rest that He has for us we get more. More peace, less anxiety. More relationship with less work. More life, less overwhelm. Giving God our focus helps us to begin to see things through the lens of God's heart for us and that sweet friend is transformational! Talking with Rachel about practicing the Sabbath reminds me that it offer us the opportunity to  have that garden of eden experience...in the here and now…..daily perceiving Him, walking and talking with Him.  Rachel shows us that resting is not being lazy, it shouldn't make you feel guilty and you're not adding something to you To Do list. I want to challenge you to give God your time by practicing a Sabbath and see what He has for you. Test Him, taste and see that He is good. Live Loved and Thrive! @alifeofthrive.com BIO: RACHEL FAHRENBACH is the author of Rest & Reflect, a guided journal that helps you implement a weekly rhythm of rest and reflection in your week through the practice of Sabbath. Her desire is to see moms reclaim a deep joy and stabilizing peace in their weeks by actively choosing to rest. To support them in this choice, Rachel offers encouragement and resources for implementing a Sabbath practice at rachelfahrenbach.com. Rachel and her husband live in the Chicagoland area with their three kiddos.   To connect with Rachel: Instagram.com/rachelfahrenbach Facebook.com/rachelfahrenbach   To download a sample week from the guided journal: rachelfahrenbach.com/journal  To purchase the journal: https://www.amazon.com/Rest-Reflect-12-Week-Sabbath-Journal/dp/1736855514  To get access to The Busy Mom's Guide to a Simple Family Sabbath: rachelfahrenbach.com/sabbath     Transcript: TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00.000] - Rachel We consume so much, and I don't even think we realize how much we consume. As far as media goes, people's opinions, expectations, things that people say, world views that people have. We don't even realize how much we're consuming on a daily basis, between media, between social media, between conversations we have at the grocery store even. And because we move at such a quick pace in life, we don't actually have time to process anymore. It used to be you went and saw a movie with your friends, and then you might sit and discuss it afterwards or you might talk about it in the car ride home. [00:00:34.990] - Rachel Now we sit on our couches and we watch movie after movie after movie after movie, and we don't even have time to process the first one by the time we're watching the second one. But we don't understand how much music we are consuming as we listen to Spotify and it's turning over one song after the other. There's just a subconscious consumption of messages that unless we give ourselves time to process with our Creator, sometimes we don't realize that we've internalized those messages that were never meant to be internalized. [00:01:29.110] - Sherrie When life as you know it is flipped upside down, we struggle to make sense of it all. Why would a good God allow this to happen? Hi, I'm Sherrie Pilkington, your host of Finding God in Our Pain. In early 2018, the deepest questions of my life erupted when I unexpectedly lost my husband of thirty-two years. Since then, I've searched the heart of God for what He has to say about pain and suffering. In this podcast, we'll discover how God enters into our pain, shepherds us through our darkest valley, and out into the green pastures once again.  [00:01:53.410] - Sherrie I'll bring you firsthand stories from women who will allow us into their authentic struggle, along with professional advice from experts, counselors, and others who can speak to what it looks like to navigate pain. Join me as we discover God's answers to the deepest cries of our shattered heart. [00:01:54.300] - Sherrie I'll keep my intro short because my guest author, Rachel Fehrenbach, has some good, good insights to share with you on what rest can do for you in all the areas of your life and rest in the form of practicing Sabbath. Our conversation was based on her new book, Rest and Reflect, a twelve-week guided Sabbath Journal. Through her guided Journal, you can explore these three areas with God identity, purpose, and belonging. And for me, that's three key areas that are foundational for us when we're navigating this thing called life. [00:02:24.280] - Sherrie And when you have those three areas healthy, then to me, you get to enjoy things like peace, clarity, and joy for the journey. Make sure you listen to the end because this is not legalistic. It moves with the ebb and flow of life. It looks original to the families that define how they want to use their time to focus on God. It's truly a beautiful thing. And because resting in God is a spiritual inheritance that we have access to as His children, as God's children, you know God has placed a beautiful exchange there for us. Anytime we draw near to Him, He showers us with His affection and generosity. [00:02:58.050] - Sherrie God's value system is such that when we discover who He is and the type of rest that He has for us, we get more, more peace, less anxiety, more relationship with less work, more life, less overwhelmed. When we begin to see things through the lens of God's heart for us, we take on a whole new way of living. And that, sweet friend, is transformational. [00:03:19.860] - Sherrie When I was talking with Rachel about practicing the Sabbath, it just reminded me that doing that, putting aside that time with God, offers us the opportunity to have that Garden of Eden experience in the here and now, daily perceiving God, walking and talking with Him. In our conversation, Rachel shows us that resting is not being lazy. It shouldn't make you feel guilty and you're not adding something else on top of your current to-do list. I want to challenge you to give God your time by practicing a Sabbath and see what He does for you. [00:03:50.680] - Sherrie Test Him. Taste and see that He is good. If you're like me, sitting in my quiet time with the Lord and my mind keeps wandering off to my to-do list and all--a ton of other stuff that are running in the back of my mind to get done--if that's you too, then do like I did and order Rachel's guided Sabbath Journal. It's the best guide to keep you focused and mine the heart of God for some beautiful revelations about your identity, purpose, and belonging. [00:04:14.990] - Sherrie Before we move on to my conversation with Rachel, I want to remind you, keep the eyes of your heart on God because He's writing a much bigger love story with you, an overarching love story with you as the unique individual person He has created you to be. Much love, sweet friend. [00:04:31.470] - Sherrie Rachel, your story of how typical challenges in your life began to multiply and then led to overwhelm and anxiety,  and then, of course, it starts to cost you mental, physical, emotional, spiritual health. I've heard it said that because we are made of mind, body, spirit, that when one of those suffers, it begins to impact the other two. And then we have our hands full because we're not taking care of these areas. Tell me about the first of several what I will term as snowfalls that would eventually cause an avalanche in your life. [00:05:08.730] - Rachel When I think back to that time period where I felt like the extreme exhaustion that you're talking about, just like where every aspect of my whole being just felt like it was under attack, I probably would go back to the day that we brought my newborn son home from the hospital, and I say that, but I have to add in that we adopted him. So we actually didn't bring him home from the hospital. We brought him home from a hotel, which sounds so crazy. Our case worker met us in the lobby of a hotel and handed him to us. [00:05:41.220] - Rachel And up until that point, life was busy and life was very full, and there was starting to be some shifts. But after that day, everything really started to get amplified. And I think it was amplified because when you have a newborn, you're sleep deprived. There's all the new things that come along with having a new baby in your home. But we are also adjusting to the fact that we had this new little one in our home, and it didn't look like the other two times that we had a newborn in our home. [00:06:14.010] - Rachel We had two biological children at that time. One was five and the other three. So we had littles on top of having a newborn. Also, at that time, my husband had started a new job, and he had been there for about a year or so at that point. But before that, we had gone through two unemployment periods. We are coming off these two unemployment period, this adoption. So by this point, we're, like, cash flow was a little tight, you know, so finances were a little--not--we were doing okay, but it was definitely not as good as we would have liked at the time. [00:06:47.720] - Rachel And we had some debt, and it was stressful. So we had some debt, we had a newborn in our home, a nonprofit that I had co-founded was growing very quickly. It was a food pantry, and on one hand, you're like, yay, more people to serve, but on the other hand, you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm like, where's the volunteers? We need more volunteers. It was 100% volunteer ran and trying to get donors and trying to get volunteers. [00:07:13.490] - Rachel And it was just-- it was a lot. It was a lot. We had a really great team there, but there was a couple of volunteers that came on that my personality and their personalities just didn't jive. And so we were having some conflict. With age comes maturity and with them, and through that I had to learn how I dealt with conflict and how to do it in a way that was biblical, in a way that was gracious and kind while also being a leader. And that was a new one for me. [00:07:45.480] - Rachel I had done conflict resolution before, but having to be a leader in that conflict resolution, that was a whole new ball game for me. So it was like these little things just started happening and snowballing and growing and just putting more and more emphasis on my life. And then our church had to close. Our church community that we had been a part of for a few years, that we just loved being a part of, where both my husband and I felt like we grew so much spiritually, that we got to be in community with my family there, too. [00:08:19.280] - Rachel And so it was like my grandkids were worshipping alongside of my parents. Not my grandkids, their grandkids. My kids were worshipping alongside of their grandparents. And that was just such a beautiful experience to have. And it was having to go away because they were too small to maintain the property. That was very difficult