Hello, welcome to another amazing night of heart work and a great week and just time
to be alive.
God is doing awesome things and I want to encourage you all just to come already expecting
for God to do something supernatural for you tonight.
We want to believe that God is always on the move and that we get to partner with Him in
the process.
Welcome, if you're continuing to join us.
I'm going to wait for a minute or so as ladies are joining us just because even housekeeping
I feel is super important and if you've never met me before, got wild bangs tonight here
y'all.
If you've never met me before, my name is Bethany Cooper, I'm so glad to be joining
you all tonight.
I'm one of the Master Heart Work Coaches here in the community and I love seeing y'all roll
on.
If you're able to come on camera, I would love to invite you to do that and again, there's
no pressure if you're driving, you're eating or whatever.
I know not everybody plans and I know some people are actually afraid to turn their camera
on.
I know this because I've been doing this for a long time.
I can't tell you how many women are afraid to actually be seen on camera.
And so, hey, this is a great time to practice because some of you are going to meet your
spirit mates in person and some of you are going to meet your spirit mates online.
So, if you are afraid to come online with us, your sisters in the Heart Work and the
coaches here, it's going to be really tough when you get to that point.
And you're going to hold back, you will, so if you practice coming out of hiding while
you're here in the Heart Work, I promise you, it will help you in the days to come in so
many ways.
When I coach the other coaches that are in training, one of the things I have them do
is go live in a Facebook group and do videos to answer the homework questions I give them.
And the reason I do this is because once we get on camera and we start talking, you would
be surprised at how many insecurities will surface.
And so, again, this is to encourage you, to help you, and if you struggle with insecurity
and comparison, if you turn your screen on and you start comparing yourself to other
women, ladies, this is a prime time to heal from that.
God wants you to know that you are beautiful, that you are worthy of love, that God has
amazing plans for you.
And your sisters here, God is bringing the people, we believe that you're all here by
divine design and timing, and that God wants to do something, even in creating sisterhood
for you.
Part of allowing a sister to become your friend is allowing them to see you.
Doesn't it make you feel more connected right away when you start seeing additional people
pop on the screen here?
I know it does for me, even as a leader and a coach.
And so, again, some of you may not be able to be on screen, I totally understand.
But let's start coming, I always try to encourage people this in the heart work, and I see that
some people start to fade away from it by the time they get to the other phases.
So I want to encourage you to carry this, what I'm saying to you, all throughout your
journey here in our Last Year Single community.
Because here's, again, the thing, if we're practicing not just for dating, but coming
out of hiding and life in general, giving ourselves the challenge to show up as much
as we can on camera for live heart work events, in phase two, prayer calls, prophetic nights,
when we have things in the community that you will intentionally invest in allowing
yourself to be seen.
I genuinely have seen this set people free.
Because again, some of you don't even like to see yourself in the mirror, let alone on
a live camera, right?
Is this resonating for anybody?
I think so.
Y'all, I did my hair and stuff before I hopped on, so don't think I always look like this.
I looked kind of not so great all day today because I work from home and I don't have
to do my hair.
But anyways, I'm just trying to lighten the mood because sometimes people are like, okay,
but your hair and your makeup are done, and so you're ready for this.
Nope, I'm not always.
I jumped on a team meeting today with no makeup on.
Y'all, I do allow myself to be seen without makeup.
And I never used to do that.
My mom raised me, you don't leave the house without makeup on.
And even though this is a camera, you're on screen.
I kind of attribute this to, even though I'm not leaving my home, I'm allowing someone
to see me outside my home.
And so back in the day, I wouldn't have even gone on a live session without makeup.
I've been working on that, not because I have to, but because God has been challenging me
to stretch.
To stretch and allow my imperfections, isn't this how we feel?
To be seen and known and loved.
And so that has nothing to do with our content tonight, y'all.
Sometimes just things come up as I start to talk about just engaging you all.
We used to emphasize this a lot back in the day, coming on screen and all this.
And I tend to get away from it, but when I remind you all, it, I see you guys
starting to come out of hiding more and more.
And so I'm going to try to get back to that.
I think it's super important.
Okay.
On that note, welcome.
If you are new here, if you've never been here before, this is your first live
session, I would love for you to put that in the chat for us so we can welcome you.
If you are returning, welcome back.
I'm so glad to have you here with us on this heartwork journey and tonight,
because you know what, ladies, none of us, most likely we'll all be here at
this same moment in time ever again, like tonight in the atmosphere, what
God is doing in the spirit realm, the people that are on this session and
where each one of us are at in our heart healing journey and life, we're all
bringing all of this together tonight in this sacred space, and I really want you
to understand that that is a beautiful thing and it's a part of God's
supernatural work in this community.
Some of our best practices, this is some of my little housekeeping things.
We want to encourage you if you don't know this, that while you're here
in the heartwork, we're asking you to press pause on dating.
Super important, y'all.
Some of you are like, but I just started talking to Joe like yesterday and do
I have to stop talking to him now?
We would encourage you to do that.
We would encourage you to say, Hey Joe, you seem really nice, but I am investing
in this heart healing journey and I really need to focus on that for the
next five, six, however many weeks.
And so I'm going all in with that.
Uh, if you're open to it, I'd love to reach back out to you when I'm done.
And that's as easy.
I mean, literally, I know it doesn't sound easy, but it is easy.
Whatever we choose to be all in for.
It's, it's going to be a game changer.
So if you will go all in with us on your journey here in the heartwork, I really
believe you're going to reap the benefits of that.
Some of you might, might have been in long-term relationships
before you came in here.
We're not saying you have to break up with them, but I am saying, we
are saying as a community that we want you to intentionally create some
space so that you're not so focused on that person that you miss what
God is trying to do in you.
Okay.
Invest in self-care throughout this journey of healing as well.
So we want to encourage you to drink plenty of water, getting some extra
rest, moving your body and feeding yourself with healthy stuff.
Super important.
You all, you're going to be processing things in your body, whether you realize
it or not, as you do the heartwork that we need to get that stuff out of your body.
So toxins that have been stored up in trauma in yourselves.
We want you to move your body.
I don't ever recommend brands, but I'm a big, uh, firm believer of detox tea.
It's helped me a lot over the years.
And anytime when I just feel kind of sluggish, when I'm processing
something, it helps kind of move that stuff on out of the body.
Supernatural Saturday replay is up.
You all shame off you.
Shame, not being an emotion and how oftentimes the enemy is trying to use
shame to hold us back and really hinder us.
I was just looking, sorry.
It made me think about it.
Um, it looks like our replay from last night is not up.
We don't know if we're going to be able to get it for you all.
Unfortunately, it was recorded, but we could not find the recording this morning.
So it's a mystery.
Um, so pray for us because we were really disappointed because we wanted
everybody to be able to hear that.
But check those replays out and continue to dive in.
Let me go ahead and pray for us.
And we're going to jump into the content for this evening.
Father, thank you for this night.
God, we thank you for.
Revealings for healing that are going to take place.
God, we thank you for every lady and every life represented here, every purpose and
plan and promise that is represented here.
God, I thank you that you bring things out of the darkness into the light that
you would bring truth and hope and resurrection power right into the source
of any dark areas, any deception, and that you would just shatter darkness through
you, the, yeah, the immensity and the fullness of your love for them and for us.
God, I thank you that you would help us to hear what your spirit is saying
louder than any voice of the enemy.
God help us to have a direct line with heaven tonight.
God, we thank you for just continuing to help us in this journey.
God, that we will lay aside every weight that so easily ensnares us so that we can
press on toward the high calling of God for our lives, which we believe
includes their love stories.
So God, we thank you for your blessing upon them.
God, give them peace, give them confidence.
We help, we ask you to help them to become more and more secure.
and who you are, God, and who they are to you. In Jesus' name, amen.
Tonight we're talking about the story of Candace, but really not just that story,
but about God's promises. God's promises to you, and what happens when promises by other people
are broken, and then we project that onto God, okay? And oftentimes, we believe the lie that
God does not care about us. He cares about everybody else. He's blessing everybody else,
but when it comes to me, it just, I can't ever get it right. God just seems to hold out on me.
He dangles carrots in front of me, and then, like, it never happens, or I get the blessing,
and then the other shoe always drops, because God just holds out on me. These are lies, obviously,
but these are things that we believe, and we might not, like, overtly believe them. We might be
confessing, y'all, but literally, I can remember, I mean, I've prayed the Word of God for a long
time, but there would be times where, you know, I'd be walking and declaring the Word, and telling
the devil where to go, and still struggling deep on the inside, and that was real. That was genuine.
I believed what I was praying, but what was happening is it wasn't getting all the way down
into the core deception areas, and so I want to encourage you that no matter how long you've been
walking with the Lord, no matter what your life has looked like in the past, that you would really pray
and ask God to lift every veil off of your heart, your mind, your body, your spirit, even your soul,
that He would come in and illuminate the light of the world. Jesus is the light of the world,
that He would come in and illuminate in you all of His light, and all of His joy, and all this hope,
that He would just bring all of that in and encounter the darkness that you have been
kept in, in certain ways, and set you free. So if we look at, if you haven't heard it yet, you will.
If you're brand new, you probably haven't heard it, but for those of you that have been here
for a few weeks, you probably heard Jackie tell the story about Candice, and the short version
is that, I don't want to spoil it for those of you that haven't heard it, but basically
Jackie didn't know who Candice was, but God did, and God was talking to Jackie about Candice,
and God was telling Jackie that Candice was going to be there, and she needed healing. There were
some conferences and things going on that Jackie was a part of organizing, and God kept telling
Jackie that Candice was going to be there, and she needed healing. Well, she didn't know which
conference, she didn't know who Candice was, and how to find Candice, but see God knew exactly who
Candice was. He knew how to connect Jackie to Candice, and all of the things. Candice ended up
being a substitute speaker at one of those conferences, you all. She wasn't even supposed
to be there, but God reordered the steps. See, man plans our ways, but God reorders them, doesn't he?
