Welcome to the God's Goodness podcast where our mission is to encourage and highlight God's
Goodness and modern-day miracles. We are your hosts, Josh and Shelley Hankins. Today we have
with us a special guest. You will know her from TikTok and I was introduced to her by one of
our previous guests, author of 10 Things I Hate About My Husband, Shayla Huber. And Shelby and
I finally got connected and got her scheduled and I'm so excited to have her share with the Holy
Spirit letter to share. And so I'll have her tell you a little bit about her and the Holy
Spirit will guide that. And we'll have her open us up with an opening prayer. Dear Heavenly Father,
thank you endlessly for your goodness and giving us so much to glorify you in. I thank you for
organizing and orchestrating so far beyond our ability to understand these ways of connection
among the body of Christ so that we can come together to further strengthen and encourage
other followers of Christ, those who are interested in you and just be able to glorify all the things
that you have done in our lives. I pray as always Lord that you would lead my heart, my tongue,
my spirit to say only things that glorify you while on this podcast, this blessing of an
opportunity you've given Lord. And I just pray that as others listen that your spirit and them
would be emboldened and encouraged to do good works and go on and have their own faith strengthened
by your goodness that you've poured out in my life. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. So
Shelby shares a lot of Christian content out there. So you would be blessed to follow her and
I'll let her tell you more. Yeah, absolutely. So I am on all the socials under 48 faith and farms.
Maybe we can throw that in the show notes or something, but I always laugh at this point now
that the platform is grown, that God protected me from having my personal name out there to
so many people. I know there's many, many who have, you know, large platforms and their names
are out there. I have no doubt God has protection for them, but I do make the joke that not that
many people know my name or they think my name is faith because faith is in my handle. And so
that's where you'll find me on all the social media is and it is funny. And it was actually
the Lord put on my heart for years to speak on behalf of what I was learning in his word and
the work of what he was doing in my life. And it was so funny that I was kind of like Jonah
running into the belly of the whale instead, knowing what he was asking me to do, but coming up
with every other thing to keep my hands busy instead of what he was asking. And it was actually
the first TikTok that I ever made about Jesus. It's edited horribly. I'm chewing bubblegum
through the whole thing because that is TikTok 101. Don't talk to the screen while you're yapping your
mouth back and forth, but I knew nothing. I barely knew how to make a video on TikTok,
but I had a message to share about the way God was moving in my heart and the fruit of his spirit
in my life. And it still today is my biggest video. And from there, just kind of launched and
confirmed what he had been calling and asking for me to do for a really long time. And that's
brought us to where we are today, which looks completely different than only a year ago,
but that's on God's goodness. Yeah, it's amazing how he can expedite things.
Right. Yeah, he has my day to day looking completely and utterly different than it did
only one year ago. And yeah, only him, only he could do such a thing. So tell us about how things
changed. Absolutely. So as the platform began to grow and I began to just really step into
the gifts that the Lord had given me, they were gifts that I had actually been using for 10 years
in the corporate world. I worked in a for a large organization in a place called learning and talent
development in terms of kind of the industry that I was in. And it was all about teaching people.
So I was able to use the gifts of communication and teaching that he's granted me with and
hone those. I was honing them in more of a worldly business fashion, but I was still honing them.
Like what draws people in? How can you use storytelling to help people learn? How can
you keep people engaged and excited to learn? And how can you help them apply what they've learned?
And so I remember it was the beginning of 2023. And as the platform was growing,
as I was able to share with more women, and I was just feeling so boldly that this was this
was it. I didn't know what it looked like, but I could tell this was the direction he's asking me
to go. It was so heavy laid on my heart to step out of that corporate career, which made no sense
to the world at all. I was doing incredibly well. I was set to take on the director position
in years following. You know, I was getting suited up for that. And I loved what I did. And I loved
who I worked with and the company I worked for. But it's one of those Holy Spirit things when
you know, you know, and it doesn't have to make sense to everyone else. Right. And so
I felt him calling me out of that. And we had been so blessed that only a few months before I left
that corporate career put in my notice, we had just purchased a little bit of land and an old
farmhouse. And we really had this dream of being a little bit more self sufficient and connecting
with the Lord through our ability to steward our land really well. And we had this, you know,
dream that we were, you know, we were going to be at farmers market selling duck and chicken eggs
and produce from our garden and just steward what he'd given us and be part of the community in that
way. But I told my husband, you know, I think that's a I love that dream. That's amazing. But
as we were sitting there at the beginning of 2023, are all of our baby and all of our chickens and
ducks are babies, not yet laying eggs. And it's, you know, in Indiana in the middle of February,
it's definitely not garden season for most. So I was like, you know, I have always made sourdough
for my family. I got really into it in 2020 when we were all home. It's a whole science.
