Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
#229 Michaela: Weeds in the Garden: God's Patient Transformation
Michaela returns to share how the gospel has transformed her life from depression and suicidal thoughts to freedom and purpose over the past four years.
• First freed through Romans 6:7 - "you are free from sin"
• Initially struggled with "firehosing" people with the gospel, expecting everyone to receive it as enthusiastically as she did
• Found that people outside church settings were often more receptive than those in religious environments
• Discovered the Bible became a completely different book - from rules and condemnation to a love story
• Shifted from talking about the gospel constantly to living it out authentically, which has proven more effective
• Received a powerful garden metaphor from God about removing different types of "weeds" (lies) from her life
• Learned that weeds (lies) about God must be removed first before addressing other areas
• Currently navigating infertility challenges while learning to experience joy alongside suffering
• Growing in understanding that God is safe and trustworthy, not a disappointed authority figure
• Realizing that behavior change follows heart transformation, not the other way around
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The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can and that's why we want you to hear these stories, stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is Death to Life.
Speaker 2:I'm like, okay, like why are you bringing this to my attention? Why are you wanting me to ask you this? And he's like just ask me. And so I did. I asked him. I said okay, you know what weeds do you want me to pick first? And he said there's weeds about me, weeds about God, there's weeds about yourself and there's weeds about others. And he said I must pick out the weeds about me first or we can't move forward. And that was so powerful for me because I was realizing that, like everything I've been unlearning and learning and going through has been him picking the weeds out of my life that are lies about him, and that's where we had to stay at the moment.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Death to Life podcast. My name is Richard Young and today's episode is with Michaela. We're catching back up with Michaela. It's been a few years and Michaela's life is so special to me because she was like I ministered to Jadra, jadra ministered to Michaela. I got to meet Michaela and see a miraculous life changed by the gospel, and then she's just full sent, walking in freedom. It's been her whole life, and so to catch up with her is just a super blessing, just to see how God is moving, how God is healing and how he's still breaking some old chains and some old patterns, and so it's good to catch up with her. I think you're going to be blessed by this episode. Buckle up, strap in Love. You all Appreciate y'all. This is Michaela. Okay, when did your first podcast come out, michaela?
Speaker 2:A long time ago.
Speaker 1:I think I'm 76 or 77. So maybe four years ago it's been a hot minute 76 or 77. I remember when I was recording those I was like you know it's been, it's, we've been doing this for a long time at number 76. And now we're like what? 230, something. I don't even know what the number is. So that was three or four years ago. Was it in the same house that you were doing the recording? Where were you recording it?
Speaker 2:I was at the church recording last time and remember it did not go well because we could not get either the video would be off or the sound would be off, and it was a nightmare. So I'm so glad it was better this time.
Speaker 1:And just a little backstory. Jadra had gone to your church. You received the gospel. What was the just give us the? What was the big understanding that had just changed your life Just real quick. You know, just a huge understanding that changed everything.
Speaker 2:I can summarize this really quickly. So essentially for me, what triggered you know, the idea or the thought even was Jadra proclaiming loudly that she had been healed from her depression, and that triggered me. I was like absolutely not. Like I have been begging God for years to heal me and you're just going to come up in here and be like, oh God healed me.
Speaker 2:So it was her saying that she had been healed from depression, which was something I was severely struggling with at the time. It was depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, and my marriage was going down the drain and I just had no interest in living and so I was like grasping for straws of just anything to live for. And so she came up in here and said that and I immediately wanted to know what she had experienced to receive that healing so that I could also receive that. But my belief that I would actually receive it was like this big like. It was just like hoping that it would work for me because it worked for her and it did, so it worked out in my favor. But it was us. Reading Romans six is what triggered that, and it was verse seven specifically saying that you are free from sin is what literally freed me, figuratively and spiritually, that idea that I wasn't trash and I was worthy.
Speaker 1:How much did we talk on the podcast of what happened afterwards, like in the subsequent months? Did we go into that much?
Speaker 2:Vaguely, I think. We talked about maybe the next six months to a year and we just talked about some vague things that we had learned but we didn't get too deep into.
