God Uses The Wilderness To Rebuild Your Identity with Devotional Author, Kristen Stockton

Your résumé can vanish in a single meeting. So what’s left when the title, the paycheck, and the plan fall apart? Sylvia Worsham sits down with author and leader Kristen Stockton to discuss the kind of loss that doesn’t just disrupt your work, but also shakes your identity. Kristen shares how a sudden job loss after 14 years sent her into fear and grief, and how God used that unraveling to rebuild something deeper than achievement: a grounded identity in Christ.

We dig into the turning point that came through an identity exercise at a retreat, the call to be rooted in Colossians 2:7, and the hard truth many high-capacity women live with: doing “all the right faith things” can still leave a gap when you haven’t fully owned who you are in God. From there, Kristen names the three keys that carried her through a long formation season: awareness, surrender, and forgiveness. We also talk honestly about anxiety at 2 a.m., COVID-era financial stress, marriage strain, and the temptation to overfunction and manage everyone else’s pain.

Kristen explains how listening, not striving, shaped her devotional When Strength Isn’t Enough, and she reads a powerful excerpt that reframes wilderness seasons as unexpected blessing, protection, and provision. If you’re searching for Christian encouragement, purpose, healing, and peace in chaos, you’ll find language and practices you can bring into your next prayer today. Subscribe, share this with a friend who feels stretched thin, and leave a review so more women can find these conversations.

To purchase Kristen's devotional visit her website at: kristenstockton.com

Transcript

Welcome And Why Purpose Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:02

If you ever struggle with fear, doubt, or worry, and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview only experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here's your host, Sylvia Warsham.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Hi, Live Bringers. Welcome to Release Out Reveal Purpose. And today is Kristen Stockton. She is the author of a devotional called When Strength Isn't Enough. She is a leader. She is a woman. And God has called her to step into a different role. She came from corporate America. She has lived it. She has the experience, not just through the work that she has done, but the life that she has lived, the circumstances that did not break her, the circumstances that were there to teach her, the circumstances that are stretching her face, and having her step into a role now that God divinely created for her from the moment she was made in her mother's womb. Because we are all fearfully and wonderfully made, you see, we all have our higher identity, our higher purpose. And she's here to talk about these subjects that are so near and dear to my heart. Because those that listen to release that reveal purpose know my life story. Like Kristen, I have been told by God, you will go through this first before you are equipped to teach to others. So without further ado, Kristen, thank you so much for joining us on Release That Reveal Purpose.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Oh, Sylvia, I'm delighted to be here and thank you for having me on as a guest. I'm excited for our conversation today.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

I'm stoked. I can't tell you how excited I am. In fact, as you spoke, as I the last words that came out of my mouth, I could feel the Holy Spirit filling my entire soul. So I know that what you and I have to say is meant to reflect his heart, his character to the women listening on the other side. So would you honor

Job Loss And The Identity Spiral

SPEAKER_00 2:35

us with that amazing story of transformation that led you to be in this ministry that you find yourself in today?

