Time to Move On

For this episode of The Edwards Table, Amy continues the conversation from last week’s episode about recognizing when you’re stuck—and what it looks like to begin moving forward. In “Time to Move On”, she shares honest reflections on the small but meaningful steps that help break cycles of frustration, fear, and feeling trapped.

Through personal insight and encouragement, Amy talks about learning to open your eyes again, lifting your focus beyond yourself and your circumstances, and choosing gratitude not just as something you say, but something you live out daily. This episode is a reminder that moving on doesn’t always happen in one big moment—it often begins with small shifts in perspective that slowly lead to freedom, healing, and hope.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, I'm Amy Edwards, and welcome to the Edwards Table. This podcast is all about real conversations, the kind that come from life, love, family, friendship, and all the messy, beautiful parts in between. I started the show because I believe in redemption stories and in sitting down together to talk about the things that shape us, heal us, and sometimes just make us laugh. So grab a seat, take a breath, and join me. Because there's always room for you here at the Edwards Table. Well, hey y'all. Golly, so good to be back this week. And thank you for tuning in. My name is Amy Edwards, and I am the host of the Edwards Table podcast. Here every Wednesday with a new thought for you, um, talking about my story. So if you haven't had the opportunity, pop back over to season one, all 12 episodes. That's all I do. I sit down at my table and I tell my daughter, Maddie, my story. Um, and it is a doozy. There's lots to it. Uh, but if you have been with me, golly, thank you so much. Really appreciate you being here. And definitely I know that you heard last week's episode. So over these three weeks, so last week, this, and next, I'm just kind of talking through these times in our life where like we get stuck and how to acknowledge it, how to change it, and then how to actually move forward from it. So, like last week we talked about sitting in the middle of it, right? Like you get to a point where you realize, whoa, I'm like in the middle of the thick of it, right? Well, this week want to definitely talk about, okay, now that we've been sitting in the middle of it, now it's time to move on, right? So ready to move forward. So, how do we move forward, move on from being completely stuck? I've heard it described as um for me personally, I usually explain it to people like I feel like I'm at the bottom of the depths of the sea, like way underwater. And just the pressure on your body, can't breathe, all the uh can't see well, you know, all the things, right? Like just being in that place of being just completely stuck. And there are several times in my life where I've been like in a long-term situation of being stuck. So what I'm gonna talk about today is one of those. Last week I talked about kind of a short term, like the day before I recorded, right? It was just a really rough day, and I stayed stuck and funky and just like it was not pretty. But but today I want to talk more about like that being stuck in a very long period of time. And for me personally, um, if you've listened to my story, you know that I had an abortion in my early 20s, and um I lived with an enormous amount of shame and an enormous amount of guilt. And so with living with all of that hanging on me, right? Um, I was I became masterful at living to shame myself and to make myself feel horrible about who I was and definitely about what I look like. So I struggled for gosh, 10, 12, I don't know. Y'all, you know, if you know me, like if you've been here, I don't math, okay? So calm down. But let's just say 10 to 12 years-ish. I'm a good estimator. Um, but I lived with so much shame and guilt from having had that abortion. Now, mind you, um my childhood was wrought with sexual abuse by my father and abuse from other things. I mean, like, I I just I come from a mess, okay? I'm I'm I'm not gonna ever lie to you about that. I'm a hot mess, it's fine. Um, but like the the having the abortion for me, knowing full well it it it was not something that I felt I should do. It's something I did because I didn't know another way to handle my situation. And the the the shame and the guilt and just the the the self-disgust and disdain I had for me when I would look in the mirror, I was literally disgusted with myself. Like I would get so angry and just be so grossed out. And so for the course of those 10 years, I wound up having um our son, and then I lost a baby, and then I had our daughter, which was actually triplet girls, and I lost two of those girls. Again, back to season one if you want to listen to all of those stories. But um I also had these mind games that I played with myself that I deserved to lose children because I'd had an abortion earlier on in my life, and I wasn't worthy of being mother a mother, and I wasn't worthy of um being a mother twice, and I mean just on and on and on and on. And with that, I gained a substantial amount of weight. Um, and I held that weight the whole time because again, I didn't feel worthy of being beautiful and feeling good in my own skin. I didn't feel worthy of being able to look in the mirror and love the woman that I saw. And so I carried that 10, 12 years, carried it daily, daily, daily, daily. So when I talk about a place of being stuck, I would say 10 to 12 years is