Description
As Cheri and I, Kara R Hunt, clink our tea cups together, we're brimming with excitement to share the celebration of Cheer Up Podcast's third anniversary with you! It's been an incredible journey from our very first episode to now, filled with divine inspiration and a heartfelt mission to bring joy to our listeners worldwide. You've been the heart of our podcast, and there's nothing we'd love more than to get to know you better as we mark this milestone together.
Would you like to support the Cheer UP! Podcast? You can do so by clicking here
Kara's website - click here.
Cheri's website- here.
Email - cheeruppodcast@gmail.com
Instagram - @kararhunt
Leave reviews on - Apple, Spotify, iHeart, Google Podcasts,
Description
As Cheri and I, Kara R Hunt, clink our tea cups together, we're brimming with excitement to share the celebration of Cheer Up Podcast's third anniversary with you! It's been an incredible journey from our very first episode to now, filled with divine inspiration and a heartfelt mission to bring joy to our listeners worldwide. You've been the heart of our podcast, and there's nothing we'd love more than to get to know you better as we mark this milestone together.
Would you like to support the Cheer UP! Podcast? You can do so by clicking here
Kara's website - click here.
Cheri's website- here.
Email - cheeruppodcast@gmail.com
Instagram - @kararhunt
Leave reviews on - Apple, Spotify, iHeart, Google Podcasts,
Hi and welcome to the Cheer Up Podcast. I am your host, kara R Hunt, and with me is the beautiful Sherry Flo. Well, how are you doing today, sherry? I'm so excited, yay Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's the anniversary podcast, Kara. I think I got it right this time.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is the for all of our listeners. We just want to say thank you so much for those who have continued to join us and hold on and be faithful listeners here in the States and around the world and the globe. We see you, we want you to know, we appreciate you and everything else. And can you guys believe this is our third year of the Cheer Up Podcast, of your journey to joy, as we like to say, and I don't know, sherry, I think we deserve a little congratulations. What do you think? Absolutely, because we're just so excited.
Speaker 1:It's just, you know, mostly for our listeners, we just want to say thank you. We could not be doing this without you. You have been a blessing to us more than you realize, and we just we never, ever, want our listeners to think that we take you, that we take you all for granted, because we don't want to be a blessing to you and we just enjoy being with you guys and we're just so glad that you guys have stayed with us, because that means that you enjoy being with us too. And the big, huge thing is tonight. Am I right, sherry?
Speaker 2:Yes, I am so excited.
Speaker 1:I know. So, for those of you who have been listening to the podcast the past couple of weeks, we've been talking about tonight, tonight, tonight tonight. So the podcast is live today, but tonight we are hosting the Cheer Up podcast. It's hosting their very first live Twitter space, so that is going to be so exciting and we're so looking forward to it. That way, we can connect with all of you guys, all of our listeners, even those from around the world. We can talk, we can chit chat. You guys can ask us questions. We can ask you questions, or we cannot ask questions at all.
Speaker 1:You know, sherry will be there, I will be there and we're hoping that you will be there. And, for those of you who have already RSDP'd, don't forget to make your tea and bring your favorite mug or tea cup, and we are just going to just have a blast for two hours. So we look, so look forward to it and we so look forward to chatting with everyone who comes and just having a fun time and just having a blast. Am I right, sherry? Oh, sherry, we'll have the time for you.
Speaker 2:Yes, so they will be 3 to 5 pm Pacific time, 4 to 6 pm mountain time, 5 to 7 central time and 6 to 8 eastern time.
Speaker 1:Yay. So you guys, everyone, find your time zone and just watch us on the Twitter space and just, we are at cheer, we're at cheer podcast on Twitter cheer podcast and just look us up and you'll probably see cheer podcast is hosting a live space. With those of you who may be familiar with Twitter spaces, but if you're not, it should be a little bubble up there that tells you that cheer podcast is hosting a space. So if you have not followed us on Twitter yet, please do so, because that way you'll be able to find us a lot faster. And just like us on Twitter. And again, we're at cheer podcast, not cheer up podcast, we're at cheer podcast, and you can go there and like us and then I should probably pop up and say, hey, you just like them. So hey, did you know they're hosting a space? So be sure to do that and find us tonight and we'll be there, we'll be having tea and we're so looking forward to just chatting with some of you. So that is going to be so much fun.
Speaker 2:It really, really is. I am so excited to meet some of our listeners tonight. So, really, if you can come, please do. We would love to hear your voices, because you get to hear our voices every week, oh absolutely, and we would love.