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Absolutely. You know, life is a way of reminding us that our identity can't be billed solely on accomplishments. And uh a pivotal moment for me as we were talking like that stripping away period came after 14 plus years in a particular role in an organization that um went away. Blindsided, didn't expect it, didn't see it coming. Although, truth be told, I think sometimes we often see things coming. We just don't want to admit that they are. And so we try to kind of push those nudges off to the side. Uh, but it it really stripped me away of everything because um one of the things that that teaches is in the questions that I had difficulty answering is who am I when the title is gone? Who am I when I'm not doing this kind of work anymore? And it wasn't because I didn't get up every morning for, you know, 12 plus years ahead of that doing devotionals and prayer. It was this lack, I think, of the fully, fully understanding and owning my identity that that he had formed in me. And that I had separated kind of my faith and that faith walk from the actual work that I was doing. And I thought I was integrating it. I thought because I was following and doing all the things that we are called to do, you know, to pray, to read the Bible, to go to different Bible study groups and do all of that, that that was just gonna take care of that hole that was missing. And it and it wasn't, and it didn't, because the minute that that job loss hit, I spiraled. You know, it wasn't, oh, let me take a moment and remember the scripture or or recite this song. It was, I called my husband, I'm like, you are I I don't know what to do. And there was a spiral moment. And and I had moments after that where I just had this grieving, I had to figure things out, I had to um look at our life design, how am I living, what's happening. And because I am someone who loves, who is from an early age in my roots, faith, creativity, family, innovation, and I had to figure things out as the only girl, baby, right? Um, older brothers, a lot of things I had to figure out. And this was another moment where I wanted to figure it out. I wanted answers that I didn't have. And so it wasn't until I was on a uh turning point, I was at during a retreat, and the facilitator led us through an identity exercise. And it was really simple, some things to do, kind of fun ways to explore our identity. And when I wrote down kind of and went through some of these exercises, one of the things was look at your birth date and then identify a scripture aligned with your birth date. And when I read Colossians 2, 7, it called me to be deeply rooted in Christ as you were taught. And that moment took me all the way back to my early roots and my beginning and my identity in being a teacher, an educator, loving, um being creative, our family, our life. It was kind of like I saw my life fast forward in reverse a little bit to kind of bring me full circle to where I am today. And he showed me all of these moments of when he had me and my identity and how he was forming me and building me. And that formation period was taking a long time. And at the time I went to this retreat, I thought I had it all figured out. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. You know, I'm a coach, so bring on the women that I can help with their transformation effort. And the thing that God showed me in that retreat, you know, kind of in the fetal position, crying, was that you still have wounds, my daughter, that you need to heal. And because I have called you, and you're not wrong in what I have in your assignment, it's the timing. And so what I thought I was gonna be doing five or six years ago, I'm actually doing now because it took that season of formation and equipping that I needed to fully be able to step into what he's called me to do. I have the stories and the resilience and the track record now of kind of practicing what I wanted to preach. I can actually do it now because I lived it and I've put that into not only this devotional, but all the work that he's called me to do now.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

I'm blown away at the alignment between both of us. God has a particular way, I'm sure you've figured this one out, of putting people in our path at precisely the right moment, his moment, to really push his message through, because we all carry his light and we carry his love inside of us, and it's his way of embracing us through another human being, through the body of Christ. It's how we live outwardly, not just vertically, right? We we have a relationship with our Lord, but then it's in that relationship that he reveals to us messages that are meant for our journey, and then that's how we reach out with others and we share his love outwardly. And I find you and I I'm in the season that you were in five to six years ago, right at this stage in my life, and at first I didn't know what to do because the circumstances I'm currently facing are excruciating. I mean, excruciating, and it wasn't just a thing that I discussed prior to the interview, Kristen. It's something entirely different that I cannot share on air, but I will share that it is a stripping away of the semblance of control that as a security seeker, as a high-achieving, high-capacity woman, I refuse to relinquish. And he cannot do the work he needs to do in us until we let go, until we let him come in and do the transformative work that only he can do. And so for those listening, know that those nudges that you feel in your heart, lean in, ask him to reveal his message through your circumstances. You know, the honest prayer that I've been saying since November of last year was Lord, give me the eyes to see spiritually, see what you need me to see about this circumstance right now, the ear to hear to understand your voice, understand and and and discern your voice away from the noise of the outside

