Hello, good evening everyone, welcome for another amazing Monday night.
We are here tonight just to see what God is going to do.
As always, I hope that you've come expecting and believing God to meet you here.
I was actually just praying before I hopped on and that was something that I was praying
as God helped, like, He knows you all better than I do, better than you even know yourselves.
And I was just like, Lord, just help them to hear what they need to hear from you tonight.
That's my prayer all the time, but that is just something I was pausing and just praying
before I hopped on.
It's always a good reminder.
And so wherever you're at, I just want to encourage you to agree with the Lord that
He's going to help you to hear what you need to hear tonight, to get more breakthrough,
to take another step forward in your healing journey.
If you're brand new, you've never been on a live session with us before, we'd love
for you to let us know in the chat that you're here joining us.
We want to welcome you.
All of my ladies that are joining again, welcome back, praying for you all and just believing
for God to continue to do really miraculous things for you on this journey.
I'm going to go ahead and have Annette, which I forgot to introduce myself.
For those of you that are brand new, you might not even know who I am.
I'm Bethany Cooper.
I'm one of the Master Heart Work coaches here in the community.
We also have Annette Lewis, who is one of our peer coaches here tonight as well.
And we'd love for Annette to go ahead and just do a couple of our housekeeping items
to pray us in, and then we'll go from there.
Good evening, ladies.
My voice may not sound like myself, but I sound better than I have this week.
I've been sick this week, but happy to be here with you tonight.
A couple of reminders of things that we just want you to remember is we really like you
and encourage you to push pause on dating or exploring any relationships with any men
while you're in the Heart Work.
It's a five-week program.
We prefer that a natural pace is one week of content per week for each of the five weeks.
If it takes you longer than that, that is no problem.
We recommend that time frame just specifically because we want you to take time to process
with the Holy Spirit and not rush through, and let him reveal and heal your heart during
the time.
So, it's also really important to push a pause on dating while your heart's under construction.
Then it leaves good opportunity for you to grow and to heal and to move into any dating
and relationship in the future, more healed, whole, and healthy, which is exactly what
our goal and our prayer is for you so that you can enter into that your best self.
The other thing with the holidays coming up, with the Heart Work that you're doing, things
can get really busy, and we want you to stay healthy.
All of those things, this is a reminder to take good care of yourselves.
This is hard work, but this is definitely worth it.
So give yourself some grace, get good rest, drink lots of water, eat, try to limit sugar.
Even during the holidays, I know it's hard, but try and limit your sugar intake just to
take extra good care of yourself during this time because you're definitely worth it, and
we want the very best for you.
I'm going to go ahead and pray us in now, and we'll get started.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the blessing and the privilege of being gathered tonight
in your name and to learn and to grow.
Thank you that each of these ladies has been brought here by divine appointment, specifically
anointed and appointed by you.
We pray that each of them would be open tonight to receive the words and the nuggets of truth
that you have, and that may they be surrendered to maybe some areas that they've been holding
back, that they've been protecting, afraid to let you do your healing work there.
But God, I just pray that tonight would be a different story, that they would see the
love, the care, and the compassion that you approach them with, and that you know each
one of them more intimately than even they know themselves, and that they can trust you
with all the desires that they have.
So Holy Spirit, grow them, teach them, show them, plus Bethany, as she speaks, may your
words flow through her this evening.
In your name I pray, amen.
Thanks, Bethany.
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Praying for you to continue to heal.
I know it can be tough.
Appreciate you.
She's got her sexy voice on.
She always does, but like, you know, it's like sexy.
sexy when it gets all deep in there.
Yep.
So it sounds great, Annette, just want you to know.
Thank you for doing that.
So ladies, as she was talking,
one of the things I was saying this afternoon
to the ladies is part of the reason
that we encourage you all to press pause on dating
and trying to meet men,
or even allowing a guy to reenter
into your life in this season,
is because during this time,
you are literally coming,
if you're doing the heartwork process,
you're really invested in it,
you should be coming out of counterfeit identities, okay?
So some of those things that really mess up
the way that you see people,
create all those filters and blind spots,
and you should be stepping further
into who God originally created you
to be a little bit more every day.
And so there's all kinds of stuff stirred up right now.
So I can promise you,
you are not going to be looking through a clear lens
while you're in the heartwork.
Remember last week, we talked about how the sunglasses
and the different lenses that are out there now,
and it can totally change
the way we are perceiving someone or something,
it's the same thing in this regard, okay?
So I can tell you from working and coaching
with this community for years,
people, I'm not saying it never happens,
but typically people that attract someone
or meet someone while they are in the heartwork
and start dating, even though we say don't do it,
y'all, they regret it later, they do.
They come back,
something doesn't work out with that relationship,
and then they have to start the heartwork all the way over.
And we don't make them, y'all, this is what they say to us.
God is telling me I gotta go back and do the heartwork again
or, hey, this happened, this thing blew up
and didn't work out, what should I do?
And we're like, you should come back and do the heartwork.
So save yourself a lot of time and heartache
and just stay in the game and stay focused
and be in it to win it for yourself
because you are the most important investment
that you can ever invest in.
And to be fully intentional and focused on yourself,
it is gonna be a blessing for you in the long run.
Let's see, in transit at the moment.
Okay, totally fine if y'all aren't able
to turn your cameras on, love to see you all.
Of course, as many of you as possible
that can turn on your cameras.
This is great practice, y'all.
You might wanna start to,
even when you're getting on these sessions,
not that y'all have to have all your makeup done
or all the things,
but if you just see the lighting differences,
you're not dating yet, but I'm just giving you a little tip.
You might wanna start working on your lighting
because when you do go into the next phase
and you may or may not start to online date,
those guys, they're gonna wanna see your face.
We wanna see your face, okay?
So just a little tip.
One of the things, there you are, Lisa, I see you, hello.
So you all, I invested way back in a ring light.
They're amazing.
I take them with me when I travel and everything.
There's little ones, there's big ones.
This one just sits on my desk.
I put it right in front of my laptop.
It helps you guys see me really clearly.
And I can change the colors on it and all kinds of things.
So super inexpensive.
You might wanna consider investing in something like that.
All right, pro tip.
All right, so tonight we're not talking about dating at all.
We're talking about the story of Candice
and how God cares about you.
And we're gonna also talk about broken promises
and how those broken promises impact us
and the way that we show up in the world around us.
And so some of you may or may not have heard the story yet
in the videos, but you will if you haven't already.
But just a very quick recap.
Candice, basically God spoke to Jackie.
She was planning a couple of events
and this is what she heard God say.
Candice is gonna be there and she needs healing.
She didn't know who Candice was.
She didn't have anybody on her teams named Candice.
She didn't know if Candice was just gonna be a person
that came to the conference or the events.
But God just kept speaking to her
that Candice was gonna be there and she needed healing.
And so Jackie really felt like this impression
to figure out who Candice was.
The short version is that the speaker for one of the events
ended up having to cancel.
And guess who the new speaker was?
It was Candice.
And so Jackie and her did end up getting connected
and God was able to get Candice the things
that she needed for healing.
And the reason I tell this story,
the night that we're talking about God caring about you
and broken promises is just to remind you
that God knows what we mean.
God knows where we are.
And he knows how to get us what we need where we're at.
Some of you may or may not believe that right now
because things have happened in your past.
You know, you've been through certain situations
and circumstances and the more pain that we go through,
the more it kind of wears down our belief
that God cares about us,
especially when we partner with the lies
that the enemy is offering up to us.
And so just as I declare this over you,
God, I'm asking you right now to reveal
to every one of these ladies that are here live,
those that are gonna watch the replay,
any areas right now that they're struggling to believe
that you, God, care about their needs
and their wants in Jesus' name.
So I wanna talk to you about the fact
that he does care about your needs and your wants,
but here's the caveat.
Some of the things that we want
actually are not good for us.
They actually are harmful for us.
For example, my spiritual daughter's dad,
he was not good for me.
I wanted to marry him before I really knew
everything he was about,
but even after I kind of knew the first or second time
that he was having side relationships, y'all,
I kept believing for God to just radically change this man
and just help him to know how good I am, God,
and help him to see the blessing that I bring
to their lives and all of the stuff
that I pleaded and prayed.
But that was not God's best for me.
He was not God's best for me.
Therefore, God, in his great love for me,
did not answer that prayer or any of those prayers.
Praise the Lord, he did not.
I see it hindsight.
I didn't see it then, right?
And so I wanna save you all some heartache there as well.
Trust the Lord.
If he is leading you out of something, it is for your good.
It is to protect you.
It's to provide for you and to lead you into his goodness
and his plan for your life.
Now, the other side of this is that there are a lot of you
that believe that God cares about your needs,
but you aren't really sure if he cares
about the desires of your heart, the wants.
That's what we can kind of call it.
You know, in the Bible, people talk about,
and there's actually scriptures
about the desires of our hearts.
Your dreams, what, you know,
so many of you haven't dreamed in a really long time
because some of those things got shut down with pain
and things that we were going through,
or maybe we believed a lie and we convinced ourselves
that we didn't want that thing anymore.
Some of you actually are still partnering with the lie
that you don't want to be married really,
even though you're here,
or that God doesn't have marriage for you
because he's a trickster.
These are subconscious lies that a lot of people believe.
And so tonight we wanna help you continue
to come out of alignment and agreement.
Calandra, I know sometimes I say different things,
you know, Holy Spirit knows what we need to hear.
She was on with us this afternoon
and I must be saying something different,
but yeah, God knows exactly how to help us
come out of alignment and agreement
with these lies that we believe
and the things that we do as a result of them.
And so we want God tonight to reveal,
this is my heart prayer for you all,
that he would reveal to you that he is good.
And not only that he is good,
but that he will come through for you.
Not just, you know, your sister Shelly
or your sister Sheila or Wendy,
but you Megan and you Annette and you Lisa
and every woman on here, as well as those on the replay,
God knows your name.
He knows the number of hair on our heads.
Sometimes I just think about that.
Y'all, as a hairstylist, like I lose hair,
you know, we lose hair all the time.
And I just think about like,
God knows even when our hair falls out.
Like that just is a, it's just mind blowing to me
that we would think that a God
that knows about every hair on our head
doesn't care about us.
It's so opposite of that, isn't it?
Yet we struggle to believe that not only
that he cares for us, but that, hey, he's just,
you know, he's gonna bless everybody else,
but I'm just not sure if he's gonna do this for me.
Letdowns, trauma, and unhealed wounds from the past
are what cause us to view God and other people
through all these filters and lenses
and causes all these blind spots.
Remember, that's what we talked about last week.
Numbers 2319, I'm gonna read two versions of this for you.
I am gonna read King James Version, old school.
First, Numbers 2319, this is what it says.
God is not a man that he should lie,
neither the son of man that he should repent.
Hath he said and shall he not do it?
Or hath he spoken and shall he not make good?
Now I'm gonna read the message translation.
I love both of these.
God is not a man, one given to love.
Remember he is God. Okay, and not a son of man changing his mind
Does he speak and not do what he says?
Does he promise and not come through?
God isn't man. He isn't man. Yes, Jesus came in the form of a man, but he was fully God
Y'all he isn't gonna act like a man because he wasn't
He was God he's always been God
And so why do we limit him and put him in a box because of what man in the world has done to us?
That's caused us to doubt God or even the things that we ourselves have done
That that have caused us to
Kind of have this stain or this shame that we walk in that caused us to doubt God's goodness towards us. I
Was thinking this afternoon after I did the first session I
Didn't really touch
I mean I touched on a lot of things but I was thinking that I didn't really touch on some of my broken promises and
So I felt led to talk about that briefly tonight and even as Annette was praying
There the ideas were coming to me of what I was supposed to talk about and these are the things that I heard the Holy
Spirit say to highlight I'm not gonna tell the whole story about all of these things, but this is what I felt led to mention
When we're talking about broken promises, I'm gonna talk about back and forth
I'm gonna kind of toggle between the faithfulness of God broken promises and God cares about you
That's gonna be kind of back and forth all night tonight
But here are a couple that I wrote down
my broken promises
was my dad leaving and
This I wrote down that there are spoken and unspoken broken promises I
Want you to kind of think about that?