I had been making it for my family for years at that point. And I said, maybe, you know,
I've already been gifting family and friends or I had some family and friends very casually would
buy a loaf from me here and there. I was like, maybe we just start selling some sourdough,
put our name on the map, get our name out there for this homestead we're creating. And then when
it is time to garden and the chickens and ducks start laying eggs and all that good stuff, we'll
already have some like partnerships or friends in this space. And once again, I was just headed in
the direction that God led and the sourdough business blew up. So that that is God's goodness,
number 80,000 of the millions that he's had in my life. But that's the first way in this like
larger trajectory of his goodness in my life that he really showed himself was not only in
impressing and upon me for all those years to speak about and use my gifts for his glory,
not for the glory of some company that sells medical products. But and he confirmed it
through the platform that he so steadily built without me having to do much. But I do what he
asked. And then when we were wondering how in the world we were going to make ends meet, since I
was not only kind of the breadwinner, no pun intended at that point. But also we have that would
just it was saying goodbye to a very good salary and just a salary you could count on from a
worldly perspective to then start making bread and just there it seemed that the the sea was parted
and everyone suddenly loves sourdough. And I got on that train before it became the coolest thing.
And to just watch that grow into what it has been today, which I would love to talk about,
but just to see how successful it was, it just had got all over it. So then I let's see that
would have been only a few months later. So I'm baking out of my home, we're going to farmers
markets, we start having farmers markets local to us, who are asking for us to come sell sourdough.
So we're doing that. But it's a lot inside our tiny 1950s farmhouse. You could only make two loaves
of sourdough at a time. We have our oven oven went out halfway through the summer last year.
And we thankfully had the means to to get it replaced. Well, we were very thankful we thought
the whole oven went, but it was just a part of the oven that we could afford because we could not
afford an oven. But it was such a blessing to be home with my kids. I had I have three boys,
two of them I was working corporate mama for much of their early, early days. And for my youngest son,
who's now two and a half, I was able to be home with him primarily for his early, early days.
And yes, which glory to God once again, right, even in what feels like those small details of
the fact that while all this was happening, I was home, stewarding those early the earliest
days and years of my youngest son's life was such a blessing and grew me more in my faith and to be
closer to the Lord and know his character than ever before. And then I kind of felt the stirring
in the call that as this platform grew for me sharing the testimony of the Lord in my life,
and I would be in my studies and something would be revealed to me in his word that I didn't know
before and I'd be so excited. I would go tell my social media friends and sisters in Christ.
And it just became there was this kind of knocking to create a space where women of the Lord could
actually come around his word together and learn together, strengthen one another together,
encourage one another together, pray together because although TikTok and social media platforms
have been such a big blessing and I do think although there's plenty of negative that come
with them, there's the positive of truly reaching the ends of the earth, there's also this superficialness
to it all, right? You don't know people by name. You don't get to look at them while you're speaking
to them. You don't know when they comment something on one of your posts, you have no idea what they
are walking through right now. And so I just felt this stirring, this call to use the platform he'd
given me to also create a ministry of women, a space for women who were interested, who could
actually use the internet and the blessings that it does come with to connect with one another and
get to know one another more and actually come around the word of God together. So instead of
it being a one-minute fun teaching video that we would actually have a weekly cadence where we are
studying chapter by chapter verse by verse, we are sharing where we're at in life, we're sharing what's
touching our hearts that day. And so that's what then led me to create how to hunger ministries,
which is that little slice of the earth that the Lord has given me to steward that has about,
let's see, I think about 850 women now who come together a couple times a week to just, you know,
glorify the Lord, get to know one another, biblically strengthen and sharpen one another,
and then just get excited about the word of God. So how does it work? Is it like a Zoom call or
how do you get together? Sure, yeah. So it's just a private Facebook group that anyone can join.
