When Your Worst Mistake Becomes God's Greatest Redemption with Alli Patterson

What happens when your biggest failure becomes the place where God begins your greatest restoration? Teaching Pastor Alli Patterson shares her powerful testimony of drifting from faith, the affair that nearly destroyed her marriage, and the life-changing moment she returned to Scripture and encountered Jesus in a new way. Together, we talk about confession, conviction, rebuilding trust, marriage restoration, raising children with honesty, gratitude, and practical ways to study the Bible that move faith from head knowledge to heart transformation. If you've ever wondered whether God can redeem your deepest regrets, this conversation offers you hope.

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Website - https://www.allipatterson.com

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Transcript

ReLight App Launch Message

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Before we jump into today's episode, I want to tell you about ReLight. ReLight is a brand new web and mobile app, one without distractions of social scrolling and chat. If you're a content creator, coach, mentor, writer, author, teacher, or leader, ReLight gives you a dedicated space to capture what God is speaking, organize your content, and share it with those you lead. Ready to create and share God notes with your followers? As a special launch welcome, sign up is free through September 1st, 2026. Visit ReLight.com to get started today. That's spelled R-E-L-I-H-T no G.

Meet Allie Patterson And Her Work

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Welcome to the Hope Unlucked podcast. I'm Kristen Kurtz, your host. I pray this episode is like a holy IV of hope for your soul. Please help me welcome Allie Patterson to the show. I'm so excited to have her here today. We had a few seconds to chat beforehand, and I know that she is just going to be a blessing to you guys today. So before we get into your story, would you be open to sharing a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Sure, of course. Thanks for having me on. My name is Allie, and I currently live in Cincinnati, Ohio. I've married for, let's see, I'm I have an anniversary tomorrow. So 27 years, which seems wild to me. Definitely a big part of my story. So we'll be married 27 years tomorrow, four kids. I'm definitely living in the teen young adult heavy parenting phase. I've liked all of those phases for different reasons. And it's just a ton of fun right now to have older kids that making the shift into from like coaching into even some aspects of friendship, which I'm finding really fun and refreshing with some of my older kids. Interesting phase as a parent. And other than that, my family, I I currently serve at a church called Crossroads Church. I'm a teaching pastor there. I love to teach. I've written a couple books, new Bible study out. So I really like to do anything that causes me to dig into scripture and try to share that in a way that makes it plain to others because I understand the challenge is pretty high sometimes to read and understand scripture and then figure out what in the world it's supposed to mean for our everyday modern lives when it's really there's so much about it that is difficult that I feel like a lot of people give up on. So I have a passion in that area. And I like to run, I like football season. I'm a football fan. For the first time we have Bengals. Well, we really love the Ohio State Buckeyes. I've been in Ohio a lot of my life, not all of it, but a lot of it. And I grew up in the Columbus area. So you're a buckeye. If you grow up in Columbus, you're a buckeye. But now that we're in Cincinnati for a while, I've gotten duped into being a Bengals fan. And it's so disappointing. I'm not gonna lie. It's just Joe Burrow was like he was gonna be our guy, and it just it sounds like what happens here in Minnesota. Yeah, a little bit of a I still believe. I still believe. So the first the first season we will have season tickets is the season coming up in the fall. So really, I'm just trying to get out and have fun with my husband and my kids, but it's still gonna be a blast. Hopefully, they'll actually have a decent season. I like to run, I like to stay active and all of that good stuff too. I'm sort of playing pickleball. Oh, I say sort of, probably because I play with my husband. He played college tennis, so he's just really good with a racket. Okay, and so I always feel like I'm not very good at this, but honestly, maybe I'm just not very good compared to him.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

So you're just starting out. You're still right.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

I'm all right. It's a very popular sport. I love that. It is, it is, and I can't I can't claim to be any wizard at it, but it's kind of fun. Doesn't require nearly as much skill as tennis in my book, just because you don't have to be able to hit it as hard or as it's fun, it seems like a fun activity.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Like I I asked my son, hey, could you teach me how to play pickleball? Because he's really good. Just go on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

You're like, no, that's not the point. The point is for us to do this together. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

So that was the reaction I got.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

That's a few little snippets about me, but can I tell you anything else?

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Any other little well, I want to go back because I, you know, I feel like as one who's now teaching the Bible, there had to be a point in your life where that started like it kind of bubbled up.

