Welcome to the God's Goodness podcast where our mission is to encourage as well as highlight
God's Goodness and modern-day miracles.
We are your hosts, Josh and Shelly Hankins.
Today we have with us an amazing guest.
Her name is Caitlyn Childs and we met in the most amazing of ways.
This podcast is bringing me to all the coolest people.
And I found her on TikTok and she's actually friends with Shayla Huber, author of 10 Things
I Hate About My Husband.
If you haven't listened to her episode, it's getting great feedback so go back and listen
to that.
But I wanted to read the excerpt from the back of Caitlyn's book because it describes
her to a T and Y reinvent the wheel.
Caitlyn Childs is a wife, mother, author and speaker.
She is a gifted storyteller who makes even the most difficult concepts easy to understand
through the use of analogies and examples.
She is passionate about helping people grow one step closer to God by sharing her own personal
discoveries and lessons learned along her faith journey.
And I was following Caitlyn before I even met Shayla through TikTok and she does just
that.
She does great analogies and ideas and things that God taught her and she gives you a glimpse
into her life and all these aha moments that God teaches her.
So with that, we'll have Caitlyn open us with an opening prayer.
Hey, it's good to be here.
So I just want to come in prayer and ask God that you would minimize all distractions during
this.
You would open the hearts of the listeners and just speak to them exactly what you want
them to hear through this message.
We pray God's blessing over this podcast, over these people who are doing God's work
and we pray that you would just speak to us in all of the ways that you want to.
And Jesus' name.
Amen.
I forgot to mention her book is called Seven Days to a Life of Limitless, How to Ditch the
Rules of Religion and Discover Unrestricted Freedom.
So I absolutely love this book and it's so easy to read and it has its packed with a lot
of good stuff.
So where do you want to start, Caitlyn?
I would just like to give an overview of what the book talks about so that people can know
my story.
So I grew up in church and it was very much so organized religion in the way that it discussed
more of the rules of the Bible than it did the person of Jesus.
And so I got very acquainted with the rules and not so acquainted with the person of who
God is.
And as I went about that, I was perfectly fine with that.
I was perfectly fine with the way things were set up because I was a rule follower by nature.
I didn't feel any need to rebel against that.
I liked having structure and being told what I needed to do.
But then in 2020, that was a whirlwind of a year just in general.
But it really came to a head for me in September of that year because my grandmother passed
away due to dementia-related illness.
And the week of her funeral, my dad was diagnosed with stomach cancer.
And it was a big time wake-up call for all of us.
And my husband happened to be out of town that week.
And I felt completely alone in it.
And I cried out to the only person that I knew to cry out to, which was God.
And I just told him, hey, your Bible says that you're a healer.
Your Bible says that you're a comfort and you're a guide.
And so I need you to comfort me and guide me through this.
And I'm going to ask for healing because you say that you can do that.
And as I pressed in and was praying for my dad, it was like just by default, I was getting
to know Jesus at the same time.
And he was showing me that who he is different than the rules that I had been living by all
of my life.
Yes, those rules are in place for a reason, but there's so much more to him than that.
And I think a lot of times in religion, we just stop there.
We stop at the rules.
We say, this is how you live your life.
And that's it.
And we never press into who he is and what he has for us specifically.
And so he's just over the last four years taken me on that journey.
And it's been a really fun ride.
I love how that incident with your dad's illness led to breaking generational curses
and you leading others along this path.
Like you felt a little alone, but then you're like, just you just kept taking one step forward
each with the Lord.
And then the rest came with you.
Absolutely.
I also find it very interesting the correlation between the strict rule following in churches
and the old Pharisees and Sadducees that actually knew Jesus, right?
And they were so pressed to follow the rules.
They missed God who was right in front of them.
Absolutely.
And I think that's a danger that we fall into when we're focused on as a rule following
rather than focused on who Jesus is.
And then the rules come after.
Yes, absolutely.
Just like a parent would like you take your kids and you show them your love first.