Retreat Breakthrough And Colossians 2:7

SPEAKER_00 10:30

world because that is what's competing with it. And the heart to believe in who and what I am in you, not in who people tell us we are, our careers, our health crisis, our relationships. It's who he, who you are in him. I love, loved the idea of looking at scripture with your birthday. It kind of gave me the idea to go in there now and dig to see if there's one that can like speak to this particular circumstance I'm currently facing. So I really want to dive deep, Kristen, into the stripping that he did. The five to six years of what he took from you and how you have then used this now to step powerfully into this mission.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Yeah. So one of the things that he showed me as I kind of as a post-mortem, if you will, of that season were three keys awareness, surrender, and forgiveness. And it was kind of a virtuous cycle that when you lean in, as you said, to the awareness that you have that self-awareness. And sometimes we need other people to help us really shine the light on ourselves. But asking the Holy Spirit, like, make me aware of what's really happening. And and then once we have awareness of kind of what is our responsibility, what am I carrying that's not, what are the facts of what's really going on here? And I'll give you an example. So one of the really hard things that had to get stripped away that got stripped away um um after we my husband and I decided to kind of go into business together. We were building great momentum, we were building clients, he did consulting on one kind of the spectrum, and I did it on another. And we also were kind of launching a ministry, a nonprofit that we went to together, like we took on a whole thing because we're both very like, let's, let's, let's use this opportunity to kind of really reach people and do things. And then COVID hit. And I think every time I say that on any kind of conversation, people also understand what it means when COVID hits you as a new business owner, going after people space with executive development and training. Like nobody was paying attention to that. So any any goodwill I had earned that year in the past, all the striving and the building and the creating got stripped away in a heartbeat. We were, you know, a couple of years after job loss, once again I found myself face down on the floor, like at ground zero. What does this mean? And, you know, we had a really hard season from financial stress and then marital stress as a result of financial stress and a just a stripping of the way of I found myself so many mornings, two o'clock in the morning, anxiety ridden, laying down on the on the floor in a bathroom in the other room, kind of pouring out and crying. Like I, I can't even describe the fear that was gripping me during that entire season. I didn't have that fear when I lost my job. I had, I felt supported, I kind of got a little bit of ground underneath me. Of course, I did like five Bible studies at the same time because I was seeking so many answers. I thought something in one of these Bible studies is gonna tell me what I did wrong. How did I get here? And how do I fix it as quickly as possible to get back on track, back on that ladder, back on going forward. And I I remember sitting there with myself, like prostrate on the floor with Bible studies all around me, going crying and crying and crying. And all I needed to do was just say, Lord, just kind of I surrender all of this. So we can we can take a long time to get that awareness that he wants us to have, and then surrendering it. I was just like, Lord, I just want to please you. I don't want to go anywhere you're not, I don't want to do anything that you're not a part of anymore. And I am gonna stop creating things in my own strength and I'm gonna give them to you. And every day, probably three or four times a day, I had to repeat that prayer because I'd always start to pick something up to try to fix, try to undo what has been done as quickly as possible. I don't want this to, you know, I don't want to feel the pain of where I am any longer. I want to get over it as quickly as possible because that's what we do. We pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, we pull ourselves together. We cannot suffer because the people around us rely on us so much and we have to be strong. And that's kind of how I got the title of the book because sometimes that that strength that we want is not enough. Um, but fast forward to that second stripping away is a time when our finances were a mess, everything, you know, we're trying to make all of those decisions. And I I realized and some days I would just kind of sit and stare out in the space, going, Lord, I don't know how much more of this I can take. I don't know how much more anger and bitterness and and kind of fiery darts at me from the enemy I can take. And I and I know that you're here. Um, and I know that there's a reason behind all this, but I was like, Lord, like I I we need an intervention because it was there was some very tension, difficult moments um that and we were kind of isolated because again, people aren't visiting each other's homes. We're not going to churches. We are not there, we don't have those circles. It was my husband and I sometimes at each other's throat in our home, you know, 24-7. Like it needed a break. It needed