Speaker 1:Like I said, it's going to be an open forum. So if anyone wants to ask questions to me or to Sherry, or to both of us, or about the podcast or any of the books we've written it's just an open forum you can come, you can ask questions, we can lay up, we can talk and everything else. It's just a really great time to just meet up with you guys and we hope to be able to do this yearly. So we're so looking forward to meeting up with everyone tonight. But, sherry, can you believe we are getting ready to start our fourth season.
Speaker 2:I really can't. It was like I still remember when you called me the very first day, and like we would talk on the phone periodically anyway, and when we would we would talk for hours. But I remember that God had put it in my heart to do a podcast a long time ago, but I had no thinking of what it would take, what it meant, how to even start it, and so I think I had prayed about it. God, what do you want me to do? How do you want me to do this? I don't know how to do anything. And you said to me Sherry, I'm starting a podcast, I would love for you to be a part of it.
Speaker 2:I remember that conversation, like it was yesterday, and it was such an answer to a heartfelt prayer that I had because I didn't want to do it by myself. I didn't think that I really had anything that people would want to listen to, just to me. But look at what he's done. He's like grown this into just a huge blessing for him. I pray, and we pray that literally every single time before we start an episode.
Speaker 2:We pray for God's will to be done. We pray for his glory to be shown and we pray for the Holy Spirit to speak through us. And I don't know about you, kara, but we have talked in the past about some of the episodes that we've finished and we've just been in awe because we have just felt the presence of the Holy Spirit so clearly and even as I'm sharing that right now and as I'm speaking, that I can feel the Holy Spirit right now, confirming that this is all for him and from him.
Speaker 1:Yes, lord, and, like Sherry was saying, she gives you some of the behind the scenes tidbits of it. Sometimes, when we end the podcast, the recording may have stopped, but we're still worshiping the Lord because we just felt such a presence in the midst of it, and it has. So when we say that doing this podcast has blessed us a lot more, it really really has just brought us into, I believe, the presence of the Lord and continues to do so. And we just always want to keep first and foremost and stay true to the founding scripture of it, which is John 1633, for in this world we will have trial and tribulation. But be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world, and that is something that is on my heart and Sherry's heart to just say, yes, we are going to have trials and tribulation in this world.
Speaker 1:We are in this world, we were born, we were conceived and born into a sinful world, and so all sorts of things are out there. So it's just par for the core, so to speak, that there will be trials and tribulations, and one of the reasons our tagline is your journey to joy. We are just like hey. But let's remember God's promise about this. He said be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world. And so and that is what we want everyone, who, all our listeners, to take away from it that, yes, you may be going through a trial, yes, you may be going through a tribulation, or you may just be living everyday life right, but be of good cheer because he, god himself, has overcome the world. Did you want to add anything today, sherry?
Speaker 2:All I wanted to say was I'm still waiting for it to become work. I know right, it's so much fun. Like I love hot-cloth sleeping days. I love just watching and seeing what God is going to do, what he is doing. I love when he helps us come up with that. Well, I say help us. But we always get God approved and I do believe that he's the one that plants the ideas in our minds.
Speaker 2:But I love when he comes up with the topic for us. I love the fun one, like we've been doing this month, where we're talking about our books, just as much as I love the serious one where we're talking about, in fact, probably Kara. One of my favorite favorite topics that we covered was the names of God, jesus and the Holy Spirit. That was my absolute favorite at first theory that we did.
Speaker 1:Yes, and that was in our first season, I believe, right, right, yes, it was in our first season, I believe. And there were so many, many, many good ones in our first series, that first season, biblical marriage, friendships, you know and it just continued. God just continued touching our hearts through season two and season three, and now we're in season four. We are over closing in probably before the end of this year 2024, of almost 200 plus episodes. Right, so we are getting there and it's just a lot, and there's a lot of work that goes into it, because we started the podcast, I believe, in 2021, am I right, sherry Yep? January of 2021. Not too long after. Well, the pandemic may have still been going on around this time, if I remember correctly, so January of 2021.
Speaker 1:But what some people may not realize is that we have been talking about planning and working on the podcast two years prior to that, maybe 2019. I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's like maybe 2019, latter part of 2018. Just kind of praying about it. What should it be about? What topics should we cover? What do we want to stay away from? How long should it be? How often should we do it? You know, not only that, and in everything that goes along with preparing to actually do a podcast. So there were two, maybe, almost maybe two years of prayer and prep that went into it before we actually, you know, did our first podcast. And that has been so exciting, because back then it seemed so daunting, right, sherry? Now it's just like, hey, we love doing this and it's just such a relaxing thing to do.
