Latest / In His Circle / God is With Us: Weathering Life's Shifts with Faith | Ep 23

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God is With Us: Weathering Life's Shifts with Faith | Ep 23 · In His Circle

• 0:00
  Announcer: Welcome to In His Hands podcast from women for women.
• 0:03
  Announcer: We're here to help you find peace in knowing you are in God's hands.
• 0:08
  Announcer: Our goal is sharing the Word of God in simple conversations.
• 0:12
  Announcer: We're here to help you thrive every day.
• 0:14
  Announcer: And now, here are your hosts.
• 0:18
  Tiffany Windsor: Good morning.
• 0:19
  Tiffany Windsor: I'm Tiffany Windsor and I'm Mary Koenig, and our topic today is God is with us and, mary, would you pray us in?
• 0:28
  Mary Koning: Yes, I love this verse that we use at Christmas time, but it's appropriate every time of day and night, behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name in manual, which means God with us.
• 0:44
  Mary Koning: Matthew 1.23.
• 0:45
  Mary Koning: Lord, I confess I make you small sometimes, I put you in a box and don't invite you into every minute.
• 0:52
  Mary Koning: But, lord, you are there and we sing a song in church today that is combining the power of all the prayers in the room, all the people, all the prayers and all the faith, and it was overwhelming how big that is.
• 1:07
  Mary Koning: And then you are bigger still.
• 1:09
  Mary Koning: So, lord, we trust you, we trust that you are with us and we ask that you surprise us with your presence today.
• 1:16
  Mary Koning: In Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
• 1:18
  Tiffany Windsor: Amen.
• 1:19
  Tiffany Windsor: So the reason I picked this topic today of God is with us is because I forgot.
• 1:24
  Tiffany Windsor: I very rarely get sick and I got sick last week.
• 1:31
  Tiffany Windsor: I thought it was food poisoning.
• 1:33
  Tiffany Windsor: It turned out it was the flu.
• 1:34
  Tiffany Windsor: You can still hear it in my voice and it was very interesting.
• 1:40
  Tiffany Windsor: God always puts me into situations to teach me and it was very interesting because you know I'm always giving advice to others about how to move through certain blocks and how to move through the negative thinking.
• 1:54
  Tiffany Windsor: And I tell you I totally forgot to pray when I was not feeling well, I just laid in bed, as many people do, and I slept a lot.
• 2:06
  Tiffany Windsor: I didn't turn on worship music, I did not pray and I cannot believe that I did that.
• 2:13
  Tiffany Windsor: We're in the middle of 21 days of prayer right now at church and I missed three days of those 21 days and it wasn't until Mary at church was pushing me more to pull me out of my funk for lack of another word.
• 2:31
  Tiffany Windsor: That just doesn't even seem like the depth of what my mind was trying to do in messing with me that I started to listen to God again, even though I'm sitting there every day in church and praying and taking this beautiful prayer time, I wasn't really embracing it.
• 2:49
  Tiffany Windsor: It wasn't until I started thinking about how I hadn't been praying that I realized that I had forgotten that God is with us all the time.
• 3:02
  Mary Koning: One observation I had was that because we were in a community and face-to-face, I could see it on your face and I could see that you weren't using your tools and was asking do our tools work, Are they powerful, Are they effective?
• 3:19
  Mary Koning: And how much maybe deeper the funk would have been had you not shown up for the 21 days of prayer or church and just gone into your bed I heard this new term and done bed-rot.
• 3:34
  Mary Koning: I love that.
• 3:36
  Mary Koning: I kind of like it.
• 3:38
  Mary Koning: It's comforting sometimes when the weather is gray and dismal and our bodies need rest sometimes, but sometimes that's not the right choice for us either.
• 3:48
  Mary Koning: The other thought that occurred to me was that I don't seek wise teachers unless they've been through the valley of the shadow, and I'm so sorry that you've gone through the valley of the shadow, but this shows me that you know the steps to take to get yourself moving.
