The Peaceful Mompreneur
Encouraging and equipping Christian Mompreneurs to have peace in their lives and business while staying grounded in Jesus Christ.
The Peaceful Mompreneur
From Doubt to Dialogue: Navigating Faith Conversations with Loved Ones
Constance Hastings shares her unique journey from a non-religious upbringing to becoming a faith-based author and counselor, offering wisdom for those with loved ones who doubt or question Christianity. Through her personal story and book "The Trouble with Jesus: Considerations Before You Walk Away," she demonstrates how to engage authentically with skeptics through relationship rather than argumentation.
• Constance was raised by non-religious parents but attended a Christian school where she accepted Jesus at a young age
• Despite "drifting" during college years, God continuously drew her back to faith through relationships and circumstances
• She wrote "The Trouble with Jesus" specifically for doubters and skeptics, with an edgy narrative voice that interrupts to question and challenge
• The book confronts common obstacles to faith with chapters like "Jesus chose losers" and "Jesus valued women"
• The core approach to reaching skeptical loved ones begins with "bloodying your knees in prayer"
• Meaningful faith conversations must happen through relationship, not manipulation or pressure
• Jesus' question to Martha—"Do you believe this?"—represents the essential choice every person must make
• Even when people walk away from faith, "the eyes of God still follow" them in patient pursuit
• Parents should consistently plant seeds of faith in their children through teaching, modeling, and church involvement
Visit ConstanceHastings.com to subscribe to her free weekly blog and receive a 20% discount code for her book, plus a free ebook from the publisher by filling out the form at the back of the print edition.
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Okay, all right, let me get back to where I was. Welcome to the Peaceful Mompreneur. I am so excited that you're here Today. We are going to be talking about having that person in our lives that we love so dearly, who has walls and doubts about Jesus. There's all of these obstacles that are coming up against us as we're trying to share, and so we're trying to walk that out lovingly, and so my guest today is going to talk all about that. Constance Hastings brings an outsider's perspective to what insiders know about the story of Jesus. Raised by non-religious parents, educated in a Christian school, lover of great literature, teacher of the disadvantaged, ordained in the mainline denomination, mental health counselor outside of the church, she aims to make connections. Speaking in new places, the old voices of meaning. She and her husband split residence between Wilmington, delaware, and Jacksonville, florida, so as to be near both of their children. Constance, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2:She and her husband split residence between Wilmington, delaware and Jacksonville, florida, so as to be near both of their children, constance, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1:I mean, thank you, I'm really looking forward to having this conversation, absolutely so. You have a different perspective than a lot of people, right? So why don't you give us a little bit more in-depth about your background, right? So I've bulleted some stuff off and it's very interesting. So how did you get where you are and what you talk about? Oh, start with the big question right.
Speaker 2:Yes, my background is not the usual story for people of faith. My parents, as you said, were not particularly religious and, as a matter of fact, my father owned a bar. But during the time I was starting school, it was when the schools had been desegregated. There was a lot of conflict going on. They didn't want me to have to experience that. But down the street there was a small, independent, private Christian school and the tuition wasn't too high. So they made the decision to send me there.
Speaker 2:I sometimes say, for all the wrong reasons, god placed me in that Christian school. But it was there that the teachers loved me. They knew my background, they knew my parents, they knew where I lived and how I lived. But they loved me and they taught me well and I responded especially towards the teaching of the Bible and at a very young age I accepted Jesus into my life because I just knew that I needed what he gave me on the cross and I felt so responsible for that and so sorry for that. But God lifted that burden off of me. I'm talking about a physical sensation and I sometimes say later, as I grow up up, I read Pilgrim's Progress and when Pilgrim comes to his place of repentance at the cross. He had that same experience and that's when I knew that's my, that was my salvation story.
Speaker 2:So I grew up and you can imagine there were some things that sort of conflicted from what I was learning at school and how we lived at home. Not too far off or radical, but still just enough, said I realized there was a difference and it was. It was hard. My parents or my mother would take me to church until I was old enough to be dropped off by myself and you know, then somebody would come pick me up and that kind of thing. But I didn't really have that church connection and home that you have when your family is there and totally involved. And it was hard.