And then you say, because I love you, don't touch the hot stove.
Like it's because I love you that I want to protect you from these things that can harm
you.
It's not follow my rules first and then I'll love you.
And by the way, I just want to put in there that my dad was healed of cancer.
And a few days ago, he just celebrated two years of remission.
Praise God.
Awesome.
That is awesome.
We definitely believe in the miracle of healing in our family.
We've experienced many, many a miracle.
Yes, it's amazing.
And I know that it doesn't happen every time, but it is really cool when you get to see it.
Yeah.
And it happened this time and it is praiseworthy and it is worthy of giving God all the glory.
Glory for it.
It was so good.
So what prompted you to write the book?
I was not looking to write a book.
I had people tell me all my life that I had a gift for writing.
I had a gift for words and that one day I would be an author and I just brushed it off
because that sounded really hard.
And then it was when my son was around the age that it was time for him to go to kindergarten.
I was wrestling with should I homeschool him?
Should I send him to school?
What do I need to do?
What's best for him?
And God just led me to put him in school, even though I didn't want to, because I was
going to stay at home mom and all I had known, all he had known his whole life was being
at home with me.
And so that was a leap of faith.
But God told me it'll be what works best for everybody.
And shortly after, like within the month that I sent him to school, God said, oh, by the
way, with all this free time, you're going to write a book.
I just want you to write down what you've learned so far.
And so I just drafted a structure to put it in and just wrote down everything that I had
learned and it took off pretty quickly.
Now, let me ask you this.
I know when Shayla was writing her book, she took the first steps to get it.
God gave her the title and then the chapters came after.
But then she also had revelation as she was writing it.
Did you also experience the same thing?
I wouldn't say that I had new revelations as I was writing it because my book was more
of recording what I had already learned.
But I did have a similar experience to Shayla.
And it was actually her who she sent me this song and it was just an instrumental piece.
And she said, just listen to this song and let God just take you where he wants to take
you.
And so I did that exercise and I was just listening to the music and just sitting with
God.
And in that moment, he revealed to me the name of the book and I got the artwork in my mind
of what was going to be on the cover and all of that.
And I actually could not find that artwork.
So I had to draw it myself.
Wow.
So the art that's on the cover of the book is actually drawn by me.
And then I had a graphic designer just plug it in to the book and play around with the
fonts.
And so that was a really fun experience.
Hmm.
neat.
So you were basically prompted by God to write this book about your experience after
you leaned into him from the trauma in your family all at once.
Did you feel that you grew closer to God while writing the book?
Was there more of a connection there?
Absolutely.
Because I had to, he did have to teach me things.
He just wasn't teaching me the same kinds of things.
For example, when I was writing the book, getting really frustrated that it wasn't perfect.
That, oh, this word sounds funny.
I don't like that.
And I was getting frustrated with myself because I wanted it to be something that would change
people's lives the way that he had changed mine.
And he said, I didn't ask you to write anything groundbreaking.
I asked you to record what you were learning.
And that just took the pressure off where I didn't have to make it amazing.
It was already amazing because he had taken me from point A to point B.
And he did teach me a lot about rest in the middle of that and just working from a place
of rest where you're not stressed out and burnt out.
You're working because you're staying in tune with him.
And it's just a natural overflow.
Mm-hmm.
Can you share with the audience about the blanket you made?
Because every time I tell somebody about this story, it literally brings tears to my eyes.
I shared it.
It was a four-minute video, and I told people about it on social media.
And it's just, it just shares his love and working through people.
Can you share about that?
Absolutely.
This story, like when you read it, it sounds awesome.
When you're doing it in the moment, you feel crazy.
Yeah, because you don't know the end result.
Yes, and I think that's how God works a lot of the time.
But basically, sometimes just as a hobby, I make t-shirt quilts for people.
If they have a bunch of extra t-shirts and they just want, if they don't want them collecting
dust on a shelf, I'll turn them into a quilt that they can use just when they're laying
around the house.
