All right, welcome, welcome. I hope everybody had a great Labor Day weekend. Today is September
2nd. It is the last year single, it's the one o'clock Eastern call. So it's good, good
to have you all here. Reminder that we do have the 8pm Eastern call as well, in hopes
that it kind of helps with everybody's schedules, all the different time zones that we have
ladies in. Ladies, did you know that we have so many international ladies here too? Oh,
my, my screen froze. I don't think you're frozen. You're good. Oh, now you're frozen.
That was crazy weird. My Zoom every time I click record y'all, it like freezes and I'm
like, oh, it freezes for a quick second and then it jumps back in. No, this time it booted
me out. Like, what is happening? All right, let's rewind. Let's start this again. I got
some more people on so that's good. I got Lori here with us today. Damaris, Leah. Hi,
Leah. How are you? Good to see you on camera. And my ladies that were here prior as well
before I got kicked off of Zoom. What's going on? All right, but no, what I was saying,
are you ladies aware that we have women in this community that are international? We have so many
women from other different countries, which is awesome. So we do try to accommodate those time
zones and things of that nature. So anyway, what I was getting to before I got disconnected is
if you're never a, like, if there's a time that you're not able to jump on a live,
we do record these. It's in the replay section. So those of you ladies that are brand new,
you might not know this. We have the course content, which is what you're going to be
watching one video a week. Okay. There's five videos. So minimum, you're going to be here for
four to five weeks. Okay. And then, but what I say that because a lot of women stick around a
Russian through this, this it's, you're going to do yourself a disservice if you rush through.
Okay. We just don't want you camping out here for months and months and months and months,
months, months, months. Okay. So we definitely want you getting some breakthrough. We encourage
you to do that dating, the seven date challenge. You do not have to stress about that. You don't
have to complete the seven dates before you move on to the next phase. Okay. If you were like me,
I took a really long time when I got out of heartwork to feel like I was ready to date.
Okay. So there's still stuff that you can do here. We, we do heartwork all the time. Okay. So
for those ladies that might be watching and replaying or brand new to love story accelerator,
I just want this to be like, uh, you can exhale and know that dating doesn't have to,
you don't have to just dive into the deep end with, you know, and submerge yourself. Okay.
If you need to just dip, dip a toe in, into the shallow end, you can do that. Um,
we're still going to do, you know, unpack heartwork here. Okay. Cause believe it or not
dating will surface new layers of heartwork. Okay. So, um, all that to say, um, don't rush,
watch your videos. We've got the replays. If you can't make it to one of these live sessions,
I do encourage you to make it to the live sessions. If you can, we have both of them
on replay. So if you can make one that can't make the other, watch the other and replay.
If you somehow one week you're like, okay, I'm swamped and you can't get to any of them live,
watch both of them replay. Cause we take y'all's questions and everyone has different questions.
All right. So you might learn new information. You might be able to relate to one of your sisters
here. I really want you ladies to be encouraged to be vulnerable and don't be afraid to ask
questions. Okay. Cause so much breakthrough can happen for other people in the program
through your questions. Okay. So, um, just keep that in mind. Um, a couple of housekeeping things,
ladies, when you're making posts in the app, if you can do us a giant favor,
because we have a small team.
Okay, and we can't always vet everything out on those posts. So if you could do us a huge
solid and not post any links, videos of like where you're connecting authors, speakers, pastors,
you know, books, things like of that nature. We just don't have the capacity to vet all of those
out. And we really take it. We take it to heart that we want to make sure that everything that
we have in our last year single program is in alignment with what Jackie teaches. And so
a lot of people, you know, there's great podcasts, great, you know, you know, maybe your your pastor
gave an awesome sermon one weekend, and it would be great. And it's it's wonderful. And it does
sound like it aligns. But if we can't go check their full library of things, and so we don't
want to mislead anybody or get anybody off track, we really just want to focus on what Holy Spirit
speaks through Jackie and us coaches here. And we've, you know, we just, we know that there's a
lot of good content out there. Okay, but we just can't vet at all. So it's just a way that we kind
of keep our community from any stuff coming in that we can't, you know, manage properly. Does
that make sense? All right. And then lastly, make sure you're checking out that resource page.
I do occasionally see a few questions on the app, which I love, love, love y'all post in the app,
come to the app and post, post, post, post, post. Okay. But I do see some that are like, Hey,
I think I'm ready to move to phase three. How do I do that? And every week, I tell ladies,
go to the resource tab, because the instructions on how to get to the next phase is in the resource
tab. What I find interesting, and I'll lovingly call some ladies out, okay, I'm not going to call
you out by name. But if you're watching this replay, then you know who you are. Okay, let's
hope you're watching the replay. I will see questions being posted. How do I get to the
next phase? And I'm like, I have no idea who this person is. I haven't seen them on a live,
I haven't seen them make a post. And I'm like, if they don't know how to get to phase three,
they definitely probably haven't watched a replay. Because I do try to mention it every week,
because there's so much good information in that resource page is not just how to get to phase
three. But there's like an attachment style quiz, any of our last year single trips will get posted
there, which I do think we are fully booked. I know we're fully booked for the Austin trip.
I think the Disney trip is fully booked. I think I don't know if they're still taking people to do
the last year single cruise in January. I haven't checked on that one. But yeah, there's all of that
in there. If any of you ladies want to do the five year anniversary party that's coming up in October
in Austin, Texas, we are sold out for the not conference the retreat. But if you still just
want to come for the like a night or two and just get your own hotel, maybe find some other ladies
that also want to come and share a room that the tickets for the anniversary party are on Jackie's
website. Okay. And so I believe that is October 26. Let me look at my calendar real quick.
I don't want to Yeah, October 26. It's a Sunday. Okay. And so that's an Austin. So if you want
tickets for that, definitely come. I think it's gonna be a great time. I'm excited. Myself,
my husband are going to be there. I know Bethany and her husband are going to be there. Obviously,
Jackie and David, I think Ebony is going to be there. Probably another handful of coaches
and success stories and singles and all sorts of stuff. So it'll be a good time. I'm really excited.
So yeah, check out that resource page. Lots of good information. Also, what we have on there
just recently, we launched on our website, one on one coaching opportunities. So we like to give you
ladies here in this phase, the opportunity to do a group coaching. So we take your questions,
and we spend like, you know, maybe 510 minutes on your question. But if you really want to get into
a deeper coaching session, we do offer those. They are an extra charge, and they're 50 minutes
long. So we have a lot of wonderful coaches, myself, Ebony, your two last year single coaches
for phase two love story accelerator. We're there. There's several others. We do heartwork, dating,
all sorts of stuff. Okay. So if you just feel like you need more one on one and dive a little deeper,
get more things uncovered, then we do have those options. It's 50 50. Yes. Because usually I'm
If you're not, if you're new here,
you don't know this, but if you aren't new here,
you know I talk a lot.
So when y'all, y'all ask your questions,
I'm typically responding a good five,
10 minutes if I feel like there's good,
good stuff that we can pull and like teach from there.
So but yes, all of that is on the resource page.
Cool. All right.
I see Patty on here.
She, Patty, if you're able to unmute,
I love what you posted about your activation.
Can you, do you want to tell us any more about that?
Like what did that do for you?
Ah, thank you, Carla.
Well, what did it do for me?
It just made me, you know, think that a lot,
I know that I've had a lot of self-protection,
which we know Jackie talks about being God defended,
but you know, it was for a long time,
it was easier for me to just tell myself,
well, you know what?
That's probably not gonna happen.
Gift of singleness and all of that associated with that.
And so it was like, maybe, maybe, you know,
try and open the little treasure chest of hope.
Yes.
That's what I love seeing.
Like, you know, some of us get, you know,
ourselves in this, like, I mean, I mean,
I'm gonna speak for my own wisdom here.
Okay. And my own experience, you know,
I was in my late thirties, I had never been married.
Like I was at that point, Patty,
probably where you were at, we're like, yeah,
maybe this is just not gonna happen.
Maybe I'm just gonna be single forever.
And then you tell yourself that.
And so then you just kind of prepare your mind,
like that's just the way it's gonna be.
And so, but then it's like, this program comes
and God starts speaking to our heart
and we have to unlearn all of those lies that we put up.
Like, because we were trying to protect ourselves.
We didn't want to, we wanted to protect ourselves
from disappointment, from, you know, being disregarded,
being, you know, all of those things.
Okay. And so that's why I love this activation.
When I joined the program five years ago as a single,
this was something Jackie had us do.
She was like, do the Pinterest boards.
And so I started looking at wedding dresses
and themes for my wedding.
And, you know, I started looking at engagement rings.
I did all these things and it did,
it started being like, this is fun.
Where I shut it down before,
now I was starting to like reactivate that.
Okay. So I love that you, you know,
you took that activation and you went with it.
And I think there was somebody else went shopping,
like went browsing and they had this,
they posted a picture of a hats and marriage material.
I was like, that's so awesome.
And then I was like looking in the background
and I'm, ladies, I'm an earrings girl.
I was looking at all the earrings.
I was like, oh my goodness, those are cute.
Those are cute.
But it will, it will activate just a new hope in you.
That's why it really felt strongly
for you ladies to do that.
So if you haven't yet,
I want to encourage you ladies to do that.
You know, you can do something as little
or something as big as you want.
Okay.
When I went to the Austin retreat in 2021,
it was our first Austin last year, single retreat.
We went bridal dress shopping.
There was 25 of us and we went and tried on wedding dresses.
I mean, it was a cool experience.
Okay.
And I didn't anticipate it,
but it just did some miraculous healing in my heart.
And I felt prompted by Holy Spirit
to purchase my wedding dress.
Ladies, I wasn't even dating at that time.
Like I haven't even met anybody.
Like I was still like new,
like I had just started the program, like less than a year.
I hadn't even been on a date yet, y'all.
I bought my wedding dress and, you know,
and I didn't get to wear that wedding dress
for a little longer.
Okay.
So, but I did get to wear it and, you know,
it was really, really exciting to be able to put that on
and be like, and tell my husband, like,
I've had this dress since before I met you
because I knew you were coming.
So again, you don't have to get that extreme.
You can go try on wedding dresses and go to a bridal show,
go pick out some fun earrings.
I mean, a lot of ladies will go in and look for shoes.
I mean, who doesn't like to go shoe shopping?
You know, maybe go on Pinterest, look and see what type of flowers, what do you want
your bouquet to look like?
One thing that I even didn't realize that I would need to do is picking music out for
like my wedding ceremony.
And so that was fun.