to--church shopping is hard enough. But when you have to church shop, not because you want to, but because you have to,  it just is hard. Just one thing on top of the other. [00:08:51.190] - Rachel And then I think what the tip of the iceberg was was I had a few close friends that threw out the whole thing, started to pull away from me. And I do think that God was shifting our friendships for various reasons. Now, looking back on it, I can see that those shifts needed to happen, but at the time, it felt like abandonment, especially having just brought home a baby, especially because I felt so lonely, because I was trying to do all these things, trying to navigate motherhood in a new way that I hadn't been before. [00:09:24.590] - Rachel And I always say the third one will put you over, like, the first two I feel like you can kind of navigate. The third one, you're like, oh, my gosh. So I think by that point, I just felt like, oh, my gosh, they just left me hanging. Where are my friends? And then we had to start going to a new church. It was just like --I say that it was a bunch of unique challenges amongst everyday hardships, right? Like, it's just everyday stuff, like everyday motherhood challenges along with these very unique things that were happening in my life. It was like the perfect storm, and it definitely put me to a point of just complete exhaustion. [00:10:04.000] - Sherrie I can see where there's these basic commonalities, such as young children in the house and maybe even adoption. I don't know how often that happens in a family to say that it's basically common ground for everybody but church family. So that breaks away. That's a foundational piece. Good friends. Obviously, you love community. You've got a nonprofit, and now you're butting heads with some of the volunteers. They're crucial. Yet, like you said, your personality does not match theirs, and that makes for a challenge within the business. [00:10:33.460] - Sherrie As a side note, though, I'd like to understand how to do that as a leadership position and be gracious and lead into that sort of conflict resolution. That sounds good. You could probably use that in a family, too. [00:10:45.500] - Rachel I was very fortunate that I was on a leadership team with some women who had already gone through it and who were much wiser than me and who were able to say what it--let's make sure that we're going back to God on this. Let's try to do our best to resolve this conflict in every way possible. And if we can't, then we're just going to have to move forward for the sake of the the ministry. And this is what the ministry's goal is, and this is what the ministry's mission is. [00:11:12.860] - Rachel And this is how we're going to move forward. We just have to make a decision to move forward. And so they're much, much wiser than I was and could lead us through that. And so that volunteer actually ended up just stepping away from the ministry because she felt like she needed to. God just continued to move us forward after that. And so I am grateful for their wisdom, because I don't think I could have made it through about it. [00:11:34.280] - Sherrie I would need wisdom. I would need leaders who were wiser. [00:11:37.730] - Rachel Yes. [00:11:38.710] - Sherrie Thinking about all of those components and those moving parts. And these are crucial parts of your life, your family, as far as husband and children, and then your family, as far as the church, and then your family, as far as your extended friendships and whatnot. So what was the breaking point to which you throw your hands up in the air and say, God, the ship is sinking. [00:12:00.430] - Rachel I think my breaking point-- I was to the point where --when you asked me that what came to mind is this moment where something had happened and misunderstanding with one of the friends that I felt like was pulling away from me. And I just felt a huge amount of abandonment in that moment. And that's a whole other conversation, things that we wrestle with and ways that we internalize things. But in that moment, I just felt like everything is just falling apart. And I remember getting so angry and so bitter and feeling like I was the victim and that's not typically my personality. [00:12:44.780] - Rachel I'm a pretty optimistic person, and I'm a pretty friendly and outgoing person. And I realized in that moment as I was just lashing out and raging and ranting, and my husband's sitting there listening to me that that was not the first time I had done that, where I was just so angry and so bitter. And it was like it was getting to the point where every time something was happening, I was just feeling like this whole, like, destabilizing chaos just kind of welling up inside of me. [00:13:13.080] - Rachel It was just like the storm that was happening outside of me now suddenly felt like it was internal, and it just didn't feel good. And it didn't feel right. And it didn't feel like peace at all. And I just thought, this is not how it's supposed to be. I'm not supposed to feel like this all the time. And that was the beginning of God starting to say, you need to pay attention. And we started going to a new church and got plugged into a new small group. [00:13:40.130] - Rachel And the church was going through the series on the Ten Commandments, and we were in a small group discussing the Fourth Commandment, and I just was reading the scriptures over and over again about the Sabbath. It just suddenly hit me, as we're all trying to decide,-- we were all discussing, like, okay, what is the Sabbath? What do you have to do? Like, what constitutes as work? What doesn't? We're all discussing this in this room. And I just remember sitting there with this moment where I thought to myself, what if we're all missing it? [00:14:12.600] - Rachel What if we're all missing the point? That it's really not about what do we do or what do we not do? But maybe this is a gift that's being handed out to us. And we're just not even seeing that in front of our faces. And so we walked out of that small group, and my husband looked over at me and he just said to me, he was like, this conversation is not done yet, is it?  And I'm like, I don't think so. And that started us looking into, okay, what could a Sabbath practice look like for us? [00:14:42.280] - Rachel What does it mean to take a 24-hour break? Would that even be feasible for us? And so we started, we're like, okay, we're going to do this. And so we let our family know. We're like, okay, we're going to be Sabbath-ing from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. We started out by saying we weren't going to do any kind of social media or electronics. We decided to kind of do a big, big Sabbath. So we took electronics out of there. We took, like, seeing people out of there. [00:15:11.010] - Rachel And we just kind of hunkered down as a family. And what became pretty regular in that original version of our practice, because it has shifted and grown since then, but in the original version, and I think it was what we needed at the time, we did a Sabbath meal together as a family. We did some one-on-one. And then as my husband was putting the kids the bed, I started having about an hour of prayer and reflection time. And I just sat there and there was no objective. Like, sometimes I think when we do a Bible study, we sit down, we're like, okay, we're going to study these scriptures. We're going to earn these things. We're going to study this topic. We're going to figure out what God says about it. [00:15:53.020] - Rachel But I just sat there and there was no agenda. There was no, like, okay, Lord, I want to accomplish this. I just sat there with Him. And it was from this doing things with God, to almost like walking alongside of Him, doing all the things, going to church, being in small group, running a food pantry that served people, doing things with God to just sitting across from Him in this intimate posture of listening. [00:16:22.150] - Rachel And, oh, my gosh, He tended to my soul in that moment every week, week after week. He just met me there and He began to peel away the layers about my identity, my purpose, and my belonging. And He stabilized everything again. And the peace came back into my life that had been missing. And in that rest moment with Him, I was refreshed and renewed. And even though life has still been just as busy and actually been harder, we've lost my mother-in-law. We had a miscarriage. COVID happened. [00:17:04.040] - Rachel Life has not gotten any easier. But week after week, I sit with Jesus, and He tends to my soul where I'm at. In that moment, I'm just with Him. And it has been life saving. [00:17:17.910] - Sherrie Can you put into words when you say He tends to me? Can you give me an example, or is it more--I know it's difficult. [00:17:23.820] - Rachel For me, when I sit down and I have actually-- I created a guided journal to help women do this. It's called Rest and Reflect. I think our sense of identity is wrapped up in four questions. Who am I? What is my personality? What are my interests? How has God designed me, right? How do I operate? Who does God say I am? Because so often we can forget He calls me Beloved. He calls me Redeemed. He calls me these things. Who does God say I am? [00:17:53.200] - Rachel And how should I live? What is His calling on my life? What does that look like? And then how do I relate to those around me? How do I belong? What is my sense of purpose within relationships that I have? And so those were the questions that I started asking myself week after week with God. Pretty much what it amounts to is I would ask Him, like, okay, this is how I view this week has gone. These are the things that I see about my identity, my purpose, and my belonging. [00:18:25.230] - Rachel And what would You have to say to me? What am I missing here? Help me see it with Your eyes, Lord, because I think that this is true. What is actual truth? And that's where He tended to me. Because there would be moments where I'm like, oh, this happened, and God would gently say, actually, no. Let's step back, take a deep breath. Let Me show you what it really, truly was. And I think that's the part where He tended to me. And he does this week after week. [00:18:57.550] - Rachel It's a gentle reminder that He is still in control, that He has good for me planned and that He is not going to let me go. And I think that being reminded of those truths is what brings us stabilizing peace back into your life. He says that He came to give life and give it abundantly. And I think that sometimes we forget that His peace is beyond comprehension. And if we don't stop long enough to let Him blanket us with His peace, we miss out on how beautiful and deep it is and rich it is.  [00:19:37.930] - Sherrie We have a spiritual inheritance. Rest is a spiritual inheritance. Why do we miss out on that? [00:19:43.940] - Rachel Oh, goodness. I always say Sabbath is a gift wrapped up in a commandment, and yet so often we just kind of skirt on by it. I think there's a couple of reasons. I think, one, our culture is just is--it is not designed to rest, especially in the last, oh gosh, like 30 years where we have now on demand, everything. Everything was due yesterday. We have the capability to be on demand all the time. Should we? No. But we think we have to perform at this level. And there's also the comparison game. Right now we have everybody's lives on display. [00:20:20.150] - Rachel So now we're constantly going, oh, I got to keep up with the Joneses even more so. It's not just the Jones that live next door to me. It's the ones that live next door to me and over there and over here. And so I think there's-- just our culture in general doesn't  encourage it, nor does it reward it. Think about vacation days. People-- it's like some minuscule number actually use their full amount of vacation days every year, because there's a fear if I take vacation days, I'll be seen as not being loyal to the company, or we have too much work. [00:20:53.490] - Rachel So I'm never going to get it done if I take these vacation days. I also think that our church doesn't truly set us up to rest either. I love the Church. I'm not going to say that we should not be in Church community. I think Church community is so important. I think sound teaching is so important. But I do think the way that we do church is very much--we go to Church, we consume Church, we go to small group, we consume small group. We do a Bible study. [00:21:18.940] - Rachel We serve. It's this constant going and going and doing. Our Church culture has not really set us up to just be in community with one another, to just sit with the Holy Spirit and let Him speak to us. We kind of shy away from that. We want to learn and we want to know and we want to apply. And so even within our Church culture, I don't think we're set up very well for simply being and resting. And so I think all of that coupled together, there is this culture that doesn't encourage or reward rest. [00:21:55.200] - Rachel We have a Church culture that's not exactly giving us a structure to rest within. And then you throw on there the layer of mom guilt that you're not doing enough-- it's just the perfect storm of things that are going to get in your way to rest. [00:22:09.360] - Sherrie In all of these areas that you're talking about, that we overdo ourselves, whether it's church commitments or mommy tasks or whatever, the common denominator is us as the individual. So what can we do to change our mindset about  over-compensating or over-volunteering. How can we make an effort to bring rest into --is the Sabbath the answer for that? [00:22:37.980] - Rachel I think it is. And I specifically think that it's a family Sabbath, not just a personal Sabbath, because we all know moms won't take rest if their families aren't taken care of. It's just how we are wired. I personally think that when you structure a Sabbath rest in a way that your whole family is engaged in that rest, it allows you to take a step back and go, okay, everybody's taking care of ...  Now, Lord, take care of me. I do think that it is an answer. Many people will say, oh, it's great as long as you're resting a couple of hours, even small rests throughout the week is good. [00:23:13.720] - Rachel I think that those are good pauses, and I think that's helpful. I think that's more about putting margin into your day. But when I'm talking about rest, the spiritual inheritance that you were talking about earlier with Sabbath goes back to Genesis chapter one. It goes back to that Garden. It goes back to the fact that we were supposed to be co-rulers with God in the Garden. He cultivated this whole world, and then He co- inhabited with it. [00:23:37.850] - Rachel He created us, and then He co-inhabited with us. And in doing so, He set up this beautiful example of work and rest, and not just work and take a break, but work in delight in the thing that you've created. And I think that that's something that we miss out on in our culture today. We've lost a sense of we cultivate, we work, we create, and then we delight in the thing that we've worked and created. And so it's something-- it's more than just let's take a break, let's take a nap. [00:24:09.620] - Rachel Let's structure our entire week so it has this balance of six days of cultivating and then a seventh of actually cohabiting with that creation. Let's reflect God's image in it. Let's truly show the Creator in the way that we're creating. [00:24:28.910] - Sherrie What you're saying kind of rings the bell for me with regard to I'm having to practice celebrating. When I went through my season of grief, I didn't realize how little I celebrated the good things. And so now I try to be mindful about stopping, pausing, and celebrating, and also giving attention to grieving what has broken my heart, grieving things that I've had to say goodbye to. And now it sounds like this rest, it has to be purposeful about setting aside some time with the Lord. I do know when I sit with Him quietly, I get a great reward, and I believe that the beauty of that is His presence. [00:25:11.430] - Sherrie But I find myself wandering off. What can you do to keep that intact? Keep your focus on God. Do you have any practices for that? [00:25:20.040] - Rachel Yes. So when I am teaching people about a Sabbath practice, I typically suggest that they don't just take 24 hours off and not have a structure to it. When you look at the Bible and you look at the different observances God gives the Israelites, He often gives them structure for what they're supposed to do during those observances. And even within our practice of Communion, there a rhythm to it. There's a routine to it, right? And so I actually suggest that they structure their Sabbath, and I give them a structure. [00:25:51.410] - Rachel And this is just based off of things that I have observed when reading the scriptures. They kind of popped out at me. It's not necessarily that the Scriptures are prescriptive in this, but it's just the way that you could structure it, if you are looking for a way to structure it. So I call it the Five R's, and the first one is Remember, remember your Provider in His provision. And traditionally, in the Jewish faith, they open their Sabbath time with a meal together, and they light candles, and they do blessings over their kids. [00:26:23.540] - Rachel We, as a family, have adopted some of those traditions. We do light candles. I've written a little bit of a liturgy that ties in how Christ is our Sabbath rest to some of those traditions. We take Communion during that time. But really, the focus of that Sabbath meal is to remember our Provider and His provision for that week, and just in general, His provision for our lives through the work of the cross. And then I suggest you have a time of remembrance. Then I suggest you have a time of reflection. [00:26:57.490] - Rachel And this is going back to what we were talking about a little earlier, about a time to sit with God and look back over both the challenges and the joys of your week and ask Him to really help you see it through His eyes or to see things that you missed the first time around and just have that quiet time with Him. So I suggest, like, an hour, at least doing that. And I think when you--the first time you do it, even a second, 3rd, 4th, even now, like, the more you practice it, I think the easier it is to, like, go into that space because you--your mind, your body, I have cues for myself. [00:27:32.940] - Rachel I sit in the same chair. I have a pen and a journal that are in--all of our Sabbath materials are in the same spot. We keep them all in the same drawer of a cabinet that's right by our table and right by the chair where I do my reflection. I have a blanket that I use, too. These are just cues that,  okay, this is the time that we do this thing. And I think that's what the Sabbath meal too, when we light the candle is, like, this is the time when we do this thing where we remember God and give Him thanks. [00:28:02.510] - Rachel So a time of remembrance, time of reflection, and then a time of relaxing in ways that meet your personality and your interest. And this is an area where my husband and I will talk about this about Thursday, Friday, we'll start talking about ways that we either need to relax as a family or relax as individuals. And if we need time, neither one of us are true introverts, and so sometimes we don't really need to be alone, but sometimes there's weeks where one of us will be like, hey, you know, I just need it-- some time by myself. [00:28:38.180] - Rachel Then what we'll do, we'll each take an hour and we'll flip flop. So I'm the primary response parent for an hour while he goes and works in his wood shop, and then we switch and he's the primary response parent. And I am in my bedroom reading or just playing some music or whatnot, whatever it is that we need that week. And that changes from week to week. Sometimes we just do a fun family activity during Sabbath. We went to Six Flags last week. That was just a fun family activity. [00:29:04.850] - Rachel We enjoy that. That would put some people over the edge, and some people will be, like, that's not rest at all. But for us it is. So we have that. And then the other thing that I think is definitely in the Scripture is reconnection with both God and with each other during the Sabbath. I think it's really important. We know that we will be together as a family for probably the majority of that Sabbath period. But also we know that my spouse,  my husband and I are going to have be able to reconnect. [00:29:34.340] - Rachel So after the kids go to bed on Saturday night, the two of us just sit there, no phones, we just sit there and talk. And I will say we also do one-on- one time with our kids. And that intentional reconnection with the people who are our people, I think it's so important, and I think it really goes back to the fact that we are made for community. We're made to do life with other people. That reconnection time with my husband and even my kids. Like, sometimes the week just gets super busy. [00:30:04.210] - Rachel But we know we know that by Saturday we're going to have time to connect together. And then finally, the fifth R is to rejoice, and that--the word rejoice actually means to take delight in, to enjoy. And I think over and over again there's verses where it says, if you will take