And so I had done several t-shirt quilts, and I kept some of the scrap fabric because
it was pretty colors.
And I thought, maybe I can use this in another craft project one day.
And I was just sitting with God one day, and he said, I want you to make a quilt for me.
And I want it inspired by the worship song My Redeemer Lives, specifically the line that
says, Who told the ocean you can only come this far?
Ooh, I just got chills saying that.
So I was like, OK, I've got scrap fabric from all of those t-shirt quilts.
I'll just make it look like the ocean kind of meeting the seashore.
And so I did it to where it was like dark blues fading into light blues fading into tan.
And then he said, it needs a pink starfish on it.
And I had never done anything like that.
And so that was a learning curve.
But I was just making this quilt, and he said, you have one month to finish it.
And so it was really neat that as I was making this quilt, it was a pattern that I had never
done before, and I was struggling to figure it out.
And he even walked me through how to sew it together, which kind of blew my mind because
you think about God knowing everything about spiritual stuff.
And you don't think he literally knows everything.
He knows how a sewing machine works.
He knows about geometry and angles and how to sew things together and patterns.
And so he walked me through how to do the whole thing.
And I finished the day before the deadline he gave me.
And he said, put it in your car and just keep it there.
And so I was like, OK.
And I said, God, I don't want to presume who this is for.
I would rather you show me who it's for.
Because the whole time I had been sewing it with the little pink starfish, I was thinking
of a friend who was going through infertility.
And I was like, I wonder if this is for her because she was struggling to conceive.
I wonder if it's like a promise for her.
And then when he gave me this picture in my mind, it was not at all my friend who was
struggling with infertility.
It was this woman who had salt and pepper hair cut short above her ears and dark rimmed
glasses.
And I just thought, I don't know that I've ever seen that woman in my life.
And I don't know how to find her.
And so the next day at church, she was on stage on the worship team.
And I just looked at my sister-in-law and I said, I think that's the quilt lady.
She said, I said, why have I not noticed that she looks like that before?
Like when that picture popped into my head, why did I not think of her?
And she said she normally has long hair.
She just cut it short above her ears like that.
And I was like, oh, wow.
And so although I had seen this woman before in passing, she normally went to first service.
I normally went to second service.
So we were just like passing ships that would smile at each other occasionally.
And she came off of the stage and I went to the lobby to grab her and I said, hey, I think
that I've got something for you.
Do you like the ocean?
And she said, yes, it's my favorite place to be.
And I was like, okay, let me ask God real quick and make sure.
And he said, yes, that's her.
And so I brought her to my car and I pulled out the quilt and she instantly started crying.
And she said, I collect blankets.
This is so special to me.
And I said, I just wanted you to have this reminder that God sees you.
And I said, I think it's even significant that I made this T-shirt out of scraps because
sometimes God can take the scraps of our life and make it into something beautiful.
He can take things that we would normally discard and take them and rearrange them into
something that we would treasure.
And so she just was crying and saying, thank you.
And I asked her what the pink starfish did for her.
And she said, I just had my first granddaughter was just born.
And I think that's representative of her.
So I didn't think anything else of it.
We went our separate ways.
And then I found out later that day that God had asked her to step down from the worship
team and rest.
And so here I am meeting her the second she walks off stage her last time to perform on
the worship team.
And I have a blanket that represents rest, her favorite place that represents rest.
And it's inspired by a worship song.
And to top it off, he gave you a time limit because he knew when her last name was.
Isn't that crazy?
It is just wild to me how he works.
Judging by Shelley's reaction, I was hoping the story got to her yet again.
I am in tears again.
But I think it's his love because he gets to she gets to feel God's love through that
blanket that he thought of her enough to convict you to make that and then you were the willing
vessel to actually take you were obedient.
You did what he said to do.
He helped you through it.
And then you had this gift for her.
And while she was resting, she had a blanket to rest with from God like he is in the details.
Isn't he?
