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EP 10 What is iRefresh · iRefresh Podcast

• 0:05
  After a decade of gathering women together for prayer, we are inspired to bring our words of encouragement to you. This is iRefresh. Welcome to iRefresh Ministries, where we empower ordinary women to do extraordinary things through the power of prayer and encouragement. I am here on the couch with some friends that have been on this journey with me for the last decade, and I just want you to get to know Laura Watson, Christy Waters, and Veronica Scott,
• 0:33
  who've been very adventurous to take this journey on the way of what God put in my heart 11 years ago. And so I would love for us now, we're gonna start with a little bit of fun Q&A just to lighten things up and you get to know a little glimpse of how much fun it is to do life with these ladies. Okay, okay, so here we go. What emoji best describes you and your day?
• 1:04
  I was going to say poop emoji, but I don't know if that would be a good one. But anyway, yeah. Okay, what's the first thing you thought of when you woke up this morning? Food. Coffee. What am I going to wear? I thought she'd say Jesus. No, no, no, okay. Second thought. The second thought, yeah. After food was Jesus. And when do you wake up on a normal day? Depends on when I go to bed. Five o'clock. Seven.
• 1:33
  Alright. What three words best describe you? Or even one word? Eye candy. What's your favorite ice cream? Any kind. Any. Or least. Any. Is there least? Is that an option? I don't think it is. I don't know. Okay, so your favorite dessert? Anything chocolate. Creme brulee. Chocolate.
• 2:00
  Outside of desserts, is there a favorite snack you have? Anything. Chips and salsa. Yeah, just snacks. We are not picky about food. Obviously I'm more specific than you think. I didn't know that I'm learning these things. Can you tell I like to eat? Yes. Your favorite drink? Anything. Coffee, diet, Dr. Pepper, and water. Wow. Water. Water. Oh, you guys are so good. I drink it. It's not my favorite, but I drink it. All right. If you were to watch Hulu or Netflix, which wins?
• 2:30
  Hulu. Don't care. All right. If you were to binge watch, would you rather binge watch with friends or go out to a movie? Binge watch with friends. Yeah, because then you could get to talk. Casual. It's a little more casual. Anything with friends. Yeah. That's a good answer.
• 2:49
  Do you prefer to text or FaceTime? Text. Text. Then nobody sees all of this on FaceTime. But if you have to do the face, what would it be? FaceTime or Marco Polo? Marco Polo. You can control that. Yeah. And I can delete it if I don't like it. Unless you're texting some people that are behind the camera right now, and then they're watching live all the time. Yeah. So, yeah. Oh, there we go. Yes. All right. Coke or Pepsi? Diet Coke. Pepsi. Pepsi. Pepsi. Okay. Okay.
• 3:18
  If your preference, dress or pants? Oh, pants. Pants. Sweat pants. All right. Well, that's just a fun little glimpse of our maybe not deep things, but it's part of the fun that we've had over the last decade. But what I wanted to find out is even, I think, Christy, could you just tell me in your own words, like, what is iRefresh meant to you? Sure. What does it mean? Well, as a mom...
• 3:48
  and as a wife, and as a teacher, I get lost in those titles so much. And they're so important to me because I love being a wife, love being a mom, and I love being a teacher and being able to help students, but there was a part missing in my life. And even though I minister through our local church, which I think is so important also, I...
• 4:14
  I found that my call that God had put on my life to minister specifically to women wasn't being fulfilled. And so as we began our journey praying together, and you were like, I think we need to do this for other women, it just opened up the door so beautifully. And I will tell anybody, this is my ministry. This is what God called me to do. I am fulfilled when I am ministering to women
• 4:43
  This is part of what God created me to be on this earth and fulfill. So I'm so grateful for the opportunity of I Refresh because it gives me a consistent opportunity to minister one-on-one with women and to see God do wonderful things in their lives. It's life-changing. I agree. Laura, what do you think? What does I Refresh mean to you? For me, I've always had a heart for women and...