Speaker 1:Because from the outside in, like from me, looking at you, it's not like this has been like a oh, this is like a cool thing. It seems like this has become you, your life, like you're about the gospel, Like I feel like I know you pretty well, even though I haven't spent a lot of time with you. Am I, am I off? Like this became kind of your thing, what you were about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, you're completely right. This is my life. It completely consumed me. It still does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so talk to us a little bit. I know we talked about it on Brandon's episode and and like all the stuff that's happened in Missouri, like Missouri has been a hotspot for the gospel and you and your husband and Jadra have been right in the middle of it. And you and your husband and Jadra have been right in the middle of it.
Speaker 2:What were the hard things that you were learning as you were walking this out, in the first year or so of you just receiving this oh gosh. There's so many things that we could talk about, but I think the main thing was we really had to learn to not firehose people with the gospel. That was really hard.
Speaker 2:Because we had this idea that everybody was going to receive it the exact same way that we did. And it did not happen that way, and there was a period of great disappointment because people either didn't want to receive it, they didn't understand it. You know, like there's so many different barriers, like people have to hear it in different ways, and we were not capable of giving the gospel to everybody, because people have a choice, you know they don't have to receive what you're saying to them, and that took a really long time for us to come to being okay with, because this is the best news ever. You want everybody that your eyes lay on to receive this message, and I think that's kind of the heartbreaking truth of this is not everybody you share this with wants it, and that was a really hard learning spot for me personally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's kind of hard to fathom, really. Yeah, because like it's changed my life, it's changed my friend's life, it's changed so many people's lives. And so you're just like I think, when people hear it and they're not like excited about it, like it's not that they're rejecting it, I'd rather someone reject it than someone not be excited about it and be like oh yeah, the bible does say that. Like when someone's yeah, the Bible says that, but it doesn't like light their hair on fire, I'm like, right, yeah, and I'd rather like get in a debate or someone reject it, because that means that there's at least understanding about it, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:What did you see more of?
Speaker 2:What? What I saw the most of and what disappointed me the most was people outside of church, like people I worked with, strangers, anybody that I talked to outside of a church setting it lit them on fire Like it was run through a wall, like they received it so well. But I've noticed that people in my church or people in other churches or people kind of, in that legalistic environment so much there's a lot of pushback on the gospel, they don't tend to be so excited about it. And you know we call this the older brother syndrome in our little knit group. You know, like, are you talking to an older brother or the prodigal son? And you know that kind of helps differentiate how you talk to people, because they're believing different lies, they have different life experiences and it took a long time to learn that the older brothers are a lot harder sometimes because pride is more involved.
Speaker 1:I think there's no question that the older brothers are much more difficult, and they're just as valuable much more difficult, and then they're just as valuable. And it seems like in the church it seems like there's more older brothers than there are prodigals, and maybe when we received it our lives were not going well enough for us to be like well, I'm not the older brother, for sure yeah, I was definitely a prodigal.
Speaker 1:I don't know about you, but definitely like, from the outside, I was just like supposed to know everything, but from the inside things were not going well, right. And so then, I don't know like it seems like jesus has strong words for the older brothers, the Pharisees, and for the prodigals. He goes and he sits with them, he eats with them, he hangs out with them, and maybe I'm just spitballing, maybe we've been spending a lot of time with the older brothers, who don't even want what we're offering.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and that was really discouraging for me because that happened pretty pretty quickly into understanding the gospel, because that's the people you take it to immediately are the people that you're, you know, going to church with and communing with. And our church has gone through a big change of people, change of like what we talk about, and that was a big growing area in our life specifically. But we seem to be all in unity and agreement at the current moment and the people that really weren't feeling it, you know, have gone either different ways or they just sit there quietly, kind of thing. But it's getting better now. But the first couple of years was really rough in the church setting.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, how do you go about talking about it now? What do you do If someone's like man, this has changed my life and I want to share. How do you go about it?
Speaker 2:I talk about it less and I live it more honestly because it's the living it. It's people seeing it in your life, seeing the fruit, that really poses more questions now than me, just like, hey, do you know you're free from sin? Let's talk about the Bible.