Why Scripture Became Personal

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Have you always been one that has been in the Bible? Did you grow up in the Bible? Okay, great.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

What a great question. So I thought about this a lot. And I see two things that have really come together to make me passionate about that area. One is just I'm wired as a learner. I I like to learn. When I I've been to seminary, when I went back to seminary, I would look at the classes and I wanted all of them, you know. So I'm just I'm a learner. I God has wired me that way, and I've always been that way since I was a child. That's not a big surprise. So that's definitely part of it. I love to read, I love to learn, I like to dig. Okay. I like to know. You know, I I when something trips me up, and I I would encounter this a lot when I read the Bible, um, which is why I have so much empathy for people who are like, I kind of want a life of faith. I know the Bible's got something to do with it. I should be reading the Bible. And then you open it up, you're like, what is this? Why am I doing this? So I just I just have a lot of empathy because when things would trip me up, I would go, I'm not gonna read another word until I can understand those words. And I have no idea what that's meaning. So I I started digging. So that's part of it. It's just I am an I'm wired that way. I think some of my gifts and equipping from God, just in how I was made, lean in that direction. But it also entered my story at a really critical juncture where I felt like the rug was pulled out from under my life and I was looking for what was what could save me, what can help me? What do I even believe? What is true? And if I could do something better than I've been doing and better than I've been living, would would my life get better? And so I I really think it it kind of entered my story at a really critical time where I was open to truth in a way that I just wasn't searching much before that. I think sometimes when our lives are going well, we're like, I'll take a little Jesus, I'll take a little Bible. But then when something critical happens, whether that's through your doing or life circumstances or through someone else's doing, it spins us sometimes into a posture that's actually really good for a life of faith. And so that's very much what happened to me. Ended up in a super low place. I'm happy to get into that if you want to, but that's that really is the point at which I was reaching for something and going, God, I don't know where to find you. Maybe if I read the Bible, you would be there.

unknown 7:41

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

And so that was just what I'm yes. So what I encountered during that time of my life has to it totally changed my experience with God and my, I would just say my life of faith. I encountered God in some ways that I cannot now unknow. Yeah, and a lot of that happened through the Bible, which I don't think is a common story. Most people have the story where they're like, this thing is kind of hard. I like that part. I don't really know how to read that part. But for me, it was, it really was a critical part of how I truly encountered the presence of God. And so I I really want others to share in that. So I try very hard to offer that to other people. Like, hey, did you know this can be a wonderful life-giving experience? Like and and that it doesn't have to be boring or hard or you know, bolted onto the side.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

So well, would you take us back into even one of those encounters in the Bible experience? Yeah, okay. I think somebody wants to know, even including myself.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah, I was so I came, I did grow up, I would say I grew up in like I always say, like, be nice and chew with your mouth closed, family, like decent people. And we did have a church that we went to. So I had some faith background, but I like just I I guess I should say some church background, but that's not always the same thing. And but I had some context for Jesus, and I I would have said I believe in God.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

I truly came into a relationship with Jesus when I was a junior in high school, and that was very, very real. The Bible hadn't totally entered the picture yet, but I began to be more motivated to explore the Bible after that happened. I heard the gospel, I understood it. I was like, this is for me. I truly turned to Jesus and wanted a relationship with him. I wanted to grow my faith. So I went to college in that place. Yeah. And college was college. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Like, I started off the experience.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Yeah, started off good, made some good friends. Yeah. And by the time I got out of college, I would say I I had drifted. Nothing drastic or major just wasn't, I had drifted away a bit. Went into the corporate world after college. And shortly thereafter, I was married. We got married right out of school. I've been married to my husband for a long time. Got married right out of school. And when I went into the corporate world,

The Affair And Rock Bottom

SPEAKER_00 10:34

it was very a very short time after that I had an affair.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

And it was a total, it it burned my life to the ground. Like it was when I say like the lowest and darkest I've ever been, that was it. And it was during that time, and I knew that God was calling me back to him. That's the language I would use for it now. At the time, I had kind of gone to a church that I've now worked at for a long time, and I felt the presence of God again for the first time. And I knew he was sort of pressing in on my life. And I knew that it was I needed to get out of the situation I was in. But when when that's your life, all you can see is I can't get out. Like, how do you do that and not ruin everything?