• 5:13
  everything I've learned on my journey in life, the breaking of strongholds, the gaining of freedoms in areas in my life, you know, breaking things from the past, breaking even habits or reactions based on my past. When you gain victory in those areas, and I think, you know, we constantly are trying to gain victory in those areas, but when you see someone, another woman that's maybe struggling with the same thing or has had
• 5:40
  you know, kind of conflict in that area or they're wanting resolution in the area. It is, it just does something for me. It encourages me. It builds me up. It strengthens me to continue to help them get that same breakthrough, help them get that same freedom, help them walk in that calling that God has on their life. And
• 6:01
  I find as, you know, as we go through life, we have circumstances, we have struggles, we have storms. But my greatest breakthroughs come when I pray for someone else. And, you know, for me, it's like you can, you know, be in the midst of a storm. But yet when you come to a ministry meeting and you just submit yourself to the Holy Spirit and just say, OK, Lord, I want to do what you want me to do and pray what you want me to pray for any woman that you put in front of me for prayer time.
• 6:29
  It's like there's just a, you know, just a peace that passes, understanding that comes. And as you walk out, it's like that storm quiets because there's something so much more important that the Lord is doing. And you get your breakthrough by helping somebody else obtain theirs. That's great. That's true. That's very good. And it's for us, I think too, that we've had so many opportunities to be able to see such a diverse group of women, whether really deep issues or sometimes they're not anything major, but
• 6:58
  sometimes they just need that urge of feeling loved and encouraged. Yeah. And someone to reaffirming what God was already speaking into their heart. Because how many times do we see when women come, it's, it's confirmation. Every time it's a confirming word. It was a confirming scripture. It was a confirming a prayer, you know, everything they've been contending for, you know, we were able to help bring confirmation.
• 7:24
  And I think that's a huge thing. You know, Veronica, you've been involved with prayer ministry even in your own family. But even with iRefresh, what do you see that God's been able to do through your life through iRefresh? You know, that's very interesting because, like you said, I was raised in a family where there was a lot of ministry. And they were teaching me my whole life to love Jesus and to have a relationship with Jesus.
• 7:49
  And I really, that was my draw. I really loved to learn more and more about him. I Refresh gave me an opportunity to be able to share him with others and to show other women how that relationship is different than a religion and to pursue him and that he is good. And he's good all the time. So it's just a great way to be able to share that.
• 8:16
  and just pass on those things that I grew up with. I love it. That's good. You know, Christy, if someone was out there and they were like, what is I Refresh about? Like, how would you describe it to someone and see, like, this is what we have been doing and we would like to share it with you? So, I Refresh began with us coming together praying for our children. It was our heart to pray
• 8:46
  And so iRefresh is prayer. iRefresh is ministering to people on an individual basis because we found that even though we were connected and had a strong group, that we had praying for one another, not every woman did. And it always amazed me, the women that would come in and sit in the chair across from me and my group and say, my husband this or my family this or whatever, and I'm all alone.
• 9:15
  And I'd think, oh God, I'm so blessed that I have women that link arms with me or lift my arms up like Erin and her did for Moses. And so really, in my opinion, iRefresh does that for women. We lift their arms when maybe no one else does. So many women are on a journey all by themselves.
• 9:37
  And God loves them enough to bring them across our path, to encourage them, to remind them that they are on the right path, or maybe just to help them straighten things out a little bit. We don't counsel, of course, but it's one of those things that we help them see the goodness of God in their lives and just encourage them to keep going, that God is for them and with them.
• 10:02
  That's good. That's great. You know, each one of us have also played a role. And what I like about when we started praying together, there was something at one point then we felt like it was time to reach out beyond our group. And that's really how it all started is we knew we were to come together and just pray and minister to each other. And I learned so much in just praying as a group that became what we call our team together.
• 10:28
  is I didn't really necessarily know what my giftings were until I spent time with them praying together. It's one thing to say, I'm praying for you, or you can get a text and like, hey, please pray. But it was that time when we spent week after week praying that it really honed in. I'm like, I think I understand. Or we would verify, like, oh, when you were praying something... Yeah.
• 10:52
  It helped me because I would just get a picture. You know, I was looking at all the different gifts, whether it's prophetic, you know, speaking your prayer language. It was learning the gift of our exhortation, the helps is when we prayed, I learned what mine were more and also identifying them in each other. Right. And we found that it would be a compliment to each other what our gifts really were. And that's one of the things I think we've been trying to do is to even help other people to learn to teach them. Yeah.