And so I prompted ladies to go, you know, what, what song do you want to walk down the
aisle to, you know, what do you want the groomsmen walking out to your bridesmaid walking down
to your family?
Cause you know how you have your family and stuff.
What do you want that look like?
Do you want a big wedding?
Do you want a small intimate wedding?
Do you want to elope?
Do you want to go destination like dream, dream and, and, and get excited because sometimes
it's stepping into this activation of, I can start seeing myself as a bride.
What you believe you become, what you become, you attract.
We've all wrote Jackie.
All right.
And, and, and phase one in heartwork that's in her book, what you believe you become,
what you become, you attract.
And so if you believe you're a bride, you're going to become a bride and you're going to
start attracting marriage minded men.
All right.
And it's all a process.
Okay.
Um, there's, there's a process with every promise.
Okay.
So y'all, I want to encourage you.
Don't, don't get discouraged.
I want to encourage you not to get discouraged.
And I know how difficult that can be, but if you get discouraged, don't be afraid to
come and let us know.
We will pray with you.
We'll walk you through it.
We'll uncover any heartwork areas that need to be uncovered with it.
You know, ladies, I did a lot of this in the program, got hopeful and then got discouraged,
got hopeful, got discouraged.
Okay.
You know, I'd see other women that would join the program.
I was in it for almost two years before I met my husband.
You know, I was in it for over a year before I really started dating and I'd see women
come in the program and a few months later they were dating a marriage minded man and
talking about a wedding.
And I'm like, wait, I've been in here a really long time.
Why isn't it happening for me?
Because ladies like that's, I'm just being candid.
I'm being honest.
Like that's how I felt.
And I would share that so that I would partner with other women and we would snap out of
it.
All right.
We would dig a little deeper.
What is this revealing?
What does God want to show us?
Okay.
I encourage you to do it because God has every single one of you on a journey and everybody's
timeline is going to look different.
And when I met my husband, it made sense why I needed to wait because I would have passed
him up y'all.
I wasn't ready to receive my husband because I had some hard work I needed to do.
I had to believe that there were good men out there and that took me a while.
All right.
Some of you ladies that have been here for a hot minute, no, I've prompted some of you
ladies before and be like, Hey, go find the golden men, go, go, go look for it.
You know, I got burned by a lot of guys, okay.
And I had to own my side of the street, but I also had to kind of recognize why I was
attracting that and why I was attracted to that.
And you know, I had, I had a lot of healing to do and I would never have thought there
was a good man out there, but I had to go through a process of not from dating some
of the guys that were not my spirit mate, but that were really good guys.
And then I had to date some guys that were not good guys to show myself.
I'm not attracted to that anymore.
Like that was profound.
So ladies, if you go on dates and you're like, this guy was a jerk.
This guy was completely inappropriate.
Celebrate it because if you were like me, I would typically try to make those guys be
something that they weren't.
And then I just went down a really just heart road of heartbreak.
Right.
And so when I started recognizing, like I would go on a few dates with some not so great
guys, I would, I was like, it's a yes until it's a no.
And I knew this is a no, it's a no.
This guy is not divine masculine.
He's not mature.
But I also had to learn how to give grace too.
And so I had to balance this, giving people, giving guys grace, but then also recognizing
when someone's not my spirit mate.
Okay.
I had to really work on that.
Grace was another part of it.
I had to learn how to give guys grace on these dates because they were in the same dating
era that I was, right? We're all dating, not sure really what we're doing,
you know, had, you know, bad teaching, all sorts of stuff, what we thought it was supposed to look
like, what it looks like now, thought I was going to be married way earlier than I didn't think I
would be in my thirties, almost forties dating, never married. I never thought I'd be in that
situation. And so I had to learn how to give grace to guys too. And now I can say being on
the other side and not single anymore, I'm being married, which by the way, my two-year anniversary
is tomorrow. Okay. So I just know ladies it's coming for you. Okay. Just think two years from
now, you could be celebrating an anniversary too. So, but I had to learn, I say it from now being
on the other side, I've been in situations in these last two years where I needed my husband
to extend me grace. And I've had to extend grace to my husband. And I don't know if I would have
been ready for that. Had I not really gone through some of the dating stuff here in last year single
and got the coaching and got the teachings and listen to Jackie and listen to other people's
wisdom, I probably wouldn't have been ready for that. So again, I don't, I'm going to get off my
soapbox here and open the floor for you ladies to, to ask all your, all your good questions,
but just know this, this is a process and it's a journey and you you're in the right place.
Okay. We don't have to compare. All right. And I know that will be hard sometimes,
especially when you, you ladies jump into phase three and then you see all the
engagement posts and you're like, she didn't, she just joined not too long ago. Why is she
getting engaged? I say it because ladies like I get it. I was there. I did. I mean,
it didn't mean that I didn't want to celebrate those women. Okay. But I'm just being real.
Like there are times where it hurts. Okay. And you don't have to be ashamed or guilty of it,
but we do want you to open up and be vulnerable and share it with us. Okay. That's where the
breakthrough comes. Okay. Yes. Glory. Wisdom is the new sexy. Absolutely. It is. Wisdom is sexy.
Y'all healing is sexy. So you ladies just keep working on your healing. It's going to be more
and more sexier to, to your spirit mate. Okay. All right. Let's go ahead and take questions.
I got my girl, Stephanie. Hey girl. I know. Are you Stephanie? Your last name is Howell, right?
Me. Yes. No, sorry. It's Alba. Okay. Yeah. I don't know. Okay.
Yeah. I had it on the zoom and then I was going to have a zoom call with some guy and I wasn't
ready for him to know my last name yet. And so I, I took it off and it's just a whole thing. So
yes. I'm glad that you brought that up. Ladies, when you're doing zoom calls,
if you don't want men to know you're okay, there is the other Stephanie. Okay. I see you now, girl.
I see y'all posting. Um, but yeah, that's actually good before you get on a zoom call.
If you're doing a video call with a guy, be mindful about putting your last name. Okay.
I have my last name on here. Cause I don't, I mean, I'm married. I'm not dating guys.
I see that handful of you ladies have your last name totally fine, but just go in early before
your call and change it. So if you don't want them, I mean, especially if it's a first zoom call,
okay. It's just stuff. Okay. Um, same thing that we also encourage is not giving out your phone
number right away. Google has Google voice. You can get a Google number. Okay. It rings to your
phone. You, you can't miss it. Okay. But you're not giving your actual phone number that can come
once you feel like you've gotten to know somebody a little more. Okay. Um, but I'm glad you brought
that up, Stephanie. So what's your question girl. Okay. Um, maybe not so much a question. I'm just
needing, um, some advice and some encouragement and maybe something that you hear from something
that I say that you can speak to. Uh, first, can you hear the background noise? Cause it's
a little noisy. No, I can't. Okay. Perfect. Um, I've been back on the dating apps a couple of weeks.
Yes. Um, and this weekend I just was having a lot of anxiety and just a lot of insecurity. And so
I sat, you know, and, and kind of thought about, okay, well, what are the triggers here?
I realized that, um, at the beginning, it was very much that I found that
I wasn't, I felt that I wasn't trusting
and that I kind of realized
that I had some sort of fear of men.
And I think you might've spoken to this already
and just how God is gonna show up
and redeem men in my eyes.
So I'm trusting in that, I'm walking in that,
I'm waiting in that.
And then it was more feeling that I was
feeling a lot more confident,
maybe with guys who I was just discovering
in the sense of like, I wasn't really into them,
I didn't really think they were my type
or super attractive,
I was just kind of wait and see how it goes.
I'm just gonna give it a shot
and have a whole bunch of grace
for the men who seem not to be able to carry on
an intelligent conversation.
So where I think I hit a wall
is when I found somebody that I could imagine, right?
You're like, oh, this is exciting,
I like this guy, I'm interested, right?
And so I took the advice of letting myself,
seeing myself as a bride
and something that I was fearful of doing
because I know that I have a pattern of behavior
that kind of just runs away.
I'm very imaginative, I'm very creative and curious
and just runs away.
And so I got excited.
I got excited because the conversation
was good, the pacing was going well.
I'm struggling with the exchanging social media aspect of it.
A lot of guys my age wanna go straight to social media.
And I've tried both ways.
I've tried being like, hey, I would really love it
if we could just talk a little more on here,
get to know each other a little bit better.
And more often than not, it's like, girl, bye,
like you hiding something.
And I've tried to be like, I'm up for a video chat
if you wanna do it, like I'm a real person,
I'm not catfishing you, I'm not a bot,
like I'm trying to be mindful of that.
And then I tried the other way and was like, okay,
well, here I am, I'll accept, we can DM
cause you can do audio on there
and it's a little bit more interactive.
And I said, but I would really appreciate
if we could still converse
and actually get to know each other.
And I even mentioned, I feel like you can maybe tell a lot
from a person by what they are publicly showing
on their social medias, but I like to discover
and be discovered through questions and conversations.
So the guy that was interesting,
you know, I went all into the profile
because his line was actually, I know you.
And then I was like, scrambling,
I'm like, why do I know this guy?
He said that he knew you.
Yeah, I'm like, I don't remember this guy, I don't.
Yeah, so hopefully it wasn't, it was a line,
it was a line, but he caught me because I thought,
well, we do have some things in common.
One of those things being jujitsu, I used to train jujitsu.
And he spoke to me in Portuguese
and I used to have a lot of Brazilian friends
through jujitsu.
So I thought maybe that was the connect.
And I didn't wanna make him feel bad by being like,
I don't remember you though.
So.
He didn't make an impression on you if you did, right?
Yeah, no.
Yeah, no, what's so funny is that, okay.
Yeah, so it's just, there's lots of stuff
that I think we definitely can unpack here.
The bottom line, I think I just wanna tell you
is that it was good and then the conversation stopped.
Like we moved even on to exchanging numbers
and then I suggested a video date
and it's been a couple of days and I've heard nothing.
And that's where I'm like,
I found myself catching myself in my lies
that I used to believe that I was messing it up.
That I have to earn, right?
I have to earn the approval.
I have to earn the interest that they're gonna see
and not like what they see that I'm not enough
for the guy that I am interested in
and whether I'm gonna do something to mess it up.
Okay.
And so I recognized my,
my tendency to do and chase and be proactive.
And so I'm sitting with Holy Spirit and that.
Yeah.
And I'm overwhelmed.
Yeah, absolutely.
For one, this is all relatable.
Okay, I'm getting Holy Spirit chills
because I think I,
I can. I resonate with what you're experiencing, and I think a lot of women on this call probably
will as well. I just want to thank you for being vulnerable and sharing. That's huge.