And if anyone is listening to this and finds any of my socials, you should find all those links
there too. Yeah, we'll put those out. Sure. The Facebook page is just a private Facebook page is
completely open to anyone. It's private only because we do want to make sure that women
are intentional about joining and that it's women. So it is private for that reason. But then we get
together twice a week. Yes. On a Zoom call and right there on a Facebook live on the page. So I
go live in both places. Some women prefer just to watch from the Facebook live and comment and
stay engaged. Other women actually want to join the Zoom call. Look at each other. They want to
unmute and speak and it's really open for either one of those forums. But Zoom and Facebook live
is how we do those things. Yes. I love it. Yeah. And then I also did start a Patreon and the Patreon
is the membership for the ministry. And that just helps support the time it takes to run a ministry
and also has a lot of additional perks like a recorded video of every single teaching we've
ever done. My notes for every single teaching we've ever had. Those kind of things are on there to
support the ministry as well. But all this time what was happening is these two things were ramping
up. My sourdough business, my family sourdough business was getting more and more successful.
We were at markets. We're doing private orders. We were meeting a lot of people businesses that
were interested in also having sourdough in their businesses. You know maybe they ran a restaurant
or something like that. But then we also had this ministry growing. And as we were kind of
launching the ministry and the first study that we did was a study of Genesis, the first book of
the Bible. I started to take the copious detailed notes and recordings for every single chapter
and started to turn them into a study guide. Nice. Yeah. And so it was just a way to further
reach the ends of the earth with the work the Lord had already stewarded to be done. So if you're
going to take 10 pages of notes on Genesis chapter one, why not turn those into something consumable
that anyone could read Genesis chapter one and then take a look at those notes. So both of those
things were happening. Both of those things were growing, keeping me plenty busy. But then I had
a really tough decision to make because one of my dear friends who was also in the baking business,
she doesn't bake bread. She bakes cookies, but she was really interested and at a point in her
career in her life where she wanted to have a bakery. So she was wanting to get out of her
house, quit, you know, taking up her kitchen. She wanted efficiency. She wanted a storefront.
And those desires were very heavy in my heart as well. I love baking. I love what I do. And I was
pretty tired of having a kitchen that never felt like mine. And anyone who's listening who may
have ever dabbled in sourdough, even if you just tried one loaf and it didn't work out and you said
forget this, you likely remember how messy it is. So just picture that at a mass scale in a small
kitchen all the time. And so these desires did lay heavy on my heart. I wanted a storefront. I wanted
to get out of my own kitchen. I wanted the commercial efficiency of having an actual commercial
kitchen. I wanted all those things too. But at that point, I spent weeks and weeks in prayer. And
honestly, just being still and waiting for the Lord to move, I refused to make a decision until I
felt like he moved somehow. And that took weeks of just feeling like nothing, feeling like he
wasn't answering. And but I made the sense that like the word says, be still and know. And that
feels like that's what you were doing. Exactly. And another one of my favorite scriptures is
but seek first the kingdom of God and the rest will be added unto you and Matthew 6 33. Yes.
That's one of the verses I live my entire life by because I think that if anyone's looking human,
so often look for the calculation of what they're supposed to do to get it right. What does God
want me to do? What is my life going to look like? What is God's call on my life? What pleases God?
