Latest / HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN® / Fearless, Flawed, Faithful: Special Guest Rhonda Stoppe

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Fearless, Flawed, Faithful: Special Guest Rhonda Stoppe · HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN®

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Welcome to Have Faith, Let It Begin. This is Ariel Santana.
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Can you believe I'm seven years old already? I'm old enough now to introduce my dad.
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Ladies and gentlemen, your host, my dad, Angel Santana.
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Two thousand came and the spark was lit. A testimony raw, it wouldn't quit.
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His mother's voice, a guiding thread.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to Have Faith, Let It Begin.
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I am your host, as always, Angel Santana, and this podcast is all about sharing
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real-life stories, real journeys, and the power of faith at work in our everyday lives.
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Today's conversation speaks directly to the heart of faith and family.
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Today's episode is gonna be entitled Fearless, Flawed, Faithful, And it's truly amazing.
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And I do mean truly an honor to welcome Rhonda Stoppe to the show.
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Rhonda is the best-selling Christian author with Harvest House Publishers,
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an international respected speaker, and the host of the award-winning podcast, Old Ladies Know Stuff.
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With over four decades of experience in marriage, parenting,
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and ministry, she brings a powerful real-life perspective on what it means to
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live out of an authentic faith.
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Her teaching is known for being engaging, honest, and deeply relatable.
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Helping people feel understood rather than instructed.
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In her latest work, Moms of the Bible, life-changing lessons from the fearless, flawed, and faithful,
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Rhonda draws from Scripture to remind us of something we often forget,
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that the people God used were not perfect.
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They were fearless, they were flawed, and yet they were faithful through biblical
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truth, personal vulnerability, and practical encouragement.
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She helps families all over the world navigate real life challenges from raising
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children in a comparison-driven culture to letting go of perfection,
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control, and guilt, and embracing motherhood and life as a calling, not a performance.
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So today we're gonna explore what it truly means to live a life that is not
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perfect, but faithful, a life that is fearless, flawed, and still used by God.
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Rhonda is truly a blessing and honor to have you on the show with us today.
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Please welcome Rhonda to Have Faith, Let It Begin. How are you, Rhonda? Rhonda.
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So good. It's great to be with you. Thanks for that nice intro.
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The Lord has been extremely faithful. And I got to tell you,
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we're going to jump right into this because we don't have a lot of time.
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I was a wreck and I knew I wasn't the woman I wanted to be. I knew I wasn't the mom I wanted to be.
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I was trying to make my husband into an image of myself.
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I would have destroyed my marriage and I would have raised my kids for what all y'all thought of me.
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And I'm going to read the intro to Moms of the Bible.
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It says, I'll be a better mom tomorrow. I whispered to myself before drifting
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off to sleep, but when tomorrow never came, mom guilt plagued my anguished soul.
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Being a fun-loving good mom was what I hoped for, but in reality,
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I spent many days in survival mode,
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snapping at my kids when they spilled their milk, and worrying over how we were
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going to pay for their extracurricular activities.
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I knew I needed help. I knew I wasn't the mom I meant to be.
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And I'm going to give you a real quick, go to my website, noregretswoman.com,
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on the cover, what do you call that, homepage, there's a video that's called
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Becoming the Mom You Meant to Be, and I taught it at a homeschool convention in Seattle last year.
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It's a great, it'll give you just so many insights.
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But when I knew I wasn't the mom I wanted to be, I didn't know what to do about
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it. My mom was a teenager when she had me.
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I loved my mom. She was my friend. We grew up together. She was the cool mom,
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right? We shared clothes and all that.
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But my husband's mother came down with Alzheimer's. She was a wonderful lady,
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but I didn't have her as a resource.
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So I knew that Titus II calls the older women to teach the younger how to love
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their husbands, which means being a friend to your husband, and how to love their children.
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So my husband was in youth ministry. He was in youth ministry for 18 years.
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He actually just retired as a senior pastor after 25 years at the same church.
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But when I was a young mom, I looked at the moms of our teens and it's like, okay, what do they know?