God, in his loving kindnesses, leads us to repentance, leads us to life, leads us to fullness,
right? So the core of tonight is God knows what you need, God knows where you are, and he knows
how to get you what you need. And again, some of you might be like, okay, yeah, that's great and
everything, but I've been here waiting, and waiting, and waiting for God to do something, and he's not
doing it. I'm waiting, but he's not moving. Well, that is a lie, because God is always moving. Y'all, I
believe God is like fluid. We know that he's God, the Father, Jesus Christ, and the
Holy Spirit. He's always moving. He's always working, and one of the ways I learned this years ago,
and this might sound like such a simple thing, but I'm telling you what, it brought me so much
freedom and so much revelation. I was on a walk, and I've gone on walks a gazillion times, y'all,
but for whatever reason this day, and it's not that I've never noticed insects before either,
but it was like God, like in his love, just highlighted these ants scurrying on the ground
where I was about to step, and all of a sudden, he started talking to me about how he, underneath the
surface, there's all of these insects that we never see, okay? Below the surface, there's all this
stuff going on underneath of there that we cannot see with our eyes if we don't dig into the ground
and dig it up and look at it, right? But it's still there. It's still working. They're so
They're still building their things and all of that.
You could look at it the same way in the sea.
Sometimes the dolphins come up and the whales come up
and all these things, but you know what?
Way down underneath, there's all these sea creatures
that don't come up to the surface, do they?
Now they might get swept out of the ocean and all that.
That's different.
But my point is this.
There's a lot of things that we will never see
with our eyes, but that doesn't mean it's not there,
that it's not working, that God is not working
on your behalf right now.
We know that the Bible declares that Jesus is sitting
at the right hand of the Father,
interceding for us, making intercession.
Think about that tonight, ladies.
Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father
for you, interceding tonight.
He loves you, he cares about you,
he wants to see you walk into the fullness
of God's plans and purposes for you.
Remember, we're talking about the original plan
and design that God had for you when he created you
before trauma or wounds ever entered your life.
God wants to lead you into that plan
because it's a glorious plan.
And we can do it, we can step by step by step.
The more we heal, we can step further into the truths
and the fullness that he has for us.
So I'm asking the Father to reveal to you
any areas that you are struggling to believe
that God not only cares about your needs,
but that he also cares about your wants.
I want you to jot down, I'm gonna activate you.
You can put it on your paper first, okay?
But I would like to see even one of them in the chat.
What is something that you want?
Not just a care that you have,
but what is something that you want?
One or two things, jot it down on your paper
and then go ahead and share that in the chat
because I want you to have it on your paper after tonight
so you can reflect on this lesson
and our coaching in days to come.
So I'm gonna give you a few seconds to do that.
And those that are gonna watch this replay,
hi there, we're so glad that you're here.
While the ladies are writing this on their paper,
we encourage you to do the same.
And then even come into the group
and share that with us in the group
so that we can come around you and cheer you on as well.
All right, so ladies, as you can,
go ahead and put those in the chat for us.
Tiffany says, I wanna be able to afford
to go see my son for a great trip,
be able to treat him, I love that, I wanna graduate.
Cleo says, with my BSN this year, awesome.
Anyone else?
And I know it takes time to write it on your paper
then come in here, so not rushing you.
Chrissy wants a home of her own, be debt-free,
a home with a washer and dryer, okay, love that.
Financial freedom and a happy family, purchase a house,
my own home and be able to spend more time in person
with my mom, a relaxing vacation, family.
Yes, Lord.
Anyone else?
Wanna buy my own home and pay off debt.
Financial overflow, restoration of my family.
Go ahead and keep putting those in the chat,
I'm gonna keep going.
As you start to resonate and partner with your wants,
you have cares too, but the reason I'm going
after the wants tonight is because that's something
that God really spoke to me about.
I mean, there were so many things in my heart work,
y'all, for those of you that have just met me,
you don't know this, but I went through the heart work
years ago, back in 2021, and God radically,
I had already done a lot of counseling and coaching
and those were all powerful and got me to where I was
when I came into the program, and I was ripe
for the pickin', y'all, I was, and God knew it,
and everything that he poured into me,
I was just like left and right, I was just getting
breakthrough and breakthrough, and some of it
was not easy, some of it came through listening
to the videos over and over and over,
and each time gleaning one little tidbit
that took me another step closer to the breakthrough
and the freedom, so I want y'all to hear me.
Sometimes the first time you listen to the video,
you might not get that breakthrough,
but it deposits some truth in you that helps prepare you
for the next seed to be deposited.
But there were a lot of things that I didn't understand,
because years ago, I am a success story
out of the community, I was gonna say that too,
I've been married, Brian and I have been married
three and a half years now, I think that's right,
I can't, we were married in 2022, y'all, September,
I think that's three and a half, but one of the things
I did not understand is years ago, I was dating a guy,
my spiritual daughter's dad, I refer to my spiritual
daughters a lot, so those of you that get to know me,
you'll hear me talk about them quite a bit.
But I wanted to marry their dad.
I begged God for it, pleaded with God for it.
I wanted God to change him so that we could be together.
But y'all, that isn't what God had planned, and thank God he didn't.
He protected me from something that would have literally destroyed me more than my prior marriage had.
But I didn't know what I didn't know, and even when I knew things,
I started seeing and learning the truth of the kind of guy he was.
He had very little character.
He was not an honest man, and he had no desire for marriage at all.
And I just could not get away from who I originally saw and thought this person was.
And so I just kept waiting for that person to come back,
because even though it wasn't real for years,
there was this glimpse of something that I thought I saw in the first month.
That's about how long it was before the real guy started surfacing.
Okay?
But instead of letting that go, and there's reasons that I didn't, and you guys will learn some of this,
but part of it is I had already lost my stepson from my former marriage,
and the enemy really used the girls in that relationship to lure me in and keep me there.
Now, I love those girls.
I absolutely believe that God brought me into their life and that God brought them into mine.
They're still in my life.
I love them. Super close to them.
But I do not believe God had all of that pain in store for me.
I chose to pass red flags and I stayed. Multiple times.
But back then, I believed the lie that God did not care about me.
Because if he did, God, you would change him.
And I'm not even saying that God wasn't working in his life in some way,
but I had an expectation of how it all should look and how it all should play out.
And because God wasn't doing what I wanted, I believed the lie that God didn't care about me.
And then I began to profess that and partner with it.
You know, it says the things that we meditate on in our hearts,
out of the overflow of our hearts, our mouth will speak, and that is how we will live.
And that is what we will partner with.
Even this afternoon, during our one session, one of the ladies was sharing about some things in her life.
And man, I resonated so much with her.
But she was talking about people that had abandoned her.
She was talking about this minister that had said some things to her and used scripture,
that it was not in a healthy way.
And then this person that she was sharing with last night, she was just trying to talk about that.
Well, then they partnered with the guy that said the negative things.
And so there was just all this abandonment and brokenness and whatnot.
And I kept thinking, number one, we all need to consider who we're sharing stuff with, okay?
This is just a sidebar.
We need to really be careful about who we are sharing things with.
Just because someone's been a friend of yours for a long time does not mean they are a safe place for you to share certain things with, okay?
The other thing was, I wrote this note down.
Who is she allowing to inform her identity?
Her ex-husband and the choices he made.
These other people that had betrayed her, that had let her down.
She said, you know, I believe God said, let no man separate what God joins together.
And that's a beautiful thing.
I believed in that, too, when I was married before.
But you know what?
Sometimes we have to see and understand that someone is, like, some relationships are just not healthy for us, okay?
Yeah, to inform.
So who are you allowing to inform your identity?
And the reason I'm bringing this up is because as she was talking, really at the core, as she was saying, like, why would God allow my ex-husband to break his vows, go off with, in her case, it was to go off with another guy and use drugs.
And that's, you know, whether it's a guy or a female lady, it's all betrayal.
But here's the thing.
She also had friend betrayal.
There's betrayal in the past.
But at the core, it was, why would God not just change him?
And I can relate to that.
That's why I'm telling you my story.
And then what happens is we, in that trauma, believe the lie that God doesn't care about us.
Because if he did, he would just change that person.
Well, guess what?
God and his love.
God is love.
of y'all, that is a part of his character. That's who he is. God in his
love, for all of us gives us free will. We all have the ability to choose. Okay,
God is not a dictator. Isn't that great that he's not a dictator that he's not
even dictating to you right now that he loves you so much that he gives you the
ability to choose him, to choose Jesus as your savior, to partner with the Holy
Spirit, to choose how you're going to go about your life. Now he gives us guard
rails. He gives us guidelines. He tells us in his word, like, hey, these are the
things to do. These are things that foolish people do choose which way
you're going to go. If you go in the fullness of you walk in the fruits of
the spirit, you become a disciple who makes disciples, you walk close to me,
then it will go well with you. Goodness will follow you all the days of your
life. He tells us these things to tell us the way to go. Not so he's just like,
I just have a bunch of rules that, you know, I'm just gonna stand up there and
be mean and angry if you don't follow them. No. Those are there for guidelines
to direct us to protect us to provide for us to guide us into the fullness of
his blessings and plan. But it's all about how we think about it. So right now
tonight, is there anywhere any area and you don't have to put this in the chat,
but I would encourage you to put it on your paper. Is there any area of your
life that you are partnering with the lie that God does not care about you?
That he doesn't care about what you want, that he doesn't care about how you
feel, that he's withholding from you. Any of those things that come to mind for
you and encourage you to put those on your paper. Let downs, trauma and unhealed
wounds from the past can cause us to view God and others through filters and
false lenses. I share a lot of times, you know, I'll put sunglasses on and it's
just a mini example, but I want you all to think about it in the days ahead. I
don't know if you guys live in the cold area, so you might not be wearing
sunglasses right now, but I live in Florida and it's sunny. It's going to be
a little cooler the next few weeks here, but it's pretty sunny most of the time.
But in general, we put sunglasses on and it can change what we see. The way we
see it, the tone of the color, you know, it might not completely change what we
see, but it's going to change some aspect of it, right? And so these filters and
these false like mindsets, limiting beliefs and the trauma and the lies we
believe as a result of them, they are all like, let's just say, okay, I'm going
to use this example. Okay, here is, I'm going to call this the filter. Okay,
let's say Joanne, I'm going to call her Joanne, is over here and Joanne is saying
something and it's actually kind of nice, but by the time we're going to say that
Melissa, I'm just making up these names, Melissa's over here. So Joanne says
something by the, before it gets to Melissa, what's it hitting? The filter,
right? So sometimes we are hearing things that someone is saying through this
filter of the lies we believe. So by the time it gets to Melissa, she hears
something entirely different. I'm not saying that's always true, but I'm saying
it happens a lot. Even myself, I've been coaching this. You guys would not
believe how many times I'm like, wait a minute. Why did that just trigger me?
Why did that just offend me? Even this weekend, I was in a training session
for like church, you know, things that we're working on and, and something
the guy said, it didn't necessarily offend me personally, but it, it offended
some prior hurt that I have regarding comments made about different denominations
and that offended me. Okay. So I have to look at like, I don't have to, but God invites us
to look at those things. If we will be willing to look at what is coming to the surface,
there's so much that we can learn about ourselves and about God and other people.