Speaker 1:Do you have time for the Lord? Don't run from the Lord. Right, that's beautiful. You talk about it less and live it more, but you're prepared to talk about it.
Speaker 2:Yes, a thousand percent. All the time on the edge of my seat, ready to talk about it.
Speaker 1:So, and you've seen some fruit from this then, yeah, I'm.
Speaker 2:I think I'm more approachable now than I was in the beginning, because in the beginning it was kind of, like, you know, intense it was, it was bold, and I've simmered down a little bit now and you really have to be able to listen to people, like where they're at, where they're coming from, what they've experienced, because, like I said, not everybody has the same entry point into the gospel. Like I said, not everybody has the same entry point into the gospel.
Speaker 1:So, as you were growing in this, like that first year, when did you start like really like? At first it was just this thing in Romans 6. And now, like what? How would you compare your knowledge of scripture now to what it was back then?
Speaker 2:It's so different. The entire Bible is a different book than it was before the Bible, you know, very beginning stages of understanding the gospel and pre-gospel was just condemnation and shame and unattainable rules, and now it's just a book of life and love. It's a huge love story from God to us. It's revealed to me that, you know, god is not an angry God, he's not a disappointed God, he's not waiting for us to mess up, he's not trying to keep people out of heaven Like. The book is completely different. It's taken fear out of the equation and that was huge for me because my life was driven by fear man, no wonder it wasn't going well right yes, it wasn't great if it's lived by fear.
Speaker 1:Something else that I was considering is like when you first learned this love, reality wasn't a thing it was like a beginning yeah, it was like a group of people and you heard it from jdra and I don't even know when you heard about love reality. You just started hearing this from Jadra and then love reality actually became a thing in the last few years and a negative thing for many, many people. Um, how did you navigate that? And like even having your name associated with us or on our website, or or how did you start navigating that or how did you start navigating that.
Speaker 2:I love that. I'm associated with this. You know, whatever you call it, we're not a church, we're not an organization. Just love reality in general. I would scream it from the rooftops I have no shame. God used this route and these specific people to change my life and I am forever grateful for it. There's no negative context in my brain of being associated with it and people that have negative things to say about it. I think they just don't really understand it. And when negative things have been brought to my attention, I've asked people specifically well, I've never seen you at a Bible study. No, I've never seen you.
Speaker 2:Try to be part of the community and I always try to extend invitations to people just to welcome them, to change their point of view, because, believe it or not, our point of views can be wrong, they can be changed. And it was really hard for me to hear Adventism as a whole bash it because in my mind it's the same thing, not with Adventism, but like the gospel. Mind it's the same thing, not with Adventism, but like the gospel. It, you know it lines up pretty much with what I thought, I believed.
Speaker 2:You know there's parts of it now that I really see, don't really agree with the gospel, but that's nothing that I'm, you know, educated enough to talk about at the moment. But there's areas of Adventism where I see it doesn't quite line up with the gospel and I understand now why there's strife with it. But it more so just made me sad that you know, especially for you guys too, like your actual people with actual feelings, lives, families, and just to be misunderstood. It was a small portion, I'm sure, of what Jesus felt like. I'm sure he was misunderstood often His own hometown rejected him and it was just a very small portion, I believe, of what Jesus was feeling at the time and it made my heart sad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it changed a lot of things it really did, but it is what it is. We go forward Now. People know, I guess, some of who we are and they think we're like this group getting college kids, which I've always said, like where, where are the college kids that the articles are telling you, that we're we're good with the college kids, the articles are telling you that we're good with the college kids and I think that you guys handled it very well.
Speaker 2:Also, I just want to commend you guys for how you handled all of the negativity. We just go back to the Bible and we're just staying firm on what the Bible believes, and I know that that was not easy for you guys, so I just really hope you know that we appreciate you guys.
Speaker 1:Oh, praise the Lord. So then, how long after that year did you get started doing Bible studies with Jadra, like the Worthy of Everything, bible study.
Speaker 2:You know I was thinking about this and I have no idea when we started. I think we've probably been doing it for maybe two, two to three years.