Your vulnerability is is beautiful, so I want to thank you for that. What I love that you're
doing is that you're starting to. You're doing hard work here, right? You're going in and
you're recognizing patterns of things, and now you're going to Holy Spirit with it. Ladies,
that's so important. OK, there's going to be the ups and the downs of this dating stuff.
It's going to. It's going to surface emotions, feelings, all sorts of things, and that's
going to be, you know that that could be a challenge. What I love that you've done here,
Stephanie, is that you're starting to be like, OK, what are the lies that I'm believing?
Ladies, that's important. When you have these fears and these emotions, the anxiety, all
of this stuff that starts to surface. We have to figure out. What am I believing? That's
making me have these thoughts, so she's she's she's coming to that. OK, so she's like I
have to earn. I have to earn their approval and I'm not enough, so I've got to do something
to get someone's approval. I'm going to mess it up. OK, so if she's believing all of this
stuff, we all have all right, myself included. If this is the stuff I'm believing. What do
you think is going to be validated? What's going to be validated? The stuff that we are
believing? OK, he just he fell off and I was like a lot, right? Because there hasn't been
much question or conversation after we shared socials. And so I thought, oh, he saw something
like or he I wasn't, you know, I wasn't cute enough or I wasn't interesting enough or whatever.
Yeah, so that's what we want to tap into. OK, we want to shift our thinking. We want to get
breakthrough there. We want to get the transformation there. OK, because that's not God's truth.
All right, so this is where we go into some deeper questions with the Holy Spirit. You know,
one of my favorite things to ask you, ladies, and I do it myself, especially just recently,
you know, I've been going through the heartwork again myself. OK, believe it or not, ladies,
artwork doesn't stop. OK, heartwork will continue in your marriage to you just have another
person, but you're still going to be doing it on yourself and still having that relationship
with the Lord. It's recognizing, OK, where does this feeling and this thought feel familiar?
Going back in your past, when did that thought, feeling, emotion surface? What's that belief
rooted in? So Stephanie, is there anything, memory, thought that comes to mind? The earliest
memory that you can remember where you felt like you weren't enough and you needed to
get somebody's approval? Yeah, I mean, it comes from my parents. I was born to teenage
parents. I was raised by my grandparents. I moved around a lot. You know, I was with
my mom sometimes, my grandparents sometimes, my dad sometimes. It's a long story. Yes.
So from the very beginning, but you ladies see our body doesn't when those emotions get
activated, we don't know the difference. Like we will sometimes feel like we're going back.
Like our body responds to the past and it doesn't know that it's responding to the past.
It thinks it's in the present. So it's working through that. And ladies, it's not like, oh,
I can recognize it. I mean, she's probably been, I'm assuming when you went through heartwork,
a lot of some of this stuff started to surface, right? Yeah. Now we're going into a deeper
layer, right? Because now you're introducing, we're introducing dating. All right. And now
guess what? Ladies, here's the thing. The enemy is so say he's generic. All right. Like
he, he, he doesn't, he doesn't use new material, right? He uses the old material. He's just,
sometimes he can be cunning, right? And trick us, deceive us. All right. But once we tap
into that, and once we recognize it, we shut that down so quickly.
So, he's wanting to use this old lie that you weren't enough, that you had to earn something,
that you weren't wanted, that if it was your fault, you did something wrong and you messed
it up and that's why, right? He is going to sit there and use those same lies now that you're
stepping into something that God's promised you. That is, I will tell you, marriage is
the one thing the enemy wants to attack. And when we recognize it and we remember, like,
God's already won. The victory is already won. Like, you can't use this on me. You can't
So, what's important here is when these feelings and things surface,
it's going in prayer. I mean, like, okay, Lord, I'm feeling like I did something to mess this up
and that no one's going to be attracted to me. Ask the Lord to speak to you. What does he say?
He put that desire in your heart, Stephanie. He put the desire of marriage in every single one
of your hearts. He's going to deliver on that promise. It might not look the way that we think
it should look or we want it to look. It's actually going to look better. It'll look different.
It really will. Y'all, I mean, I can get on another soapbox and just even give you my testimony
and my experience in this program. And, you know, but he's put that there. You're not going
to mess up your spirit. And we also have to remember the people that we're interacting with,
they are also experiencing some of the same stuff, feeling like they're not enough or,
oh, maybe, maybe she's not attracted to me. Maybe she's, maybe she's catfishing me,
whatever it is, right? They're dealing with their own stuff. If we can just tap in and remind
ourselves when we don't hear from somebody, it says more about who they are and less about who
we are. I need to remember that. Like it really is about where they're at, not about where you're at.
It doesn't have to be personal. One thing I use, Jackie, you know, instilled in us when I was in
the program, you know, the whole ghosting, like all of a sudden you get excited about somebody
and then they just drop off. Instead of it calling ghosting, we called it holy ghosted.
Like my heavenly father knows how to protect me and he just went ahead and removed that person
for me. And that was powerful for me, y'all, because if you were like me, I was the type of
person that I just wanted to make that person be the person. Yeah. I didn't see any of the
red flags. I didn't want to be there. I'm so tired. I'm so tired. Yes. And we're tired. And
we're like, we just want it to come. Can't he just get FedEx to my door? Amazon Prime my husband to
please Lord. And we do, we get tired. And so that's another thing. Like, I'm glad you brought
that up to Stephanie, because I really do feel Holy Spirit speaking to me on this one. Ladies,
we don't have to be tired in this dating process. I know it can be tiring at times,
but we're not going to work dating like it's a job.
Go out and have fun. What do you love to do? Go put joy in your life.
What's that thing that you'd never, that you always wanted to do and you just haven't gotten
around to it. Maybe you want, you know, I've always wanted to go ballroom dancing,
like, and I've never done it. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to research that. I'm going to join
a class, do something that you've never done before. Or maybe there's something that you just
really do enjoy doing. And you are like, you know, I'm going to do, I'm going to do this every week.
You know, maybe it's, you know what, I need, I need to get out and walk more. Okay, so I'm going
to just tell myself, I'm going to walk more. And I'm going to go out and do it. We actually had
we would, when I was in this program, we, we
It would do live videos, and you have the opportunity
to do live videos in our app, too.
Sometimes it's a little tricky.
But we'd just jump off for like a couple minutes
and we'd be on our walks.
And be like, oh, ladies, guess what the Holy Spirit
spoke to me today?
I mean, I remember one clearly.
Because y'all, I joined when the world was shut down, okay?
So, and I didn't have a job at the time.
I got laid off because my job and everything was closed.
And God, I was on one of those walks
where Jackie encouraged us to get out and move our bodies.
And the Lord spoke to me.
Because I was in this like mental space of like,
I have a son, y'all.
I had a little boy, all right?
It was a single mom.
And I was like, I don't have a job.
Like, what am I supposed to do?
Am I supposed to go find just anything, something?
Like, what am I supposed to do here?
I felt like I had to do the work.
I had to work to get the, I had to earn something, right?
You wanna know what Lord said to me?
And I remember being on Facebook Live,
because we didn't have an app at the time,
on this walk.
And Holy Spirit allowed me to share with my community
here at Last Year Single.
Karla, how are you gonna trust a husband to provide for you
if you don't trust me to provide for you first?
I had to, like, God was doing something in me
and preparing my heart so that I trusted him as my source.
Otherwise, if I met somebody and got married, guess what?
I would have probably made that man my source, not God.
And God's like, Karla, I don't want that for you.
That's not the marriage I have for you.
That's not kingdom marriage.
And I have kingdom marriage for you.
And if you want it and you wanna choose it, trust me.
Walk my path.
Doesn't have to be easy.
It just has to be worth it.
And I was able to do that.
And y'all, like, I met my husband and realized,
oh yeah, I would not have been able to receive this man
as my husband, because that's scary.
That can be scary.
Like, I'd never been married.
I was a single mom, do it myself.
I mean, I was grind, grind, grind.
Like, I don't need anybody.
I got this myself.
Y'all, I had to put myself in a submissive posture
with the Lord first,
because that's how I would show up in marriage.
Okay?
So you see, I can get on all these soapboxes, ladies.
One question can just, all this teaching that comes,
you know, all this wisdom, all the experience,
all the things that Holy Spirit can speak to us.
And so again, Stephanie,
want you to spend time activating the truth, okay?
Think of it, this is not those,
when they ghost you, that has nothing to do with you.
It says more about them than it does about you.
And your Heavenly Father loves you so much.
He's not gonna make you earn a husband.
Ladies, sit with that.
I don't think this just speaks to Stephanie.
I think this speaks to a lot of you ladies.
Ladies, you don't have to earn your husband.
You are a gift to your husband
and your husband's a gift to you.
And that man, your husband, your spirit mate,
is gonna have so much grace for you,
but your Heavenly Father has even more grace for you.
So just hold onto that, take that.
There's no earning, like, we're not orphans.
We don't have to beg.
Beg, or God, bring me a husband, please, please, please.
I want him to look like this and I want him to,
no, we don't have to beg.
He's already got what we need.
We're just gonna trust him.
And you know what's really cool, ladies,
is when y'all jump to phase three
and you give those announcements that you met somebody.
and I get to see that, that's such a celebration.
It really is.
Because you know what is really cool?
Is God does some pretty intentional miraculous stuff
with your love story.
He really does.
You know, I thought I wasn't gonna move.
I wasn't gonna leave.
I was not gonna move out of Florida, y'all.
My husband was in Texas and I now live in Texas.
I never thought that's the way it was,
but it was like God knew
and the way he had it unfold was beautiful.
It was better than I could imagine.
And there was so much breakthrough
and so much just goodness.
I was like, dang, if I would have dreamt this up,
I wouldn't have.
I wouldn't have done it that way.
But God, he does.
And so I just, I hope that gives you ladies encouragement.
I really, really do.
Okay, I know I kind of went really long with that one.
See, ladies, if you're new, I talk and I like,
we get some, the Holy Spirit will just download
some really good nuggets for us all.
I know Sam posted something,
online dating is your next video.
So maybe it hasn't been covered yet in the videos,
but I'm still really confused about hanky dropping.
Got it.
Okay, I am a woman who has a history
of being really bold and carrying the weight
of a relationship and just being like,
hey, I like you, let's go out.
I love that.
Sam, I love that.
Okay, let's not lose that boldness.
We might just learn when to reel it back
and allowed a man to kind of take a leap, okay?
I love the dropping the hanky and that is,
it's like, hey, do you wanna go grab coffee sometime?
Hey, you know, I'm going to this farmer's market
this weekend, you know, would you like to join me?
Oh, you like barbecue?
