All right, ladies, welcome.
Today is October 29th.
It's one o'clock Eastern time.
This is your phase two check-in call.
I'm Carla Johnson.
I'm one of your coaches here in phase two.
I'm so excited to be here.
Got some fun things that we're going to go ahead and cover today.
Bethany will be joining us here in a little bit.
She should be popping on at some point during our call.
With that, I see two of us on here.
I'm going to go ahead and just go through some of our housekeeping items as we get more
ladies jumping in on the call.
As I said a few moments ago, if you are somewhere where you can put your camera on, please do so.
It's just us ladies here, okay?
As you can see, I pretty much rolled out of bed today.
I had a lot going on this morning.
My son participated in a jog-a-thon at his school, and they were like one of the first
early classes, so I had no time to get ready this morning.
That's why I got my baseball hat on with my son's travel ball team logo on it, my glasses.
Unfortunately, I don't have those lenses that don't do the reflecting, so I apologize
about that, but yes, if you can come on camera, please do, for sure, so yes.
Do we have anybody that is new to Phase 2?
If you are new to Phase 2, this is your first week, go ahead and raise your avatar hand
so that I can see who I have in here is new.
I don't know if we do or not.
I think everybody's been here for a week or so, or maybe even longer.
Hmm, Joanna, you are new.
Awesome, well, welcome.
Excited to have you here with us.
It always makes going over housekeeping stuff nice, because I feel like I'm actually talking
to somebody who's just joined us, because we do cover some of the same stuff over and
over again each week, so it is nice when I have somebody on my call that's brand new,
so Joanna, we are so excited to have you here, so yes, we're going to go over a couple
of housekeeping things here, so those of you that are in Phase 2, understand that we do
have five videos in your Phase 2 content, so it's going to be your Love Story Accelerator,
that's the kickoff that kind of just gives you an overview of what to expect as you're
jumping into Phase 2.
Then we get into the meatier parts of the content, which starts off with Dating 101,
then we move into Divine Feminine, which is my favorite video, and then after that,
we have Online Dating, and then we end it with a Boundaries video, and so each week
when you come to these live sessions, we're going to kind of dive into one video a week.
This month, there happens to be five Tuesdays, so we're kind of doing a little free-for-all.
If you weren't on a little bit ago, I did share that we should have Bethany jumping
in here in a moment.
She and I are going to kind of tag-team in hopes that we can give you all some insight
here to Phase 2 and things that you may be experiencing, just from two OGs that have
been in the program, have been, you know, kind of went ahead of you, and have already
completed that stuff, and we have some of our success stories, and we can kind of give
you some of our feedback, and then later tonight, we have Ebony, one of your coaches on, and
she's one of your sisters, along with Leah, another one of your coaches, that is walking
this journey with you, and so you kind of get a little bit of both.
You get, you know, two coaches that are walking through the process with you, and then you
have another two coaches who have walked through the process and have found their husbands
and are walking through that as well, so, you know, we're excited to be able to share
that with you.
So, as I said, you have those five videos today.
We're just kind of going to go into just some fun things, I think, today of some practical
tools and tips that you can use of things that maybe some of you ladies are experiencing
here in this phase 2 in hopes that we can give you some encouragement as well, so now
that you're in Phase 2, some things that I kind of like to share with you that when you're
in Phase 2, you're going to watch those five videos.
We encourage one video a week.
We don't want you rushing through.
We also don't want you kind of getting stuck in one and maybe responding out of fear that
you're not stepping into continuing to move forward in the process, so we want to make
sure that there is a nice, steady flow in Phase 2, so you'll have those videos.
We really want to encourage you to come to these live check-ins, so those ladies that
are on here right now.
that are with me live, awesome, thank you so much.
You're gonna get the most out of this phase
when you are able to make it live to these check-ins.
We understand life happens,
and that's why we put them in replay
so that if you cannot get here for some strange reason,
maybe something didn't work in your schedule,
then they are available for you in replay.
So if you can't make it, ladies,
make it a priority to make sure you're catching the replays.
Make sure that you are also attending live prayer calls.
We have a prayer call that happens
every single day of the week.
Definitely make it to those Supernatural Saturdays
and those Sunday night activations.
Those will definitely fill your cup up
and give you some encouragement.
Jackie usually shares a word that she's hearing
for the season that we are in,
and I will tell you just from my own experience
and the walks that I have been in,
they're always so timely,
and they don't always just apply
to being single and dating.
It applies to life in general.
So definitely make sure you get
to those Supernatural Saturdays
and those Sunday night activations
and any of those prayer calls that you can get to.
And then last but not least,
make sure that you are showing up
and make sure that you're here with us.
I know like Siggy and Mariska,
they're frequently here,
so I can attest that they are working this program.
They are showing up.
They're getting vulnerable.
They're sharing with us their experiences,
and they're going to glean a lot.
Same thing with Teresa.
Teresa's usually here with us as well.
So get to know your sisters.
That's really important too,
and I'll get into that in a little bit,
just about the community as a whole
and how it's blessed me,
especially when Bethany gets on here,
we can kind of go through that a little bit as well.
But those are just kind of the what to expect of phase two.
So when you've watched those videos,
you've been here at least four to five weeks,
you've come to some live check-ins,
and then you're like, okay, now what?
Then that's when you would move on to phase three,
where you would email admin at JackieDorman.com
and let them know, hey, I'm done with my content.
I've been to live videos,
and I've worked phase two,
and I'm ready to move into phase three, okay?
So I know we got some newbies here.
So now that you are in phase two,
and I've kind of given you the overview of what to expect,
you might be asking, what do you mean by showing up?
What does that actually look like?
So showing up means, one,
you're coming here to these live check-ins.
So definitely celebrate that you're here today
and that you're watching either in replay
or with us live.
So that is one way that you're showing up.
And then posting in our community app,
and those can be about all different things.
So I know a lot of times it can be,
I know a lot of times there's women that come in here,
they're like, I'm not ready to date yet.
Carla, I'm just, I'm not there yet.
I feel like I have some stuff that I need to work on.
And so what happens is sometimes
y'all don't wanna come to these check-ins,
or you don't feel like you have anything
to share in the community,
and that's just simply not true.
So I'll even just kind of share a little bit
of what my journey was,
is that I was in this community for over a year
before I actually started dating,
but that didn't mean that I wasn't showing up
and I wasn't engaging in the community.
So there's other ways that even if you may not be dating
currently in the moment,
doesn't mean that you can't glean
from this community, some things,
and you can't find ways that you can grow
and be using your heart work and learning more information
and just building a better version of yourself, okay?
So I can attest that I am one of those people
that did that.
And so those hosts in our community,
yeah, you're gonna see women share
about their dating experiences.
We definitely want you ladies,
if you are dating to be sharing your dating experiences,
but if you're not, celebrate some wins that you have,
celebrate what's going well for you,
or maybe you're experiencing some setbacks,
share that with us.
Let us walk through this season of life with you.
Share about breakthroughs you're having,
share about questions that you're having with the content.
It can be about absolutely anything.
Like this program can work for you
in however you want it to work, okay?
You just have to be able to show up
and get vulnerable with us, okay?
Build friendships in this community.
Interact with those sisters.
I can attest to one of the biggest blessings
in this community with a lot of the friendships
that I made, I actually, one of the girls
that I got to know pretty well,
she's the one that was looking out.
In apps and groups and things and she saw a guy and was like, hey, what do you think of this guy?
I'm reaching out to him for you. Are you cool if he reaches out to you and I was like, you know, sure whatever
And so that's how my husband and I met it was through one of my friends in this community
You know, I was living in Florida
She was living in Atlanta and then she was a travel nurse and she moved to North Dakota and was moving to Missouri
So she I mean we never lived in that same vicinity be
vicinity to one another but we built relationship in this community and then we had
You know
Retreats and things like that that we ended up connecting with each other on as well
So get to know your sisters in here share what's going on in your life
If you are posting in our community and you have a specific question for one of us coaches
Please make sure that you are
Posting that comment and attaching it to the ask a coach tab
So definitely make sure that you're being mindful of that and ladies if you are responding to any of your sisters in the community
Go and make sure that that post is not in the ask a coach section
Okay, we really want to kind of leave those just solely for the coaches to respond to
Okay, and then when you are responding to ladies, let's keep those things positive
Let's not you know get on the negative train. Let's not like bring your sisters down
Let's just keep things positive for them
okay, and then
Let's see some important reminders in our app ladies. Make sure that you're checking out all of those tabs in the app
There's the training tab the resource tab. That's a huge one
That's where you're gonna find the spirit mate spirit mate match and take form to make sure you're filling that out
And then we have our affiliate program the single cities those types of things are in that resource tab
Your training videos your replay videos
So this call today will be in the replay the call that I did last week is in the replay
The supernatural Saturday is in the replay Jackie did a special love seat session last Tuesday
That's in the replay
so those are where your replay content is going to be and then your training is where your training content is, okay, so
Another thing keep in mind that this is a brand new app that we have developed
Specifically for this community
so with that just understand and practice grace and
Understanding to know that we are in that process of working out a few glitches here and there
so just trust the process know that we we are working hard behind the scenes to make this as a
Seamless app for you to use and tool. I know
Oftentimes people will post things we may not get to see them right away
So we are working out those glitches, but just know that when we see them we will respond to you
As quickly as we possibly can
Also, if you are in the app and you do have a coach that responds to you do us a favor and click the reply
tab underneath our comments so that you are replying specifically to us because
Oftentimes like I will I'm one of those coaches where oftentimes I'm gonna ask you questions
I'm gonna want more feedback from you
and so what happens is if you go under your post and you reply to yourself you get notified that you
Reply to yourself. I don't get the notification that you've replied to my comment. Does that make sense?
So really be mindful of clicking that reply especially to us coaches
I do try to do my best to you know, every day go and make sure like, okay
Who all did I respond to I know I had some questions
I don't see notifications, but let me go back to those posts and see if maybe they've replied somewhere else
But if you can help us that will give us an opportunity to reply to you
much quicker, okay
I think that about covers it just again
Yeah, keep in mind when you are making a post that you are labeling it with the right tab
And such okay. So Joanna, you said you have a question about the app. Is it something quick that we can cover?
Okay, perfect, but it takes a long so I posted something and I didn't post a picture I posted just like a win
Ebony commented and she's like, oh, I would love to see a picture
So I try to go back and upload a picture, but I am it wasn't allowing me to do that
You'll have to just make a whole nother post. So just go ahead and don't like
ladies, don't be afraid to post frequently, all right?
I mean, like, as long as we're kind of keeping it
in the state, like, you know,
you're not like posting like five things
and it's the same question
because maybe we're getting a little impatient
that maybe somebody hasn't answered your response yet.
Like that, obviously keep that to a minimum,
but you know, don't be afraid
if you've got one question that's a fading question,
you know, and you want a coach to respond
and then you're like, okay,
and I also have another question over here
about the Divine Feminine video that I just watched.
Can someone help Claire by that for me?
And then maybe you've got, oh, there's another post,
like, you know, I give you ladies activations each week.
I don't see a lot of people doing them,
but so we're gonna hopefully try to change that.
So you might like, last week I gave you ladies
an activation of like, let's get to know you better.
Post a picture of yourself doing an activity
that you enjoy doing.
And so I think Shawnee shared with us a picture
of she does photography and she was doing self portrait.
Same thing with Siggy, she is into photography.
So they like, you know, they posted pictures
and we got to know a little bit more about them.
I posted a photo of how I usually spend my weekends.
It's always at the baseball field.
So, but it's an activity that I absolutely love
and I enjoy doing.
So you can post all sorts of things.
So don't be afraid to do that.
But yes, your question is after you've made a post,
there's really no way to go back and edit.
Like I am notorious for misspellings
and then I'll go and I'll post it
because I maybe didn't reread.
And I'm like, oh my goodness,
I have all these spelling errors all over the place.
So then I'm like replying like, you know,
oh, I meant to say this, not this.
So unfortunately we can't go back and edit
or add things to it,
but you can definitely make another post
if it has something else on that you want to add.
Okay.
Sound good?
Awesome.
Okay.
Woo.
I know, I always feel like it's very long winded
with the housekeeping stuff.
So like I said earlier,
typically what we do is each week,
we kind of pull from one of the videos
and we kind of deep dive into that,
highlight some things from that video
because there are those four videos
and there's typically four Tuesdays in a month.