Speaker 1:I know it's over two years. It all runs together. I feel like COVID just happened and someone was like that was so long ago and I'm like runs together. I feel like COVID just happened and someone was like that was so long ago and I'm like no it's like we have amnesia. It's like, cause COVID is like what jumpstarted love reality. Cause everything was online, right, I don't like time has gotten weird with me, cause we moved during COVID, like, but for you, like, does it feel similarly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does. And it's funny because when we first started doing Bible studies, I didn't really see myself in that kind of platform. I didn't see myself hosting a Bible study. But Jadra's my bestie and she's like, do this with me, do this with me, and I'm like okay, thinking it would just be a little bit, and it just hasn't stopped. It's just this thing that kept going and it's morphed into this beautiful community of people who are learning to receive the gospel through, you know, looking at mental health, and it's such a cute little community and I just love them. I don't know. You know, my Thursdays were so empty before.
Speaker 1:I think you guys probably have our most popular Bible study. What have you learned by doing that? How has it helped you grow and I don't know, see things about your life that you need to change or grow in.
Speaker 2:Well, it definitely helped me with being stage, stage fright, like afraid to be, like center of attention or talk to people, because before I would just like vomit and sweat and not want to be in front of people and not be the center of attention.
Speaker 1:That surprises me. You're like so outgoing.
Speaker 2:No, I'm an introvert that's pretending to be extroverted to survive sometimes.
Speaker 1:OK, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's really helped me with that. It gave me a lot of confidence I didn't have before. Also, just in talking about different topics or learning how to comfort people in different ways and learning how to listen to people has been really huge, just giving a space for people that need to talk, that don't have other avenues or ways to talk. And I think that's really what it's been is just an intimate group of people learning to be vulnerable with one another and kind of learning where God is in our mental health. Because in the beginning, you know, we just said that feelings aren't Lord Jesus's and that is true. But it goes so much deeper than that and people need a space to feel their feelings and not let it consume their identity.
Speaker 2:So it's caused me to do a lot of like research and looking into different people and their ideas and stuff. And Jim Wilder has been a huge, huge, huge resource for me. He has taught me so much about the brain and spiritual maturity and he just he's so great about talking about this kind of stuff. And I know Jadra loves Jamie Winship and I don't listen to him as often, but yeah, it's just kind of led to some different avenues of things to learn and I'm a nurse so I love to learn about the brain, so it's been really good for me to have different resources to look into.
Speaker 1:So has there been like some tough times through these last couple years. How have you lived with that, in light of the truth that you now have?
Speaker 2:So the last five years have been the most exhausting but beautiful years of my life, and I say that because spiritual maturity is not painless, you know, and there's three major things that God was growing me in, and you know, one of them obviously is spiritual maturity and renewing of the mind.
Speaker 2:I would say that's number one. That's been huge for me, just renewing my mind to truth, renewing my mind to who God is, renewing my mind to who I am in Christ, still even after you mess up. And then probably the second thing would probably be learning to be more relational and less transactional with people, with myself, with God. That's been really hard because growing up in Adventism I only knew how to be transactional, like if I do something good for you, then you're going to treat me well, or if I do something bad, you're. You know it's a very transactional relationship and I saw God transactionally my husband, my friends like it was like what can I gain from this? Or how can I self protect myself to not get hurt? And then I would probably say the third thing would be learning to experience joy with discomfort simultaneously, and those, those three things alone have had me suffering how so.
Speaker 2:It is a lot, just the growth, like learning. It's really unlearning. Honestly, the unlearning has been painful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because the way that you used to think that you were seeing like this is not producing what I want it to.