Well, there's this really awesome barbecue place
like a couple of blocks from where I live.
I've been meaning to try it.
Would you like to come with me?
Hanky dropping, okay?
Go on the first date, get, if they wanna pick it up,
you'll know, because they'll say, yeah, sure.
And then you set the date up, right?
Then if you had a good time,
you let them know I had a really great time.
We should do this again sometime.
And you just leave it at that, okay?
You might say that at the end of the day
and then ladies probably typically within 24 hours
followed up with like a text or a phone call or whatever
and say, hey, again, had a good time.
I hope we can do it again soon.
Now you let the ball be in his court, okay?
And we don't have to get anxious about,
well, he didn't plan a date like after I said that,
you know, maybe he's got a busy schedule,
but maybe in a week he comes back around
and be like, hey, there's this, you know,
there's this in the park concert and I was wanting to go
and I need somebody to go with, would you like to come?
You see how it just works, it's naturally,
but you're not just waiting on that one guy, ladies.
You're getting out, you're having fun, all right, ladies?
Go out and do fun things, all right?
When I was in this program, we were all locked up.
That was hard, okay?
We're not like that anymore.
We can get out, we can go do things.
Don't talk to strangers, okay?
I know we always say like to kids, don't talk to strangers.
Now when we're adults, we can go,
strike up a conversation with a stranger in a public place,
okay, don't go talk to strangers in like non-public places,
but get to know people, you know, be bold.
I like it, Sam, I think your boldness is great.
I think it's beautiful.
I think it's, you know, God put that in you.
We're just gonna, when you put it into practice,
we're gonna help you reel it in,
where you don't have to feel like you have to take charge.
You might drop the hanky and you're gonna be good at that,
but then it's gonna be, okay, I dropped it,
now I have to let the man lead, okay?
And so we'll walk you through that when that comes, okay?
Yeah, I haven't been able to make it,
but I have been to, I've been doing this thing,
like, because I do lots of things, you know,
like you were talking about earlier,
like things I really wanna do.
So I found like this thing on Instagram
popped up for me called Time Left,
which sits like six strangers at the same table
on like a Wednesday or a Friday night.
Yeah, and like, it could be believers,
it could be non-believers,
like it could be anybody, right?
Like, so it's good, it's a good stretch,
but it's like three guys and three girls.
And so, and they have multiple tables throughout my city.
So usually-
Are you doing that?
Yes, I'm doing that.
So usually- When is that?
It's like, you sign up for it.
So you can like get a subscription or-
You can sign up for like a specific day.
So I've done two of them so far.
I mean, I haven't- So you have been on a date.
We don't count those as dates.
Oh, I don't know, really?
I think it is.
I would count it as a date.
Yeah, but you don't even know the location or anything
until the day before.
And they prompt you with questions
if the table gets stale.
That's good.
And then they also have a time after the dinner
to meet up with all the other tables in the city.
So they give you a place to go, a bar, or whatever.
Where do you live?
Dallas.
I live in Dallas.
Oh, shh.
It's called Time Left.
And so check it out.
But it's just a way for me to meet people.
I love that.
So I went this past Friday.
And the guys at my table, there was only two instead of three.
One didn't show.
So between the five of us that were there, we talked.
The other table was right next to us,
so we knew who the other people were.
And so when we got to the bar, we
were all sitting at one table together between the two tables
So I met a guy that was at the other table
that I had kind of seen.
He had a little bit of white in his beard,
so I thought he might be close to my age.
You know what I like, too, is that you're doing it in a group.
So maybe you're not sitting with a man that's your spirit mate.
But maybe the lady that's sitting at your table
knows your spirit mate.
And you become friends with that woman.
And she's like, hey, this guy didn't work for me,
but I think he might be your type.
I think he might be a good match for you.
That's so fantastic.
Because I feel like I really, like once we got to the bar
and I met one of the guys from the other table,
then we were kind of sitting next to each other in a booth.
It was hard to talk to anybody else,
because it was kind of loud.
And so he was just telling me, we're
in the similar fields of work, so we were talking about that.
And we're also both traveling this coming weekend,
so we were talking about that.
And I just felt like there was a little bit of a connection
there.
I had shared that I was a huge fan of Jane Austen,
and I showed a picture of me dressed up in that time period.
And he's like, you know what, you would really
like Medieval Times.
And I was like, I would.
That would be so fun.
There is.
And you know, my husband's been trying to get me to that.
I said to him.
I took our older kids to that before I met him.
Do you have a Medieval Times date on the calendar?
No, because I kind of dropped the hanky at that moment.
I was like, I'd love to do that.
Isn't that something you'd like to do?
And he was like, oh, maybe.
And then because you can't connect.
Did you get his number?
I offered mine, but he didn't take it.
He was like, hey, I'm out next week, and so are you,
but maybe next time.
So I was like, all right.
There you go.
But I definitely, what I feel like the heartbreak is for me
right now is like, what kind of lie am I believing about this,
like not understanding the hanky drop
or not thinking I can do it right?
I think you are doing the hanky drop.
OK, but I think the lie that I've been believing
is I think I can't do one because any initiation
on my part is too much.
So it's like, oh, so the lie is that I feel like I'm too much?
You're too much.
I was going to say, there's that lie.
Yeah, so those are.
Ladies, I will tell you that is a common.
Those are common lies from the enemy.
I'm not enough, and I'm too much.
I mean, honestly, I've been coaching now for almost two years
and done my own hard work and raising a daughter now,
and that just is always the common theme.
I'm too much, and I'm not enough.
And we're going to break that.
We're going to break those lies because we're not.
We're exactly who God made us to be.
That's it.
Not too much, not enough.
We're just right.
Reminds me of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
We are just right.
All right, well, thank you, Sam, for posting that question.
I know you've got to jump off.
I think you said at 1 o'clock our time,
but 2 o'clock everybody else's time.
So I'm so glad we got to share that with you.
Good stuff.
Ladies, yeah, I love that.
And I know Dallas-Fort Worth is a big area.
It's a big metroplex, so there probably
are more opportunities for that kind of thing.
So just if there's a nearby city, like a bigger city,
even if it takes you an hour, I mean,
Dallas-Fort Worth is two hours away from Dallas-Fort Worth.
I mean, Sam, you know, you drive everywhere here.
It takes forever.
Traffic is awful.
But, you know, check that out.
Look and see what opportunities are available, OK?
All right, is it Preeti?
I love that name.
Thank you.
It just reminds me of the word pretty.
Do you ever think about that?
Yeah, yeah, it's my icebreaker.
Because people get super confused with my name and they're like,
are they hearing it wrong?
So I will often use this line.
It's like pretty.
And they're like, what?
You are pretty.
And I was like, yeah, yeah.
Yes, girl.
You have to say that.
But anyway, yeah, I use it a lot, like even professionally,
because people are super confused.
Oh, yeah.
I love it.
It means love, actually.
So that works too.
Ladies, that's always a good thing too to do as well.
I know Jackie has taken us through that before,
your name means something.
Start speaking that over you.
She's full of love.
She's pretty.
And guess what?
Her husband's going to see that.
And he sees that, he going to know.
All right, what's your question, girl?
Yes, so I posted a few weeks ago about an incident
that happened to me and another friend from this program,
actually.
And you asked me certain questions.
So I'll just remind you of the situation and the question.
Yeah, just remind me a little bit.
Because it was harder for me to type it.
I normally can't get to the afternoon one,
but my meeting got canceled.
So I was like, OK, it's time.
So anyway, the question or the scenario
was that me and a friend went to a hike,
and there was a very nice man who started
becoming friendly with us.
And I mean, Canadians are super friendly.
We love chatting with strangers.
So we do that very often.
But then he started going on the side of flirting a little bit.
And that made me uncomfortable.
And so both of us, actually, we met the next day.
And we kind of processed the situation.
Yeah, the two of you went.
The two of us met, and we processed it.
And we were like, both of us, our intuitive response
was like, OK, friendly person, we are friendly
and have a good day.
But we didn't kind of engage.
And why did we do that?
And so we both were like, OK, we'll
go, because she's in another phase.
We said, we'll both go take it to our coaches
and try and learn for next time, right?
Yeah.
And so you asked me a question on what
came to your, what are some of the thoughts that surfaced,
and what are some of the feelings you felt?
And I think for me, it was definitely
something around fear.
Yeah.
And some of it stems culturally.
Like, I was raised in an Indian family.
And so we had very strict expectations of children
around dating growing up.
And then also in the church, we were not
encouraged to date as young adults.
Like, you have to talk to your pastor,
and then the pastor will talk to the other person's pastor,
right?
So dating in general is relatively very, very new
to me.
And so I'm super grateful for the coaching
that I get on a weekly basis.
But essentially, it was fear, because also,
I don't think I know what is an appropriate response
to flirting.
Like, I'm not good at it.
Like, I don't think I do it.
Maybe I do it.
I don't know.
But it makes me very uncomfortable.
Like, I'm a very extroverted person.
And I actually have no problem talking to anybody on any topic,
because my work requires me to do that all the time.
But when it comes to this setting,
then it's like I'm a whole new person.
And kind of fear grips me.
So I did go back and do some thinking
on what were the causes.
So like I said, fear, not knowing
how to respond appropriately.
Because in the culture that we are in, people will be like,
oh, yeah, like you should have totally taken that person on
and made out.
But then you're telling the person, no,
but that's not my value.
That's not how you do it, right?
So like there are like extreme pieces of advice I got from.
Yeah, it's like we want to balance that.
We're not, ladies, we're not making out with strangers.
No.
Believe it or not, we encourage no kissing
until it's very clear.
Yeah, and like I would never do it.
But like I'm just telling you, people are like, wait,
like why are you nervous?
Like you should totally come on for it, you know?
And so I guess so fear, not knowing
how to respond appropriately within the boundaries
of this program, but also like as a child of God.
And then last but not the least, I
think also like a lot of rejection
that I have faced before.
Like, I mean, obviously, like I've
spent a lot of time in hard work and like I
speak over the truth.
But like it kind of still stinks, right?
Like when even like I'm in online dating as some people
were saying, like we were having like so many times
I have people on my app.
Like so we are having like a great conversation going
really great.
And then suddenly, boom, you know, they just block you.
like no explanation whatsoever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So
ladies and keep in mind too, like sometimes like men will do
that because you know, again, and we encourage you ladies
getting to know a couple other people. So maybe they met
somebody and they're like, okay, I'm going to shut this down.
Because I want to try to get to know this other person a little
better. So again, it has nothing to do with you. It's sometimes
men have been very nice. And they've told me that. Yeah, I
kind of appreciate it. But I can count it in my fingertips. Right?