Letting Go Of Control In Pain

SPEAKER_02 16:40

something to kind of shake up and disrupt this. And it did. Um what seemed like a long period of time was probably a maybe a month or two where it was very intense. And then I could see a softening and I could see some progress and I could see some moments where I was getting more work and and things were kind of calming down. And and there were moments someone showed up at our house and brought us lunch and kind of disrupted kind of our thinking and our day. And what I was hearing from the Lord during that time was a you know confidence that I am, he would always like this voice in my head saying, I am doing a new thing. I have got you. I am working, I am working, I'm working on you, I'm working on your husband. Like it's not a you two are separate creatures, you are separate individuals. And this is an individual relationship we have. So don't come to me with like his cries out for me. You come to me with yours. And he worked on me and my relationship with the Lord. And that is one of the things I we can't have relationships with the Lord for other people. We have to have them for ourselves. It is an individual, intimate back and forth thing. And I think one of the things that I learned was that overfunctioning, trying to solve everybody else's like project manage my family, project manage other people's challenges and issues when I have to just deal with mine. It's my relationship with the Lord that needed to be strengthened. It's my issues I had to have awareness on. What are the things that I'm bringing to the table that I shouldn't? What are the things I'm carrying that I shouldn't? What are the things I'm saying that I shouldn't? Not what I'm hearing from other people or oh, this person did this or this person told me that or he said this. And it's no, Kristen, what do you need to work on for yourself? And that was an aha moment that was like, you gotta not only strip yourself of like all the things externally, but you gotta strip yourself of yourself. And um, for a long time over the course of my my lifetime, I had armored up in a really bad way because I wanted to protect myself from some really hurtful wounds in my early development as a woman in relationships. And I had put on this armor and I thought, if I am just really successful, no one's gonna know any of the other kind of stuff that is unappealing that I had did or didn't do or wasn't a part of in my life. And and as long as I'm successful, like from the from the chin up, and people can see that on my face and all of the things, they aren't gonna see the inner belly, they won't see the nervousness, they won't see the shame, they won't see any of that as long as I'm successful. So if I just keep my chin up and keep moving forward, no one's gonna know the other stuff. And so, you know, the that armor had to be taken apart piece by piece, and it needed to be replaced with the armor that he tells us to put on. And so that that stripping away, that finding that intimacy with the Lord that I that I write about, that identity and calling is this is the restoration he gives us as individuals. It shapes us and it rebuilds us, and he can restore us, but we have to allow him to. And so often we fight him on that because we don't think we need it in certain places that he that he helped shows us that we do. And so when we completely surrender it all, and one of the things you said, like I didn't have a choice. Like I my heart for other people is that you don't get to a place where you where it you have to hit rock bottom in order to know and help him restore. But sadly, sometimes that's that's that's the way it works. We have to get to that stripping away of everything in order for him to restore and rebuild so we can rise. Um, and that is that that journey that he put me on um to get me to a place where I could see all of that so clearly that I can then be in a place to help others.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

I'm speechless. I mean, like I find it when you talked about the facade, the armor, the things he stripped you of, the restoration, the baby girl, you still have wounds you need to heal. I cannot give you this assignment yet. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna give it to you, doesn't mean I can't give it to you yet, because I've got we've got to do work together. This is a a co-collaboration between yourself and the Lord, and He is it's like the whole scripture from John of like, I am the vine, you are the branches, you can't do anything without me. Abide in me as I abide in you. I mean, it's all of it, and to take our pain, to take Are perceived failures because they are perceptions that we have of our failures. We lose these things, but it's in essence what you do need to lose in order for him to start to rebuild and bring you back to the person he created you to be before the circumstances, before the modeling, before the expectations, everything piling on top, before the armor built around your heart. That's what he's stripping, right? And it is at times the most painful process. And yet you still

Three Keys Awareness Surrender Forgiveness

SPEAKER_00 22:45

came back to him. You still knew he was there. See, in the last week, there's been like a point of like numbness for me. But I still kept keep kept coming back to him. You know, my my listeners always know that my one of the things that I do most is every morning without fail, Monday through Sunday, is my coffee chats with the Lord. And in that last period in November, like you, I was doing all the right things from the outside, looking in, right? So everybody that saw me was like, oh, she's a woman of faith. But when he strips you of all of these layers, what remains is the hard questions that we have to ask ourselves in that silence, in that in those years of stripping of it would be good. Like the I the the voice that came through for me in November was, it would be good if you believed everything you talked about, Sylvia, with others. He pointed me to a sermon I had heard where my eyes were like drenched in tears because the pastor from our church, well, one of them anyways, he had come to visit our campus and it got to a point in his marriage where he was willing to, he wanted to quit, he wanted to give up. And Ricky then said that the Lord came to him and said, It would, it would work, it would be better if you believed everything you preached. And it pointed me to the issue that God was trying to point inside my heart, which was you may be reading scripture, but you really don't know what scripture means for you personally. What does it mean for you? What is the message that God reveals to you through that scripture? And when two weeks ago I received some pretty devastating news in my family unit, the verse that kept coming through very persistently as I was hearing the news was for I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. And it's the only thing that has kept me focused in the last two weeks where I'm like, right, Lord, I know there's a message here you intend to give me. I'm not gonna fight you anymore. I know what it is to resist you. It just takes longer, you know. It just is like a detour to our joys. I'm not doing that because I've done that before and it sucks, you know. So this is what I heard you say that he did for you as well, you know, the awareness of forgiveness. And what was the third thing that you mentioned were the three things?