Speaker 2:And I want to one of my favorite verses that's gotten me through all of this. I wanted to read that and kind of talk about that, but it's Isaiah 44, 22. And it says I have swept away your sins like a cloud and I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist. Oh, return to me, for I have paid the price to set you free. And when I read this verse it almost kind of makes me emotional to even read it. But seeing the plea of God like return to me. I have done everything to set you free. Like, come back to me. And God is not a God that begs. But I just see him like with his arms open and his face is just like so longingly wanting me to return to him. And we have returned to him in the sense that I believe in Jesus and you know I am in Christ. He is in me. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. But it's learning to go to him for comfort instead of going to the former patterns that I had. You know going to him instead of going to food, instead of going to. You know vegging out on the couch and disassociating instead of you know, losing my temper, going to him to learn how to cope with that. And, um, he speaks to me a lot when I'm in the garden and if you, you know, I know you're familiar with Missouri, but the listener, like we are not okay. Right now it is a hundred degrees, you know, high nineties right now and the humidity just makes it worse. And we're we're a crunchy family. You know we don't use pesticides and we try to, you know, live holistically as much as we can, just so we're not exposed to so many chemicals. And so our garden right now looks like just weeds, with bushes and plants, like there's so many weeds, and my husband is like trying to learn specifically how to change the soil so weeds won't grow as often. You know Nate nerds out to all that kind of stuff. He could talk to you for days about that. You know Nate nerds out to all that kind of stuff. He could talk to you for days about that.
Speaker 2:And I remember one day I was outside and it was hot, like I was soaking wet. I was cranky, nate was cranky, and we're like picking these weeds and I'm noticing that there's different kinds of weeds in the garden or in the landscaping where I'm at and there's these weeds that look like a carpet, like they spread across, but they're very superficial. And then's these weeds that look like a carpet, like they spread across, but they're very superficial. And then there's weeds that are deep that you have to get tools or instruments to work out, to get them out of the ground. And then there were weeds that were hidden in the plant itself to try to hide, to look like it was the plant so you wouldn't pick it. And I'm kind of noticing all these things.
Speaker 2:And God starts talking to me and he's like these are all the weeds in your life and it is a joy for me to pick these weeds for you. I'm not tired, I'm not cranky, I'm. I love doing this for you. Yeah, okay, because I'm cranky and I'm hearing him talk and it's hot.
Speaker 2:And he just starts talking to me about how the weeds that are like the carpet and that they're shallow, like we pick those weeds first because they're easy, you can pull them off the ground.
Speaker 2:And he said you know the weeds that are that you need a tool, you know, sometimes you need a friend, you need, you know, some quiet time or some secret place time. Those are the weeds that are harder to get out, but you can get them out with resources. And he said but the weeds that are pretending to be something good and they're not. Like, you need me to help you find those weeds that are hidden deep, that are pretending to not be weeds. And I'm listening to him and I'm like, okay, like, I hear you, like, like this is beautiful that you're revealing this to me and why you're, why you're telling me this. And I go inside to wash my hands because we had gotten all the weeds picked. And I'm washing my hands and God asked me to ask him the question, to ask me what weeds are the most important ones to pick first. And I'm like, okay, like, why are you? Why are you bringing this to my attention? Why are you wanting me to ask you this? And he's like just ask me.
Speaker 2:And so I did. I asked him. I said okay, you know, what weeds do you want me to pick first? And he said there's weeds about me, weeds about God, there's weeds about yourself and there's weeds about others.
Speaker 2:And he said I must pick out the weeds about me first or we can't move forward.
Speaker 2:And that was so powerful for me because I was realizing that, like everything I've been unlearning and learning and going through has been him picking the weeds out of my life that are lies about him. And that's where we had to stay at the moment. And it's not that he doesn't work on weeds about yourself, because you know those can be tied. But he was just really pointing out to me how important it was that I saw him correctly before we moved forward. And so that's what we've been doing the last couple of years is learning to see God correctly. And I think I'll have it down sometimes and then you know a circumstance will happen or I will. You know sin or you know fill in the blank with whatever you want. But then I noticed my brain still tries to see God differently, like I still try to blame God or I still try to you know it's twisted still so him just really revealing that to me was super important for my growth at the time.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, what were the lies about God?
Speaker 2:Well, it seems to be that I still don't feel safe with God, sometimes, like I don't trust him to comfort me, I don't go to him for like I still don't tend to go to him first. Like I don't I still don't tend to go to him first, I'm I'm still tempted to to do other superficial things first, instead of just immediately going to God and saying like, hey, I have a problem. So he's been trying to grow me in feeling secure and safe with him, because that's that's where everything starts. But with how I grew up, you know, in such a legalistic environment, and Adventism was really not a positive experience for me. Looking back, like it's, it created a lot of those weeds of how I saw God, and so we really had to get in there and undo and unlearn a lot of that.