delight in My faith, if you will rejoice in My Sabbath, it's the thing that God, like,  don't just do, enjoy this creation that I've given you enjoy the good gifts I've given you. That's just the way that we structure it. [00:30:36.220] - Rachel It's the way that I suggest other people structure. I think when we have a structure, it allows us to kind of focus in. We know we're doing this thing for this time, and we can just kind of let everything else fall to the wayside. [00:30:49.260] - Sherrie And you can tailor that as you go, correct? As far as the individuality of your family and personalities, the ages of your children, things like that. [00:30:57.040] - Rachel Exactly. And the one thing that I always make sure to tell people because they aren't aware of it, in the Jewish faith, they actually do Sabbath from sundown on Friday to sundown the next day. And I think there's so much wisdom in doing the 24 hours over from evening to evening because your physical rest, your sleep is actually built into it, right? And you also have time to prepare during the day for that rest time, especially if you don't want to be cooking during it, you can cook the morning of, a big batch or whatever so you have leftovers. [00:31:36.660] - Rachel And then you have time to prepare. So for us, my husband and the kids, they clean the house, they prepare our Sabbath meal, and then I come home, and we start our Sabbath about around 5:00. So we go through our Sabbath 24 hours, and then Sunday night, our Sabbath ends around 5:00 on Sunday. And then we have Sunday evening to prepare for the week. So there's just a lot of wisdom in doing it. It gives you time to prepare on both sides of the day. And then your physical rest is automatically built into that 24 hours. [00:32:06.280] - Sherrie Rest is always good. I love that you have-- remember your Provider, reflection, relaxing, and then reconnection and rejoice. Those are key elements for any good life. Boy, what do we miss out on when we don't take the time to discover these areas? I know you said that the Lord has spoken to you. Or maybe how did you put it, you were talking about the three areas-- [00:32:36.250] - Rachel Identity, purpose, and belonging. [00:32:38.380] - Sherrie What has God showed you about your identity in some of your personal time? What's a revelation He has given you, a value, a takeaway? [00:32:45.330] - Rachel A couple of things. One, I have learned that I am a writer, through and through. And what I mean by that, even if I never publish a single word, I still need to write because that's how I process the world. That's how I connect with God through writing my prayers out. It also helps me focus in what I'm praying to write it out. There's something about that that I need. Oftentimes, I don't even know what I'm thinking until I write it down. And so He showed that to me. [00:33:18.210] - Rachel I went to college and majored with creative writing. I had plans to become a published author, all the things. And throughout the years of that dream not being answered and not being able to go down that road, there was a part of me that felt like I had lost a piece of me. But what God was starting to show me was that, Rachel, even being a writer and doing the writing career are two different things. You still need to write and not throw that away just because you're not getting published. [00:33:48.470] - Rachel So that was one thing that came out of it. That was very telling to me. It gave me permission to block out time to write. So my husband and I had a conversation about it, and I said, you know what? I think I really need to be writing regularly in order to be able to process the world and to really lean into how I'm uniquely designed. And so I started doing that, just started writing. It took a little while, but God actually started opening up some doors for me. [00:34:15.710] - Rachel And so now I have this guided journal I published, and this is now a regular rhythm. He's moved me into this new season. He had a lot to teach me first, but now He's moving into this new season where I actually get to be both be a writer but also do a writing career. I just think that's such a beautiful gift that He's given me. Another thing that He taught me about my identity. I really do care what other people think of me. And for the longest time, I've heard people over and over again say very dismissingly, "You shouldn't care what other people think about you" like, you're being a people, pleaser. [00:34:50.670] - Rachel And I'm like, no, you don't understand. Like, there's just the thing about me that I care what other people think. And it's not going to just go away. And I didn't know what to do with that. And so in that quiet time, in that quiet space with God, He started showing me that that's not necessarily a bad thing. But when I let the fear of what they may or they may not say, that's when it becomes a stronghold in my life because, you know, we should care what other people say about us in the way am I reflecting God's image? [00:35:24.940] - Rachel That should be a concern of mine. But am I reflecting God's image because I'm afraid that if I don't do certain things, people are going to think I'm a bad Christian? That's not good. But am I reflecting God's image because I want people to see Him and know Him? That's not a bad thing. So that was something that He showed me about myself, about that very fine line that I needed to walk, and I need to constantly submit to Him. And in doing so, it allowed me to start asking myself the question, oh, am I afraid, am I doing this thing out of fear? Or am I doing this thing because I feel like that's what God's calling me to do? [00:36:02.210] - Sherrie What a great distinction, too. Like you said, a fine line, some things that stir our soul or make us mad or whatever are good indicators, if you will, that we need to take a look at something and then to dissect it between what is my biggest fear here to what is God calling me to do, if anything, in this situation? So that's pretty powerful with identity. [00:36:28.420] - Rachel One of the things that God really just started bringing into focus for me as I start pondering these identity questions with Him was that often times I hear people say, oh, we're broken people. Sin has caused people to be broken. And God gave me this image of more of, like, a glass that's been fractured. Sin has fractured us. We're not completely broken. But those fractures are just enough that it distorts the image. And so oftentimes our strengths have been fractured by sin, so they're also kind of our distorted weaknesses. [00:37:04.280] - Rachel And so that's where what you're talking about, that fine line, sometimes the things that we struggle the most with is because they've been fractured in a way that our strength is no longer being fully seen for what it is. And so that has been definitely a thing that God's been working on me, like, hey, over here, you've been saying this is a weakness of yours, but actually, if you would see it how I see it, it's actually a strength. As long as you're submitted to Me in the Spirit, I can refine that. [00:37:34.770] - Rachel I can sanctify that. I can bring it back to its original, restore it to its original design in your life. And so that's one of the things that truly He has given me during that reflection time. [00:37:51.260] - Sherrie I love the word you use: restore to His original, because there's been plenty of times when I've been asking the Lord, put me back together again, put this back together again, do that like it was. But then I got to thinking, I don't really want it back to like it was. I want it back to like He wants to put it back. How does He define restoring that situation? [00:38:12.810] - Rachel In my guided journal in one of the weeks, I actually say the best picture I have of  this is like those HGTV shows where they go to a garage sale and they pick out this furniture and you're like, why would they want that? And then they start working on it. And they start chipping away at the paint, and they start rubbing the hardware. And then they replace the hardware. They shine this, they do that. And at the end, you have this piece that only they saw the vision to, and only they saw what it really truly could be with their help and with their expertise and with their design and their eye for beauty. [00:38:50.300] - Rachel And I think that's what God does to us. He restores us to not just our original design, but this beautiful masterpiece that only He can really, truly fashion. [00:38:59.540] - Sherrie In His hands that stripping away process is still painful. But He is so trustworthy. He doesn't use that stuff against you. He doesn't use your weakness, your brokenness, your faults, your sins. He doesn't use any of that against you. He just shapes it into something different and restores and redeems. That's the beauty, I believe, of who He is is that He redeems that which is of this world, broken, sinful, fractured. Moving from identity to purpose, what has God told you about your purpose? [00:39:30.160] - Rachel One thing I've learned about my purpose is that He's taught me to stop thinking about purpose as a singular thing. That it's not just you have one purpose in life that God has called you to. I think God has called you to many. He's called you to one purpose and that's to reflect His glory. But He's called you to various roles in which to do that. And so that purpose of reflecting His glory is going to look like, going to look different in different seasons of your life and in different roles that you have. In college, the professors that I had, they're all wonderful professors, but they all had this big push to find your vocation. [00:40:10.680] - Rachel It was a big topic in our senior year, having a vocation, not just a career, living your life on purpose so that you don't just do the job, but you actually do something you love. And so it put this huge pressure on me to find the thing and find the thing that would make me feel alive. I went to college with this intention. I was going to be an acquisition editor for a Christian publishing house. That was my dream, my dream. And then God put me at a scientific publication. [00:40:39.300] - Rachel And I was editing articles about dental work. And so you're just kind of like, what? And then He moved me to another job. And then He moved me out--I was living in the city, He moved me out to the suburbs with my husband. And then we had kids. And I was working as a writing tutor. And then I was working as, like, I was teaching writing to home schoolers. And then I was running this nonprofit. And it got to this point where I was like, this is so far off of what my dream