All these things they want this quantifiable black and white. What does God look like? And what am
I supposed to do? And I feel like that is the equation is if you are getting busy seeking the
kingdom of God, then you will just let the rest be added unto you and you don't have to worry about
it. And so exactly I spent weeks and weeks between this decision of going for the bakery,
knowing there were so many areas of my life that wouldn't be ready for the bakery, but that it was
a heavy desire of my heart or I had this ministry that was in its infancy. It had only been going
for a couple months. We probably had, I don't know, 50 women at that point in time. We were
deep in our studies on Genesis. I had just had the Lord kind of confirm and give me the idea of
doing the study journal out as a fruit of these week by week studies. And I just knew so confidently
that at that moment, the ministry, the studies, getting it off the ground, creating a solid group
of women coming around the Word of God, working on that study journal as much as it hurts. I knew
that was where he was asking me to be. And so I had to tell my friend to know that I'm not
in a place right now where I can say yes to looking into owning a bakery.
That had to have hurt a little bit. Like, oh, I can't do it right now.
It did. It did. There were some white knuckles, some clenched fists, some tears, because in my
humanness, I also thought God was telling me just no. I thought that the Lord was telling me that I
needed to sacrifice this bakery dream for the sake of the gospel. I just said, and then I was thinking,
you step down from a paid position of known salary a year, a known comfort level to start a bakery,
and then you still question whether this is what God wanted you to do. And that's so human of us
to believe that we received something from the Lord and then question it as we're doing it.
As if his desire is to say, yes, I want to lead you out so I can pull the rug out from underneath
you, sucker. Like, it's never been his heart. That's just how broken we are from the world,
from the attacks of the enemy that we have a hard time trusting our Father even
when things don't go in a way that we can see clearly.
Absolutely. And I remember in Scripture, I used to get kind of annoyed because I thought God
repeated himself too much. I would think, yeah, you just said that. Or why are you saying that
multiple times? Or he would say, remember me, remember when I delivered you from the land of
Egypt and from slavery? Remember when I provided manna from you? Remember when I covered you for,
you know, for a shade during the day and warmth in the night? And I'd be like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Lord, like we've read all of this. Why are you making like all of your prophets are saying this
again and again and again? And it's because if we're if we humble ourselves before the Lord,
we realize how often we needed reminded how often he will confirm something and tell us to go a
certain way. And a couple weeks down the road, we're doing the thing and we're like, wait a minute,
was that really God? Did he really say that? Or we just forget in our actions. Sometimes I find
in the actions that I'm doing that I must have forgotten who God is and what he's promised and
what he's led me to do. Because the way I'm acting doesn't confirm the promise that he made, right?
So it's not even always my second guessing in my thoughts. But sometimes it can also be in what
I'm doing, the actions of myself aren't glorifying to what he's called me.
Another question after you left your your position and quite literally decided to risk it for the
biscuit. I love it. And you were struggling with that and your ministry. Did you ever turn to a
point where while you're in your ministry, that the business and all the hardships and all the
questions and things, all the joy and whatnot directly correlated to the ministry in some way?
Like did you learn something from the business that helped you in that ministry?
I think wholeheartedly. So I would say the biggest thing that helped the ministry alongside
I was an infant and leaving a corporate career and being a stay at home mom making bread who
didn't necessarily know how the bills were going to be made. Like, you know, and I had worked that
corporate career from 19 years old to 29 years old. So I knew absolutely nothing else. And so the idea
of going through those milestones, really feeling like not to compare myself to Abraham, but to
think about the storyline of him just kind of being told to leave everything he knows and just go
doing that at the same time as starting the ministry, I think really centered the ministry
around exactly what the Lord's purpose was. And that was for there to be no aesthetic for it to
be a place of vulnerability where all in all stages of faith and life can come. Because to call
myself a leader only because he's given me the platform to do word women around the word of
God. If I use the word leader, that's simply what I mean is the opportunity to do word. The women
who are part of the ministry, what I learned from the business side of things is they got to watch
a leader who had to who just had to exercise just complete faith in the Lord. They got to see me
not sure how we were going to make a mortgage payment. They got to see me have questions of
faith in terms of am I really supposed to be doing this? This is so hard. They got to walk with me
through the highs of exciting times and the lows of like David in the Psalms. Where are you, Lord?