If we are willing to surrender it all to the Lord and ask for his insight, I want to really
encourage you all get very good at asking God good questions. One of the best questions you
can ask him is something like what I just said, Lord, why am I getting triggered by this right
now? Why is this offending me? Why are my, why am I, you know, for some of us, something happens
in our, our emotions are big. We're having these big, you know, and I'm not saying that's bad.
You all, because some of us have big feeling emotions, but God wants to bring us into balance.
So maybe it's anger. Maybe it's, you know, fear, big emotions.
Maybe it's crying. Whatever it is that we would look at those things and allow God to heal us and transform us.
Number is 2319. I'm going to read two versions to you because I really love to look at this scripture side-by-side.
The first one is King James. 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?
Same scripture, numbers 2319, and the message translation says this.
God is not a man, one given to lies, 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?
Why don't you think about that? Does he promise and not come through? Is that what you believe?
It actually says here, he's not a man that he, he can't even lie you all. He can't.
I want you to really meditate on that and think about it this week. God can not lie.
Right? Psalm 3116 says this, let your face shine on your servant. Save me in your unfailing love
for thy mercy's sake, which is that unfailing love there is mercy's sake, but it's also goodness,
kindness, faithfulness, merciful. God literally is like, you know, the psalmist here is praying
and he's like, let your face shine on me and save me in your unfailing love because your love is
kindness. Your love that's unfailing is goodness towards me. It's faithfulness. And you're always
merciful to me, Lord. He's crying out to God and he's declaring these truths about God's character.
Psalm 3210 says, many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the one
who trusts in him. Again, unfailing love, there is mercy that shall compass about him. I want you to
imagine yourself, if you can kind of just close your eyes for a second and just imagine literally
and just imagine literally God surrounding you with his mercy right now, just surrounding you
like on every side. And that's representing his unfailing love. It means he's on every side.
He's in the front. He's in the back. He's on the right. He's on the left.
The word declares that he will also hide us under the shadow of his wings.
And in the presence of the almighty, this is the God that we serve. Feel the Holy Spirit on this.
Some of you have really been struggling to believe that God loves you,
that he's protecting you, that he wants to provide for you and be kind to you.
So I want you to soak this in. If that's you, God's trying to say, I've seen you all along,
and I've been not only rooting for you and cheering you on, but I am orchestrating things
behind the scenes that even right now, you could not even ask, think, or imagine how amazing they're
going to be. I can say these things because I'm living it out. My life isn't perfect. I still
I'm living it out. My life isn't perfect. I still struggle. My girls are going through things every
single day that I wish they weren't, but God is faithful. God is faithful. Psalm 33, verse 5,
and I'm going to do verse 18 and verse 22 says, the Lord loves righteousness and justice. The
earth is full of his unfailing love of the goodness of the Lord. But the eyes of the Lord,
verse 18, are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love. And this,
it actually means mercy. So here we have verse 5, unfailing love is the goodness of the Lord.
Verse 18, unfailing love is mercy. Verse 22, may your unfailing love be with us, Lord,
even as we put our hope in you. Unfailing love here is mercy and goodness combined.
How cool is that? I know sometimes we don't slow down enough, and no fault, you know, a lot of
people don't know how to study scripture, but you know, looking a little bit beneath the surface,
and like, what does that really say to us? I always love to read the lyrics of this song
called Sparrows by Corey Asbury. You guys have probably heard it before. If you haven't,
I really encourage, well either way, I encourage you to listen to it again with some fresh ears
after you hear tonight's session, and not just think, oh, that's a cute little song,
but I want you to really think about, you know, when you look at birds, we did this,
it's been a while, but I encourage people when I
this session a few months back just to start really noticing the birds. Just slowing down,
noticing the birds. And again, if you're in wintertime, there's still birds that tend to be
out, but you might not see as many. But just that you would ask God to help you notice them.
And here's why. Because you know what? Think about it. God takes care of the sparrow.
It says that God takes care of the sparrow. How much more will he take care of us? This is what
the song says. The sparrow's not worried about tomorrow or the troubles to come. The lily is
not thinking about the seasons, the drought, or the flood. A tree that's planted by water
isn't fazed by the fire. So why should I be? Because 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 is not worried about the winter because soon it will pass. The
light is not thinking about the darkness or the shadow that it cast. A heart that is planted in
forgiveness does not dwell in the past. So why should I be? Because you, God, 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 am carried in your love no matter what the future brings.
Yeah, you take good care of me.
A heart that is planted in forgiveness does not dwell in the past. So why are we?
I know for some of you people have done terrible things that have hurt you deeply.
If you were on our session last night, you know, we're even talking about and addressing the pain
that happens in church so often. People are imperfect, you all, okay? They are. We're all
broken. We all make mistakes. It does not excuse it, but the reality is that. We all have flesh.
We all fall short. God doesn't want us to put people on pedestals, even our leaders.
For some of you, you put parents on pedestals and they let you down.
I just heard the Lord say that.
And because of that, you believe God is not good to you.
So I believe God is saying tonight that he wants you to forgive those people that have hurt you,
that have let you down. You know, that you really, it really caused you to struggle and believe that
God would not and could not even. Some of you actually believe God cannot provide. That's a
whole nother layer, but we serve a mighty God. We serve a God that has everything in all of
creation that he made. He has all resources, but because of things that we went through,
we don't even know if God has things to bring to us.
Some people grow up and lack in poverty mindsets, and they apply that to God like he is a God that
doesn't have things. It's kind of like the woman with the, you know, she was begging for crumbs.
I talk about that a lot in my coaching. She's begging for crumbs because she didn't believe
because she didn't believe she deserved any better.
But God wants to say to you tonight, like, I love to tell this story, and I want you guys to kind
of just envision it, like, and if it helps you to picture, even though you don't know me,
to first take this step, just think about, you guys can't see, but I'm at this long table in
my dining room, and I have several chairs here at the table with me. And imagine that every one of
these chairs is for one of you. Now there's a lot of you here, but we can make space. And my table
is, it's not right now, my table is actually full of paper, but imagine that it's full of lots of
bountiful food and blessings and goodness and mercy, whatever it is that you need tonight.
And that I'm saying to you, and I believe God is saying to you through this example,
hey, what are, wait, what are you doing down there?
What are you doing down, Chrissy, what are you doing down underneath the table? You don't belong
there. Come up here and sit down.
Come up here and sit in the seat.
Literally, you all, that's what it's like.
Some of us are spiritually in that place.
And it might not be that you're actually physically
under the table, but even like I started tonight's session,
some of you are hiding,
because pain led you into isolation,
led you to pull back,
led you to shut down aspects of yourself,
to stop believing in God's goodness.
Your hope meter, your tank is empty.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
But keep reading in that scripture.
I'm gonna give that as an assignment,
because I didn't bring it with me.
It's just coming up in my spirit.
But like, you know, there's abundance that comes
to the tree that's planted, right?
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, yeah,
but okay, what's the other side of that?
I think like even the body of Christ, we focus too much.
Yes, it is true.
Hope deferred does make the heart sick.
That is a real thing.
But why do we stop there?
God wants to fill your tank tonight.
He wants to come in and just pour just a bunch of hope
and truth and life into your tank
so that you can partner with the promise of his blessings
in life and hope for you.
And that is why, you know, so many of you are like,
well, why is this time any different?
Some of you are like,
I don't even know if this is gonna really work.
Some of you are just here for heart healing.
That's totally fine.
But some of you have come here into our community
because you do desire to find a spirit mate.
And some of you will try to fly through heart work.
I hope you don't, but some of you will try.
And we're gonna have to lovingly say,
hey, why are you going so fast?
Because some people come in
and they just wanna get to the boys.
They just want the men.
Well, y'all, that doesn't work, okay?
So I'm just spoiler alert, it doesn't work.
Those people end up picking people
that are unhealthy all over again.
So, enjoy this time.
Let God work in your heart.
Follow the process.
We encourage you to do one week of content per week.
No faster than that.
If you take longer than that, that's fine.
But some of you even will get a lot of distractions
popping up that enemy will just keep sending them
and sending them and sending them
to try to keep you from moving forward in your heart work.
There's no shame.
I'm not saying that to bring guilt
or condemnation or anything.
But I want you, if any of you have been here
for more than a year,
I want you to really ask God, why?
Why are you, is it because you still need more healing?
Because you were just, you went through so much trauma
and that's totally fine.
Again, this isn't because we're like, get out of here.
We're not.
But it is me lovingly saying, the enemy is holding you back.
What's at the root of that?
I want you to ask God to help you uncover
the root of what's really keeping you
from doing the heart work.
And if I'm, I'll just tell him myself a little bit,
sometimes heart work can be overwhelming, right?
Some of y'all are gonna do this heart work
and you're gonna be like, oh my gosh,
this is so overwhelming.
I have so many people to forgive.
There's so much to work through.
And I want you to just take that overwhelm
and give it back to the Lord and say,
Lord, I feel overwhelmed.
What's at the root of this?
You know, what's really going on in me?
Is there something I'm trying to avoid?
Is there something I'm afraid to face?
When was the first time I felt overwhelmed in my life
and started shutting down instead of moving forward?
Okay, even if you're brand new, that might happen to you.
But I wanna encourage you that God's gonna see you
all the way through.
Just don't give up.
I encourage everyone, do one thing every single day
to move forward in your heart work.
Just do one thing.
We give you more than that,
but if you can't do the stuff that we give you
within a week timeframe,
I just want you to just little by little,
just keep moving forward
because you will make it there if you do that, okay?
And some of you, unfortunately, might go through things
where you do have to take a break.
You might have a loved one that passes away
and you just might need a few weeks to process that.
That is totally okay.
But come back, re-engage, keep moving, okay?
All right, so back to why is this time different?
Well, because we believe that God has brought you here
to heal you, set you free and create a new healthy version
of who he originally created you to be.
So think about this.
Every day you're becoming hopefully someone new
and unbecoming the old version counterfeit identities
that you were carrying and living into.
So why would this be different?
Well, because you're gonna be different.
Y'all, when we show up to the table with new information,
don't we make better decisions?
I do.
And I hope you do too.
Community around you is going to be key for you as well.
This time is different because you have a community that loves you, that's going to
also hold you accountable.
We're going to encourage you like, hey, down the road when you're in our other phases,
if you come in the community and you tell us about the guys you're dating, which is
what we want you to do, and we're like, whoa, sis, that guy, he's no good for you.
We're going to tell you that if that's true.
