Episode 28: Overcoming Adversity – From Valleys to Mountain Tops

In this episode of the Change Chasers Podcast, we dive into the theme of overcoming adversity with the powerful imagery of valleys and mountain tops. Mandy unpacks 5 hot takes that will shift how you see struggle — from seeing adversity as an enemy to embracing it as your training ground. You’ll discover how faith, community, resilience, and gratitude equip you to climb higher. Don’t miss the Change Chaser Challenge at the end — a practical, life-shaping step that will help you rise from your valley toward the peak God has prepared for you.

#ChangeChasers #OvercomingAdversity #FaithAndGrowth #MountainTopFaith #ValleySeason #PurposeDriven #ResilientFaith #KeepClimbing #FaithJourney #PersonalGrowth

Faith in Action // Change in Motion

Transcript

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Well, hey, change chasers. Welcome back. Here we are. Another episode. I'm Mandy, and today we're going to be talking about overcoming adversity. So overcoming adversity and what exactly does that mean for all of us? I think that when we stop and we think about sometimes our life, we find ourselves in the valleys, but then also we have some mountaintop life experiences, right? And so I think that every change chaser knows this truth, that we don't grow on the mountaintop, but we grow in the valley. But the valley is not our final destination. It's just a training ground. For the climb, so to speak. Right? And so I also realize that sometimes in life that we can feel like we've been in this scenario. So hopefully you'll be able to kind of see and pick up what I'm putting down on this. But I have felt like this sometimes in my life, y'all, that. I have strapped on a pair of roller skates and I'm trying to climb uphill. You got the visual, you got those roller skates on it. It's almost impossible. You're hitting roots, uneven places, so to speak, and then it makes you roll right back on down. And the forward or the upward progress feels almost impossible, or it's 100% super challenging. Correct. And so with that visual aid of getting you to kind of just stop and thinking about somebody strapping on some roller skates, trying to do an uphill climb, it's just not the same momentum and traction that you can gain from having on your hiking boots. Correct. So that I think that it necessarily isn't lost on me that in today's topic, I think it affects every person differently. And so with that said, y'all, we're going to be unpacking five hot takes today that will hopefully be able to shift you and me in the middle of the moment of our struggles, right? Our struggle bust times from seeing adversity as an enemy to embracing it as your training ground. So today we're going to discuss and we're going to discover how faith, how community, how resilience, and how gratitude can equip us to climb higher. So let's jump right on in. Get started. Hot take number one is adversity is the admission ticket for growth. And so with that being our first hot take of just thinking about adversity being our admission ticket for growth, I just think about that. Y'all, we all love mountaintop experiences. Don't we all love mountaintops? We all love the beautiful view. If you've ever climbed up and looked out of an overlook of a mountain, or maybe you've driven somewhere and you see in my area we have so many beautiful mountains that we can. Drive within a, three to five hours, you can see so many different beautiful sets of scenery from Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia. I mean, just gorgeous places. And so I think that we can all say, yep, we love mountaintops. We love the visual of that. But for referencing in today's episode of just thinking about. What happens when everything comes together? Right? Whenever thinking about that mountaintop experience, so to speak, is that whenever our prayers are answered and our vision comes to life, that's a mountaintop experience, correct? I mean. When we just stop. And we just think about though, that if we're just really being honest, we, we don't grow much up there at a mountaintop. We get to enjoy it more. So when we bask and we kinda wanna stay there, don't we wanna stay in that mountaintop experience? But the truth is, is that it's in the valley seasons of where our muscles of faith, our muscles of patience, our muscles of perseverance are all formed. So when I stop and I just think about it like this, I think that that the valley is kind of like your personal gym. It's like lifting the weights because then that creates resistance that makes you stronger. And adversity works the same way. It's resistance training for your soul. So instead of seeing adversity as a punishment, then my encouragement with this episode today is that y'all, we can all start seeing it as. Preparation. It's the price of admission to the next level of growth.'cause every mountaintop victory is only reached because you were willing to walk through the valleys, maybe even had to climb through the valleys, right, to continue to try to get some forward motion and upward progress. Because without adversity, though, change is just surface level. But with adversity, I think