Is this really worth it? And I think there was like there's such a strong sense of sisterhood
in the ministry around being humble and faithful. It wasn't like there's some chick who started a
ministry and she has it all together. Right. What has that ever happened? And all this or even has
it all together or makes it seem like she does, right? It's not even a ministry that's based on
this person just really is successful and is now starting this thing. And I want to go be a part
of it. It's like, no, this person is just stepping out in blind faith and knows that the Lord has
called her. And so she has her arms out and she's taken his hand and she can't see anything else,
but she's just going with him. And the ministry got to ride on the coattails of that and actually
see it play out in real time. And so there have been many, many lessons along the way. But one of
the biggest is I think, like I say, is the seeking first of the kingdom of God. There were so many
business challenges where he taught me that I just had to trust and seek him and it would play out.
And the ministry got to watch that happen and exercise it in their own lives. And there are
so many testimonies that aren't mine to share, but that are beautiful from the ministry in that
exact way. We have women in the ministry who started as just not just, I don't say it lightly,
but they were stay at home moms who joined this because they're really struggling with getting
into the word daily. And they think this would be a great thing to help them out. And now they're
leading women's conferences at their local church. It's amazing. I love it. I love how you guys can
grow together, be authentic, and then just learn from one another in that community. It's pretty
cool. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so I knew that I was turning down the bakery gig. But yes,
to your point, Josh, it was like in my head, I thought the Lord had changed his mind. In my head,
I thought he's wanting me to sacrifice this next step of the bakery, this taking this side of things
further because he wants my time and my effort in this ministry. And I think because we love the
Lord, we're willing to sacrifice. So there is a willingness. It's just not his heart and his
purpose for you. And so the coolest thing about it all, just to bring some of like all of these
interwoven stories of his goodness to a head, is I say no to her. We're still wonderful friends.
We still see each other at like little mini market type things because I do still keep baking bread,
but I do focus my energy on the ministry at that time. And I had such peace about the decision.
And that's another way I often know that the direction is from the Lord because of the feeling
of peace or lack of peace. So even though I did feel like I was sacrificing something and having
to say no to what I desired to be able to continue getting the ministry off the ground,
I also had so much peace about the decision. So I knew that I was in line with what he was asking.
But the coolest thing about it all is there was so many ups and downs, we would have to have a
podcast that was 20 hours long to go through it all. But it was nine months. So it from the time
that I had told my friend no to the testimony period that I'm about to share. It was nine months.
It's getting really good people. Tune in. This is awesome.
Teaching weekly for the ministry, nine months of writing the Bible study journal,
nine months of baking a few, you're baking some stuff every week, but nine months.
And it was the same week that I released the Bible study journal. So we had finished the
50 chapters of Genesis. I had edited all of the study journal pages. I had uploaded them to Amazon.
I went through all the things you have to go through to publish a book and we published it.
It was the exact same week that we were excited. The ministry's celebrating some of them. You know,
my followers are celebrating, my family celebrating, my friends are celebrating.
We released the study journal. It felt like a major milestone in the life of the ministry.
That exact same baker friend and says, Hey, I found a bakery. We actually already like this.
I'm just telling you this. I found a bakery. We signed the lease. We have been gutting it all summer
long. It's brand new. It's repainted new cases, new shelves, brand new bakery equipment.
Everything is locked and loaded. It is turnkey. It is ready. But we need a bread girl.
Would you be interested in walking into this bakery and just baking your bread here?
You don't have to work any extra hours. You don't have to suddenly sign on to a whole bunch of
extra payments or at least you don't have to do any of those things. But would you be willing to
maybe consider doing your baking in this commercial kitchen and help stock the bakery too?
So cool. You're like, I love how you likened your adventure to Abraham where he just said, Hey,
it's time to move on. And you did. And you failed to mention how your life was like Abraham and
in that you sacrificed something or thought you had to sacrifice something that you dearly loved
that you really wanted that you really cherished and he stopped you before you could.