Speaker 1:So so. So, before understanding freedom, doing this weeding was not possible then, huh.
Speaker 2:No, not at all Because God was the enemy. God was disappointed in me, like God was not a safe person to go to, because how I had learned to see him kind of like how you see a principal at a school, like you'll relate to that Like the kids look and like, oh, here comes the principal. Like that's kind of how I felt with God, like he was not approachable, he was not somebody that really cared about what was going on, because I wasn't doing the right thing.
Speaker 1:Still, yeah, you can't learn from somebody like that, or it'll be very difficult.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you can't be loved by somebody like that either, and that's love, is what changes you.
Speaker 1:That's the thing that I think sometimes we're missing. Maybe the older brother is missing, like it's so much about behavior that they miss what actually you know fuels the good behavior which is knowing and understanding your safety and that you're loved and that you're in. They want you to be scared to get out. You know how often have we heard that. Well, you could lose it, and I don't know why we lift that up. Well, I do know why Because they don't want you to misbehave and it's just not effective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, god's honestly not interested in our behavior, and I know that that's a spicy thing to say, but he knows that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, unpack that.
Speaker 2:You know who he is, if you know who he is like, if you know who God is and you know that God is love and you break down love biblically it is kind, it is patient, it doesn't keep record of wrong, it doesn't boast Looking at that outline of what love is and then it allows you to change. Our actions change when we come into deeper understanding of who God is and how safe and secure we are in him, and that causes repentance in us, which means our actions change. Also, if God was interested in our behavior, this wouldn't work. Like yeah, he doesn't want us to sin, he doesn't, he's not excusing sin. Like he says he doesn't want us to sin, he doesn't, he's not excusing sin. Like he says this all the time in the Bible, like we don't have permission to sin. This is not the topic at all. But if it's based on our behavior, then there's no love involved.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in a sense he wants us to see who we really are and what he's done, and so we could become alive yeah and so our behavior changes because we change and being transformed he's not interested in, just we change to, but it's, it's from a surface level yeah, he doesn't want Michaela to like, he doesn't want Michaela's behavior to change, just for it to change, and then there'd be no internal change that happens. It's very surface level, very, you know, it's just. God is so much deeper than that. But we as people think change in behavior means change in heart. But change in behavior can even happen because shame is involved or because fear is involved. Change in behavior does not equal change of heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my coaching program and my coaching program. I want us to be committed without shame, shame free commitment, because if you're committed but it's based on shame, it just isn't strong, it will, it won't last. Um, and so, like I'll ask guys like why do you want to stop this behavior? And you can feel when, if there's shame is the motive, I'm like, yeah, that doesn't work, it's got to be shame-free. You actually have to look curiously why do I want to change this? And it can't be. I don't want to be a bad person, it's got to be.
Speaker 2:It's got to be deeper than that and that's what God is, yeah, he's more interested, yeah, he's more interested in why you're experiencing shame and holding onto that because that's not for you, then why the shame is making you act out in a certain way shape or form. Because I know the most intimate things God has said to me has been after I have sinned, like I remember specifically, like I fell into something and after, you know, I did whatever I did. I felt so shameful and just like I knew better and I did it anyway. And you know, blah, blah, blah, the lies that come in, and I heard the Holy Spirit just whisper in my mind so softly like I've never loved you any more than in this moment. And him saying that, right after I did something I knew I wasn't supposed to do, just wrecked me, just sobbed. Because that's the heart of the father, like his heart doesn't change toward us because we can't act right.
Speaker 1:He really is an amazing father.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think I've talked about this on a couple of podcasts. When Jesus is teaching the disciples how to pray, he says our father, which kind of blew them away because they were just seeing him as a far off supreme, sovereign, like ruler, rather than like he calls me son, he calls me friend. And Jesus was like no, like this is who I am. Like you're God is not some far off. Like God is with us, emmanuel, god is with us. And if we don't see it like that, we're going to have misunderstandings. It's going to be a problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like another thing to bring this up, like with spiritual maturity.