that's when change takes root. Hot take number two, your valley does not define you. It refines you. And so thinking about that, about how our valley doesn't define us, y'all, it refines us, is that when you're in a hard season, it's easy to let it label you. Going through a divorce. Hmm. Divorce say Right. Job loss. Hmm. Unemployed, right. Illness. Hmm. Going through X, Y, and Z type of scenario to be able to overcome that. Right. You're enduring betrayal. Whew. Gracious. People feel sorry for you. You feel sorry for yourself kind of thing. Bad grade. Hmm. Might not pass. I mean, all of these different things you can kind of get labeled out oftentimes with those. It's a tough stuff type of thing, right? Some negative connotations come. Some circumstances of life are not easy. They're difficult to walk through those hardships, but when we start to believe in the middle of those hardships of that, that is who I am, then y'all, we can get stuck there. I mean, some people get stuck there, unfortunately for forever, and they're not able really to, to climb out of that pit, so to speak. And so my encouragement for us is just to really, truly lean in with a thought process that your valley is not your identity, it's your refinery. God uses valleys to strip away what you don't need and to strengthen what you do. So a biblical character I wanted to talk about in this episode today is I love the story of Joseph Joseph from the Bible. Unfortunately, he has a tough stuff kind of story. I feel like my story relates to Joseph pretty well, and so I think that's probably one reason I just really enjoy. His story because he went through a whole lot of adversity. I don't like knowing he went through a lot of adversity, but I love knowing the goodness of God and the outcome and the shift and the pivot of perspective. Because Joseph was a good old boy who, I mean, he messed up, goofed up wasn't perfect, but he went through some adversity and he overcame it. And so with that kind of the scenario, is this the synopsis of the story? If you're unfamiliar, if maybe you need a reminder. Joseph was betrayed by his brothers. He was thrown into a pit. He was sold into slavery. He was then falsely accused, and then he was in prison. And so he went through a whole lot of valleys in that, right? But y'all, none of those valleys defined him. They refined him. They refined him into the kind of leader that God could trust with an entire nation's survival. And so when I thought about this and this topic, I really wanted to talk about Joseph. And so if you've not studied up, I encourage you go jump in on Genesis and go read those chapters. I think there's about 15 chapters that cover his story and it's so impactful because Joseph was, he was a good godly guy. He's mentioned here and there, and what I just stop and I think about for real life application is being a change chaser. Y'all. You as a change chase. You're listening to this podcast about self-growth week in and week out, and hopefully being encouraged and inspired, but also challenge to man y'all. Make the changes you wanna make right in order to grow and be who you want to be, but also inspired to step into your why, your calling, your purpose. And so as change tasters, I wanna just point out that your valley is not a proof of weakness. It's proof that God is preparing you. For what's ahead and the preparation. I do know 100% from real life application and my own living it to be truth. Living it out is that God brings us to those sweet, sweet, sweet, awesome mountaintop experiences and so we just have to make sure that we do not allow a valley to get us down or in reference to this point, just really hammering home the point that our valley is not ever our identity, it is our refinery. So then that has us jumping in on hot tech. Number three, faith is the rope that pulls you up the mountain. So if you've ever went on a climb, and it's a whole lot easier if there's, there is a rope to, to hold onto, to climb with. Right. Or, or maybe the, you gotta have the trails marked if you're hiking and that kind of thing. If you get off of a marked trail, uh oh, you can get lost. Right. And so, and I just stop and think though, for the purpose of wanting to connect us with. In the sense of like faith being what helps pull us up the mountain helps get us out of the pit and the mire or the valley for this episode to think about that. To be able to get back up on the top of the mountain, right? It's just stopping and thinking about kind of the visual of setting the scene for maybe if you've ever watched someone who is a climber. Someone who scales a mountain, so to speak, and most of the time, I mean those mountains are really steep, right? It's like this big steep mountain wall. The climbers, they need ropes, they need anchors. And then they also need to have a whole lot of trust in their equipment to be able to pull themselves up higher to a new elevation, and so when I just stop and I think about that visual of seeing that, then they pull themselves up and then eventually they can conquer. That side of the mountain and be able to get up and they're at a new elevation and then they continue to go higher and higher and upward