Yeah, right. Just like in the story of Isaac exactly this whole time he like Abraham didn't
miss a beat. He got up and he went to the mountain. But all the while thinking he was
sacrificing something. Yeah, he dearly loved the right before it felt like the sacrifice was kind
of final. He presented the ram, right? He presented there being another way. What a test of other
way to do this. Yep, he desires our obedience far beyond our sacrifice. Absolutely. And so now,
now all these months later now, I am a third bakery owner in my hometown. We are gearing up to line
our shelves with Bible study journals along with scones and biscuits and bread and cookies and cakes.
Awesome. Where it's been amazing to start to learn what it means to own a business in a small
community because you get to be a part of the community in a different way. It's not just a
community member but you're also a community servant. It's the the the bread of life and the
bread of bellies at the same time. And so through that just continuing the ministry and having it
be grown to where it is and have it be more of a well oiled machine. Now there are a few women.
All the women in the ministry are wonderful. There's a few who have specifically stepped up to help
keep that well oiled machine going and growing. And now I spend these days at home with my family
just completely dedicated to them early mornings working on ministry stuff and then a couple early
mornings a week doing bakery stuff. But I'm now I really desired as the ministry grew digitally,
I had this desire that what about these women in my backyard? What about this community God?
What about this? What about the people I look in the eye when I see them at the grocery store?
Do they know you? And the bakery has just offered this blossoming beautiful opportunity
to meet people exactly where they are and first share the gospel by loving them and
listening to them and getting to know them. And so he his goodness has just been all over
the way he's diversified my life and only a little over a year. Wow. I think it's really cool how
it was nine months. You know, that's how long it takes to bring a baby out, you know, create the
baby in the womb and then it gave birth to this, you know, after like you released the journal
and then you were celebrating that and then the bakery came to and that was just so neat.
Yeah, he's so amazing. And I think what he's teaching me right now what he really laid
on my heart to share on the podcast and to be honest, I felt like it wouldn't be quite understood
unless there was a little bit of the testimony and context to go with it is we see it constantly
in scripture, humanity entering new seasons and having to choose God all over again.
And you see it with Abraham. He was called to leave everything he knew and you see that one
of the first places he's planted they experience a famine and he rushes to Egypt. We don't have
other context scripture to know if he prayed first or where he was out with that. But we know
that in his humanness he hurried to Egypt to defend for himself and God mercifully and lovingly
brought him back to say, Hey, I'm the one who called you out. I can provide for you. And so Abraham
created an altar and repented and and got back on track and you see throughout Abraham's life
him growing and being sanctified to choose God first and don't forget him through your travels
and through where he may take you. And then you see it again with the Israelites, right? Like
leaving Egypt. They chose God when God was saying, I'll deliver you out of this place. You don't have
to be a slave. I will miraculously deliver you from your enemies. They chose God. But then they
got into the wilderness and it looked far different than everything for generations that they had
been used to. They didn't know what they were going to drink, how they were going to eat, where
they were going to lay their head and he had to teach them once again how to choose him and trust
him. And you see it in the promised land. And I was giggling about this actually with my pastor,
how Jesus tells Paul that his job is the Gentiles yet he still is so faithfully burdened by the
Jews that he still goes and preaches to the Jews too. And it just gets him in a bunch of trouble
because God's like, I said Gentiles, you're preaching to the people who persecuted me.
And that is what he's really led me to talk about on where I am today is there's a reason in
scripture why God reminds humanity all the time, reminds us of who he is, reminds us of what he's
done, reminds us of who we are in him because we do forget. And this happened most often,
his reminders, when people were leaving a certain season of their lives or entering a new season.
And that's where I'm at now is in only the past year and a half or so, my life has changed so much.
And I think season is kind of an overused Christian lingo thing. So I'll say, for the sake of
understanding, when I say season, I just mean, what is your life look on a daily basis? Who do
you see every day? What are you doing every day? Though the seasons of my life have changed
through five times in the past year and a half, which is actually quite a lot when you're saying
that the people you see every day, the things you do every day have changed five times in that
short of a period. And in every single one, I have to be further sanctified because as my schedule
changes, as the people I talk to every day change, I often learn the hard way that I have to intentionally
choose God. That's the only way I learn. If I'm getting it wrong, that makes me feel better.
You are not alone. His ears are bricked up. He's like, yeah, that's me.
