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Does God Hear Me? · Arise Women of God

• 0:00
  Have you ever knelt by your bed, pouring out the most vulnerable part of your soul and then sat there wondering if your prayers were even making it past the ceiling?
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  Oof.
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  That is hard and heavy.
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  Perhaps you're asking, does God hear me?
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  Does he hear my pains?
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  Does he hear my sorrows?
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  Does he hear my griefs?
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  Because you are tired of feeling invisible and you're starting to fear that heaven is just as indifferent to your pain as the world has been.
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  Oh, my friend, do not despair.
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  By the end of today's episode, you will understand how to dismantle the rejection mirror and confidently separate past human letdowns from God's perfect laser like focused attention.
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  We're going to help you solve the feeling of being spiritually unseen by diving into the desperate cry of Blind Bartimaeus.
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  Against a roaring crowd and a Christian counselor's powerful insight on how to reset your spiritual attachment to God, we are moving from feeling forgotten and knowing you are heard.
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  Stay tuned.
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  Ordinary women, Extraordinary Faith When God calls, we say yes.
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  Hello and welcome to another episode of the Arise Women of God podcast.
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  I am your host, Tamara K.
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  Andersen, and joining me today is the amazing and wonderful Wendy Christensen, who happens to be my co founder of Women warriors of Light and has been a licensed Christian clinical social worker for over 30 years.
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  And so having her here with us today as we tackle this heavy question of Does God hear me?
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  Is particularly helpful when we are drowning in the noise of a chaotic world.
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  We have to ground our minds and our hearts on the promise found in Psalm 34:15.
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  Quote the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry.
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  End quote.
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  Notice that word attentive.
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  It means that his ear is tuned specifically to your frequency.
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  We see this beautifully illustrated in Mark chapter 10 with the story of Blind Bartimaeus.
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  He was sitting along the edge of the highway, begging, completely cast out, invisible and marginalized by society.
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  When he hears that Jesus is passing by, he starts screaming at the top of his lungs, trying to get the Savior's attention.
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  Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.
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  Immediately, the massive roaring crowd aggressively tells them that to be quiet.
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  They assume he is far too insignificant to waste the Master's time.
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  Look at what happens next.
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  Despite the overwhelming chaotic noise of the crowd, Jesus stops completely.
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  He commands the crowd to call Bartimaeus forward and he he heals him.
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  He called out for mercy, and God heard and responded.
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  God's ear is a precision instrument.
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  It always picks up on the specific pitch of a broken heart.
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  No matter how loud the world gets.
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  I know this because he has heard me and my cries, and I know he will hear you in yours.
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  But Wendy has noticed that we, women especially, have a struggle believing this story that God truly hears our cries.
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  And it's usually because our past is distorting our view of God.
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  Oh, that can be really challenging, especially if someone has experienced a lot of trauma in their life or maybe neglect or prolonged, like, periods of feeling invisible in their world, like with their family or their peers.
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  It's really common if people have experienced any of those things, to project that experience onto God.
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  And I see it all the time, especially if it's something, for example, your father here, your dad like a father here, your biological father, where maybe you haven't had the best relationship, you're going to automatically project that onto
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  God.
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  Or maybe if you've had a lot of trauma or a lot of fears, you will instantly project that.
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  Or many times you'll project that onto God.
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  And that's a common thing, so don't feel bad about it.
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  So, my friends, we accidentally create a mirror looking at God, but only seeing a reflection of our past.
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  To break that mirror, we have to constantly separate human flaws from the divine character of God.
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  Wendy shares practical, brilliant therapeutic advice on how we can rebuild this mental picture of our divine Father.
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  So something that is helpful in those moments when you feel that really insecure spiritual attachment to God is to work on separating your past human rejections that have happened in this human world from God's perfect, attentive nature.
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  And something that's helped me is to remember the, the character of God.
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  And you can look for the character of God in the scriptures or studying about him, reading about him.
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  He's.
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  He's all knowing.
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  He's.
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  It talks about him being a loving father.
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  He's.
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  He's perfect.
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  Which means he's perfect in love and being able to really try and separate he like that type of a person, that God, He's a God, right?
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  And he's a perfect God.
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  And if I understand his characteristics, then it can separate from there.
