Full Transcript for Revisiting “Life Wasn’t Supposed to be Like This”

dangerously quickly. 00:02:28.104 --> 00:02:36.888 Now, moments like these, this is where I started having to do some serious mental and spiritual battle, and I'll explain why. 00:02:36.888 --> 00:02:41.424 See, I'm single the last number of years of my four children's lives. 00:02:41.424 --> 00:02:45.453 I was a single mom, and so this particular battle wasn't new to me. 00:02:45.453 --> 00:02:48.727 The lies started coming, and they started coming fast. 00:02:49.449 --> 00:03:00.164 Now I know that there are lies that the enemy regularly whispers into your ear too, but my particular ones go something like this Look see, you're all alone. 00:03:00.164 --> 00:03:01.568 There's no one to help you. 00:03:01.568 --> 00:03:05.784 If you'd figured out your mess, you probably wouldn't be in this situation right now. 00:03:05.784 --> 00:03:06.526 What are you going to do? 00:03:06.526 --> 00:03:08.872 You think you can change a tire, but can you? 00:03:08.872 --> 00:03:10.443 This is too big for you. 00:03:10.443 --> 00:03:11.665 This is overwhelming. 00:03:11.665 --> 00:03:15.140 This was supposed to be a super fun day, and look at it now. 00:03:15.140 --> 00:03:20.091 Plus, you're ruining your sister's day too, and it went on from there. 00:03:20.091 --> 00:03:22.320 You can just imagine. 00:03:23.362 --> 00:03:24.444 I have to be honest. 00:03:24.444 --> 00:03:30.354 It's been a long, hard journey for me to get to the place where I know what to do in this battle. 00:03:30.354 --> 00:03:40.995 This journey has taken me from being a slave to God in my own mind to realizing that I'm his daughter and that he doesn't just take care of me, but he loves doing it. 00:03:40.995 --> 00:03:45.640 That he doesn't just show up when I've been good, loves doing it. 00:03:45.640 --> 00:03:46.842 That he doesn't just show up when I've been good. 00:03:46.842 --> 00:03:55.403 He shows up all the time, because how he treats me is based on what he's done, not on what I've done and on who he is, not on who I am. 00:03:55.403 --> 00:04:07.093 It's been difficult and it's often been ugly too, because I've had to acknowledge that I do a really terrible job of being God in my own life and I've had to lay so much down. 00:04:07.093 --> 00:04:37.612 But you guys, that is when I started seeing him show up time and time again as my provider and my protector and my deliverer and my rescuer and my healer which just a little note to the side here I think often, because we live in a microwave, instant gratification culture, we can be tempted to think that because we have a struggle and it's not instantly resolved or fixed or healed, that we're doomed. 00:04:38.360 --> 00:04:45.983 Or we may think that when we take one step forward and two steps back, even over and over again, that that means that we'll never experience victory. 00:04:45.983 --> 00:04:50.913 Well, I am here to tell you, to say out loud to you this is normal. 00:04:50.913 --> 00:04:53.706 This is actually the normal human condition. 00:04:53.706 --> 00:04:55.954 You're not doomed, you're going to make it. 00:04:55.954 --> 00:04:57.740 This is regular life. 00:04:57.740 --> 00:05:02.047 Keep going, keep growing, dig in, don't give up. 00:05:02.047 --> 00:05:03.428 Reach out for help. 00:05:03.428 --> 00:05:05.952 Don't let yourself get isolated. 00:05:05.952 --> 00:05:07.615 Don't believe the lies. 00:05:07.615 --> 00:05:09.202 You are not alone. 00:05:09.202 --> 00:05:11.427 This is how it is for all of us. 00:05:11.427 --> 00:05:13.971 It's normal, and there's victory. 00:05:13.971 --> 00:05:22.745 But to have victory, you're going to have to make a choice and you're going to have to learn how to make those choices as a practice of your life. 00:05:22.745 --> 00:05:25.273 Anyway, okay, back to our story. 00:05:26.757 --> 00:05:49.267 So, when my tires started going flat really quickly, dangerously, on the road, instead of pitching an internal temper tantrum which, wherever you are, unless you're driving, raise your hand if you know what I mean an internal temper tantrum where you look like you're all cool as a cucumber on the outside, but inside you're pitching a fit right. 00:05:49.267 --> 00:05:52.120 Well, that had been my normal. 