• 11:21
  what we've learned, how to instill like, hey, this seems to be like your gift. Are you aware of that? And sometimes they're kind of surprised when you really work with them, even when we're doing prayer ministry is, I remember one of the last times I prayed for someone, I'm like, you really have a gift of prophecy. And they kind of looked at me, I'm like, oh, I think I did, I do maybe. But when you can solidify in someone's mind, really confirming, it really makes a difference for them to really understand,
• 11:49
  Start practicing and praying because the word says that we are to exercise our gifts. That's right. And you want to spark that, you know, spark those embers in someone so that they get that desire to operate and step out in the godly confidence and operate in those gifts. And just, you know, we can think we have it, but until we're willing to step out and actually have faith and operate in it.
• 12:13
  It's a different, isn't it? Yeah. It's good. It's one to know something, but if we don't exercise. If you don't exercise it, it lays dormant, and it doesn't function in the way it's supposed to. Mm-hmm. And then, go ahead. No, I was going to say, and others don't get the benefit for it. And as we minister, then it's that ripple effect. Mm-hmm. Because if we can help a woman who's struggling in her marriage or is a mom or something like that,
• 12:39
  for her to be encouraged and go back into that house and help change the atmosphere there. Yes. We've seen husbands come to the Lord. We've seen children come back to the Lord. We've seen so many miracles and testimonies of God's faithfulness. And it's not us. It's us being obedient to minister to these women as they need. And then all it is is them going back into their world.
• 13:05
  and taking that God with them, taking that God moment with them. And it changes things. God changes things. And we give that lady, young woman, or older woman, an opportunity to take a little bit of Jesus back into their home, back into their workplace, back into the environment, whatever it is, and change that environment for the better as well. That's true. That's great power. Veronica, what's our theme of our scripture that we like to share?
• 13:36
  That we're ordinary women doing extraordinary things. Yeah, and the scripture comes from Acts. Yes, yes. Which is Acts 319. 319, yes. And that is, what do we... It's the refreshing...
• 13:48
  Because every time women would leave, they'd go, oh, it was like a spa day. I'd feel so refreshed. I feel so refreshed. And we'd go, okay, you know. But they would, they'd leave rested and refreshed and ready to go again. And so that's why God put that specific term on your heart as I refresh because
• 14:11
  It was a time of refreshment for these ladies. And the scripture says the time of refreshing comes from being in the presence of the Lord. And that's really what our refresh is about, is inviting him and his presence to come into the group. So it's just a great reminder. So we know it's all him. It is. Amen. Yes, that's it. And that's the thing, too, that we find a lot of a joy. And even like what Laura was talking about, too, is when you are going through a lot on your own, but you are...
• 14:40
  You know that what you're facing, we can trust God. And sometimes that journey just takes a lot longer than we anticipated. But in the midst of us, what we're going through, how faithful God is to literally show us things about other people that we can pray and encourage them. And it does help to shift our attitude or our perspective sometimes. It does, it really does. So what's some highlights, some things that you remember that over the years that we've done this of like,
• 15:07
  what it's done for you personally, and like you'd wanna encourage someone else, like, hey, this is what it's done for me. Honestly, for me, there's so many instances and circumstances where we have prayed for a lady and it could be one time, sometimes we had them come back, you know, a number of times, but just,
• 15:30
  over and over the Lord's faithfulness and seeing him move in that lady's life and seeing the breakthroughs come and seeing the victories. And when they come back, you know, and they sit back down in your prayer group and they're like, last time you guys prayed for this. And I saw my marriage restored, or I saw my child come back home, as you were saying before, or,
• 15:53
  you know, you guys were contending with me for a baby and you know, they ended up having four. So, I mean, it's just those kinds, not all at once, but you know, I mean, those kinds, there's so many, and it just, it, it so keeps that fire ignited inside of you to desire to pray for women and to see them gain their victory and to see them get their breakthrough.