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Great question. And I would say, you probably can't, and that might be a good thing. And so I came home one day and I was I was searching for God and I wanted his help. I I I was asking. I would talk to God in the car and I would say, I I I know that I need, I know that this isn't right. I need I need a different life. I don't know how to do this. Where are you? Help me. If you if you're there, show me what to do. And I was trying to hold on and like not let it ruin everything, you know. You were trying to fix things yourself, kind of, or yeah, that's a that I was looking for a way to do that. I was looking for a way out that wouldn't cause everything to fall apart, which I did not want. Of course, because who wants that? Nobody wants that. So I go home one day and I see a like a wooden cube from college in our guest room. And I really hadn't it had just moved with us a couple of times, and I hadn't really looked at the books in it for a while, and it was sitting in our guest room. And I went in and I saw my old Bible, and it had one of those like pleather, like fake leather covers. And it had been so long since I had taken it out of the cube that it actually like stuck to the side of the cube. I had to like peel it off. Yeah. And I peeled it off and I laid down on the guest room bed.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

And all I remembered at that point, it had been probably five years, maybe, since I had opened a Bible. And all I remembered is that I always knew Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the, you know, the gospels, the life of Jesus. Those felt more familiar, easier to read. So I turned there and I remembered the words in red were Jesus in my Bible.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

And so I started reading all the red words. Like, if you're God, then this is what you say. You know, that that's as much sense as it made to me. And I started reading and reading, and I just felt like he would constantly call me back. Just come read this again. Come read this again. I would just go read all the red words because I didn't, I didn't, I kind I kind of knew some of the other books of the Bible. I knew some of the Psalms and you know, whatever. But all I just felt compelled to read the red words. This is what I say. This is my words. And so I would read them over and over again. And pretty soon I would, I still would talk to him a lot. I need your help. I don't know, I don't know how to change my life. I don't know how to get out of where I am. And pretty soon, like I'm talking like weeks, not months, handful of weeks, maybe six weeks or less. He truly, I would say now, again, my language for it now, which I didn't have at the time, is that the Holy Spirit was just at work convicting me and pushing me in the direction of confession and repentance. And eventually I had this overwhelming feeling that the only way out for me was to tell the truth. And I remember the day that that I told God, okay, I'm going to tell the truth. And I had somehow in the reading of the Bible begun to experience the presence of God. It wasn't that He pointed out a word, it wasn't

Reading The Red Words

SPEAKER_00 15:18

that easy or that clear. Although they were probably in there, I'm sure I read words like, you know, about you know, that Jesus says that would have been like that. But it was more that I began to experience Him, a living presence of God that seemed to get stronger and stronger and stronger when I would when I would read the Bible. And and every time I went, I was like, did that matter? I think it mattered. And all I thought you're asking yourself questions too. Yes. I'm asking, and I meet I'm talking to God like out loud. And now I understand, my goodness, that's that's exactly what he wants. He was much, much more concerned with me coming back into his presence and being connected to him again than he was about on the Tuesday I laid on the bed for the first time, making sure that I go to bed as a good person. Better get it done. You know, it's almost like we entered this process where he was where he had access to my life again.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

And the Bible was was a huge conduit for that. And and so as I and that it brought truly, I think I would say the there's a nearly a a high correlation. I'm a statistics person in my former life.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

There's a super high correlation between exposing yourself to scripture and experiencing the presence of a living God.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

That's good. Could you say that again for somebody listening in the back?

SPEAKER_00 17:03

There's a high correlation between experiencing the living presence of God and being exposed to the word of God. And that's that's what that time taught me. It opened me up to him again. It gave him access to me and vice versa. And I went sort of out of desperation. And honestly, Kristen, I don't think he cared one bit that I came back to him because I was desperate. Of course I was desperate. Yeah. Better there than somewhere else. Right. Right. I mean, I think now, as I have hindsight on my own story, I believe all of the things that came before that in my life, my exposure to the Bible. I remember the person who gave me that Bible. I remember thank you to that person who gave me. Yes. Praise Jesus for Amy. My my my first friend.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Did you have a friend in high school?