and accomplish their goal. Right? That's what faith does for us. But adversity, on the flip side, I think adversity screams you can't do this right. Whereas faith whispers with God, all things are possible. Hmm. I'm so grateful to know that. Luke 1 37 reminds us of that too, is that for with God, nothing shall be impossible. And so just knowing that with God all things are possible. I think about another biblical character. We've already kind of briefly mentioned the story of Joseph, but David in the Bible when he was just a young whipper snapper, he's just a young boy. David knew that when he faced Goliath, he had faith because he had already lived through. Some different scenarios to where he was able to have victory. And so even in the sense of that, everyone else saw Goliath as like this impossible, giant. But David saw an opportunity for God to show his strength. David's faith became the rope, so to speak, that pulled him forward when fear tried to hold him back. So that he could be elevated, so to speak up that mountain. Even though obviously we know in that story we're not talking about scaling a mountain, but y'all were talking about mountains and valleys today. And so just making that, that context grab there and thinking about for us the next time that we're facing adversity. Let's grab hold of faith. Declare God's promises over your situation. Remind yourself that this valley is not permanent. This mountain will not crush me because God is with me. I've been doing that this week. Just being fully transparent with you guys of just having to do that and just thinking about, okay, Lord, just regrouping and refocusing my way of thinking. Right, because you know, just thinking about making the point here with mountains, like mountains are steep, but without faith, y'all, I know that fear is what can pull us back down. Thinking about that. Our example is David versus Goliath, that his faith was bigger than the giant standing in front of him. Right? But our personal connection for us is that when adversity screams that you can't, I do truly believe that faith whispers with God. All things are possible. And so the encouragement here. On this hot take on point number three is that faith is kinda like the rope, so to speak. That pulls us up the mountain to allow us to get out of the, the pit, the mire, the uncertainty to be able to grab hold and to be able to conquer the adversity that is trying to come and hijack our peace, our purpose, or our plan. Now we're gonna jump on hot take number four. Community is your climbing team. Again, like I said, I thanks for being a good sport and playing along. I'm just kind of talking about just, from valleys to mountaintops, right? And just the scenario of setting the scene for you to have a visual of just thinking about a climber. Somebody's out trying to scale this mountain, right? And so when I stop and I think about climbers, I immediately, honestly, I do think about people who climb big mountains. I always think about Mount Everest because, I don't know, it's just something that I've heard of my whole entire life and history and all that. But I know from doing a little bit of research about it that no climber goes up to, to Everest ever alone. Right? They have rope teams, they have guides, they have people who catch them when they slip. They have people who travel up with them. They have people who help carry their gear. Um, they have all of the tools and all the supplies that they need, right? To be able to try to. Do the journey of all of the hiking up and then scaling the mountain. So I think that whenever I am intentional in the sense of just allowing myself to have this visual aid of knowing that climbers don't just show up to Everest, right? They just don't go out there on a random Thursday and be like, I think I'm gonna climb Mount Everest today. No, y'all. They spend months, some spend years preparing as a team. They practice smaller climbs, they build endurance, and they learn to trust one another before they go up to the big mountain, so to speak. Right? Yeah. Unlike mountain climbing with a group of trusted climbers who prepare in advance for the triumphant climb that leads to the summit experience, the real life truth is that adversity has a way of isolating us. We tell ourselves that, Hmm, no one, I mean, no one's gonna understand. I don't wanna be a burden. Maybe that's your line. That's one of my lines too. It's like nobody's gonna understand. I don't wanna be a burden. I should be able to handle this on my own. But isolation only deepens the valley. And as change chasers, I know that you know this. I know that you already are self-aware enough to know that you weren't meant to climb alone. You weren't. Meant to get all stuck in the muck in the middle of your mess. I do believe that You also know that you need voices of encouragement. You need voices of truth. You need voices who are speaking life and love, and even people of accountability in your story, right and in your life. You need people who will pray for you. You need people who will speak life into you, and you need people who will remind you of your mountain when all you see. And so I wanna encourage you to ask