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Have you ever struggled with overcoming emotional trauma?
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Hey beautiful souls, and welcome back to Healed by Amanda Grace, the podcast for the broken who want to heal and transform their lives.
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I'm your host, Amanda Grace, and each week we break down how to heal, reinvent your life, and find peace despite what you went through.
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New episode every Wednesday.
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More than chasing wealth.
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More than chasing moving up in the corporate ladder at a job that makes me feel burnt out.
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More than chasing the next new trend, whether it may be a new car or a designer purse or whatever material thing.
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There must be more than chasing the validation through likes on social media.
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More than just living the same day on repeat over and over again.
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Have you felt this way too?
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Well, guess what?
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There is more.
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And you may just be on a path of waking up.
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I had these thoughts of being in the matrix about five years ago and really tried my very best to ignore them.
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Because with these thoughts, also came the thought of there's really no point of life.
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But I was completely wrong.
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So today we're going to talk about spiritual awakening.
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Not as some mysterious experience reserved for a select few, but as the beautiful process of waking up to the reality that God or source has always been reaching toward us.
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Awakening isn't about becoming someone God can finally love.
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It's about finally realizing how deeply you've always been loved.
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So think of a spiritual awakening like waking up in the morning and suddenly realizing something beautiful that you didn't notice before.
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Imagine you've been sleeping in a dark room, you can't see much, and then someone opens the curtains and sunlight fills the room.
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The room was always there, the sun was always shining, but now you can see it.
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Spiritual awakening is just like that.
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It's when your heart begins to wake up to God and realize that what you were seeking was within you all along.
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I used to think an awakening was just something that Buddhists or monks are looking for while they're on this like week-long retreat in meditation.
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It's not.
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Spiritual awakening isn't discovering that you are God or source, it's waking up to the reality that he is present.
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He created you, and therefore he is within you.
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And you can access him whenever you want.
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If you just let go, be present and listen.
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Also, he created everyone and everything.
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So in that way, we are all connected.
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And life is actually so beautiful and not what you originally thought as meaningless.
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Awakening is realizing that you belong to God or source, and your life doesn't have to be controlled by your old identity, your wounds, your fears, or your own will.
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Maybe awakening begins when we loosen our grip on control.
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Maybe peace arrives not when we have all the answers, but when we trust the one who does.
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And as we continue this journey together today, I want you to keep one question quietly resting in your heart.
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What would happen if I truly surrendered everything to God?
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Not just my Sundays, not just my prayers, but my fears, my dreams, my relationships, my future.
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What if every morning began with one simple prayer?
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Father, not my will be done.
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Because when God's will becomes our greatest desire, something extraordinary happens.
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Our hearts begin to change, our minds begin to renew, our lives begin to reflect Christ more and more.
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And we discover that true freedom isn't found in controlling our lives.
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It's found in trusting the one who holds them.
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So settle in, open up your heart, and let's dive in.
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Let's discover what it really means to awaken to God's presence and allow him to transform us from the inside out.
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Okay, so before I share my personal awakening experience, I want to briefly talk about the four stages of awakening because I had just learned this.
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Our mind is not able to comprehend this information all at once.
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So we have to adapt by slowly taking it in in stages.
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Stage one is victim consciousness.
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So we believe life is controlled by external sources, and we ask, why does this happen to me?
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Then stage two is manifest or consciousness.
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We start believing that there's something more to life, and we think I can use the law of manifestation to attract what I want.
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Feeling a sense of control.
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Then there's stage three, channeler consciousness.
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Leaning toward meditation and prayer, we have a sense of separation smaller than before, and we believe that God expresses in, through, and as me.
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And then the final stage, stage four, being consciousness.
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Now we're meditating by choice and sensing that your absolute oneness is with God or source, and we're letting go of our ego and control completely.
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Personally, I experienced all of these stages.
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For the last five years, I dedicated myself to finding the answers of what is the point of life.
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I spent so much time learning why people are the way they are, how to rewire my mindset, how childhood trauma affected me as an adult, how to heal from emotional abuse, concepts like manifestation and visualization, Christianity and faith.
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And then despite all of that, I still felt like there was one thing still missing until I finally gave up.
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Yep.
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I gave up trying to figure out exactly how to let go.
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And that is when it happened.
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Because the very act of trying to let go was me still trying to control how it happened.
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I educated myself on awakening and had tried all the meditation techniques, and I read about all of the awakening ideas, nothing worked.
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Nothing.
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I felt defeated and I gave up right then and there, thinking maybe awakening isn't for me.
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That's when I went on a bike ride just to clear my mind, get away from it all.
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But this time it was different because I didn't put on my headphones, listen to music, be distracted while I was on this ride.