He is.
And I think sometimes we don't notice it because we don't always get to see how it
affects the other person.
So we just think that we're walking through life just casually giving people miracles
that we don't even realize are affecting them in big ways.
Yeah.
And oftentimes I don't think we consider it to be such a big deal in someone's life
because it's not a big deal in ours.
And it's just a blanket.
You make blankets all the time, right?
So to you, the significance of it, even all the parameters that made that blanket that
went into that blanket, the sheer significance might have been a hundredfold for that lady
than it was for you.
Absolutely.
And we might be puzzling.
I don't understand what this is for.
I don't understand how this person's going to receive glory or give glory for this.
I don't understand how you're using this God, but he does.
He knows how he's doing.
He knows exactly what he's doing.
He's playing 3D chess all the time and he knows the end game all the time.
Absolutely.
And it's so cool to watch.
And you talk about hearing about God's voice in your book too.
Yes.
Do you have anything to share about that right now?
I think that a lot of people tend to think that just happened, that I'm just gifted
in that area in some way.
And I just want to let people know that the ability to hear his voice to that extent is
available to everyone.
You just have to seek it out.
And I think the same is true for a lot of the things of God.
You just have to seek it out.
And for me, I'm the type of person who likes to have a lot of guidance.
I like to be told exactly what to do step by step.
I don't like guesswork.
I don't like room for error.
And so I really wanted to seek out his instruction in that way.
And so it took about a year probably when my dad was going through the cancer stuff.
I would put my kids to bed.
My husband would already be in bed because he's like an old man.
And I would sit on the couch and just talk to him for an hour and practice hearing his
voice.
And sometimes my own thoughts would get in the way and I would misinterpret it.
Or he would say something and I would jump to conclusions about what that meant.
And I'd be disappointed and hurt my own feelings.
And it was just a learning process.
And after about a year, a solid year of doing that, God spoke to me and he said, now you
know my voice and you will never have to question it again.
And so it was really powerful that like when you speak the things out, then he honors that
and he blesses that and he gives you what you're searching for.
I couldn't agree with you more.
That is so perfect.
That is exactly right.
It is profound how much God speaks to us that we dismiss as something else.
Or and it's not always the same, right?
Sometimes we hear his voice and sometimes it's our own voice in our head.
Sometimes it's the word.
Sometimes it's a song.
Sometimes it's a word from somebody else, right?
But by leaning into God and leaning into his precepts and leaning into the way he speaks
to us in general, it does become easier to identify his voice.
And his voice can be audible to you at all times.
It is, I believe, an absolute function of his and ability of his for us to be able to
communicate with him in such a way that there is no doubt that is his word.
Absolutely.
And I think that a lot of people expect like how it was in the Old Testament where it was
like, and God said, X, Y, Z, you know.
And we expect it to be that easy, but it's just getting in tune with his voice like
tuning a radio.
And you have to tune it to the right frequency to be able to hear the station that you want
to hear.
And it takes practice.
And I even talked about that a little in my book where I was listening to a podcast one
time where this woman who was a speech and language pathologist said that she would turn
on cochlear implants for children a lot of the times for those videos where the kids
hear their parents voice for the first time and they're like crying.
Everybody's happy.
She said it actually takes a lot of discipline for those kids to be able to distinguish their
parents voice from other sounds and that it's no different with the things of God.
Like you have to, it's a learned thing.
It takes practice just like anything else.
You don't become an expert at baseball overnight.
You're not going to become an expert at hearing God's voice overnight either.
That's true.
I don't know if you can hear our dogs, but we're going to give it a second.
I love how God talks.
This speaks to everybody differently, like in the way that they can best receive it.
Yes.
So cool.
And you also talk about our identity in him too.
Yes.
That was a big thing for me.
And I think it was because I had always let other people tell me what my identity should
be.
And so I never quite knew who I was.
I just knew who I wasn't.
And so when God was speaking to me and I had a lot of shame as a kid because I felt like
I didn't measure up.
