Not a Performative Faith: Exploring Spirituality Through “Being” – S1E1

In the first episode of The Being Devotionals, LaSaundra Gibson introduces her podcast alongside her friend Amy Phillips. They explore the themes of spirituality, personal growth, and the importance of being present in one's faith journey. LaSaundra shares her background in journalism and acting, leading to her calling in spiritual direction and podcasting. The conversation delves into the meaning of “being,” the significance of contemplative practices, and the historical context of these spiritual traditions. They emphasize the importance of overcoming fear in exploring one's spirituality and creating a space for freedom and connection with God.

Transcript

 LaSaundra Gibson (00:44)

Welcome to The Being Devotionals, I'm LaSaundra Gibson. And for my very first episode, I've invited my friend Amy Phillips to join me to help me introduce my new podcast and also to just introduce folks to who I am. And Amy knows me pretty well. We spent a lot of time together in seminary. We were in the same cohort at Portland Seminary, George Fox University. We also spent a lot of time in discussion groups sharing deeply. So, I think you're the perfect person to do this with me. I'm so glad you're here with me, Amy.

Amy Phillips (01:19)

I'm so glad to be here. Super excited, LaSaundra, for the start of your podcast because this is so you. I mean, if anyone needs to be in front of a camera, it's you. I don't know if you remember, we had to send in our initial like, get-to-know-you videos for seminary, and probably I was like, “Hi, I'm from Tennessee.” And here came LaSaundra.

LaSaundra Gibson (01:29)

Hahaha.

Yeah.

Amy Phillips (01:47)

This is LaSaundra Gibson coming to you from LA. It was like, whoa, this, yes.

LaSaundra Gibson (01:51)

Yeah, I remember I was in front of the big Hollywood sign. Yeah, I can't help myself. I've always loved the camera. We're going to get to a little bit of that and sort of my background, but I want to introduce you officially. Amy is married. She has two sons and a new daughter-in-law. She's an ordained pastor and a pastoral care provider and she serves pastorally for a ministry called Releve One Foundation and it's in Nashville.

And she too has a weekly devotional podcast called Just Believe: From Fear to Faith. And Amy and I are also spiritual directors and we're both currently in our last semester, praise the Lord, the last semester for our certification credentials for spiritual direction. So, yeah, so pastor in the house.

Amy Phillips (02:34)

Jesus.

Yeah, I am not one of those. Please don't call me Pastor Amy. I am just Amy. Yes.

LaSaundra Gibson (02:51)

Just Amy, that's right. And I should say Amy is a very strong seven, which means she's lots of fun on the Enneagram, if you are familiar with that. And I'm an eight wing seven. And so I have that strong seven side too,

Amy Phillips (03:04)

I know.

I do think that's where our sevens kind of overlapped where I was like, I want to know this woman. Cause you just have this big, beautiful, fun personality, but also with such authenticity and

LaSaundra Gibson (03:13)

Yeah.

Aww.

Amy Phillips (03:24)

Well, and I want to say even before we start, like, yes, this is going to be the best and the most fun podcast, but also, it's going to go deep. I mean, I just, that's who you are. You're going to be researching, studying, contemplating. You're going to be parsing as one of our professors like to say, you're going to be doing that. And so, I think my like statement for, for you, or even for this podcast was like, this is going to go deep, but you're going to laugh a lot while you're doing it.

LaSaundra Gibson (03:51)

I hope so.

Yeah, because I think that embodies who I am, a person who is a lot of fun, but also, I like to go deep. I feel very deeply. a highly sensitive person. So empathy and compassion and those things are very much a part of who I am. And I like authenticity. And so, for me, that means let's go to the real stuff. Let's talk about the real things.

Amy Phillips (04:16)

Hey man, you said it in that very first video I saw of you. I mean, you just already, you didn't even know us from Adam and here you are giving us details about your life.

LaSaundra Gibson (04:23)

Yeah, I was kind of spilling my guts.