was, Lord, is this truly my purpose? [00:41:08.320] - Rachel I thought You designed me to be a writer. And yet I'm not writing in any way, shape, or form. So during this time where He started stripping this away from me, and He starts showing me purpose is not about one thing other than to reflect My goodness and My glory and My Holiness, Rachel. And you need to stop worrying so much about what your purpose is and worry more about being obedient in the roles that I've given you. And that completely flipped everything for me. [00:41:41.480] - Rachel And I moved from being so wrapped up in discovering what I was made to do and instead started saying, okay, what do You want me to do in these roles that You've given me right now? What roles do You want me to carry right now? Because that's another thing. Sometimes we take on roles we're not supposed to have. And so there was a couple of roles I had to let go of, a couple of things that I had to step out of because I had said yes when I should have said no or roles that I had said yes, but He said, okay, that's done now. I need you to step out of it. And so it's definitely been a very unique time of just saying, okay, what do You have for me now and how can I be obedient in that? [00:42:19.910] - Sherrie You kind of wrapped that or  tied that back into identity because I'm reminded that, if I put my stock in one title, if that title changes, goes away, like my title of wife, if we don't have our focus on God who is steadfast and does not change, then you can lose yourself in this process of trying to fulfill these roles, these titles, and these responsibilities. Plus, we're a people of expectation. So we attach our expectations onto situations, people, jobs-- [00:42:51.480] - Rachel or other people's expectations of those roles. That was another thing that I personally had to work through with just recently. I home school my kids, and I see these pictures, these moms doing these crafts and all. I'm not a crafty person at all, but there's a little bit of me who I was, like, oh, my goodness, I don't home school like other people do because I'm not just a stay-at-home mom. I'm a work-from-home mom, right? I'm a writer. I have a business with my mom. [00:43:18.210] - Rachel I have those business things I've got to do. And so we home school, but we home school in the afternoon, and it looks a certain way, and I had to step back and say, okay, God's called you to be a home-schooling parent, and He's called you to have it look like this. And it doesn't matter what other people's expectations of what a home-schooling parents should be. This is what He's asking you to do, and you need to be obedient. [00:43:42.480] - Sherrie And that brings up another point about God's originality with us as individuals, what He's calling us to do, what it looks like. God is always rewriting what we think He does or what we think He'll do. And then He turns around and gives you a whole different perspective on what He was trying to do. [00:44:03.120] - Rachel And I think that's why it's so important that you have time of reflection and times where you're just sitting and asking Him to reveal Himself to you. Because if you're not sitting there and allowing Him to speak truth to you, we consume so much. And I don't even think we realize how much we consume, as far as media goes, people's opinions, expectations, things that people say, world views that people have. We don't even realize how much we're consuming on a daily basis, between media, between social media, between conversations we have at the grocery store, even. [00:44:39.440] - Rachel And because we move at such a quick pace in life, we don't actually have time to process anymore. It used to be you went and saw a movie with your friends and then you might sit and discuss it afterwards, or you might talk about it in the car ride home. Now we sit on our couches and we watch movie after movie after movie after movie, and we don't even have time to process the first one by the time we're watching the second one. We don't understand how much music we are consuming as we listen to Spotify and it's turning over one song after the other. [00:45:10.080] - Rachel There's just such a subconscious consumption of messages that unless we give ourselves time to process with our Creator, sometimes we don't realize that we've internalized those messages that were never meant to be internalized. [00:45:23.220] - Sherrie I know for myself that in my grief, when I isolated myself during that process, I learned more about God in that time than I have over years of looking into who He is and growing closer to Him. So, to me in that quietness is the gift of His presence, because I've heard you refer to it as the gift of Sabbath. What would you say, the gift of Sabbath is? [00:45:50.880] - Rachel I think the gift is in the being with Him and the reminder that He desires a relationship with you, that He created you to be in relationship with Him, that He created you to co-rule with him. That Garden intimacy I think we kind of skip over so quickly when we're in our church culture. We just kind of talk about, like, oh, yeah, Adam and Eve in the garden, and then they sinned and then they left the garden. Then all the rest of life is what we kind of focus on in the Bible. [00:46:20.970] - Rachel But I think there's just something about God saying, I created you to delight in you, and I take delight in you, and I want to spend time with you. That is-- that's the gift, the gift that He is able to both remind you of that, but also remind you of His goodness and His faithfulness and His provision, and also the fact that He wants-- that He gives you good gifts, that He wants to be there with you. He wants to walk through life with you, that there is just something that's rich and deep and powerful in having a relationship with the Creator of the universe. [00:47:00.980] - Sherrie He offers us those garden moments. We may not be able to be in the garden anymore, but that communing with Him and that fellowship with Him, He still offers that on this side of the garden. [00:47:11.840] - Rachel Yes. And it's also a picture of what to come. I truly do believe that when the new Heaven and new Earth and all that is restored, I think we're going to return to that garden-like intimacy where we are walking with him on a daily basis, and we get to experience what that was meant to be. [00:47:27.860] - Sherrie Before we move to belonging, let's talk a little bit about the being versus the doing, because it sounds like this being helps us in the doing. [00:47:38.920] - Rachel So I think that there's two parts that we talk about sanctification and justification in church. And I think those two terms really kind of sum up what being and doing are. We're justified by Christ work on the cross, right? There's nothing--we can just exist in that beautiful sacrifice. There's nothing we can do to earn it. There's nothing we can do to claim it. God gifts it to us. It's just-- we are-- just are. We're just being in this justified state with Him. Sanctification is the act of doing. It is the moments in which you're walking with God. [00:48:19.670] - Rachel And I think that Sabbath reminds us of that state of justification so that we can live out the rest of the week in that process of sanctification. I know that, for some, that term Sabbath feels a little bit-- it might even feel legalistic. Might be, like, oh, that's the term from the law, right? But it's so interesting how often God talks about the Sabbath throughout the entire Old Testament, and the Sabbath was meant to point, not just to the fact that Israel was a nation set apart--you know, they had all these different things that were meant to show that they're set apart. [00:48:58.110] - Rachel But the Sabbath really was even pre-Moses and the Ten Commandments. Sabbath was designed within the very fabric of our time. And going back to that garden intimacy that I talked about, that was woven into that right off the bat. I think that's why it's not just a ceremonial thing. I think that's why it's included in the Ten Commandments, because it's not just a, hey,  Passover-- here's a remembrance ceremony. This is something important to do. It's even more so. [00:49:30.580] - Rachel It's like, hey, this is, like, the fabric of who I am and this relationship I want to have with you. If we actually look at the Ten Commandments, the first four are about our relationship with God and the next six our relationship with others. But I actually think that the Fourth Commandment is a hinge commandment because it talks about both God and others. It's actually the only commandment that we really, truly get to reflect God's glory when we do it, right? Because God actually Sabbathed. In the first week of creation, He Sabbathed with His creation. [00:50:04.720] - Rachel And when we observe the Fourth Commandment, we actually reflect God's goodness and His glory. And so I think that it's such a vital thing, a vital part of our story. And I think  we lose something when we don't pay attention to it. I don't think it's necessary for our salvation to practice Sabbath. Like I said before, Christ's work on the cross, He fulfilled all those laws. He fulfilled everything. So He is our true Sabbath rest when it comes to salvation. But I think there's something beautiful in that--the fact that it is woven into the very structure of time in this space that we occupy. [00:50:44.540] - Sherrie It was part of his seven days, right? When He's creating everything He works the first six, creates man, and invites man into rest. That's the first thing man gets to do. [00:50:53.340] - Rachel And He invites him into rest with Him. It's not just like, okay, I've created this for you. I've given you the space to rest. Here, I've created this for you. Now let's rest together. [00:51:04.540] - Rachel Let's work together. Let's rest together. Let's work together. Let's rest together. So that truly becomes your work. You work in order to rest and then out of your rest you work some more. And it's this beautiful cyclical loop of work, rest, work, rest ... with God. [00:51:20.260] - Sherrie In my time of being with the Lord, it does clear your mind, frees up your heart, and you get to see when God's changing direction or looking at something new, inviting something new into what He's been doing already. And that's key, because I miss that sometimes because I am headlong into what I just know He was telling me to do, and I miss that He's turned. Have you had that experience where you pick up on something that, oh, wait, Lord. [00:51:46.670] - Rachel Oh, my goodness. Yes. Even the fact that I'm talking to you about Sabbath today, that was, like, not on my radar at all. I