Yeah, exactly. And that's what I'm saying. Again, no one ever
like, I don't know about you all. But when I'm not
interested in somebody, it's awkward to tell somebody that
you're not interested in them. I mean, and I get this from women
all the time. Like, I mean, again, I've been coaching and
doing this for about two years now. And I always get the
question, how do I let someone know that I'm not interested? I
don't want to hurt his feelings. All right, and I get it. Because
telling someone that like, we don't want to always feel that
like, we don't want someone to tell us, Oh, I'm sorry, I'm just
not interested in you. But we have to start like unlocking
like, what does that mean? And if we're picking up the
rejection, I'm not enough. I'm too much all that kind of stuff.
Then yeah, that's where that rejection sets in. One way to
shift out of that ladies is okay, I'm glad this person let
me know. Because I'm just one step closer to my spirit mate.
I'm one step closer. I don't have to sit here and spend
months and months and months if someone says, Hey, thanks for
getting to know I'm getting to know you. I don't think that
this is gonna go anywhere romantically, but I wish the
best of luck. You know, people don't know how to say that
because guess what, people don't know how to take that
well. So a lot of times what happens is that people just
avoid the uncomfortable conversation. All right. So
again, we can't control how people show up. But we can start
practicing it, right. And if that happens to us, we'd be
like, just that person wasn't my spirit mate. I'm, I'm glad they
didn't drag it out. I'm glad they didn't pretend that they
wanted to get to know me anymore when really they just
didn't. It's shifting that perspective. And it's like
talking yourself out of it. But I want to say something you said
this. You had that, you know, situation. You're like, I just
don't know how to do this. Okay. And you're telling yourself, I'm
not good at it. Okay, just because we haven't done it
before doesn't mean that we can't be good at it. Does that
make sense? Because like you said, like your culture, and
what you grew up with, like you weren't encouraged to do this.
So this is going to be a little different to you. It's going to
be uncomfortable. There's a discomfort because it's foreign
to you. It's not what you normally that's not how you grew
up. Right? If you if you if dating looks differently in your
culture, it's and now we're doing it different than your
culture, it's going to feel weird. Okay, so I just want to
encourage you. It's not that you're not good at it. It's just
you haven't practiced it. So some things to do subtle things
on flirting ladies. Okay? If you can remember, just these subtle
little things, you'll grow in your flirting. Okay? eye
contact with somebody. Okay, smile. Men, men are attracted to
women smile and eyes. Okay, that's the first thing that they
see a good man is first thing they see. Okay. All right. Eyes
and smile. That's why when we tell you ladies to post your
profile pictures, we ask you don't put the sunglasses on.
Okay, one or two sunglass photos totally fine. Okay. I mean, I
lived in Florida, I like you always wear sunglasses. Okay,
but I made sure I only had like, maybe one, maybe two. But I had
a lot of pictures of me where you could see my eyes and I had
my smile. Okay, then have those serious like professional photos
up there. It was a show. Smile. Okay. So if you can practice
flirting, which is eye contact, smile. And like sometimes it's
the subtle laughing. Okay, and start there. Okay, now as you
grow in that, then it's going to be a subtle like touching of the
shoulder. Okay. We're not groping men. We're just going to
Maybe you put your hand on their hand, like, oh my goodness, that's so funny, you know.
So if you can just start putting that into practice, I think, just know, okay, this is
going to feel different because I'm not used to doing it, but it doesn't mean that I'm not good
at it or that I can't get good at it. You might just need a little more practice with it.
Okay. So I want to encourage you with that. All right. And again, just again, be thinking of
those fears, those rejections and all that kind of stuff. And it's, again, it's holding those
thoughts captive and shutting those down. All right. You know, you have this belief that I'm
not good at it because I never did it before because it wasn't accepted in my culture.
Right. Well, is that true now? Okay. Yeah, that might be what I grew up with, but you know what,
God's showing me a different way. So I'm going to do it this way and I trust God.
He's not going to steer me wrong. And here's the thing is if I get off course, guess what?
God is a really great course corrector. He really is. I always like refer to him as GPS.
You know, I mean, even when I was living in Florida, I used GPS all the time.
Now in Dallas, I always have to use it. All right.
GPS will tell you a million different ways and they will let you know what path you need to take.
And if you go out on the wrong path, guess what? New route kicks in. God is the same way.
Okay. As long as we're walking with him and being open and listening and hearing and,
you know, oh, maybe I shouldn't have gone down that way. Okay. Lord, where do you want me to go?
All right. I'm going to get back on track. He's a really great course corrector. Okay.
All right. Alicia, how are you girl? I got more hands popping up ladies. I'm
going to have to start talking really fast. So couple questions. I jumped into
activation or not. Yes, I did activation. So just to y'all a little bit of backdrop.
I am divorced. I've been divorced seven, almost eight years now. And I didn't post this and I
really should have now that I realized it, but I threw away my DVD from my wedding and that was
hard. Sorry. I'm going to get emotional. And I didn't realize like, I don't want anything to
do with my past, but it was a really hard thing to do. And so I said, Lord, I'm making room.
I'm making room for what's important to you. And I don't want to head down this back,
this path that I was before. So thanks for hearing me out on that. So we'll see where that
goes. I still have some things from my wedding and I'm just like, not sure how to navigate that, but
you know, like my shoes and a photo album, and maybe you can give some advice on that.
I wasn't planning to bring this up, but so I think maybe with time I'll be able to purge more,
but right now it's just, it's like baby steps. So yeah. Um, so question one is, um, I, I started
on upward, the dating app here in Colorado, and I'm pretty, I don't know if I'm just like
too intense from the beginning. And I know we, we said, don't do that. Don't say we're too intense
or whatever. Maybe I am. I don't know. But my question is, um, you're not too much. I'm not,
not too much. You're not intense. You're not too much. But from the jump, I just tell them,
Hey, I'm a charismatic Christian. Um, I am involved in church Bible study. These things
I do my daily devos, um, so on and so forth. Um, and I'm looking for somebody with that,
that can match that. And this guy yesterday in particular challenged me. He's like, well,
I find that to be really judgmental. And I'm like, I just want to know if you match me,
that's all. And he blocked and deleted me like right quick. Okay. So, uh, fine protection. Great.
Fine. No, this is good, but I, I, okay. I know you've got a lot of questions,
but we don't have a lot of time. Exactly. So let's stick on this one. Okay. All those other
questions, let's put those in the app and we'll get to those. Okay. Great.
I'm getting Holy spirit on this one too.
How do you feel about waiting to tell someone you're a charismatic Christian until
date number three? That's fine. I think my concern is, is I just want somebody who's more mature
because I was married to a man before that called himself a Christian, walked in heavy addiction
that I didn't know about it. You see that it's why that's the trigger, right? Huge trigger.
We've got this past. We don't want to repeat what we did in the past, right? And so we're
trying to protect ourselves. I need to see that I have someone match. I have a very similar story
because my, my son's father I thought was a believer. All right.
And then I got pregnant and he was really not a believer y'all.
And so I was terrified I was going to fall into that trap again.
Like, how did I get this wrong?
I fell for this and I didn't see all the red flags.
No, I saw the red flags.
I just didn't know how to recognize them because I was living
guarded and all sorts of stuff.
I think this is, this is, there's healing.
That's going to start taking place for you.
I really, really believe.
I know it's hard.
I get it.
Yes.
And so I think it's, it's this learning and going through the process of.
You want it to look one way because you you're afraid of
it looking like the past a hundred percent.
Yeah.
And so we want, okay.
What was Holy spirit speaking to me before?
I want to really make sure I touch on this.
Cause I really felt strongly about this.
I think there's just something powerful here.
Mm hmm.
And this, this comes up frequently, um, in coaching, especially when we show up
and our faith is so important and our walk with, with the Lord is so important.
We anticipate, or we hope that our spirit mate is going to match our faith
and it's going to look the same.
But guess what?
Ladies, we're female.
Our husbands are male.
It can look different.
Okay.
So how we show up in our belief in our faith may look different than how a man
does.
Okay.
It can look different.
So I just want you to sit with that.
And just observe, observe other men that, you know, like, do you have any men in
your life that you, you admire their relationship with the Lord?
If a good, a good amount of them, like at least two or three.
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I think the thing that I'm concerned about is on these Christian dating apps, a few
of the men have been very honest, but they, they're not even plugged into church.
So they're, they're lacking on that.
And so I'm like, should I give these guys a chance?
Maybe.
Cause I'm a, I'm fearful of trying to dominate and carry the weight of that.
The spirit of the law.
Again, because you had that past, right?
A hundred percent.
I'm like, I'm not doing it again.
Yeah, exactly.
So it's going to have to be a little bit of leaning into Holy spirit, leaning into the
Lord.
Okay.
Like there's balance here.
Okay.
I'm not trying to discourage some of you ladies.
I'm, I'm trying to tread lightly on this, this, this topic right here.
Cause I don't want, I don't want my words to get confused.
It's not it here.
Let me, let me just start off by this.
One thing that Jackie really teaches us and you'll hear it often in our program is that
we want to be fruit inspectors.
What good fruit, like the fruit of the spirit do these people have?
Cause believe it or not, sometimes when we come in marriage, marriage is supposed to
grow our relationship with the Lord.
Take us to the next level.
Okay.
So it's not about where a man's been.
It's about where is he going?
Okay.
And so it might not look the way you think it should look because guess what?
He's missing his counterpart.
Okay.
I don't want you ladies shutting men down just because they don't regularly attend
church, believe it or not.
When I was in this program and I started as a single, I went to church all the time.
God pulled me away from going to church for a hot minute.
This community actually became more of my church.
I jumped on the Tuesday night calls.
I went to prayers in the morning, whether it was Monday morning or Friday morning, I
went to supernatural Saturday.
I was connected in this community.
This community was my church.
Okay.
So when people ask me, like, where do you go to church?
Like, well, I used to go here.
I'm kind of like in between.
You see how sometimes it's, we don't know where someone's walk is with the Lord
until we've spent.
some time getting to know them. So again, it's going into this dating, you know,
discovery dating is, yeah, you're going to probably meet some in that don't have a strong
relationship with the Lord. But you don't have, you don't have to assess that right away. You're
just going on date number one and seeing if they're worth getting to know a little more.