Some broken promises are things people said that they did those are kind of like the spoken ones even through their actions
They're speaking something to you. They're telling you
something and then they're not following through and then the unspoken is just when someone does something it
causes a ripple effect of things my dad leaving when my mom was in the hospital right after she gave birth to me and
Abandoning her taking the car left her with not even a way to get home
He broke every promise that he made regarding being a father
Not just in that moment, but my entire
Life you all my dad was never I love him in Jesus name
Through Jesus. He is he's a in heaven now
but he never was able to
Step into the role of father not once my entire life. I
Hardly ever heard from my dad and when I did on occasion we would kind of have a little bit of a conversation
But he would tend to always
you know try to put things in there that just weren't his business to
Say or do or he talked bad about my siblings and I'd feel like I'd had to stand up for people and all this stuff
And so for some of you
It's not just the spoken things it's the unspoken
Those things that are lingering there underneath the surface
I mean that that situation with my dad man for years. I chased after him in my heart. I
Wanted him to be my dad. I wanted him to show up
Sometimes it was through being mad at him and you know when he would try to come around and I didn't want anything to do
With him or he'd be you know falling asleep early at night
He would make me stay home because I had to spend time with him when he would come back around and then he would fall
Asleep and I'm be like, why am I why did he force me to stay home? He didn't even want to spend time with me
See, these are all broken promises you all
It wasn't like my dad said I promise you that if you stay home, I'm gonna spend time with you
But isn't that what's implied you have to stay home so that you'll be here when I'm here
But then they fall asleep or there's something that happens or they're not emotionally connected and then this isn't just dad's moms have done
This to you, but I want you to be thinking about these kind of things for yourself. Here's some other ones in
my first marriage
My ex-husband was abusive
neglectful and
He abandoned me in that relationship
He also before we got married he said he wanted additional children after we got married he changed his mind
He already had a son. I didn't have a son. I had a stepson. He was a bonus son and I love him
Like he's mine
even still to this day, I love him like he's mine, but I
wanted my own children and I was very clear about that and
He changed his mind. Y'all that's that's like some kind of crazy stuff. You know that really messes people up
Because now you're like stuck in them if you will in a marriage, that's not why I divorced
him. I divorced him because of all the abuse and the crazy cycle and things that were happening,
very scary stuff. But all the other things were leading up to all that.
That was a broken promise. He said he wanted kids and then he changed his mind.
That was a broken promise. The abuse, to me, that's a broken promise because he wasn't loving
me like he said he would. He was hurting me. And then pretending to be somebody really
awesome and spiritual and public. Broken promise. There's another one.
Do you see how this really shows up in a lot of different ways? And so I'm hoping,
hopefully you all see, that there are times where people are literally like,
yeah, okay, they walked away from me, they divorced me, or they literally said,
I promise you that I'm going to do this, and then they don't. But then what are the ones
that are underneath the surface for you that are still keeping you stuck?
Because they broke some level of a promise to you. Okay? All right, I'm going to keep going.
I'm going to kind of toggle back to God is good. We're going to talk about different aspects of
unfailing love here for a little bit. Psalm 31, 16 in the NIV says this,
let your face shine on your servant, save me in your unfailing love.
The version of unfailing here, unfailing love, excuse me, is for thy mercy's sake,
for goodness, for kindness, for faithfulness, for merciful. So basically, let your face shine
on your servant, save me in your unfailing love, save me in your goodness, Lord, save me in your
kindness. I want you to be thinking, I'm going to read another scripture here in a minute,
but I want you to be thinking about just where you're at right now, and not in a scary way.
Some of y'all, you know, I'll say this, and you're not sure what you think about God's safety
and protection, but He is loving. And so I want you to think about, like, where you're at, just
if you can imagine God just surrounding you with His, the Bible talks about, under the shadow of
His wings, that He protects us. And I want you to think about the fact that as you're under His
wings, and even if you can imagine, I don't know, even though I didn't have a dad that did this,
I watched other kids with their dads, and I've seen it, where the dad just kind of encompasses
the kid in front of them, you know, the kid's either standing right, and they just come up,
and they bear hug right around them. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about right now.
That is how God is. He won't force Himself on you, but if He knows that you're open to receiving
His love, He will envelop you and enclose you with His love. Psalm 32 10 says this,
many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds, there it is,
the one who trusts in Him. Unfailing love here is mercy shall encompass about Him.
So not only is He surrounding you with His love, but His mercy as well. For some of you, you're
really struggling with shame and guilt and condemnation, but God wants you to see tonight,
His mercy is surrounding you. It says for those who love the Lord and trust in Him, His mercy
will encircle and encompass about you. He's not going to change His mind, ladies.
You're His, and He loves you, and He's going to continue to pursue you with His loving
kindnesses that lead us to repentance. Do you all know that that's what the scripture says?
Here's another one, Psalm 33 verse 5. The Lord loves righteousness and justice. The earth is
full of His unfailing love. In this scripture, it's actually the goodness of the Lord. The Lord
loves righteousness and justice, and the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. So if the earth
is full of the goodness of the Lord, why would He withhold that from you? It's all about a
perspective switch, ladies. We have to come out of alignment with the lies that are telling us that
His goodness isn't chasing us down, and for some of you, man, you've had a hard life. There's been
a lot of tough things that have happened to you, but even in that, me too, but even in that,
we have to make a choice. Whose report are we going to believe? Are we going to believe the
report of the Lord and who He is, what the Bible tells us about His character and everything about
or are we going to believe the enemy's report and all the lies that He's offering up to us?
Psalm 33 verse 18, but the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him,
on those whose hope is in His unfailing love.
And this actually means mercy here.
So is your hope in his mercy?
Is your hope in his unfailing love towards you?
Here's the last one.
Psalm 33 verse 22.
May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you.
This unfailing love is mercy and goodness.
I love that it can bind them again.
I, you know, you all, sometimes it's just really a beautiful thing when you sit
and really look at not just the word on the page, but what does it mean?
Right.
And so there's this song called Sparrows.
You all have probably heard it before by Corey Asbury, but I'm going to read
some of the lyrics over you tonight, because this goes with all of what,
what we're saying, this is what it says.
The sparrow is not worried about tomorrow or the troubles to come.
The lily's not thinking about the seasons, the drought or the flood.
A tree that's planted by the water isn't fazed by the fire.
So why should I be?
Cause you take good care of me.
You take good care of me.
You know what I need before I even ask a thing.
And you hold me in your hands with a kindness that never ends.
I'm carried in your love, no matter what the future brings.
Yeah, you take good care of me.
The sun's not worried about the winter cause soon it will pass.
The light's not thinking about the darkness or the shadow that it casts.
A heart that is planted in forgiveness doesn't dwell in the past.
So why should I be?
Cause you take good care of me.
You take good care of me.
You know what I need before I even ask a thing.
And you hold me in your hands with a kindness that never ends.
I'm carried in your love, no matter what the future brings.
Yeah, you take good care of me.
Maybe that's not your anthem yet, but I hope by the time you finish this
heartwork course, it becomes your anthem.
That God is good and he is your good father, not just everybody else's good
father, and he wants to bless your life and he's protecting you and that he can
help you be like that, you know, um, there's a verse where it talks about,
um, no matter what comes, you know, there's the, in the Proverbs where
it talks about that the woman isn't fazed.
I'm paraphrasing it.
I'll have to find the scripture and put it up in the group, but there's
something about God protecting us.
Um, I think she's on tonight.
Kim was sharing, Kim Bailey was sharing one of her stories today.
And man, it's so evident in the story that she told us.
I don't have time to go into sharing it tonight, but that God has been with her.
His supernatural grace has protected her and enabled her to forgive tremendously.
And it's a beautiful thing, ladies.
So let me ask you this.
Why is this time any different?
Y'all have tried to meet people before.
Some of you haven't maybe for a while.
Maybe you've not dated in a long time.
I don't know what your situation has been, but why is this
time any different than before?
And I'm going to tell you why, because you're different.
Remember you're, you're coming out of counterfeit identities, right?
So automatically, as soon as you start coming out of those counterfeit
identities, you're becoming someone new, someone different.
You're going to, you're like getting new tools in your tool belt.
You're going to come to every situation and scenario.
Hopefully a little more equipped, a little more healed, a little more able
to receive what God wants to give you.
You're also stepping further into the fullness of who God
has originally created you to be.
Therefore you are looking at everything through the lens of love.
I hope more every day.
So if you believe that there's a good father who will give you good things,
wouldn't he enable you to have this time be different?
Am I saying it's going to be easy?
No, I'm not saying that ladies.
I am saying it's going to be worth it.
Now, some of you thought he's going to do something real, like he'll do
something supernatural for everyone.
I don't want it to sound like it's not supernatural if it's not immediate.
Some people, it's just going to, it, there's nothing we can do about that.
Okay.
And then other people, it might take a little longer, but I don't want you
to lose hope and be like, Oh God, just there he's there.
He is.
He's just withholding from me again, or this never works for me.
You know, we're partnering with lies again.
Because some of you just need more time to heal, but you can practice dating
to get more healing that you need.
It's it's worth it.
Ladies Ecclesiastes 3.1 in the message translation says this.
There's an opportune time to do things a right time for everything on the earth.
I've read this before.
So my ladies that have been here for a while, they've heard me say this,
but I pulled this out again today.
And this is a quote.
Uh, the gentleman's name is David Crone.
I think that's how you say it.
Not sure, but this is what it said.
And this really, really impacted me.
And I believe this aligns.
If y'all haven't listened to Supernatural Saturday, please.
I know we say this every week, but please listen to it.
Jackie talked about grieving.
Things that, you know, we wanted to happen that didn't.
So that we can make room for the new, really important ladies.
Okay.
But this is what the quote says.
I'm the perfect age for everything that God has for me right now.
I'm the perfect age for everything God has for me right now.
God isn't making mistakes.
He knows how old you are.
He knows what you need and he knows how to get it to you.
Okay.
And so I want to encourage you to partner with that.
And I know it can be tough.
Okay.
I wanted to have biological babies when I was in my twenties and thirties as well,
you all, and that just didn't happen.
And honestly, I'm really glad I didn't have a child with my first husband.
That would have been really bad.
You all.
Okay.
My whole life probably would have been a nightmare with him.
As well as him making a nightmare, you know, in my kid's life.
And so, yeah, it's not been an easy road, but God knows what he's doing and he
knows how to help us, you know, in that regard.
And so I want to encourage you to trust him with your things like that as well.
It might be something different for you.
Heart change equals lasting life change, long-term change.
So the more that you heal, this is why it's also going to be different.
Your heart is going to be changing.
Okay.
And then hopefully as that's happening from the inside out, remember, we're not
asking for short-term behavioral change.
We're, we're encouraging you all to seek revealing for healing so that you can
encounter lasting long-term change.
And then that real and lasting change is a process, right?
We can't skip the process.
And so I love to, I said something this afternoon, the ladies were enjoying it.
So I'm going to bring it up again tonight, but, um, we got to choose to
step out of the alignment with the microwave culture and the mentalities
of everything has to happen super quick, or it's just not God.
And so I said, yeah, it's kind of like we pull up in a drive-thru and
we're like, get on in spirit mate.
You know, we just want it to be quick.
And then we want to just go and you all, it's just not really like that.
It's not, I wanted the Amazon man or UPS man to just show up at
my door and be my spirit mate.
I did.
I prayed that prayer literally.
And because I didn't want to online date again, cause it didn't go well the first
time, that's how I met my spiritual daughter's dad.