Speaker 2:In college you could say that I drifted, never really losing my faith, but just not particularly practicing it and having the usual struggles that a young person would have. However, god, I sometimes say God never lets you walk away. And that's what happened when I graduated and was seeking a job. The only job I could find that was available, who would hire me, was a school in the southern part of the state and it turned out that my department chair was also the son of a preacher and I guess probably this couldn't happen today. But we started dating and he brought me to church and we were married and our life included church together. And that's when I really began to grow spiritually. Interestingly, because I'd been in that Christian school, I knew all the Bible verses and I knew all of the hymns you know. So people weren't putting together this background that I had until I actually came to tell them about it.
Speaker 2:So years went on but I never joined the church and some people thought that was kind of strange. But I looked around and I could see that there were people who went to church and who, you know, were involved in church but really didn't have a depth of belief that I knew God would require of us, and so I just really refrained from doing that for 20 years. And after that, again, holy Spirit, as I sometimes say, grabbed me by the neck and said it's time to join and I'm going. Why, what's the purpose? Why should I put my name on a list when there are other people there who have no clue of who you are and what you want in their lives? And you know the call wouldn't go away until one day I read it was during Lent, actually, and when Jesus went before Pilate. During Lent, actually, and when Jesus went before Pilate, pilate said to him the chief priests and leaders have brought you here before me and it occurred to me, if Jesus would not leave his church, who would participate in the festivals and the rituals and who was part of a people that were chosen by God, then how could I refuse to join mine? And yes, I did, thinking the Holy Spirit would walk away and we could get on with life. Doesn't happen that way.
Speaker 2:I, within weeks, had a calling to go into formal ministry, and that's when I made the decision to become a deacon in the Methodist Church. But at that time the deacon had a choice of working exclusively in a church or having ministry outside the church connecting the two, or having ministry outside the church, connecting the two. And I went back to school, I got a degree and had an 18-year practice in faith-based counseling. Again, god, don't you think that's enough? Yet so it was, let's see. Yeah, it was probably about 20 years after that that again, I was working in a church. Let's put it this way I wasn't working in the church, but I was working with a church, primarily in missions and having counseling practice and I was invited by another church the women's group there, not too far away from where we lived to come and do a Saturday morning Bible study, a retreat, mini retreat, kind of thing. And of course I agreed. But I knew these women and these women. They were smart, they were professional, they were leaders and I just had the sensation that the usual Bible study wasn't going to have the impact on them that I would hope for.
Speaker 2:Yet 66 books in the Bible and I couldn't come up with a thing. We've been through this, people, what do you want me to do? And I was getting so frustrated and one day I just looked up and I said, all right, the troubles with Jesus, oh, and that became the study. Yeah, that really brought me in. I started writing the outline for it. I did the study. It was very impactful. God showed up. I went back to my home church and I did it again. The same results. And that's when I knew that what I had there was actually the beginning of a book. It took another 10 years or so for me to write it and for it to be published. But here it is now.
Speaker 2:The Trouble with Jesus Considerations Before you Walk Away. So this, this is the journey that God took me on and brought to me here. People say the trouble with Jesus, and you can almost read it in their face that they think I have a problem with God. And it's not that I have a problem with God, at least any more than most people do, that I have a problem with God, at least any more than most people do, but rather I could see that in Jesus' life.
Speaker 2:He was born into trouble. He experienced a lot of trouble from those around him. Even those who should have been the closest to him really caused him some real difficulties, and in the same way Jesus challenged those in his life as well, and eventually this converged with the church leadership being against him I'm talking the Pharisees, primarily and even the Roman government and the oppression that the Jewish people were experiencing in the first century. And when that converged it ultimately led to his crucifixion. But thank God, the trouble with Jesus is he overcame that trouble, he overcame death and he resurrected. And here we are now living with that trouble, knowing his trouble and yet waiting for him to come again to overcome that trouble.
Speaker 1:That's amazing and I love the title right. I think it grabs you right. So people will definitely want to read it, want to know what you're talking about and, yeah, they may be irritated before they pick it up because they think that you have a problem.