And I, and I say that lightly, like everybody's worth getting to know, right. Okay. But do I want
to invest some time in this? Do I want to see what, you know, believe it or not, some of the
men that you're dating, you might go on one date for them, but God wanted you to go to go on that
date because he wanted to reveal something to you. It might just be one date that is a revelation
for you. And like, Oh, wow. Like that happened to me a few times. I was like, wow,
I learned this about myself because that's discovery dating too. Ladies is you learn a
lot about yourself. And so, and I also want to kind of just pinpoint, I know we're always like,
oh, I just want to go on Christian dating apps because I want a Christian y'all there's Christian
on non-Christian dating apps. Did I say that right? Christians on non-Christian dating apps
and there's non-Christians on Christian apps. You don't know until you spend some time getting to
know them. Okay. And we don't have to pass to, we don't have to make the decision. Is this someone
I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with? Alicia, I want to encourage you when you're talking to
these guys and you're getting to know them and deciding, okay, is, is a date, you know,
there, I want you to take the pressure off yourself that you have to determine whether or not
he's going to lead you well, spiritually in marriage.
I want to encourage you with that. I'll encourage all you ladies, ladies, you are in the get to
know you level two, when you're on dates, level one, level two. Okay. We don't have to decide
if they're marriage material right off the bat. Oftentimes it will take two or three dates.
It will, it'll take a couple of weeks of getting to know somebody before you say, okay,
couple of weeks in four or five dates in. Okay. I think this could, I really want to get to know
and see if this could be more romantic. Then you can start getting in those deeper conversations.
All right. So I want to encourage you. Don't feel like you have to jump out the gate.
All right. With I'm a charismatic Christian. You need to be charismatic too.
And also just, Hey, I want to see how this guy shows up in the fruits.
I want to see, does he have, does he have a teachable heart? Does he want to know the Lord
more? Maybe he doesn't have a path. Like maybe, maybe it was hurt in church, whatever. We don't
know because we don't know them. Right. They're still strangers. So I just want you to relieve
that pressure off. And I really want you to spend time with Holy spirit about this, um,
healing that's going to take place with your past marriage. I think there's some healing there.
Okay. And again, healing and forgiveness all comes in layers. All right. And we do the heartwork.
Okay. One indicator that we have gotten some healing is when we can bring up conversations
and past things, and we don't get emotional. All right. I still get emotional. Some things,
okay. Sometimes I'm better at it than others. And if I start sensing that I get a little bit
emotional, especially if it has to do with like my son's dad and his relationship with his dad,
there's a new, like revealing there sometimes that I'm like, I thought I did all the forgiveness.
Nope. There's just another layer, you know, and I got to work through this again. Okay.
So I just want that to be an encouragement. I love that you are purging some things and you're
making room. I had to do a lot of similar things. I wasn't married, but I had all the documentation
in the world. If my son's dad wanted to fight me for custody, I had all the documentation
in the world why he was, he didn't, he didn't need to have full custody of him.
Ladies, when I got into heartwork, God was like, throw him away. It took me a few months
and there was a lot of healing that went in that. Okay. So be gentle with yourself,
give yourself grace, do the baby steps, like you said. Okay. But just keep the course,
keep moving forward. You've got this. All right. All those other questions you have,
post them in the app. Okay. All right. I got, I'm five minutes over and I got four hands up.
How do we want to do this? Cause I want to get to as many as I can, but we can't stay on.
much longer. I know there is lots of stuff in the chat. For some reason it was not going,
so now I'm scrolling through here. Yep, trying to balance between not interested in moving on
and being patient. Yep, there's balance there. It's a, again, and you might teeter-totter,
like give yourself grace there. Oh, yay, Stephanie, you were born in Fort Worth. I love it.
Yes, DFW. I never thought I was going to be a Texas girl, and here I am. The things God
does to you. That's one thing, too. God is, God will call you on your bluffs, I'll tell you that.
I wasn't going to move. Oh, Allah, I see you on. I have a phone number and an email for you of
some girls in Sarasota, some close friends of mine, for you to connect with. So I don't know
if you, are you able to jump in the chat? Can you actually, are you able to share your email
with me if you feel comfortable? Okay, and then I will get your email to those women.
And I know you're muted and you're not on, because I think you're probably at work. I know
sometimes you can't jump on. Okay, I'm trying to get through all of these things. Okay,
God protected, yep. Learning more about yourself. Good, I love that, Stephanie.
Get to know them and level two. Yes, yes, Audrey, keep telling yourself that. It's just the get to
know you. It's not the, is this man going to be the man I'm walking down the aisle to? Okay,
good, good, good. Okay, Preeti, you can sign off. Yeah, ladies, if any of you have to go,
because I know I'm over, feel free. You don't have to stick around. This all will be in replay,
if you want to capture it in replay, you can. Okay, Allah, I got your email here.
I'm going to connect you with my friend, Amanda. I have her email address,
and so I'll send that to you. And then my best friend, Sarah, she said to give you her phone
number. So if you want to reach out to her. So I will connect with you on that. So, ladies,
Allah came a couple weeks ago, I think it was a couple weeks ago. He's a single mama. All right.
And if you're a single mama, and this is even if you're not a single mama, it's important to have
community. All right. And it just so happens, Allah was feeling a little bit discouraged.
You know, like feel like she's got to do this all on her own. You know, she's got three kids.
And I was like, well, where's your community? Where do you live? Y'all? She lives where I used
to live. And I was a single mom. So I felt God was just really showing up there. So
it's important to have community. Okay, so we want definitely get yourself out there.
Okay. All right. So I got that. Okay, Alicia, if a guy stops chatting with you for several days,
is it appropriate to block them because they have gone with no? No, I wouldn't block them.
I mean, we only block people if they're like red flags. We don't know what's going on. Why? Why
maybe all of a sudden they they had something come up? You just never know. Maybe they did
decide just to get to know someone a little better. And they're trying to be respectful to
a girl that they're getting to know. And so maybe they're cutting off conversation with some people.
Okay, but then maybe that doesn't follow through. And then they circle back around.
So we want to block people unless they've done something like that needs to be blocked. Like
if they're wanting like, if they're sending those type of pictures, or they want to send pictures,
or they're making like sexual comments to you, or they're just showing some serious red flags. Yeah,
those are the ones that you block guys that are rude and mean and, you know, nasty. Yeah,
block them. But if you're talking and things are going pretty well, and then all of a sudden,
you just kind of don't hear from them. I don't think it's a I need to block them. It's okay.
Well, for whatever reason, they've removed themselves or God removed them. Or it's just
on pause. And it's something that's going to go on the back burner. But maybe it's gonna heat back
up again. I don't know. All right. So I would say let's not let's not get blockety block, block,
block. Does that make sense? Like we don't, we we save the blessing block for those really necessary
red flags. They're wanting to talk about sex. They're, you know, wanting to know all your all
your sex details and all your past relationship that they're just crossing boundaries, y'all.
Okay. If they say something and you put
a boundary and then they don't like respect your boundary, that's a block. Okay, they're talking
about sex, that's a block. You don't even need to tell them that you're blocking them, you just
block them. Okay, sound good? All right. Okay, I've got Patty. Patty, Patty, Patty, I'm gonna,
can we be short, brief, and powerful? I will do my best. Okay. So I am visiting different churches
now. I was involved in a church for a long time, very active, and now I'm visiting different
churches. And one of them, it turns out that they have a singles group and it's for, I think it's
30 to 55. So I am 53, just sneaking in there, and I wanted to hear any tips that you would have
for someone who is on the older side and has had experience with people being like, oh,
you know, where, you know, chronologically I could be their mother. What comes up in my spirit is
these single groups is really, really good for just building community and getting to know people,
getting yourself out of a comfort zone, getting to know people. Because here's the thing,
there might be one of those 30 year olds that maybe they do have an uncle that's your age,
and they're connected to your spirit mate. Okay. Okay. So I want, ladies, I want you to keep that
in mind and keep that open. You don't know who God's bringing in your life to bring you your
spirit mate. You just don't. And so get yourself out in community. I love that your church has,
you know, a singles group for that age group. You know, most churches when I was like, you know,
when I was living in Sarasota, I mean, most of the churches that like had young adult groups,
because again, I was in this like 30, I was in my mid thirties. Okay. I had a kid,
was never married. So that was already a whole nother thing. Like, okay, people are going to
judge me. Right. But they had the young adults group and you know what? They would put young
adults, 18 to like 35. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I do not mesh with these 18 year olds. Like I am
in a different season of life. Like what are you talking about? All right. And so I'd be like, man,
like, can I just not be with like the out of high school and the college age kids? Cause I'm like,
not there. All right. I need someone else in my category here. And so I love that this church
has a single group for, you know, your thirties, your forties and fifties. Okay. That's, that's
where most of us are navigating, right? That's, that's a lot of the single generation, right?
People in their twenties now, not always thinking about marriage. I mean, not that there aren't,
okay. So there might be some women here on here that are 20 and they are, that's great. You know,
I love that. I think we need to, to bring that back. Honestly, you know, we got into this like
society where it's like, Oh, I got to build my career. I got to do all that kind of stuff. And
then, you know, whatnot, but I love that. So just go into it, get to know people like,
you know, let your authentic self shine, you know, practice just, you know, getting to know people,
making connections, go out, have fun, be on the look. I mean, look out, look out for people that
you might think are a good match for them. And, you know, cause this is one thing that
Jackie will often say, what you make happen for others, God will make happen for you.
So be matchmaker for somebody else, right? Get to know people. And then you get to know people.
If you know anybody that's my age and is lover, a lover of Jesus and is open to marriage,
like introduce them. And they're going to know who you are because you're doing life with them.
They're going to see your joyful spirit, your kind heartedness. They're going to,
and they're going to be able to go to some be like, Oh my goodness. Patty
is this wonderful woman of faith. She's got the smile that's contagious and will bring joy to a
And I think you are going to match with her perfectly because they know you.
Okay. So that would be my, my, my wisdom on that is just use this for an opportunity to
get to know somebody. All right. So Laurie, okay. You're going to process tonight. Awesome.
Don't also, if you want to even post in the app because, or, and I can even watch the replay as
well. And if you want me to chime in as well and have both me and Ebony kind of giving you
wisdom for, we're able to do that. You're, you're so welcome, Patty. All right. I got Audrey and
Caitlin, so we can short, brief and powerful. Let's let's get it done. Caitlin. It is so good
to see you. It's been a
been it. All right, Audrey, I'm gonna let you go. And then I got
my girl, Caitlin. I'm going to extend it a little bit. Okay.
Thank you so much. Hey, okay, short, brief and powerful. So,
um, yeah, so I just got on a dating app. This is my first
time being on the dating app. I'm on salt. That one stood out
to me. And I've just been slowly just learning it, looking
through it, you know, I'm taking my time, some people have
reached out, I just haven't messaged back because I haven't
felt led. Okay, but this one guy, this one guy reached out.