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The ones whose kids want to hang out with them, want to bring their friends to their house.
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I wanted to know what they knew. So I asked those women to mentor me.
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And those women invited me to a Bible study. I'm like, hey, I don't need another Bible study.
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I went to Bible schools. I got Bible verses memorized. I just need to know how
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to be a better wife and mom.
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They laughed at me and they said, please come. And it was a precept Bible study,
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which if you don't know anything about that, that's five hours of homework a week.
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And it was the book of Philippians. I was the only young woman in there.
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And I thought, oh, this is going to be so boring. But it was free babysitting
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for three hours. I was with grownups.
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I had quit corporate America to be a stay-at-home mom. So I was like,
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oh, I get to get dressed up, get out of my sweatpants.
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Such a spiritual reason to go, right? But these women were genuine. They were real.
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And they shared what they learned from the highs and the lows of their life
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and what Scripture was teaching them from where they were, convicting them of.
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And I learned from those women what it looks like to, you know,
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Jesus said, man shall not live
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by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
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The word of God was transforming me. It was giving me a biblical worldview and
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even helping me see the value and the worth of my role as a mom in history.
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So that's where Old Ladies Know Stuff comes from. It's a nod to the Titus 2
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woman. I own that trademark.
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It's the name of my podcast, and it's my passion in this. I'll be 65 in just
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a few days, and my goal is to live out.
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I told my husband, I don't know how long we have to live, but I really don't
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know how long I have a brain to keep doing what I'm doing.
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So I'm doing this with urgency. And I have 15 grandkids.
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Oh my goodness. And I'll tell you, I'm not, I'm not, listen,
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I'm a happily married man, but I tell you, you do not look your age.
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So you really threw me off by saying that. If you're color and makeup, trust me. There it is.
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Listen, I hear you, but you do, you look great and you, and you really resonate.
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And I, you know, it's funny just to segue from that in a direct question,
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which you kind of answered, but I want to re-ask it anyway.
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A lot of people today feel pressure to get everything right, right?
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How do we let go of perfection and still live faithfully?
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That's the question I have for you because you talk about fearless,
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flawed, faithful moms in the scripture, right?
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Why is that important for us to see that even the women in the Bible weren't perfect?
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But imperfect is how—we're all imperfect. And the problem lies in we pretend
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that we have it all together.
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And in 18 years of youth ministry, the number one thing that we saw that drove
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kids away from their parents' faith was hypocrisy in the Christian home.
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Putting on that pretense outside, mom and dad are happy, after they just had
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a big argument in church before they got to—I mean, in the car before they got
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to church, the kids saw that.
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And then you get out and go, hi, sister, Jesus loves you. I mean, I would say—,
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In our years of ministry, you give me a kid whose parents were crack addicts
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and you tell that kid, hey, Jesus loves you.
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He loves you so much he proved it because he spilled his love to purchase you
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for his treasure. And he's like, me?
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He knows my name? I'm like, oh, he does. Tell me more.
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But you tell a kid who's been raised by the external perfect homeschool picture,
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and maybe I speak at homeschool conferences, so I hear all that too.
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And those kids see hypocrisy in their moms and their dads. and you tell them
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Jesus loves you and they're like, I know, I've heard it my whole life, no big deal.
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75% of them walk away and that's the number one reason. So what do we do when
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we are hypocritical? Because we are.
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When we sin, you go back to your kids and you're like, hey, I should not have
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talked behind your dad's back to you like that. Would you forgive me?
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I asked Jesus to forgive me. I'm gonna ask your daddy and I'm gonna ask you too.
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That's the normal Christian life. And when we live out a normal Christian life.
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I need, need Jesus to every day walk in a manner worthy of my calling,
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or I am going to live for myself.
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I'm gonna raise my kids for what people think of me. People pleasing isn't pleasing.
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I'm gonna be a control freak. Control freaks raise freaks.
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I'm going to live a way that my kids will know it's not genuine,
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and it will drive my kids away from my savior.
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And I refuse, even now with my grandchildren, I refuse for that to be the legacy of our family.