Probably TMI. Yeah, but as you were saying about me, you know, just sort of just being myself in the beginning, I think as I think about my life, I grew up in Texas and I was born and raised there. And I remember being a little girl and being in my room for hours and

Amy Phillips (04:27)

I love it though, I love it.

LaSaundra Gibson (04:49)

doing voiceovers. And at the time, of course, I didn't know they were called voiceovers, but I would record my voice over and over again. I loved doing voice work. And I knew that I wanted to be a TV news reporter anchor. And I was in high school and there was some rumor going around about rats in our cafeteria. I don't know if it was true, but I brought my home recorder from home, a video camera and did like a news report on the rumored rat problem.

And so, as I think about just my life, there's been this thread very early on of communicating and storytelling. And so, for me, this podcast, you know, feels very natural. It's it embodies who I am. And I studied journalism at the University of Texas and got my bachelor of journalism there and then went on to

work in several local news markets as a TV news anchor reporter. And I loved that work and then didn't expect to, you know, move into the field of acting when I moved to Los Angeles about almost 14 years ago. But that was the path. That's what happened. And then in

went to seminary and wasn't expecting that, although I've always had a deep faith, people who know me, that's one of the things they would say about me is that you've always had such a deep, strong faith. so went to seminary and of course I thought, I would graduate after spending all of that wonderful time and money on a degree and that I would get, a job doing some type of ministry work and

Amy Phillips (06:23)

all that time and money.

LaSaundra Gibson (06:31)

The podcast was calling, and it just felt like this is something I have to do because it embodies who I am as a storyteller, a communicator, and then also combining that passion for spiritual things and being able to talk deep contemplative things that are so meaningful to my life. so yeah, so a podcast is just sort of a natural step, I guess.

Amy Phillips (06:37)

Well, and this is ministry work.

Yeah.

And it is a place of ministry. Like I'm super excited to see where this reaches and the influence. So can you talk to me more about the idea of being because that's the name of your podcast. What does that mean?

LaSaundra Gibson (07:13)

Yeah. So, I grew up in a Christian home and had very strong experiences with God very early on. could feel things in my body. God felt very real to me as a child. And I can point to a number of different experiences. And

I grew up in a Pentecostal faith stream, so there is a lot of experiential in that faith stream. And then fast forward to I went to seminary just something started to shift for me.

And I didn't know what was happening, but I was going through divorce. And also, there was just something about how I saw God that was starting to shift. And I think I'd always not realizing it had had a very punitive outlook on who God is. If I do this, if I follow these rules, then you will be good to me. If I obey, then you will, you will reward me.

And I think a lot of people probably have that sort of performative faith and not realizing that, you know, if I'm a good Christian girl, if I read my Bible, if I pray the right way, then God will do what I need him to do. Well, I prayed for years for my marriage to be healed and that didn't happen. And I'd done everything I knew to do. I was confused as to why.

my marriage was so terrible and people who didn't even really know Jesus seemed to have a really great marriage. That was, that was a paradox for me. in my mind, I should be rewarded for being a good Christian girl and I'm saying all the prayers and I'm doing all the right in quotations, the right things. So that started to mess with my belief system.

And then I also had some health issues that were out of my control and caused infertility. That was another thing that sort of rocked my belief system. I'm praying for healing. I'm saying all the right scriptures. And so, all of these things were sort of happening. And also there was just this deep hunger for something more than what I was getting in the type of churches that I had been in.

You know, the non-denominational type of rock church and you know, there's a screen and a countdown and the pastor's wearing a v-neck with skinny jeans, like that sort of thing. All the things were just starting to just feel very inauthentic for me. And so, I told God, I said, “I'm not going to church; I'm not going to church anymore; I'm done.”

Amy Phillips (09:53)

We didn't.

LaSaundra Gibson (10:07)

And I thought God was going to say, no, no, no. And I heard, okay, but keep your small group. So for two years, my small group was really my church. And I was on this just place of discovery and wanting to understand what was happening. And really I understand now is kind of reconstructing some things that old belief systems that really just weren't resonating anymore.