Speaker 2:Jim Wilder does something called the life model where he just points out, you know, being in the womb to being an old person, like what spiritual maturity should look like or what it can look like.
Speaker 2:And just because you're acting a certain age doesn't mean you know in your heart that you're actually that age, cause he brings up the example all the time of everybody has an old man or a grandpa in their life that just grunts as communication and people have to guess what he wants. You know, like an old man in a chair and he's like I want that or get me that, and in a spiritual maturity sense, like he's an infant, because that's what infants do. Infants cry when they need something and the adult has to guess what the infant needs at that time. And that just makes me giggle when I think about it, because I like it's just wild to think that people have gone their whole life and are still grunting and expecting people to guess what they want or need. But that's just a good example of how your actions don't reflect what your heart, where your heart is, where your heart is.
Speaker 1:Mercy. So, as you're moving forward and you're growing in this thing, you first received this 2021 summer of like fall 2021, or was fall.
Speaker 2:It was a summer of 2020. Yeah, june of 2020. Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 1:So long, yeah, Real quick. Going to take a break from the episode. I want you guys to like rate subscribe the podcast on Apple and Spotify. That helps us out so much. Like rate subscribe. It does huge things for the podcast.
Speaker 1:Also, if you are going to be in the Midwest near the end of September September 26th through the 28th we're going to be coming to Denver, Colorado. We want to hang out with you in Denver. I'm going to have a registration link soon. It's going to be a ball. We would love to see you there. We want to do a little bit of in real life ministry fellowship. So come out to Colorado and come kick it with us September 26th through 28th. More details to follow. It's going to be amazing. And then, you know, partner with us at loverealityorg slash give. We would love to keep preaching this gospel and we can do it when you partner with us. So loverealityorg slash give. All right, let's get back to the episode. What is he teaching you, like this year, as you're growing in, as you're doing these Bible studies, Is there something else that he's showing you that you're growing in and kind of ministering to people in? You're growing in and kind of ministering to people in.
Speaker 2:Well, currently, right now, um, I'm kind of in it's funny that you wanted to have this you know episode because I'm kind of I'm not in a spiritual low, but I'm definitely in a Valley right now, I'm not in a mountaintop and, um, we all know that flowers grow in the valley, they don't grow on the mountaintops, and so sometimes we have to wait for those flowers to grow, and Nate and I right now are kind of maneuvering infertility and I got diagnosed with PCOS last year, and so I've been experiencing a lot of just anger and a lot of doubt, I guess, like questioning, and so right now, that's currently what he's teaching me right now is how to be patient and how to just be okay if things are always going to be the way they're going to be now, and not putting my trust in, you know, my circumstances or my wants or my desires.
Speaker 2:And there's been a lot of months lately that I have been, you know, tempted to believe this lie that God doesn't care about my desires or my dreams, and I've had to kind of work through that and that's been painful and I've had to kind of work through that and that's been painful.
Speaker 1:You know we go all the way back to the garden, the fertility thing. That's when it started Like so much of the pain, of like that we see in scripture. A lot of the time is not able to have a baby, and you know that. I don't think that feeling frustrated because you can't have a child at the moment is something that we should suppress, but rather something that we should see is no God created me to want this.
Speaker 2:He created me for it and he loves me and he created me for it and he wants me to years. Because I'm 31 now. You know, at the end of my 29th year, I wanted nothing to do with kids. Like Nate and I were okay, it just being the two of us with all of our dogs that we have and just you know, going on vacation and working and having fun together. And I kind of accepted that like I didn't have any more desires. And then, as I turned 30, it like I woke up one day and had a different brain. It was the weirdest thing. I just woke up and I was like you know, I think I might want a baby, but I'm not sure, but like I think I want one and Nate was like okay, like, like, well, okay, and like through that year, I have a different job now I work in I went back to surgery, but I work in a like a, like an outpatient facility, so we only do surgeries that are. You go home immediately afterwards.