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Amen. That is very powerful. And it's funny.
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I feel like we're right in sync because every question I'm about to ask you
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is what you just answered. So I feel like we're really in sync.
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You know, as you stated, you lived this out through decades of marriage,
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raising children and now grandchildren, as you stated, you know,
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15 grandchildren and 44, 45 years of marriage, right?
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What does it really look like to pass down that faith in a way that lasts?
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You know, because how do we, I guess it's a two-part question,
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how do we take biblical truth and actually live it out in everyday life, not just on Sundays?
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Let me give you a story. I think this will help. So when we lived in Austin,
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Texas, we're from California. We moved to Texas for six years, planted a church.
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We used our home, 200 teenagers trashing our house in Jesus' name,
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and they were coming to Christ. It was the Bible Belt. They did not know Jesus.
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They just knew about him.
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And while that was going on, my son came down with epilepsy,
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severe seizure activity.
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And after four years of highly medicated, he was stoned from the medication,
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couldn't play sports, didn't want to, too medicated.
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He picked up a guitar and he could play the guitar. And we had band practice
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in our home every Wednesday night after youth group. And he would sit behind
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those different musicians.
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And one day, Brandon had a severe seizure.
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And I went in my room and I wept before the Lord. And I said,
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we're serving you. We're doing all of this.
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And you can't heal my son? I quit. I'm out of here.
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But the word says, if you hide God's word in your heart, you won't sin against him.
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His word's a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.
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And in that moment of deepest grief, not an audible voice, but the Spirit of
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the Most High God whispered Scripture to my heart, in everything give thanks,
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for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
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And I wish I could say I was like, okay, God. I said, no, I don't know how,
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but I know you're good, and I know you love Brandon more than I do.
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I will say thank you with my lips, but you will have to change my heart.
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And slowly God gave us glimpses of what God was doing in Brandon.
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I wanted to hear the crowd glory in my son's accomplishments when he ran one
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down the field or hit one out of the park.
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God got me out of the way. I would have raised an arrogant athlete.
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And he raised up my son, Brandon, who is now in his late 30s.
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He's married, has four kids.
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They actually live on our ranch. It's a super fun time. And,
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Brandon grew up. He went to California Baptist University. He studied music
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and biblical studies, and he's been a worship pastor for years and years.
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So I wanted to raise an arrogant athlete to hear the crowd glory in my son.
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Jesus was like, God's like, I got to get you out of the way because I'm going
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to use your son to bring the crowd to glory in my son through worship.
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And then I have to go a little bit farther. I know we're going to run out of
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time, but I have to tell the rest of the story. No, you keep going, please.
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Ten years later, my daughter Meredith, her and her husband were living on campus
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at Masters University. He was going to seminary, and he was an RD,
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and they gave birth to a special needs child.
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And after, you know, we didn't expect it at all. And after that settled,
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I went to visit Meredith, and I said, how are you doing, Mare?
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And she said, Mom, this is Ivy's trial, and God has invited us to prepare Ivy
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to walk through this trial.
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Time out. Meredith was a high schooler when that was all going on with her little
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brother. What if I had walked away?
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Sometimes your trial's not about you. Sometimes your very trial that you're
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walking through, God is using it to validate your testimony to your children
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and to those around that are watching, to your grandchildren.
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But He's also using it to prepare them for a trial they're going to one day face.
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So I could have walked away. I would have come back. I would have repented.
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No one can pluck me out of God's hand. I would have come back, but at what cost?
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So that story is living genuinely from the depth of your sorrow and disappointment.
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But like Peter said to Jesus, where else will we go? You have the words of eternal
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life. That's what your kids or those around you, that's what they see.
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That's amazing. And, you know, I always say that when I started my podcast,
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if I can just touch one person each day with a message, I feel like I've done my job.
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But I actually can tell you for the first time in eight years,
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I think that you being on the show is really for me.
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My son is four years old, Noah, and he diagnosed with autism.