Amy Phillips (10:31)

Great.

LaSaundra Gibson (10:34)

And I remember one time I was sitting on my couch, and I was trying to read my Bible and I heard very clearly, put your Bible down and go outside. And I thought, what? Who's the speaker telling me not to read my Bible? But it felt very peaceful and reassuring. So, I followed the prompt and I did put my Bible down and I went outside in nature and sat and I just

It helped me experience God in such a real loving way. I mean, the squirrels were seeming to speak to me. The trees were seeming to speak to me. scripture that was rooted in my heart was coming up and welling up inside of me as I was sitting in nature. And

I think the next day I tried to do the same thing again and I heard the same prompt again. And so after about a week of realizing, okay, I'm just going to do this. I'm going to, I'm not going to do the thing that I, the performative thing that I felt like was giving me points in such a way that I was pleasing God to sit and read my Bible. And I'm not telling people not to read their Bible, but what I am saying is that it had become an idol, a performative thing that if I do these things that God is going to

Amy Phillips (11:39)

Right.

LaSaundra Gibson (11:54)

do the things I need him to do and that he's going to bless me and all the things that we say. after about a week of that, and also meeting with a spiritual director, which was something that was new to me at the time, I really began to understand that I am beloved, not because of what I do, I am beloved.

Amy Phillips (12:23)

Yes.

LaSaundra Gibson (12:23)

period.

And every person on this planet is such as well. And so it sort of changed my image of God. This punitive God who was watching me perform and rewarding me or punishing me was starting to fade away. And I began to see a more loving God who was fun and just loving.

and helped me see that I can just be. I don't have to perform. I don't have to do something. And I think about that scripture, the passage where Jesus is being baptized and as he comes out of the water, God says, my beloved son. And this was before, as many theologians and scholars point out, this is before Jesus had done any miracles at all.

Amy Phillips (13:17)

Right.

LaSaundra Gibson (13:18)

And so ,it's just a little noticing of the fact that Jesus's belovedness was not attached to anything that he had done or that he was going to do. And so that's just a reminder. And so, it grew this desire to just be and to just shed those old belief systems really started to form in me. And then as I went to seminary,

Amy Phillips (13:29)

right.

LaSaundra Gibson (13:46)

of course studying spiritual formation, that formation was happening in me and it was transforming me. And I don't do it perfectly now, but I do have just such much more of a freedom and a restfulness in my faith walk. There's more of a resting in just being God's beloved daughter.

Amy Phillips (14:08)

Can you tell me a little bit more because obviously having studied the same things you have of the second half of life, first half of life, where the critical stages of faith, like can you talk about how that maybe even opened up some of your understanding of where you'd been and to where you are now?

LaSaundra Gibson (14:27)

Yeah, I mean, I think the...

first half of life you are sort of relying very strongly on what you've been taught, what you've been told, your ego. Those are the things that have formed and shaped who we are. And over time, hopefully we are evolving and growing emotionally and spiritually. And so,

I think that's really what happened to me. I those things were helpful. They were, I'm not going to say that the things, the belief systems that I held were not helpful. Of course, scripture and knowing scripture and praying the word of God, all of those things were meaningful and helped me through some difficult times in my life, helped give me a foundation.

when we talk about formation, which is what we studied in seminary, formation really is about restoring the true Self, restoring the belovedness that gets so clouded.

by the things that form us in our life experiences. And so, Jesus is that example that we can look to, to be more like Him. And so, at this part of life, this second half of life, I think there has to be, if there is going to be a more Christ-likeness, if there's going to be a deepening of the well of Self-awareness, of awareness of the Spirit of God, there has to be an

and evolving. And I think that's really just what happened even if it wasn't something I was wanting to happen

the contemplative way of being is so different as well from what I grew up in, in a Pentecostal experiential background. But it's been very healing for me. These contemplative practices that I've brought into my life as a daily rhythm, more meditative, those things have brought more awareness and deep connection with myself and with God.

in a place of being and resting and not this performative thing that I had been doing for the first part of my faith journey. And I think having experienced a lot of trauma growing up in my childhood, there was a lot of trauma that I'm still working through and I see a therapist for. I lived in a place of sort of fight or flight.