Speaker 2:It really, really is. And I'll never forget when we were doing the Easter series, the series on Lent, and you were talking about the oh, of course, my words have to leave me Palm Sunday. You were reading in Scripture about Palm Sunday and God highlighted to me how Jesus stood over the city or, you know, looked out over the city and cried. I had never, ever, remembered reading that before. So when we say that it blesses us as much as it blesses you, we're not lying, because I was like, oh my gosh, God just revealed a whole new truth to me.
Speaker 2:How many times have I read this story and I never realized just how much, how sad he was, knowing that he was going to be rising again. But yet he still felt all the feels and he, he still was so in love with his people and he knew that they wouldn't get it Like. It's just little things like that. That just Amazing me every time, like week after week after week, like, like I said, I'm waiting for it to become work, I'm waiting, um, you know, drudgery. I'm waiting for any of that to happen, where it's a must do instead of a get to, and I just don't see it ever happening Like and, and then you know I worried. Oh well, we're going to run out of topics, we're going to run out of things to say, Nope, God doesn't let that happen either.
Speaker 1:Oh no, as a matter of fact, you know, I think with all the topics we have put on the table, we could probably go into the next two years.
Speaker 1:You know um easily and that's easily that we felt like God has dropped on our heart. You know, um, and you know, and things like that. And so, um, just because of the, the world we live in, and just because, as Christians, in this world, honest, her a pharma there's just so much going on, so many things that we have to deal with and just so many, you know, um, biblical truths that are even being played out as we're, we're, we're, uh, talking about this. So it's just so much that's going on and, uh, in just so many ways, and we've always tried to find that, that balance between light heartedness, fun, um, and deep, deep topics and scriptural topics, um, and for those of you, we're going to give you guys a little teaser. So for next month, we are doing a love versus lust series and all of Valentine's day, and that is really, really that's. That's a deep topic and a and a fun topic in, in a way, at the same time, because what we're going to be, uh, discussing our biblical characters, like Samson and Delilah and others in there, um, in the Bible, and how, um, what one may, what, how lust perhaps led them astray and down rows that they never intended to go. So we know, the February is a month of love, so, but a lot of times people confuse lust with love, you know, and the consequences aren't always aren't good when you do that. So, um, we'll, we'll be discussing that.
Speaker 1:And then, um, march, uh, for those of you who are familiar with the first judge, female judge, biblical judge in a Bible, that we'll be discussing Deborah for the month of March, and then, um, in April is really fun topic we're going to be discussing Jio. And so, since we're doing Deborah, we, you have to kind of um I believe I'm pronouncing her name right J A, e, l in the Bible Jio, uh, or maybe Yio, not I think about it, cause I think um, in Hebrew the J kind of makes the Y sound, so I'm not exactly sure about this. So forgive me if I'm pronouncing the name incorrectly, but, um, we'll be discussing her and what makes her so famous in the Bible. And um, we just want to just if you haven't read the story yet, um, we just want to say it involves a, um, a king and a tent pig, you know, uh and uh, yeah, so it's that's going to be a very, very, very uh interesting topic.
Speaker 1:So, um, and they're going to be fun, but they're going to be deep in biblical and spiritual. You know, at the same time as we kind of go through these and you know it's just going to be so, so much fun and we just can't wait for you guys to come back and join us. Uh, and then you know we got more things coming, you know for the summer and the summer series. So, um, what am I missing?
Speaker 2:Well, it's Sherry. I know that you got 10 peg on the mind, though.
Speaker 1:I know right, I said 10 peg. Okay, I want to add that is so funny Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, Sherry.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:We have a friend named Peg, so I knew exactly where she was going with that. So yes, but I'm like that's the that's the uh monkey in the room, or the elephant in the room, If I don't address it.
Speaker 1:So I just I do want to say they would have been like who's Peg, I know actually, maybe they remember Peg because we had her on as a guest.
Speaker 2:Yes, we did the second summer.
Speaker 1:Um, yes, in the second season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she writes historical Christian fiction amazing writer Um and she lives in Michigan and she was telling about all the ways that she um researches history to write her stories accurately. I loved that series. I mean, I loved that episode and I loved that she was one of a series of women um authors that we were able to um have on our authors on our podcast, the Summer of 22. But one thing I want to throw out there, as you were talking about different episodes in 2023, from June through September, we talked about the screw tape letters and that was something that I was so grateful that Cara suggested that we do as a topic, because I had never read the screw tape letters before and I'm so glad that I did because, like she said, it is so relevant to today's society, even though it was written back in the 1940s.