But if you find a good guy, we're going to also say, hey, why are you trying to cut and
run from this guy?
He's good.
These are all green flags right here.
And that's the power of community.
The same thing is going to be true here in the heart work.
While you're not going to be dating guys, you're going to be processing the more that
you come into the community and share and connect, the more that we can coach you, the
more that we can help you, the more that you're going to be able to process instead of shutting
down and the enemy taking you out.
Allow this time to be different.
Ecclesiastes 3.1 says in the message translation, there's an opportune time to do things right
time for everything on earth.
We believe God has brought each one of you here in his divine design for your life for
such a time as this, that you are here on purpose for a purpose, and God wants to transform
you from the inside out.
Heart change literally does equal life change you all.
It does.
Do you want an upgrade?
Because God wants to give you an upgrade.
Amos 9.13, I'm going to look that up just because it is one of our banner scriptures
as it wasn't planning on saying this.
So give me a second you all.
I still had to read it over you.
I think that was also in the message.
Here we go.
Sorry, I'm trying to find the one that makes it easy to read.
Okay.
Amos 9.13-15 in the message translation says this, yes, indeed, it won't be long now.
God's decree.
Things are going to happen so fast your head will swim.
One thing fast on the heels of the other.
You won't be able to keep up.
Everything will be happening at once and everywhere you look, blessings.
Blessings like wine pouring off the mountains and the hills.
I'll make everything right again for my people Israel.
They'll rebuild their ruined cities.
They'll plant vineyards and drink good wine.
They'll work their gardens and eat fresh vegetables and I'll plant them.
Plant them on their own land.
They'll never again be uprooted from the land I have given them.
God your God says so.
That is one of our banner scriptures and I encourage you to really hold on to that.
That God is going to have blessings upon blessings upon blessings.
And yes, you might face trials and tribulation.
You might face obstacles as well.
But if you will, again, hang in there, come into the group, tell us you need prayer, whatever
that looks like.
We're going to stand in the gap with you.
But God wants you to come in believing and expecting and looking up to heaven.
Where does your help come from?
It comes from the maker of heaven and earth.
Real and lasting change is a process you all.
Okay, it's not going to be like microwave 30 seconds and you're just like Chantella
made new.
I love to use people's names because they're like, wait, what?
How do you say my name?
That just made me think of that.
You know, my name, you know, my name, that song that made me think of that.
But yeah, we live in this microwave culture, this place where everybody wants everything
yesterday.
We go through a drive through and then if we're sitting there for 30 seconds, we're
like, what's taking them so long?
Don't we?
I do it.
And again, I'm telling myself I have to, I have to watch myself because of the way
that our society is now.
Even I am like, I just want everything fast, fast.
I don't want to wait.
I started years ago when they, um, you know, we're getting rid of all the cashiers and
they started putting in those, you know, checkout, check yourself out.
I was like, this is awesome.
I don't have to wait for anybody.
I can just do it myself.
And then I started thinking, wait a minute, they tricked us.
And y'all sometime I do still go through the checkout if I have a couple of things, but
if I don't, I actually started like waiting, making myself wait and getting in line because
I started realizing all the people that lost jobs.
I started just thinking about, here I am checking myself out all the time.
And when it really hit, and I don't know why I'm sharing this story,
but I believe, you know, God can work out all that to say something to somebody.
But the one night that it really hit me, I was in a store and I won't say the
store's name, but when I walked in, I was going to shop for groceries for a few
weeks time.
Okay.
So y'all full cart.
I went through my shopping, ba, ba, ba, I'm having a great time, really calm.
And then I get to the checkout area and you all, the, the checkout things,
literally, there's not one person to check anybody out.
Not one, no people only check yourself out.
And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I have this huge cart full of stuff.
I cannot believe this right now.
And you know, I did, I checked myself out, but I was, I, in that moment,
I was like, what, again, like, why did we do this to ourselves?
Again, if you love the fast checkout, check yourself.
Maybe you love to be the one to swipe the thing and do all that.
But I like literally had this huge, massive cart and this, and the checkout
was these teeny tiny little checkout areas, or even just this mini, you know,
thing to check yourself out.
I couldn't even fit all my groceries up there, but I had to do it all myself.
But isn't that how we all say, want to do things with God?
Like, we're just like, I just want to do it myself.
I can do this faster than you, God.
And I just, boop, boop, boop.
I can just do it all without anybody helping me.
We even push other people away, don't we?
But God's like, wait a minute, the enemy's tricking you.
He's tricking you.
And he's trying to convince you that you don't need people.
You don't need me.
This is for somebody tonight.
And he's saying, you need me.
I want you to come out of that place of like, I do it myself because I got,
God takes too long or he's, he's messing this up.
This is the right person for me.
I don't know what God's doing, but see, God sees things that we cannot see.
And he knows all things.
He knows the gifts that are in those people.
He knows the good, the bad, the ugly, the amazing.
He knows it all.
And he's trying to bring you together, not just with a person to get to the
wedding, the altar, he's trying to bring you together with someone that you can
do life with, that you can have supernatural spiritual DNA with and like
run the race with them and have a partner in your life, like someone that's a
teammate, that's what God wants to lead you into.
If you're just looking to get to the altar, y'all, you're going to be
disappointed because that's amazing.
But it's over in like that it's over quick.
And it's a beautiful, we had a beautiful wedding.
We did.
But you know what?
The wedding comes and goes.
And if you don't have someone that you really enjoy doing life with marriage is
not, it's not fun.
Marriage is going to be hard enough all in and of itself because there's two
people being brought together and God's going to try to make you one.
He's going to use each other to at times, you know, rub off those rough edges.
But I hope a lot of you are going to have a lot of fun too.
For some of you, you've had really bad marriages or bad relationships in the
past.
God wants to redeem that for you.
He wants to guide you into goodness and blessing.
All right.
So where do you currently need an upgrade in your understanding of God's care for
you?
Do you need an upgrade in your ability to believe that good things come from heaven
above?
Maybe that's what your upgrade is.
Let me say this too.
Um, the redemption and marriage and relationships are going to come for you
all after you get redeemed first.
Okay.
A healthy individual meeting another healthy individual can, and can create a
healthy relationship.
If we're all broken down, we're not going to work well here.
And if two to broken down people, it's even worse.
Okay.
And so it's really important going back to that identity statement earlier, who and
what is informing your identity?
Okay.
Really think about that.
We're going to do our breakout session, a really quick one.
I want you to go into the breakouts and talk to each other about when was the
time someone broke a promise they made to you?
And how is that still affecting you today?
When was the time someone broke a promise they made to you?
And how is that still affecting you today?
Let me get these ready real quick.
I'm going to put two people in a room.
And if you get in a room and nobody's there,
just wait for me.
I will move people around.
OK, sorry, I'm just trying to get this right.
And we're going to do, let's see, two, four.
We'll do six minutes, because I'm afraid if I do less,
you just will not have any time.
Here you go.
Go ahead and click to join those as soon as you can.
Quick, quick, quick.
That should pop up on your screen for you.
I missed it, Bethany.
Sorry for the join.
Let me see.
I might need to move some people around anyways here.
OK.
All right.
Where are you, Sarah?
I'm just going to do this.
All right.
Sarah, I'm going to move you to seven.
Hold on one second.
Thank you.
Lina, did you get kicked out?
Or are you hanging with us in here tonight?
All right.
I'm going to pray.
I just, sorry, ladies.
Hey, Glenna.
I can't tell if you can hear me or not.
Yeah, I went into a room, and it just kept spinning and sprawling.
Oh, that's OK.
Sometimes it's just, let me put you in room two here.
OK, thank you.
All right, you're welcome.
Father, thank you so much for all these ladies in these rooms.
Thank you for, oh, let's see, Edwidge?
Yeah.
Do you go by Edwidge?
Edwidge, yeah.
OK, awesome.
I just put someone in the room with you.
Are you able to go back to that room?
Oh, maybe.
I think I see.
OK, yes.
OK, awesome.
Father, thank you so much for the conversations
that are going to happen in these rooms
tonight, as well as the ladies that
are going to watch the replay.
God, we thank you that you would just
continue to bring revelation, truth, life.
I'm praying for sisterhood connections, as well,
in this community, in this group.
I thank you, God, that you would forge
bonds in the spirit tonight.
And we just thank you for community.
We thank you for family.
We thank you for all that you're doing in our lives.
Colossians 3, 13 through 14, in the message translation
says this, so chosen by God for this new life of love,
dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you.
Compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline.
Be even-tempered.
Hi, Jasmine.
Did you get kicked out?
Oh, you're muted.
You're muted.
Was she not talking, the person you are?
I was with someone, and then she disappeared.
OK, let me put you.
I see someone sitting by themselves.
I wonder if her person left, too.
Go ahead.
Yeah, there you go.
I'm just waiting.
OK, cool.
I'm going to go back to where it said, be even-tempered,
content with second place, quick to forgive an offense.
Forgive as quickly and completely
as the master forgave you.
And regardless of what else you put on, wear love.
It's your basic, all-purpose garment.
Never be without it.
Y'all, I'm sensing God really highlighting.
Did you catch that part of the scripture where it said,
content with second place?
I don't know about you all, but I'm super competitive.
My husband and I joke about it all the time
because he's competitive, too.
And so when we play games, it's so funny.
But what I heard the Lord say is that some of you,
excuse me, y'all.
I don't know.
I have a little sore throat tonight, so I apologize.
But some of us, when we see God get the blessing,
or someone else received the blessing,
we automatically feel like we're in second place,
and that's a bad thing.
That's where the enemy tries to bring that comparison in
and get us stuck in those places.
But God is saying, hey, I want you,
not because He's not going to allow us to be first.
He's not saying, I'm never going to allow you to be first.
But what He's saying is, will we be even-tempered?
Will we be content if He blesses us
after He blesses someone else?
Will we be willing to partner with the truth
that God wants to bless all of us
and He's not withholding from us just
because we see someone else step into the fullness
and the blessing in whatever area that is in their life?
I want you to be thinking about that
and just be thankful for what God is doing in your life.
If we part-
With gratitude and thanksgiving, it's very common that the enemy cannot, he can't have dominion,
he cannot rule and reign. Remember, as soon as darkness comes into the, or excuse me, as light,
as soon as light comes into the darkness and the dark areas, the darkness has to flee.