And so, I think that does put a lot of pressure on needing to perform and wanting to control a situation and being in a more contemplative space of being where I'm not having to be in a fight or flight mode. It has transformed me and it has just given me such, it's helped me

be in a place where I can take a pause and be less reactive, where I can center myself again and go back to the True Self and remind myself of what is true, remind myself of who God is and that he is loving me no matter what, that doesn't change. And so, when I say the being devotionals, I want the space to be a space that

allows people to just be, to be free.

wherever they are on their journey

Amy Phillips (17:51)

what would you say to someone who's coming and listening to this and they're feeling afraid of letting go of those previous beliefs of kind of the box that they've lived in and what scripture says, what I've been taught, what I should do, how I perform in my Christianity or in my walk with God, and they're feeling afraid.

You what would you say to someone coming to listen right now? How do you shift to being?

LaSaundra Gibson (18:14)

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I'd say I haven't arrived. It's still work in progress, but it has been, there has been a big shift in me. But I would say that it's probably okay and normal to feel afraid. That's an emotion and it's different and change is different and it can be scary. But

honoring and recognizing that you feel fear, first of all, and then just moving through that fear and just exploring and discovering is all you're doing. That's all I did that day when I felt that prompt and I heard, go outside, put your Bible away. There was a sense of curiosity to see what could happen. And so I would say,

Amy Phillips (18:50)

Yeah.

LaSaundra Gibson (19:13)

Don't beat yourself up or condemn yourself for feeling the fear. And then once you acknowledge it and recognize that this is a part of the journey, I would say be curious and explore and just see. Because I think God is always calling us out, calling us into that deeper connection as I said, and that's not going to always happen the same way.

God is so much bigger than who we think he is. mean, God is limited to me sitting in my living room reading my Bible. Come on. we don't need to limit who God is.

Amy Phillips (19:46)

Right.

LaSaundra Gibson (19:53)

because of our small box of theology and our small belief system of how we've always done things. God is so big and it's different seasons of our lives. think certain things are needed.

Amy Phillips (20:08)

I just was going to say I love the thought of, and it's probably New Testament or Old Testament talking about, people were illiterate. Nobody was reading the Bible for centuries. I mean, you know, the few, the few were reading it and to think I have to sit here and read my Bible. That's the only way that I can connect with God is like, well, what were those people doing for centuries? They were connecting with God in different ways.

LaSaundra Gibson (20:31)

right.

Right. Yeah.

Amy Phillips (20:35)

Again, not

saying that we shouldn't read the word.

LaSaundra Gibson (20:39)

Right, absolutely. You can connect with scripture if that's something that is meaningful. You can connect with scripture through art. You can connect with scripture through breathing. Breath prayer is a big thing that I like to use as a meditative way of being still. And I find great peace.

And I think it is because I have lived so much of my life in fight or flight. Your brain is wired after, you know, over time to respond and react. And it can be rewired the other way too.

One of the things that I connect, one of the ways that I connect with God mostly, most commonly is through sitting in silence for 20 minutes. And sometimes, you know, God will say something and there will be something that I needed to understand or know. But most of the time it's just being with God.

And nothing needs to be said or nothing needs to happen. It's just time with God and time with myself, the true Self, the beloved Self.

Amy Phillips (21:52)

So maybe we don't have to put names to them, but just in case anyone's listening want to know that that would be called centering prayer or maybe solitude. What are some other contemplative practices that you have enjoyed?

LaSaundra Gibson (21:59)

Yes.