I grew up in a family of very like impressive people.
My parents had successful careers.
Both of my siblings were just very outgoing, popular, charismatic, athletic, all of the
things that you want to be in high school.
And I was sandwiched right in the middle of them.
And I was just a book reader who was content to sit in the corner by themselves and didn't
need interaction with other people.
And so people would look at me and they would just cock their head to the side and say,
huh, you're different than your siblings, aren't you?
And that I internalized it and thought, oh, different is wrong.
I'm supposed to be more like my siblings.
I'm expected to be more like my siblings.
And the fact that I'm not is wrong on my part.
And so I had a lot of shame from that because I felt like I didn't measure up.
And one of the first things that God spoke to me when I was pressing in after my dad's
cancer stuff, he sat me down one night and he said, I want to talk to you about what
you earn versus what you deserve.
And he said, why don't you tell me the kind of things that you earn?
And I said, will you earn money?
You can earn people's trust.
You can earn people's respect, that kind of thing.
And he said, now, what do you deserve?
And I thought about it, but it didn't take long for me to come to a conclusion because
I had been to Sunday School, mind you, since birth.
And so my immediate answer was, I'm a dirty sinner.
I don't deserve anything because apart from you, I am nothing.
I'm worthless.
And he said, wrong.
He said, that's who you used to be.
But that's not who you are now.
You're a new creation in me.
And so everything you deserve as my daughter is everything that I've paid for with my son
on the cross.
And so you're thinking that you're not deserving of love and respect and people's time.
And you're not deserving of the gifts that I have for you, but you are because you're
my daughter.
And just the simple identity shift of being the daughter is enough.
I don't have to do anything else to make him proud of me.
I don't have to write books.
I don't have to be on TikTok for him to say, that's my baby girl.
And I'm so proud of her.
But the things that I'm doing just come out of the overflow of, wow, God is amazing.
And he taught me so much.
I want to tell the whole world.
And so it was a really big perspective shift for me to learn about my identity in him.
Josh has shared in previous podcasts that if somebody's going to die for something,
it's not going to be something they don't appreciate.
It's going to be something they absolutely love.
He thought enough of you to die for you so you could come to the Father without any reservations,
without feeling any condemnation or shame.
But we should just step into that.
Because in the fact that he died for a maybe.
Oh, yeah.
It was not even a sure thing that you were going to come to him.
It was a maybe if I do this, then they'll come to me.
And the only certainty was that we were sinners.
Yes.
And we, as believers, I think are the only ones that feel that we don't deserve it.
When you talk to a non-believer, they're like, I don't understand why God is like this.
I deserve this.
I'm a good person.
I understand that we don't deserve it.
And then just like you said, God does not have that perspective on us.
Right?
Yes.
He looks at his chosen.
He looks at those that leaned into him when he leaned into us.
And he says, why would I have sacrificed my son for someone who didn't deserve it, for
someone who didn't have value, for someone who didn't matter?
It's an insane thought process that we have that with our sinful nature that still wants
to condemn ourselves.
The enemy has got a stronghold on our flesh with that.
And God is just trying to repair that damage that's been done through years and saying that
you are worthy of the sacrifice of my son.
I want you so much that he couldn't imagine spending heaven without us.
Wow.
And the fact that the only way that we are able to renew our minds in that way is if
we come to him.
Is if we let him tell us the truth about ourselves.
And I think a lot of us are hesitant to do that because we're afraid that he's going
to shame us too.
I was there.
I kept God at arm's length for a long time, even though I was saved, because I was afraid
that he was going to tell me that I wasn't measuring up.
And then when I finally came to him and he was like, no, you have been amazing from day
one.
It was the kind of love that you would die for to receive that.
Like, I understand why people are martyred for their faith now, because when you receive
that level of love, it's like, you're never going to turn it away.
How could you?
How could you see it?
And then how is it possible for you to change your mind from that?