So where do we need God's light to come and shine in us tonight? 1 John 1 9 says,
if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. Anything that does not belong to God, that does not belong to his
plan in our life, that he's willing to remove all of that so that we can step further into what he
has for us. How many times are we waiting and waiting and waiting, but we're not partnering
with God in the process? You know, what's that step that God wants you to take tonight in the
heart work? What's that step that God wants you to take regarding forgiving someone? What's that
step where God wants you to come out of that comparison or come out of isolation? Turning
our cameras on, you know, these little steps, they all create momentum. I love, I love to talk about
like in a pool when you're in a pool and you start going in a circle on the edge of that pool,
especially if it's a round pool, this is the ones that it works with the best. And you just start
going, have you ever done that with kids? And you start, or even when you were a kid and you start
that kind of whirlpool effect. Well, if, if you keep doing that, it actually eventually will start
pulling other people into kind of that flow of the water. And that is what can happen in your
life as you continue to step with God and you follow him in the motion and the way that he's
leading you. It's going to create this flow in the spirit realm that is going to have an effect
in the physical realm as well. Romans 8 28 in the Passion Translation says this. So we are convinced
that every detail of our lives is continually woven together to fit into God's perfect plan
of bringing good into our lives. For we are his lovers who have been called to fulfill
his designed purpose. Amen. Welcome back. Welcome back. Love it. Okay. I'm going to go over the
activation for this week right before we start doing group shares. And I'm going to go as quick
as I can. If you are new, we call this our Never Will I Ever activation. This is something where
I really want you to pray and ask the Lord to highlight to you, do you have Never Will I Evers
on your list? These, these, um, you know, this list that you've made that like, if the guy doesn't have
this, and if he doesn't have that, if he doesn't have this, if he's not like this, that he literally
will not like, you won't even consider him. Okay. I'm going to talk about a couple. Never will I ever
date a man who's been divorced because fill in the blank. Never will I ever date someone who has
kids because fill in the blank. Okay. So that's how you want to do it. I'm going to give you some
other examples. Yours might be totally different, but I want you to be praying about this and talking
to the Lord about this. And then I want you to create a post in the group that shows us your list.
Now, ladies, let me say this too. You don't need to say never will I ever date an addict. Okay.
Even if that is one of yours, we don't want you to date an addict, any of you. Okay. So you don't
have to, that's not one you have to put on your list. I'm going to, we're going to assume that's
a given. Okay. A lot of times people will put things on this list because of their own pain
and their own expectations and preferences, but some of them genuinely come from trauma or lies
they believe. Okay. Here's some more. Never will I ever date a man who doesn't have any money.
Well, of course we want you to be with someone who's financially responsible, but we want you
to also have a healthy perspective. For example, I don't think Brian would care if I told the story,
but he had, when I met him, he has several degrees, you all, and you all can guess how
expensive that was for him to go to school. So his school loans, pretty significant. When I met him,
I could have been like, wait, whoa, scared and run the other way. Or I could just believe for
supernatural provision to pay those debts off. It was my choice, but I didn't feel like because he
had school debt that put him in a category that I would not consider him. But that happens because
some of you have been through a lot of financial trauma. And so you are terrified of anyone that
is in any kind of rough situation. Keep in mind that people, if they go to court to fight for
their kids, I'm just going to say this. This happens to men. It happens to women too, but
it happens to men a lot.
To go to court and fight for their kids is very expensive to just get time with them.
And some of you all are going to meet men where their wives, I'm not saying this is you all, okay,
but some of them have ex-wives that were very mean to them and did everything they could to try to remove them from the kids' lives.
I'm married to someone that went through that.
It's devastating.
It did terrible things to him and his daughters, and he had a lot of debt before he met me,
but he had been working on it before he met me.
He already had a plan. He was already paying on it consistently.
Do you see where you want to get the full picture?
So if I had just been like, I'm not dating someone who has any debt.
I'm not dating a guy that's been in any financial struggle.
Well, God was rebuilding his life just like he was rebuilding mine, and that included our finances.
We are way, we are doing way, way, and we weren't doing bad.
We were both coming out of that stuff, but praise the Lord that we didn't count each other out because of some of those things.
Because God's been doing an awesome work.
Hopefully yours isn't someone, never will I ever date someone I'm not sexually like magnetic attracted to.
Yes, we want you to enjoy your spouse, you all. We do.
Intimately once you're married, not before preferably.
But here's the thing, if you are just looking for that sexual charge, guess what is actually causing that?
It's called lust.
That's what's creating that in people.
But a slow burn is what we would rather you develop with someone.
Never will I ever date someone that's a pastor or someone in ministry.
Never will I ever date someone that's been in or is in the military, police officers, firefighters, whatever that is for you.
Never will I ever date someone with the name John.
I always use the name John.
Maybe you dated a John, maybe this applies to you.
Andrea was telling ladies, very quickly, part of my redemption story is that my main abuser's name was Brian.
And then God sent me Brian.
You all, and I did say to the Lord, like, couldn't you have picked someone with any other name?
Like, why did you send me someone with the name Brian?
I literally, I literally had that conversation with the Lord.
And this is what the Lord said to me.
Because I want to redeem that name for you.
Okay?
So I'm just planting that seed.
You all have to choose what you're going to do.
But that was something that God did for me.
Never will I ever date a man that is a certain age because your ex was a certain age.
You know, again, these are all just getting you started.
Some of you are going to have a lot of different things on your list.
This is, again, pray and ask the Lord.
Then come into the All Community group in the app and create a post and tell us what your list is.
Okay?
All right.
So, who is willing to share with the whole group what you shared in your breakouts about
when was a time that someone broke a promise they made to you and how is that still affecting you today?
And preferably if you shared in the afternoon session.
I want to wait to see if some other ladies raised their hands tonight.
Are you all quiet tonight?
Amanda thinks I'm funny.
I love your smile, Amanda.
I do.
And I love your laugh.
I don't even hear it, but I just love it because I can feel it when you laugh.
I love it.
Mandy, go ahead.
Okay.
We're sharing the never have I ever, correct?
Right now, I would like you to share.
It's okay.
Totally fine.
Sharing about when was a time someone broke a promise they made to you and how is that
still affecting you today?
Oh.
Well, this one was more just towards myself, actually.
So, maybe somebody else should go.
Well, you can go ahead and share that, truly.
I guess mine would be more – it's not like I broke a promise, but I think a lot of my
choices that I made was towards myself.
Like, I knew God didn't do anything, but I knew I made bad choices, if that made sense.
It does.
Yeah.
So, just a lot of my, like, you know, my eight years of – thank you – my eight years
of celibacy and six years of drug and alcohol free and stuff have just been like, that's
been the Lord.
But everything before that, all my choices were just, I don't know, just foolish mistakes.
So, I guess more of mine is towards myself, yeah.
And this is very real.
So, I –
I don't want you to minimize what you're sharing, Mandy,
because there's a lot of people, men and women alike,
who, myself included in the past,
when I looked at the mistakes I made
and the times I broke a promise to myself,
a lot of times we struggle to forgive ourselves
more than we do even, like, it's hard to forgive
other people, but most of us really,
we forgive ourselves last.
Yeah, yeah.
And so sometimes we're still carrying layers of that shame
and the broken promise to ourself
and really having to recenter ourselves
and allow our values to kind of come back to the center,
okay, saying like, okay, this is something I value,
and this time, as I go forward,
I'm not gonna push my values down or to the side
just to be, you know, just to be in a relationship
or just to get the thing, whatever that thing is
that we want or think we need, right?
Yeah.
I love that, Sharon, you know,
and this is why it's important, ladies,
to not minimize what God is putting on your heart
and your spirit, because everybody needs, like,
something different when we're in this space,
and so even though those are things from her past,
like, I'm gonna say, you know, Mandy, to you
or to anyone else, you know, when these things
come back up in these sessions,
there's probably another layer that God's wanting
to help you forgive yourself for breaking a promise
so that, you know, he can continue to restore
and rebuild those broken and fallen places
in any of our hearts and lives,
but for you tonight and in the days ahead as well.
Awesome, Sharon.
Leslie, go ahead.
You're muted.
Okay.
Hi.
Hey.
Well, I wasn't gonna share again
because I shared last week,
but nobody had their hand raised,
so I thought, okay, I'll share.
So my broken promise would have been with God,
feeling like God broke his promise to me.
My first marriage was difficult right from the beginning,
and when my oldest was young,
I was at a prayer, spiritual meeting,
and I said, okay, God, all I wanna hear
is what to do with this marriage,
and I felt like God said to me,
I'm going to heal your marriage,
and that never happened.
There was just a lot of verbal abuse going on,
and so after four kids, I left him,
and I thought, you know what?
I can't hear God's voice.
I'm not, I really, you know,
it didn't make me walk away from God.
It made me shut down hearing his voice,
and I didn't trust anymore, you know,
like myself, or I felt like, you know,
what happened, you know,
and what I've learned since then
is that God's word to me
just got fulfilled in a different way,
kind of like when you're praying for healing
and someone dies kind of thing.
He actually, we have a really good relationship.
He lives right next door to me.
He's sick, and I help him,
and he is definitely helpful to me,
so I feel like God restored it just in a different way
than what I imagined, you know,
so that was my, you know, broken promise,
what felt like a broken promise, yeah.
Yeah, and I wanna say, too, I love that.
I love the reconciliation that's happened in that dynamic,
but what I also wanna add to this, Leslie,
is that it doesn't mean that God wasn't trying to work
to restore your marriage,
but it always takes two people, right,
two people surrendering, two people being willing,
and, you know, maybe back then your ex wasn't willing,
you know, or there were things that maybe even,
that God was trying to do in you
that maybe you just weren't in the space
to fully receive it, you know?
It's that sometimes, again,
it's like an all or nothing for us, right?
We think because God didn't do it in the way,
kind of like the example I was even giving,
because God wasn't leading that guy to marry me,
I believe that God didn't care
and that he was not fulfilling his promise to me,
but the reality is now you heard something,
and again, I wanna just clarify,
I think you heard well,
and I think it's good that you fought for your marriage,
but know that we also receive things from the Lord
through that filter and lens earlier,
do you remember I was talking about that filter?
Sometimes God is.
saying stuff to us, and by the time we're hearing it,
it's going through this lens.
So if we grow up being a fixer,
where we feel responsible for people in situations,
and again, I think God's heart is always for,
you know, marriage to be restored, marriage to be saved.
So of course, how beautiful that you heard from God
that he wanted to heal your marriage.
I think you heard well.
I think God's heart was to heal your marriage.
Yes.
Okay.
I do believe that, yeah.
Yeah, and so I just, I feel the Holy Spirit too,
even saying this to you.
I think God wants to restore, you know,
your trust in your ability to hear him,
because I think you heard him really well.