yourself. Who's on your climbing team, so to speak? I know we're kind of going, maybe this is weird to some of y'all, but I'm a visual learner, so I wanted to set the scene for just thinking about this as far as kinda like, you know, scaling a mountain, going from the valley to the mountaintops, and so who is it that's, so to speak? Who do you join? Arms? Who do you link up with that brings life, love, truth, trust. Hopefulness who helps you to be able to conquer, so to speak, the obstacles that may happen in everyday life. And so asking yourself, allowing your time just to, you know, just have a moment in your thoughts of saying, who's on my climbing team? Right? And maybe even more importantly, asking yourself, like, whose team am I on? And so for that, maybe asking that, whose team are you on? Because sometimes the best way out of your own valley. Is to help someone else climb out of theirs. So with that, a quick little synopsis. Remembering over this hot take is that it's so important to remember that no climber scales Everest alone. It's so important to remember that adversity isolates us if we let it, but connection brings courage and it's so important to remember that. If we're intentional about truly pursuing connection with other people and doing life with other people, then it's a game changer. And so with that, I ask you to ask yourself, who's on your climbing team? Who speaks life into you when you're in the valley? And then also, who do you need to invite to be a part of your journey? Who are you helping to get pulled up out of the valley? Right? And so with that encouragement, just thinking about those few questions. Hopefully it'll be a gift for you or maybe even somebody else in your life that you can be intentional about pursuing in the sense of who can I help? Get outta the valley, join arms link up, and let's be able to, so to speak, hike to the mountaintop experience, right? To be able to be removed from all of the things that are making us feel stuck in the middle of, ugh, all of the adversity and the hard stuff. Continuing to be people who pursue elevation in our own lives and in the lives of others. Mm. Y'all what a gift that is such a game changer. Now hot. Take number five. Celebrate the small peaks along the way. Again, I know, thank you for putting up with my cheesiness. Uh, if it is cheesy to you, but I was just really wanting to connect the talk of being able to overcome adversity by way of just talking about valleys and mountaintops. Just kind of something different. And so for our final hot take, thinking about the intentionality of celebrating the small peaks along the way, because sometimes God doesn't take us straight from the valley to the highest mountaintop. Instead y'all, sometimes he gives us smaller peaks. Sometimes he gives us little victories. Sometimes he gives us moments of breakthrough, and sometimes he gives us sweet little reminders that he is walking with us. However, I do know that the danger is that sometimes we're so focused on the ultimate mountaintop experience, we gotta get that goal right? We gotta go there, we gotta do all of these things that unfortunately, when we're so super uber focused that we may miss it. I don't like missing it. How about y'all? I don't wanna miss anything. Right? And so with the encouragement of just thinking about not missing the joy. Or those smaller little climbs, so to speak, that can lead to success stories in our lives. Don't miss it. Look for the good. Look for God. Look for all the ways that he has been faithful, and allow yourselves to not miss those maybe small mountain victories, so to speak, right? Those smaller peaks, so to speak. So then that way we can continue. To operate out of a heart posture of gratitude because gratitude in the valley creates endurance. And so y'all wanna encourage you as you are listening, I do hope that you're gonna celebrate even the smallest of steps, the small victory, so to speak, in that the answer prayers, the unexpected encouragement, the unexpected good things that just seem to. Kind of be trickling into your life. If you're looking for good, you're gonna find it. And also think, if you're looking for bad, you're gonna find that too. And so, pivoting your perspective just to be willing to allow Father God to bring the progress that you're making to your forefront of your thought, right? Allowing yourself to just bask in the goodness of being proud of yourself, being proud of your progress that you have made. And that you can continue to persevere and pursue those end goals, that finish line, because I do know that it's so important to make sure we celebrate those small victories, because if you only celebrate the big mountain winds, then you'll miss the victories that God has given you in the valley. Sometimes y'all, we don't get to get to the big mountaintop immediately, so that's my reminder on this. We need to make sure that we don't miss those victories that might be in the smaller peaks, right? Those sweet, sweet reminders that he's still with us. And then also continuing to have gratitude in the middle of adversity, because that will be what helps to create endurance from within us. And so my encouragement for