This month we have an extra Tuesday.
So myself and the coaches
were having some conversations this weekend
and we all kind of felt in our spirit
this desire to really help you ladies
with some practical tips of things
that you might start seeing happening
in phase two for yourself.
We want to give you practical dating tips,
but we also understand that not everybody is,
not everybody is on the same journey
and the same path and the same pacing as everybody else.
So I say this because I know
we talk about the seven date challenge
and we want you ladies getting out there
and coming out of hiding
and start putting your feelers out there
and start going on some dates.
But we also understand that not everyone
is going to be fully ready to dive into that.
I was one of those people.
And so that's how like I can totally relate to that.
So we want you,
we don't want because you are not dating
to feel like you can't contribute
or you can't participate in this phase
because that's simply not true.
One thing that myself and Bethany and Ebony
and Leah shared and Bethany and I have experienced
with this having been in the program
and now both of us are married
is that during our season in this group,
there were so many opportunities
and situations that we found ourselves in
that didn't always include dating
that God was highlighting to us
to grow us into a better spirit mate for our husbands.
And so I want to encourage you ladies
that even if you're not dating,
what are some things that God is highlighting to you
or situations or circumstances
that you're finding yourself in?
What is God and Holy Spirit highlighting to you
that you can be growing in those types of things?
So a lot of times we might feel,
you know, certain things kind of start coming up.
We might start feeling triggers.
We might start getting some emotions and feelings
about, you know, dating or not dating.
If we're in dating,
we might start experiencing some.
situations that just don't feel like they're uncomfortable,
they're not familiar, sometimes they are, you know,
some unhealthy things wanting to creep in
and we can't always control, you know,
the people that we're gonna, you know,
find our, find, you know, in our path,
but they're all opportunities for us to grow into,
you know, our purpose, ourselves and all that kind of stuff.
Does that make sense for you ladies?
I know I got two of you on camera,
so I can see some people responding,
does that make sense?
Okay, so yeah, so we were talking this weekend,
we were, like I said, we want to,
regardless if you're dating or not,
are you allowing God to help you grow into the,
in this season?
So, you know, like I said, it took me about a year
of being in this program before I went on my first date.
Now I always tell you ladies, like I wouldn't,
I wouldn't encourage that, you know,
I think I took a lot of my time
because I was more in a fearful response,
and so I always, you know, coach you ladies
to be mindful of the decisions that you're making,
is it, are you following fear or are you following peace?
And so it's taking that inventory,
it's having that self-awareness.
So I can't say that I always follow God,
I never followed fear because it was important for me
to take time, because one of the things
that God had me work on in the beginning of this program
was my identity in Christ.
And so that was still very important for me,
and I had to walk through that season
in order to fully heal and grow into
and accept who I was in Christ,
so that I could fully receive the gift of a husband,
and also be able to pour into other people,
and so that was really important for my walk,
was discovering who I was and whose I was,
being able to see myself through a lens that God saw me,
and so it took me some time.
Now that didn't mean that I completely checked
out of this community,
I actually pressed into this community more,
because I needed to be around women
who were in the season that I was in,
that was experiencing some of the things
that I was experiencing, that were hungry to grow
and learn and grow in the relationship with God,
who were still single, because here's the thing,
it's like just because we're single,
and like some of us are dating and not,
we're still like, there's things that we can relate to,
and so that was important for me,
to build that sense of community,
and I had that outside in like my every day,
now granted I was joining this program at the end of 2020,
so of course like it was,
people were not really spending time with each other,
but I still had community,
I had a church that I went to that I was plugged into,
and believe it or not, God pruned that church community,
and I mean, there was nothing wrong with that community,
God was just gonna say, I'm gonna grow you,
I'm gonna get you in a place
that where you're gonna get uncomfortable,
because I need you to really see who you are,
you're not gonna hide behind people that,
he just was like, you're not gonna hide around,
you're not gonna hide in your comfort zone,
so I had to get vulnerable,
I had to participate in this community,
and I really pressed in,
so and I wasn't dating ladies,
so for a whole year I wasn't dating,
and I was getting frustrated at times,
but and scared and I'm like, I don't want it,
like this guy's interested in me and I don't wanna do it,
but I communicated that to my sisters,
so I just, I say that because no matter what season
you are in, God is going to continue
to be walking alongside you and help you grow,
so I want you to be thinking, whether you're dating or not,
are you allowing God to help you grow in this season?
Okay, so another thing that we were talking about
is some of the guardrails based on levels of relationship,
so what we were discussing this weekend,
what me and the coaches were discussing,
and we kind of all had kind of the same experience,
was just remembering like what information
are you sharing with people at level one, two,
and even in level three relationship?
It's important to ask yourself,
are you sharing too much personal info in the beginning?
that's huge, okay? And sometimes what happens is, you know, even in our, if you are online,
you may be just, you kind of have this blanket profile, and believe it or not, sometimes we,
without even thinking about it, we might divulge too much information there. And we might,
for some of us, it might not be true information, but for others, it may be because of what we're
experiencing on the app. So everybody's going to have a different experience on whatever apps.
I always tell people, like, just because, let's see, I'm trying to think of one of the sites,
like Bumble. Like, just because Bumble works for one of your sisters in this community,
doesn't, and then, or I should say this, maybe because Bumble, or let's say Facebook Dating,
or like Match or something, just because it's not working for one of your sisters in community
doesn't mean that it can't work for you. What I've noticed is sometimes it depends on the
demographic you're in, or the region that you're in. I was living, when I was in this community,
I was living in Sarasota, Florida. There's not a lot of singles in their 30s and 40s.
Like, I was in my late 30s, and there was just not a lot of singles in that area. Sarasota,
for anybody that knows or has been there, it is more of a, I don't want to say prestigious,
but there is just a more elite status there. The cost of living is, like, absurd, that you're not
going to find a lot of singles and a lot of, like, 30-somethings living in that area. So,
unfortunately, that's where I was living, and so I didn't find that I had much of a dating pool.
And so, certain apps were not great for me. Now, if I opened up my, you know, diameter, my radius,
then, and started dating people in Tampa, which is a more bigger city, then I got more,
more, like, there's just more men, right? So, it helped, but then I'm like, okay,
now I'm traveling an hour away. I'm a single mom. This is hard. I have my son 90% of the time.
I only, he only goes to his dad one night every two weeks. It was very difficult for me.
And so, just because one app doesn't work for you or another sister doesn't mean it can't work for
somebody else. And then what you could be seeing is, you know, the demographic that you're in.
So, I know, I think we recently, we recently had some, and I'm going to share this a little bit,
because, okay, I'm going to say one more thing here before I kind of get into this topic here.
So, our whole purpose here is to educate you ladies, but what we don't want to happen in our
education is we don't want to elicit fear, okay? Because that is what the enemy is going to try to
do. Like, we're here to educate you and help you with the guardrails, but we don't want you to
take it to such a level of fear that you are, you know, like, afraid of people. And we don't want
that. So, if you are experiencing fear, we need you to press into Holy Spirit with that. You know,
allow God's wisdom and discernment to produce the peace, the joy, the patience. That's what
God's Spirit is going to produce. So, if you feel like easily shaken in certain situations,
this may be because you have some cracks in your foundation. There may be still some cracks in your
heart. If something is shaking you, especially in this stage where you might not be dating,
you might be just in level one or two, you might just be, you know, shaken just by getting out
there and talking to people. Even, you know, letting people know that, hey, I'm single and
I'm in this program. Like, if that is starting to elicit some fear, let's press into Holy Spirit
with that. Let's dive into that. Let us coaches kind of help you process through that because I
assure you, myself and Bethany, because me and Bethany did this program together and we've
experienced all the things, okay? I can attest to that. I know you ladies will see like, oh,
here's these coaches that now have gone through the program and now they have the prize, right?
They have the husband. That doesn't mean that we did not go through a lot of this stuff. Like,
we're here to help pour into you ladies. So, if you're finding yourself easily shaken, like,
Let's work with that.
You know, God will partner with you to heal these areas,
but taking ownership and accountability
will be your part also.
So solid foundations do not crumble when they're shaken.
So you ladies deserve to work on building
your solid foundation for your future marriage.
So if you're finding things are shaky,
let's dig into that, you know?
Maybe it is.
You know, you're feeling shaken by just the idea of dating.
Ladies, I experienced that.
It took me a year, all right?
I'm here to help you.
I'm here to work through that.
You know, God had to work some things in me.
So those are just all important things.
And so now I want to get into,
because again, I want to remind you,
like we're not here to elicit fear,
we're just here to educate.
So I know, usually I talk about this a little bit
in the online dating video,
but I know it's kind of come up, this idea of scammers.
And we always tell you ladies,
that if you're going to do online,
it's preparing your heart and your mindset
to deal with some people that are just not healthy.
All right?
We live in this world, right?
We're all live in this world,
but we don't have to, you know,
we don't have to carry on that.
But we have to understand
that we are going to come across people
that may not be healed.
But again, we want to make sure
that those people are not shaking us, all right?
And if they're shaking us,
then we need to assess that for ourselves.
So just be understanding
that you are going to experience at times,
there's possibilities that you're going to experience scammers
and I want you ladies to remember
that there is nothing wrong with you.
I've experienced scammers, Bethany experienced scammers.
We've all had our fair share of dealing with people
that are not just scammers,
but even people that were not in a healthy heart
and that were also unhealthy themselves.
And so we want to talk about like how to recognize that
and then let's learn on how we can limit those interactions.
And so maybe that might be assessing your profile.
If you notice that you are getting
a high frequency of scammers,
then let's look at your profile.
Maybe there's some things that are indicating in there
where like, hey, this could be making you a target.
So let's remove that, let's help you with that, okay?
So a lot of times scammers will seek vulnerable people
or people that appear to be vulnerable.
So just because you're getting scammed
doesn't necessarily mean you're vulnerable.
It's that they're gonna maybe see if you are vulnerable
and they're gonna look for pieces of that.
So sometimes like things that we've noticed
being in this program, having been in it ourselves
and also coaching women through it,
oftentimes scammers will go for some older women, okay?
They'll go for women that appear that maybe they have money
because they're looking to see
if they can scam you out of some money.
So they're gonna go for women that,
hey, she looks like she's got money.
And a lot of times when you're an older woman,
you probably are more established in your career.
So that could be why they might be targeting you, okay?
And it's not to put you in this fear state
that means, oh, I can't go online,
I can't test the waters there.
No, we're just gonna put some guardrails
to help protect yourself.
Sometimes they will go after women
that they believe may be desperate.
So they might be looking for things
that you're saying in your profile
or pictures that maybe show that maybe you're desperate
to be loved or accepted or find a man,
women who are susceptible to charm.
So if you're chatting with a guy early on,
he might be putting the charm on real thick.
And what can happen is we can get sucked in real easily.
And so if we pick that up,
they're thinking hook, line, sinker, right?
So, and then they might even try to use information
that you share to make it appear
like they have things in common with you.
So we don't have to date out of desperation
and we don't wanna be afraid to date people, okay?
But these are things that are important to know
so that we're safeguarding ourselves.
So I say this and I'm gonna share
just even my own experience.
So this is not per se like a scammer that I dealt with.
This is not a scammer situation,
but this is where I allowed an unhealthy person
to charm me and put me in a situation
where I was making not so great choices.
So I, for those of you that, you know,
have been in the community for a little bit
and know a little bit behind my story,
because I've shared this before,
and I know Jackie has even shared this.
In the past, my son's father and I were not married, so I got pregnant pretty early on.
At that time, I was a believer.
I had found the Lord when I was a teenager in high school.
Then I kind of parted ways with the Lord after some feelings of betrayal with friendships
in high school and went to college.
I was like, God's not with me.
These people betrayed me, and I felt like God was betraying me.
Then I started coming back to the Lord at the end of my 20s.
I was ready to be in a relationship with someone who was going to value a relationship with God.
Then I met my son's dad on an online dating app.
I talked about my love for God and how important it was for me.
He saw that, and he painted a picture with his charm and his charisma to make it sound like he had that in common with me.
I got myself hooked very quickly and made choices to get physically intimate with him.
Within the first sexual interactions that we had, I got pregnant.
I didn't even know this man for a month, and I found myself pregnant.
But I was certain this man was the man I was going to marry.