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I was present.
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I took in everything.
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The wind, how it felt blowing through my hair, how it rustled the trees, how the sun was glistening through the trees as it was setting, and the sound of the birds, and just everything around me.
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I disconnected from the world and I was present in the moment.
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And that's when it happened.
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Suddenly I felt this immense joy and freedom just wash over me, and it brought me to tears.
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I don't know how else to describe it except just feeling relieved, free, at peace.
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I felt so connected with the world, with nature, with everything.
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And that was the final stage of awakening.
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So Jesus prayed something remarkable in John chapter 16.
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He prayed that those who believe in him may all be one just as you.
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Father, are in me and I am with you.
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Through Christ, we're invited into a relationship of deep unity with God.
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Not because we become God, but because we belong to Him.
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He dwells in us through His Holy Spirit, and we share in His life, in His love.
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That changes everything.
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When you begin to understand that your identity is found in Christ, fear begins to lose its grip.
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Shame starts falling away.
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The pressure to prove yourself slowly disappears.
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You stop asking, who am I trying to become?
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Instead, you begin asking, Lord, who have you already created me to be?
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And that's where one of the most powerful prayers ever spoken becomes more than just words.
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Thy will be done.
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Those four words have the power to change an entire life.
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At first they can sound frightening because if we're honest, most of us spend our lives praying, God bless my plans.
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The spiritual awakening slowly transforms that prayer into something completely different.
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Lord, not my plans, not my timeline, not my expectations, not my will.
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Thy will be done.
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And here's the beautiful surprise.
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God's will isn't about taking life away from you.
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It's about giving you the life you were created for.
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Jesus Himself prayed in the garden, knowing the suffering that lie ahead.
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Yet not my will, but yours be done.
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If the Son of God trusted the Father's will even in the darkest moment, maybe that's an invitation for us too.
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You know, one of the hardest parts of faith that I've struggled with isn't believing that God exists.
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It's trusting him with what I can't control.
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Because control makes me feel safe.
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Control makes me feel like I can just plan enough, prepare enough, think enough, and then nothing will fall apart.
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It'll all work out.
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But life has a way of showing us that control is often an illusion.
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And that's where spiritual awakening begins to deepen.
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Not when everything is going right.
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But when we finally whisper, God, I can't hold this anymore.
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That's where surrender becomes real.
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And not the forced kind, not the religious kind, but the honest kind.
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The kind where your hands finally open and you say Thy will be done even if I don't understand it yet.
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Proverbs three, five through six says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, only not on your own understanding, in all your ways, submit to him, and he will make your path straight.
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Notice it doesn't say trust when it makes sense.
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It says with all your heart even when it doesn't make sense, even when the outcome is unclear, even when the waiting is long.
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Let's talk about something we don't always like to think about the waiting season.
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The unanswered prayer season.
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The God where are you season?
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Because awakening doesn't just happen on mountaintops.
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Sometimes it happens in valleys, sometimes it happens in silence.
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Sometimes it happens when you're doing everything you know how to do, and heaven still feels quiet.
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But here's what scripture gently reminds us silence is not absence.
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God is still working even when we can't see it.
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Isaiah forty thirty one but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.
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Waiting in the Bible is not passive.
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It's not giving up, it's leaning in.
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It's trusting it's trusting that God is forming something in you while you're waiting for something around you to change.
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And honestly, some of the deepest spiritual awakenings happen in those seasons.
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Because when everything external is stripped away, you finally discover what's internal.
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You discover that God is not just the giver of blessings.
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He is the blessing.
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I realize the more I try to play God, meaning control outcomes or situations or relationships, that's when I had another rock bottom moment.
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Everything that I wanted to control was stripped away.
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Boyfriend, the job, the whatever I was putting above God was removed from my life.
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I think, in a sense, to push me back to reality, to remind me who is in control, to remind me to refocus on God alone and put Him back at the center.
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But we're all human and we all think this way for a while until there's a moment we essentially give up and give it to God.
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Awakening has a way of healing the heart.
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And this is where something beautiful begins to happen.
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As we surrender, as we wait, as we pray, thy will be done, God doesn't just change our circumstances.
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He begins to change us.
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He begins to heal places we didn't even know were still hurting.
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Maybe you've been carrying things for a long time, old wounds, old words spoken over you, old versions of yourself you're still trying to outrun.
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The Psalm thirty four eighteen says The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
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Did you hear that?
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He is close, but not distant, not disappointed, but close.
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And sometimes awakening feels like this.
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It's not lightning and thunder, but it's God gently touching the places you've been protecting for years.
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It's him saying, You don't have to carry that anymore.
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You don't have to prove yourself anymore.