And while that didn't work out
the way that you had hoped and prayed for,
again, it doesn't mean that God wasn't working all along
to try to bring it to that place,
but then there comes a point, you know,
Jackie talks about this, where it's like, okay,
now it's a rescue mission,
because, you know, it's turning down a toxic path
and God's gonna protect, you know, protect us,
and he's gonna look out for us.
And so I would encourage you again,
even though, yes, you see the beauty in what's happened now,
I want you to really ask the Lord to go back
and show you the beauty all along.
Like, what was he doing?
And that's sometimes what I'll ask God,
can you just show me where you were at that time,
like what you were doing?
And sometimes he shows me things right away,
and sometimes it's years later that I get that revelation.
But it's still, I think, a beautiful prayer
to ask God to show us those things.
Even when we couldn't recognize him working,
how was he working?
Will you show me where you were?
Will you show me how you were trying to restore,
you know, my marriage?
Because I believe you when you tell me, you know, things.
And so just kind of repairing that connection
between you and God in that process as well.
Does that make sense?
Yep, I was gonna, if it's okay to still share, okay.
My 30, almost 30-year-old son was talking to me today,
and he's not been married.
He's not, you know, he's just coming out of the Navy.
And he was talking about the damage of two people
that don't make it in marriage.
And he was saying, you know, what's the covenant?
And, you know, basically kind of like you stay regardless.
And so we had a really good talk about that.
And he said, you know, it screwed me up
because now I'm 30 and I'm not married.
And I'm like, come into the heart, come on.
And he goes, oh yeah.
That's right, get your son in here.
Right, because I had sent him information on it.
And he goes, oh right, I do need to go into that program.
I'm so excited for him.
That's awesome.
And see, this is the thing,
you're having God's hope is really working
in your heart and your life.
And now you're able to basically pour into your son
and encourage him.
And what a real conversation, you know,
that you guys could have.
And hopefully, you know, where you didn't feel like guilt
or anything because of it.
And if you did, I really wanna encourage you
to take that to the Lord because, you know,
we can't change what's happened in the past.
We can't.
Right, right.
We can't go back.
All we can do is go forward and really be vulnerable
and transparent as much as possible.
Obviously age, you know, dependent on our kids' ages,
but it sounds like he's older.
And so I love that you guys had that conversation.
And I believe you guys are gonna have more conversations
where you can really show them what you've learned
and things that God has taught you
through the healing for sure.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
It made me wanna do better, you know,
with my own, you know, pursuing, you know,
and the stuff that you guys are teaching me, yeah.
I love it.
Thank you for sharing, Leslie.
I see Roseanne put something in the chat here.
I've already shared about a promise that was broken
in a previous session.
I have a question about something Jackie shared on Saturday.
And I've heard you say something similar.
It has to do with time we were waiting on God
as far as meeting someone,
if you could talk more about that.
So it's your question that we're saying,
well, let me say this.
I'm not saying we're not ever called to wait.
And I think that's important.
That's my perspective.
I think, for example, when I broke up with the girl's dad,
my context, now hear this through my context
because everybody's situation is different.
Y'all, from a young age, I had had boyfriend
after boyfriend, after boyfriend.
I got married, broke that.
When that fell apart, I didn't break that up.
When that fell apart because of things he was doing
and it was just not repairable,
I quickly went into dating someone else.
I did not give myself time to heal.
And then I broke things off with that guy
and went-
right into the relationship with the girl's dad
and did not give myself time to heal.
That was not smart.
That was not smart of me to do that, okay?
And so when I broke things off with their dad,
I really just felt this, like, I just need a break.
I need to figure this out.
I need to like figure out
why I keep attracting unhealthy people.
I'm the main character in the story here.
And, you know, I'm the same person
that's in all of these, you know, scenarios.
And so I really just felt led to wait a year,
to not date anybody for a year,
to not even talk or think about it.
And that was kind of where I started.
And that was just between me and the Lord.
And I'll tell you what,
when it came to where that year was ending,
I was like, I'm not ready to date yet.
Like I'm actually enjoying,
like I had never even learned as a kid
because of the sexual abuse I went through
and the abuse in my home, I didn't even know who I was.
I didn't.
And I was enjoying just getting to know myself,
like discovering who I was,
really like feeling the things I enjoyed
and not giving that up for someone else
because I often would get into relationship
and just like conform to everything they were doing.
And I didn't even know why I was doing that
because I actually really loved who I was.
And so I don't know exactly how long,
I wanna say it ended up being almost two years
by the time I started dating again.
Now, that is different for me
because I had never had a time of period
of like getting to know myself, of being single really.
And that's why I feel like God led me into that season
of just breathing, not waiting and doing nothing though.
That whole time I was healing, I was growing,
I was working out,
I was taking trips to go visit people.
I was definitely taking active steps in that whole time.
I think the thing is where when we communicate
as a community and the things that Jackie is talking about
is the way the church has kind of made it sound,
and I'm not saying every church, but in some messages,
it makes it sound like you're just sitting there
waiting for God to drop this blessing into your life.
You're Boaz.
You're just waiting for Boaz.
You know, that was literally, I can't tell you years ago,
everywhere you turn, that's all you would hear,
waiting for Boaz, waiting for Boaz.
Well, guess what?
Y'all, Ruth was in the fields working.
She wasn't sitting around just waiting for Boaz
to come into her life.
She was out doing stuff.
And so we don't want people to just sit
and wait and be idle.
We want you to be growing and working on who you are
and getting out and meeting people and practicing
and all of those things.
And so I don't know if that brings clarity for you, Roseanne,
but I think-
Yes, it does.
Yeah, I think it's just the key
is that we don't want somebody to park themselves forever,
like just waiting year after year after year.
Now, if I had just, after I got to a certain point,
and like, oh, I'm just better off single,
I'm just gonna stay here,
or believe because somebody told me
that you just need to wait
until God sends you the person now.
If I had believed those things,
I think I would have continued to just not pursue dating.
Does that make sense?
Yes. Yeah.
It does.
Very good question.
Thank you.
Yeah, you're welcome.
All right, I think Joy has her hand raised.
Joy, go ahead.
I know that you shared this afternoon,
so are you sharing the same thing tonight,
or do you have something different to share tonight?
Different, different.
Okay, go ahead.
Okay, actually, I have a question too,
so maybe share first.
It's about my, I've been here struggling my self-trust.
You know, I, sometimes I set goals,
I want to do something,
and even tell somebody I would do it,
but then I did not fulfill.
It's kind of, sometimes, over and over,
I discredit myself.
I kind of lost, I lose my self-trust,
my self, my ability to accomplish things sometimes,
so I was struggling,
and sometimes, because my emotions stay,
you know, I recognize that the past delay
is something contribute,
because one of the reason, the root cause,
is because my emotion,
it really did not have desire to do it.
did not have the confidence and the strength to do it. So I postponed again and again.
So that, you know, I discouraged myself and lost my self-trust. That's why I've been years
there with the self-distrust and the self-doubt. But then now, the past year and this year, I think
I'm more and more aware of that. I try to apply, wash my mind with the truth.
So yeah, that's the one thing I want to share and also have a couple questions, short questions.
Okay, very good. So some of the things I was writing down, Joy, just as you were talking,
is so often, ladies, our awareness will grow first about something, okay? God's going to
open our eyes. He's going to lift the veil of deception. He's going to bring awareness to
something. And so often, our awareness will grow first, and then what we have to do is we have to
start taking action and steps to partner with the now new awareness, okay? And so some of what Joy
is talking about is sometimes there are things she's saying she wants to do them, but then she
doesn't do them. And I think I heard you say that sometimes you don't have the strength to do it,
if I'm not mistaken, you said that. Sometimes, yeah. Emotion, they say it's a lack of desire to
do it, motivation, the strength, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what a lot of times we don't realize
is the motivation, the strength, the, you know, just that desire to do something
isn't always going to be there. Yeah, exactly. It's not. We actually have to. It's like when you
guys were in the breakout session, I was talking about when we're in a pool of water, if you're in
a circular pool, if you start going, you know, in a circle around the edges of that, it's going to
start to cause the water to literally flow. And before long, if you do it long enough, it'll
start to carry you and you won't have to walk and then it'll start to die down. But there is this,
there's this thing about momentum. Well, momentum happens when we are moving. And so I would
encourage you or anyone else, like, if we are struggling with a desire to do something,
well, is there an area we're really struggling with depression or oppression? Is it just that
we are good at breaking our word to ourselves? Because that's a habit that we learned for some
one reason or another. And because of that, now we are struggling to actually take action and
do things. So if that was me, so I'm going to give this to all of you, but if that was me,
one of the things that I used to do, I literally wrote on a piece of paper, this isn't exactly
what Joy is saying, but I wrote on a piece of paper, I, Bethany, my last name was Stanko at the
time, I, Bethany Stanko, am not going to break my values to myself anymore. And I hung it up
somewhere where I saw it every day. And when I saw it, I would read it out loud over myself.
And it was reminding me that no matter when I would meet men in the future, I was not going to
allow them to go past my values. I was not going to break my values for them anymore. And so Joy,
or anyone else that struggles with, you're saying you want to do something, but you're not doing it.
It actually goes back to identity issues, insecurity issues. Do you actually think you
can do it? Do you believe that you can finish it? Do you believe whether it's this course
or something else? And at the core, if we don't really believe we can accomplish that thing,
guess what? We're not going to do it. God was really talking to me about this regarding my
books that he has led me. I have several ideas I wanted to write. But every time I would go to
write, something would either distract me, or I would start to feel intimidation. And like,
I don't even know if what I have to say matters, all this stuff. Well, I was doing some work,
and I still need to keep working through it because it was so good on inner core, like
identity, like how I see myself, what do I believe? And y'all, I'm a pretty confident person.
I've healed a ton. But for whatever reason, when I would try to work on these books,
I had insecurity surfacing, and I needed to look at that. And the insecurity was creating
procrastination. And so one of the things that I did was I wrote all the reasons why I would be
great at writing a book and why I could, I believe I can have a bestseller. And like, not just name
it, claim it, but genuinely, what do I believe about myself? And it took me a little bit to
write that.
list. But I want to encourage you all to do this. If there's an area that you're struggling,
ask the Lord to help you form a list of why, like, why are you able to do it?