He talked about how much he loved family.
He wanted to have family of his own.
He had a son already.
He was all about being a dad.
He quoted the scriptures.
He invited me to church and did all those things.
I thought, man, I landed a good one.
I got pregnant, and this man flipped his switch so quickly.
At that point, I was pregnant.
What was I going to do?
I didn't pace myself in that relationship.
I was so focused on the charm and the insecurity of feeling like I needed to have someone.
Remember, ladies, when I joined this program, my son was four or five years old.
I still had to work on my identity.
It's important that we're coming in this community.
We're talking about these things.
We're allowing God to highlight areas in our life that we need to grow in.
We're not just focused on dating, but we're focused in general of what can we do to grow into a healthier self.
We don't find ourselves in these situations when we are dealing with some men.
There are people out there that are not going to be healthy.
They're not going to have mentors and coaches like you all have here.
It's just important to make sure what kind of information are you sharing with people?
Are you paying attention to building relationships with people and getting to know people at a healthy pacing?
Then, if something happens, is it going to shake you to the point that the discouragement comes in,
and you're losing hope, and you're getting frustrated?
We've got to look into that.
Other ways that I want to talk to you ladies about is being fruit inspectors.
What's important to remember here is this is going to take time.
You can't just go on one or two dates and expect to know everything that you need to know about a person
or have enough time to feel like you've been able to inspect whether or not this person has fruit in their life.
It takes some time of getting to know them.
Someone may share they love the Lord, and they might send the scriptures,
but the fruit of a relationship with Christ is maybe not present over time.
It's allowing yourself to have a healthy balance of really getting to know someone and waiting to see what fruit surfaces.
Again, that's what I experienced with my son's dad.
Had I maybe spent several months getting to know him,
I might have started seeing how what he was sharing about his relationship with Christ wasn't measuring up in his day-to-day life.
Again, it's take time to get to know someone.
We're not diving in and talking to someone every day.
you know, texting all the time, messaging all the time,
we're pacing ourselves.
So I hope this gives y'all some background
of like practical tools of, you know,
things that you can work on.
And again, these are things you can work on
even if you're not dating.
Like you can be checking your spirit and your heart,
like, okay, what makes me nervous about this?
What, you know, I mean,
yeah, I kind of just lost my train of thought there,
but I don't know.
I would love to hear some feedback from you ladies.
I know there's like five of us on, I'm not sure.
I know Bethany was planning to be here.
She might've gotten held up.
I'll check in with her in a moment
because she's got some really great feedback as well.
We both kind of were sharing this weekend with each other,
just going back and forth and, you know,
reminiscing, if you will,
some of our experiences when she and I were single
and in this community
and some of the experiences that we had faced.
So, you know, one thing that I remember
she and I talking about this weekend,
so if she comes on, she'll share it with you as well,
how for her, sharing her love of the Lord
was important because she's in ministry.
So it was really important that she shared that
because it is a very big part of her life
and it's her walk.
Like ministering is her destiny DNA.
And so she needed to know that someone was aware of that.
And here's the thing, she attracted men of faith.
She attracted men that said they had faith
and they really didn't.
She attracted men that didn't have a relationship with God.
And some of those men were good.
Here she actually is, this is good.
She must've known I was sharing a bit.
Hey, Bethany, I was just talking to the ladies
about your experience with sharing on your profile
that you loved Jesus and why you needed to share that
is because your destiny DNA and your purpose is ministering.
And so how that attracted men of faith,
men that said they had faith that maybe didn't
and then men that didn't have faith
but were still good guys.
Yes, a hundred percent.
Tell me, do you want me to run with something
or you wanna take a few minutes to finish
what you were sharing?
A lot of what we talked about, I kind of shared with them.
We talked about the scammers and stuff like that,
kind of what they look for, how, you know,
and even not just the scammers,
but people that will maybe take information that you share
and use it to charm you.
And I, you know, you know, my situation with Bo's dad,
walked through a lot of that with me.
And so I shared that with the women of how, you know,
here was a man that, you know, loved the Lord, went to church,
tell me all the scripture.
And I found myself in, you know, sexual intercourse
very quickly and pregnant.
And then as soon as that happened,
I started seeing that that fruit was not there.
Right.
So we talked about that, talking about guardrails,
you know, what we share, what we don't,
and also being able to, even when we're not dating,
how God can allow us to grow in this season.
And I shared with them how I didn't date for that first year
and I don't think you dated either for a while.
I didn't, but I think here's the thing
I wanna make sure people understand.
I don't want, and I'm sure Carla communicated this amazing.
Hi, by the way.
So good to see some of your faces again
that I haven't seen for a little bit
since you've been in phase one.
Hi.
I wanna make sure you all always lean towards positive.
Okay.
So no matter what you experience,
one of the things, the reason I asked Carla,
kind of said, hey, I wanna jump on
is because in any situation we face, ladies,
I feel the Holy Spirit on this.
Even in some things I was coaching people on,
which is why I'm late today.
You know, we're always gonna be presented
with an opportunity to choose positive thinking
or choose negative thinking.
The enemy will try to always hit at our weakest point.
Okay, so what I mean by that is
when we per se encounter scammers, okay,
when we are looking at what's wrong,
when our go-to internally is what is wrong with me,
that is a signal that we need more healing
in our identity, okay?
Because the reality is, is we all attract scammers,
you all, even in the church where Brian and I are leading,
we just did this big post.
And I think this is super relevant
even to you all interacting in person.
for online dating in our single cities.
We just did this big advertisement
because we were doing a fall festival.
Y'all, unfortunately, that attracted scammers
and it attracted people, you know, that yeah, it's annoying,
but that doesn't mean the identity of the church,
there's something wrong with it, okay?
So I wanna make sure you all separate
as you're navigating in your dating and practicing dating,
I really want you all to think of it like that.
You're practicing dating.
It's awesome if you guys find your spirit mate right now,
but even the encounters that you're having,
it's hopefully gonna help you refine who you are to grow
and really see, okay, God,
what do you want me to learn from this?
So I wanna encourage you to not shift
towards the negative, okay?
So that it means there's something wrong with you.
I'm gonna give you a couple other examples.
When I was in my online dating journey,
well, even let me back up before that,
you guys that went through heart work,
I've referenced my spiritual daughter's dad a couple times.
Y'all, I met him in online dating years ago,
and I swore that I would never do online dating again
because of the experience I had with him.
I unfortunately was not mature enough.
I didn't have a program like this.
And in our first conversation on the phone,
I met him in online dating.
He, you know, we got on a phone call, cool.
I overshared like you wouldn't believe
because I didn't know, I didn't know.
And he was asking me questions
and I was just answering everything he asked me.
Well, guess what you all, I gave him everything he needed
to love bomb me and draw me right in.
I'm not telling you that so that you're scared.
I want you just to understand
that just because someone asks you something
does not mean you need to tell them the answer, okay?
That doesn't mean we become frigid or any of that,
but the levels of relationship
that you guys are being coached on,
they're there as guardrails to help you.
Because if you're like me,
and some of you are not like me at all,
but if you are in any degree like me
and you feel like just because someone asked you a question
that you need to give them the answer
to what they're asking and maybe even, and then some.
I wanna encourage you to really, really honor
and do your best to learn those levels
of relationship and engagement, if you will.
Not engagement as in you're getting engaged,
but how you're interacting
with the things people are asking you.
In level one, y'all are keeping it light.
You're keeping it low stakes.
So you're not going all in.
You're not, if they ask you,
well, why have you been single this long?
Or why aren't you married?
Y'all don't have to answer that.
You can say, hey, I'm really enjoying getting to know you,
but I'm gonna wait to answer that
and until we are getting to know each other
on a different level or however you word it,
but don't feel like just because someone's asked you that,
you have to answer.
You're gonna have guys that are gonna,
like I had one guy and this is the guy
I wanna give you the other example of.
This guy was really nice.
I do believe he is and was a Christian,
but in our texting exchanges, this one texting exchange,
we were talking about something totally different
and his question to me was,
what kind of pajamas do you like to wear to bed?
Y'all haven't even been on a date with this guy
and he's wanting to know what kind of pajamas I'm wearing.
Why do you think he wants to know that?
Well, he wants to know that
because he's got sex on his brain.
All right, now the old me,
I may not have answered him,
but I probably would have gotten drawn into that.
But in the new me in that season, I was like,
hey, I'm not gonna talk to you
about any of that kind of stuff.
If you wanna talk to me about like other things or whatever
and so I would shift the conversation.
What ended up happening is this,
because when we do that,
we're giving them an opportunity to honor our boundaries
and to be teachable.
Okay, not that it's our job to teach them,
but what I'm saying is we're gonna find out,
is this guy willing to honor me?
Honor my boundary that I'm setting?
If he does, green lights, that becomes a green light
because when he asked me that,
that became a yellow flag for me, okay?
It wasn't all the way red
even though it was kind of towards red for me.
It gave me an opportunity to set a boundary.
If he had honored that,
again, that would have turned green for me
if he continued to honor it,
not just temporarily in the moment.
So the reason I'm bringing him up
is on my first in-person date with him,
the first night we're together, he wants to hold my hand.
I'm like, you know, I'm not comfortable with that.
And there are some people
that would be totally fine with that, but I wasn't.
And so I just said, Hey, no, I'm not comfortable.
I don't, I don't want to move to that point.
Cause I don't know you well enough.
Um, and then there were other little exchanges like in between the
first date and the second date.
And not that this, like, again, this sounds very good, you all, but
he sent me this video of him.
Lee, like he's a worship leader and he sent me a song that he
was singing, like, you know, at home.
And in the old days I would have been like, Oh, that's so awesome.
He's sending me this worship song.
Y'all know, I'm like, I am not at this level with this guy.
That's not where we're at.
And I felt like he was trying to bait me kind of like how I felt before.
Now, if for what, whether or not that was true, I really
don't know the intention.
I just know how I felt in that experience.
And I didn't feel like our, our relationship, if you will, was at the
point of sending each other videos like that, I wanted to get to know him as a
person, so I didn't engage much with him.
I think I said, Oh, cool.
Or something like that.
I did not like, Oh my God, that's so amazing.
We go on our next date and it was an okay date.
Um, when I didn't eat all my food, he asked me, are you not going to eat
all that?
And I said, no, I'm not.
I'm full.
In the old days, I would have felt so insecure and shameful.
Like I had to eat that to make somebody happy.
The new me, and I wasn't a jerk about it.
I was just like, no, like I'm good.
If you want to eat it, you can eat it.
Sure enough.
He did now that's fine.
But I think that was more about the money for him.
Okay.
That was another, again, not a red flag, but just, okay, I'm
going to pay attention to this.
This is the thing here with this guy.
And then we go on to this other part.
It was still on the second date.
We went over and we're hanging out.
We were just walking around at this outdoor, like shopping mall area.
And, and then we were sitting chat and he wanted to hold my hand again.
I was like, no, I'm not there.
Whatever.
So we go and we're chatting in the car and, um, and I'm going to share this
because I love the conversation games.
You all, I think they're great conversation cards.
You know, there's apps that have conversations and I think
those are super helpful.
Um, this guy, we started out normal, like light, but guess what kind of
questions he kept trying to sneak in?
Y'all want to guess sexy ones, sex, baby.
That's what he's thinking about, you know?
So he's wanting to know sex stuff that I'm into or not into.
And I said, Hey, yeah, you know, before, when I mentioned, and this
is literally, and I'm a nice person, y'all, but I literally said, you know,
before, when I said, I don't, I'm not going to have these conversations with
you at this stage in, in us getting to know each other, I really meant that.
So we can talk about any other stuff, but we're just not going to talk about this.
Not at this point in the relationship.
And so, you know, he kind of, Oh, Oh, you know, but then
you'll, he tried to do it again.
So right there, I'm like, this guy's all red flags for me.
He's red flags all over the place.
And so, um, after that date, you know, it ended fine.
I was nice and whatever went my way.
Um, but then I got pastor Brian in the mix and things with him are just great.
He never brings that stuff up.
It's all awesome.
So I have this other person to compare it to.
Right.
So I ended things with that guy and I just decided not to move forward with him.
Um, and so I use that as an example again, because he was asking me things.
That were beyond the boundary that I had already set and I wasn't
comfortable engaging in, but I had to use my voice and say so and, and more than once.