SPEAKER_00 18:13

She was my neighbor, my and high school friend, yeah. And she we used to call it my Ali Simpkins Bible because she like had my name embossed on the like lower corner of the front cover. That's my maiden name. So my friends that I I kept it into my first ministry job many years later, and I had it in my office, and they would call it the Ali Simpkins Bible because it would have my name on the front. So yeah, truly, I I then recognized, oh, he was planning for this moment far, far before I had the life circumstances to come back to him. He knew I would need to, and he knew exactly how I was gonna need to do it. And even that made me feel so loved that he would know how to come get me.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Yeah, and and when. And it was and I I when I heard you say, and I, you know, I I've had this happen in my life too a lot and hearing other people's stories, it's that helped me. Yes. Two words.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Yes. And I I truly just said to him, I can't do this. And I asked him, I said these two words to him on a run, and it was scary because I'd been thinking them for a while. And I couldn't, I knew he would take them seriously if I said it. It was almost like the Holy Spirit gave me words before to pray before I was brave enough to pray them because I was thinking about them, and I knew somehow if I told him to do this, he would do it.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

And I was on a run one

Break Me And Tell The Truth

SPEAKER_00 19:48

day, and I said out loud, because it was almost like I'd had them bouncing around in my heart and mind. And I said, Okay, go ahead, break me.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yeah, that's a that's a big one.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

And I knew he would. I knew he would. I knew he would bring about the circumstances to break my life apart so that he could rebuild it. And then I realized, like, oh, I have to step into this, I have to step in here and tell the truth and and trust that in doing so, I will actually create even in the pain, I'll create the circumstances for him to go to work.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

That's so good. It reminds me of just kind of this revelation I had recently where, you know, we talk about like from the head to the heart, but it's gotta get from the heart to the feet. Isn't that the truth? Yes. You literally stepped in, you said you literally stepped into it as from the head to the heart to the feet to move into that. What did that look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Well, the first thing I I did, I mean, af at that point, I confessed that the affair that I've been having, I confessed to my husband. I thought he would leave and never come back. That's what I expected. Because that that's what else would you expect? That's what that's what I expected. And I we did not have any children. It would have been very easy for him to walk away and never look back. And sometimes I wonder why he didn't, you know, even now. I'm so grateful he didn't because our story really started, you know, after that time. It was like through this turn of events, we both had to choose him. I had to pick, I want what's real and honest and good, even if it burns everything to the ground. And he had to choose God over me. I'll stay because you, not because. Of her, because of you, and we were both forced into a situation where we had to choose him over ourselves, really.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Like literally, yeah. Like could was he walking like like with the Lord at that time?

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Um I would have considered us very, very similar at the time. Both I would say had dormant faith, legitimate, like honest to goodness belief that just was not being it wasn't the foundation of how we were living. But I would say in both of our cases, a true belief was there and was available to us. The question was would we choose that, you know, when everything was falling apart? And so obviously, in real life is real life, it was bad and painful for a while. And also it was the only thing that saved us.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Because I want somebody to cure that, just really hear that what you're saying. Like just really like listeners take a moment just to listen in. And if you're walking through something that is really challenging, sometimes it's the very thing that's the catalyst for us. Yes. I'll let you keep going. But I just want to like pause.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

I will I'll double down on that because it's made me less afraid in the in all the years since to grab the control over something that looks like it's gonna be bad or it's gonna hurt. If I can walk

Choosing To Stay And Rebuild Trust

SPEAKER_00 23:39

through something with a pure heart to God, like, okay, I think I'm doing, I think I'm honoring you. I think I'm doing to the best of my ability to understand what you want me to do. And I'm being honest, I'm trying to love somebody well. And if it still looks like things are gonna go bad, I'm actually okay with that because I feel like most of us spend our life trying to hold ourselves back from those what we think are bad things. We control or we spend our life in anxiety, or we just manipulate our way out of something so whatever we perceive as the worst doesn't happen. And then we live with this low grade, low grade fear or guilt, or you know, and I just knew I'm too young. This marriage is too young, I can't live like this for the rest of my life. We either do this right or it has to be over, and I didn't want it to be over, and and I didn't think God wanted it to be over, but all I could see was if I tell the truth, it's all gonna come apart. And now I realize I wasn't wrong, but that was the only way. That was the only way back.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Yeah, wow, the only way back. That's a book.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