00:05:52.120 --> 00:06:14.336 But instead of doing that, and instead of melting under the lies that were coming at me, instead of giving into fear which is really just faith in the enemy's plan for me in my life, which is really just faith in the enemy's plan for me in my life my internal response was a new one that had come after years of letting the Lord do heart surgery. 00:06:14.336 --> 00:06:21.148 Basically, I call it the hmm, and I've decided that's actually a place all on its own, it's a state, a condition, hmm. 00:06:21.148 --> 00:06:38.132 So, as the tire completely emptied of air air, we rolled into the gas station next to the plant outlet spa we could literally see it from the parking lot and then commenced a couple of hours of failed attempts at getting the problem fixed. 00:06:38.132 --> 00:06:44.391 First, the air pump at the gas station didn't work, and then my portable pump, which I so responsibly had in the trunk. 00:06:44.391 --> 00:06:45.781 It wasn't strong enough either. 00:06:46.964 --> 00:06:53.483 As nothing seemed to be working, a very nice man pulled up and, seeing our situation, offered to help Bless him. 00:06:53.483 --> 00:06:58.862 It was one thing after another for him too, and he probably ended up spending gosh. 00:06:58.862 --> 00:07:02.012 It was probably a couple of hours before the whole incident was over. 00:07:02.012 --> 00:07:16.884 During all that time, though, as he was trying to fix the problem and find a solution, he started sharing with us, and eventually he poured out his recent, very difficult and tragic life story. 00:07:16.884 --> 00:07:22.742 When that started, my sister and I made eye contact, and both of our eyes lit up. 00:07:22.742 --> 00:07:32.536 You see, we could tell

that we were both in the hmm, and we knew that we were both thinking the same thing oh, okay, god's moving here. 00:07:32.536 --> 00:07:35.708 This man is why we're actually here today. 00:07:35.708 --> 00:07:40.622 This man is why we're not going to the plant outlet spa, not today. 00:07:40.622 --> 00:07:45.173 This man is why God detoured our plans for our lives today. 00:07:45.173 --> 00:07:48.309 Okay, lord, what are you doing? 00:07:49.339 --> 00:07:53.992 And we started asking the man deeper questions, looking for where God was working. 00:07:53.992 --> 00:08:09.173 When the kind man shared that one particularly tragic event had happened literally one year before to the day we got it both of us it clicked. 00:08:09.173 --> 00:08:13.192 We immediately began to pour words of life over him. 00:08:13.192 --> 00:08:36.350 We let him know that we had seen people radically healed mind, body, heart and spirit and that his best days were ahead of him, that his past did not have to define his future and that there was healing available for him, that God has a purpose and a plan for him, and that it was no mistake that he had met us that day, we who had seen and experienced so much healing. 00:08:36.350 --> 00:08:46.462 He was open to it, he was willing to receive what we were saying and we connected him to another man, a friend of ours, who knows and walks with the Lord. 00:08:46.462 --> 00:08:49.028 It was amazing, and he felt it too. 00:08:49.028 --> 00:08:57.133 We all three knew that we watched God work a miracle that day Now for us, for me and my sister. 00:08:57.133 --> 00:09:05.815 It costs us our plans, our plants, our time together and me a new set of tires, and you know what. 00:09:05.815 --> 00:09:13.892 We both would have given so much more to be a part of watching God offer rescue to a broken man in deep pain. 00:09:13.892 --> 00:09:15.562 It was awesome. 00:09:16.225 --> 00:09:25.527 Now, that was just one morning's responses, but I'm here to tell you I did really badly for many years and it took the Lord. 00:09:25.527 --> 00:09:29.193 What I feel like had to be longer than normal. 00:09:29.193 --> 00:09:31.307 Is there a normal when it comes to these things? 00:09:31.307 --> 00:09:39.025 I don't know, but I feel like, if there is normal, I took longer than normal to allow the Lord to write this on my heart. 00:09:39.025 --> 00:09:44.692 When I became a single mom, this attack from the enemy got really intense. 