Speaker 2:So I just want to throw out there, since we're talking and celebrating and just kind of reminiscing but also looking ahead, is there another classic or is there a book out there that you all would like us to do the same thing that we did with the screw tape letters?
Speaker 2:If you enjoyed that, drop us an email at gerepodcastgmailcom or head over to the Facebook community group and start a thread or a link or a post or whatever you want to call it, and let us know if there's a different book that you would like us to go through and the sooner you do it, the better to give me time to read it If, like the screw tape letters, I haven't read it before. So, yeah, so we're open, for we would like it to be a Christian Facebook. We would like it to be something that we can point people to God's tear, god's peace. It can have deep, dark topics in it that doesn't scare us away, but, yeah, something that we can find the joy through and we can point people back to God. So is that something? If you have any suggestions, drop us a line about it. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, sherry.
Speaker 2:What was your favorite episode or one of your favorite series that we did? Kara?
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely, I think it would be the screw tape letter series Only, because it's just, I don't know. I guess I was just wowed at the fact that this book was written so many decades ago, right Decades ago, and how appropriate, how apropos it was for today and it was almost prophetic in a way. It was just one of those books that Excuse me, yes, the classic. It was just one of those pieces of classic literature that is timeless and it just is so relevant to the different, the culture issues that we as Christians are seeing unfold before our eyes now and how the enemy works. Because basically that was what the school types letters was about. It was two demons talking about how to manipulate humans and what they would do and how to do it, and different things like that, and I just think it was just so Kindly to be able to do that, and just delving into that just gives you deeper insight into Wow, we, there is an enemy there, there's an enemy of our soul that is out there. He only only desire is to steal, kill and destroy, and we have to be aware of it, and that book was just a perfect example of the letters that the demon Scootable wrote to his demon nephew wormwood. We're just so eye-opening and enlightening. So that was definitely one of my, one of my favorites and but it's almost like asking the mother of quintuplets, though, like which one is your favorite child? Yeah, you know, it's like you know which one is your favorite, right? And so it's very, very hard. But the one I think that was really really close to my heart and the one that I really feel like just spoke to a lot of people, was definitely the screw tape letter series. That that we did and All we did was just talk about the topics that were covered in the book, you know, and it was just, it was just very eye-opening and humbling In the same breath to know that he wrote this book way back when and here it is so, so relevant and still relevant To us today. But I also love when we do like Lighter subjects.
Speaker 1:Will we invite other since you and I are both authors and we have been for a while how we get to write in some of our author friends and others to be able to talk about and just the different books and For those of us, for those who love to read novels, you know, and just introducing them to other Christian fiction and or clean authors that are out there. So it's been really, really, really fun and I'm just, I can't say enough, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for everyone who has joined us and has stayed faithful. It has been, on this journey, joy with us for the past three Seasons. Just, we can't, I can't thank you enough. We appreciate you so, so, so much. So if you hear me say that a couple more times, that's just because that's just was on my heart right now. You know so, sherry. So where do you see the podcast? Maybe a year from now, two years from now?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know, like I don't know, it will start to branch out more and if God will lead us to Doing more interviews with other people, if he'll keep it. Yeah, we have it where it's more intimate and it's just the two of us and it's always an adventure with God, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because who would have thought that this was the direction and the journey that we would have put us on to begin with? But I'll tell you what it has been so much fun, and I know that you and I are exactly the same, and we, whatever he plans and whatever he chooses, that's where we want to go and that's what we want to do, because that's the only way that it will be a blessing.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and it's so. If you guys are excited to see where the trip, I guess is going to be Within a year or two, then just imagine how excited we are, because when God doesn't, he is just, he's just so amazing and it's just I, I can't wait. Honestly, we just can't wait. Sometimes it's like sharing our like on pins and needles, you know, and we're just like, okay, where's God taking this now and so, but when I say it's an adventure is truly, truly an adventure, and I am just looking forward to it and we just continue to say cheers to everyone out there who, to all of our new listeners who may have just joined us within the past season or past two seasons, and Cheers and thank you to those who have been with us since season one and we just so looking forward to continuing on this journey. Was there anything else you wanted to add, cherry?
Speaker 2:No, just happy Podcast anniversary. We are so grateful that you are here, we and we just can't wait to hear your feedback and where you guys want us to go from there. But please come join us tonight. We would love to hear from you, we would love to interact with you. We would love to meet you virtually so three to five pm Pacific time, four to six pm Mountain time, five to seven pm Central time and six to eight pm Eastern time. We cannot wait to see you. Um, we will actually hopefully connect with you in just a couple of hours. Don't forget your tea and and we will talk to you tonight and we will talk to you next week.