And so I want you all to know that it's okay for you to do the same and you do
it with kindness to the best of your ability, I will tell you that there was
a different guy that I was really kind to, and I set a boundary with him.
I didn't feel like I was supposed to move forward with him.
He reacted and it wasn't, it wasn't super nice.
And I was like, Hey, look, I'm, I'm trying to be nice and just be forthcoming
and honest, like, you know, I don't feel like this response was needed or whatever.
And he did calm down some, but like some people aren't gonna respond.
They're going to react, but don't feel like you have to engage with that.
Okay.
If you've already blessed them and you're like, okay, bless you, you
know, and you're ready to move on.
If they try to fight with you and engage, you don't feel like
you have to even engage with that.
You have complete permission to just bless and block and move on.
Okay.
So use your voice, understand that.
Uh, sometimes the enemy will try to draw.
Are you in through again, that guy that was a worship leader in the past?
I would have thought that was so amazing.
And I think again, if the, if I had been further along in my relationship with
him, I think it would have been received differently, but I hadn't, like I had
one date with him as it, I hardly knew him.
Um, and so looking at the levels of relationship and looking through the
lens of the level of relationship you're in with people, that's how you want
to interpret what they're doing.
Okay.
So being fruit inspectors, isn't just like a one-time thing.
You're like kind of looking at it as you go and not through lenses
of criticism or judgmentalism.
Like I didn't, I don't even now, like I don't judge that guy.
That's where he's at, but I can know that that's not for me.
So I did feel led on mine as, as Carla was sharing on my profile.
I've always known I'm called to ministry.
Um, because I attracted that guy, the girl's dad that said he was a Christian,
but then didn't live like one.
Um, I knew out of the gate, I wanted to have conversations as quickly as
possible, um, with people about their heart for the Lord and that, you know,
I don't even know that I, we had the whole levels of relationship in place
fully when we were going through it.
Um, we've developed that a lot more since, since then.
Um, so I do think there were conversations I had kind of before the,
you know, before the time, but I definitely knew I wanted someone that
when I looked over, they were running at the same pace after the Lord as I was.
And that's what I was looking for.
And not just with their words, but with their actions and their life.
One of the big things I looked for you all was how did they treat other people?
So the same guy that asked me, aren't you going to finish your food?
And not that it was bad that he asked me that you all, but I kind of just got
a negative vibe from it in my spirit.
But he was a little short with our server as well.
So that kind of stuff stands out to me.
Brian, on the other hand, was just everywhere we went.
He was like generous to people and kind and like it just so many things.
So I was paying attention to their character, their character mattered.
And it does matter for all of you as well, because we want you
to find healthy spirit mates.
We believe that's what God has for you.
You don't have to settle for less than, than God's best.
We don't want you to get into this phase two or even go into phase three and
shift into scarcity mentalities.
Because guess what?
I know sometimes it might not seem like in the enemy wants you to believe there
are not enough great men that love the Lord and walk in the fruits of the
spirit, but the devil is a liar.
And so you have to partner.
This is where you guys get to choose to partner with the truth and
the power of what's really true.
God is raising up men left and right.
You all it's, it's stuff he's saying in my spirit, I'm seeing it happen,
you know, and we're going to see it in all different kinds of ways.
Jackie said something really important recently.
We started this program focused on women initially, because a lot of people
are like, where are the men?
Where are the men?
Well, we were working on the women's side of things way more in the
beginning than we were with the men.
The men thing just started happening organically.
We didn't even put a lot of time and effort into that.
Now we are putting more time and effort.
And God is sending people.
I feel like literally I see emails daily right now coming into our
community from men wanting to join.
It's a good thing, but.
We want you to be open to meeting your spirit mate, however, God
wants to bring them into your life.
I wanted to meet my spirit mate in this community too.
I'm being a hundred percent honest.
I did.
I didn't want to go out anywhere.
I wanted actually God to send the guy to my door.
That's really what I wanted.
But, uh, but I really deep down, I wanted to meet someone in this
community and there were, there were really great guys in this community,
but my spirit mate was not here.
And so I opened my heart to wherever God wanted to bring them from.
And I said, I would never move back North.
I said, I was never going to move in general away from my girls, my
spiritual daughters, but God had other plans.
And so opening myself up to what he had in store was a huge part
of why I now have Brian in my life.
And so there's a lot of good, and I want to, I kind of want to land there and
then I'll kind of turn it back to Carla and, or you guys have questions or
whatever, um, God has somebody great for you, he does, and no matter.
if you struggle on some days, you're going to have,
you're going to have days where you just feel discouraged and you're going to
struggle. Or I don't know about you guys, but when I got, um,
the opportunity to go on my first date, all of a sudden, I'm like, Oh my God,
I haven't lost enough weight yet. Like, I'm not ready. I'm not ready.
And I like all this stuff was bubbling up in my spirit,
but it wasn't what God was saying. It was my fear,
my anxieties surfacing about all the reasons why I
wasn't ready, but that wasn't God saying that.
So if you're experiencing some of that stuff, no, it's normal,
but don't stay there like, okay, God, what do you want to say to me?
And so I remember God saying to me, Bethany, it's time, it's time.
It's time for you to get out there and get this ball rolling. And so I did.
And that guy wasn't my spirit mate.
And neither were some of the others that I've talked to you about, but those,
those guys all, again,
were a part of my process leading me towards
my spirit mate. And that is Brian, who I'm now married to for over two years.
And so some of y'all, you know, your journey,
some of you guys might meet your spirit mate right away.
And some of you might not,
but I don't want you to feel like get into that comparison.
Remember we talked about that in heart work,
staying out of the comparison trap because your
spirit mate might be getting prepared for you right now.
I feel the Holy spirit even on that. And if you guys can lean into that,
instead of that scarcity fear, like, Oh my God, it's not happening for me.
No, it is.
God is drawing you to your spirit mate and he's drawing your spirit mate to you.
But in that process, you guys are both being prepared for each other.
Does that mean you're not going to hit bumps once you meet each other?
What do y'all think? Just curious. What do y'all think?
Do you think you're going to have any bumps after you meet your spirit mate?
Yeah. You all. And you know, Brian and I, honestly, we don't,
we don't really fight like we don't. Um, sometimes, you know,
now that we've been married longer, there's little things that come up,
but we also like our kids are more grown,
at least right now we're, we are still trying to get pregnant. Um,
so we have kids and we have tough dynamics sometimes navigating with that,
but they don't live in our home right now.
But mine came a little differently because he's a pastor
and in the denomination he was in,
he got moved pretty often. And then we got moved again,
just recently. So ours, you know, our, and not that those are even bad things,
but I just want you guys to understand that the heartwork that you've already
done and the heartwork God leads you to do now is going to,
if you continue to let that grow you,
it's going to continue to prepare you to not freak out and run
when you're with your spirit mate, because things are going to present themselves.
Um,
Brian and I were getting ready to get married and we had our whole
honeymoon planned. I don't know why I just feel led to share a couple of these
things. Cause I think it's, this is like real talk.
We had our whole honeymoon planned, literally.
I don't remember if it was two or three weeks beforehand,
he had sent off for an updated passport.
I remember that.
From his prior marriage,
he had some child support stuff that he had always taken care of,
but there was some kind of blip in that without going into to it too far,
even though he had consistently paid on this back child support,
he had been paying on it for years because it wasn't fully paid off.
We had no clue. This was going to happen. Y'all,
they wouldn't give him a new passport.
What three weeks before our time to leave.
Can I say that I panicked? Absolutely.
Super anxiety filled time. I didn't need,
we neither one of us knew that that was even a thing.
If we did, we would have just, I mean, he was making payments,
so we just didn't think anything about it.
We would have just paid that off before we even sent that. Anyways,
I'm saying that to say by the grace of God,
we had someone that like knew someone in government that got
Brian an appointment, but y'all,
he had to drive all the way to Chicago two days before our
wedding to get his passport.
I didn't even know if he was going to make it back.
Or when our guests were starting to arrive,
like I didn't know if he was going to get back in time for his bachelor
party and all the things anyways.
So there was that situation and we worked through that, you know,
and even in that I can remember the enemy trying to like cause me to
be upset with Brian.
But the reality is, is he didn't know that was going to happen either.
You know, so we always are going to be presented with opportunities again, to look at it through
the lens of the father and, and what is God saying and not getting triggered and not getting
caught up in fear and anxiety and panic and all this stuff.
But instead like, okay, Lord, we can't change the situation.
How can we work as a team to navigate it together and let you be in the center of it and see
what you want to do through it.
So we got that passport, you all, everything went as planned.
Thank the Lord.
We went on this amazing honeymoon.
It was incredible.
We had a lot of people that played a role in that.
And that's how God works, you know, sometimes.
And then gosh, I guess we were married a year, maybe a little over that.
Brian had some, a physical thing that happened in his arm, just randomly one day out of nowhere.
And he had ended up having to have surgery.
And then there was another surgery that we had planned on him having that after he had
that surgery, he had these massive blood clots that showed up and it was very scary time.
It was very scary, but we made it through it.
We made it through it, you all.
And life is about a series of moments that are going to teach you if you let them and
help you grow individually, as well as with your spirit mate.
So keep going, keep going.
And I don't say those things to scare you.
I think that's important.
Everybody's situations look different.
That's what some of ours were.
But I say it because I think sometimes what I see happening in our community is people
think they're going to get into relationship and it's just going to be like this easy flat.
And sometimes it is.
But every relationship has bumps and journeys and lessons that God's not sending all of
those things our way.
Some of the stuff that sent our ways from the enemy, I don't think God made Brian sick.
I think the enemy for years, I mean, Brian has had blood clots before he almost died
years ago.
The enemy is trying to come at him because God has a plan for him and God has a plan
for us.
And so we intercede, we stand in the gap and we fight and we fight on behalf of each other.
And I'll end on this.
Brian and I laugh more than I've ever laughed in my entire life.
We have a lot of fun and genuinely there's nobody I trust more in my whole life.
I trust him with everything, all of me.
I'm not afraid to let my guard down with him.
I'm not afraid to, which I've had to learn this, but I'm not afraid to let him see even
my ugly parts, if you will.
Maybe I have a bad day and I don't respond, typically it's not him.
It's other stuff that frustrates me.
But like he loves me and he loves all of me and I'm not too much for him.
And so I want y'all to know that that is the kind of spirit mate that you can have too.
So questions, anyone on anything could have been on stuff Carla was talking about and
she can respond or anything that I shared about.
Crickets, what's going on?
I know I feel like we just kind of like on you ladies, but yes, Teresa.
OK, I feel like.
I'm the same as Bethany, I really want it on my profile about spirituality, but I really
don't know how to word that.
Hmm.
I haven't made a profile or anything like that yet, because that would be diving in,
right?
However, I did make up a little thing for friends.
I haven't sent it yet, but I've been working on it.
And what did I put on there?
Something I did put something about the spirituality.
I made a list.
I don't know if I should be putting in a list.
I wouldn't probably.
Yeah, that's something that they can organically know as they get to know you from my
perspective.
Yeah.
OK, so what I said, the main thing I'm looking for is a Christ follower who shows the
fruits of the spirit in his life.
This is what I'm saying to my friends.
And then I had other things like, but I don't know if I should be putting this mission.
But I've put the other priorities for me are that we match somewhat.
Mission trips and volunteering are important to me.
I like to do lots of active.
stuff that balanced with relaxing.
I like to travel.
I don't smoke, drink alcohol rarely and no drugs, LOL.
And then my age and sort of the age range I'm looking for.
So.
Okay, let me back up.
I kind of said, don't share, this is to your friends.
Is that what you're saying?
Yes.
So then yeah, you can totally share that kind of stuff
with your friends on your dating profile.
I thought that's what you were saying at first.
That's where I'm heading next if this doesn't work.
Yeah.
So your dating profile,
you're gonna keep it more high level.
So that like, I wanna, you know,
whatever you said there, Christ follower,
who walks in the fruits of the spirit.
I think that that is very telling.
And you could, I'll have to go back
and look at how I said it.
But I think I said something.
I think I said something like on mine
that I'm a Jesus lover.
I wanted, for me, I wanted to use the word Jesus
because I figured, I mean, y'all,
I still got tons of messages from people
that probably had no relationship with Jesus.
So let me be clear.
I just didn't interact with those people.