• 16:21
  And as you see them, trust in the Lord and kind of walk it out. And, you know, I mean, you had mentioned Moses and Aaron and Hur, and I've been getting a lot of times we are the Aaron and the Hur that are holding Moses' hand. But that job, if they hadn't been holding his hand, the victory wouldn't have come. So sometimes we're not the one, like you, up front, you know, kind of pushing through, but it's just as important to,
• 16:47
  to be in agreement and to be contending for these ladies for the breakthrough for what they're praying for. So that just ignites something in me and really kind of spurs, spurs it on. And it's fun. Yeah. And it's very fun. Yeah. It is. Yeah. The reward of knowing when God does something and sometimes we won't necessarily know it right away, but we've had a situation too. I recall that when we went out of state and we prayed,
• 17:13
  for some people that one time then later on, we had a young girl from college, a local here, that came to a meeting that she was a babysitter for a lady. And so the lady brought her, and then we found out she had rededicated her life when we had gone to this church out of state. And so we got to meet her that she had dedicated her life to the Lord and was going to, what was the degree? Yeah.
• 17:38
  I think she was at an English Bible degree. Bible lit. Yeah, but it was so fun, so unexpected to meet her. To see fruit. To see fruit. To sell some fruit. To see the fruit. And that's the thing. We don't do it for the reward, but sometimes God's so gracious to allow us to see that your prayers, they do avail much.
• 18:02
  And that is our heart, that you would know the power of prayer and the power of God's word, that we know that God's word is alive and is active. And the one thing that I like that we've done, too, that we learned even through Betsy, of learning how to take scripture and personalize it to make sure we're praying God's word. To make it applicable to every situation, every circumstance that someone has when they come in for prayer.
• 18:29
  So some of the resources we even have online, I think, also help for people to, if you don't know how to, we have different subjects. And those subjects of whether they're needing healing or praying for even pregnancy, because we know the power of prayer and using God's Word to pray His will over your life is so important. And so we've got that on iRefresh.net where you can have a whole...
• 18:54
  whole grouping of different categories to learn that process of going to the Word and leaning on God and what He has for you and your family. That's good. You know sometimes, we've been doing this together for a long time, and in 10 years my life has been close to perfect. Perfect? No. I've had challenges, how about you? And sometimes as a woman who's
• 19:23
  walking with God and I can pray for others and I can hear God, but sometimes when I'm praying for myself and my family, I don't. And it's kind of frustrating. So I'm thinking of one particular season I was walking through with one of my children and it was a very challenging season. And I can remember coming to an iRefresh meeting and telling Cheryl I need to step back
• 19:51
  And she said, now I believe you have something for someone tonight. And I'm like, I'm not hearing God. You don't understand. I'm, you know. And I can remember that night having a word for somebody that was so bizarre, so strange that I was apologizing as I was ministering to this girl. And she's like, you don't understand. My dad used to sing that song to me when I was a child. And it was so specific. And it was like God was telling me.
• 20:20
  That as I was giving out of my pain and my hurt, that you are on track and you are doing what you're supposed to be doing. And so sometimes as women, it's easy to turn in and just to see our issues and our faults and our mistakes and our heartache.
• 20:42
  And so when we turn out and give to others, we reap such a harvest. Because after I left that night, I thought, I don't know how my life is going to work out in this situation, but I trust God is with me and for me. So just encourage others that if you're not ministering, plug in. Get involved because you make a difference. And if we're doing our part,
• 21:11
  And somebody will do their part for my child. And as long as I'm being obedient, it puts others in place to be obedient for my needs. And that's true. That sounds selfish and it might sound wrong, but all I have to do is obey God. That's right. And to minister to women, that's part of my obedience. And he's always faithful to show up. Always.
• 21:35
  That's the beauty of, you know, this has been my original team, and then we've branched out and had other people involved. But, you know, there's one thing I know that it's like they know the heartbeat, like we know each other's heartbeat to know how to stir each other up when we're either together in prayer or then when we're separated, that we have that ability to be able to press through with each other to go through things.
• 21:59
  You know, Veronica, one thing I know early on is like you like to be behind the scenes and you're all about prayer. But, you know, one of the things I have learned with you, though, too, is when you begin to talk about the Lord, there's something that changes and shifts in you and the joy that comes over you when you get to testify and share about God's goodness. What does iRefresh help you even just allowing that to come out even more? I think it's given me an opportunity.
• 22:27
  me an opportunity to share, just to get outside of my comfort zone and to share with other people. And then to get the feedback from them encourages me and builds my faith when I have that opportunity just to see how God is moving on behalf of everybody. And it's just a great opportunity to really get to experience it.