SPEAKER_02 25:59

The three surrender, awareness, surrender, forgiveness. You know, it's so interesting. You said um he gives you the word. So a few years ago, kind of coming back out of this kind of same retreat, I said, Well, I wonder, Lord, what else you have for me? And I had um started to look at other words and actual vocabulary words. So one of the things that was so interesting to me in my identity journey and kind of thinking about who am I were actual words. And so every year I'd ask for a a kind of word that I would focus on that would come from him. And um one of the things that I found interesting was I would write down the vocabulary word. You know, uh two years ago it was multiplied and I l laughed um because I'm like, I hate math, Lord. What are you doing? Like I'm a people person. And it was funny because then he put me into um Um John and the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. And I was like, that's really interesting. I like that multiplication. And would you know one of the clients that he positioned me in is a global organization that feeds people. And he put me in that organization. I started laughing and I said, Okay, you're funny, but I love you and this is working for me. So like give me more. And one of the impetuses for the book and how this book is designed is that um there the Lord had showed me when I was doing this identity work. I had written down, I went through the entire Bible and kind of given away a little secret here to this book, but maybe it'll people will wanna want to pick it up. Um, but he he's like, I I went through every chapter of the entire book and I looked at every verse combination of a number two and a number seven, because those numbers kept coming up. Two, seven, seven, two, twenty-seven, any of those. And I wrote them all down. And then I and I read each and every one of them, and I said, What word do you have for me in reading this word? Like what is it? Some of them I read, I'm like, I don't feel anything with there. I moved on to the next one. I was like, oh, this one matters. It's like a character in the story, the the life of the person in the Bible. And some of these are pretty obscure passages. And but he actually had a vocabulary word for me for every single scripture passage. And it wasn't always a word that was in the passage, it was something else. And so my my point in that is that when we start to build this relationship with him and we ask him questions, you know, what are you trying to say to me? He wants to tell us, but sometimes this is kind of the thing he's always telling me, Kristen, stop talking and just start listening. Like your ideas are great. I know you love to ideate and think out loud because I do. But at some point he's like, would you just stop talking to me and just let me listen? And that was kind of one of the other things that was really interesting in this work. Talk about like over-indulging and over-indexing in scripture reading and and Bible studies and devotionals. I there's nothing wrong with them, but there are some times where you just need to sit without anything but your own silence and listen and let him speak and see what he has to say. Someone used to say, look at the chair across from you and imagine Jesus is sitting there and you're having a conversation. And sometimes I would during the season, I would sit outside and I was like, you know, if the Lord's sitting next to me, you know, Jesus is sitting next to you. Where do you want to be sitting in proximity to him? Like get on the floor. Like there's nothing in imagining that you are married sitting at the seat of your savior, listening to him. Let that sink in for a minute. If you're having, if you can have a conversation with Jesus and you want to imagine that he's sitting next to you in that chair, what what is that? What would that feel like? And so I I started to have these conversations, and that's kind of the thread that is woven through this book because they're actual, there's and the really interesting piece is at the end when I kind of wrote

COVID Stress Anxiety And Marriage Pressure

SPEAKER_02 30:40

down every scripture verse and kind of wrote them down, the total number of chapters was 27. I love it. And and so it starts on chapter one is breath, because we all start with breath. That was a that was like, and that's kind of an it was like an easy give. And I'm like, okay, that was a layup, Lord. It was Genesis two and seven, and it's breath, and so and then, but they all became a little bit more interesting. And sometimes I'm like, did you really want me to write about that? Like, really?