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You don't have to hide anymore.
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And slowly you start to believe him.
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I think after my awakening experience, I realized for the past twenty-seven years of my life, I had just been in survival mode.
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I wasn't really living, I was just surviving.
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And now I feel like I can finally wake up and start being present in living life.
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The Bible talks about this transformation in a powerful way.
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2 Corinthians 5 17 says, If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.
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The old has gone, the new is here.
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But let's be honest, sometimes the old doesn't feel gone.
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Sometimes it still whispers, sometimes it still tries to define us.
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That's why awakening is not a one time moment.
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It's a daily returning, a daily remembering, a daily choosing Today I am not who I used to be.
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Today I belong to Christ.
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Today thy will be done, but not mine.
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And over time something shifts.
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The old voice gets quieter, and God's voice gets louder.
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Jesus said something incredibly powerful in John 15.
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I'm the vine, you are the branches.
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That's not just poetry, that's identity.
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A branch doesn't survive by trying harder.
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It survives by staying connected.
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And this is what spiritual awakening really is.
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It's learning to stay connected to Christ in everyday life.
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Not just in church, not just in prayer, but in your thoughts, in your decisions, in your emotions, in ordinary moments.
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And as you stay connected, something begins to happen.
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You start to think differently, you start to love differently.
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You start to respond differently.
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Not because you're forcing it, but because life is flowing through you.
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A point in my awakening journey, I realized I no longer felt the need to consume or drink alcohol.
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There was just a point where I was just like, what's the point of it?
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It doesn't make me feel good.
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I just saw no point in it anymore.
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There's a point when peace just completely replaces control.
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So Jesus said in John 14, 27, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you.
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I do not give to you as the world gives.
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The world says peace comes when everything is under control.
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Jesus says peace comes when everything is.
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When you are not.
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That's the paradox of awakening.
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The more you surrender control, the more peace you experience.
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Not because life becomes easy, but because your heart becomes anchored.
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Anchored in God's presence.
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Anchored in his promises.
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Anchored in the truth that you are not alone.
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So what does this look like in life practically?
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It looks like waking up and saying, God, I don't know everything that will happen today, but I trust you with it.
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It looks like making decisions and asking, Lord, what honors you here?
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It looks like letting go of outcomes and holding on to obedience.
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It looks like choosing faith when fear shows up.
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It looks like forgiveness when bitterness feels easier.
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It looks like hope when disappointment tries to settle in.
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And slowly, prayer stops being just words and becomes a way of life.
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Thy will be done, stops being just a sentence and becomes your posture.
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So let me leave you with this today.
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Spiritual awakening is not about becoming someone new in your own strength.
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It's about finally realizing you were never meant to do this life alone.
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God has been with you in every season, in every high, in every low, in every moment you thought you were forgotten.
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And He is with you now.
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And if you face trauma or pain of any kind, know this.
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One of the most beautiful things about awakening is that it doesn't mean pretending that pain never happened.
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God never asks us to deny reality.
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Instead, he invites us to bring our broken hearts to him.
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Healing is often a journey rather than a single moment.
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Sometimes God works in ways that feel immediate, and sometimes he restores us little by little as we continue to walk with him.
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Each step of trust becomes another opportunity for his grace to reach deeper into our hearts.
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So wherever you are today, take a breath.
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Let go of what you've been trying to control and whisper it with me.
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Father, thy will be done.
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Because in that surrender, you don't lose your life.
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You find it.
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And maybe today is not the end of your journey, but the beginning of your awakening.
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I'd like to close with a prayer.
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Father, if you are willing, take away this difficulty, yet not my will, but yours be done.
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Give me courage to trust your leading and clarity for the next right thing.
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Lead me from discouragement into deeper faith until my heart longs for you more than for relief.
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Make me a tributary of your power, your love, and your life.
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And in this way, may I do your will always.
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In Jesus' name, amen.
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Try to find a moment today where you can be present.
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See you next episode.
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If you're looking for a structured companion to help guide your healing journey and spend daily time in scripture and prayer, the 21-day Christian devotional guide for renewing your mind after trauma was created with that purpose in mind.
00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:19.519
It's designed to help you slow down, reflect on God's word, and cultivate daily habits that support spiritual growth and renewed hope.
00:26:19.680 --> 00:26:28.400
Find the link in the notes below to download yours today and get started on your three-week renewal.
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Thank you for listening to Healed by Amanda Grace.
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If this episode spoke to your heart, share it with someone who needs this reminder today.
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And remember, your healing matters, your story matters, and you are worthy.
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Grab a copy of my book, Hurt the Healed, in the show notes, and let's continue this journey.
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See you next episode.