• 4:07
  Mary Koning: I don't really want to take advice from someone who's saying something but hasn't experienced it.
• 4:12
  Mary Koning: I need wise women who have really wrestled with these things and tried something after this thing, after another thing and really pressed in to find the answers.
• 4:26
  Mary Koning: So thank you, Thank you for pushing yourself.
• 4:31
  Tiffany Windsor: Thank you for being there and witnessing this, because I tend to be a loner.
• 4:37
  Tiffany Windsor: One of the most important things to me is when I went into illness.
• 4:42
  Tiffany Windsor: When I went into disease, I realized disease is emotional.
• 4:46
  Tiffany Windsor: But I didn't know what emotional state I was in and it wasn't until I was praying one of those mornings and the Lord told me very clearly that I was actually in mourning for some changes in my life.
• 5:02
  Tiffany Windsor: I'm going to be moving out of California.
• 5:04
  Tiffany Windsor: Been here my entire life.
• 5:06
  Tiffany Windsor: I've been praying for moving for four plus years, so it's not as if I am leaving under duress.
• 5:15
  Tiffany Windsor: I've been asking for this and what I didn't realize is what I had buried through lots of circumstances in my life, my mother passing back in 2015.
• 5:26
  Tiffany Windsor: I don't tend to mourn long, I tend to move on and I don't feel like I'm burying it.
• 5:32
  Tiffany Windsor: But the Lord told me that I was going through this because I was in mourning for the loss.
• 5:38
  Tiffany Windsor: I definitely realize how much I rely on steadiness.
• 5:43
  Tiffany Windsor: That's my nature, is to keep my life steady and be that anchor and I lost all of that through this.
• 5:53
  Tiffany Windsor: So it was a beautiful teaching moment from the Lord and to allow me to mourn, I have definitely had more tears over the last week of listening to worship music and just praying than I've had in the last five years.
• 6:07
  Tiffany Windsor: It was a big aha for me.
• 6:11
  Mary Koning: Two thoughts.
• 6:11
  Mary Koning: One is self-sufficient versus God's sufficient.
• 6:15
  Mary Koning: And when we are facing a big move like this out of a state you've spent every day of your life in is a big step.
• 6:23
  Mary Koning: There are unknowns that we have to rely on God for I pray he has put in enough foundation that you know he will surprise you in a good way and he will show up.
• 6:35
  Mary Koning: And one thing I did during my really long dark days was I printed out a lot of full page kind of posters and capital letters.
• 6:45
  Mary Koning: I period have period Jesus period for period, this period, and I would put them in everything in the custody folder, in the alimony issues, in the utilities folder, in the mortgage folder, just everywhere, to remind myself that this is not bigger than Jesus, that I'm making Jesus small when I make the problem bigger.
• 7:13
  Mary Koning: And the second thought is I've spent so much time in grief that I need to remember the tools to do the grieving completely and then the moving forward.
• 7:25
  Mary Koning: So maybe that's a whole podcast in its own.
• 7:29
  Mary Koning: But we do lots of different things to avoid grief because it's not a fun feeling.
• 7:34
  Mary Koning: But, sweet sisters, we know it's something God wants us to move through and not get stuck in.
• 7:41
  Mary Koning: And I think the past few years I've just done the same A lot of grieving, kind of childhood trauma and young adult trauma and broken marriage trauma.
• 7:54
  Mary Koning: But the neat thing is on the other side is that there's still some sadness, but it's just not the deep canyon of grief it was before and God is so good about that.
• 8:06
  Mary Koning: He doesn't want to leave us there.
• 8:08
  Mary Koning: He wants to move us through so we can be wise women and hold out a hand to other women to help pull through and coax and push sometimes and just sit, just sit and grieve with.
• 8:23
  Tiffany Windsor: The topic.
• 8:23
  Tiffany Windsor: The sermon at church today was mind wars, and they are real.
• 8:29
  Tiffany Windsor: So when I talk about just having a week of wrestling, I have not had to experience.