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And I struggled with that in the very beginning. Not that I was upset,
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but more of, you know, what am
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I going to be? I want to be even better father than I feel like I can be.
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And I still feel at times I fail, you know, because I lose my,
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my patience at times, not with him, but because I don't know what to do and
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I don't know where to turn.
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And I feel that what you just said right there is something that's going to
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energize me and put me in a better position. So the prayers that I've been asking
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for, I feel like they've been answered today.
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So I want to thank you and the Lord right now in front of the world to let them
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know that I feel like God just answered one of my prayers.
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Let me close this way. If someone listening right now feels like they've made
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mistakes or feel like they've fallen short, what would you say to them today?
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The very first chapter of this Moms of the Bible book is of Rahab the harlot.
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That wasn't her last name. And that name followed her even when she followed
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the God of Israel and became married and was in the lineage of David, right?
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What I love about her story is she is named in the heroes of the faith,
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but God never took away her reputation as a harlot.
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Some of us have blown it. Some of us look at things that we've done and we think God can't use us.
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I think of when Jesus said to the religious man that was watching the woman
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anoint his feet with her tears, and he said, who loves more,
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one who's been forgiven much or one who's been forgiven little?
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I know those that have been forgiven much are so understanding the mercy and
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the grace that they've received, and they are ready to go into all the world
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and preach the gospel to every creature. I'm an evangelist at heart.
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This book is a gospel tract. Every book I write in the back of it,
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it has how to have a relationship with Jesus.
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It's a great resource to give to someone who thinks they know Jesus and knows
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all about him, but has never entered into a genuine relationship with him.
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Great mom's day gift to say, hey, this is about moms of the Bible.
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But my heart is when God, here's another example, Bathsheba, she kind of blew it.
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David didn't force her to come sleep with him. That was her choice.
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She slept with the king and had the affair. And then they lied.
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They kept it a secret for about a year.
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But when Nathan the prophet approached them and said, you are the man to David, David was relieved.
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Finally, I can repent. And now I can teach sinners your way.
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And now I can go serve you, right? And here's the best part of that story.
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After that, David went into Bathsheba and she became pregnant with Solomon,
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who God would choose of all of David's sons to be the next king of Israel.
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Because when God forgives, as far as east is from the west, east never meets
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west, he forgives, our sins are a scarlet, he washes them whiter than snow.
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And honestly, that whole chapter of Rahab talks about the shady lady that Jesus
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met at the woman at the well. I would have been a shady lady.
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I'm from a long line of women who are shady ladies.
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There's nothing in me that wouldn't have tried to find my worth in how men loved me.
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But Christ in me, the hope of glory changed that. And I wish I could go on.
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I know we're running out of time, but trust me, this book is just the most amazing
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insights to moms of the Bible.
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And I'll tell you really quick, vcy.com, I was just on Crosstalk Radio,
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and they are having a special, it's half off. If you go to vcy.com bookstore,
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you can get it for half off of what the price is on Amazon or wherever books are sold.
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And if you go to my website, noregretswoman.com, and it'll be a pop-up,
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you can get the first chapter for free, which is the chapter on Rahab the harlot.
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And also in the back of each chapter of the book, there's a QR code,
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there's life lessons, and that QR code takes you to a free video of me teaching on each chapter.
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You can click on that book. If you go to noregretswoman.com,
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sorry, I'm giving you a lot of websites.
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If you go to my website, noregretswoman.com and click on Moms of the Bible,
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scroll down and you can watch all those videos for free.
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Even if you don't buy the book, the videos are there for you for free.
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No, that's fine. And I will make sure that the links are in the description.
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So as you're listening to it right now, you can actually go ahead and look at our description page.
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It will have every single thing she just stated in depth with links so that
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we can make sure we promote you.
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Rhonda, listen, what I appreciate most is that you remind us about faith and
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faith isn't about being perfect. It's about being faithful.
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Rhonda, I also want to take this moment to highlight your newest book.
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Moms of the Bible, which we've been talking a little bit, life-changing lessons
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from the fearless, flawed, and faithful.