What, why does it matter for you to do it? So for example, if it's this heartwork course,
I am a finisher and I can finish this course. I'm going to finish this course because as I do,
I'm going to heal and be stronger and be able to step into the promises and the plans God has for
me. You might want to get a little more detailed as you're doing it, but I'm just trying to get
you all started somewhere. So joy, we have to take belief and partner it with actions. Faith
without works is dead, right? And so it's one thing, it's amazing for us to have a lot of faith,
but we've got to take the steps. And so to me, kind of where I started is that I want you to ask
the Lord, is do you actually believe the lie that you are not capable of finishing?
Because if you believe that lie, you will never start.
You'll keep saying you're going to do it and then not do it because you actually believe the lie
that you cannot do it. You're not equipped to do it. You don't, like you even said it,
you don't have the strength to do it. I think that's a lie from the enemy. And I'm not saying
you don't feel weak sometimes. I think that's very common. You know, I get really tired and I'm like,
I have no energy left to write the book. Hey y'all, this is real. We face this stuff, right?
But if I keep telling myself that, guess what's going to happen? Y'all want to guess? I'm going
to be tired all the time. And I'm going to always feel like I can't do it because I'm tired.
Now I might feel tired, but I need to start planning that time into my schedule because
my book matters. What I have to say in the world matters. Not because I'm being prideful,
but I genuinely believe that more than I ever have. So I hope that encourages some of you.
You might not feel led to write a book, but maybe you feel led to do something else.
And you've been praying around that thing and you've been avoiding it, but God keeps nudging
you to go do it. Maybe it's regarding this spirit mate relationship. God's trying to encourage you
to keep investing in your healing, keep investing in your growth so that he can lead you into that.
But you still are listening to the dialogue that it's not possible for you. That's awesome.
This is very, very great advice. I would follow through. I think I will overcome because you
already pointed out the root cause. Do I really believe a lot that I was not able to finish it
because I did abortion before. So abortive spirit has been annihilated. So yeah, I am a finisher.
So I have to continue to say the truth. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me
because I have God inside of me. So he can enable me, empower me to do it. Even sometimes people
type, I would say, I'm not, I'm getting strength from the Lord. I'm able, I have the, like King
David encouraged myself over and over again. If I finish this, I can picture the result and
visualize the end result. It really will motivate me, inspire me to take like a tiny step. I learned
from a man named Winston Chow, he says, even something you don't feel like doing, just do
tiny, tiny, what's smaller. Just do it. Just like the pinpoint, boom. Then you always, you know.
So this is very helpful. And a lot of things that, you know, sometimes because of healing,
I have to reflect back over and over again. Sometimes I'm just thinking in my mind. And
even my friend told me, and she said, why you continue to say you need healing and the back,
whatever. He said, you already healed. Come on, just in your head. Just go to get a job. You know,
the previous job I mentioned to you and that the nanny job, her mom came. So her mom taking the
baby. So I'm free from that job now. So you just go to look for a job. You don't, don't, don't
believe the lie. Don't partner with a lie. You are healed. You do not need healing anymore. So
I don't know. Let me, let me, let me redirect you for a second. Cause you said something really
important and I want to make sure we don't miss this. I don't know if I heard you right. And I
don't know if I heard this part of your story before. Did you say that you have had an abortion
in the past? Yes. Okay. I want to, I want to put
pull this out of what you said tonight, because I think this
is really important.
Can I say one more thing?
Just one second. Just one second. Just hold that for a
second. Ladies, what can happen is when we make a choice that
we're ashamed of. Okay. It can literally cause shutdown in
other areas of our life where we we struggle, we might be able to
start but we don't finish. And so she pulled something out
that's really important there. And I really want to encourage
you joy to lean into that a little bit because you've been
in this community quite a while and I've never heard that part
of your story. So I feel like it's really important that that
came out tonight. And I just want you to know that you are
loved 100%. And that God wants to come in and heal that part
where you didn't see that through and he wants to redeem
that part of your timeline. And so I really want to encourage
you to partner with that. I know that you had something
else you wanted to say, but I do want to make sure we get to
Chrissy as well. If you can come into the group and and write
whatever else additional you wanted to share. I would love
to hear what you have to say. But just for time sake, I do
need to go Chrissy. Okay. Okay, sure. Right. Thank you so much
for sharing. Chrissy, go ahead.
Okay, can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. So several things you
answered while you were talking to her. But when we started the
activation, I started answering the wrong question, or not the
wrong question, but a different question. So that's what I
talked about in the class or in the break. Whatever that thing
is. But I started thinking about that. And I think kind of like
she was just talking about, I think it's myself. I think I
betrayed me.
Okay. How?
I think it's like self sabotage. And I think it's like, you know,
I think it's like self sabotage. And I started thinking about
that because, like Wednesday, this coming Wednesday, there's a
job fair that I've had written down on my calendar for like, I
don't know, a couple months now. And I was excited to go because
I currently hate my job and I need a new job and I just need
to do something different. But this week rolls around today is
Monday. And I was like, Oh, do I really need to go? Do I think
that I'm going to get a job there? I'm just gonna have to
drive all the way there. I started making all of these like
excuses. And I wrote it down. I was like, No, we're not going to
take any excuses. You already took the time off from work. We
have to go. But I could feel it like, No, I don't want to do
this. And then it just means I'm stuck. I'm stuck where I am.
Again, I come back and I'm going to go to work and I hate this
job. And I don't like being at home. And I know I like being
home. Let me take that back. But, um, but I need something
new. I cannot continue in this cycle. I will drive myself into
the ground and I will drive myself crazy if I have to do
this again.
So do I hear you saying that you really would love a job where
you are out with people, whether it's out at a building or a
location or you're having to go out and even if you work for
your, you know, from home, you still have to go out and
interact more. Is that what I hear you saying?
Um, yes, I like being home because I get my things done.
And then my weekends are my weekends and I don't have to
worry about anything.
Okay, have you actually written down what job you want from the
Lord? Like what job you want him to help you get? No, I want to
encourage you to do that. I think part of the problem is
similar to joy. But I think there's different aspects here
for you as well. I think that part of it is that what I heard
like in the in my even going to get a job if I go so underlying
in that it's like, yes, self sabotage, but under that is like
a protecting yourself from potential rejection, a fear that
you're gonna go and nothing's going to change. Okay. But I
think where you need to shift is like to create a dream board.
Okay, a little bit. It can be on an eight and a half piece of
paper, Chrissy, okay, it doesn't have to be a whole big
vision board. If you want to do more you can but somebody asked
me to do this years ago and it really changed things for me. A
coach I was working with she said, make a board
pictures, words, phrases of the kind of job you hope to have.
Like, how do you like, how do you want to impact the world
through it? Like all those different aspects. And I did
that and I hung it up in my room. And I prayed into that all
the time. And even on that board, I'll have to maybe I'll
take a picture and share it in the group, you guys can see it.
But there was a lot of different things in there about ministry.
I knew God called me into the ministry, I was working in a
wealth and wealth interest management company, I was very
good at what I was doing. But I felt this tension all the time.
And there was just I wanted more of what God had for me. And so
what was interesting, is on this board, there were two planes,
and one plane was lower than the other. And there was a woman
standing and she had a foot on each plane. And I think about
this all the time. Because when I met Jackie, I was already
working full time and working in the church, I was already kind
of that woman standing in on top of two planes, if you will. And
then God brought Jackie into the mix. And then even with that
transition, I had to, I chose to I didn't have to see how even I
catch myself you all, I chose to step down from working for the
church, and go further into stuff with last year single, but
even in that process, God changed, he led me out, he
literally closed the door with my full time job. And so in that
timeframe, I basically became kind of a freelance, I started
doing social media ads and work for people in small businesses.
And I was just like piecing together that salary I used to
make. And I was kind of like, you know, in that place. But
then eventually God, like really caused things to settle.
And it, it literally things I have on that board without
knowing it have now manifested in my life. And it wasn't I
didn't become obsessive about it. But I leaned into what do I
really want? What do I want my life to look like? I wanted to
feel excited. I wanted to make an impact. I wanted to disciple
people and raise people up and develop them. Y'all I'm coaching
other coaches here in this community. I raise up leaders in
the church, like, you know, it's knowing who we are and what we
want. That's the core thing we need to do. And so I want to
encourage you to dream a little bit to not just get by, not just
a job to get by, but like, live in your best life. What's the
passion in you? What do you really want? And again, maybe
there's going to be steps that like, just like I said, I shared
that with you for purpose. It wasn't like boom, heartwork
coach working full time for last year single. No, there was stuff
in the transition that got me to where I am now. Right. And so I
believe God has something really fun for you something that's
going to cause you just to come alive and know yourself in ways
that you didn't even know yourself before. But part of
that is going to be allowing yourself to awaken, awake,
sleeper and rise up from the dead, right? And Christ will
shine on you. And I believe that God will bless that and give you
favor as you go now still, I think still go to that job fair,
because I think it's walking it out, believing by faith, you
never know, you may meet someone there, where maybe you'll work
for them, or maybe they'll open the door to you to someone else
that they know, with a different job. Let's go with expectation.
Let's go with faith. And even if those things don't happen, just
knowing that you're moving and trusting God, you're taking
steps towards what you believe he's he has for you. And that is
good.
I, when you said, we were saying, we're talking about the
dream board. But at the very end there, you said one particular
thing. And the question that everybody asked me, what is it
that you want? What is it that you're good at? What? What makes
you come alive? Yeah, I started answering that question. And I
realized, what I love to do is to teach people. And I don't
know, but I've never wanted to be like a school teacher.
Okay, so what kind of things do you like to teach? Let's let's
just talk about this for a second. What do you love to
teach?
The one thing I don't want to tell out loud. Oh, are you? Are
you afraid to say it out loud? I am a little bit. Yes. Why? Tell
me why?
Probably because I grew up in it. I, I love to teach people
about Jesus, because he is the love of my life. I wish
everybody knew.
So are you afraid that God's going to call you into
you say it out loud? Okay, I feel the Holy Spirit, Chrissy,
God wants to heal the pain of the past regarding ministry for
you. That you know, the way whatever it is you, you
experience that you're afraid you're going to experience if
you go into this, that God wants to show you that you can have a
different path than what you experienced.
Y'all this is where remember hurt and community healed and
community hurt. I'm just going to say it hurt and ministry
healed and ministry. It doesn't mean you can't be healed in
other ways. Of course you can. But I genuinely believe that God
is leading you tonight in this. And he doesn't want you to be
afraid. Remember, fear is false evidence appearing real. So the
enemy is trying to inflate your fears and cause you to avoid
something. I mean, as soon as you started talking, raise your
hand everybody. If you started feeling her excitement and her
passion rise up as she started talking about teaching people
about Jesus, anyone else recognize that in her? I sure
did. You were like, you're like, I love to tell people about
Jesus. Like you just started coming alive, Chrissy. And so I
believe God just wants to remove all the barriers tonight for you.