• 8:35
  Tiffany Windsor: I did go through divorce and it's been too long for me to remember, but I'm sure that there was a couple years of challenges for me but I just moved on.
• 8:44
  Tiffany Windsor: But now that I'm understanding more how to rely on God when I'm in these moments, it seems how do I say this?
• 8:53
  Tiffany Windsor: It seems so much more important because I'm not just sweeping it under the carpet.
• 8:59
  Tiffany Windsor: I'm learning how to use my trust in the Lord to help me process and not sweep, so I'm getting out the big hoover and vacuuming rather than sweeping it under.
• 9:13
  Tiffany Windsor: It was very interesting because I made this note today about as you think, so you will become, and how so much originates in our trauma and we just don't realize the depth of trauma.
• 9:26
  Tiffany Windsor: Again, just some ahas for me today.
• 9:28
  Tiffany Windsor: I love when pastor said when your thoughts get renewed, your life gets renewed.
• 9:33
  Tiffany Windsor: It's so important to set your mind on the things above.
• 9:36
  Tiffany Windsor: I definitely did not put tools around me to remind me every single morning when I was waking up and not feeling well and every night when I was going to bed to put the tools around.
• 9:47
  Tiffany Windsor: Do I have little post-its by my bed?
• 9:49
  Tiffany Windsor: Do I have them in my bathroom to remind me to turn to the Lord rather than to my misery?
• 9:59
  Mary Koning: And it's so refreshing to know that we forget and we can be reminded and to be gentle with ourselves.
• 10:05
  Mary Koning: And I just want to touch on what childhood trauma you know.
• 10:08
  Mary Koning: That sounds pretty big and it can be big depending on what kind of childhood trauma you've been through.
• 10:15
  Mary Koning: Mine was more along the lines that I was left to figure so much out.
• 10:20
  Mary Koning: I was child four of five and so parents were distracted with so many children and then another little baby along the way, and so I really didn't get as much attention or explanation of how life works or help along the way that I needed, and I was very emotional and that was the source of a lot of my emotional outbursts.
• 10:43
  Mary Koning: My parents didn't know what to do with me.
• 10:45
  Mary Koning: It was tears instead of words.
• 10:48
  Mary Koning: And so to go back and heal that inner child has been a big grieving process and that was part of the divorce.
• 10:55
  Mary Koning: And healing my inner child and inner young adult and that old way of operating, of trying to figure everything out myself.
• 11:06
  Mary Koning: And I no longer need to, because I have this beautiful community of women and the Bible and my Lord and Savior who's showing me, lighting every step of my path.
• 11:18
  Mary Koning: Like it says in Psalms You're light into my path and a lamp unto my feet, so I know that my God has me in his hands.
• 11:27
  Mary Koning: Where would you say you are in the process now?
• 11:32
  Tiffany Windsor: Well, I'm still every day dealing with there is some anxiety that comes up.
• 11:36
  Tiffany Windsor: I wouldn't say I have fear, but I do have anxiety because trying to plan multiple things to happen at certain times so that I am ready when the day comes, when we hop in the car and drive across the country, the planning that's happening now is downsizing even more to only take the things with me that are really important.
• 11:58
  Tiffany Windsor: It was interesting when you walked in you saw a vase that I have that said I've had at least 30 years.
• 12:04
  Tiffany Windsor: That was a beautiful decoupage, hand-painted, handmade paper gourd vase that always goes with me as I'm going through everything once again and I look at something and hold it and does it bring me joy, and that is one of the pieces that I always bring with me.
• 12:24
  Tiffany Windsor: It's so funny because I've never put anything in the vase, it's just a decorative, artistic-looking vase that always goes with me.
• 12:31
  Tiffany Windsor: So right now I'm just going through the process of what's important, what's not, what can I let go of, and the planning.
• 12:37
  Tiffany Windsor: I'm still working for a couple more weeks, so that ends up taking a lot of my eight hours of thinking time during the day.