And so I just decided they're all going to be bad like that, which they're
not, um, testament to that because I did end up doing online dating and that's
how I met my husband and God redeemed all that praise the Lord.
Um, but yeah, I didn't even really, um, enjoy like thinking
about dating in person either.
Um, you know, I was in bootcamp when COVID happened and I was
kind of teasing this afternoon.
Can y'all imagine like, you know, everybody was still wearing masks
and, and everyone was afraid.
And like, I just kept thinking, how am I ever going to like, I want to date like
this, this is, and so I waited to date and I'm really glad I did, um, a little
longer because thankfully, you know, things opened up more and not everybody,
you know, you could be out in public without a mask.
And so all that awkwardness wasn't there.
Um, by the time I was dating, but I was just thinking about how, how much that
impacted so many people during that time.
And maybe some of you, it did as well.
And so I would encourage you that if there's any broken
promises, even from that time.
I feel like the years of COVID, the enemy really tried to come in and just
take a bunch of stuff from us that we didn't even know he was taken, but praise
the Lord, God's a God of restitution.
And so God is coming in to restore even the things that we didn't know were
getting taken in those silent moments, if you will.
And so, um, I'm going to pass it over to Annette now.
I would love for her to share.
And if you feel like your voice can handle it, of course, um, share what God
has put on your heart tonight for the ladies.
Sure.
No problem.
As long as everybody can stand my deep, sexy voice, my husband has a
little bit of a higher voice.
So I've asked him what it's like to have somebody in his life, whose
voice is deeper than his as a wife.
Um, one of the things that came up for me, actually, I had done my heart work.
And, um, I had.
met a gentleman at church who pursued me, who asked for my number, um, even though he was 10
years younger than me. And at first I said, no, then I was like, okay, God, I'm going to be open.
And I felt like I opened the door of my heart. We went on some dates and it seemed to be progressing.
Uh, and I thought, this is it. This is it. I know this is it. And then one night he called and said
he wanted to have a conversation with me and he started talking about love. And I was like,
oh my gosh, like he loves me. And then he ended the conversation with, so I've been
thinking about the different kinds of love. And I think I love you like a sister. And I was like,
what? You've taken me out on dates. We've prayed together. You felt like this was going
in a good direction, like all of these things. And then, uh, then you say that we're,
I'm like a sister that was difficult for me to hear. And I did feel like God had been opening
the doors along the way in the relationship. We weren't rushing through anything. We were taking
our time. People at church were starting to find out that we were spending time together
and they were very encouraging and excited. And so I kind of felt like I had carrot cake is one
of my favorites. And so I kind of felt like I had this carrot cake in front of me that I was ready.
I had the fork ready, like, let's go. And all of a sudden it's gone. And I, I struggled with that
for a while. Um, but then as they always say, hindsight is 2020. I really, even though my
feelings weren't there, I was speaking God's truth over it, that I was God defended,
God protected, but I'd vacillate back and forth between that. And okay, God changes heart,
help him to see, you know, that I'm not like a sister, but you know, I could be this great wife
and his two boys loved me and anyway. Um, but what I can say is God really worked in my heart
to completely surrender it to him, to let him be the one who makes the decision because he knows
more than I do. He knows what I need, how to, where I'm at and how to get it to me. And, um,
and so that really opened the door for me to learn how to trust that,
even when things didn't turn out the way that I thought that they were going to turn out. Um,
and my example of how God sees you knows where you are and how to get it to you. When,
when I was praying like, okay, God, what kind of example do you want me to give? The thing that
I, it's, it's crazy. I was getting ready to go to Switzerland actually on a trip.
So I was looking through the Nordstrom, uh, online for something and I came across this dress and I
was like, Oh, Oh, that's really pretty. I like the classic. I like, and it was $198. I was like,
okay, you're not dating anybody. You're not getting a dress. This is crazy. You're not
buying a dress. So, you know, I clicked on to the other things and that dress kept coming up in my
mind and up in my mind and up in my mind. So I ordered the dress thinking it's Nordstrom.
You can take anything back as long as you keep the tags on it. So I ordered it and it came when
I was gone in Switzerland. And I asked my sister, I said, I've got something coming.
Will you please pick it up for me while I'm gone? Um, and I think I had gone out with Arthur.
We had met for our first date before I left, but I had ordered the dress even just like,
I think a couple of weeks before we had our date. And, um, my sister picked it up.
She calls me in Switzerland and she said, is there something that I need to know? Cause this
looks like a wedding dress. I'm like, I know, I know my sister's not a believer. And I said,
you're just, I just really liked the dress. And so I bought the dress, just don't read into this.
So I bought it and put it in the back of my closet. I did try it on of course, when it arrived
and it fit perfect, like perfect. My sister wanted to see it on me since she knew I had bought it.
And she was like,
Wow, that fits you perfect. Like you don't have to do anything to that. And I was kind of like,
yeah, I said, I don't know when I'll need it. So I put it in the back of my closet.
And I don't know if any of you are aware or not, but Arthur and I eloped,
we didn't plan a big wedding. And we kind of decided, short notice, not that I was into
microwave things, but we just decided that he had a trip that he had to use at the Dominican
Republic. And we decided that we, because he has family in LA, he was raised in Canada,
I have family in Washington. We were just trying to think through all of that. And we're like,
okay, let's just go to the Dominican Republic or get married when we're there. So we planned,
we planned it for then. And he turned to me one day and he goes,
okay, well, you don't have very much time. You need to go find a dress. And I was like,
let me tell you a story. And I already had the dress that was perfect for a beach wedding on
short notice. And if you would have told me that I was going to get married on the beach,
I would have said, nah, no, I'm a mountain kind of girl. It'll be in the mountains or it'll be like
outdoors on something that's mountain-like. And I would not have done anything different.
And I just have this picture in my mind of even before I knew I needed the dress,
Papa God was like, I've got it for you. I've got one for you. It's covered for $198.
So that's my God knowing what I needed, even when I didn't know it, he had already supplied it
before. So I hope that gives you guys encouragement and hope he really does see you.
And he really does know what you need more than what you know yourself.
That's so good. I love this reminder. I forgot you bought your dress before you got married to
you all. I did too. I ended up wearing a totally different dress though. I ended up buying a
totally different dress, but I bought my wedding as my first wedding dress. When I was at the
Austin retreat in 2021, as an activation by faith, I literally wasn't dating anyone,
but God told me to buy a dress. And instead of buying the white dress I wanted to buy because
God all in my head and told me I wasn't allowed to wear white again. And I believed him that day.
So I bought the other dress and it's pretty, it's still in my closet now, but it wasn't the dress
that I wanted. And so praise the Lord this time around, I got to go dress shopping with Brian's
mom and his two sisters. And it was a really lovely, lovely, lovely day. I didn't even have
that the first time around when I got married. And so just want you all to know like everything
in that is saying like, God is very intentional and he will lovingly like lead you and guide you.
He'll provide things for you. It's all again about perspective and heart posture. What is God,
what's happening in your heart? What do you believe? Where, where did the lies need filtered
out? And so as we're getting ready for the breakout session, I want you all to think about
this question. This is a different question than what you're going to answer in the breakout,
but I want you to write this down and be praying about that, praying about it this week.
This is what the question is. Where do you currently need an upgrade in your understanding
of God's care for you? Where do you currently need an upgrade in your understanding of God's
care for you? And if you don't know the answer to that question, it's okay. You can say, Lord,
I need your help. Can you show me where I need an upgrade in my understanding of your care for me?
And one of the things that you can do to kind of figure that out is, you know, where are you stuck?
Where are the lies, you know, that you're hearing when something good starts happening? Do you start
believing that the other shoe is going to drop eventually, that this is never going to last? And
you know, then you're looking at those lies and then you unpack it backwards.
And so you want to listen to that and allow God to help you. Okay. Is there any broken promise
that I believe in there? You know, that's kind of filtered in there somewhere. Okay. All right. So
when you go out into the breakout sessions tonight, and that's totally fine, Lisa, I see that
you're still in transit. Just don't accept the request when it pops up. Reminder for everybody,
if you get in a room and somebody's not there, just wait for a sec. I'll move people.
around okay as quickly as I can. Sometimes I wait to see who's going into the rooms and stuff.
Let me your question is this for breakout session. When was a time someone broke a promise
they made to you and how is it still affecting you today? When was a time someone broke a promise
they made to you and how is it still affecting you today? All right and I'm giving you all
seven minutes so it should be a good amount of time. I have pretty much a couple groups
have three people but most of the groups have two. All right here you go. Go ahead and click
those to join as quick as you can. As soon as I get people situated I can pray while they're in
there.
I
think I've gotten pretty much everybody.
Father, thank you so much for this night. God, thank you for everything that you're doing.
God, I pray that you would just continue to guide every one of these ladies into all truth,
that you would anoint us for all of our lives and walk and calling, and that you would lead us
deeper into Jesus tonight. God, help us to have a deeper understanding of your love,
the abundance and the overflow of all of your heart towards us, God, your goodness.
God, I thank you that you would help us to recognize areas where the enemy has been lying
to us, is lying to us, where we are partnering with those lies and we're walking them out in
the day to day of our everyday lives. Lord, help us to not only recognize those, but to cast those
lies down, to allow you to come in and heal those areas so that we can step further into the
abundant life that you have for us. Psalm 139, 13 through 16 in the NLT says this,
you made all the delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. Your workmanship is marvelous. How well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion. As I was woven together in the dark
of the womb, you saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. Nari, did you get kicked out of the room?
Um, I was matched with Annette, but her audio wasn't working.
She tried to fix it, so we just both left the room.
Okay, let me put you in another room.
Okay, thank you.
You're welcome.
All right, that should be up there for you.
Okay, Father, thank you so much for just continuing to always help people work
through the tech issues. I pray that you'd be with Annette as she's trying to figure that out.
That can be really, you know, like a lot of stress in that. So Lord, we just ask for peace
to be in her midst. And Lord, we just thank you for reminding us tonight that you have made,
you know, all things perfect in your time that you've created us fearfully and wonderfully made.
You've given us an abundance of your blessings. Hi, Annette. I know I see that you're trying to
out audio. You can stay here if that's less stressful for you for tonight. Yeah. And then
I always pro tip, if you're not sure why it's not working, you know, maybe have someone,
well, first make sure you have the most updated version of Zoom when you log out tonight,
because sometimes that can cause issues in the audio. But if you continue to have trouble,
I've used the Geek Squad from Best Buy before to have them help me fix things.
And it's worth it because it's so like it helps minimize stress for me. So not that you have to
do that. But it was just something that I find very, very helpful. And then I just eliminates
all that stress factor. Yeah. So as I'm just praying, I just there's this other scripture
that I felt led to read over you all tonight. And it's from Matthew 5, 14 through 16 in the
message translation. And this is what it says. Here's another way to put it. You're here to be
bringing out the God colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept.
We're going public with this as public
as a city on a hill. If I make you light bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a
bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop on a
light stand, shine. Keep open house. Be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll
prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. And I love that because it's
talking about keeping open house. And I want you all to be thinking about, you know, keeping your
hearts open for the healing that God wants to do and is doing. Keeping your hearts open to love
instead of shutting down and going into isolation or withdrawal. But turning more towards the
blessing and the color of life. You know, all the beauty and the wonder that is all around us that
sometimes can get really dolled down when we go through grief and pain. But God is wanting to
reawaken all of your senses. And so I just want to pray over that as that came up in my spirit.