Yeah, as I mentioned, the breathing, be still and know that I am God. That's a scripture that's very common to a lot of people. And so, if I need to pause and be and reconnect with myself, reconnect and listen to the spirit, I will sometimes just, you know, no one even has to know. It's not like I have to go to a certain place. I can do it as I'm walking or whatever.

and I'll breathe in, be still, breathe out, I am God.

Amy Phillips (22:46)

makes me want to do it right now.

LaSaundra Gibson (22:47)

So be still, breathe in, hold and know, breathe out.

Amy Phillips (22:55)

Hmm. One of my experiences in doing that, and we were, think, in a class together, listening, listening and something, is that space where you begin to just sit and then beauty becomes more alive to you. Like nature, like you're talking about the squirrels, like all of a sudden everything else gets brighter.

LaSaundra Gibson (23:14)

Yeah.

Amy Phillips (23:20)

And you're thinking, I'm not doing anything but sitting for 20 minutes and then the whole rest of my day feels like I'm alive.

LaSaundra Gibson (23:26)

You're so right. Yes, you're so right. And that's that awareness. That I was mentioning, I've been doing centering prayer, which is sitting in silence. I've been doing that now for probably two years now or year and a half consistently. And some things that I've noticed about myself, I have

more capacity for people. see people more deeply. I see them as more human and I feel a closer connection with all of creation. So I notice the little critters that are, you know, on the ground. I know, I notice what's happening with the trees or the grass or the flowers. there's a, a greater capacity.

that has opened up and that awareness has also helped me notice God, God's activity in my life. And as spiritual directors, know, that's what we're doing as spiritual directors too, is we help people walk alongside them, help them notice God's activity in their lives, notice what they need. And all of that is awareness. And awareness does not happen outside of pausing.

Amy Phillips (24:45)

Yeah.

LaSaundra Gibson (24:50)

People want to get it another way. They want to find another way because it's daunting to sit with your thoughts, but nothing else works because you're talking about brain work. Something is really transforming in the brain in that meditative space of just being in silence. and there's so much, you know, research out there that backs that up. you know, Caroline Oakes is one of the people that we've read about in her book.

Amy Phillips (25:01)

you

Yeah.

LaSaundra Gibson (25:18)

practice the pause and she did a deep dive in research about what happens in the brain when we meditate and part of meditation is sitting in silence and it literally transforms the brain. The part of the brain that helps us manage emotions becomes stronger than that limbic part of the brain, which is that fight or flight where we're always responding and reactive. And, you know, as a society, even if you weren't

Amy Phillips (25:24)

Yeah.

Yes.

LaSaundra Gibson (25:45)

a person that experienced a lot of trauma, which I think most people have had some sort of trauma in their life, some more than others. just the busyness of life and being overexerted and doing too much and over committing all of that stuff is preventing capacity and space. And so we have to create that. have to create that. And one way we do that is by being still.

Amy Phillips (26:10)

Can we talk about like, can you talk about the history of some of these things like that? And not necessarily you have to go into, know, 1054, the schism and the Eastern side of the church and all that, but of centering prayer being centuries old of the prayer of examines since Loyola of Ignatius. It's like these things that are centuries old that to us, who I was also from the charismatic stream before that evangelical.

which this stuff feels woo woo like out there centering pro like what are you talking about? But that there is centuries old practice in Christianity of these contemplative practices.

LaSaundra Gibson (26:40)

Right. Yeah.

Well, we can just talk about Jesus. Jesus did this stuff. He went away all the time. He did. He went to the shore. He went to the mountains. He went to desolate places. Jesus was going alone to be.

Amy Phillips (26:54)

Yes, there you go.

Mm-hmm.

And it was, where's Jesus? he's gone again.

LaSaundra Gibson (27:11)

Right. And

he went away to be still. So, after those times, there were often miracles and healings and all of these things. So, Jesus's ministry was strengthened out of those times of solitude and out of those times of being and pausing. And so, I think when you talk about history, mean, Jesus is the,

Amy Phillips (27:28)

huh.