If there's an easy way and I can see it's the easy way, I will still take the hard way.
Right? It's like there's almost a knowing, but you just do it anyway until he had until
you're brought back on your knees or something. It's kind of like he said he tells us we're like
this, but that's exactly it is when I was mostly doing ministry and baking at my house, I got into
this really beautiful groove of these were the hours I spent with the Lord every morning and
these were the hours I'm baking and these are the hours I'm doing ministry. And of course,
there's an ebb and flow. It wasn't some black and white by the minute schedule, but I got into a
really beautiful kind of little melody with the Lord there. And then this beautiful testimony of
the bakery being dropped in my lap happens the same week I released the journal and his goodness
is all over it. His providence is all over it. But now what I found is I started getting in the
groove of this bakery and my hours changing and I found that I wasn't in the word near as much.
I wasn't feeding my spirit near as much. I was listening to political podcast more than I was
tuning into the Lord while I was baking. It was just one little thing at a time eroding the
strength of his spirit and me. And so over the past couple months, as I get as I enter this new
season and I figure it out a little bit, that's my kind of where I'm at and my call to speak on
is in what ways is God calling you to remember him in whatever you're doing. And so I've had to
choose through doing it wrong and getting it wrong a few thousand times and doing the wrong
thing. He's brought me back to remembering and being able to find that really sweet melody with
him again in where he has me today. How silly we are too thinking that he can't sort it back out.
I know. I just fail your Lord. Take away the bakery. I've screwed it up. We're like kids on
those little strings where they like rope them up to the other kids in a line but we get free
and it's just so gentle with us to give us back in line with the other kids. You know, like no,
no, it's okay. And we're beating ourselves up and he's already forgiven us. I know. I know. And
it's so often it makes me almost teary eyed when I think about it because so often the way the
one of the reasons were this way is we do not know how to be loved the way Christ loves us. We
don't know how. How can we receive a love that we cannot even fathom? How can we receive a love
of where there is no condemnation and you aren't disappointed in me and you are simply waiting
with arms wide open for me to turn around no matter how much I stray knowingly or unknowingly,
you know, and it's like how do you receive something like that when many of us have hardly
even tasted a drop of it from the world? Truth. Yeah, he has expressed to me many an occasion
that he doesn't blame me that it's not my fault, right? Not the sin that I actively engage in,
not the purposeful problems, but the things that made me me to this point, the things that I developed
as a child with the way I was raised by my parents, the way I was influenced by my friends,
all the things that made me me before I knew him, he doesn't blame me for because he knows I was in
the world. He knows I was of the world and he just wants me now. Absolutely, absolutely. And I am
that's something I didn't really mention. It's a huge piece of where I'm at today, but I lost my
father a couple months ago. I'm sorry to hear that so much. Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that.
But I only say that because talk about getting to know the love of your true father when you're
walking through what it means to in this life say goodbye to the only one you've known as a human.
And to your point, want to only say things that honor my father, my human father, but
so much of what we learn is what we have received, right? And so I remember walking through even
a situation I have today in my life. And I remember finally just asking the Lord,
how do I love this person, Lord? How? Look at what they're saying. Look at what they're doing.
Look at their intentions. How do I love this person? I was at my wit's end trying to just do
the right thing and be nice. I said how? And I remember he spoke so clearly. And I always know
it's him because it's like he says things I would never say. And sometimes they even have to Google
or go into scripture to find the words that he used because I'm like, okay, I know you've said
that in scripture, but I don't know that. It was a definition of that. And he said to me,
you're never going to know how to love them like I do until you receive the love I have for you.
And it just completely opened my eyes to the idea that so much of what he wants us to do is to
receive his love, which means seeking him. How can you receive a love of a him you don't know?
You'll uncover new pieces of parts of his love throughout your whole life long. But I finally
realized that loving people was like this stronghold that I had on my life of really being able to
love people. And he revealed to me that the way we do that is by first being loved, by first
allowing ourselves to be loved by him and receive that love. And yeah, it's written all over these
testimonies, isn't it? It is. And in his word, you know, if you do all these great things for
Lord, but you have not love your bankrupt, right? God says this is it. This is the buck. This I
am love. If you don't have love, you don't have me. Absolutely. Yeah, you don't have anything.