Lord, I just thank you so much for tonight. As you're restoring God, just even the reminder of
how good you are in people's hearts, minds, bodies, spirits, and souls. God, that you would just
awaken their senses, God, not only to hear you more clearly, to sense you all around them, in front of
God, but to literally enable them to see color differently, to see the world differently, to see
people around them through your eyes instead of the pain of their past. God, we thank you that
you would help them to hear what your spirit is saying to them and over them louder than any voice
of the enemy. We thank you that as they like even experience, you know, like what it makes me think
of is sometimes when I walk by trees or flowers, sometimes I just like to touch them just to
experience how they feel because that connects with my senses. And that's something that I learned
a long time ago. And there are actual studies, you all, that even taking our shoes off and walking
in the grass. Now, some of you all, it's getting cold where you are, so you probably don't want to
do that. But if you're somewhere warm, you know, I'm not going to get into the science of it, but
like you all can look it up. It's called grounding. Like there's so much power in what God
created in the earth. And when we connect with it, you know, maybe for you, it's being beside a stream
or a river and just sitting there and allowing the peace of God to flow into you as you hear
that stream. But again, that's like your hearing sense, right? You hear that. And then what happens
is sometimes we start to feel it, we experience it. And so I want to encourage you all to really
see that God is a good father who has given us a lot of the really amazing, beautiful things
around us to experience and awaken life within us and how important that is to him. And you know,
part of dreaming again and awakening to the promises of God is awakening in your senses.
That's why I'm trying to make that connection tonight for you all. And so I want to encourage
you to really partner with that more and more in the days ahead. Romans 8, 17 says this,
And since we are his true children, we qualify to share all his treasures for indeed we are heirs
of God himself. And since we are joined to Christ, we also inherit all that he is and all that he has.
We will experience being co-glorified with him, provided that we accept his sufferings as our own.
We are heirs of God himself. So everything that is his is ours. I was saying this afternoon,
welcome back everyone, that just the reminder that, you know, the doorway was open through
Jesus Christ, you all, to the father. And so the door is always open to us. The door to the father
is always open to us. And I likened it to like, sometimes I think we view God as like a shopkeeper
and sometimes we're going up and we want to go in the shop and they're like, oh, store's closed,
you know, and they put the sign up and we like feel blocked out. And some of us think that's
how God is. Like we're walking up to the door because we want to go in and talk to him or we
want to receive something. And we believe he's putting the sign up being like, oh, closed for
business. And that isn't true. And so we really want to look at even things like that. You might
think, well, I don't know if I've ever thought that exactly, but in your heart, are you subconsciously
that God doesn't want to hear from you? Like when you approach him, do you believe that he
wants to hear from you, that he likes to hear from you? Or do you believe that you're a bother
to him or other people? Do you see how this all kind of plays together? All right. I'm going to
go over your activations for this week, and then we'll go to those that are willing to share with
the group. So this week, your activation is called Never Will I Ever List. Last week, someone asked
if they had already done this, do they have to do this again? Nope. If you've already done it,
you don't have to do it again. But if you've heard me say this before and you haven't done it yet,
please go ahead and do that this time around. If you're hearing this for the
First time would love for you all to pray about this and work on on this for this week. I'm going to explain it to you
Okay, there's a difference this is really important between god non-negotiables
And your never will I ever list a god non-negotiable. I'll tell you two of mine that were they were my top two
The person needed to love god
Not just with their words the here's the kicker
They needed to buy their actions because my ex-husband and my spiritual daughter's dad both went to church
Both, you know helped in ministry stuff, but they were not walking the talk
Okay
and so I wanted to see that they walked in the fruits of the spirit and that they were kind men and they were
You know generous and faithful and all the things. Okay, so that was number one god non-negotiable for me number two
Is they needed to?
Um want to have more children?
Because that is something that I wanted and I was not willing to budge on that again
Because i'd been through that with my ex-husband
And uh in other relationship conversations before people reneging like I said going and changing their mind
Okay, those were god non-negotiables. Okay from heaven. Those were things that I really felt like god
Yet was saying yes on those obviously god, you know people loving the lord being number one. He's like yes all in on that one
But here's the never will I ever i'm going to give you all some different examples
Um, never will I ever date?
Blank because of blank. Okay, so we're going to fill those in and you might have something different
But i'm going to give you some examples of things that we hear a lot of
Never will I ever date a man who has been divorced?
because
Whatever your reason never will I ever date a man who has kids?
because
Never will I ever date a man?
Um that doesn't have any money because
I told the ladies this afternoon, you know, here's the thing
We don't want you to date people that just aren't good with money and they just mishandle money
okay, ladies, so I think that's super important for you to understand but
There are there are different situations and dynamics in people's lives and we should be careful to not judge like and be like
Oh, they have debt
You know, even if you have gone through getting out of debt
Some people have been working on it. But like my husband went to school for years and years and years
He has his mdiv. He's went to lots of schooling
And y'all it wasn't inexpensive. So he's been paying on that for a long time
And so one of the conversations we had to have before we got married was am I willing?
to take on his debt
To be with him
That's that's a conversation we had but hey you all i'm so glad I didn't say no
Because you know what?
I believed and then this is what I told him
When I knew that god was leading me to be with him. I just started talking to him
I believe god wants to supernaturally provide us to uh pay off that debt
I just because he he would say things we're going to be paying on this the rest of our lives
I'm, like don't you dare say that no like anymore. Don't let that come out of your mouth
We're going to believe for supernatural provision and you all this last year. We had someone give us uh,
$72,000
Yep, it really did happen. It really did
And we paid off a ton of debt. So
you all
Yes, if they're not good with money, I think you should pay attention to that
But brian was really good with money when I met him. He had a plan
He was paying down his debt and he was committed to it
That sounds like a pretty good person, right?
Yep, but if I had gotten all hung up on oh my gosh, he has debt
Then that could have been a problem and I could have missed that now you all will make your own decisions
But i'm just planting some seeds for you. Here's another one
Never will I ever date someone i'm not very sexually attracted to
Okay, I put this one in here because we have a lot of ladies that are like
I just don't think i'm attracted to him at all everybody in this world people even christians
They want to feel all the fireworks on the first date
And you know i'm not trying to say you shouldn't want, you know butterflies or all the things
But here's the reality
If you're feeling super sexually charged on a first date
Guess what is behind that?
It's called a spirit of lust
Okay
truth
truth statement
And so you need to understand that that may not even be the best connection for you if somebody else is also very
Sexually charged and they're just wanting to you know, oh
Just wanting to be with you. You're the one and you know, no
Okay
Back up, bro
Y'all don't want that you don't want that that might have been what you used to attract but that isn't what god has for you
Okay, and again when I say this that doesn't mean you're not going to be attracted to your spirit mate
What i'm talking about right now is allowing lust
to drive your decision.
Okay?
All right.
Never will I ever date a pastor or someone in ministry
because of this.
Never will I ever date or marry someone
that's in the military, police officers, firefighters,
whatever the role is.
Some people, you know, they don't wanna date
or marry an engineer.
It just depends.
Everybody's different, you all.
Never will I ever date or marry someone
that has the name John, Rick, fill in the blank.
This one also is very real for me, you all.
I didn't even know that I had this never will I ever
until I encountered Brian and started dating him.
And it didn't even occur to me for whatever,
I think God just protected me at first, honestly.
But as I got to, you know, really like him more,
like, oh, I think this is going somewhere,
all of a sudden I realized, like, oh,
he has the same name as my brother,
my brother who was my main abuser.
And I was like, God, really?
Like, why does he have to have the name Brian?
And you know what God told me?
He said, because I wanna redeem the name Brian for you.
God's in the redeeming business.
And now it's kind of comical.
So I have Pastor Brian as my husband,
my brother-in-law through Brian's family is Farmer Brian.
Y'all, I'm not making this up.
And then my brother is Teacher Brian.
And so I have three Brians in my life now
and God has been reconciling things.
I mean, I don't spend a lot of time with my brother,
but God has definitely been reconciling things
in that relationship.
And so now I have three Brians in my life,
in my close circle.
And so I'm just saying that to say,
when I first came across Brian on the dating app,
man, if I had just been like, yep, nope,
you have the same name, see you later.
Man, wouldn't that have been so bad?
I would have missed out on so much.
Praise the Lord that God kept that from me
until I was further along into that,
wanting to, hey, I think I like this guy.
I wanna see where this is gonna go.
And so maybe for you, it's a different name.
Maybe it's a name that your dad had
and your dad wasn't nice to you or whatever.
Here's another one.
Never will I ever date someone of a certain age
because your ex was that age.
We had a lady in our community
that her ex was 14 years older than her.
And so she met a man that was 12 years older than her.
She really, really enjoyed this man's company.
He was a good man,
but she would not let herself date him
because he was 12 years older than her
and because of this experience with the ex.
Over time, God ministered to her,
spoke to her and kept nudging her to like,
hey, this, you know, consider this.
Y'all, they're married now, okay?
And I'm not telling you all
that you should date someone 12 years older.
Please don't hear what I'm not saying.
If that's not what God is calling you to, then don't do it.
I decided that, you know, when I prayed about it,
I felt like my comfort zone was no more than five
to seven years younger or older than me,
really in the five-year zone, okay?
Because I wanted to have kids.
And so you all need to pray and decide for yourself
what is that for you, but don't get so hung up in it
that you miss someone God might have for you.
That's what I'm saying.
Stay open in your heart, okay?
So I want you all to make these never will I ever list
and then put them in the group
and then we're gonna minister to you through them.
Now, please know that you don't need to say to us,
never will I ever date an addict.
We don't want you to date someone who's actively an addict.
So you don't need to say that, okay?
You don't need to say never will I ever date someone
who abuses drugs or who is addicted to pornography.
We don't want you to date people
that are actively addicted to pornography.
Do you all hear the word that I'm putting in there?
Actively abusing these things, okay?
We are looking for healthy men.
So we're not gonna encourage you to date people
that partner in those things.
So if you wanna put it on your list,
we're not gonna say, oh, you put this on your list,
but I'm just saying you don't have to.
Those are kind of givens, okay?
What we're trying to get at is what trauma
and wounds have you been through
that you made an inner vow or a never will I ever statement
that now is sabotaging you.
Do you see what I'm saying?
Okay, making sure everybody's on the same page with me.
I am so excited to hear what y'all have to say tonight.
Yash, go ahead.
Thanks, Bethany.
So my story is, so I was just having a conversation
with beautiful Sharon about the question that you gave us.
So I think my broken promise was like an implied promise because when I was dating early in my 20s, I dated a Christian. I mean, he was young. I was young and he was actually a really nice. Godly man, but then again, he said that he cannot marry me because I am not a Christian right after a couple of years of dating.
So I think and he also didn't understand how to pray into like for me to be surrounded by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
So I believe that's why I didn't actually understand Christianity because for me, I was born a Buddhist.
But then again, that relationship broke off, but I still knew that if it was Jesus who made this decision, he wouldn't hurt me.
He wouldn't allow that. I still had that belief in my heart. So then fast forward to 30s, early 30s, I found Jesus and I've been a Christian for the past 12 years now.
So I think that particular implied broken promise that, you know, it didn't happen and it kind of carried on to my other relationships as well.
And then in my 30s, I dated this guy and then, you know, he was an atheist and he didn't work out so well.
And then he moved to Canada and I moved to Hong Kong and then he kept on in touch with me as friends.
I remember you chatting about, yeah.
Yeah. So then I went to Canada, found out that he was living with his girlfriend for like two years and then he didn't tell me that.
So then I said, OK, I blessed and then I came and then I didn't have any contact with him.
So then last Tuesday, so I live in Hong Kong now and I live in a regional office financial institution that has oversight of other countries in Asia as well.
So then last Tuesday, I'm getting a message in my office chat and from somebody in another country, but not in the same country that I'm living in, saying, hey, I joined this institution.
I just want to surprise you to see it was my ex who was in Canada about three months ago.
So he has moved to from Canada to another country in Asia.
And now we not only work in the same financial institution, but we are also in the same function.
So I might have to kind of certain for certain matters like deal with him.
Then I was like so flustered. And to be honest, I felt I'm going to explain to you exactly what I felt.