00:09:44.692 --> 00:10:08.082 I know that his design for my life was to get me to decide that I was a victim, that I would always be a victim, that the world and a big old list of people, including God, owed me better, and to consume all of my energy in that angsty swirl, hopefully for the rest of my life, with the goal of shutting down the destiny that my father has for me as a daughter of the king. 00:10:09.405 --> 00:10:20.501 It started in places that you'd never think were a big deal or were all that momentous in time, places like the back room of the garage when the water heater went out. 00:10:20.501 --> 00:10:30.368 Now, if you're a guy listening to this, you're like what's the big deal, but something like that is kind of the chick's equivalent of handing you a photo of a gourmet meal and telling you to go make it happen on your own. 00:10:30.368 --> 00:10:37.913 So it's not surprising then, hopefully, that I felt overwhelmed and capable of handling the situation. 00:10:37.913 --> 00:10:50.708 And in my mind, the worst quickly became the most likely and the lies started coming that I was alone, that I couldn't afford what was happening with this water heater, and what if the HVAC broke? 00:10:50.708 --> 00:10:52.283 And what if the roof started leaking? 00:10:52.283 --> 00:10:53.669 How was I going to afford that? 00:10:53.669 --> 00:11:00.753 And what about the cars and the kids and their college and their weddings, which they were nowhere close to their college and weddings? 00:11:01.841 --> 00:11:06.691 I just felt so alone, even though I knew in my mind that that was a lie. 00:11:06.691 --> 00:11:10.065 It seemed like there was no one to help and there was no way out. 00:11:10.065 --> 00:11:15.144 But I took the first step and I actually ended up getting the issue resolved. 00:11:15.144 --> 00:11:18.942 It turns out there were people who were willing to help and there was enough money. 00:11:18.942 --> 00:11:21.586 But then came the biggest choice. 00:11:21.586 --> 00:11:26.341 You'd think it would be easy by that point Problem solved right, move on forward. 00:11:26.341 --> 00:11:28.706 But that is not how our enemy works. 00:11:28.706 --> 00:11:38.942 I could almost hear the whispers out loud yeah, this problem ended up working out okay, but what about all of the possibilities of the things that could go wrong? 00:11:38.942 --> 00:11:46.881 When those things like this happen, you'll still be all alone, with no one to help and no one to handle crises and difficult things in your life. 00:11:47.982 --> 00:11:52.870 The lies, fear is a strong pull. 00:11:52.870 --> 00:12:11.412 It almost feels like, if we don't let all the terrible possibilities roll over us, that we're not being responsible about them, that we're not preparing for them with an adequately panicked response or should we say pre-response because they haven't happened. 00:12:11.412 --> 00:12:19.332 They haven't actually happened but I could also feel the voice and hear the voice of the Father over those frenzied thoughts. 00:12:19.332 --> 00:12:21.485 I've got you. 00:12:21.485 --> 00:12:26.532 I'm your helper, your provider, your rescuer. 00:12:26.532 --> 00:12:33.333 You're still going to be living on a broken planet, but I'll be with you every step of the way. 00:12:33.333 --> 00:12:38.331 I bring solution and I'm watching your life down to the smallest detail. 00:12:38.331 --> 00:12:44.452 Don't miss the solutions just because they're not the exact ones that you wanted. 00:12:44.452 -->

00:12:49.865 You're my precious daughter and I love being a good father to you. 00:12:49.865 --> 00:12:53.131 You can trust me, even in the hard places. 00:12:53.131 --> 00:12:55.761 This is what I do and who I am. 00:12:57.303 --> 00:13:10.350 So here's my question for us, for you what stories does the enemy whisper in your ear to get you to believe the lie, the one that says you're alone and you need to be your own God. 00:13:10.350 --> 00:13:15.371 It's the original whisper he poured like poison into Eve's ear in the garden. 00:13:15.371 --> 00:13:16.825 You're on your own. 00:13:16.825 --> 00:13:19.388 If it's going to be, it's up to you. 00:13:19.388 --> 00:13:33.134 It's the lie that says you're not completely provided for, cared for, protected and healed and that your father is defined by your circumstances, not who he says he is or who he actually is. 00:13:33.134 --> 00:13:39.725 It's the lie that says he is not enough and that you should scoot him off the throne of your life and take it from here. 00:13:41.701 --> 00:13:48.913 Now let me say this this is not me, nor am I trying at all to imply that hard things aren't going to come. 00:13:48.913 --> 00:13:51.850 Hear what I'm saying, not what I'm not saying. 