all of us is to continue to celebrate the victories that we get to have as we're growing, as we're going. I was thinking about this episode and I was putting together the content for it. I just kept thinking about the verse from Isaiah 54 10, and I wanted to share that verse with you guys before we close out. On this episode, it says this, though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet mine fell in love for you will not be shaken, nor my covenant of peace be removed. I think that verse is so beautiful and so with just sharing. The beauty of that verse. I do think that it tells us that even when the world around us is in turmoil, God's love remains steadfast. It's a love that not only promises peace, but it also delivers on that promise. And so with that, friends, I think that you will probably be in alignment with me of having so much gratitude in our hearts and getting to know that. And that we raise a praise right in just knowing that God is faithful and that he will continue to deliver on his promises for us. We just gotta trust him, right? We gotta let go and let God be God. And so now for our closing out on this episode for our Change Chaser Challenge C3 time for this week, I wanna encourage you to take a moment. To just simply identify and name your valley. What I mean by that is like whatever it is that is like one of your greatest adversities right now that you're facing, name it, but you don't have to claim it, right? But, but pursuing the goodness of God and the truth and recognizing like, Ooh, this is, this is a valley that I have been facing. This is something that's been snatching my piece. It's been hijacking my purpose and it's making me feel like, ugh, but real talk. I do think that, I mean, there's just adversities in life, isn't there, y'all? I mean, there's just different things that happen. And so I just wanna encourage you first name your valley, and then once you know your valley, whatever it is, examples of that. Maybe you're sitting there and you drew a blank and you're like, I don't know. Gosh, I'm not sure. Like maybe it's financial stress, maybe. Going through some grief, maybe you are just, struggling because maybe a relationship has kind of a friendship, even maybe has, it's just kind of withered away. You don't really understand that. And so with thinking about those scenarios, then if it's financial stress, then hey, then your very first step in order to kind of climb the mountain, so to speak, is you need to create a budget, right? Or you need to go to somebody and ask for wise counsel for some budgeting help and that kind of thing. If, if your valley is grief of a loss of relationship or, or whatever this, you know, the scenario of it is, then I would encourage you to find somebody that you can trust. They'll be like, Hey, can you pray through this with me? I'm really grieving the loss of. This friendship or this person, or this relationship. I mean, whatever the scenario of your valley is, if your, if your valley is spiritual dryness, then maybe your next step is committing to 10 minutes of prayer each morning or some praise and worship. Have car concerts, y'all. I love it. Turn on your favorite song and just sing, sing, sing, have shower concerts. I mean like whatever, whatever it is, but just being intentional to allow yourself to get out of the pit, so to speak, to get out of the valley. Then also being willing to have the courage to not climb alone. Share your valley, share your step system, your process with somebody that you trust, who is on your climbing team, so to speak, because the valley was never meant to be permanent. And so with that encouragement, giving you some things just to kind of think about some C3 application change, chaser challenge for this week is that I wanna encourage you as change chasers y'all, that we don't, we don't curse the valleys in our lives, right? We shouldn't be like, oh my gosh. And like just being so angry over it. Here is what I wanna encourage us with is to not have that victim mindset. Instead, we're going to get to change our perspective to say, Hey God, what are you teaching me? In this valley, in this storm of life, in this tough stuff. So then that way we can continue to learn from stuff, right? To be able to grow as we're going, but also to be able to climb out of the valley. And not just climate it y'all, but we get to conquer it. Friends, I'm so grateful for the gift of your time. Thanks for joining me on another episode. I know that adversity is not always an easy thing to live through, but I do want us to recognize that adversity isn't punishment. I think it's preparation because every valley season is shaping you for the mountaintop that God has prepared just for you. So don't give up in the valley. Keep climbing, keep trusting. And I do wanna say thanks again for joining me today. If this episode encouraged you, then I hope you'll share it with a friend who maybe they're going through a valley, maybe one of those rough, tough seasons that we've all been through, right? Then I wanna encourage you that you were made for more. So friends with that said, let's keep chasing change and let's keep living with purpose. Goodbye sweet friends.