The only way back. Yeah, and and I was so I was exactly what you would have thought I would be. I was scared and guilty and ashamed, and I wanted to isolate, I didn't want to be around anybody. I I I thought he would leave. Yes, I was sure he would leave. I thought my life is over, my marriage is over, the life I thought I had is gone. We all hit moments, whether it's our fault or something else happens to us where we think the life I thought I was gonna live is over. And maybe, but but the life that God has for you is not over. And man, so many good things came out of so many painful things. I mean, even today, we've been married 27 years tomorrow. And even today, like congratulations again. Thank you. If if one like if he comes in and he does something or says something that irritates me, guess what? My all I won't say it's always my first thought, but it's it's often my first thought is but oh my gosh, I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful. I'm I'm so grateful that that we genuinely found our way back to trust, trust in God, trust in each other. We were able to build a life together and love again. I never thought we would be at ease with each other, be in love again, trust anybody again. Like I didn't think any of that was possible. So now when he like leaves his dirty socks on the floor, I'm like, uh yeah. Like, and I'm not saying I never get irritated about normal daily things, I'm just saying it gives a perspective that's a different perspective.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Only the gratitude, yeah, the gratitude attitude.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Yeah. And like I could get on my face any day. I look at my children and I'm like, you might not have existed. How is that possible now?

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Like they're miracles, honestly. Right?

SPEAKER_00 27:20

They are miracles. And just yesterday I was pulling out because my son's about to graduate from high school, my second one, and I was pulling out of the driveway, and I was like praying as I was driving, and I was just thanking God like for the opportunity he has at a great college, and just like, hey, I'm really grateful for the things that you've allowed to take place here at the end of his senior year, and just feels like he's finishing well, and what a gift that is. And and I suddenly realized, man, I could have lived a whole different story. And I'm not even saying that God wouldn't have met me further down the path and made something amazing redemptive happen at some other point. I think he's got lots of stories for us. Yeah, but my goodness, I remembered when he told me at one point in prayer, just impress this thought upon my heart that if you stay, because we were both tempted to throw in the towel at different points.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Like it's too hard, the road back is too difficult, you hit a hiccup and you're like, this isn't gonna work, you know. And I remembered him saying, if you stay, I'll bless your family. And I was like, dang, I'm like driving out of my driveway, literally thanking him for blessing my family. And that thought came back to me. You told me you were gonna do this. You told me you were, and you just said that if you say I'll bless your family, and I'm like, whoa.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

And how many years ago was that? Twenty

Telling The Kids And Generational Impact

SPEAKER_01 29:12

three.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Okay. Twin years ago.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Wow. And and for you to just take that moment to remember, um, I like to say reminded to remember, like to take that moment to go back and remember. And and the fact, you know, Holy Spirit probably was bubbling that up for you to remember and just see the miracle that the the Lord has done. I want to just share something and and just, you know, we all have choices, right? We all make choices. We can stay, we could in your cases, you could have stayed or gone. Yep. And you know, we can say yes or no. And with with your marriage, you you chose to say yes. And one thing that I I I hear it for myself, I hear it for others, is that our yes has generational implications. So you have actually you have children, you have four children that who knows how many kids they'll have, and then how many kids they'll have, like, and you may not see like the the fullness of your yes. I just think it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

It's incredible because we had to also make the decision at at some point. And I I'm again, I'm not saying this needs to be everybody's decision, I'm just saying it was important for us. We told them our story, our kids.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

And because I want them to know what they're they're like fruit. That's so good. Literally, the story that God has told in our life, they're the fruit of that. And I wouldn't want them not to know that, but it was very hard to tell them. Like, at what point do you just tell them that story? You know, I mean it's always gonna be a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Like, is there a certain age that you felt like it was?

SPEAKER_00 31:04

You know, we we chose to we chose to do it in twos because my boys are first and my girls are second. And the girls we just thought were too young to understand when the when the boys came to the age where we were like, okay, we we want them to understand, you know, what what's our family story, you know? And so we we told them in twos, and it was like early teen years, like 12, 13, 14.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

So for one, it was a little older, one it was a little younger because they're two years apart, right? And also, because of what I do, I want I wanted access to my own story, you know, and so if I'm going to teach authentically from my own story to be able to explain scripture or talk about God, my family needs to know that. You know, they need to, they need to be a part of that. That would be awfully weird.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Yeah, it would be um shocking if they didn't.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Yeah. So but that that was tough. And but we when we told the boys, we said, if this ever feels like you're keeping a secret from your sisters, we wouldn't want that. So just tell us and we'll tell them. Like this is not a secret we're asking you to keep. We just don't think it'll be relevant and understood by them for a couple of years. But if you find that you trip over it or there's some reason that it doesn't feel good for them not to know, just tell me that.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