But I definitely believed when I did that,
that people that don't like Jesus at all
weren't gonna try to like pursue me.
Not really.
You know, again, you're gonna get those people.
I mean, I can remember getting,
not that this means he didn't love Jesus,
but I got this like from this guy
that had like all this pink hair and just,
I mean, he looked rough and tough
and I was just like, what is happening?
But anyways, so I think keeping it high level,
but I was also thinking because you care about missions,
it sounds like, you could say something
from the perspective of,
I have a heart for missions ministry,
something like that.
And you said something else, but like, you know,
I believe, I'm trying to think how you would say this
on your dating profile,
because you don't want to over,
again, you don't want to overgive stuff
because you want those conversations to happen
as you get to know people.
So I think saying that you want to meet someone
that's a Christ follower,
walking with the fruits of the spirit,
and you want to partner with someone who also-
Has a heart for missions.
Has a heart for missions, yeah.
Because you don't maybe want it to feel like
the person has to feel called as a missionary,
but unless that's what you feel called to.
Do you feel called to actually be a missionary and move,
or you just feel called to do missions work
as God leads you?
If I was with a spirit mate match
that did want to go overseas and be a missionary,
I would be interested.
But it isn't a deal breaker, right?
It isn't something that they have to do.
But I feel like if you say mission trips,
it kind of goes with the travel,
which I love to travel and, you know,
the ministry part of it.
So, and I don't know if I'd get on my profile,
if I really have to talk about travel or not.
You can say I love to travel.
You can just talk about even loving to travel.
And I was, this was a huge one for me.
I enjoy going to new places.
So that's typically even, I put that on there,
but then I would be looking for other people's profile
that talked about travel,
because then it gave me a topic to engage in
and get to know a little bit more about them.
So you can use those travel topics of like,
I mean, I always ask those questions,
like, what's the most, you know,
what's your favorite vacation you've been on?
Or if you could go anywhere in the world,
where would you go?
And so that was a big question for me,
because then they would ask in hopes,
some guys don't get the clue to ask the question back,
but I would always offer up,
like for me, one place that I really would love
to travel and visit is Israel.
So again, I would use,
and that is, they got a snapshot into seeing like,
the reason I want to go there is because
I do have a fascination with Jesus.
I want to be in the, and go and do and see
and walk the places that he's walked.
And so that, those types of questions would come
after I've gotten to know them a little bit,
but you could say, I've always wanted to go to Israel,
and then you can maybe wait after a while,
you know, a couple of interactions, a couple of dates,
and then go into why that place is somewhere you want to go.
So I think their travel is an interest for you.
Okay.
What about the smoking and the alcohol?
Because I wouldn't really want.
a man who drinks every day even, just one drink a day,
I feel like I wouldn't love that.
And I know you're not getting drunk or anything like that,
but it's just not a priority at all in my life.
So, you know, it feels like we should be matching
in some ways in that way.
Is that something you would put on?
I was someone that I was not,
I was not interested in dating a smoker.
That was huge for me.
Like some of the apps actually have
where you're gonna select that stuff.
Not all of them do,
but like, I definitely didn't want to date a smoker.
And so I just said, like, whatever the little,
you know, the toggles that you pick, like non-smoker.
Because I even think people can put occasionally smoke.
And I was like, that do not match me with anybody that,
I mean, they have to be an absolute non-smoker.
So those like, a lot of those,
a lot of apps do put that on there.
Okay, well, I don't see anything wrong with that.
I mean, that was huge and important to me.
I mean, for many different reasons, my dad was a smoker.
He has a lot of health issues because of it.
The smell of it makes me nauseous.
And then my son's father hid it from me
and then I got pregnant and he came out
to show me that he was a smoker.
And I was like, devastated.
I was like, I don't want to be fooled.
I don't want to be tricked into that anymore.
And that's why, again, that was a big indicator for me
of really taking time to get to know somebody
because I didn't take time to get to know my son's dad.
And had I done that,
then I probably would have found a lot more information
and made better choices for myself.
I mean, I absolutely agree with not getting physical
for a long, long time, because I don't,
I think it changes the wiring of your brain
and all of a sudden, everything's great, he's great.
Everything's great.
It does, it will cloud your judgment.
It will, red flag.
That's what happened to me in the past.
If I, I would be fine with holding hands,
not like the first date, you're right about that,
but early-ish on, I'd be okay with that.
But, and then once you're exclusive,
kissing and stuff like that.
But I do feel like actually having sex with someone,
it just changes your brain, really.
And it shuts it off in a way.
Jackie actually talked about that a little bit
in our last Love Seats, y'all.
If you haven't heard that replay,
that is in your replay area of the app.
Someone asked a question
and they were only seeing the guy three weeks
and it seemed like the guy was trying to accelerate them
a little quickly.
And there was someone else that was kind of talking
about some of that kind of stuff as well.
A hundred percent, our brain chemistry totally changes.
I really, because I even coached someone yesterday
in our group in phase three,
because she's kind of been dating a guy for like five months
and they've been on several dates,
but he's not being super physical with her.
And she feels like that's a problem.
And I'm like, I can kind of get that, I guess,
but I'm like, but if, when y'all talked about it,
he basically communicated to her,
I feel led to protect you and not do that kind of stuff.
And so I encouraged her,
I think you need to ask him more about that
because some people, if they kiss,
they just cannot hold back their self-control
and it's not a knock on them,
but they just don't want to open those floodgates.
And I don't want people to criticize someone
because they're doing something as a guardrail
and a protective mechanism.
And so my encouragement to her also,
and again, I get it.
Some people, they feel like they need that
to feel connection.
But my question also for her was from my own experience,
again, not projecting this on her,
but like in the past, because of things I went through,
the way I felt connected and love,
even though it wasn't true love,
was through physical contact.
And so with Brian,
God was leading us to do something different.
And even with my first husband,
we really reset everything,
but we guarded that with each other.
And there were things where we initially,
once we did get exclusive, we were kissing
and we had to back off all the way of that stuff
because it was like my mind and my physical body
was trying to go past where we were.
And I remember one time,
like, cause that's just like,
again, I was trying to train my body in a new way,
like self-control, grow in that.
But my body sometimes,
because of things I've been through and past decisions,
it goes to 180, super.
fast and I'm like, okay, this isn't good. And Brian saw that too. And I remember one time
when he was like, Hey, like, you know, we need to not, we need to not cuddle. We need to not kiss
and we can't lay together and watch a movie. And I remember I felt rejection. He wasn't rejecting me.
He was protecting us and me. But in that moment, I felt rejection. Now I could have hid from that,
but instead God told me to express it to him. And we were able to talk through that.
But I see it a lot differently, obviously having gone through that. And now where I am,
man, that was a really amazing moment that he, he recognized that and God was trying to grow
so much more of our foundation. Um, and God knew, and I believe he was using Brian to help me.
I had never been in a relationship before that did not have that as a core foundation.
On the front end, but God was trying to teach me that my value has way more to do
than just my body. Cause I mean, I don't know if I said that right, but like,
there's so much more to me than that. And, um, some of us that's, that's something we need to,
we need to learn that and, and not put so much emphasis on like this visceral attraction. And,
and yes, I think God wants to give us that too. So don't misunderstand me or Jackie, when we say
that, but like, if we, the people that I always had this big, like physical draw to right in the
beginning, those ended up not being healthy choices for me. So when Jackie coached us on that,
I really started paying attention to that. So anyways, not that that's what you were
talking about necessarily, Teresa, but I just wanted to add that as well.
No, I mean, in the past, I've always found that it fairly easy to, to not get physical
until about the three months, you know, and at about three months, you know, well enough, you,
your bowl, you know, all that stuff. So, so I do agree that it's, um, and I, I know my husband
and I, we basically had to say, we can't, we can't be at home together anymore. We have to go for
walks. I couldn't even cuddle. Like if I even laid up next to Brian, the closer we got to our
wedding to the harder it got you all. Okay. And so I remember like, we were just kind of
watching a movie and I could feel it. My heart started racing. My flesh was starting to want
stuff. And I was like, I can't even cuddle with you. Like I got to sit over here. And from that
day forward, like until our wedding, we didn't kiss it. And this was like three months long,
you all, it was hard. We didn't kiss. We didn't cuddle. We did hold hands. But even sometimes
with that, I was like, man, babe, I can't even touch you. Like, you know, I'm just trying to
be real. It's, I think we're all going to have different levels of that though. Okay. So it
might be different for some of you all. You might not feel that, that intense of, of, you know,
physical charge if you're touching someone, but that is definitely stuff that happened for me.
And so we did a lot of kind of like what you just said to Teresa, like we didn't,
we did like after a certain hour, Brian, like would just go home. Um, and that was a guard rail
we set because you know, when it gets later into the night, people get tired. And one of the things
I loved about him too, is he literally told me early on, I'm never going to stay like, not that
I was even going to let him, but like, I'm never going to ask to stay the night at your house.
And again, he's a pastor too. So he was good about that, but there are some pastors and people in
leadership and churches that will still do that stuff. And so, yeah, just being aware and knowing
what you want or don't want. Yeah. I like even to like, this goes even Bethany, like even what
you were talking about and, and how you could respond and put boundaries in place as well.
Um, you know, I think ladies, if you remember when Jackie, when Bethany was sharing about
the guy asking her about the pajamas and, you know, putting a boundary down and he respected
it then, but then when they went on another date, I think that's important, you know,
and we talk about that in, you know, at the last video of setting boundaries. And, you know,
we talk about that when we, when we go over that about seeing the fruit of a man that's going to
respect boundaries, not just in the moment, but consistently. And that's important. And I also,
I had written this down because I think it was important to kind of cover with you ladies as
well, is listening to how Bethany responded when she noticed this, this guy wasn't gonna respect
her boundaries. She didn't get emotional about it. She didn't get discouraged.
didn't, you know, get reactionary.
And I think that is, that's important to focus on too,
is when you find yourselves in situations where, you know,
your, someone's response to you is disappointing
or frustrating, it's how are you responding to that?
Are you responding in a healthy way?
Are you allowing it to shape you and your foundation?
Because if it is, then we need to, we need to look at that.
So just keeping that in mind as well,
and how to process that.
I gotta tell them real quick.
And I see there's two people that have their hands up too,
and I don't wanna derail what you were just gonna say,
but it made me think of the guy with the wiener dog thing.
So if y'all ever hear Jackie tell this story
about the guy with the wiener dog.
Yep, that happened to me.
Okay, so I was chatting with this guy
and he said, do you wanna see my wiener?
That's literally what he said to me.
I was mad, you all.
I was like spitting mad.
And I responded, I was like,
I don't even remember what I said,
but I basically was like, I don't think that's funny.
Like I said something like that.
Well, he tried to, I guess it's kind of like a form of like,
I don't know if it's called gaslighting,
but he tried to act like that's not really what he meant.
And so he sends me this picture of this wiener dog
in a costume, in a hot dog costume,
and tried to pretend that that's what he actually
originally intended to send me.
Okay, I'm not dumb.
That wasn't what he meant.
He wanted to know if I wanted to see a pic of that.
And I didn't.
I'm using that because that guy that night,
and not long after that,
I got onto actually an event with Last Year Single.
We were married in 12 months or less at that time.
And that guy blew up my phone.
Thankfully he didn't have my phone, praise the Lord,
but he was blowing up my Facebook messenger.
And the only reason I connected with him that way,
guess what you all?
He went to the same church as me.
He just went to a different campus.
And so that's why I let him in a little closer
than I had let other people in.
Now, he was not a healthy person.
And that actually got addressed later in leadership
in our church because he did some similar things
with some other people.
But I'm sharing that because of what Carla just said.
Initially, I got super frustrated with that guy.
But one of the things I learned through that
is he was trying to like gaslight me
and make me feel all kinds of guilt.
And I misunderstood him and I was like,
no dude, I got on an event and you were blowing up my phone
after you sent me this thing, we're done.
I'm not continuing this with you.
We're not talking anymore.
And then he continued to say stuff to me and I just quit.
And that's where sometimes you all,
I want you to understand just because someone says something
doesn't mean that they deserve a response.
So let them block.
There are gonna be times where you just,
it's like, okay, like I'm just moving on.
Like this is not healthy.
I don't have to convince this guy.
I don't have to explain myself.
I've already, I've said my piece, bless you.