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  Sometimes what I'll do with people who are really struggling with this is I'll say, hey, is there anyone in your life that you actually really admire and respect?
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  Can you think of a person that you do admire?
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  And a lot of times they'll sit there and they'll go, oh, yeah, I have this person that was my neighbor or have this really good friend that they love and they respect.
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  And then I'll say, okay, picture God being More like them, only he's even more perfect than them.
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  God's even better than them.
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  But if they can picture somebody that they love or that's kind or someone that they have met along their journey of life that they do admire and respect, then it's a little easier to go, what if God's like
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  Him, only even better?
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  And then they can start imagining a relationship with God, okay, now I can start seeing God being more real and more tangible and actually somebody who cares about me.
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  Especially if you really haven't felt a lot of love and care in your life, that can be hard.
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  So being able to picture somebody and even if it gets as bad as somebody that's on tv, right?
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  Or even.
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  And not that those are the best, but if it's like, I don't know, I can't think of anyone that I've even had them, you know, perceive somebody that's loving and kind that they've even noticed on tv, but hopefully
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  it's a real life person.
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  But if you can't go that far, try to find somebody in the movie or a TV show that you can go, okay, I can relate to that person.
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  I felt kindness and love from that person.
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  And then relate that to God and it's magnified not just 10 times, like a hundred, a thousand, a million times more that he is like that.
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  And it might allow you to start seeing how you could have a relationship.
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  I love that strategy.
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  If you can identify even one shred of kindness in a human being, or even a portrait of a loving father in a story, you can take that image and magnify it a million times over.
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  That is the true scale of your heavenly Father's heart toward you.
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  Another beautiful scriptural example can be found in Genesis chapter 16 with the story of Hagar.
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  She fled to the burning, lonely wilderness, completely discarded and feeling probably very alone and forgotten as she sat by a dry fountain.
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  Believing she was totally alone in the wilderness, God sent an angel directly to her.
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  He called her by name and provided a way forward.
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  Hagar was so stunned by the direct attention she received from God that she gave God a new name.
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  She called him El Roy, which translates to the God who sees me.
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  He didn't just hear her prayer.
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  He saw her exact coordinates in the desert.
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  And he sees you and your exact coordinates wherever you are.
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  Wendy has found that even shifting the specific names we use for God can radically change how close he feels to us.
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  Even sometimes I people say God, I like to call him my heavenly Father.
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  And to me that's more personal to even say Heavenly Father, because it's part of heaven and he is a father to me.
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  And even sharing or saying that changes it for me.
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  And if that's hard, sometimes I'll have people talk or visualize Christ and sometimes some people have a better relationship with Jesus Christ.
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  And I'm like, okay, Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father have that same amount of love for us.
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  That same amount.
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  They're, they're both one in the same.
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  And I know different religions believe different things about Christ and Heavenly Father, but whether they you believe it's there's one person or separate people, they still have that, that love that is so great and wonderful for you.
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  If they can picture Jesus Christ and his love and they study and read about it right in the, in the New Testament especially, they can start feeling his love for them that a God or a Heavenly Father would
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  have for you.
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  So my friends, the crowd may tell you to hold your peace and your past may whisper that you don't matter, but your Heavenly Father is stopping the entire universe to listen to, to your plea.
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  He is El Roy, the God who sees you in your wilderness.
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  And he is the attentive Father who calls you to come forward.
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  You are not invisible to Him.
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  To help you heal those old spiritual wounds, quiet the noises of past rejections and safely connect to the true character of Heavenly Father, we want to give you our free Roadmap to Revelation 6 Steps to Hearing God in
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  your daily life.
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  You can also download our Receiving Light and Revelation audio meditation invitation done by Wendy, and you can get both of these free at the link below.
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  If you are struggling to feel like you matter, I invite you to open the guide to step number one, the divine invitation to start exactly where you are and write out the characteristics of the kindest person you know,
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  just like Wendy suggested, and use that as a real stepping stone relationship with God.
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  Then log your thoughts in step number six, the sacred log.
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  As we wrap up today, please know God sees you, hears you in your grief and in your joys, and will be with you as you walk forward with Him.
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  Trust him and until next time, may you arise.
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  Do it God's way.
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  God strong.