My heart started beating fast with fear, fear of being deceived again, being pressured again.
I mean, then I was thinking then I was just praying to God, God help me to calm down.
Then I was thinking, OK, this is not very healthy.
It's not that I'm going to pursue that. I mean, God will give me the grace to kind of keep him at bay and bless him and not like, you know, have any other contact with him other than any professional contact.
If I have to, even if I only if I have to, if I have the chance to get somebody else to do it, I will do that.
I mean, I can keep that boundary. But then again, what I felt was I didn't feel healthy because I'm in my healing process.
If I find someone, if I go out with someone else, I mean, after I move from Harvard, I was wondering if I get to know about their past,
will I be too judgmental and whether this same fear would come on?
Because the way my heart was beating fast in fear, I knew it was not very healthy.
So I'm interested to know if you have any tips. I just would be happy to pray.
Are you asking me how I would recommend you navigate this dynamic with this guy?
Not this guy and also in future more than this guy.
How do I navigate with a new person? Because currently I'm just I'm just having this fear of being deceived, being rejected.
So how do I know? So number one, you need to get to the root of that lie.
So I actually asked one of the ladies this afternoon, you know, do you believe the lie that all men are liars?
You know, and really asking yourself and a lot of people be like, no, I don't I don't believe that.
But then at the core, somewhere along the way, they partnered with that lie that, you know, when one or two men, you know, whatever the situation was, have lied to you that you started somewhere partnering with that and you believe that all men lie.
It might be that you just don't trust yourself.
That's another thing that a lot of people struggle with.
If you were deceived in any way in the past by someone, there's a lot of people that struggle to think that they'll make a right decision this next time around.
And so growing in your security and who you are.
are in Christ, growing in your confidence are going to be game changers for you.
You know, it sounds like you've been walking with the Lord for a while. I think staying in
community is another huge factor. You know, when you're off dating by yourself, trying to navigate
things, a lot of people get, you know, kind of in these, you know, situationships. That's what
we would call even this situation. This guy kept kind of luring you along while he was dating
someone else, but he just wanted to be friends or kind of date you or whatever was going on there.
It actually sounds very confusing what was going on with you two. And even now,
like he's messaging you, I think you need to set a boundary now. I think you need to say, hey,
I don't, you know, even though you work at the same institution, I mean, I think you just need
to say, this is, you know, we can talk about work and that is it. Yeah. I just don't think
this guy is a healthy person for you. It would take a lot to convince me that he is healthy to
be a good spirit mate match. And so really looking at, okay, Lord, do I, where do I have insecurity
still regarding decision-making? Are there any areas where I don't believe that I would make a
good decision with a spirit? Like where you're really just asking the Lord to show you what's
so that you can get to the core of those lies and heal there so that you can step into,
you know, a healthy relationship. And then one of the other things I said is you all love
is always a risk. Even in friendship, you know, isn't it hard when we lose a friend that we love,
whether they passed away or something happened in that friendship and you're just no longer friends.
That's hard, isn't it? But man, isn't it great when you make a new friend and you start getting
to know them and you really enjoy their company, same thing in relationship romantic, right? So
in order to experience love, we have to be willing to take a risk. And so just really
understanding that we're all going to have to take that risk if we want to experience
the blessing of love. And it doesn't mean that it's going to go bad. You can experience the
of love and it can continue and you can grow in that. And I mean, I'm three years in and
it just keeps getting better. Yeah. So those are the couple of tips I would give you for now,
Yash, you need to set some boundaries with that guy. And, you know, I would even encourage you to,
you know, do some reading on boundaries to help yourself so that you know how to do that in this
dynamic. But don't stray too far from the hard work, but just kind of refresh yourself on healthy
boundary setting a little bit, even if it's listening to a podcast by Dr. Henry Cloud is like
one, you know, him and Dr. Townsend are like well-known for all the boundary stuff and they
have phenomenal stuff. You can even go on their social media and just kind of look at his content
and refresh yourself. I think it'll be very helpful for you. Thank you. That's very helpful.
Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks for sharing. Leslie, go ahead.
Sorry, I think it unmuted. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Okay. Yep. I can hear you. Okay.
So I'm going to share. I had shared three, but I want to focus in on one,
which was my kids' father. My first husband spent a lot of quality time one-on-one time with me
before marriage. And after marriage, I had to just sort of pray because it was kind of like
he then was a workaholic and he didn't really have much emotional to give to me. So I felt like
I had a bucket with a hole in it with a lot of needs. I felt like they were a little bit excessive.
So I felt like God healed that. But the reason I'm bringing this one up is
because every, the two marriages I've been in and every guy I've dated, it's more not that I was,
you know, yes, I want to be with this person. It was more because they were giving me attention.
And I feel like it's almost like a drug. Like there's a guy right now in my life.
I'm not dating him, but he really likes me. I can see there are massive problems, but I am,
it almost feels like an addiction to the attention. So how do I heal from that? Because
I don't want that to drive me into another bad relationship.
Yeah. So I can't remember if I've asked you this before, Leslie or not, but did you struggle with
abandonment with your parents or anything growing up? I mean, not necessarily. Mine would have been
or just neglect.
Like my father wouldn't emotionally give me anything.
You know, he grew up in a very abusive home.
So to him, the fact that he was providing
a roof over our head and that he was faithful was,
you know, that was his job.
Okay, so I think too, just hearing that
and talking about this tonight,
I think you're up against not only
your own wound of neglect.
Neglect and an abandonment hang out,
even though your abandonment doesn't always have to mean
that your parents left you.
Do y'all know that?
It just can mean that they're there,
but they emotionally never give you what you need.
Yeah.
Or physically, or, you know,
there's a lot of different aspects to that.
But abandonment and neglect hang out a lot together.
But one of the things I think really here tonight
is that what came to mind is that your dad,
because what he went through had the very same hole
that you feel like you have.
Yeah.
And I think that you're up against a generational thing here
and that doesn't need to scare you
because God is good at generational blessings
to redeem family timelines and lineages and legacies.
And so God can help you heal from the wounds of neglect
and the areas where you felt like, you know,
you were crying out for, if you will,
even if you didn't verbally say it,
but your heart and your body and everything
was crying out for this attention
and you weren't getting it.
So for me, I went on a journey of just really praying
into like growing in the father's love.
And I, you know, again,
I don't want to lead you guys into too many books,
but I feel like stuff is coming up tonight
and I don't want to not tell you things that I did.
I genuinely started listening to a lot of things
about the father's love, you know,
just really what does it mean to connect to Abba, to daddy,
you know, reading books on that.
You can't, here's the thing,
there isn't a quick fix for this, Leslie, okay?
Now I'm not saying God can't radically heal you
and set you free, okay?
I'm not saying that.
But what I am saying is from my experience, it took time.
It took time to heal.
And I had to resist the deep need and longing for attention.
I had to resist that stuff.
And so you might need to set some boundaries
with this person, even though you're not dating,
there's something that you're getting
out of this attention from him.
Yeah.
And cutting that off at the source
might be the best thing you could do for yourself right now.
Yeah.
Ladies, if we feel like we're craving something
from someone, then that right there is a signal
that something's not healthy in that dynamic, okay?
And there's no shame in that.
I've been in that situation before, Leslie.
But when I've, even with the, you know, the girl's dad,
I mean, why did I keep going back to someone
who kept cheating on me?
Why did I do that?
It's so crazy.
It's crazy.
But I kept believing that the guy that I saw
for a glimmer of time, just this little tiny glimpse,
was gonna come back and I was praying
that he was gonna change and yeah.
But it was really deep in me that I had to get
to the core of what was missing
that I was trying to fill a void with someone
that didn't even really wanna be with me.
You know?
And so yours is different, but I just want you to know
it shows up in a lot of different ways, ladies.
So we gotta ask God to come and fill that void,
heal the neglect in the areas where, you know,
where we are hurting from things,
the needs that we had as children not being met.
Yeah.
But again, I do think that your dad,
I think that there's a thing at play there
and that's why you probably feel it a lot deeper.
So for example, I had a lot of deep,
it's called pangs of loneliness.
Like I really, really, it was painful.
And that's one of the things the Lord showed me
is that was something that my mother also dealt with.
And so not only was I dealing with my own,
but that was coming down.
And so as I leaned into healing and seeking the Lord
for the grace and the ability to overcome that
and not feed that with things to try to soothe myself,
if you will, whether that was with people.
Guys, I wasn't a heavy drinker
after I gave my life to Christ,
but on occasion I would find myself like wanting wine
or whatever, like this need in me,
but I didn't really even want it.
It was this weird thing.
Well, my dad was an alcoholic.
And so when things would get hard, this thing would rear its head, like all of a sudden
there would be this drawing to have a drink.
And I just had to, I had to kill that.
I had to kill that flesh side of myself.
And so how did I do that?
I just kept praying about it and kept like choosing the opposite.
Okay.
So it's not about a set of rules.
Everybody's going to be different.
So you mean every single person on here hearing this needs to pray and ask the Lord, if this
is resonating with you, what is it that I need to do to heal from the wounds of neglect
and abandonment?
Okay.
Great question, Leslie.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Shelly.
Hi.
Um, I was wanting to see if I could touch on some of the things from last week.
Sure.
Okay.
Um, I think you said I could do that or put it in the chat, but I'll try to be real quick.
So on forgiveness, the prayer sheet, um, one of the things was, um, I needed to forgive
myself and, um, mainly with what, you know, the should have, could have, would have, um,
it's like what Jackie was saying, grieve it and leave it.
And what's coming to mind is, um, because of my divorce and everything like that with
my kid, uh, with my ex, it has affected the kids and I have, there's things that I wish
I would have done.
I should have done, could have done.
I was dealing with things myself anyway.
Um, so there was that, um, also last week there was the word she was talking about relocating
and, um, what came to mind for me was at my work situation and the timing of it was just
as always God timing because I had been feeling tension at work.
I think I've mentioned to you before, I know you do with a lot of people and, um, but there's
someone at my office that I feel like, um, we're like the last two veterans in the accounting
department and I feel like she has tries to be one step above and doesn't include me in
things.
But, um, Jackie talked about Joyce Meyer and how she had some office work and there's this
one lady that, um, coming to her like demonically and, um, God told her to leave and to go into
a ministry of Bible study and it took her a little while, but, but she did, she did
part time so on and so forth.
But something similar has happened to me cause I feel like that demonically, like there's
through this individual, I don't believe that because the lady that I work with, she's really
nice.
I like her, but I feel like there's times that I'm being attacked, but I don't think
it's her.
So that resonated with me.
And then I spoke to a manager, a former manager, and he's like, Shelly, if you're not happy,
because I thought I could get some insight from him as to what I can do with this whole
situation, you know, and handle it.
Cause he knew me, he knows the dynamics on and so forth, but he basically was telling
me it might be time for me to leave if I'm not happy.
I wasn't expecting to hear that.
Okay.
So, I mean, I hear that and then I hear what Jackie said about, um, uh, Joyce Meyer and
her little thing.
And I'm like, Lord, I just bought a home.
I know I don't want to leave.
So anyway, there's that.
And it just, I started this HeartWorks program here in July and, um, I also purchased a home
in July.
I moved here in September and just trying to get through this whole HeartWorks.
I haven't been able to really focus like I should, so I'm mad at myself because I'm not
like committing and I'm not dating, um, but yet I still have a certain individual on my
mind, um, cause I was involved in a situation ship, but in July I shut that down and I've
been faithful on that commitment, which has been nice, but I know God's working on my
heart, but I still have a lot of stuff in terms of what I feel like I need to, I'm handling
all this stuff myself.
Okay.
Now let me bring you my ex.
Um, my ex, um, I dated for seven years, married for 25 years and, um, he was addicted and
I had to leave to stuff or whatever, but, and I didn't want to, his sister's a missionary
to Africa.
She's the one that said, Shelly, you need to leave.