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Well, it's awareness, right? And it's like when you're breathing, when you're breathing, you're aware of everything around you, and there's silence, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:21

And it's the rhythm too. Um, it's the rhythm of the breath that he gives us. And one of the things that it taught me was and the I I played piano growing up, and so there was always a metronome. And breath is kind of like this metronome. It's a steady reminder of rhythm. We do it in and out all the time, every day. There are things that take our breath away. There are things that cause us to deep breathing, there are things that cause us to pant and have shortness of breath, right? And so when you start thinking about your breath and those moments and those seasons and those experiences that take your breath away, that make you do a fresh exhale. And it reminds us of time, it reminds us of peace, it reminds us of our pace and the our the breath is never meant to carry the weight on its own. It's we're designed to breathe with God. He breathed into Adam, he breathed into our lungs. Some people say when you spell out the word Yahweh, it sounds like a breath. I mean, it's just so beautiful the way he speaks to us, just in that one little nugget. And I just sat with that. And it took me a really long time to put all these pieces together because I kept going back to the way he would speak to me and the words and the scripture and what he wanted me to tell, not just for my own recollection, not for my own preparation for what's next. Cause I didn't, I didn't seek to write this book because I wanted to write a book. I said, Lord, I need this. And he said, write it. And so I wrote it and I shared it because I need these reminders every day. And I know that I will be in seasons, my leadership journey isn't over. I'm still gonna be under pressure. I'm still gonna have weight to carry. And I need those reminders every day. And I'm here to share with others who are listening that you know, we can learn how to lead and how to influence, but how do we use our voice to create impact? And I believe he wanted me to use my voice to create impact and help build kingdom. And, you know, if if one person buys the book and reads it and then follows up with three or four things and helps 10 other women, and then those 10 women, you know, we create this ripple effect throughout, you know, preparation of daughters of his to come together and connect. I told him, I said, I may never know or meet a single person who has read this book or gone into a website or read anything that I, you know, put out there in social media. I may never meet them. I may never know the impact, but I know, Lord, that your word does not return void. And what you have promised to me and what you have shared with me is gonna happen. Whether I realize it or not, whether I see it or not, in the flesh, I hope and pray in the land of the living I get to connect with more than one or two women who are just like you and me. You know, that is my heart. That's why I created um um my my my platform because I want to connect face to face with women who really need that kind of community and spiritual sisterhood connections where you can step into a space with others and not feel like you have to walk in with your resume, the masks are off, but we just know that we are part of his kingdom, we're his daughters and we're leaders in our own right, and we're here to disciple each other and support each other and and raise, raise each other up, help our help each other through that rebuilding process, right? Because I feel like that's that second message that he's called us to. So the words he gives us matter. The word that he puts on our heart matters, and you can read the same verse six months from now, it's gonna have a completely different meaning and it's gonna be a hallelujah moment or a on your knees moment. I mean, to me, uh everything is is praiseworthy, even when it's hard. And that's the other thing. I like we don't always have the words to praise him the way we should, but his word carries that for us, and all we need to do is is speak and proclaim in our in in like the darkest moments of me laying on a bathroom floor at 2 a.m. crying and like nervous and can't eat, can't sleep. Jesus was all I needed to speak. I didn't have to have eloquent prayers. I didn't have it in me. I didn't know what to say. The diet, the fiery darts flying at me from the enemy coming out through other people in my life. The only words whispered underneath my lips were Jesus, Holy Spirit, just be in this moment. I just, you know, I can't speak. I don't want the other person to even know I'm saying anything. And and the calm, the the peace that can be inside of you when chaos is around you, only can come from him. And and it is it is a lesson that he has taught me over and over again. We all love our quiet moments with like the water trickling and the birds chirping, but life isn't like that. We gotta learn to hear him when the chaos and the noise is deafening. Um, and that and that peace inside of us can stay still. It's like a war zone could be going out outside of us. We gotta have the word inside of us to keep us still and steady and strong in him.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Yes, and I wholeheartedly agree. Yeah, because in the moment I faced two weeks ago, it was a moment that could have easily taken me down years ago. I mean, easily. It would have ramped up my anxiety in a way that would have profoundly put me in a hole of despair for a year, two years, maybe, I don't know, three. And yet, as I'm hearing what I was hearing, I had the peace, his peace within me, which the work he had started to do eight months prior had started to produce some fruit. And now is the fruit, the peace that you feel even in those moments that can seriously bring you down. And what a powerful testimony, Chris. And really, I'm you've given me hope. You know, I prayed this morning for for our interview. I prayed