00:13:51.850 --> 00:14:06.672 It means that he's always there and that when I do get broken by this life, even crushed, he's there to take me from being broken into healing and into healthy and into whole. 00:14:06.672 --> 00:14:17.729 Over and over again, I heard a friend of mine say recently when you give every part of yourself to God, he takes full responsibility for your life. 00:14:17.729 --> 00:14:38.172 I've been struggling with something that got knocked loose when she said that, with trying to figure out all the pieces instead of getting quiet, laying it all before him one area at a time, and saying what do you want me to know about this, what do you have to say to me about this and what do you want me to do? 00:14:38.172 --> 00:14:45.270 Which we call that the Jamie Winship around here, and if you haven't listened to Jamie Winship yet, you gotta go listen to him. 00:14:45.270 --> 00:14:49.299 Winship around here, and if you haven't listened to Jamie Winship yet, you gotta go listen to him. 00:14:51.120 --> 00:14:54.125 My friend was talking about what we find in Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, and I love it. 00:14:54.125 --> 00:14:59.441 In the Passion Translation it says this trust in the Lord completely and do not rely on your own opinions. 00:14:59.441 --> 00:15:06.333 With all your heart, rely on him to guide you and he will lead you in every decision that you make. 00:15:06.333 --> 00:15:12.852 Become intimate with him in whatever you do and he will lead you wherever you go. 00:15:12.852 --> 00:15:20.672 He's just waiting for us to see him in the room and just to be transparent y'all. 00:15:20.672 --> 00:15:45.486 There are times that I have literally almost shouted that scripture over and over until it began to sink into my heart and my spirit calmed and I began believing again that God is who he says he is, instead of who my circumstances and who the enemy were saying that he is Because when that shift happens, everything changes. 00:15:46.269 --> 00:15:50.985 With a challenging situation, our questions change from what about me? 00:15:50.985 --> 00:15:52.028 Why me? 00:15:52.028 --> 00:15:57.644 This is hard and miserable and I'm not happy, and where is God to fix this. 00:15:57.644 --> 00:16:05.730 Instead, we ask questions like okay, god, I know you've got me and I trust you. 00:16:05.730 --> 00:16:09.563 Now show me what you're doing, what's going on and what do you want me to know? 00:16:09.563 --> 00:16:13.111 Where are you working and what part do you want me to play? 00:16:13.111 --> 00:16:22.631 Let's go, give me ears to hear and eyes to see what you're doing and the courage to walk in that instead of my own self-protection and fear. 00:16:24.336 --> 00:16:42.390 Sometimes you'll say that with even excitement, during a minor inconvenience like a flat tire, and sometimes you'll say it through tears and maybe even screaming, during the addiction of a loved one or a divorce or infertility or cancer. 00:16:42.390 --> 00:16:49.441 As my Uncle Alan says, you hit your thumb with a hammer and I'll hit mine, and then we'll talk about which hurts the most. 00:16:49.441 --> 00:17:05.848 Pain is pain, and when you can say those things to God when you're in pain or when the deep hard work that he's doing is in your own heart, I'm telling you that'll make a man or a BMW out of you in the spirit. 00:17:05.848 --> 00:17:09.644 Bmw meaning beastly mountain woman. 00:17:09.644 --> 00:17:22.987 Because when we know that we're fully taken care of, life changes from a series of personal inconveniences and tragedies to adventures where we're looking for the miracle that God intends to work in the situation. 00:17:22.987 --> 00:17:31.088 We're not worried about ourselves, we're handled and our fulfillment is not based on our circumstances or even on our personal happiness. 00:17:32.355 --> 00:17:37.708 This also takes a willingness on our part to make our lives not about our own comfort. 