Um, I thought with the vows and in health, you know, he was sick.
I needed to stay.
But anyway, that's that.
Here's another God moment.
I'm trying to move as fast as possible so other girls can have chance here.
Just one moment.
Um, I went to a Bible study at the end of the month.
It's for the last year single.
They read the heart works program, not the last year single, sorry, heart works program,
the book anyway.
And I remember, um, I had just moved to my new home and I placed my book in a thing.
box somewhere that I thought, oh, I'll find it, right?
When I move, well, I can't find it anywhere.
So anyways, the lady at the group says, well,
do you have your app on the phone?
And I said, I go, no.
I said, my phone is like full.
Like, I don't have much storage left.
So I looked it up and sure enough,
I didn't have any storage left.
Well, anyways, we started reading.
I said, oh, I can just listen to y'all read.
Well, here's what, it was on chapter seven, okay?
And it says, some things are being highlighted
to you at this time because whether you have known it
or not, they have always been there,
lingering in the background, affecting your daily life.
It's like having extra apps open on your cell phone.
You aren't aware of them,
but they are still draining your battery every day.
These things that are surfacing are the hidden reasons
you can never get ahead in life.
The things we have convinced ourselves
that can't hurt us anymore,
actually killing us slowly from the inside out.
Okay, really?
That's the first thing that, the start of the chapter.
And I just got through telling a lady that I don't have it.
I mean, my phone is full.
So anyways, there's that God moment there.
At work, I had a quarterly review and he had said,
Shelly, you've got great ideas working,
but he'd like to work, he wants me to work on listing out
or outlining my thoughts so I can present
where others can understand
because my mind is going 90 miles an hour,
but yet I can't seem to process it to get it out.
So this is all tying together, okay?
Because it's affecting, I'm not organized
because I'm just go, go, go, go, go.
It's affecting work.
It's affecting my home life, kids, relationships.
And the last and final thing that I wanted to mention
was the thing for today, the broken promise.
And that is my ex leaving me, okay?
Because we had a vow and he basically left me
when he chose his addiction over me.
We went to counseling and all that good stuff,
but he didn't want to give it up anyway.
And then also he told me before we got married
is that he came from a broken home
and he said he would never ever do that to his kids.
And here we are, and he doesn't pay child support.
He doesn't interact with his kids.
And now my kids are having to deal with it.
So it's just, oh gosh, now my battery,
I need to plug in, see what I'm talking about?
It's okay, why don't you plug in
and then I'll start to respond to you here in a moment.
Yes, please do, I'm gonna plug in.
Go ahead.
I want you to be able to be at a place of rest
once you get that plugged in, okay?
I'm sorry about that.
It's all right.
Okay.
All right, first thing is I want you to practice breathing.
I know that sounds like such a simple response, Shelly,
but it sounds like you're being really hard on yourself.
It sounds like you've been through a whole lot
and you're a single mom
and you're trying to figure a lot of things out.
The relocating word, while Jackie did say that,
it wasn't a word for everyone, okay?
It's super important for all of you to understand
that every word that's released doesn't mean it's for you.
And so just because God might nudge you,
and I'm not saying he is,
but just because God might nudge you to change jobs
doesn't mean he's telling you you have to move.
Right.
That's fear rising up.
That's anxiety rising up, okay?
And I'm not saying that God isn't talking to you
about some of the other things,
but as you were talking,
I feel like that seems like it's going totally against
where you felt like God was leading you.
And so I'm not saying things can't change,
but that feels disruptive to me.
And I just don't think that God would do that.
And so be praying into that,
but I think that there's something regarding you
just being at peace,
that you can continue to get settled in your home,
and that God will provide for you
if he's leading you to a different job,
that he'll provide you with what you need.
But one of the other things I wrote down
as you were talking was anxiousness.
I sense a lot of anxiousness under the surface for you.
And I don't want you to feel bad about that.
It sounds like you're nervous systems on over,
like you're on a kind of like an overdrive
because you've been in flight or flight for a long time.
When did you go through your divorce?
It was finalized in November of 2022.
Okay, so a couple of years ago.
And do you live near your ex?
Like, can your ex still see your kids?
Yes.
Even though he's not, okay.
Yeah, and I still reach out to him and talk to him,
but he's doing better with his addiction,
but he's behind on a lot of stuff still.
And I try to check in on him just to make sure
he's doing okay, because I don't want him to get too low.
Okay, here's another thing.
That's not your job anymore.
Okay, even though that's your job.
I don't think he has anybody, so it's just hard.
Right, that's okay, but he's not your responsibility.
It's time for you to take care of yourself.
And so this week, what are two things
that you can let go of to create more space
in your life for you?
Yes, okay, what are some couple things?
Got it.
Yeah, just what are two things
that come to mind even tonight?
And I would say to you, he's one of them.
So in addition to that, two things in addition to him,
okay, and it doesn't mean that you can't communicate to him
when the time is needed regarding your children,
but you worrying about him
and making sure he doesn't get too low
because then he'll do something bad.
That is you getting caught up in the crazy cycle, okay?
And so you need to remove yourself from that.
He is not your responsibility.
You don't need to take care of him anymore, okay?
That's God's job.
It's always been God's job.
Okay, now, two other things
that you're gonna let go of this week,
even if it's hard, just to create more space for yourself
to breathe, to kind of rest,
whether it's working on your house.
Do you have two things that come to mind
that you can let go of?
Maybe there are things
that you're normally running around doing or...
That's the part, even at work,
when people ask me if I need help,
I have a hard time letting go.
Okay, tell me about that.
When's the first-
I just, I take...
When's the first time you had a hard time
letting go of something?
Because I don't trust anybody else to do my work.
Okay.
I like to make sure it's done
and I don't want it messed up.
So you like to be in control?
Yes.
Okay, when's the first time
you had a hard time letting go of something?
Because you were afraid
that somebody wouldn't care for it the way that you do.
Whether it was work or it could have been a pet,
it could have been a sibling.
Relationships, yes, everything, pretty much.
Okay, when's the first time that you can remember?
I just know that since I was with my husband
or ex for a long, long time,
the first time any relationship left me, it devastated me.
I don't know why.
Well, it's okay.
How are things with your parents?
They were married forever
and they had a great marriage.
My mom passed away in 2014.
My dad didn't date or nothing for a long, long time.
Kept wearing his wedding ring,
took care of my mom's mom.
So you had a good relationship with your parents.
Okay, that's good.
So did your parents have a good relationship
with their parents?
Yes.
Okay, so what we need God to show you
is how did this enter for you,
for you to have this kind of panicky feeling
when a relationship ended?
It could have been a death of someone in your family
that it really scared you.
You don't need to answer it tonight.
I just want you to be praying about,
Lord, when did this start for me
that I started fearing letting go of something?
And then just really working on, Shelley,
again, that kind of like helping yourself
kind of be in the still small, calming down,
the anxiousness.
Again, your body is in kind of hyper drive right now.
It is.
I'll say this, when you've been in a relationship
where there's a lot of addiction problems
or the person's very not healthy,
it can take you a while to unravel from that.
Okay?
So what I'm saying to you is that,
2022 isn't that long ago.
It's just three years ago that you've now not been taking,
you've not been married.
to him. But what I've heard you say is that you're still carrying the load of his mental health
and well-being. So you really haven't been even broken free from that yet.
Actually, I have. I had a friend that had me block him.
Because you're still okay.
But that was for while he was still on it. It's been for like a year and a half, two years.
But then he started getting better. So anyway, it's just been recently that I have,
I've actually done a really good job with healing and doing better. And I
don't feel that connection like I did before. Sorry.
Okay. Okay. But you were talking earlier about how worried you are about him. So that tells me
that that is still there. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm not saying you've never been free at
all from it. But I'm saying it still has it. The enemy still has this hook in you through that
enough that it is weighing on you. Okay.
I think that's just recently because of the weather. He's got that cyclical,
it's the winter coming and he doesn't. I think that's the only reason why. And the other thing
too, is because of my kids. And I remember you mentioning about you didn't have like a dad that
was there for you. My daughter had said here recently, she had asked me, because we had
a divorce and then remarried, but she asked, is he really my father? And I was like, well, yeah.
And she's like, I don't think that he is. And I'm like, anyway.
Okay. There's just, God has hurt. Yeah. And I'm not minimizing it. I know that that's a heavy
burden. Okay. Your kids and everything that they've been through because of this. But what I
can tell you is Shelly, while my road hasn't been perfect and it hasn't been easy, I'm living a
great life and I'm a healthy person and God can help your kids get to that place too, no matter
what. And so let's work on taking really good care of Shelly. Yes. Praying about when was the
first time you had a hard time letting go of something or someone and just asking the
Lord, what are some areas where I can let go? And I hear you saying it is hard for you, but
we can all do hard things, ladies. We all can. How can we do it through the empowerment of the
Holy Spirit? So let's not rely on our own strength. Let's rely on the strength of the Holy Spirit
to even help us in letting go when we want to control. And the reality is, is even if someone
doesn't do as good of a job as you, they might do a great job and it might be just fine. And I'm
saying this from the aspect of, I don't always love letting people do things either because I
like it done a certain way, but here's the reality. Many hands make light work and letting people help
us, man, is a game changer. And so let's practice that. And I look forward to hearing how things go
in the next few weeks as you breathe, be kind to yourself. It sounds like you moved and you did a
lot of stuff in a few months time. So in the next few months, maybe you'll be able to stay in the
kind of in focus with the heart work and just keep moving forward. Thank you very much. I appreciate
it. You're welcome. Y'all, it's so important for us to set healthy boundaries regarding our lives.
So many of you, myself included, this is why I'm going to say this in the past, I was so good at
helping myself. And you know, the airplanes, they even tell you, put your air mask on yourself first
before you put it on your kids, which seems like a crazy thought, doesn't it? But the reality is,
is if you don't get that on yourself, you could be without the oxygen and not be able to help
your kids. So Shelly, you need some oxygen. Okay. That's what needs to happen. And you're going to
be an even healthier, stronger mom because of it. So everybody else, if that's speaking to you,
I encourage you to take some time this week as well, to breathe, really ask the Lord,
what you need to let go of, where do you need to set some boundaries? People that have, you know,
required us to take care of them down inside. From what I have found, this is also a self
discovery for myself. I, um, I liked feeling needed. I liked feeling needed, even if it was
toxic, which is crazy. Now I'm like, ugh, no, go be with someone. No, I minister to them,
y'all. I never, I never just turn people away, but I'm just kind of being silly. But like,
I really do set a lot of boundaries now. And if I'm ministering to someone, you know,
that's in a toxic, unhealthy place, that's different than if I'm in friendship and
close relationship with them. Totally different things. Okay. So, all right.
Chrissy, go ahead.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, you're a little low, though.
That was better when you just did that.
OK.
I was debating whether I even needed to share anything,
but I was on this afternoon, even though I was at work,
I was still trying to pay attention.
And I missed a little part of the beginning here tonight.
But while everybody was talking, I was still writing.
And thinking about the promises broken,
I have to really dig deep for that, because in my mind,
I think someone said, OK, who said to me, I promise this,
and then didn't broke that promise.
But it's not so clear cut and dry.
So there are a few things I think about.
But I also think that I've trained myself
to look for the roots instead of just flowing with it
and trying to listen to God.
But there was something you said this afternoon.
I don't know if you said it tonight or not,
but it really annoyed me.
And it brought back another what I
think is like a broken promise.
You said something about putting yourself in timeout
if you were in the religious corner.
And I was like, ugh, no.
And I thought about this.
I had a dream several years.
I'm a dreamer.
God speaks to me.
And I had a dream.
I'd had several dreams with this one guy.
And I kept thinking, what is it?
I was trying to decipher what he meant, what God was showing me
through him in the dream.
And so I was deciphering correctly.
But I started listening to other people.