Stop Talking And Start Listening

SPEAKER_00 38:05

that his light, his love would shine through. And it has in your testimony, in your voice, in your eyes, in how you hold yourself and you're devotional, in everything you stated today. And I want you to know that you have impacted my life in a way that you couldn't have known. For those listening, Kristen had to uh cancel our interview several times, and what I find powerful about this interview right now is the timing. See, God's timing is perfect, absolutely perfect. We don't see it because to us, we like Kristen said earlier, you want it now, you want to get back into it like as quickly as you can, and God has other plans because we don't know what He knows, He knows everything about our situation, about our the conditions of our soul, of our heart. And you are his body. You're here to help women like me in those moments of desperation, of fetal position of Jesus, please protect me, like help me. That's all sometimes we can do is the grunting work. We forget that scripture that talks about, I think it's in Psalms, where David doesn't even have the words, just heard like the anguish he feels because you he feels like God has forsaken him, you know. And you and I both know that even though that thought sometimes crosses our mind, immediately we know in our heart that that's not true, that God never abandons us, that he's always there with us, and that Jesus is our high priest. He is the He is our voice. And do you know that two weeks ago in that conversation with that family member, this verse came up? And you saying that the only word, like the first name that came to your lips is Jesus, because he is, he knows our pain, he was in flesh and blood like us, he was in the same position in the wilderness where the enemy is like coming at him full first, and I mean, and he's desperate, he hasn't eaten in 40 days. I mean, that could break somebody, yeah. And and yet it does not break him, and so that's why he is the one we turn to and we cry and we sit with. And the vision he has given me in the last couple of days has been of me crying and him just holding me, and my other family member as well. Like he's just holding us, like I'm right here, I'm not letting go. You're I'm I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. And so I just I just want to thank you, Kristen, for your time today for for the love and the devotion you have towards your mission. If we wanted to purchase your devotional, if we wanted to reach out to you, because we're uh we need an executive coach and we need someone to help us with our organization. How do we do that?

SPEAKER_02 41:57

Go to my website, which is kristenstocan.com. I've got a resource page. I also have some, you know, free, I call them um a restorative guide. It's it's free. You can just sign up for it and tell me kind of some of your needs, and you'll get some things right to your inbox, but you can always reply. I give some some interesting ways that you can kind of work through some of the challenges that we talked about today. And my book is on that resource page. And um, I have some other ways that um women can reach out. I do love to do kind of small group um peer-led peer wisdom circles, I call them. So there's ways that if you're interested in that, you can you can sign up. Um, I've got those um links right on my website. And so I would love to make that kind of the the central place. Um, and then um I I I hope that the women will, you know, if you if you do choose to purchase it, you know, send me an email, let me know what you think, um, how it's helped. Um, and uh I just love knowing who's kind of coming into my world so I can pray for you. You know, a lot of people like, oh, I don't want to sign up, I don't want to get like a gazillion emails. I don't write a newsletter, I don't send emails, you know, out to people. You're not gonna get hounded for for me on things. I I just don't operate that way. Um, I I really want to build relationships with people and I just want to know how I can pray for people. So sometimes it's just really simple, like going onto the website and you know, you'll get a subscription, but it doesn't mean you're gonna get anything other than what you asked for. But then I can I can pray for you. And so I welcome people into my world because I I love to pray and intercess for people and and when you're having challenges, kind of reach out and you know, we we kind of build relationships that way. So that's the best. the best way to to connect with me and come into my world so I can support you in yours.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

And you know what's been coming to me ever since you were speaking right now is can you read us an excerpt from your devotional? Would that be okay?