LaSaundra Gibson (27:39)

the greatest example of this. then around third century, Desert Mothers and Fathers were the first spiritual directors. And these were people who loved Christ. They were Christ followers. they, when Rome accepted Christianity as the official religion, that's when the institutionalization of things started to come into play.

Amy Phillips (28:02)

huh.

LaSaundra Gibson (28:03)

And so these desert mothers and fathers went off to Egypt and said, you know, we, we want more of that, that Jesus had, we are devoted to that and we don't want so much of the institutional stuff. So they went away to devote themselves and they were ascetic in many ways and devoting themselves to fasting and praying. But the, the, the desire was there to, to deepen

that awareness and to deepen that connection to the things that were like Christ. And so, in those desert places, monastic communities were formed and people went to them for wisdom. And so when you think about monastic communities in the West, and it really started in the East with the Desert Mothers and Fathers. They were the first monastic communities. And so

Amy Phillips (28:37)

Hmm.

LaSaundra Gibson (28:57)

It's not woo woo. It's not some new age spiritual thing. These are things that have been around for centuries. as a Christian myself and as you have that lens of Christianity by which we see things. I think Jesus is the greatest example that we can look to as to why these contemplative ways of being are so meaningful.

Amy Phillips (29:21)

yeah.

How do you feel like being and abiding? Are they the same thing? Maybe this is bigger question than you wanna like dive into right now, but as I'm listening to you right now, that's what was coming to my mind.

LaSaundra Gibson (29:39)

I think they are the same. I'd love to hear what you think. The reason I think they're the same is because when I think a ground of being, think here, is where the spirit resides. This is where the true Self is. This is what's real. And the false Self can be put on us based on our experiences, our fears, worries. They can distort what is real.

And so, taking time to be still and go to the ground of my being where God is, how can I be separated from God when I am being my true authentic Self? I can't. And so that is abiding when we are authentically who we are called to be in the world, who God called us to be, made in God's image. And our belovedness is always authentic. It never

Amy Phillips (30:18)

Hmm.

LaSaundra Gibson (30:37)

changes no matter what we do or what we go through, how much money we have, how much money we don't have. And so if I'm being authentically who I am,

then I am abiding in who Christ is in me. That doesn't mean that I don't get to evolve and to be the best person, the best version of who he's called me to be and being formed to be more like him, that there's not some chipping away and some things that need to be grown inside of me or transformed. But I think God calls us to abide in Him as we are authentically ourselves. I don't know if that makes sense, but...

Amy Phillips (31:13)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And I'm also just thinking of it off the top of my head right now, but I was thinking of it because you're talking about the desert mothers and fathers and probably their lens was abiding, you know, they're coming to abide and that's all they want to do. They just want to abide in Jesus, you know, you are the vine, we're the branches. I want the, the suker from the vine. I want to live off of that. And then I thought, I wonder if being

LaSaundra Gibson (31:17)

What do you think?

Amy Phillips (31:41)

is something more that we have to think about now because of the plethora of things that we could be doing, thinking about being at any given time right now. And so I listened to a song recently, I can't remember the name of it, but it says, want to be where my feet are. And I love that thought. Like I want to be, that's the being, right? I want to be where my actual physical body is, my brain, my soul, everything to be here, you know, in that being place.

LaSaundra Gibson (31:59)

Yeah.

Amy Phillips (32:11)

Abiding is always my hope and desire but then in that abiding can I be right here? You know that being place. Anyway that was what was in my mind.

LaSaundra Gibson (32:22)

Yeah, I love that. It's beautiful. Being present. Yeah, being present is another thing that I think has developed and grown in me. Resting in what is right now. And that's, I think that's abiding, right? What is right now? Where is God right now? Maybe God right now is just in you being in this. I don't know why I keep seeing an airport, but maybe

Amy Phillips (32:37)

being present alive. Yes.