And I have been chatting with him. It's only been two or three
days. But he's from Ireland. He's from Ireland. So I'm just
like, yeah, you know, but it's cool. You know, I'm making a
connection. We have a lot in common, like he's a counselor in
Ireland, my background is in counseling. So we've just been
chatting through voice memos about that. He has a really
great voice. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I love your voice. But
I'm trying to like, you know, hey, like, when are we gonna
have a video chat? Like, how are we gonna
Okay, good. So you're dropping that? Because that was my
question is like, can we get a video chat?
Yeah, so I haven't. It's only been like two or three days. So
I haven't initiated a video chat. So I was gonna give it
like a week to see if he mentioned a video chat. But I'm
also like aware that I can just mention it. Just mention it.
Okay. He's in Ireland. Like, what I'm hearing you say is
like, Oh, I like his voice. We're making connection. We
don't want to get so ahead. And then like weeks down the road
that that video chat didn't happen. No, let's let's get
those video chat, especially long distance girls. If you're
talking to somebody that's long distance. I mean, this guy is
across the ocean. Okay, where are you at? Audrey? Where do you
live? I'm in Georgia. Okay. Yeah. So that's I mean, I mean, at
least you got the Atlanta. Are you close to Atlanta?
I'm like three hours from Atlanta. So yeah, I'm
sensitive. Like what kind of international airport
connection? Can you get your Atlanta? Yeah, that's what I'm
saying. So you're driving three hours just to get to the
airport.
Yeah, just get the video chat. And here's another thing,
ladies, when you're doing the long distance, you're gonna have
to get you're gonna have to put this out there a lot sooner. I
wouldn't do this with anybody that's local. But you're gonna
have to have the conversation of what does this look like if
we continue to keep talking and keep getting to know each other
like I I'm on these apps because I want to date in real life. And
the reality is you're in Ireland and I'm in Georgia. What's this
look like? What's the reality? Okay.
Yes, because that's what I was thinking too. So I'm definitely
gonna do that. And then isn't there like a like so say things
are progressing and we talk about what this actually looks
like and start implementing it? Is the time? Did you guys do
you guys say the timeline is like two months meet in person
international?
Yeah, Jackie encourages within three weeks to three weeks, six
weeks. But here's the thing is you've got international stuff
that's gonna be let's look a little different. You're gonna
want to your long distance is going to include a lot of
FaceTime. Yes, a lot, especially if it's international, because
it's not like you can just jump on a plane and hop country.
Okay. Even, even when my husband and I like I was in Florida, he
was in Dallas. I think the law like, we would typically try to
fly back and forth. Every four to six weeks, I think six weeks
was kind of the longest that we waited and it was it's hard. And
so we had like it was a lot of phone conversations, a lot of
FaceTimes and things like that. I mean, long distance
relationships will look different. But yeah, you don't
want to start catching feelings for someone, you know, two
months in that you've never met in person and you meet them in
person and you're like, Whoa, this doesn't translate. Okay,
that's like, yeah, I mean, me and my husband, we were talking
for three weeks, I think it was exactly three weeks and then he
came to Florida and we met in person. Okay, so yeah, three,
three, no more than six weeks. Usually, again, your situation
might be a little different because we got some
international stuff going on. But yeah, I get that video call.
Don't ladies don't take don't hesitate. I mean, if you've
gotten I say it doesn't have to be a full week. If you had a
couple exchanges, like two, three, like back and forth for
a day or two, and it's meshing and it's vibing and you're like,
Okay, this person can hold a conversation to say, Hey, why
don't we why don't we do this on video? You know, don't don't be
afraid. Don't be afraid to do that. Don't. And don't wait for
the men to do it. Okay, because, again, we want to especially
when we're long distance, because those will be that will
be a red flag is if you drop the video date chat, and then they
kind of, you know, keep going around it. And I don't Yeah.
Well, ladies, I mean, I sometimes they're like, Oh, I
can't whatever I mean, again, is he gonna Oh, well, I'm, you
know, in a different country, I don't have access to that. Well,
I'm, I don't know how it is in Ireland, but I'm sure people can
access zoom, all sorts of stuff. Okay. There's there's
ways of researching that too. So that's why get that out of the
way before you start catching feelings and enjoying talking
to them every day, or messaging and stuff like that. Like, we
don't Yeah, yeah. Ireland has zoom. Thank you. Thank you,
girl. So yeah, and then keep us posted. Let us know you know how
things are going. Okay, ladies, don't be afraid to post in the
All right, Caitlin, give us a quick update. Short, brief and
powerful. How have you been? It's hi. Yeah, I jumped out of
the program. And then I jumped back in recently. So yeah, it's
good to be back. I felt like I'm in a season of trying to take
care of myself and pour into myself. And then date. But
anyway, so I'm not super actively dating. But I do have a
situation with so a friend of mine set me up with a guy from
her church. Back, he she gave him my number back in like late
June. And then he reached out to me a couple weeks later. Okay.
With a kind of a thoughtful message saying he'd love to get
together and then I then so basically, we had one date in
July. Okay, that went really, it was a lot of fun, like just a
ton of connection. It was like a lot of chemistry, I think. And
not just physical, but we really just like, laughed a lot, just
hit it off. Our personalities really connected. Yeah, you had
good. Yeah, I love it. And so I was like, you know, I was kind
of encouraged. But also, you know, I've had experiences where
I really hit it off with somebody. And then maybe I'm
attracted to I think I'm attracted to the avoidant guys
sometimes, which is what I'm kind of getting from this guy.
So basically, after our first date, he went on a road trip
for a couple weeks. Okay. And he did text me after the first
date saying he had a he enjoyed getting to know me. But he
didn't like set up a time for the next date. He but he like
sent me a song that he had talked about blah, blah, blah.
Okay, then he went on his road trip. I didn't really hear from
him. And I was just like, Okay, well, I won't worry about it. We
only went out once. So he's on a road trip. But then it was like
two weeks. And so I texted him and was just like, Hey, Willam,
I had a just want to let you know I had a really fun time
with you and curious if you are interested in getting together
again, zero pressure. But just thought I'd ask kind of thing.
Okay, and then he messaged me back like the next day and said,
Oh, I just got back. Perfect. Good timing, blah, blah, blah.
I'll message you tomorrow. And then he did. Like message later,
he's just really slow. And like, there's not a lot of
momentum, but we didn't nail down another date and went to
breakfast. Like, okay. And again, we had just a lot of
connection. laughter. I was just really, I felt like there was a
lot of mutual enjoying each other's company. Yeah. Um, and
then speaking of Ireland, I went to Ireland for two weeks, like a
couple days after he and I went on a breakfast date and
but he messaged me after the breakfast date saying he
enjoyed seeing me and sent me some like thoughtful message
about, okay, you sent a picture that looked like Ireland and
like sent some message saying, Okay, and so like, okay, like,
and then I messaged him back saying I had a great time with
him and I enjoyed his company. And blah, blah, blah. Yeah, like
and I asked him like, Oh, is that Tacoma? I asked him a
question in that message. And then he didn't reply to that.
Which Okay, whatever, I went on my trip. But I didn't hear from
him at all. Okay. And so like a week and a half into my trip, I
sent him like two, two pictures from my trip. And like, just
like, here's a couple shots from Ireland hope Seattle's treating
you well, or whatever. And he sent me a message backs, like
I know they look so iconic, but he didn't ask me any questions.
So I was like, Okay, huh? Like, and then like, a week and a
half after I got I just kind of like and I heard I heard it his
response. And then like, a week and a half later
after I got back, like over a week after I got back,
this is like four days ago, he texted me like,
I was on a hiking trip.
He was like, have your legs recovered yet?
So he was just kind of slow
with the kind of getting back and forth, like.
Yeah, super slow and not much momentum,
not like, oh, when, let me set up a date.
So you guys have a mutual friend, yes?
Well, my friend Devin doesn't really know him.
She just noticed him and he spoke at church
and she liked, she enjoyed him.
She thought he was a thoughtful person.
He like spoke about his work at church.
So she, yeah, she kind of took a risk and reached out.
It was like, hey, what do you think about this guy?
Doesn't really know him.
Okay, cause that was gonna be my next question is like,
let's get some, let's, you know, just ask your friend.
So what else do you know about him?
Okay, we're not looking for dirt,
but if she doesn't really know him well,
okay, like we can't do that.
Yeah, when you were talking though,
and it was really interesting
because I was on social media this morning
and have you, do you have Facebook?
I do, yeah.
Do you follow Jackie on Facebook or Instagram?
I do, yeah.
Okay, did you happen to see what she posted today?
No.
Okay, go look at it
cause it's about avoidant attachment.
Okay.
So that might, I just felt like, oh, it's so timely.
Like I just happened to look at it.
Yeah.
Like read through it a little bit.
And then you said that I'm like, okay,
maybe there's something there for you to look at.
I heard you say you're typically attracted to avoid it.
I've noticed that's happened in the past.
Well, yeah, let's, again, let's,
is Holy Spirit bringing an opportunity to the surface
for us to kind of, you know, investigate a little more
and look at it a little more.
That's always a possibility.
You know, what patterns are you seeing?
What beliefs are you aligning?
Okay.
Cause if you believe something
and that's what you're attracted to and attracting,
is there something that you're believing,
a little fox that's in that little garden
that we need to kind of scoot on out.
So I want to encourage you to spend time with that.
And it's, I'm sensing like you are doing a lot more
of the reaching out that he is doing for you.
It feels that way.
So I'm trying not to, but I'm like.
Yeah, I think at this point, like just,
cause you've been on two dates.
This has been since July, right?
So it's July, August, it's been two months.
Okay, you've been on two dates.
You're averaging one date a month, which is not bad, ladies.
One date a month is not a bad thing,
especially if you have a busy life, okay?
Other people have busy lives, you have busy life, okay?
I think you wait for him to reach out to you.
And then if he reaches out to you,
I think at this stage, two months in and two dates, okay?
Ladies, if you've been on two dates in a week with somebody,
I would not encourage you to doing this.
I wouldn't even encourage you to do this
if you've been on two dates in two weeks, okay?
I think with this, we're gonna sit back.
We're gonna let him kind of lead the next initiation.
Yeah.
The next connection.
Like, when is he gonna connect with you?
And I think you need to say, hey, you know,
I'm curious, like, how do I wanna word this?
I wanna make sure I'm giving you good wording, okay?
Well, let me put it this way.
You are in a season where you wanna date in real life, okay?