• 22:54
  instead of just learning about it or praying to actually see it work. And it's fun because, you know, Veronica remembers stories so well in the testimony. And I'm like, all of a sudden, I might be fuzzy. I'm like, she can give the detail. I'm like, okay.
• 23:10
  And, you know, we do need to have those testimonies. We need to be able to encourage ourselves for the next person to believe and know that God is going to take care of their needs. Because sometimes they're just, when they come in, you can sense so much heaviness over them. Yeah, that's true. But even especially, like, because Laura's role a lot of times when she comes in is to help to facilitate and to know, because we have multiple teams when we do our gatherings,
• 23:35
  is trying to pinpoint like which team to even place those people in a group that where their giftings are going to be a natural ability for them to flow and have a word of encouragement to them. And so what goes on in your mind when they walk into the door and you're, because you're probably thinking already like, okay, where does God have them? I actually, yeah, I actually kind of even start days before where I'm like, okay, Lord, you know, I can,
• 24:06
  I could, you can, to a certain extent, do it in your own power, just with logic and a little bit of understanding. But that's not going to get us the breakthrough we want. That's not going to get us the victory that we want. So it's just more, okay, Lord, as even before, help me organize the teams. Let me know who needs to minister together for this appointed time, for this meeting. You know, personalities that are going to fit well, which I have to say, I refresh, is exceptionally important.
• 24:35
  good about just all the ladies, the personalities meshing together, working together because we're submitted to the Holy Spirit and we're wanting the Holy Spirit to do what he wants to do. But just asking the Lord, okay, you know what teams need to go together? And then as the ladies come in, it's like, okay, Lord, you know, pinpoint what team this person needs to go to or who needs to minister to them or what gift,
• 25:02
  Um, like, you know, I know Christie's very prophetic, so it's like, or discerning. She's very discerning in a word of wisdom, word of knowledge, you know, who's in need of that this evening. And, you know, I'll even start initially and kind of assign different women to different groups. And it never fails. The Holy Spirit's like, nope, I'll just get a check. And so I'll cross their name off. And I'm like, okay, I just kind of look around and I'm like, okay, Lord, help me pinpoint who needs to go next in this group. And I'm like, okay, I'm like, okay, I'm like, okay, I'm like, okay, I'm like, okay, I'm like, okay, I'm like, okay, I'm like, okay, I'm like, okay, I'm like, okay, I'm like, okay, I'm like, okay, I
• 25:31
  you know, and I'm not doing anything that anyone else can't do. It's just being submitted to the Holy Spirit and recognizing that you want the God's best for each lady that comes in the door. You want them to leave changed. You don't want them to leave the same. You want them to leave encouraged, refreshed, as we were talking about, edified and just getting that confirmation that they're seeking from the Lord. That's really powerful. One of the things that we, uh,
• 26:00
  at iRefresh is we are, we, after our first year, we got together in the summer and we began to just write everything about how we were led by God and looking at the scriptures and had our Bibles out and began to create a roadmap of how God instructed us and how to pray. And we've used that guide as we've had new people come on board and that's developing into a book form. So that because we,
• 26:26
  We want more people to know the power of prayer and the community of literally coming together in prayer.
• 26:33
  And that's one of those resources that we are making available that we want you to be able to not only have been prayed for personally, but also that you too can do the same thing. It's just having a conversation with God and listening to what he has and being obedient to that. And that calling is we're all called to pray. It's not just for an intercessor, but it's we're all called to pray. And we want to be able to encourage you, but in faith.
• 27:00
  in that place that you will also realize that the stories that we will begin to share through our podcasts and through the videos we share is about people that we personally directly had an opportunity to pray for. We've even prayed for people we've never seen or heard of. You know, I had a family member a lot of times we'll get texts from people and I had a family member. Well, somebody from Columbia, a Bogota, uh, the, the woman was on her deathbed. The doctor wrote her off. And so, uh,
• 27:27
  We began to pray for her, and today she is thriving and living and in a place of authority in her country.
• 27:35
  And yet my friends have never met them, her, but we know that God's prayer is not contingent on being face to face. True. That's right. That's exactly right. And so we want you also to see in the days ahead of the podcast is that too are going to be incredible stories about these amazing women and how they are walking out their destiny. That they're using prayer, they're using the gifts that God called them into to make an impact in their world.