LaSaundra Gibson (32:52)

Maybe someone's in an airport. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to go buy a coffee. You don't have to go read a book. You can sit and just be present and aware of what are you feeling in your body? What's around me? You know, I think God is in the place that we are in right now. And that is abiding.

Amy Phillips (33:18)

Right.

Yes, at the divine moment is the present moment.

LaSaundra Gibson (33:22)

And yeah,

in the present moment, yes, where is God in this moment?

Amy Phillips (33:26)

because you can't

be in the future right now and you can't even be in the past anymore. This is the only moment that heaven or God is coming near is right now.

LaSaundra Gibson (33:32)

Right.

Right.

And that's such a reminder to myself even now as I've been saying that and thinking about all of the things that I have going on in my life that are honestly really destabilizing.

Amy Phillips (33:42)

Absolutely.

LaSaundra Gibson (33:53)

and disorienting. And oddly there is just this sort of peace of just, okay, what is happening right now? That does not have my attention over here. What is going to happen in an hour or two hours, but being able to just rest in what is right now. There's just such freedom. There's such freedom in that. And that's what I hope. I hope this podcast brings freedom.

Amy Phillips (34:03)

Mm-hmm.

There is.

LaSaundra Gibson (34:22)

I want people to know that you're welcome here. This is a space for you, whether you are a Christian, whether you are spiritual or not, whether you consider yourself spiritual and you don't identify with an institution or a religion, you're discovering, you're exploring, you have questions. I hope that there will be through all the different episodes and the people that I bring on to share that you will find this to be a place of freedom where you can be.

who God has called you to be and you can just rest in what is right now. And when you're ready to take that step to explore and discover. And I believe that God wants to connect with all of us always, always. And so anything that, if anything, this space is to bring more awareness into the

Amy Phillips (34:53)

Yeah.

LaSaundra Gibson (35:18)

to the things that we can do to connect with God and to connect with our beloved selves. And that's what I hope to do through this podcast is bring connection, bring deeper awareness.

Amy Phillips (35:32)

I know that you're going to.

LaSaundra Gibson (35:34)

Thank

Amy Phillips (35:35)

And I'm just.

really excited to see what comes out of this. So, thanks for doing it, for being obedient, stepping into something new. This is it.

LaSaundra Gibson (35:39)

Right.

Yeah, it is definitely new and it's a big undertaking, but it feels like I said, it feels like I can't not do it. So I'm here and I'm thankful for those who have decided to join us for this time.

would you mind saying a prayer for not just for me, but just whatever you feel led to pray. I'd love to just pray for the people who are listening today. There are so many concerns and worries and so much going on in our world.

Amy Phillips (36:03)

I would love to.

LaSaundra Gibson (36:19)

And I have a real deep heart for people. I'm an empath, and sometimes it's really hard to not feel so deeply because I carry a lot of what I feel, even if I don't know the person, I can feel it. And so I just want, I would love for people to walk away feeling just encouraged at the end of this.

Amy Phillips (36:32)

Yeah.

Amen.

Lord, we just thank you right now that for each one who's been listening and who has wanted to just be right now, we ask even in that moment that LaSaundra had us just to be still and to know that you are God. And Lord, even for fears and doubts and suffering and pain and all the things that we're carrying around right now.

that even as somebody sits for just a moment, maybe you're gonna click this off and just sit for a moment and let those things roll off of your shoulders and just be, just being, not a human doing, but a human being and just be right now today. So, we thank you God that you're moving in the places that we have questions, and you are speaking life and love into our beings. We thank you Lord that each one listening is your favorite.

Lord, thank you that LaSaundra is your favorite and Lord that you have carved out this place for us to hear from you through her and the guests that she's gonna be bringing on. And I do pray blessing Lord over all the words that are spoken out into the airwaves through LaSaundra and other people that will be on the show. We just thank you Jesus, cause you are good and you are faithful and you are true. And we trust you with all our hearts. In Jesus name.