And it never did. Like it's not like they're not gonna, they could talk to each other if they wanted to, they could talk to us. And we just said we'd like to honor the girls by allowing them to get to the age where we can have the same kind of conversation with them. They're not there yet, but we're not asking you to keep a secret. If you ever feel like that's that's what you're doing, then that's wrong. Like we don't want you to feel burdened by knowing we and so that but it never really, it never really did. But man, with young adults, how good, how much trust that built that they have parents who understand what it looks like when your life isn't perfect, when you make a mistake you can't fix, when you need somebody to forgive you, when when you have to own up to your own sin, when you have to deal with feeling ashamed of something, when you have to confess, they already knew. Yeah, these are all life experiences. These are things that you've done. And it has paid dividends that I never expected with our our kids, because now I can just say, like, hey, I think you I think you must know that I understand what it feels like to be ashamed of yourself. It's a terrible feeling. Yeah, and also God can lift that shame.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

He can kind of like that hopeless feeling, right? Like, you know, being this as hope unlocked, like God literally unlocked hope in you.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Totally. To then pass it down to the generations, yes, and it keeps I've noticed this is like a really good side effect.

Spirit Led Bible Study Practices

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Good side effects, of course.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

It's a good side effect. You know, when you when you have kids that you raise in like a family of faith, you know, we go to church, we have a community of faith around us. Knowing your parents have kind of an ugly story really keeps you from being real judgy about other people. And what a wonderful side effect. Like, I think sometimes we in in communities of faith that really mean well. Like we truly want to give our kids an example of Jesus, and we we want to open the door to to a life of faith. I think sometimes that accidentally gets translated as religion. You should you should do all these things and do them well and don't mess up, you know.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

And it has really prevented some of that. That pressure that somebody might feel growing up in a family that loves Jesus. And you know, obviously, I work at a church, and so there could be a perceived pressure for them to feel like they had to have it all together. Yeah. And that's been a really wonderful side effect of me going, hey, yeah, listen, not judging you. Do you remember what do you remember what I told you I was like in college? Do you remember my story? Do you remember the beginning of our marriage?

SPEAKER_01 36:03

You know, I mean I love I love that you've done this.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Yeah, we want you to know we're with we're with you and there's nothing you can't get through, but there's no pressure from us to appear as good Christians on the outside. That's not our goal for you.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Yeah. I think, you know, as somebody's listening in today, you know, I'm just thinking of that family who, you know, maybe they've had things that they've walked through, and their kids are kind of coming of this age where, you know, I walked through things before I got saved too. I got saved from addiction, and I remember just telling my kids what I did, where I came from, some of the things. And I just felt like I want them to know what I was like before. Before, right? Before God got a hold of me. Yes. And there was that massive transformation. Yes. Um, so thank you for sharing this, you know, vulnerable, but you know, like open part of your story. I want you to share a little bit more about like what you're up to. Yeah. The time goes by very fast. It does always.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

So it's actually beautiful because we started off talking about how much like when scripture had entered my story. And it's always been a place of comfort for me. I like to write, I like to teach. I've written a couple books, but my latest project is a Bible study where I actually tried to take how I encounter the Holy Spirit in scripture and write a study that would help other people to do that as well. So, so that the Bible doesn't feel like it feels like maybe when I open it, this could be a living experience instead of something that I was trying to find the right answers. And don't get me wrong, I, you know, I said I'm a learner, I'm kind of nerdy in my heart of hearts. So I like the right answers, but that's not why we go to scripture. We we there's a living God who really wants you to encounter him. And what I said a little while ago is the reason I wrote the Bible study. It's because the more we expose ourselves to the words of scripture, the more we encounter a living God.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

And so I took the turns out there were six I didn't know there were. When I first started to put the study together, I was like, so how do I actually do this? You know, and it was my attempt to take my practices with scripture and offer them to other people. This is how I encounter God in scripture. This is what I do, this is how I do get to the right context. And and that requires some proper application of the word. Like you might have to actually look something up that you don't know.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

You might actually have to.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Yes. And also here's how you listen. Here's how you listen for the spirit as you as you read. You know, there's there's more going on than meets the eye, if you will. And so I I put six practices into a Bible study. It's called Spirit-led Bible study. And it is the latest of my projects and one that I hope will live on in some other forms in the future. So it really is close to my heart because of all the things we've talked about. And it I I so often encounter people that don't that kind of throw their hands up in the air at parts of the at least parts of the Bible. And it was just my offering to say, like, I'm there might be some things that could help you encounter God in this space. And so that is my latest project, and it just it just released about three months ago, so it's pretty new. Pretty new.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Um testimonials that you know I would love to hear from maybe somebody who's done this and they're like, Oh, I've got a testimonial for you. Would you share?