SPEAKER_02 44:18

I'm gonna choose one actually the um this is in chapter two the word is blessed and it's from Deuteronomy 27 for the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows you're trudging through this great wilderness these 40 years the Lord your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing. Blessing doesn't always begin with abundance. Sometimes it begins with wilderness with wandering with the unexpected rupture of a life we thought was stable and sure. I learned this the truth the day my life changed without warning after 14 years with an organization I'd poured myself into leading building performing with excellence I walked into a meeting expecting to discuss a new initiative I was preparing to lead. Instead my boss asked me to sit down and then the story that unfolded felt unreal. My body reacted before my understanding caught up my stomach nodded my shoulders tightened my mind began to race I was blindsided unable to grasp how something so foundational in my life could shift so suddenly beneath me. I flew home that same day numb and disoriented and when I called my husband all I could manage was I just lost my job. Silence followed both of us stunned as the primary breadwinner, the carrier of our insurance and stability I immediately began to spiral with questions how will we manage? What will we do? How will we survive this? And for a long time after that moment I wandered

Breath Manna And Daily Provision

SPEAKER_02 45:55

not aimlessly but vulnerably searching each day for something steady enough to hold on to every day God provided just as he did for the Israelites in the wilderness he watched over my journey. He supplied what I needed even when I didn't know what to ask for he gave manna daily personal and precise provision showed up with encouraging emails from people who had no idea how much their words meant. It showed up in phone calls from friends who wanted to listen and pray. It showed up in financial wisdom we had planted years earlier without knowing why we'd need it. It showed up through his protection over our home our resources our insurance nothing essential was lost. And then the blessings deepened God surrounded me with a community of Christian working women where my gifts could land. He opened the door for coaching certification he allowed me to build a consulting business with my husband something that grew as I grew he rebuilt my confidence piece by piece. He expanded my calling beyond what I had imagined when I was still sitting in that old office chair believing that job was my identity Deuteronomy 27 says the Lord your God has watched over your journey and you have not lacked anything looking back that is exactly what he did he watched he provided he redirected he transformed he blessed and he blessed me in a way I never would have chosen he lifted me out of something I would never have left on my own sometimes God's greatest kindness is pulling us out of what is no longer aligned with who we are becoming sometimes blessing looks like loss but later reveals itself as protection preparation and provision God wastes nothing he uses everything. And the wilderness is often where we learn to recognize him most clearly and so I would offer as a reflection there's several reflection questions in a prayer that where you have experienced a wilderness season um think about how that has later revealed itself as an unexpected unexpected blessing because when we do that is a reminder when similar situations occur we have something we have a promise and a yes and amen to fall back on that is scripture proven that we can hold on to because he doesn't change and so if he did it once he will do it again which is what he did every day in that wandering with Israelites every day they had new manna. You're not supposed to hold on to what he gave you yesterday it's going to be new every day. And so hold on to that and reflect on those wilderness seasons that you've experienced and

Devotional Excerpt Blessed In The Wilderness

SPEAKER_02 49:10

how have they revealed those unexpected blessings.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

Wow thank you it was such a blessing to receive your message this morning and for the listeners of release that reveal purpose you know how I sign off to remember Matthew 514 to be the light be the light like Kristen's been the light stay obedient and discern his voice and allow God to come into your life to restore you restore and redeem that pain because in Ephesians like in Colossians we know that we are redeemed in him we are loved in him we are chosen in him we are a new creation in him the mana that Kristen just talked about was a message he revealed to me as a high achieving woman that put her worth on the size of her paycheck because I had a six figure salary with Pfizer and I was beating myself up in some of these years that I've stayed obedient to his voice and he sat me down one day in nature and said I have provided and I've provided mana but you it's not in the way that you envisioned it's in the way that I provided it and he revealed exactly how he had provided it and it brought peace over my soul I could reconcile that mind and the heart and the spirit became one in that moment and only God can do that. So if you want that peace and you're seeking him allow him in these seasons of wilderness to guide you listen for his voice listen stop talking like Kristen said and listen to his voice.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

Have a wonderful and blessed rest of your week bye now that's it for today's episode of Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and

How To Connect And Final Charge

SPEAKER_01 51:35

subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on iTunes will win its best grand prize drawing to win a $25,000 private VIP day with Sylvia worship herself be sure to head on over to release outreal purposepodcast dot com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia's gift and join us on the next episode.