And they can continue to try to blow up your phone
or even that guy went on to comment
on one of my social media posts.
So I just blocked him.
I blocked him from all my social media and everything.
So anyway, so I wanted to put that out there as well
because y'all will hear Jackie give that example
from time to time, but yep, the wiener dog happened.
It probably happened to other people too in some form,
but like-
And Bethany, did you, and you came into our community
and you, I mean, and you shared that stuff with us.
Yeah, I did.
In our community.
And I think, I mean, and so that's what I'm saying.
Like ladies, when I talk to you ladies about, you know,
showing up in community and connecting with your sisters,
it's let us know when these things happen.
I mean, I had, I didn't have the wiener dog situation,
but we, this, I don't know if you remember this,
but I think we had an interaction with a similar guy
that was in our actual community.
And he was one of the very first people
that got kicked out of our community.
Yes.
And he was one that I told him nicely
that I wasn't interested in him
because he was 10 years older than me and he reacted.
And then it triggered me.
And I remember coming into the group
and I shared that with my sisters
and we talked through that and I processed through it.
I was allowed to kind of vent
and just express my frustration.
And it allowed me.
to work through some healing and some processing to how do I respond so that this doesn't continue
to bother me and so I did I blessed and blocked that guy and ladies even like six months down
the road I think that's when he got completely axed from our community out of all the interactions
all the inappropriate interactions that he had with the women in our community he came back to
me and was trying to reach out to me and went through another woman in our community
to reach out to me to get my number because he wanted to apologize when I was like I'm done
I'm moved on I'm good and so that's another reason I like that you know when you have
situations like this like yes there will be things that will get you will kind of trigger you
come to us Ventum we can help you process through we can remind you yeah bless and block
like you don't have to give them an explanation you don't have to tell them how wrong they are
you literally you know I always tell you ladies sometimes the blessing block means that you bless
them while you are having a conversation with Holy Spirit you're not having a conversation
with them and blessing them you're having a conversation with your Heavenly Father and
saying Lord I need you to bless them because I'm done so that's a way of blessing and blocking too
yes Joanna let's get to your question and then Marisha as well and then we'll we'll wrap things
up yeah thank you guys this has been really helpful um I was a hundred percent like the
over sharing um I just didn't even know that was the thing like I thought if you ask me a question
I have to be honest and I have to answer that question so um I guess my my question is I
definitely like learned a lot in this session so what would what would be considered like I
guess questions to stay clear of like how would I know if it's like you know if it's a level one
relationship that like I'm sharing too much um type thing so level one is going to be just all
all in community so people that you know you're in community with that maybe at church at work
your friends community um if you are online anybody that you're interacting that's all level
one level two is the hey I want to get to know them a little better um and that's where you're
having more maybe one-on-one conversation than we consider it actual dating if you have a video chat
or an in-person date and so questions like I I coach on um what all of our coaches here at last
year single help when that level two is you're getting to know someone I we encourage staying
away from like the trauma the drama the trauma the x files um those types of situations anything
that's maybe you know caught like there's a motion there's emotional attachment to some of
your past in certain ways or even like future I would steer clear of those types of things early
on in level two you know it's not saying that you're never going to peel that onion because
as you let's say you're in a level two you're dating you know a couple people and you know
you're on a third maybe fourth date with somebody by this point then you might start uncovering just
a little bit here and there as you've gotten to know them as you feel like you've built connection
with them or you might go into more um you know more details and such as as you're as you're
growing into getting to know them but I always say you know steer clear of the x files anything
that elicits trauma trauma like heavy emotion sort of thing if you know if you've been divorced if
that you know this happens when I think I think it's one of those things especially when you're
online dating it's it's just there's no manual of how to communicate with each other on dating apps
and so oftentimes and I experienced this and Bethany I'm sure you did too where people just
ask why are you single what happens like why did you why did you break up why did you get divorced
why are you not with your your son's father and that you just get this routine of feeling like
you always have to explain it and so that's when we coach you ladies just to say hey you know
I appreciate your question but I'd like to get to know you in the here and now before you know
having a conversation about that let's get to know each other first maybe in the future we
can discuss that. So those are kind of the blanket types of
things I help you ladies to see to avoid. Bethany, is there
anything else that you can think of?
Conversation? I love that. I would also say the spiritual
stuff. To be honest, I know. And here's the thing. This can get a
little tricky because everyone's like, well, wait, I want to make
sure they they love Jesus. I want to make sure one of the
things I want to encourage you all on. And this is why I do
believe that what Jackie's saying is important. Why we
don't have to know all of this on the front end all the time.
There was one guy I interacted with. And man, he was a great
guy. He was a great guy. I kind of had a feeling that he really
didn't have a like, he believed in Jesus. But I don't think he
had an intimate relationship with Jesus like before I went on
a physical date with him. But he was such a nice guy that I felt
led to go on the date with him. I just felt like it was the
Lord. And I'm not a missionary dater. I didn't need a
missionary datum. So I didn't go in with I'm going to save this
guy. I just went in with the Lord, I feel like you're leading
me to go on this date. He's a nice guy. I'm intrigued about
him. And I want to know more. On that date, it definitely like I
learned a lot more that he just, you know, again, I was looking
for somebody running after the Lord already, I didn't want
someone that I felt like I had to catch up to where I was at.
And so in getting to know him a little bit more, I could just
tell he wasn't that in that place with Jesus that I was kind
of running in. Does that make sense? And I don't mean that he
didn't love the Lord or whatever. And so I use that as
an example, Joanna, because in the past, I would have always
like even with the girl's dad, I even gave him ammo on myself
having spiritual conversations with him that first night. I
did. And, and, you know, he was able to kind of he started some
of the love bombing he was doing. He was going on social
media and like, basically blasting to all these people how
he like met his wife and, you know, like how it's meant to be
had this Jesus song. And so I think there's a little bit of
not a little bit, a lot of wisdom in even just, you can
have again, those organic conversations. So one of the
things I did do, instead of being like, you know, what is
your belief about Jesus? What's your belief about this? What's
his? This was what God led me to do. So it worked for me, maybe
it'll work for you. And I didn't ask everybody this just FYI, I
only asked people that I felt led to ask it. Brian was one of
them. I said, you know, what is your perfect day? We'd like with
you and the Lord, what is your perfect day look like? Like, if
you had a day that you could do anything to spend the day with
the Lord, what would what would you do? What would that look
like for you? And I learned a lot about them even from asking
that question. And there wasn't no like, Oh, you know, right or
wrong. Or even like I said, with that guy, I wasn't like, Oh, he
doesn't love God, because he didn't say something a certain
way. Right. But I just it helps me get to know them a little bit
more. As far as that goes without being so direct as being
like, how often do you go to church? You know, like all the
things we blast them with, right? You know, there are some
people I have good dear friends of mine, that for many years did
not go to a physical church. They had home church and small
group with people. Because there were some things they were
working through. And so I do try to encourage people to not. I do
believe in the gathering of believers in church, my husband
and I pastor, I'm a firm believer of that. But I also can
appreciate and value people in their process and where they're
at in in that journey to and want to learn more about like,
okay. So if they don't go to church every Sunday, like, how
do they interact with the Lord, like get to know that more? Does
that make sense?
Yeah, I like that you brought that up. Because ladies, I don't
know if I've shared this with with y'all before. If I have,
maybe it was in, you know, several months ago, where you
y'all might not have seen replays in that where, when I
started this community, I was very active in my church
community, I had been going to a church for over 10 years. And,
and Bethany, you might recall this in that season of, you
know, when it was married in 12 months or less, where Jackie,
you know, felt the Lord talk to her to teach us to prune things
in our life. Not just like we don't prune bad things.
Yes, there's times that you prune the dead things off so things can grow, but there's
times where you have to prune the good to get great.
I remember in that teaching and in that season, God told me to prune my church, y'all.
I was one of those people, I'm sitting here dating and wanting men that are believers.
I myself was not going to church regularly, but I had this community and I was going to
prayer calls like four to five times a week.
I was coming in on the lives.
I was staying in community with believers.
I was doing all of that, but if a guy asked me, how often do I go to church?
I'd be like, well, I'm not going at a church right now, but it didn't reflect my relationship
with the Lord.
That's the season my relationship and my intimacy with the Lord even grew leaps and bounds because
I really had to press into Him.
I didn't have to rely on—and now, obviously, yes, we attend church regularly, we do community,
we do life with the people in our church.
We even just had to leave a church recently here.
My husband was going to a megachurch in this area, and I was like, no, this is not where
it's supposed to go.
We've gotten connected to a smaller church and community, and so we do that regularly.
I like that Bethany brought that up and having those conversations with people and asking
those types of questions like, what is your ideal Sunday look like?
You'll learn a lot.
A lot of times, people who have a relationship with the Lord, they're going to organically
share with you.
Guys would ask that to me that weren't strong believers, but they'd ask me a question.
My life was very much centered on Christ, so when I shared high-level things about myself
and what was important to me, God was in that.
It naturally and organically came up, and I didn't have to get preachy with them.
I didn't have to, like Bethany said, I didn't judge people if they weren't on the same page
as I was.
It was just a way for me to discover what was important to me as well.
That's why we talk about discovery dating in this phase, that you're not just discovering
more about the people that you're getting to know, but you're also discovering more
about yourself, and that's important too.
Thank you.
Then, okay, Bethany, you did address Julia.
I was curious too, what was the Mr. Number?
What is that?
Mr. Number is, sorry, I'm actually out, so that's why I'm not using my camera.
Mr. Number is actually, it's like an app where you can put a number in and notes come up
from other people.
Typically, it is women that are doing something.
I think it's more of like a character check maybe, because it tends to be if someone has
been maybe using escort services or doing something that really doesn't align with my
character, but I feel weird doing it.
That's why I actually asked.
Okay.
Yeah, and like Bethany said, and I can't remember, yeah, Bethany, I'm not sure when she talked
about that, but Jackie does address that.
One thing that I will say, and what kind of comes up in my spirit, because this question
comes up frequently in phase two, and this topic in general is, we don't want to lean
on being suspicious and fearful, and we want to use good, healthy discernment and wisdom.
I understand why those type of resources are out there, because of things that have happened
to people in the past, but I, and I think Jackie is probably, and Bethany, maybe you
can even kind of play into this as well, that she encourages us not to use that, because
again, you're getting someone else's perspective, and again, a lot of times where, in my opinion,
is you've got hurt people that are not in a healthy space, and again, it's, I don't
know, maybe-
So that's why, what Jackie, the way she described it that night on that love seat, so that's
why I want to direct people to that.
It was so good.
And one of the things she emphasized is you all, here's the reality, what we go looking
for, we're going to find, yeah.
Here's the other reality.
If we are God defended, which we are, God is going to reveal things that are in darkness
and bring it to the light that we need to know about. My prior, the girl's dad,
God was definitely revealing things to me very early on. And I blew past the red flags.
So I believe 100% that God can show us when someone's sketchy or they're not
being, you know, good character and reveal those things. So I believe, like, I know he did that
for me. I just didn't pay attention. Like I should have. So I want to encourage you all,
if you do see that stuff, you know, pay attention to it. We had a lady like from phase two just
recently, like, Hey, this guy, you know, said he's got this porn addiction came up.
Well, praise God she didn't blow past that, you know but she came and talked about it in
the community. That's a good example. What Carly was saying, talked about it in here.
She didn't hide from it. That was hard for her. And we coached her about it too. And,
and, you know, I do believe God protected her in that situation. I believe God will protect you
all too. Yeah. Yeah. And just bring it like, you know, again, just empathizing, bring those type
of situations to us and we, we will help you coach through that and, and learn the questions to ask
and, and, and work through that. And, and that person that came and shared that with us,
yeah, it was really hard for her, but like Bethany said, she was vulnerable and she came
and she didn't hide from it. She was, he wasn't going to do it alone. You know, she could,
her old, her old self could have just looked past that and just believed some of the things
that this guy was saying, and then tying that with her own value and her worth. And, you know,
she's, she's healing through that. And I think she's healing faster because she came to us and
we were able to coach her and she, she she wasn't willing to just sweep it under the rug. And so,
and that was a God defended thing because it just so happened, you know, the, the, the man
wanted to kind of shrug it off like, Oh, I didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean to say that. And it,
it prompted her to ask more questions and those things got revealed. So we don't, we don't have
to have that fear that we're going to end up with the wrong person because God is going to protect
us. And he's going to show us what we need to know when we need to know it. But if you are going and
searching for all the reasons to convince yourself that this is a bad guy, you're going to
find stuff. And then are you focused on that and not the positives and the healthy things? So
hopefully that helps you, Julia. All right, Mariska, let's go ahead and get to your question.