Speaker 2:Oh, I've had some fun with that, but at least let me also clarify yeah, this book is not written for the confirmed you know, bathed in blood believer. This book is written for the doubter, for that skeptic the one as you introduced earlier has obstacles against belief in Jesus Christ, and that's our world, and my hope and my prayer is that this book can speak to that person. If you just give me a second, I'd like to read to you the very first paragraph of the book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Now, let's be clear about this you can tell your story any way you see it, and I can jump in with my two-bit commentary when I want, but none of this. Believe it or you're going to burn crap. I'm only willing to listen because I agree, jesus' story may have some things I like about it, but it's my choice what I do with it. I've been given other belief systems about the universe, how we got here, what it means to pass through this life. I guess, though, I just think there's more, and I'm willing to give Jesus the benefit of the doubt, and doubt is what I bring to this table.
Speaker 2:You can hear, I hope, in that an edginess to it. That voice is one that, throughout the narration of the story of Jesus, will interrupt and challenge and bring questions and even get sarcastic at times. It's not offensive, but it is edgy, and it's that interplay there that I hope speaks to that person who has doubts and questions that swell into just wondering if this isn't anything to really be believed. My hope and my prayer is that someone who has this book would be able to take it and give it to that person who is the doubter, the skeptic, and say if you'll read this? Could we have a conversation and then let the Holy Spirit do what the Holy Spirit does.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's beautiful and I think in the intro we were talking about. You know, we all know these people, right? They either have been part of the faith or, like you know, or have been around it, and they're just not sure if they still believe it. Or they've never been part of the faith or, like you know, or have been around it and they're just not sure if they still believe it or they've never been part of it and they're maybe kicking the tires of it, right, like, maybe this is real, but I don't want to be jumping in and I got a lot of doubt, like you had mentioned. So most of our audience they are young mom. Well, they're not young. They don't have to be young. Okay, you just have younger children, right, cause I'm not a young mom, but I do have a young son and, um, they have these people in their lives that other people can't reach, and so I've talked about that before.
Speaker 1:As a mom with children, you go to places that any like random people can't go to. You can't go to a park without kids. You don't go to a pediatricians without children. It's a weird if you do, and so you have access to these people. You may build relationships with people not based I mean, eventually, based on your values and where you're going to church and that type of thing, but you have interactions with others you wouldn't have never met in any other circumstance, right? So many of those people are in this boat. They either they're doubting their faith that they thought they had, or they've never believed it before. But you seem kind of interesting and you say you're a Christian, so maybe, maybe you know, and so how do we lovingly engage with these people that we meet where you know, that we just wander around at that's so true, elise.
Speaker 2:They are all around us and it has to begin in prayer and I sometimes say bloody your knees over it, deep prayer. Okay, bloody your knees over it, deep prayer. Ask to be able to speak to that person that the Holy Spirit is calling, and God knows who that is. Often this is someone in your life about whom you care deeply. That's my family. That truly is my family, and my husband, my son and his wife are strong believers. But others in our family have doubts and they know who I am, they know I've written this book and that kind of thing Sort of tolerate. You know kindly who I am and so forth. But there is that separation and these are people about whom I pray deeply and when the time comes, that will be the time in your relationship where something may happen. There may be questions that come up and, without being directive, telling people how they should live and so forth, would be a good time to just say I know you have a lot of questions and maybe we just need to talk through those questions and, as I said, you can present the book to them. The subtitle is Considerations Before you Walk Away considerations before you walk away, you know. So these are things that people can relate to and understand and come to that and so many things in the book are our time with the second chapter is the trouble with Jesus was he chose losers? The trouble with Jesus was he valued women. The trouble with Jesus was his teachings are twisted, they throw curves, so what you think you're reading might not be fully what the message is behind there. And to be able to have these conversations about what Jesus' life was like, what his teachings truly were, and how to bring that person to a place of, as indicated right in the first paragraph of choice In the book of John, jesus is called to visit his friends Mary and Martha, and their brother, lazarus, was very sick.
Speaker 2:Jesus took four days before he showed up and by then Lazarus said he was in the tomb. And when he arrives, martha goes to him and says Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. If you had been here, my brother would not have died. You can hear in that statement almost like a manipulation, like this isn't how you're supposed to work. And another chapter in the book is the trouble of Jesus is he refused to be the divine fixer. God doesn't work on our agenda. But then she says to him but I know you can do whatever God tells you to do. Jesus responds with I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this? And that's the question. The core question of Jesus' ministry is that in all that we experience in life, all the things that we go through, it all comes down to that choice. Do you believe this, and will you allow me to enter into your life and begin to show you how I can help you overcome this trouble, like I'm trying to say here really is? It takes strong relationship for this to happen, as well as, as I said, letting the Holy Spirit do what the Holy Spirit does.