wanted to be a fiction writer, and God is now having me write nonfiction and creating-- I published this guided journal, like, that was never on my radar. Never something I thought I would do. And now He's saying to me, I want you to  share this message of my Sabbath rest with other burnt-out Christian moms, right? That was so not on my radar. [00:52:14.570] - Rachel And it took me a while. It actually--it was very funny because I was in a coaching call with my business coach, and I was talking about one thing, and I was, like, I was, like, struggling and rambling, and he just kind of stopped me one second. He asked me the question, he's like, wait, do you not want to talk about Sabbath? You have this thing that you just made. I'm like, oh, no, I want to talk about it. And he's like, I guess I'm not seeing the problem here, Rachel. [00:52:42.410] - Rachel I was, like, what? So then I went back to--during my Sabbath time that week, I was like, Lord, okay, what is going on here? What's the deal? Because and I do think that God uses other people to reflect back to us some of the things that we need to hear from Him. And so in that moment, He used my business coach to be like, Rachel, you're trying to go so hard this way, and I really need you to divert and go this way. And since doing that, since being obedient, I was like, okay, Lord, I guess I'm like, who am I to talk about this? [00:53:11.290] - Rachel I don't have the theology degree. I've been practicing it for a few years with my family, but I'm like, I'm not super great at it. I I keep messing up, and He's like, Well, that's why it's called a practice, Rachel, because you're not gonna do it perfectly. I guess I was kind of fighting it for a bit, and it took a couple Sabbaths, actually, where we kept having this conversation. And I'm like, I don't feel qualified or equipped to talk about this at all. And God just kind of reminded me, it's not really my message. [00:53:40.650] - Rachel I'm just a person to share it. That it's ultimately His work that I'm doing. And I just need to be obedient. It's not about what I'm qualified to do, not to. I just need to be obedient. And so I started being obedient. And He has opened up doors, and He has allowed me to speak into the lives of some really burnt out, exhausted moms. And that has been such a beautiful thing to be a part of, to see a mom who is just at that breaking point and me be able to say to her, you're not adding anything to your schedule. [00:54:15.220] - Rachel You're allowing space for God to be with you. You're allowing space to just sit and rest with Him and let Him just just comfort you and give you peace. And there's something really valuable in that. And they have started practicing it. And they've come back to me and say, like, it's now one of their favorite days of the week, and I'm like, that's not me, that's God. I just feel so privileged to be part of that work. And if I didn't give myself space to listen to Him, I would have missed out on being part of that. [00:54:48.280] - Sherrie I am impressed with this one thing with the Lord that He does have an adventurous plan. This plan, we don't even know it's going to light us up and get us passionate about what we're doing. And if we tune into Him, we get to witness what He's doing. Like, we get a front row seat to what He's doing. And He gives us like a VIP ticket because we experience what He wants to do and how He wants to affect people. Like you're saying, it's so rewarding to see this overwhelmed mom put some lightness in her heart or light in her eyes or a lighter heart over her schedule. [00:55:25.860] - Rachel Yes. And you know, the one thing that I noticed so many moms have said to me, they're like, I just feel so selfish, like rest feels selfish to me, because who am I take time away from my family. And I'm, like, hold up. That's not God's desire for you either. God isn't wanting you to escape your life. He's not wanting you to run away from it. He wants you to live it in a way that it brings life and joy and gives space and margin to your week. [00:55:52.570] - Rachel And so when we talk about it that way, when we talk about structuring it in a way that the whole family finds rest because that's truly God's desire. When you look at what He talks about in Exodus, He's talking about the whole family gathering mana together. It's not just like one person doing all the work. It's the whole family working together to do this thing and resting together. And I just think that's such a beautiful picture, and I think it takes the burden off of this burden that the mom has put on herself to care for everybody and reminds her that ultimately God's the one caring for her family. [00:56:24.760] - Rachel But it also allows her to see that God has given her permission to rest just as much as He's given her husband and her kids. And He's also given her a plan to do it. And now He's just inviting her in. She doesn't have to figure anything out. He's already given it to her. [00:56:38.020] - Sherrie Such a significant point to make, because I can see moms not wanting to take time out for themselves, but what a beautiful service she's doing to them, to draw them in to rest as well. What a benefit to that family. [00:56:52.650] - Rachel And who's going to teach her kids how to rest other than her, right? If we just continue going full fledge the way that we are, we're going to have another generation that's just burnt out, if not more burnt out than us because they won't know how to rest either. [00:57:07.280] - Sherrie I agree. Backing up just a little bit. Tell me about the belonging portion of this Sabbath. What has God spoken to you about belonging, belonging to Him? [00:57:16.380] - Rachel Specifically when I think about belonging it's both belonging to Him, but it's belonging in community. I do believe God's designed us for community. Communion with Him and communion with others. And that's why I think reconnection with God and with each other needs to be a key component of Sabbath. But what He's really shown me about community is that people are in our lives for specific reasons, some for specific times, and He moves them in and out of our lives. I think that I had carried on my shoulders a burden to perform, for lack of a better word, to make sure I was doing all the right things so that people would stay in community with me. And when they would leave the community with me for whatever reason, some that I don't even fully understand because we don't always understand what's going on in somebody's life. [00:58:15.090] - Rachel Oftentimes I would internalize it as something being wrong with me. And so God had to really pull back that layer and remind me that not everything is about me, that I can't internalize it. And that really, I think the key thing that came out of that, out of the last couple of years asking this question about belonging with Him, is Him just really saying to me I --that verse where it talks about giving and taking away-- the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the Lord. I think that's not necessarily just about loss. [00:58:53.280] - Rachel I think it's even, I guess you could call it loss, but I think it's even in our relationships where people are still living, there is a loss of relationship when they move out of relationship with us. But I think what God really stressed to me was that He's ultimately the one overseeing that, and He's ultimately the one bringing people into our lives and taking people out of our lives for His purposes and for His glory. And sometimes that's to protect us. Sometimes that's because those people aren't necessarily the right ones to move us in the next season of life. [00:59:31.930] - Rachel And sometimes that is just because for reasons we don't even know. And in understanding that and understanding that He is the one ultimately in charge of my community, that all that I was responsible for was to put myself out there and to be intentional with the people He brought to mind and to love and value individuals in my life. Then it took the burden off to perform or be good enough or to convince others to be in community with me. [01:00:05.780] - Sherrie I hear you keep saying a word. It took the burden off of me. That's huge freedom when you're not performing, when you're not fearful about what other people are thinking of you, when you now understand that God is taking people, positions, roles, He gives and He takes. So you get to focus on the heart of God while He moves and rearranges things as you go. [01:00:32.820] - Rachel So what I've moved to now is every couple months I ask God, who do You want me to focus on building an intentional relationship with for this season? That's been very interesting. I have met more people in the last two years just through different online communities that I've become a part of and developed some very, very cool relationships and very unique situations that I never would have if I was so focused over here. I was spending so much energy with some friendships I had and still care deeply about them. [01:01:10.210] - Rachel But God moved us. Those friendships that I talked about earlier that I felt kind of abandoned by, I was spending a lot of energy worrying about those relationships, and I'm not going to sugar coat it and say that it's easy to be like, okay, God moves people out of our lives. It still doesn't stop hurting when it happens. It still does when you're like  I kind of thought ... But I do think that having that burden lifted off and knowing that it's ultimately God's responsibility, that He has a plan and a vision for my life. [01:01:42.820] - Rachel And I really, truly just need to walk in obedience and trust His faithfulness, trust His goodness, trust in who He is not what He does. That's where I think it lessens the sting a little bit when it does happen.  [01:01:58.380] - Sherrie For me, when I know it's in His hands and it's up to Him, again like you stated, it's not easy, but there's comfort. There's peace in that process of that stripping away or that having to lay down your expectations and then listen to God leading in a different direction, different than what you

Today’s Guests Justin Giboney – The AND Campaign The Ahmaud Arbery trial involving the men who are accused of killing him is moving forward. Carmen and Justin also discuss the continued culture of cancelling, this time involving Dave Chappelle. Duane and Cindy Mullett – Pain to Purpose “From Pain to Purpose: Rediscovering Joy After Suffering a […] The post Depolarizing Religious Freedom and Understanding Chappelle Controversy | Seeing Purpose in Our Pain appeared first on The Reconnect with Carmen | Engaging Culture from a Christian Worldview.