Can you hear me? Yes. How are you? Doing great. Thank you so much. I don't have a question. I
just want to thank you, Bethany, for being a being to the Holy spirit today, because it ministering
to me so much. I was the one who was dealing with all those cameras all week, but let me tell you,
I talk about Jesus and I don't know who was on the other side. They had to be very, very sweet.
And they was laughing and they was like, I have no idea, but I know God will get the glory from
all of us. And I want to say that through all of that something broke inside of me because
after 15 years of marriage, it was very, very hard to go back to dating and such. It was
ridiculously crazy, but through like, I had like three different dates and it's over. I am over on
another side, but what I wanted to say to Bethany is a huge thank you that you shared the testimony
that you married somebody who is in the ministry, because with all the, what I see right now,
it's building my face because the reason why we broke up with my ex-husband is because
basically it was a spiritual thing. I was pursuing God and we was prophesied over us that we step
into the apostolic anointing for the breakthrough and healing the broken hearts
and all the hell broke loose and he had an affair and he decided to step out and I had, I am taking
step in and I'm holding my faith and I'm believing God.
but for the main, who will step in in the ministry?
So, and when you shared the testimony,
I never heard from anybody in actually in our community
that somebody actually married somebody in the ministry.
So I'm just very encouraged and thank you for sharing today.
That's what I wanted to say.
You're so welcome.
And I do wanna share too, on this,
you did not know this, but interestingly enough,
when my marriage, my former marriage was falling apart,
God led somebody to come up in my old church
and pray for me and they gave me a word.
It was one of those moments that I'm like,
okay, God, are you like, are you joking me?
The word was that God was going to use me
to minister to marriages and families.
My marriage was falling apart.
I had a very similar thing happen.
We both knew Jesus when we met each other,
but as we were pursuing Jesus,
our pursuit looked a lot different
and something happened in his heart.
And unfortunately he got caught up in some bitterness
and that just changed everything.
And I didn't wanna stay there in that place with him.
And so I kept moving forward.
It was just creating a bigger divide.
Now I do think, you know, if both people submit,
I think that there can be healing,
but that was never the case.
And I'm saying that to you to say,
like when I got that word,
I was kind of literally like, you gotta be joking me.
Like my marriage has fallen apart, God.
And you're telling me I'm gonna minister
to marriages, families.
And I just did not, I could not see it.
And for years could not see that.
And then one day it was back when I was serving
with Elevation Church, actually online,
totally single as a Pringle, totally.
Not even in this program, so single.
But I was leading leaders and I was raising leaders up
and Elevation asked me to help them launch
a marriage conference for the married couples,
like to help this group of married couples
because of the gifts and stuff that I carry.
And so even though it felt kind of crazy
because I was literally the only single, sorry y'all,
the only single person on this whole team
of married couples, but God placed me right
in the dead center of that.
And I was able to make this contribution
to all these marriages and families.
And I remember like this full circle moment,
just like, okay, Lord, I see.
And that was just the beginning.
That was, I mean, literally that was probably a year
or two before I ever even came into this program.
And now to be where I'm at, it's just kind of like,
I either just, I couldn't comprehend back then.
And that's why God didn't show it fully to me.
Cause I think it probably could have crushed me if he had.
But yeah, keep letting it build your faith.
Does it mean everybody, one,
the reason we don't emphasize it a lot
is because some of our ladies were only looking
for men in ministry.
And so we really had to back off of that a little bit
because there are some people that aren't called
to full-time ministry, right?
And they got hung up on that.
So we backed off of that a little bit, but for sure,
if people feel called to full-time like ministry,
I do believe God has someone for you
that can run that race with you.
Especially if you feel called to apostolic ministry,
that's a pretty, pretty specific area.
And I believe God will lead you to that person
that can help you run that race.
God might also, I want to just plant the seed.
He might give you a new word that is conducive
for your new marriage with your new spirit mate.
Because now that you've grown,
it doesn't mean you won't walk in that to some degree,
but I can definitely tell you
that when I started the journey with Brian,
God led me into a denomination
I never thought I would go into you all, ever.
But because Brian was there and I love him
and I trusted him, I went with him.
And in it too, I felt like God told me to go, okay?
And God has been using that
and really doing some work in me about some of that stuff.
And so just remain open,
because it might not always look how you think
in the beginning even, but it will continue to unfold.
Like God continues to show Brian and I
how he wants to use us.
And he's even awakened stuff in us
that we had long set aside, okay?
Amen.
I know we're over ladies, but this has been good.
I hope this was interesting to you all.
I'm gonna pass it over to you, Carla.
I love you all.
Hop off, have an amazing day, everyone.
We'll see you soon.
Thank you so much, Bethany.
Bye.
So good.
All right, ladies.
I just wanna leave space if anybody else
has anything that they wanna ask, share, whatnot.
I know we're going a little bit over,
but I don't wanna leave anybody hanging here.
All right, Ziggy, I'm gonna take you.
Is there anybody else?
If not, I'm gonna take Ziggy,
and then I'm gonna give you all a quick little activation
and pray us out, and then let you on your way.
Ziggy, how are you doing?
I'm doing all right.
I saw you do some roll call.
I didn't get to follow up with it,
but I saw that Leah was helping
and coaching you through some stuff,
so I hope that was good for you.
So how are you?
I'm doing all right.
And that's actually one of my questions.
Is that okay to use it as the coaching, the roll call,
or should it be?
Yeah, I mean, I even looked like,
so ladies, those of you that are new,
it's, we post a weekly roll call.
We will have a post in there on Sunday,
and so we really wanna encourage you ladies
going in there and sharing with us your updates,
your wins, what are you working on, things like that.
So, and then in there, the coaches will come in
and will respond to you.
So definitely respond and roll call every week.
And then we also still want you all
going and making posts in the community as well.
But yes, like, we're there to help coach you
through things in roll call.
I mean, I think if you go back and pass,
there are some people that we have coached you through.
A lot of us coaches will even encourage you all
to come to these live sessions,
because this is where, as many of you
that have been in here before,
and you ladies that are, this is your first time
into a phase two live coaching call,
we do a lot of dialogue back and forth.
We get a lot of your feedback.
We'll ask a lot of questions.
We want to get kind of a bigger picture,
and we can't always give all the details
in just a short little post.
So definitely come to the lives,
use the roll call and whatnot.
But it is, so there's no need to switch to the Ask a Coach.
We can use the roll call to go into detail.
Yeah, as long as it gets addressed somewhere,
now if there's, you want to go in deeper
and you would prefer to do the Ask a Coach,
that's totally fine.
And you don't have, like ladies,
like if you respond to the Ask a Coach,
like share with what you're working on,
and then you can still go into the Ask a Coach
and get feedback there too.
So you can't over post and over share
and all that kind of stuff.
You know, we're hoping, we want to bring more engagement.
I will tell you, I'm starting to kind of feel like
people are not engaging as much,
and we really want to encourage that.
And I say that because again, like Bethany and myself,
we were in the same community.
You will get out of this program
what you are willing to put in and invest in yourself.
And a lot of, it's just showing up.
Teresa, you're, oh, sorry, Ziggy,
I want to give you a moment.
Was that your question or?
No.
My actual question is about Facebook dating,
because I'm starting to wonder from my experiences.
So I was wondering if any of you have actually met
a believer on Facebook dating?
Bethany, Pastor Brian, they met on Facebook.
Oh, really?
Wow, okay.
Yes.
Because I, from, maybe it is the region or,
it's been three or four weeks for me,
but maybe it's the region in Germany,
but I feel like they're all, I don't know.
I haven't felt like there's a Christian on there,
and they're all looking for friendship,
friends with benefits.
There's an ebb and flow.
Just ladies remember,
there is an ebb and flow of online dating.
There are gonna be times where you feel like
it's raining men, and you're like,
man, I got so many good men to choose from.
We all kind of hope for that, right?
Well, they're raining on Facebook dating.
It's crazy, but-
And then, yeah, sometimes it's just like,
it's raining good men, and then you're like,
it's raining men, but they're all blah, you know?
Or then you're in a season of drought,
and you're like, where are they?
So just know there's an ebb and flow.
And again, like Bethany shared earlier,
of course we all come into this community,
and we pray, and we hope, and we wish.
The man just shows up quickly,
and in a way that we are hoping.
Bethany shared how she was really-
hoping she was gonna meet the guy in this community and I honestly was the
same way like I didn't want to do the whole online dating because I was like
no all these guys are coming in my husband's here I talked to and even
dated a few guys from our community but it was never there and I had to release
and surrender the pen and I also didn't want to move and ladies I moved to
Texas so I had to really surrender what that looked like and you know we all
have this idea like I don't want to meet my husband on online dating I didn't
want to either and I didn't necessarily meet my husband on an online dating app
but he was online he was in a Facebook Christian community that all my other
sisters from this community at the time was called married in 12 months or less
some of the girls were in that I wasn't I wasn't I was I was not doing the whole
online thing like I was kind of trying to avoid it and one of my sisters found
my husband and reached out to him and and we started messaging and doing stuff
on messenger and then took it to you know phone conversations and then three
weeks later we met in person he flew to Florida and then took me out on a date
so that was online it was different online but it was still online I didn't
I didn't you know it wasn't like some guy I met from this community or in my
own like backyard like look I would love for it to be but but yeah it's just be
open and be open to the fact that it may not happen right away you know I have to
adjust my my profile to yeah and he said that about Jesus because I have
something with God love God love people but God could be a lot of things yeah
because yeah Jesus lover I put that on there I mean like I said when when guys
talked to me about things that I enjoyed I was very open about my passion for the
Lord I was really involved in this community it like I said God pruned me
from my church so this community became my community my gathering of believers
and so I invested a lot of my time and and you know relationships were in this
community and so I shared that with people I mean I even remember I had one
guy on Facebook dating reached out to me and I like I used the whole it's a yes
until it's a no I was like you know what God I will give everybody a chance I will
just practice getting to know people I had a guy reach out to me and we had a
phone conversation who was a Freemason and of course I'm having conversations
with this man about Jesus that man got off that phone call so quick y'all like
I like and I'm like well like that's who that's who that I mean I love Jesus and
so it was I mean he did not like it but I was like you know what God's defending
me God's got me you know I was pretty solid and in my faith at that point I
had spent like this was probably a year and a half almost two years into this
program when I really did work through my identity and then like I said then my
husband came in the picture and you know it was it was done but it didn't happen
right away like I was in I was in this community for about two years I was I
don't know if you if any of you ladies got to listen to the love seat from last
week but you know Jackie let y'all in on you know a little bit of my story like I
was done I was thrown in the towel and she was like and this was when things
were much smaller and she emphasizes that she did reach out to me and she's
like girl let's you know what's going on and as soon as some things broke off
that's when Holy Spirit was like okay now this girl's ready now this girl is
ready to let me take over and she's done trying to control it and interesting
enough because y'all I'm I'm a like recovering control freak like I still
struggle with this need to feel control like I struggle with it and so that I
had to let that go and God had to work that out in me God had to show me and
work that through me and it's a process and so I had to look at things that I
was experiencing this community as opportunities for that and once I
finally was like fine Jackie I will just let God do whatever it is that he wants
to do and if he wants me to move then fine
He's going to have to make it really clear.
You know, I still kind of like, I'm still going to have some control here,
but it, there's something that broke.
And then it happened like a week later, seven days later, my husband, you
know, sent a message out to me and I was like, okay, let's, let's see where this
goes and I didn't, I didn't know he didn't live where I was at and I was
like, fine, we'll just, we'll test the waters and not far after having
conversation and meeting him, I had a vision, um, where I was driving a
car, like I could see my hands on the wheel of a car and I could see out
the windshield and driving and all of a sudden the car started going out
of control and I let go, like I let go the steering wheel and I remember
kind of just like getting jolted out of that vision and God spoke to me.
He's like, it's time to let me take the wheel.
And I was like, okay, because I would have tried to control that relationship
with my husband in the beginning.