And that is why I feel like I have this mission in my life to help people see that, because
there's a big movement on people deconstructing from the faith and saying religion is toxic
and religion is toxic.
It is.
Jesus came to end it.
But when you get into relationship and you do see him for who he really is, then nothing
will change your mind.
And it's just my goal to help people see him for who he is so that they can experience
that for themselves.
Absolutely.
Christianity is a religion, but that's not how you be a Christian.
You're not a Christian because of Christianity.
You're a Christian because of a relationship with Christ.
And so religion has a purpose, but it's not supposed to be the be all and end all.
You're missing the point of religion if you leave it at religion.
God said that this is an absolute relationship.
In order to come to me, you have to believe in my son.
You have to believe that I did this for you.
You have to believe that he conquered death for you.
You have to believe that he took my wrath that you rightly deserve on himself.
And when you lean into that relationship, it is hard from going from secular to Christianity.
It is hard from going from unknown Christianity to relational Christianity.
But it's very difficult because it challenges who we think we are just like you said earlier.
You have this identity that you believe that you are.
You have this identity that's firmly rooted.
And when God finally meets you where you are, right, when you finally accept him, open the
door for him, it's hard for us to give up who we think we are because we don't know
who we're going to be.
We don't know who we are without who we are.
And so he challenges that very aspect of us.
And it's, I think it's one of the hardest things that we can do.
And at the same time, once we surrender it, we realize it was the easiest thing we could
have done.
And I also had, I heard a bit of an identity crisis.
So I'll admit it when I was first coming to him, because it was like I had to mourn that
past version of myself before I could step into who he made me to be.
And I didn't, I would look in the mirror and I would just say, God, I don't know her.
I don't know this person that you're turning me into.
And he was just speaking to me that this is who you've always been.
I am just stripping away everything that you have added to you over the years through your
life circumstances.
Like you are not a pessimist by nature.
You have been hardened by life and I need to strip that away from you.
That's not your identity.
Stop clinging to it.
Something I learned through splonkiness sessions and things is predominantly learned is that
God's not blaming us.
He doesn't blame us for who we are right now because he knows the trauma.
He knows the life.
He knows the hard knocks that we've gone through that created the superficial us that he is
meeting, that we have allowed him into our life with.
And so he's not blaming us for being pessimistic.
He's not blaming us for feeling isolated and different.
He's not blaming us for these hardships, right?
Because he knows what caused and created them.
And he still wants to meet us where we are.
I think that's one of the biggest things we struggle with is that while we were still
sinners, he sent a son for us.
That while I'm still a sinner, God is meeting me where I am.
I don't have to clean up anything.
I don't have to do anything except believe in the sun.
I don't have to do anything.
He'll meet me right where I am and help me clean it up together.
Yes.
And I think that's what grace is.
And a lot of people misunderstand grace because they think it's just, oh, I mess up and I'm
forgiven.
I sinned, but he's going to forgive me.
That's what grace is.
And that is part of it.
But grace is also the fact that he gets it.
And like you said, he's not blaming you because he understands why you made the choices you
made.
He understands why you behave the way that you behave.
And that's the grace of God.
He understands better than anybody else.
Yes.
He knows our thoughts and everything.
Yeah.
The Bible specifically says that we don't even know our own heart.
So only God knows our heart.
How bad is that that I don't even know who I really am?
How can I possibly stand a chance without him if I don't even know who I am?
It's funny to me because I think about it in terms of if you've ever been watching a
movie where there's a villain and you're like, gosh, I hate that guy.
And then it reveals the villain's backstory and you're like, oh, wait, now I get why they
act the way they do.
Now I understand and I have compassion for them.
And I actually like them a little bit.
And suddenly they're not a villain anymore.
Suddenly they're just a broken person who was hardened by life circumstances.
And I think that's the way that God looks at us is we have a tendency to sort people
into good and bad categories.
And I don't look at you that way.
I don't look at you as a bad person or a good person.