• 12:45
  Tiffany Windsor: Fortunately I don't have a whole lot to pack up, but it's a process.
• 12:49
  Tiffany Windsor: So I know I'm still grieving, I'm still sick, I still don't have my voice back, I still have the coughing, and so there has to be something with speaking up about something.
• 13:02
  Mary Koning: But there is still grieving going on and I love that your beautiful reminder has butterflies on it and I'm hoping.
• 13:11
  Mary Koning: I was hoping that once we go through the process of caterpillar, then into the cocoon, which is painful and then emerges a butterfly, is a one and done.
• 13:22
  Mary Koning: But I don't think it is.
• 13:23
  Mary Koning: I think we go through this process often, unfortunately, or fortunately, through all these stages and ages, and past and present and future and all those things, and so here you are in the cocoon again, getting ready to burst forth.
• 13:42
  Mary Koning: I just remember when we moved so many times when I was young, I would look forward, so, anticipating the move or something different.
• 13:52
  Mary Koning: So that's what I hope for you that this, all the details fall into place and you get to anticipate your place to soar and fly.
• 14:00
  Tiffany Windsor: Thank you so much.
• 14:02
  Tiffany Windsor: What a beautiful blessing and, for me, what's so wonderful about this move is that I get to spend more time on periwinkle pomegranate vision, that, because the Lord has been planting these ideas and because I've been working full time in something completely different, I don't feel like I've been able to dedicate the time that I'd like to I envision this creative brain space, so that I have time to do that.
• 14:32
  Tiffany Windsor: We have this online magazine that I was trying to dream up what are the stories that we want to tell and what is the visual, and I feel like this is going to give me the time to do that, which is something I truly, truly love.
• 14:48
  Tiffany Windsor: I was talking to my sisters this morning and they were asking me where I am also and what's going on, and trying to understand where they are.
• 14:57
  Tiffany Windsor: They're both in the creative world, the arts and crafts world, and I was encouraging both of them to dream.
• 15:02
  Tiffany Windsor: The Lord is putting onto my heart to spend more time in creativity, with creative supplies, with my paints, with my pens, with all of that.
• 15:11
  Tiffany Windsor: My hope with this move is that there's this beautiful creative studio that I can see people coming into, where we share our creative space.
• 15:24
  Tiffany Windsor: That's so important for women.
• 15:26
  Tiffany Windsor: We talk about community and I think it's just so important for women to have a space to be able to pick up these different colors of pens and paints and brushes, and even if you feel like you don't have any creative bone in your body, you're just going to let the Lord speak through whatever utensil is that you're holding onto.
• 15:50
  Tiffany Windsor: So I'm looking forward to that to have the space to do that.
• 15:54
  Mary Koning: Another two thoughts on that is that it takes time to birth a thing.
• 15:59
  Mary Koning: It's like a baby and you're preparing right now and preparing can feel slow or it can feel hard, and then there's labor.
• 16:08
  Mary Koning: So laboring to bring the baby that's the season and sometimes we want to be through it or done or not enjoy the process, but I would just pray that you enjoy the process.
• 16:20
  Mary Koning: And then the other thought was that you're describing a somatic therapy.
• 16:25
  Mary Koning: So there's talk therapy and there's physical therapy and then there's somatic therapy, which accesses that part of your brain that helps you heal, and that's been key.
• 16:34
  Mary Koning: So I just pray that brings healing.
• 16:39
  Tiffany Windsor: Thank you.
• 16:39
  Tiffany Windsor: And as I go back to the core of what our discussion is today, god is with us in every moment in the processing of the trauma, in the picking up your creative supplies and putting something on paper, in our communications.
• 16:58
  Tiffany Windsor: In our waking, in our sleeping, god is with us.
• 17:03
  Announcer: Amen.
• 17:03
  Announcer: Thank you for joining us for today's podcast.
• 17:06
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• 17:10
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• 17:13
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• 17:14
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• 17:21
  Announcer: Thank you and, dear friends, have a blessed day.