SPEAKER_00 39:52

I actually just heard from someone the other day who was going through one of the practices called context. And super, it's a simple idea, but I take

Honest Questions And Final Hope

SPEAKER_00 40:03

people through how you look at a small passage, but then keep it framed in the bigger passages that are around it and the book and where the book sits in the Bible and all that kind of stuff. And she told me, she said, I have literally never in my life thought that the small piece that I was reading would make more sense if I thought intentionally about what was right before it and right after it. And she was like, It blew my mind. She was like, now everything I'm reading, I'm I feel like I'm understanding it more. And I was like, Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Oh, great.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

Yeah. But I will finish by saying one by telling you my, I actually wrote an article about this. I'll send it to you. Yeah. So you could maybe link it in the show notes. And it was about, I like asking honest questions to God as we read. And we practice doing that in part of the study. And my question that launched me into one of the practices called context, the one I just mentioned, was a question I asked Jesus when I was reading a certain story about him. I stopped and said out loud to him, why you gotta be so mean?

SPEAKER_01 41:16

I love it. Why you gotta be so mean?

SPEAKER_00 41:18

Why you gotta be so mean? And as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I was like, Oh, I'm missing something. God's not mean. That's not his character. That means I've misunderstood this somehow. I wonder how I've misunderstood this. And it sent me on this journey of going, like, what context am I missing? That I read this story and I decided that he was being mean because he's not mean. That means there's something I'm missing, and it sent me on a journey for context that I was misunderstanding. So it was I wrote an article about it. I'll send it to you. Okay, yes, one of the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

Yeah, and it's it's all kinds of small things like that that happen sort of in the quiet between you and God.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

And the more honest you are, the better, which is so the more you he'll show he'll bring you deeper into the journey too when you ask those questions, the honest questions.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Because it's I mean, we can have totally answered it. He totally answered it, made it so very personal. And it was even the asking of that question was him, even the fact that that I had that question, he already knew where I was gonna go, and the answer ended up being something really, really personal to me. And so I love I love opening up practices that like make that possible for people, yeah. And I get that not everyone's gonna love the Bible like I do, but I hope that if I could like make it a tiny bit easier to encounter God in that space, that you might want to open it again the next day.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Yeah, well, I don't doubt it. I don't feel like you're just drawing people in just from what you've shared today. So what is the best way people can get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_00 43:08

They can find me at allypatterson.com and and on I'm at the Ally Patterson on Instagram and on my page on Facebook and stuff. So that's my social media handle. Because as you know, your name was probably already taken by the time you got to Instagram. So on Instagram, which is where I'm the most active, it's the Ally Patterson. But you can go to my website and it's got my books and they're available anywhere you get books. If you're interested in the Bible study, same thing. You can get info on the website, but also really anywhere you buy books or Bible studies should have it. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Well, I would love for you to share if you have any, you know. I I told you before we got started, I do this for the one. If you have any other words of encouragement or wisdom that you'd share with that one, if you could just think of that one who's listening in right now.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Yeah, I will speak directly to the person who is trying not to hit the bottom. Like you're trying to hold on and and try to make sure that the worst doesn't happen. And I'll just I just want to speak hope to you today because God is already ahead of you in all of this. And if you allow him, even if you think you're going to burn your life to the ground, he already has a new one for you. And there's always life with him. And I really didn't believe that. So it felt like a huge, huge risk to trust him. And so I just want to be a voice saying to you, he's trustworthy. You absolutely can. And there's always hope. Always hope, even if you're facing the worst that you can think of.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Thank you. I know that ministered to somebody, so many. So thank you. And thank you for being a brave voice who's setting so many free. I'm gonna close with our anchoring verse, which is May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound. I just love that word, in hope. And that's Romans 15, 13. So I will be back with another episode next week. Thank you, Ellie, for being on with us today. Take care, everybody.