Gangs and gang culture, is all over the news and on the increase. As a parent, how do you know if your child is involved in a gang? What signs should you look out for? Who do you turn to for help and support and how do you help them to get out? In this episode Jackie, Caroline and Krissi speak to Gideon Buabeng who was in a gang and found himself in hospital after being stabbed 14 times, Akua Ofosuhene who to managed to get her son out of a gang after four years of heartache and struggle and gang specialist Lamar. We hear their perspectives on how and why our children are recruited into gangs, the impact gangs have families, and the wider community and how they have managed to overcome. Gideon Buabeng: In 2015, while Gideon was studying at university, he got caught up in a situation which left him with 14 stab wounds fighting for his life. In his own words he said “with the right support system and determination, I was able to turn my post-traumatic stress disorder into post-traumatic growth and turn my Pain into my Power". He is now an award-winning motivational speaker, founder of Our Pain 2 Power, Prince's Trust ambassador, Chairman of the Violent Crime Prevention Youth Board and Representee of the Prince's Trust Youth Advisory Board. Email: gideonseibuabeng@gmail.com Instagram: @Gideonsnetwork Twitter: @Gideonsnetwork | OurPain2Power LinkedIn: Gideon Buabeng You Tube: Our Pain 2 Power Akua Ofosuhene Akua believes that we can change our current unjust world through the use of psychedelics with the simple intention to let go of all deeply held beliefs that prop up our current white supremacist world order. She holds so many badges of honour; mother, a designer creating bespoke tailoring under the #MyLocalDressMaker" label, documentary story consultant for the hotline documentary series on Joy FM Radio and MD of A Serendipitous Production, a film and video production company specialising in short feature length dramas and documentaries. Email: ofosuhene.akua@gmail.com Instagram: @akuaofosuhene Twitter: @AkuaOfosuhene Radio: UJR Talk Radio Website and UJR Radio LinkedIn: Akua Ofosuhene Lamar Lamar works for the Public Sector as a gangs analyst and provides strategic interaction with key stakeholders in relation to gang culture and advocates for change within the community. Sisters Friends and Guests is a podcast that seeks to redress the imbalance in the representation of Black Women from diverse backgrounds and their voices in the media and more widely within society. Join the conversation. Disclaimer: During this conversation we discuss the use of drugs for the purpose of education only. Drugs are classified into several categories based on their likelihood to lead to negative activities or bad health and we do not condone the use or possession of illegal drugs which is a crime in the UK. Please see the resources on our website, sfgpod.com, which provides additional support for his episode. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/sfg-pod/message

What would service life be like if stress wasn't a problem? Thus begins a series tackling the obstacle to service success that is so pervasive, its influence cannot be understated.Inside:Stress release: effective and ineffective ways to actually get the stress out of your physiology.Keeping stress from messing up your work life is not just a matter of "reducing" it, but becoming resilient to it.How stress affects you and lives in your body - and what you can do about it. The positives and negatives of "letting your anger out" - are there alternatives?Complimentary...Previous Episode: The Struggles of Holding in Our Pain & Performing the "Happy" Customer Service RoleUpcoming Free Mindfulness Course - Master That Human Thing!Go Deeper Into the Mindful Service Movement:Subscribe/Review on i-TunesGet Access to the live workshops and master the service mindsetJoin the Facebook CommunityFollow Me on InstagramConnect with me on LinkedInCheck out my partnership with The Institute for Organizational Mindfulness

A new MP3 sermon from Trinity Baptist Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: James 1:1-3 and God's Purpose in Our Pain Subtitle: The Book of James Speaker: Timothy Raymond Broadcaster: Trinity Baptist Church Event: Bible Study Date: 5/27/2021 Bible: James 1:1-3 Length: 24 min.

A new MP3 sermon from Trinity Baptist Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: James 1:1-3 and God's Purpose in Our Pain Subtitle: The Book of James Speaker: Timothy Raymond Broadcaster: Trinity Baptist Church Event: Bible Study Date: 5/27/2021 Bible: James 1:1-3 Length: 24 min.

A new MP3 sermon from Trinity Baptist Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: James 1:1-3 and God's Purpose in Our Pain Subtitle: The Book of James Speaker: Timothy Raymond Broadcaster: Trinity Baptist Church Event: Bible Study Date: 5/27/2021 Bible: James 1:1-3 Length: 24 min.

A new MP3 sermon from Trinity Baptist Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: James 1:1-3 and God's Purpose in Our Pain Subtitle: The Book of James Speaker: Timothy Raymond Broadcaster: Trinity Baptist Church Event: Bible Study Date: 5/27/2021 Bible: James 1:1-3 Length: 24 min.

We have all experienced pain in our lives. Maybe you lost a loved one, a job, or survived a traumatic event. But, how do we feel God's presence in the midst of our pain? Today's guest, Sherrie Pilkington shares how God's presence met her through the most painful experience of her life, losing her husband. Her testimony will encourage you as you maneuver through life in your painful places. Sherrie Pilkington is a Daughter of the One True God. She is a Mom to 2 grown sons, Mother-In-Law to 2 daughter-in-loves, and MiMi to 5 precious grandbabies. The most recent role she unexpectedly stepped into was that of a widow. She's known for pondering the hard things in life through the lens of God's heart and shares her revelation through her blog, A Life of Thrive. As she makes peace with a season of grief, she has found a new passion and mission to share that God speaks beautiful things in the dark. In her new podcast, Finding God in Our Pain, she put a laser focus on why a good God allows pain and suffering. Through her blog, we find the beauty of Christ in everyday life, and in her podcast, we find the beauty of God's presence in the darkest, most painful places. Finding God's presence in every high and low of our life gives us permission to live loved and thrive! Interview Highlights * Sherrie shares how losing her husband impacted her. * “I went silent.” – Sherrie Pilkington * Sherrie shares what her connection with God was like during her period of silence. * “He said, “Sherrie, some things just belong to me.” * “When we're separated from what we hold dear…we get just a taste, just a small example, a shadow of what it is to be eternally separated from God.” – Sherrie Pilkington * Sherrie shares how to listen to God in your pain. * “This life has no promises, but it's His presence that will get us through everything.” * Sherrie shares how she feels God's presence in those dark moments when she misses her husband. * “One of the things that I discovered through this time of grieving was the power of submission and worship.” – Sherrie Pilkington * “I'm just real with the Lord.” – Sherrie Pilkington * Sherrie gives advice to someone dealing with that first hit of pain. * “My advice would be to struggle well with the Lord. Be authentic. Be genuine.” * Sherrie talks about her blog and podcast. * “Part of the redemption story is for me to share what has happened to me.” – Sherrie Pilkington Relevant Links & Resources * Connect with Sherrie, read her blog, and listen to her podcast at alifeofthrive.com. * Follow us on Instagram. * Connect with your host Sherry Jones. Follow her on Facebook & Instagram. * Support Sherry and this podcast by buying her a coffee. * Purchase your copy of Sherry's book Speak Life Moments: A Transformational Journey. Take care, be blessed, be safe, and remember the church is not a building. We are the church!