Filthy rags, even the good stuff. Filthy rags. So good. I love how you got blessed by just
following him step by step. And he took you and held your hand the whole way. And he's like,
let's do it this way. And it just worked out so well. It's so cool how everything just fell
into line and it kind of bloated into place. Yeah. And how in the end it was many early
mornings and late nights and prayers, but it was effortless in the way the journey happened.
And I feel like that's when you know it really was ordained by the Lord. It doesn't mean that you
aren't empowered by his spirit doing a lot. I think those who follow Christ work harder than most.
But you can tell the difference between striving and following his lead. And so
that's what's so beautiful because I know for a fact, if I would have chosen to bakery back when
I wanted to, it would have been a whole lot of striving. A whole lot of messy, a whole lot of
loosens. And so it would have taken longer to get where you needed to. A thousand percent. And just
by following his lead, it all happened through hard work, of course. And this kind of effortless
delivery of the things at the right time that he said that they were to come. So I love his timing.
And the hard part is the waiting and walking through it. But when you're on the other side,
you're like, wow, what? What just happened? Yeah. And how amazing that y'all have a podcast where
people can come on and share God's goodness. Because I'm always telling the ladies in the ministry who
just feel like too nervous to share the gospel. I'm always telling them, you don't have to go
tap someone on the shoulder and just say, hi, do you know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?
Right. I actually recommend you don't do that, especially right now, not right now.
But I say, have you ever considered just boldly sharing in the goodness that he's had in your life?
Because I have never seen more women, even the ones local to me that I've grown up with, who maybe
are watching what God's doing kind of from the sidelines, but aren't saying much. They feel
emboldened to ask about the Lord. Can you help me start reading the Bible? Because they've just
heard about the beautiful things he's done in my life. And I'm just like, I think that's more of an
effortless way to share the gospel is just to boldly live for him and let him speak through you on
behalf of it. Right? Like if you just share in that awesome thing that he taught you this morning
when you were in Bible study, or you just share that awesome testimony of that thing that you'd
been preying on for a long time or worried about for a long time that you cast it on him and he
delivered. If you'll just do that, like just speak for yourself, you know what I mean? On behalf of
what he's done for you, that's a strong gospel. The power of our testimony. Exactly. Yep. To
encourage others to good works. It's so good. When God laid this idea on my mind, like, why don't
you talk about me with others and share it with the world? I'm like, oh, that's easy. I can do that.
And I'm just so grateful that I get to hear all these stories and share them with the world because
why keep them to myself? So I'm so glad that you were able to share all of this and I encourage
everybody to go follow her on social media. We'll put the links in the description and what a blessing
to share what God is teaching you with others and then they can come alongside you and then share
what they're learning. And I just love how he's growing you and others together at the same time
and he just does it so gently. You know, one day at a time, what can you do today? You know, like in
Kingdom's Emmett, I have this group that I'm part of. It's called Kingdomseekers and the Daily Dose,
Holly, she's like the host, she says, go out and change the kingdom in only the way that you can.
And they talk about what's that one needle-moving action that you can take to change things today,
just to get a little closer to the next step. So I just love how God takes us step by step
and just works it out. And then when you look back, you're like, wow, that is so neat how it all just
came together. And it's not over yet. Like he had a plan. You know, there's more to come.
It's almost like he knows what he's doing. Yeah, right. The one created the universe and all we see
in it, he knows what's going on with your life. Me, if he knew to do a meal plan,
is comparing my intellect to somebody who just does everything all the time.
I hope this episode has been a blessing to others. I tell everybody that, you know, there's a message
for everybody in every episode. So I hope that you got what you needed from this episode. And if
this has been a blessing to you, we ask that you share it with others, friends, family on social
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we can encourage more people because of it. And there's also links in our about section. If you'd
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That would help with the audio editing expenses and all the other stuff that goes along with it.
And with that, we'll talk to you next time.