We're not trying to do pen pals.
We're not trying to be like, oh, when it's convenient, right?
Like, you're in a season of your life
where you actually want to invest some time in dating,
correct?
Do you feel like, because like you said,
you were out of the program for a minute
and then you felt led to do that.
So I'm assuming, okay, now correct me if I'm wrong,
that you're now in a place where you're like,
okay, I'm ready to be intentional with my time here.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
And so I would just kind of, again,
pray about how to word it.
And I'll be thinking about how to word this.
And if, you know, you make a post
and I can always add some more feedback here,
but like how to put it out there, like,
hey, where are you at right now in this season?
Yeah.
Are you, sorry, I got like a little fly flying around here.
Yeah.
Are you in a season where you're open
to getting to know someone?
Yeah.
And to intentionally date?
Right, right.
Like maybe he's just in a season of his life where he's not,
or maybe he is avoiding it.
Yeah, that's kind of almost my gut.
Like when I was praying about it,
even in the very beginning,
I sort of got this.
sense of like, he's not ready. Like, he's so
and ladies, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's not a
potential like this, there's a circle moment here, right? And
we don't have to get attached to the outcome in the time in the
the timeline, if you will, okay, it's a, we can put things on
pause and like give someone their time while we're still
doing our life, getting to know people. And if four months down
the road, let's say, that person circles back around, maybe
you're at the grocery store, and you run into them, and maybe
then they're in a different season of life. So we're not
cutting things off. Yeah, we're just letting things go with the
flow here. All right. And and maybe this is just an
opportunity for you to spend more time with, you know, the
invitation of looking at the attraction of avoidance. Yeah,
like, who knows? Okay, so I wouldn't, let's not get so like
caught up in the the outcome, or, but more of Okay, what's
God trying to show and do for me? Yeah, yeah. So yeah. It does.
And I feel like also I just even noticed in myself that I'm aware
of the dynamic much more than in previous times. But one little
tiny thing, last thing is, it's hard for me. I'm 38. And I've
always wanted my own kids. And so I'm noticing that dating's
harder and harder, like I get more and more attached to the
outcome than ever before. And like, how do you just not do
that? It's so hard, because I have this like, yeah, desire. I
have this magic wand. I say do this. And that doesn't happen.
Okay. Yeah, I was when I joined this program. I was 37. Okay.
Now I did have a child, but I did want more children. Yeah,
that was tricky. It was tricky to date because, you know, I
didn't, I wanted more children. And so that is one of those
conversations. Like you don't have those conversations right
out the gate. Okay, ladies. But you feel this urgency because
believe it or not, women have the biological clock men can
have children when they're 5060 years old us women, we can't
necessarily, but God can do some great crazy things. Okay. It's,
I wish like I said, I wish there was something that I could say
do this and then that just takes it off like your plate. It's it
doesn't it's learning to just sit in a place of rest and peace
with the Lord that he knows your heart. He knows your story.
He knows and so he will bring to fruit those desires of your
heart. Okay, it may not look in the same package that you want.
Okay, I thought I wanted more kids. I was 37 when I joined this
program. I was 39 when I met my husband. And a lot of the guys
that I dated in that two years I would they would kind of come
out the gate and tell me that they couldn't have children
anymore because they and most of those guys I was like, No, thank
you. And I felt okay about that. Ladies, I met my husband. I
didn't find out right out the gate. But that conversation did
come up and he got snipped. And I had to go to the Lord with
that one. And the Lord praise praise him that he answered me
and he spoke to me. Like, and again, this is my story. This
does not have to be your story. Okay, I'm just sharing how it
can look different than what we anticipate. Okay. And I had to
go to the Lord with that because that was a non negotiable for
me. I needed someone that wanted to be a dad one because I had a
kid, but two because I wanted more kids. And he's like, I'm
not having more kids. And I was like, Oh, and he, he, my husband
said some things that challenged me. And I'm like, Wow, he didn't
tell me the things that I wanted to hear. He was very candid and
very open and honest and asked me some really good questions
that got me thinking. And I was like, wow, Lord, like, what do
you want for me? Like, what does this look like? Because I do
believe you told me I was going to have more children. And the
Lord spoke to me says, Yes, Carla, I told you you were going
to have more children. I didn't tell you you were going to birth
them. I was like, Oh, because my husband had two kids. So I did
get more
children. I just didn't birth them. And so I really had to go to the Lord and be
like, okay, I need to trust that if this is the spirit mate you have for me,
you're bringing me more children in a way that I don't know what this looks
like, and I'm just gonna have to trust you. And so that's what I would encourage,
is let's hold some of those things loosely. Like I said, I wish I could tell
you like this is just be open to the fact that God will work things out. Now
like we're blending a family. Y'all, I can't, I can't do another child. I got
three kids and almost 14 and 16. I'm like, we're not putting a baby in that
mix. Even if he did go get reversal. I'm like, no, we're not. We're not doing
that. And so, but God showed me that he was still fulfilling something and I
wasn't without something that I desperately desired because he already
had the answer for it. It was just, it didn't look the way that I thought. And
so, you know, just trust the Lord with that. Okay. Cause I mean, and again, I say
it cause I get it because then when you're in your late thirties and if you
meet somebody that wants kids and then you, you get married and you're like
trying to have kids and like, what, what if I can't get pregnant? This is when we
have to really lean on our faith, you know? And sometimes, sometimes God will
tell us, you know, he'll answer in ways that we just didn't anticipate him
answering, but it's just being open to what that answer looks like. So I hope
that kind of gives you some perspective and some hope. Um, don't put so much
pressure on that part. Okay. I think if you kind of just let that go and know, I
mean, cause again, you don't know, you might meet somebody and they have
Yeah. You get to fulfill the desire of being a mom. Yeah. You know, like that's,
you know, and I'm learning, I'm learning how to become a parent in a different
way. And God's growing me and healing me through that process. Like it was all he,
if he was intentional about it, very intentional, it's growing me as a mom,
it's growing me as a wife, it's growing me as a daughter of God. So just keep an
open mind with that and know that, you know, don't put the pressure on yourself.
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And we have so much medical science nowadays. I mean,
you just never know, you don't know, but yeah, it's just difficult when it's a
dream that you've had since you were young, you always imagine that, you know?
And so letting, letting that go to the Lord is very hard.
Yeah. It's trusting. It's like, okay, I'm going to release this to you because we
want to, we want to be able to control it. We want to be able to fulfill it for
ourselves. And that's not, that's not how it works all the time. I mean,
there've been women in this program. I mean, I remember early on, there was a
woman that was in my community through, through last year, single, and she had a
family member that couldn't care for the child anymore. And God showed her in a
dream that she was going to be this child's mom before she even knew that
there was this family member that was going to need to give up their child.
And she like, God was like, I'm giving you a child. It's just going to look
different. You thought you were going to get it. You're gonna get the husband and
the child. No, I'm bringing you to child first. She's this like incredible mom.
Hmm. You know, and she's like raising this little boy up like her own and, you
know, raising them up in the church. I mean, it's beautiful. So as I'm saying,
like, you just never know how God's going to come and deliver that. You know, we
just have to keep an open heart and an open mind. Okay. Don't, don't put
pressure on yourself though. Okay. Thank you. I know. Like I said, I wish I could
say, do this. And that, that heartstring just doesn't go away. It will creep up.
It will. Those doubts will come in because again, the enemy wants you to be
doubtful. I mean, he doesn't want us to parent children. Hmm. He doesn't. So of
course he's going to want to make you doubt that you just tell him quiet. No,
God's already defeated you. You don't get to have, I'm not giving you more
power than my God. My God has more power than you. Like, I think that's super
important ladies. We live in this society, especially like we can fall in
this trap and I don't know what, I wasn't even going to talk about this
because I know we're over time, but I feel like Holy Spirit's putting it on my
heart. You know, something he's even showing me lately is we live, especially
us as Christians.
We can fall in this trap where we're so focused on the enemy
and what the enemy is doing that we forget who God is
and what God can do.
And sometimes that's the trick of the enemy.
Come over here and look at all these things
and we start giving him more power than our God.
No, we're not gonna do that.
So when the enemy wants to come and speak,
doubts, confusion, lies,
go put him in his place.
I'm not gonna give you the time of day.
I'm gonna shut you down and I'm gonna go over here
and I'm gonna praise and worship my Lord.
And I'm gonna believe in what he's put in my heart
and in my desire because he placed it there
and his word is true.
He sees those plans out.
So I don't have to give you the attention
of making me doubt something because God's already spoke it
and he's going to see it out.
He is going to deliver on his promises.
His promises are good.
He is true.
He doesn't lie.
You, enemy, you lie.
Anything that I hear from you, I already know is a lie
because that's your MO.
My God doesn't lie though.
And I know God put this desire in my heart
so he's gonna see it out.
And I don't know what it's gonna look like.
And you know what?
When you tell the enemy,
I'm gonna put faith in the unseen of what my God can do,
that enemy loses complete, all power.
He has no power.
We fight him with, no, you don't get to say this.
You don't get to claim this.
This is what my God says.
And he has the power.
You don't.
It diminishes it.
So when those moments come where you wanna start doubt,
you know what, ladies?
I'm a firm believer for to literally go,
tell that enemy where to go.
And then release it.
You don't get to have power over me.
Bye.
I'm telling you, in the spiritual realm,
some powerful things happen when we can do that.
When we fight that enemy and we take authority
because he who lives in us is greater
than he who's in the world,
like y'all, I'm getting goosebumps, all right?
So apparently there was a reason we needed to extend.
I don't typically like to do this.
And I know sometimes I get in trouble for it
when we go over, but you know what?
I just felt really led.
And so I feel like somebody needed to hear that,
not just Caitlin.
Caitlin, thank you for coming back.
We're so happy to have you.
Bringing this all, you know, ladies,
don't hesitate to come and share your questions,
post, because you never know
who else is gonna get breakthrough.
I feel like I just got breakthrough even.
Like I needed to hear it for myself.
I needed to hear the words come out of my mouth for me.
And I think someone's gonna hear it on replay
and it's gonna speak to them as well.
So, all right, ladies, it has been an honor, a blessing.
Love you all.
Don't be strangers.
Post in the app, come to the lives, all right?
Keep us posted.
Lori, make a post,
because I haven't seen you in a while.
I wanna know how you're doing.
Okay, I don't think I can make the live tonight,
but I do wanna know how you're doing.
So come, share with us, okay?
I hope Ebony gives you some good wisdom
and I will do my best and try to catch up with you as well.
Okay, ladies, have a blessed rest of your day.
Love you all.
See you next week.