All of us struggle with emotional, psychological, and physical circumstances that impact the way we experience our lives, others, and the world around us. And even though our society has come a long way, the conversation of mental health is oftentimes still stigmatized. But we believe that an important way to disprove that stigma is to talk about it. Just as we need to take care of our physical health, our guest Dr. Christina Edmondson encourages us to take care of our brain health. Bio of guest:  Christina Edmondson holds a PhD in counseling psychology from Tennessee State University, an MS degree from the University of Rochester in family systems, and a bachelor's degree in sociology from Hampton University with an emphasis in race, class, and gender. For over a decade, Christina has served in a variety of roles including most recently as the Dean for Intercultural Student Development at Calvin University. A certified cultural intelligence facilitator, public speaker, and former mental health therapist, Christina is often contacted by churches to consult about leadership development, antiracism, and mental health issues. She is also one of the co-hosts of the Truth's Table podcast. Notes and Quotes: “God has given us emotions, feelings, thoughts, and experiences and invited us to process those things. And so, I do think there is a lot of stigma and shame attached to, obviously, issues of mental illness in our culture and in our society. But the truth is, our brains are just as fallen as everything else, and so, to the extent that we would have physical issues like high blood pressure and heart disease and a bad back, we also have nagging, anxious thoughts. We are also kind of wired in ways that make us more susceptible and prone to depression, for example. And not to mention the painful experiences that we have and the way that trauma shapes us. And so I just think that we need to give ourselves and other people a lot more grace.” “On this side of glory, we've got real problems and real issues. And you know, Jesus is not insecure. We don't have to pretend to have it all together as if we are somehow disparaging the name of Christ because we have struggles.” “And so, even our traumas, our fears, our issues . . . even those things must bow down to Christ's agenda for us, which is ultimately for our good and for His glory.” “As a part of our humanity, we do have a range of emotions, and we can see Jesus in the text express a variety of emotions—from grief and lament to anger to joy and delight in friendships and connections.” “We don't have to be afraid of the sadness or the frustration or even the anger that we have. It's what then we do next with it, right?” “As women, we can demonstrate love for each other by not binding people to these caricatures of what other women are supposed to be, giving them the grace to teach us something about the fullness and beauty of womanhood.” “Intimacy takes vulnerability, and vulnerability is almost like a muscle that we have to continually train and work out.” “You take your car in to get looked over; we should take our brains and our bodies in to get looked over.” “I would invite people to think about how, if they're doing great, how they could be a listening ear, a supportive friend . . .” “I'm so grateful that Jesus did that in the Scriptures and Jesus does that now. Jesus sees us even now.” Links/Books/Resources Mentioned in Show:  Show Notes on godhearsher.org God Hears Her website: https://www.godhearsher.org/ Subscribe on iTunes!  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/god-hears-her-podcast/id1511046507?utm_source=applemusic&utm_medium=godhearsher&utm_campaign=podcast Order God Sees Her: 365 Devotions for Women by Women on Amazon.  https://amzn.to/32lYSgh Free eBooklet to Download:Why? Seeing God in Our Pain: https://discoveryseries.org/courses/why/ Dr. Christina Edmondson's website: https://www.christinaedmondson.com/ Elisa's Instagram: elisamorganauthor Eryn's Instagram: eryneddy    

Hello and welcome to the 25th episode of Diversity Hire: Our season 1 finale!! Today we talked to the wonderful Rachelle Hampton, who is a staff writer at Slate. Our conversation covered why you should appreciate your fact-checker, the psychic toll of being a diversity hire, Charlamagne Tha God and white America’s desire for one Black voice, the experience of being a Black journalist in the last decade, and much more. Kevin and Arjun meanwhile didn’t talk about much besides the snow day that just hit NYC. We’ll be back in 2021. Thanks for listening!Arjun and Kevin talk about feeling hygge (0:00)We talk to Rachelle Hampton about her current work setup (8:15)Rachelle leads us through her career timeline (12:00)Having to meet traffic goals as a journalist (15:30)Rachelle talks about the sneaking question in the back of our minds: What if I’m just a diversity hire? (17:50)Rachelle explains how she put together a group chat of Black journalists for Slate (re: “White People Don’t Respond to Our Pain; They Respond to Theirs,” Slate, 2020) (24:03)How did Rachelle feel with regards to having to report on the same, unchanging Black tragedy in America (30:33)The way in which Black journalists have to be spokespeople for their entire race (35:22)Charlamagne Tha God and the ways in which white America have used the Breakfast Club to reach the Black audience (re: “The Voice of Black America?,” Slate, 2020) (39:07)How Rachelle developed her story about college debt (re: “Debt Nation,” Slate, 2020)Everyone should be a simp for their fact-checkers (49:28)We decide the fate of The New Republic (54:44)The way in which white journalists see the Black struggle in the newsroom as a “young person” issue (55:42)We talk about our favorite guy (1:01:45)Arjun’s Feelings Don’t Care About Facts Corner (1:06:15)The Diversity Tribunal (1:16:45) Get on the email list at diversityhire.substack.com

We all experience loss. The loss of dreams. The loss of relationships. The loss of people we love. But we serve a God who can use loss for our good, and that's what today's episode is all about. Join Elisa and Eryn as they discuss not only what they've lost, but also what they've found.  Notes and Quotes:  “I went through a divorce; and before the divorce I was grieving what I thought I had [as a future]. Divorce is a death; it is like a death.” Treat your marriage, or other relationship, like its own breathing entity. Is it healthy? “Loss is like a bucking bronco. It throws us up in the air, and sometimes we come down and land on the back of the horse and sometimes we . . . land in the dirt.” “You can experience so many kinds of different losses, but you can still have the same emotion towards it.” “Loss changes you. You are not the same when you lose something. Like for me, I am not the same with marriage. It changed me.” “Loss does shape us, and I think sometimes we are scared of what the shaping is going to be.” “What if loss actually grows us as we do the grief work.” How have you seen loss benefit your life? “God will use pain to transform us.” “Loss is inevitable, and there are certain lessons and gifts it provides as God redeems it.” “Loss becomes a gift because from that we are able to minister to others.” “Sometimes we are missing out on how He is redeeming because we are trying to take over and make Him redeem it how we would want it.” Links/Books/Resources Mentioned In Show:  Show Notes on godhearsher.org God Hears Her website: https://www.godhearsher.org/ Subscribe on iTunes!  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/god-hears-her-podcast/id1511046507?utm_source=applemusic&utm_medium=godhearsher&utm_campaign=podcast Order God Sees Her: 365 Devotions for Women by Women on Amazon.  https://amzn.to/32lYSgh Free eBooklet to Download: Why?: Seeing God in Our Pain https://discoveryseries.org/courses/why/ Elisa's Instagram: elisamorganauthor Eryn's Instagram: eryneddy Verses Mentioned in Show:  2 Corinthians 1 NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians%201&version=NIV  Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 NIV There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens . . . https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+3%3A1-8&version=NIV 

Finding God in Our Pain

How to Acknowledge your Pain? Pain came to Communication us : some where something is Wrong? Decoding help us to understand Our Pain. Check your Self talk ? What and How you are Repeating your PAIN In your Talk with Friends and Family.