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What I love about this is it brings timeless stories from scripture into real
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life, everyday life, excuse me, showing us that even in failure, there's faith.
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And in that faith, there's hope.
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So I want you to just, you know, briefly,
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if you can, I know you kind of touched it a little bit, but tell us why or what
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brought you to this very moment to say, you know what, I can share that it's
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an inspiration with the world and why you wrote this book.
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I have a book out called Moms Raising Sons to be Men. And the first section is Moms of the Bible.
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And people just couldn't get enough of that first section. So I knew if you
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look up the Moms of the Bible, there's not any or maybe one book of that title.
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So I'm like, Harvest House is my publisher. They're like, yeah,
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write it. So I did. And I'm so excited.
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But the last chapter of the book, hang on, before I talk about that,
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Herodias is one of the moms in the Bible. She was horrible.
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She was the one who told Salome to ask Herod for the head of John the Baptist on a platter.
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Don't have time to tell you the whole story. Read your Bible,
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people. Stop watching soap operas. This is way more interesting.
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What kind of a mother tells her daughter when the king had just said anything up to half my kingdom?
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She says, oh, I know. Go ask for the head of John the Baptist.
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She was so bitter. She was so resentful. She was waiting for an opportunity to get vengeance.
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And she took her daughter's opportunity for reward.
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And this is what I want to say, because we're coming up on Mother's Day.
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Some of you have a huge mom hole in your heart.
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And some of you, I know, Angel, you've talked highly of your mother,
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but some of you don't have that. You have a mom who has wounded you deeply.
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And I know that this whole chapter
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about Herodias is talking about hatred and love ties us to a person.
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And sometimes the hate or the resentment that we have, we're dwelling on it,
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we're actually becoming, the Bible says, as a man who thinks in his heart, so is he.
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So what you're saying is, I won't ever be like my mom. You just might become just like her.
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We have to do what Philippians says, think on what's good, right,
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honorable, and praiseworthy. and then we have to forgive. How do we forgive?
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You don't just say, oh, they deserve to be forgiven, but you say,
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you know what? I deserve to be set free. So Lord, here they are.
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Forgive them, redeem them, bring them to repentance or judge them.
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I don't care. It's no longer my concern. I leave them in your hands.
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And then I encourage you with a mom hole in your heart, go to a biblical counselor.
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ACBC is a great place to start. American, I forget what it stands for,
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but as Christian biblical counselors, find one in your area. You can do it online.
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When you've got mom issues, even dad issues, sometimes we need to have outside
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help from someone who's going to give us biblical counseling to break free from
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that resentment that has such a hold on our life.
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It's amazing. And I'll quickly touch base on this because I'm always a firm
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believer that I don't want to give too much away because I want you to enjoy the book.
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But the stories that you are telling, and I read passages a little bit,
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which is the stories in your book, what ones would you say was the book in the
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book that impacted you the most personally?
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Two-part question. And which of those women do you think people relate to the most?
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It's interesting because when I wrote the chapter on Naomi and Ruth,
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I fully thought, oh, this is going to be the chapter about mentoring.
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I'm the old ladies know stuff lady. I'm the mentor.
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And as I wrote it, I unpacked her story. And it's about grief.
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It's about sons marrying ungodly women who worshiped false gods,
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the gods who burn babies on the altar of sacrifice.
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It's about infertility. I have eight grandbabies in heaven. I know what that's
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like to lose those grandbabies.
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And here's the story of Naomi. She walked through the most painful thing any
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of us could ever experience.
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Her husband died, her sons died. They married ungodly women and.
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She had no grandchildren. And finally, Naomi says, that's it. I'm going home.
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I'm going back to Yahweh, and I'm going back to my people. And the girls follow her.
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So Orpah and Ruth follow her. Finally, she says, I have nothing for you,
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girls. Go back to your gods. Go back to your families. Go back to your people.
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Orpah does. But that is when Ruth says, uh-uh, your God will be my God.
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Your people will be my people.
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Where you go, I will go. Where you die, I will die. So what's the point of that whole chapter?