Speaker 2:When Jesus met the rich ruler who said to him what do I have to do to you know? Basically have eternal life, jesus said well, what do the scriptures say? And he ticked off the commandments. The commandments do not steal. You know, do not kill, etc. Etc. But he left out the ones about you know, keep the sabbath holy, have no other gods before you. He knew the relationship with others, he did not have the relationship with god, and but jesus? Jesus cut him some slack and says to him okay, do these okay. And he says but is there anything else? And jesus looked him squarely and sell all you have and give the money to the poor. And the man walked away. But, most important, jesus watched him go. And that's, I think, significant is that even when we would walk away from God, even when we would walk away from God, the eyes of God, still follow us and watch us and keep that call upon us that we really cannot escape throughout our entire life because of the grace of God.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. I love that, and I love, like the first thing that you said was bloody your knees, right prayer. That's how we do this, and I think that's beautiful and also really convicting, because often we want, like a step-by-step guide of how to save your friends and your family. Right, if only that existed. It does not. Um, the holy Spirit does know that, and so each person is different, and so you just have to lean into him and trust that he is going to lead us the way that we need to go and when we need to go there, and so I loved everything that you were talking about. And he knows the time. And then the whole thing like, do you believe this? That is the question that it just like comes down to do you believe this? Um, that's awesome, so thank you for all of this. So can you tell everybody where they can get your book?
Speaker 2:and I think that you have an offer for everyone who is listening yes, um, you can get the book anywhere you love to buy your books. I particularly suggest that you go to a local bookstore and support the bookstores, and here's the reason why If you go to an online retailer, what happens is the book is in a warehouse, it slipped into the sleeve of an envelope, a label put on it, mailed out, but if you buy it from a bookstore, it has to be boxed, shipped, unpacked, put on a shelf, displayed and the um, how do I put the? The um? The visibility of the book is much greater through a bookstore and, besides, you're supporting, in a local bookstore, people that live around you. So I find that.
Speaker 2:However, as far as an offer, I have a website which is actually a companion blog to the book. The blog includes that skeptic, doubting voice and deals with a specific passage, a gospel passage that we know, that are all very familiar, but we know, and the challenges in it. Usually, maybe, an eight to 10 minute read comes out once a week. And so if you go on my website and this is my website ConstanceHastingscom there'll be a pop-up and the pop-up will ask if you want to subscribe. If you subscribe to the blog and the blog is free, there's no cost. You know and you know how this works. If you don't like it, you can always unsubscribe.
Speaker 2:But I will personally email to you a website and a code and you can get 20% off the purchase of the book through that. So you'll, you'll get the um the website, you'll get a book. Oh, there's one more thing and you'll get the. You'll be emailed the blog each week. But here's the second offer At the end of each book, very last page, there, okay, and you can see, you can see. You can go in and you can, you can fill this out. There is a there, okay, fill that out. The publisher will provide a free ebook as well. So when you buy the book at a 20% discount, you also get a second book. It's two books in one and I'm I'm really thrilled that they go ahead and do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. That's a really good deal, and so your website will be in the link to the in the show notes on this, and so everybody can get that Is there. Before we wrap it up, we're about to um thinking about our audience, right? Moms with young kids. Is there any last words of advice that you would give them?
Speaker 2:Well, I know they've heard this before, but cherish the time that you have, but just realize that the holy, holy call upon you in teaching your children about God and about Jesus and celebrate them in all the ways in which they live and learn about Christ. When our son was growing up you know from the time he was little reading Bible stories to him, involved in Sunday school and youth groups and so forth we were there all the time supporting him. He was musically inclined and the church allowed him to be part of the praise and worship team. It cost us thousands of dollars in musical equipment, but today I'm proud to say that my son is a man of faith. Sometimes he amazes me in how firm he is in what he knows that God can do, and I'm so grateful to God for that and for the wife that he has chosen, who also is a strong believer as well. So you know you plant the seeds now that's what you're doing and let God water them and you will have that greatest garden of blessing before you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. I love that so much. All right, thank you for joining us, constance. Thank you for having me, absolutely.