I look at you through the lens of understanding everything you've ever been through.
And that's what made you who you've become.
I just want to break you free of those things so that you're not living this quote unquote
villainous life anymore.
I love how you're not going around harming people.
Right.
I love how you said that he views us through this lens of purity, right?
He has this clear view of us.
And the Bible says that we as people, we see through a lens dimly.
Yes.
Just to illustrate how little understanding we have compared to the father's understanding.
And I am so grateful that he is not like us, that we're made in the image and he's not
made in ours.
Absolutely.
Because I don't know where we'd be if that was the case.
We'd probably not be here.
We'd be smited.
Without a doubt.
And I think it's important that when we're in communication with others that we don't
know that we don't know all the things that have led to their life as it is now.
All the circumstances they had to deal with, the choices they had to make with the hand
they were dealt.
And when we, it softens our heart if we keep that in mind, like we don't know all that
they're going through.
They might not be a total jerk if someone's cutting us off in traffic.
They might be just having a bad day and we just have to offer them a little grace.
You know.
Yeah.
They could have been a lot on their mind.
Their grandmother could have passed away and their father could have been diagnosed with
stomach cancer.
And their husband could have been away.
They could have been having a really bad day.
And if it could happen to one of us, it could happen to any of us.
And I think that's what that first means that says freely you've received, freely give.
If we have received that grace and that understanding, then we can give it to others and say, I don't
know your story, but God does and he still loves you.
So maybe I can have a little grace and patience for you too.
And it's just, you just start to look at people differently when you get in that relationship
with God, because you see, you start to see things the way he sees and you start to view
yourself the way he views you.
And so that just pours out onto others too.
So true.
I've got nothing left.
The first time I actually heard of the book, I didn't, I've, she's been reading it for
a while as I've heard of it, but I don't get anything out of it because I don't read it
and I don't let her talk to me about it because I like to hear things for the first time with,
so this is the first time I even heard the blanket story.
And this is the first time I saw, she's told me that she's cried every time she's read
it, but this is the first time I got to witness it.
And so I like to be fresh and I tell my wife, I shoot from the hip so that my questions are
genuine.
They're not thought out ahead of time.
They're not like, I don't want to feel like I'm trying to manipulate somebody with questions.
And I really appreciate the book that you've written.
I feel that it will certainly help people that read it to better understand their role
and the role of God in their lives and to hopefully diminish their flesh and their fleshly
thoughts about who they think they're supposed to be.
Absolutely.
And my whole goal is if it gets them one step closer to God, that was really all I needed
in my walk with him.
I had been a Christian since I was eight years old, but like I said, I just kept him at arm's
length and it just took that one step closer to him for him to just wrap me in his arms
and change everything.
And so if I can get other people to that point of, hey, let me just get you in the room with
him and then he can take it from there.
But just getting them to that point where they're open to it is really the goal of it.
Yes.
In fact, I tell lots of people that our mission on earth from Jesus, the Great Commission,
isn't to make converts, it's to make disciples.
And so if I meet somebody who I think is not living a way that I would say is a Christian
living way and I introduce them to the concept of Jesus, I'm not confronting their sin.
I'm not confronting what I think they're doing wrong.
I'll let Jesus do that.
I'm there to open that bridge to have communication with the creator of that person so that person
can relay or complain about how he was made or not made, right?
Or let that mending happen there.
That's Jesus' glorious burden.
That is not mine.
Mine is to open a communication and then when that person has questions about it to show
them the resources, show them in the Bible to coach them to pray for them, but it is
never to convict them of what they're doing is wrong.
That's what God does.
Absolutely.
And if you think about it, and that's how Jesus changed the whole world was he just
took his inner circle and he loved them well.
And because he loved them well, they went out and ministered to others in the same way.
And I once heard someone describe it this way.
They said, I may get the math on this wrong, but they said one apple seed can produce 30,000
apples because you plant the seed and it turns into an apple tree, right?