Speaker 2:You and God has been exposing me to kids over the last year, because I haven't really been exposed to kids a whole lot because I'm the youngest cousin, I don't have any siblings.
Speaker 2:I just, you know, I don't have that in my life, and so I've been having to deal with crying, unhappy children and instead you think the desire would go down, like, oh, I don't want anything to do with this, but it actually kind of lit a fire in me that I actually really do desire this, and so that's kind of where we're at now. I'm not disappointed, I'm not hopeless, but I feel like there's a lot of obstacles and I just feel tired, like I don't want to have to go through all these hurdles, tired, like I don't want to have to go through all these hurdles. And so that's kind of where I'm at. My God is still good, but it's more of just like. Like when you first start a marathon, you're at the very beginning and you're like I have to run all of this way, like you're not even close to the end, like you just started and just learning to be okay with that and be content has been the biggest thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's this place of lament where you can hold two things at the same time. You can say I want this and it hasn't happened, and god created me to want it, and also, god is good and he loves me so much. Holding both thoughts is something that's actually possible and I don't think we're supposed to suppress that. We want these things that he created us to want, and we can be frustrated that it's not happened, and yet we still glorify his name because he still is who he is and we're living in a sinful planet where you know things often don't go the way God wants them to go, and yet we can still have hearts open, moving forward and, you know, always believing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, learning to experience joy and suffering. You know, like I said earlier, it's been huge and they do talk about that. You know they being Jim Wilder, we went JJ and I went to this conference in April and they talk about your ability to experience joy and how a lot of our ability to experience joy has been decreased, and they actually talk about how to experience joy at greater altitudes. So, yeah, it's super cool that they teach you how to increase your capacity to experience joy and it's very simple. It's all done like in secret place with the father and having community to support you and encourage you. Having community to support you and encourage you.
Speaker 2:And as you, as you increase your capacity to experience joy, your brain feels safer at that point also to let go of things you haven't really dealt with yet. And so that's kind of the negative side to things with our brain is like, when your capacity for joy increases, you also tend to experience negative things along with it too, because your brain is like, ok, you can experience a higher amount of joy, so now we're safe to deal with this, and so it kind of opened a can of worms that we weren't really aware of. It's been good, because I want to deal with the things that my brain feels like is scary and doesn't want to mess with, because that's where God is and that's where your healing is, and who doesn't want to experience a greater capacity for joy?
Speaker 1:You know, on this side of the resurrection, we're going to experience all of it. We're going to experience the sadness, we're going to experience the pain, we're going to experience the pain, we're going to experience the joy, the love. And if we took a step back, would we say, yeah, let's experience all of it. I think we would say you know, we're going to be living forever and ever. Grace and mercy are going to follow us to the rest of our days. And if we take a step back and we zoom out, we can be like, yeah, on this side, let's experience all of it. In the moment it doesn't feel good at all at all. Um, but he is merciful, he's graceful and he's good. And it sounds corny and it sounds like a cliche. But the other way to live your life not believing that after we've seen what we've seen, we've witnessed what we've witnessed, and then we see it in the book that doesn't make sense to me either.
Speaker 2:Right, I agree. Well, michaela, it's way better to experience suffering than to not have experienced any of it, I think.
Speaker 1:Well, I feel lucky to call you a friend, right here, next to where I podcast. I look at your face every day. I'm like what?
Speaker 2:is going on. I love that you kept that. We didn't think you were going to keep it.
Speaker 1:It's right here, it's right next to it, it's just and seeing your life and seeing how you minister and how you love people and how you show up and how you're okay in those moments where it doesn't feel good, and I think that's why your podcast and your Bible study has been so helpful. I just see your good works and I glorify God and I think it's so cool that people from where I'm from are taking this thing and running with it. I think that's awesome and so you're a blessing to so many people. You're a blessing to me and the Love Reality community, and so thank you for just continuing to let your light shine. It's a big deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all glory to Jesus. I would not be this person, I would not be where I'm at at all without Jesus. So all glory to Jesus.
Speaker 1:He loves you a lot.
Speaker 2:He loves you a lot.
Speaker 1:Thanks, thanks, michaela.
Speaker 2:Thanks.