And they were pointing out not anything in the dream,
but they were pointing out real-life scenarios
and kept saying, oh, I think he really likes you.
Oh, I think that he really likes you.
And so somewhere, my brain kind of put that together
as he must be the one.
And I was like, that's so stupid.
Why would you even think that?
God's not going to show you that and then
keep putting this in your dream.
All these dreams in my dream interpreter mind was like, no.
These are pointing to something I have to pray for,
something, whatever.
This went on for several, several years.
And I even confided in a close family member who also dreams.
And she took the time to go away, pray about it,
and came back.
And because she regards me as a daughter,
she said, I prayed about it.
I asked the Lord, don't hurt her if this is the case.
And she said, no, it was right.
And I was like, oh, OK, well, that's fine then.
But I just remember over and over going and like,
no, this can't be right.
This can't be him.
God is showing me other things.
And I remember it feeling like I would try to release it
and go away.
And then it was like a rubber band
would snap me back into it.
And then it would suck me up again.
And I'd be like, oh, if he was my husband,
then we would do this.
And it was like I felt like a little girl in fantasy world.
And that's actually probably why I hate doing that now.
I don't do it.
I literally was going to say, it sounds
like you started fantasizing about it, which
can be something that can create soul ties.
Yeah.
It probably did.
And then eventually, see, I moved here in 2020.
So I don't know, like 2018, 19 maybe.
Through some circumstances, I ended up
not going to church that night.
But I ended up going to a friend's house.
And nobody else showed up.
So it was just her and I. And we had a great time.
The Lord showed us a lot of things.
And then she's like, hey, let's pray before we leave.
And I was like, yeah, of course.
And thankfully, I prayed first.
No, no, she prayed first.
And when she prayed, she was like, hey,
I don't want to make you feel bad.
But I feel like there's something that's been like,
I forget how she worded it.
But it was basically something that had been snatching you up
and not letting you go.
And the minute she like the words came out of her mouth,
I felt it from the tips of my toes all the way up.
And I was filled with rage and anger.
And then I was just like, God, I have to pray for her next.
And I don't want to speak to you.
I don't want to speak at all.
So thankfully the Holy Spirit did his thing
and prayed for her.
And then I left and I had to go sit and be with this anger
because, and I kept telling myself, I knew I was right.
I knew I was right.
And now I don't-
So are you saying what you initially felt,
that's what you were feeling like God was confirming
that you were right and what you were initially discerning
before you started asking other people?
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah.
He was just trying to show me,
like in all the other dreams that I have,
when people show up, it could be their name,
it could be what they represent,
it could be a lot of different reasons.
It could be an aspect about their character
that God's trying to show you something about
and highlight that to you.
Yeah.
And instead I was listening to all these other people
and because I was listening to them,
I could then see what was happening.
And it was like reinforcing that.
And so then I wrote that down and I thought, okay,
if my saying like I knew that I was right to begin with
is that my being prideful?
No, I think that's you understanding
that you were discerning well
and you didn't actually need to go
and ask anybody else about it.
It doesn't mean that you're being prideful.
Sometimes we are hearing something from the Lord,
but we don't trust ourselves.
And so we go try to seek it out with other people.
And I'm not saying, sometimes God asks us to do that, right?
The multitude of counselors and all of that.
And I think you were trying to do that
because for some reason you weren't trusting
what you were discerning.
And so, unfortunately in this situation,
probably hasn't been that way in every time
that you've asked other people for things,
but in this situation,
it sounds like it led you astray a little bit.
And unfortunately, I think forgiving yourself
is gonna be key here for not just listening to yourself.
When you felt the anger and the rage,
what did God show you?
Like, why did you feel that?
I felt that because,
I think I felt stupid.
Okay.
Yeah, and I think really acknowledging,
okay, well, why did you feel stupid?
And really unpack that.
And are you stupid because you didn't hear
or you misinterpreted something or you sought people's help?
No, you're not stupid.
Like, none of us are stupid.
Sometimes we just make mistakes.
And guess what's really awesome
is you can learn a massive amount from this, you know?
And here's the other thing that came to mind
when you were talking, what Jackie says this all the time,
what we look for, we find.
Okay?
So sometimes you all,
when God is telling us one thing
about whether it's a dream or a situation,
but we actually want it to mean something else,
that's when we go seek out other people.
Not saying every time,
but sometimes that is why we do that.
Because we're actually looking for us,
looking for people to tell us
that it means the other thing.
And that's what you found.
You found other people to reinforce that side of it.
And then you started fantasizing about this guy
and what would life be like and all the things.
And so, yeah, I think really just forgiving yourself
and coming out of agreement with any lies
that you believe that you were stupid in that moment,
you weren't.
You weren't.
You're just an imperfect person, we all are.
And we do our best to navigate life
with information we have at the time.
Y'all, I mean, yeah, of course, when I look back,
that's why I'm like, still,
it's so weird for me to talk about this relationship
that I was in for six years.
Oh my gosh.
Some of the stuff that happened when I say it out loud,
it's just like, how did I get stuck in that for six years?
It's mind boggling to me
because I just know so much better now.
But I've grown a lot.
And so just grow from this, Chrissy,
and trust yourself.
Trust the, it sounds like you have really worked
at understanding how to interpret
different aspects of dreams.
Interestingly enough, ladies,
dreams came up in our afternoon session today as well.
And maybe that's what made you think about it too, Chrissy.
But just, we don't encourage anybody
to prophesy about dates, mates, or babies.
And we really stay away from that stuff on purpose.
I will tell you that I have.
had a dream and I heard God say, he's coming soon.
And I knew in the dream, I saw my spirit mate, but I couldn't
tell you what, what they looked like at all.
And I'm so glad that I didn't see a person.
And if I think I probably did in my dream state, but God didn't
let me remember that when I woke up.
And I'm so glad that I didn't, because I think that that could
have really messed me up and I would have been looking for a
friend, but all God said is he's coming soon and that filled me
with hope.
And I just, you know, partnered with that and started believing
and, and declaring, you know, I'm a bride and, you know,
thanking God for my spirit mate.
So Chrissy, forgive yourself.
Okay.
And, and really allow yourself just to move forward from that.
Um, you know, ladies, I chuckled when she said it really annoyed
me when you said that, um, you know, sometimes that's going to
happen sometimes as coaches, we're going to say stuff and
it's going to really rub you guys the wrong way, but just
know that that is happening for a reason.
So Chrissy did the right thing.
She started praying into it, thinking about it, talking to
the Lord about it.
She coming back tonight and sharing about it.
That's, or you can come into the group, you know, if it's already
passed our live sessions and then we can talk through it more
together.
Um, but that annoyed her because of what she went through, because
what I said was, which she paraphrased it, but like, you know, a
lot of people have, have put themselves in time out because of
religious belief systems and teachings that they've been under.
And so that's what, that's what rubbed her the wrong way.
And then that led her here.
And so, um, on that note, going forward, um, you know, really
asking the Lord, um, you know, to show you, um, kind of where
your thoughts started leading you astray as well, you know, the
fantasy thoughts and just making sure there's not any open door
there.
Cause a lot of times when we get into the fantasy thinking is
because we're trying to escape reality and we want something so
bad, but we actually believe a lie.
And because we believe that lie, we think we have to like, start
acting on that thing to accelerate.
It's coming.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
And so just praying to that too.
I'm not saying there is anything, but I just felt led to mention that to you.
Okay.
Thanks for sharing.
Appreciate you, Tiffany.
Okay.
So just so we know we're at nine 52, I'm going to take Tiffany and Roseanne and
then we'll close down for the night.
Okay.
Tiffany Connor, go ahead.
So I actually, I think somebody else had mentioned, they had kind of
struggled trying to figure out what they were going to share.
And I was, it wasn't until you said for us to do the never would I ever list.
And at the very end, um, when you were talking about, you know, like not
addicts or whatever, and it just like came to my mind and it was, my ex-husband
had been an addict and had been clean and sober for like 13 years when we got
together and we had been married probably five or six years, I had one of those
episodes where I had gotten really sick that I'd kind of mentioned last week.
Um, and I, we had gone from two full-time, I was manager at a place.
And so we went from two full-time salaries to just his, and we had also
just moved into a newer home and like all the expenses and now it's all on him.
And I'm pretty much out of it.
Cause I was bedridden for several months.
And so, um, I was never raised around drugs.
That was not my, you know, drugs and alcohol was not really my thing.
It was sex and relationships was my struggle.
And so I didn't know what to look for the side, you know, the symptoms
or I don't know, whatever words.
Um, and so I really did.
I had no clue until I was asleep one night and the Lord woke me up and he
was like, go to the end of the hall.
Long story short, he gave me play by play of like, stay there.
I need you to stay quiet.
Like sit down.
I mean, it was really like, it was cool to see how the Lord did that for me, but
I saw he was using in my kitchen with me and my daughter asleep, or he thought I
was asleep and so, um, We, you know, had the talk and he, of course, I see it
now was putting the blame back on me because of all the stress and whatever.
So fast forward, things get, I think that they're better.
Um, we were doing all kinds of stuff to get his daughter back at the time.
Cause he'd kind of been MIA out of her life.
And so we went through the supervised visits.
and like months and months and months of stuff.
And it was the first time that she was going to be able
to come and spend the weekend with us alone.
And I had one of my flare ups.
And so he's like, no problem, I'm gonna go get her.
Long story short, I get a phone call from him
that he was arrested.
He had been pulled over and he had gotten some stuff
apparently on his way to go see his daughter.
And I don't even know how to process that, right?
So we're like, okay, we're gonna do rehab.
We're gonna, because this was my third husband,
this had to be like, come hell or high water,
we're making this work.
I will stick with you, we will work it out.
And so it ended up that dealers and things knew
where we lived and it was just a bad situation.
So we decided we're gonna move
and we kind of downsized a little bit.
And so fast forward, I don't even know,
I don't even remember now how long it was,
but it was less than a year.
The same thing happened, I'm asleep, he's awake.
He worked nights also.
So it wasn't unusual for that to happen.
And the Lord woke me up again
and basically kind of the same thing and I'm going.
So the night ended with, I heard him go outside to our gate
and another dealer apparently came and brought him stuff.
And so the Lord didn't have me address it that night.
He just said, okay, now go back and go to bed.
And it was so weird, like I'm just seeing this
after we'd gone through all this stuff
and only God can make it to where I could go back
to sleep after that.
Well, the next morning he leaves,
I didn't even know he had left for work
or something about like that.
And he called and he's like, where is it?
Where is it?
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
Basically, I feel like the Lord hid his stuff from him.
Apparently he hadn't used it that night.
He had put it somewhere and he couldn't find it.
And so, which I mean, I'm laughing
because of this, like, what do you do, right?
And so he's like, go look and see if you can find it.
And I'm like, find what?
I knew, but he didn't know I knew.
So long story short, that's what it was.
Well, that night I had already decided,
okay, no, we're not doing this anymore.
Cause again, my daughter was in the home
and now you've brought a dealer to our new home.
And so that night was the night that I said no more.
And so one, I realized I have not done,
I've done a whole lot of forgiveness sheets
for a lot of different things,
but he's not been one of them.
So I feel like the Lord's like, okay,
now it's time that we deal with this one a little bit.
Yep.
But how do you, I have a friend who is dating
and her boyfriend has a past.
God's gotten a hold of him and he's a different person.
But as I'm hearing her talk about some of the things
that he's revealed to her, it's just like this,
what do you do with that?
So here's the thing, I think I hear what you're saying.
You all, it doesn't mean that you have to be okay with,
you know, dating someone that has been an addict
in their past.
You all, this is where it's gonna be really important
for you to pray.
I'm not saying you should just decide,
okay, I can never date someone
that's been an addict before ever again.
But there are certain things for myself
that I knew that I could not do again.
I could not be with someone that was a porn addict,
a sex addict ever again.