This is just the beginning. It doesn't have to happen all
tonight. You can you you admitting that out loud to us.
Thank you for letting me take you there is step number one.
This is huge. And God can take you on a really exciting
adventure. There's so many good churches that are looking for
amazing people. I promise you that. I promise. You know, and
maybe that's not the route God has for you. Maybe it's
something else. Maybe it's a nonprofit. You know, um, I would
encourage you I know you're in Florida, I would encourage you
to look at LifeWise Academy. LifeWise Academy, our church is
partnering with them. And we have children that come over
from a church, or excuse me from the elementary school to our
church. And we are teaching them Bible, and they get credits for
that in the school. And there's people that work for LifeWise as
well. Okay, so we have volunteers, and then there's
people that work for them. And so not that that will be what
will work, but I would check into that. And there's all kinds
of teaching gifts and all kinds of things you could use with
their organization. There's tons of ways that you could use your
teaching gift to tell people about Jesus. Okay. It can look
it can look, you know, so different than what you have
experienced in the past. And again, I think God wants to
restore and heal that. So I'm going to be praying for you.
We're going to pray for you. Right, sisters, and believe in
God to really bring some some good things in the days ahead
in that.
I can say one more thing. So recently, in these, like past
two weeks, I think I felt the call to like, learn more, I want
to learn. And when I thought about what I want to learn, it
was actually I think it was after Supernatural Saturday
where Jackie said, listen to those nudges when you say what
if, and I woke up in the middle of night, and I thought, what if
I was learning about this stuff? And I love archaeology. And I
love putting it together with God's Word and saying, Oh, here,
this is where God said that, like Ancient Aliens is one of my
favorite shows is weird, but I like it.
And you know, God needs all different people in the body,
the body has many parts, but if every part is needed, Chrissy.
And so okay, I don't want to go to seminary. Well, you don't
have to. You know that, right? There's all different kinds.
Okay, you and I probably need to connect offline too, because my
husband's getting he's getting ready to start teaching classes
for people that may never want to go to a college or a
university but would like to follow a path in ministry. And I
can get you connected because there's different people that do
that in different places too. So in addition to my husband, but I
can get you connected to that. And again, that might not be the
outlet or the direction you go, but it might help you learn more
and know where to go from there. In addition to that board, I'm
really just thinking you should look into just even if it's just
kind of wetting your palate, if you will just start looking into
some classes of what is again, what is your passion? And then
maybe God will piece together how to get there. Okay.
But let's not just shut down and be like, I don't want to go to cemetery or seven seminary.
I want to go to the cemetery tonight either.
You all, what just happened?
Seminary.
I went to a church service with a rabbi who said that he goes, Oh, don't go to cemetery
because that's where religion, you know, where, where that goes to die.
And I was like, Oh, I wonder if that like spoke something to me that I didn't want.
And I had to like pray out of that.
I don't think I've ever said cemetery instead of seminary.
So maybe that's why that happened.
I don't know.
I'll blame it on that.
Holy spirit got in there and twisted my tongue.
But um, yeah, I think the reality is let's not shut ladies, whatever your thing is, let's
not shut it down because of some fear that you have to do it a certain way and, and really
allow yourself to just dream first without all the reasons of the why's we can't.
And I'm going to do it with you too.
Okay.
I'm going to keep walking into the book thing and you guys can walk into the things God
has for you.
I know that I see Sarah M has her hand up as well.
I know you probably want to share.
I have a few minutes and then I'm going to have to jump off.
So Chrissy, thank you for that.
Sharon, thank you for your courage and letting us come into that with you tonight.
Really appreciate that.
Sarah, go ahead.
Hi, Bethany.
Hi everybody.
Um, I have, um, had some victories, some victories this year, which I'm very thankful
for with, um, the manipulation of that I was experiencing from somebody and, uh, just kind
of like getting out of that, which I'm so thankful for.
But, um, you were talking about church and, um, how leaders can, are, are, you know, they're
flawed.
Obviously we're all flawed, we're, we're humans.
And, um, so, um, the repercussions of that, like I, I didn't explicitly tell the relative
of this person who was manipulating me that I wanted him to butt out, but because he was
very much butting into like our business and trying to manipulate me to get into something
that I didn't feel good about with his brother.
Um, I didn't explicitly say it, you know, but I was trying to show it, you know, with,
you know, nonverbal communication stuff.
But, um, now, um, I kind of, I think the way I handled it, which I didn't realize it was
going to be that way, but I, I ended up, uh, being critical about him and his wife's parenting
about something, which was, I thought was very minor, but at the same time, I'm sure
they took offense and now he hates me.
And he's the one, he's like the head pastor, quote unquote, he's the head pastor.
And, um, so I wanna, it's like, and then I get angry and I'm angry and it's just like
this, you know what I mean?
And it's like, I would, I really just wanted him to butt out, you know, he's trying to,
to do things for his brother, but it's like, let your brother do things for himself.
Let him experience, you know, rejection.
It might, you know, it doesn't feel good, but it's like, we all have to, you know, there's
reasons and, uh, and he just, he was just being so headstrong, this brother pastor.
And um, and now it's like, I feel like he hates me because I was, I, and I, I guess
I could say, you know, I didn't mean to come off as being critical, but, um, I was kind
of doing it.
It turned out to be like a, a, um, a defense mechanism, right?
Cause it's like, the pressure was just on me, on me, on me that he was putting on me
and it just kind of came out that way.
And now I feel like he hates my guts and he totally ignores me.
Like he's totally, you know, pastor, the pastor brother.
And so I'm just like, and we've kind of been stepping on each other's toes, but I've been
trying to, you know, anyway, so it's just been, I don't know too.
I know you were talking about how we're all flawed and leaders, including of churches.
And so I just was wondering if you could give some advice about this because I, like I said,
I'm, I'm, I'm the brother now and I have peace, you know, we're not like for the most part,
but now it's the brother pastor who hates my guts.
Well, okay.
So the first thing I'm going to encourage you to not assume anything.
Okay.
All right.
I'm assuming makes a double S out of this y'all.
Okay.
Here's the thing.
What's happening is you probably feel that tension because you said something kind of
whether it was abrupt or, you know, what, however you said it, I think part of that
for you, Sarah, is because you held back for so long and you didn't say what you really
needed to say on the front end.
And so that tension and you was building, I'm not excusing that, but that's the reality.
I tell you all, all the time, if we hold stuff in and we push it down, push it down, push
it.
Eventually it's going to come out like a volcano.
Okay.
And that's going to look different for everybody.
But I think that's probably what's happened here.
And so he may feel awkward.
He may not know how to approach you.
But you know what?
You don't need to worry about what he's thinking.
Okay.
need to worry about is what is God's not even worry about it,
but focus on what is God saying to you, Sarah? Okay, okay. And
if God leads you to apologize to him, don't excuse your apology,
like, just say you're sorry. Okay, okay. So even though he
was doing wrong, we don't want to react to people. And then now
now we've done it wrong. Does that make sense? We want to
learn how to set healthy boundaries and you were doing
the best. I really do believe this. I think you're probably
doing the best that you could in that moment. But again, because
you held that down for so long, it just came out. Probably not
in the best way. Just what you're sharing. And so I think
praying and really asking God to help you and the pastor
reconcile if that is his plan for the two of you. You may also
be wanting to ask the Lord and again, I'm just planting seeds.
Is that the church that you are supposed to stay in? Yeah. Okay.
Because God may be using this to move you.
Yeah, I just it's like, I just I maybe and that's true. But I
just feel like where because it's like the last church. It
was kind of a similar thing. So I don't know if it's like
something that I'm doing. Okay, so Sarah, this is really good
self awareness. So you remember when I said to you that when I
started seeing or to you all all of you all, when I started on
when I broke up with the girl's dad, I started talking and the
new ladies probably haven't heard this. But I started
talking to account like trying to work with a counselor. And
her question to me was, why do you feel like I you know, like
we would be a good match as far as you working with me as your
counselor. And I said to her, well, I'm the common
denominator in all the relationships that I've been in.
Like I keep attracting unhealthy guys. I'm the common
denominator. I want to figure out what is going on here that's
causing this. So Sarah, you may want to work with a counselor on
this as well, because they're going to be with you in the day
to day, and really process the nuts and bolts of that those two
dynamics. Because if this has happened in more than one
church, there might be something you know, that God's really
trying to reveal to you in the way you approach people, or have
lack of boundaries, and then, you know, have some kind of like,
strong, like where then you come through strong, you know, I mean,
like almost, again, this might not be right, but the word that
comes to mind abrasive, you know, potentially, but because I
wasn't there, I couldn't see, I don't really know how you're
coming across. But I think God's trying to show you that maybe
there is something there. So the best thing would be to ask him,
is there, okay, what's the similarity between these two
situations? You know, did I react very similarly in both of
these churches? Or here's the other thing to consider. Do you
tend to pick churches where the leadership is unhealthy? I don't
know if this guy's unhealthy. I'm just planting seeds for you
to ask the Lord about, okay. Right. Okay. Because just like
we can choose relationships that are unhealthy, you all we can
absolutely choose community that is unhealthy jobs that are
unhealthy. And, you know, church communities that are unhealthy.
If we're not, if we're not healthy, we might be
gravitating towards those things in multiple areas of our life.
And so it's just something worth considering and praying into.
Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, you're welcome. Y'all.
This has been a great night, Sarah, thank you for sharing
that. That takes courage to share too. And I'm so proud of
you for saying like, hey, well, I'm noticing this pattern with
what if it is me? Okay, so that's a really brave thing to
say and do. So we're gonna be praying for you about that, too.
I'm gonna go ahead and close us down for the night. Father,
thank you so much for who you are. God, I thank you for
everything that's been accomplished in your spirit
tonight as well as in the days to come. I pray that you would
just continue to place a hedge of protection around every one
of the ladies that's in the heart work right now and their
families God that you would guard and keep watch over them
and all of their possessions as well. God, I ask you to give
them favor everywhere they go God that you would awaken dreams
within them. God that you would quicken passions that you would
heal the areas where they believe the lie of the enemy
that you don't care about them. God, I pray that you would help
them to hear what your voice is saying. Help them to hear how
your heart is crying out to them. Help them to see the
goodness of God all around them, including the birds and how you
take care of the birds and let that be a reminder to them that
you're going to take care of them too. We just believe all
these things and Jesus.
God bless you. Have a good night, everyone.