Which produces a bunch of apples and it has seasons and so it keeps producing and keeps
producing until the tree dies.
But if you take that one seed, it produces 30,000 apples.
And then if you plant one seed from each of those 30,000 apples, it produces that much
more.
And so if you don't need a big stage, you don't need a TikTok following, you don't need to
be an author of a book to make a difference.
All you need is one person in your life that you can love well.
And if you do that one small act, you are carrying out the Great Commission.
I love that.
It reminds me of a Spider-Man thing from one of the new Spider-Man cartoons with Miles
Morales, Spider-Man, and in it, the younger version was upset because he couldn't save
everybody.
And Spider-Man, the mentor Spider-Man said, don't try to save everybody, just try to
save one.
And it's off topic, it's Spider-Man, not Jesus, but I love that because I think a lot
of us feel that we need to do something great for God and we miss out on the thing that
he's calling us to do with that one.
And so you can't reach everybody.
If that's not who he made you to be, if that's not you, then reach the one because I for
sure guarantee he's made you to reach at least one person.
And it can have the ripple effect too because then they can change someone else's life
by being encouraged by you.
You don't know that one is the person supposed to give it to the millions.
You don't know.
So you have to be willing to have the one.
And it ties back to the blanket story.
That blanket was for one person.
But the story has reached so many people and touched their hearts so much so that they
cry every time they hear it.
That's right.
And it helps them to realize God's love.
But the act of making and delivering the blanket was for one person.
I don't know, it's reached the Kleenex and Puffs people because of the tissues being
used by my wife.
It was so good.
I love it.
That's awesome.
You share other really cool tips in here being the book.
So I encourage people to get it because you talk about the different types of prayer because
there's different types.
And some people might not understand what prayer is even.
And I think it's cool that it's like a beginner's guide.
Okay, if you want something better, read this.
And I feel like it's got a lot of practical information in it that you can actually apply
to your life rather than just somebody telling their story about what happened to them.
It's actually, I wanted it to be like, hey, metaphorically hold your hand and walk you
through this so that you can get to the same point.
This set a foundation for your relationship with God and He will take it from there.
And who knows what He can do in your life from that point on.
That's the exciting part.
Who knows what He's going to do in your life.
That is so exciting to me that I look forward to it.
I used to, but I try not to anymore.
Imagine what it's going to look like.
I used to try to imagine and I was always wrong.
Every single time I was always wrong.
I'm not even, and I'm good at guessing plots of movies.
I'm good at guessing things.
I have never once got it right, guessing what God's plan was.
Never once.
And now I just get to sit back and enjoy it now that I'm done spinning my wheels trying
to figure it out.
And it really is something spectacular.
I have never related to a statement more because I'm the same way.
I am fabulous at guessing plots to things.
And it annoys my friends and family because I'll tell them what happens in a movie before
they even know.
And I haven't even seen this movie before.
It's really fun, and in fact, he was even telling me this morning that the TikTok and
stuff, he said, that's small potatoes compared to what I have for you.
Like you can't even imagine because I look at that and I go, wow, this is amazing.
And I'm willing to stop right there.
And he has to keep pushing me forward saying, no, we're going big with this.
And it's just it is very cool to watch and very cool to be a part of.
And you just have to be willing to take one step at a time and then he'll take it with
you.
He just has to be willing to be obedient.
Yes.
It's his love language.
Submit to him and you'll have this.
And the obedience is better than the sacrifice.
Oh, yes.
Oh, yeah.
That's for sure.
This can hurt, but obedience is always pleasant.
Yes, absolutely.
Thank you for taking the time to be with us, Caitlin.
And I appreciate this book that others can read and just take in.
And I hope God speaks to them like he did me with this book.
Absolutely.
I enjoyed this so much.
This was a great interview, I think.
Thank you.
And if you'd like to come alongside us, we have a fundraising campaign.
If you look up Gipsango.com, you can find God's Goodness podcast in there and make a
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And with that, we'll talk to you next time.