Like I knew that I could not sustain that ever again.
Like even if they had been in the past,
like that was just, there was,
like I needed to be with someone
that I could walk into that relationship and trust them.
Okay?
And because of everything I've been through,
I knew that that's what I needed.
And so I just prayed and asked God to help me find someone
that I literally, as I got to know them,
that I would know deeply that I could trust them.
And that is who God led me to.
And so Tiffany, I'm saying that to say to you,
I don't want any of you to be afraid
that you are gonna be forced or coerced
into something that is gonna be dangerous for you.
It sounds like you have quite a bit of processing
to still do regarding the situations
that you've been through with him.
And so, you know,
This is where it's important for y'all to trust the Holy Spirit's leading in your heart healing
as well. You know, we say it's five weeks, but you know, some of you need way longer than that
because of what you've been through. And that's okay. It doesn't mean that you're going to miss
out on your spirit mate. It means that you're going to heal so that you attract a healthy
spirit mate. And so, but just pray through that, you know, and really allow the Lord to
first heal this situation that you're talking to us about. And it sounds like multiple things
regarding him. Um, and then just be praying and ask the Lord what he has for you. For me,
I knew, like I said, I needed someone that I could walk into a relationship and know that
I could trust them because I had been with so many people that hadn't been trustworthy before.
So of course we want all of you to be with trustworthy people. I hope you know that,
but I'm just saying like, I needed to like, without a shadow of a doubt, know that that man,
whoever I ended up with, wasn't gonna, you know, lock his phone and act like I couldn't get in his
phone and all the sneaky things that I went through before. Um, you know, Brian and I,
both, we just leave our phones wide open. It's so peaceful. Nobody's afraid. Nobody's panicked
that somebody's doing something they shouldn't be doing. It's wonderful. It's a wonderful way
to live. Um, and so I don't know if that's helpful, but I feel like first forgive, but also
just be praying about, you know, what, what can you sustain? What, what do you have the capacity
for? Okay. Was it hard when you got with Brian? Was it hard to not have that kind of default like
because you were already healed? Because I was healed from that stuff. And because
when you are with someone that's healthy and isn't doing deceitful things,
you don't have anything to worry. Like there's just, it's different than living with someone
who is just doing mischievous things all the time. And that's why I felt like I had to check
up on them all the time because they were doing mischievous things. When someone is just genuinely
a pure person, it doesn't mean Brian's not perfect. I'm not perfect, but like,
we were both very honest with each other, even in the dating, like, Hey, these are not too early on,
you know, we followed the coaching and the program, but in the right timeframe, we were,
you know, we shared about the things we've been through and talked about, you know, what we wanted
our relationship to look like going forward. And, um, yeah, I just, God has radically healed my
heart in my life, Tiffany. And, um, he's done the same for Brian because Brian went through a lot
of crazy things with his ex, you know, uh, we were just talking literally, I think it was last night
about different things that we had both been through, where exes woke us up in the middle
of the night, ranting and raving and just crazy chaos things. And we had both gone through
situations like that entirely different States of the world of the U S and, and whatnot, but just
how grateful we are that our life is so different now, you know, I mean, we go to, we go to sleep
and we sleep peacefully and there's no chaos. There's no storm. That's going to come in the
middle of the night and attack me. If you will get what I'm saying. Absolutely. Yeah. And so I
believe God can help you heal and give that to you too. I believe that. Thank you. You're welcome.
Thanks for sharing with us, Roseanne. Hey, get my microphone on. Hi. Hi. Um, so I was just gonna,
I know I posted in the ask a coach over the week. Um, but I just gonna kind of share a little bit
about that. Um, I did work on the forgiveness sheets. Um, awesome. I kind of got to the place
where it says, what is God saying? And I got, I didn't hear, I got stuck. So I didn't,
I didn't hear a whole lot, but I did work on the forgiveness, the top part. Um,
anyway, what I'm talking about is that, um, in 2023, going into 2024, I dated a man for
16, 17, 16, 16 months, I think. Yeah. 16 months. And we were engaged the last two months
and he ended the relationship
saying that he didn't feel like we were connecting and that he interpreted some things that I
said as being demanding and it's very very very painful very painful time
because I had not really I'm 61 and I had not really dated he was the first
man that I had developed that a serious relationship with and I mean he told me
something pretty early on in the relationship about himself from his past
that maybe it would have caused other people to run but like kind of like what
Annette was saying earlier I I didn't want to run in fear I wanted my heart to
be open and I believe that God can and does heal and restore anything it
doesn't matter how horrendous it is but I thought you know at you know when the
relationship ended and as I tried to process through you know forgiving him
and even saying hello to you know saying hello to one another I've just
you know realized that he is not as healthy as I thought he was or as he
presented himself to be and even though it's very hard and painful I know that
God protected me and so I don't know if there's anything else I want to say but
I just wanted to yeah I'm glad you shared and I do remember reading your
post in the group and I really want to just say you know Roseanne that
sometimes what can happen is when the engagement is official extra spiritual
pressure gets applied because you're now moving towards marriage okay right yeah
but there's this extra dynamic happening and that potentially you know triggered
this man with whatever was going on in his past and maybe was still unresolved
and so I think you dodged a bullet to be honest you're not the first person who's
told me that especially with and this is what I was saying to you in my response
especially the way that he reacted even when you were trying to just in the
church like hey can we at least be cordial to each other like right but like
to me as hard as it is for you I think that you needed a hard line there
because if not I think you would have continued to try to convince him to be
back in the relationship potentially or you know like some of the ladies even
I've been coaching people on not getting stuck in situations you know where
someone is a friend I had a lady this afternoon years investing in a long time
investing in someone the guy told her on the front end he wanted to be friends
but she kept believing for more now right something different here he was
dating you for a long time 16 months you get engaged you think you all are moving
forward and now you get blindsided with something so what that tells me is that
what you got blindsided with was always there that was always there and he just
wasn't able to keep it up anymore yeah you know and so as you keep moving
forward while you didn't date a lot of other people on that level before hey
you've gotten some good experience what did you learn from that relationship you
know what was what was good and healthy about it I want you to think about that
and what wasn't because one of the things even though you were with that
guy for a long time I'll just be curious if there's any red flags that God wants
to reveal to you now well I know you know there I had a friend tell me I
don't know we had probably been dating maybe seven six or seven it's just it
was a weird situation because he started communicating with me by text in
February okay he didn't he asked me out we met somewhere in April so February
March April so two months later you met in person right and we never he we and
we met and until September he never called me on the phone
We only communicated by text and he would always, you know, we went out usually on Saturday nights and so, and I had a, you know, friend.
So, I don't really, it's like, when did we really start dating? I don't, you know, not until we met in April at least, I think.
But because of that situation, I, I, I mean, because he told me, you know, that one of the first times that we went out,
if this just is a really good friendship or if it turns into something more, I'd be really, you know, happy, perfectly happy either way.
And so, until he told me in September, and he hadn't even called me on the phone yet that he was developing feelings for me,
I wasn't anywhere like, I was attracted to him, but it was like, I don't know what this is, you know.
Because he, because he had said, if it's a friendship or if it's something, you know, more than I'm happy.
But I had a friend tell me, I don't know, it was probably before he said something to me, before he told me he was, maybe it was after that.
But anyway, she asked me, she said, well, have you been to his house yet? And I'm like, no.
And she said, that's a red flag. And I was like, it is? And she said, well, yeah.
And you don't know where he lives? Yep.
Well, I did know where he lives. I think I had been there. I haven't been inside his home.
And I really didn't think anything of it because he had told me he was doing some construction inside his house.
And so I was like, he doesn't, you know, doesn't want anybody to see it.
But then when, you know, we were more serious and we flew together to North Carolina to see my sister.
And a friend of mine drove us to the airport and we went to pick him up at his house and went to the airport from his house.
And I just thought, well, he'll be looking out the window and he'll, you know, he'll come out the door whenever we pull up.
I'm not even going to, you know, I probably won't even have to get out of the car.
And so we drove up and he wasn't, he didn't come out. And so I thought, well, maybe he wants me to see, you know, I'll see his house.
And so I went up to the door and knocked on the door and he opened the door, stepped out and closed the door immediately behind him.
And that's whenever I was like, OK, this is weird. This is weird.
And so I, you know, I probably, and then there were, you know, I had another, actually the same friend who, I mean, she, when we would, she and I would spend time together.
She would ask me how things were going and I would tell her and she would just cry.
She would say, I just want him to want to spend more time with you.
Yeah. So this is what I think you should do, Roseanne, to help yourself because you're saying a lot of really important things right now.
You're actually recognizing flags that God was showing you in that, in that dynamic with this guy.
I almost don't even want to call it, I don't want to minimize it for you because it was a relationship for you.
But this is not what a healthy dating relationship looks like.
OK, so I want to make that distinction for you.
I want to encourage you to make a list of these things that you're talking to us about.
You know, the things that your friends kind of mentioned to you, questions that you started having.
You can write down the good, too.
I think it's important for you to do that.
But I want you to kind of side by side, make a list and really ask the Lord to help you remember if there were other times that you thought something was off.
But that you just kept going because this was your first, you know, real relationship, you know, because sometimes we'll try to convince ourselves to just like I did.
Oh, you know, the guy that I saw the first week or two, that's who he really is.
But that isn't who he really was.
That was the fake version of who he was, that he was.
He was love bombing me and all this stuff to entrap me in that relationship.
Right now, this situation sounds a little different, but, you know, I'm sitting here thinking, OK, why?
Why didn't this some men don't like to talk on the phone?
So let me just say that.
OK, so that could be the case here.
Yeah.
Never talk on the phone.
And you guys were together 16 months.
So did you ever see the inside of his home?
No, I never did.
Yeah.
So, ladies, that's a that's a huge red flag for me.
You know, so just be aware of these kind of things.
But I feel like because, you know, you mentioned that you hadn't dated a lot in the past.
I think where you you list these things out and just let yourself really see them on paper, Roseanne, I think will help you.
OK, like when you look at that next to the things that you had questions about or that you felt uncomfortable about, make a note like, OK, in a future relationship.
relationship, Lord, this is what I want. So, you know, we don't
encourage you all to go to men's homes early on, okay? Because
that can get you into all kinds of danger. But once you know,
someone is safe, you know, yeah, you want them to invite you to
their home. I mean, I, I the first time I went to Indiana,
Brian, he didn't stay there. But he let me stay in his home. And
he went and stayed at his mom's I literally was in his whole
And, you know, so that is what healthy looks like. Okay. Okay.
So you are worth a man wanting to spend more time with you. So
in the future, just keep that in mind. Okay, you're worth it.
You're really beautiful and amazing and lovely. And you have
such a great heart. Every time you share, I can just sense
that. And, and so a man who has found a wife has found a good
thing. And this man was keeping you in the friend zone, even
though he said he had feelings for you. Yeah. All right. So
right. Yeah, be praying into that. Forgive him forgive
yourself and keep moving forward. God has good things
for you. Thank you. You're welcome. Ladies, this has been
an awesome night. I always love being here with you. Let me go
and pray us out for tonight. Father, thank you so much for
everything that you're doing in our lives. Thank you, God for
transforming us and healing us from the inside out. God, I
thank you that you're taking anything in the darkness and
bringing it to the light that we need to see. God, I thank you
that you would help us to walk in God confidence, God that you
would help us to become more and more secure in you. God that you
would help us to trust your voice within us, God and for
those that might struggle to hear your voice, I pray that you
would just remind them that they are your sheep and your
sheep hear your voice and, and we always obey as your sheep
what you tell us to do. And I thank you God that you would
open our ears to hear what your spirit is saying. God protect
them, guard them, keep watch over them. And we just thank you
for all these things in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you all
and I'll be seeing you in the groups. Have a good night,
everyone. Bye bye.
Have a good night.
Bye everyone.