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It's that God sometimes uses the most excruciating experiences in our life.
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And when we run to Him because He's the only hope, He's the only one that promises
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to make good from what we're enduring, someone like Ruth is watching.
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And that's when Ruth wanted to follow Naomi's God.
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Not while they were living in Moab and doing all the things,
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but when Ruth finally saw Naomi without hope say, I have to go back to my God.
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I have to go back to my people.
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So our trials are not always about us, and we need to not waste those trials.
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And believe me, I understand.
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Sometimes we just want to pull the blanket over our head and give up.
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But God's ways are above ours. His thoughts are above ours, as high as the heavens
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are above the earth. So His ways are above ours.
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And He is the one that uses, well, He brings beauty from ashes.
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And you can trust Him to do that.
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Amen. That's very powerful. And you got me choked up on that one.
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So thank you for that. I will say this. Rhonda, I want to take this opportunity
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to close out by saying two things before we close together in a prayer.
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I want to take a moment to thank you.
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Thank you because what stands out to me in this conversation that we've just
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had is not just your wisdom, but your authenticity.
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The way you remind us that faith is not about having it all together,
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but about walking with God through every season.
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That's something people truly need to hear.
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Your message of being fearless, flawed, and faithful brings so much freedom,
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especially in a world where so many feel the pressure to be perfect.
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You've helped shift that perspective today.
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And I know our listeners and yours are walking away encouraged,
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reminded that God can still use them right where they are.
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And through your life, through your marriage, your family,
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your ministry, you've shown what it
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looks like to live faith that lasts not just in words but in action so i thank
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you from the bottom of my heart for sharing your heart your story your calling
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with us today because you're truly a blessing to me and to many people that
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are going to be listening to you let's pray,
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Heavenly Father, we thank you for this moment. We thank you for this conversation
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and for the reminder that you do not call perfect people. You call willing hearts.
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Lords, for every person listening right now, especially those who feel like
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they have fallen short, who feel the weight of trying to get everything right,
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we ask that you meet them right where they are.
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Remind them that they do not have to be perfect. They don't have to be perfect.
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They don't have to be perfect to be loved by you. They don't have to have it
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all together. to be used by you.
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Help us to be fearless in our own faith, honest about our flaws,
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and faithful in the calling that you've placed in our lives.
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So teach us to let go of pressure, comparison, and guilt, and to walk in the freedom of your grace.
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Lord, thank you for Rhonda. Thank you, Lord, for strengthening families.
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Guide parents and help us pass down a faith that real life and realism lives
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out and rooted in your truth.
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And above all, remind us that even in our imperfections, you are still working
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in us, through us, and for us.
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Because we trust you, we thank you, we love you.
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In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
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Rhonda, I am hoping that you had a great time today.
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And I hope that we can have you back. Sure. And I just want to thank you.
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And I'll give you a few seconds here to say whatever you'd like to the Have
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Faith Let It Begin family. and hoping that our listeners will check out your
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podcast and all that you offer to the world.
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I have been so grateful to be a part of this. And I just want to leave you with
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one really quick exhortation, a final exhortation from Moms of the Bible.
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From the beginning, God established mothers as the first teachers of biblical
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truth to their children.
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Moms are the makers of a future generation of godly men and women.
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This is your time in history.
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God is calling you to set aside whatever distracts you from this blessed ministry of motherhood.
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Link arms with other like-minded women who will run this race alongside of you,
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cheering you on in your successes and picking you up when you falter.
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Amen. Well, I told everybody that this was going to be a powerful episode, so there you go.
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Thank you for joining us today on Half Faith Let It Begin. Again,
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I pray that this conversation reminded you of something simple, but powerful.
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You don't have to be perfect to be used by God. So wherever you are in your
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journey, wherever you are in life, whether you feel strong in your faith or
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you're just holding on, know this, God's still with you.
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He's still working with you and he's still calling you forward.
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So be fearless in your faith. Be honest about your flaws and remain faithful
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in the life of God that has given to you.
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Until next time, never forget, have faith, let it begin.