00:17:37.708 --> 00:18:00.488 And that very simple example my sister and I had to be willing to give up our plans for the day, to stand in the freezing cold, to allow one challenge and frustration after another, so that we got to spend more and more time with a man who God had clearly set up to receive life from us, on a day that the enemy wanted to remind him of pain and loss and disappointment. 00:18:00.488 --> 00:18:06.962 We have to be willing to follow the example of Jesus and lay our lives down. 00:18:06.962 --> 00:18:19.244 I have a funky kind of weird journal type thing that I use during my secret place with God and in it is a prayer I say to the Lord regularly at the start of the day I am a coin in your pocket. 00:18:19.244 --> 00:18:26.025 Spend me however you will, you see, to get

there over and over. 00:18:26.085 --> 00:18:31.641 With each challenge, I had to take the lies that Satan whispered and deal with them, one at a time. 00:18:31.641 --> 00:18:42.096 I have to choose faith that God is taking care of me and that he's working, that he's always working, and turn my heart and my eyes to hear him Over and over. 00:18:42.096 --> 00:18:50.836 I have to say no to fear, which is always just faith in what the enemy's plan is and it empowers it, and I will not do it. 00:18:50.836 --> 00:19:01.027 That was an aha moment for me, the day I learned that when I partner with fear, I'm actually actively partnering with the enemy's plan for my life. 00:19:01.027 --> 00:19:14.060 Hear that Fear is faith, that the enemy's plan for my life is greater than God's plan for my life, and it will suck you down the proverbial rabbit hole, and that is a dark place. 00:19:14.060 --> 00:19:18.766 I've been there and I have no desire to live there ever again or anymore. 00:19:18.766 --> 00:19:19.688 I refuse. 00:19:21.355 --> 00:19:30.422 And as to that sense of indulging in all the possible terrible things that could happen, that we're just trying to be prepared for them, that it's responsible. 00:19:30.422 --> 00:19:45.961 I just want to free you from that, because the truth is faith, trust and depending on God for my life, laying it all down and listening for His voice instead of trying to figure it all out on my own. 00:19:45.961 --> 00:19:53.602 That's actually the responsible thing to do, you guys, and it's way smarter than my strategy. 00:19:53.602 --> 00:19:57.588 Oh, can you feel yourself relaxing into that? 00:19:57.588 --> 00:19:59.499 You don't have to figure it all out. 00:19:59.499 --> 00:20:01.042 You don't have to fix it. 00:20:01.042 --> 00:20:03.048 You actually can't do either. 00:20:03.048 --> 00:20:12.490 He's already got everything that's headed your way and he is the solution to every challenge, every issue and problem that you've ever had or will have. 00:20:12.490 --> 00:20:19.906 You can take a deep breath, you can quiet your heart and you can lean back into your Papa's arms. 00:20:19.906 --> 00:20:25.758 He'll let you know everything you need to know and he'll guide every step that you take. 00:20:25.758 --> 00:20:26.859 And he'll guide every step that you take. 00:20:26.859 --> 00:20:42.113 And when you begin to really know how much he loves you and how much you can trust him, the scripture that says though he slay me yet will, I trust in him starts to actually make sense. 00:20:42.113 --> 00:20:49.868 Who knew that surrender was the way to go from being a victim to being a victor? 00:20:51.415 --> 00:20:59.845 Next episode, we'll feature our first guest who did just that, and I'm so excited for you to hear the story and about the whole series. 00:20:59.845 --> 00:21:00.948 So stay tuned. 00:21:00.948 --> 00:21:03.061 We'll see you next time. 00:21:03.061 --> 00:21:06.755 Hey, you guys, thanks for hanging out with us today. 00:21:06.755 --> 00:21:09.644 I hope you got some refreshment from this sip from the fountain. 00:21:09.644 --> 00:21:21.643 If you're curious to hear more, or if you like what you've heard, you can go ahead and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to yours, or follow our Instagram account, sips from the Fountain or our Facebook page by the same name. 00:21:21.643 --> 00:21:28.183 Special thanks for Cover Art Photography to the Sarah D Harper, and I can't wait to hang out with you guys next time. 00:21:28.183 --> 00:21:30.736 Thanks so much, love y'all.