But I, God, thankfully showed me that it was okay to trust him.
It was okay to release the pen.
It was okay to surrender.
It was okay to let go of the, the, the wheel.
I had been white knuckling it for almost 40 years of my life in survival mode.
I was a single mom for seven, like seven years.
My son was seven when I met my husband.
So, you know, those are things that, that had to happen.
So it is, it's just give it time to ebb and flow just because you're
not meeting what you think are, you know, Christians on these sites
doesn't mean that they're not going to show up.
It's be positive.
Look at, look at every situation as an opportunity for growth and, you know,
God partnering with you and you partnering with him on how you can use every
situation and circumstance to grow you.
And so, like I said, Bethany met pastor Brian.
We used to call him PB and J and she met him on Facebook, Facebook dating.
That's good to know.
I think a lot of, I honestly, I think a lot of the women in our community
have had success with Facebook dating.
I did Facebook dating and I didn't really have any horrible experiences.
No.
I mean, did I, did I encounter some guys that were unhealthy?
Yeah.
But again, I had this community that when I was interacting with unhealthy men, I
came to this community and shared what I was experiencing and again, I was, I, I
made a, an intentional choice to look at every situation in a positive lens.
Sometimes it was hard to do that, but I was intentional about it and I held
myself accountable with the women in this community, you know, I allowed them
the opportunity to point things out to me because at the time we didn't have a
bunch of coaches, it was Jackie because it was a much smaller community where I
took in anything that Jackie was, was teaching us.
And then obviously Bethany and I were in the same community.
We were close.
Um, and so I would even reach out to her and a few other women in the community
and I gave them permission to help me see blind spots.
And so I know, and I really think this is important to hear for many of you
ladies is, you know, when y'all come into the community and you're posting
things and you're getting feedback from coaches, we do ask you questions and
sometimes we ask questions that will probably like spark a response.
It happened to me.
Sometimes Jackie like rubbed me the wrong way.
So I know as a coach, there's going to be questions that I asked you ladies
that might rub you the wrong way, but I'm doing it to help, help you grow.
And so if you ladies are willing to walk through that process, you'll be surprised
of, of, you know, all of the other fruits that come with this community.
I mean, the husband, yeah, it's a pretty awesome bonus, but I will tell you there
is significant more fruit that comes from this community.
I always share with you ladies and anybody, when I talk about this program
is the number one thing.
that I got from this community with a stronger intimate relationship with my heavenly father.
I never knew that existed. Never knew that existed. And yes, he brought a wonderful husband
with me, but just like Bethany shared, we walk in thinking, okay, we're coming in this community,
we're going to find our husbands and life is going to be great and perfect. And she shared with you
about some of the struggles or possible roadblocks that the enemy wanted to use
when she was in marriage with Brian about their passport, Brian's passport, about his health.
The same things have happened to me in my marriage. We're blending a family and let me
tell you, there's trauma. There's trauma with not just me and my husband, my husband and I
were grown adults, but my bonus children, they had a mother who had mental illness and then
they weren't even aware of, but they lived in a home where someone was not mentally healthy.
And then their mother gets ill with cancer and passes away. They were 10 and seven years old.
There's trauma there. My son, trauma from his dad, biological dad. So we have all of that.
Then my husband gets demoted from his job just a few months after we got married.
There's stuff that will happen and thankfully this program, I poured myself into it, got a lot
of healing, allowed the Lord to take me through a process. So now I have tools when the enemy wants
to come and attack because I don't think these are things that God's like, here, I'm going to
throw this at you. I think it's the enemy that comes and wants to just disrupt marriage in general
and God allows those things that are meant to hurt us and harm us and they're meant for evil
and they're not meant for good things. He can use them for good. We have to partner with it.
We have to choose to allow it to refine us and pull out some things. It actually benefits our
marriages and it benefits our families. I believe my children are going to benefit from it. I pray
that my children choose healthy relationships from the beginning because my husband and I didn't.
My husband did not choose a healthy partner to birth his children. I didn't pick a healthy
partner to have a child with and unfortunately our children have suffered through it, but I
believe in redemption and reconciliation that God can redeem all of that and so we have to
choose to partner with it. I've gotten myself on a soapbox and I don't want to. I hope that
y'all are really getting encouraged and feeling empowered and feeling uplifted because this
community has such an anointing on it. I've been in this community for four years. Two and a half
years, a lot of it was me going through my single life and getting into marriage and then I've
experienced marriage over the last year. It's been difficult at times, but I've gotten to pour
back into this community. It's just been an absolute blessing to me because I believe in it
because I've lived it. I'm continuing to live it. There's so many good things that's happening in
this community, so I just I hope it leads you encouraged and blessed and filled and
ready to be empowered and tackle anything that the enemy wants to try to throw at you.
Teresa, I want to get to your question before giving y'all activation and praying you out.
Phone number after a video chat. You're not one of the ladies that's in Canada, are you?
I am in Canada, that's the problem. So you don't have the Google thing, do you?
No. Okay, we've got to figure out if there's something that you all can use.
Can you, so you've done the video chat. No, I haven't, but I'm thinking future, right?
Okay, yeah. Okay, just I would say let's play it by ear, all right, because again,
I was, and I wouldn't, like again, I'm not saying this because I want you ladies to be safe
and know that you're safe and protected. Personally, myself, now I did not hesitate
to give out my phone number. I probably should have, but I didn't, but I also
I knew that I was protected and God defended there too.
And I knew you can block phone numbers.
Now, I don't know, now that we've got
so much more technology just in the last couple years
of how people can use your phone number for things,
I don't know all the details to that.
I don't see, I think sometimes it also depends
on how you meet the person.
Now, if you are meeting people from community,
so like I know you had expressed reaching out to friends
and stuff like that and letting them know.
Now, if someone in your community introduces you
to someone to me, that feels safer as you get to know them.
But by all means, like if that ever happens, come here.
Like ask us, hey, this is the conversations
I've had with this man.
I'm thinking about giving out my phone number
and we'll help you if there's any blind spots there
we're like, maybe not, or you know what?
Let's see where this goes.
Does that help?
Yeah, that's good.
Okay, I really am interested.
I'm gonna see if I can't,
cause there's so many women that I know from Canada,
from my community when I first joined,
I'm interested to know.
There's got to be some sort of app or something
that you all can protect yourselves
without giving out personal information
like your phone number.
But again, like.
Yeah, and I wouldn't mind knowing that
before I reach out to the friends
because I don't know, do I just say to them
that they can give out my phone number
or how, but how else do you arrange a date
or how else do you text each other, you know, if I'm doing.
Yeah, I think it would be more or less on the level
of how well they know them as well.
Like if it's someone that they know
and they're close in community with and can vouch for them
then that would be one thing.
But if it's like, oh, it's my, you know,
hairstylist's brother, like, okay,
like you might go to your hairstylist,
like your beautician every three months or something
and whatever, but how well do you know her brother?
Like that, I would be like, okay, let's see.
Do you have social media?
Yeah, I have Facebook Messenger.
Yeah, I mean, to me that's safe because again,
it's not, I mean, and ladies, I'm gonna plug this into
if you are on social media, please, please, please
set your profiles private.
Don't let any Joe Schmo know what's going on in your life.
All right?
You can lock that down to only people
that you are friends with can see your business.
I say that because again, I'm a single mom.
I shared stuff about my son because I had family
that didn't live close to me.
So it was a way for them to stay connected to my life
and you know, their nephew and their grandchild
and all that kind of stuff.
But I was not being friends with people
that I did not know in real life.
I wasn't letting people in to see that or you know,
so put that stuff in private because you can still
Facebook message people and they don't have to have access
to your profile.
You can put a lot of that on lockdown.
So I definitely encourage y'all to make sure
your stuff is, you know, on lock.
But yeah, use Facebook Messenger to help.
Zoom is another one.
I mean, I like Zoom personally
because then you get 40 minutes.
You can't, you know, talk too long
because I'm a talker as y'all can see.
So I had that happen on, you know,
when I was getting to know guys too.
I had to really limit that.
So if I was on Zoom, it kicked me out in 40 minutes.
So I had to be pretty quick in getting to know.
And then I was one of those people,
I moved quickly to a live date.
I was ready to do life with people.
Okay, now obviously when you are,
if you're opening the parameters to more long distance,
and at first I wasn't, remember, I was not moving.
So I was ready to like, go meet people.
You know, I was, even if I had to drive an hour away
or they had to drive halfway, I was doing that.
I was doing life with people.
I didn't want to have a virtual relationship with people
because I also found myself
in a really unhealthy situation like that
where I really did feel like I had a relationship
with someone that I was texting and talking to every day
and we weren't in relationship.
when he actually did move to where I was at he didn't want to spend time with me
and then all of a sudden we stopped talking every day like we used to and it
felt like a breakup for me and I was like and that's another reason why we
talk about you can't build intimate relationship with someone that you're
not face-to-face with so yes long distance gets tricky my husband and I
were long distance but we knew what we signed up for we made luckily my husband
was working in Florida so every at least four to six weeks he could fly to
Florida and it was on his company's business that he worked for dollar
because he was flying into the office there but then there were times that I
flew out to Texas and he helped fund the cost there was a time that I helped
covered the cost and so and I was a waitress so I had flexibility with my
schedule and I had a village of people that can help me with my son and that I
could leave you know him with family and friends while I would go away and then
eventually my son came with me on those trips and then you know when my husband
was visiting he was you know interacting and doing stuff with my son
so that's kind of the long answer but you know as you find yourself in
situations don't hesitate to come to us and we will help you through that
process all right so ladies I know there's like four of you on here I'm
praying that some people are watching this and replay I know when these get
long it's hard to listen to the full thing but for you four that are on here
I really want to encourage you to do this activation and let's start getting
some more people to post these things it's super easy breezy I'm going back
into like last week I asked you ladies to show me an activity and stuff so it's
kind of along the same lines let's again continue to keep practicing opening up
and getting to know one another I'm here in Texas so we are just now I feel
like today is one of the first days where it almost feels like fall almost
like we're still in like the 70s and 80s it was overcast today at my son's
jog-a-thon and it was windy and cool so it's kind of nice it's why I'm like a
sweatshirt and at but I know some of you live where like it literally is fall
right now and so I want to see some you know beautiful fall photos of you
enjoying this season so maybe it's at a fall festival maybe it's at the pumpkin
patch maybe it's at a football game so those of you that like our sports people
like me football is huge down south we're more of a baseball family but I
still do have roots to football I'm just never gonna let my children play
football so let's see some fun fall photos of you enjoying this season okay
let's get active in our app in our community and let's start let's start
getting to know one another okay sound good all right ladies let's just pray
out real quick so Heavenly Father I just thank you for this community I thank you
for Jackie I thank you for her obedience to do what you've called her
to do Lord I thank you for you know all the coaches and all the women that you
know show up and and really are hungry for relationship with you and they're
hungry to grow and and learn how to do things better and how to you know be the
best versions of themselves Lord I just I thank you for that hunger I thank you
for the I just thank you for your encouragement and the peace and the just
the that you're with us that you're walking this journey with us that we
don't have to do it alone I think you that we have community to lean on so
that we don't have to do this alone Lord all you ever wanted was family and I
just I thank you because I know that you have a plan and purpose for each and
every one of these women that it's not just their love story but it's the
legacy of the love story that you have for them that is just gonna impact
generations and it's gonna impact your kingdom and it's just it's just gonna
bring people to draw closer to you and get to know you Lord no no no thing that
the enemy wants to use to attack marriage and family can prosper that
you're just going to align your sons and daughters to walk in the true purpose
and divine calling that you have on their lives.
And so I thank you for that in advance.
And Lord, I just pray that, you know,
as the speed bumps come and as, you know,
the triggers come in, that you just remind these ladies
that they have a community of support
and that you are walking this season with them
as you do every season.
So I thank you for that, Heavenly Father.
And Lord, I just bless these women
to go enjoy the rest of their week and, you know,
get out of hiding, go have some fun,
and just, you know, spread the love and joy
of what you have to offer.
So I thank you in Jesus' name, amen.
Ladies, thank you so much.
Thank you.
You sticking it out?
This is probably the longest session I think I've ever had.
It is long.
It was a good one.
I'm gonna go have lunch now.
Yay!
All right, ladies, take care.
Bye.
You too, thank you, Carla.
Bye-bye.
Bye.