quite the extensive stuck spot, right? But I stayed in this place where I was doing this to myself over and over again. I just, I was telling myself things like how disgusting I was and how unworthy I was. And I mean, the mind games that I play with myself then was just though it was just, it was a heart-wrenching, like heart-wrenching. I wish I could go back and talk to that that Amy at 20 something, to what Amy at 50 something knows, right? I don't know if any of y'all feel that, but god me. So anyway, so once I I figured out, you know, good Lord, Aim, like you're you're you're done. Like it's enough already, it's enough already. Um, was when I found out uh when I was 29 that I had to have a complete hysterectomy, which meant I would no longer be able to even try to have kiddos. And that for me was devastating because my goal in life was to be married and be a mom. Wanted that all my days, all the ways. Love being a mom, best and hardest job I've ever done. Well, to hear, hey, not only is it hard for you to get pregnant, but now we're gonna take away the opportunity for you to even be able to do so because you got to have a hysterectomy. Devastated. But the beautiful part about that was it kind of put a pause for me and started opening my eyes up to the fact that I knew I couldn't have more children. And so instead of shaming myself and guilting myself over that, I started taking notice that I was ready to move on from being fat Amy. Now, before you get into twit over that, I've already said this before about myself, I was the original fat Amy, okay? And at that time in my life, I I quit weighing myself at 260 pounds. I was bigger than John, like, literally, and he's six foot four and he's not a small man. But I just got to the point where um it was enough. I'd had enough and I was ready to move forward. And so talking about that today, right? Like once you've made the you've acknowledged it. That's what we talked about last week. Like you've been sitting in it, okay. So now it's time to move on. You're ready, you're ready to say, okay, I've had enough. Um two quick points about this. It's not gonna be fast to move on, and it's not gonna be perfect. So grace, grace, grace, grace, grace. Lots of grace you have to give yourself. So when I was thinking about this concept of like, how did I move forward? How did I do that? Um, three things kind of popped into my head. And I always go to the word, y'all, if you don't like the Bible, you're on the wrong podcast. Because I do talk about the Bible pretty frequently. I share verses and things that mean something to what I'm talking about that day. So, how do we begin to move from being completely stuck to actually start making progress forward? And I would say the very first thing that came to my mind is to begin to open your eyes. So, what I'm talking about is talked about in the book of Acts when this really uh cocky dude and bad dude named Saul, um, not the Saul that was chasing David that we've been talking about, you know, but this is in the New Testament. So Saul uh was a religious official, so he was high up in the religious world. And um, so he's Jewish, like Jesus was Jewish, y'all. Um, but uh school of thought for him was this whole Christian business, was a bunch of malarky, and he went to the extent of killing Christians, of um just being as oppressive as possible, like he had some body count for killing people that was like up there, you know, everybody knew who he was and whatever else. And um, he took this journey on the road to Damascus. Saul was out for Christians, like anybody who was preaching the word about Jesus that he had come and uh that about his ministry or anything like that, Paul was after them. Like you cannot be Jewish and be saying there's Jesus, like that is not happening on his watch. So he takes this trip and in the midst he has he encounters God. And with that, he's blinded uh for three days. And so um in the book of Acts, let's see, I'm looking at my handle, in the book of Acts, chapter 9, verse 18, um it says immediately something like scales fell from Saul's eyes and he could see again. I think about this, y'all, like in a metaphorical sense of blindness in our lives. God is so gracious in that when we are in a time that maybe we haven't learned enough or we're not seasoned enough, if you will, that God doesn't, he doesn't like walk away from us because of that, but he also doesn't dump on us because of that. He speaks to us and allows us to see things when we're able, if that makes sense. Um, so on this journey, uh he was blinded, he gets instructions on what to do and order to revive his uh resuscitate that sight and some dirt and ugh, or anyway, I don't want mud on my eyes gross. Maybe I do, maybe that'd help the puffies, right? I don't know. But um, so he had very specific instructions for who was traveling with him, what to do, and all the things, and so they do. And in this time of him having this encounter with God and then realizing what God is starting to reveal to him, that is the literally the scales falling off from his eyes, also is metaphorical in that he now is able to hear and see what it is God's telling him and starting to not only hear and see, but also understand. I think that's us. I think that's us a lot. I think that's us in this whole life. And when we get stuck in a situation, a lot of times it's because we can't move forward yet. We have to learn some things in the moment. We have to uh make the decision that we don't want to be stuck anymore. And for me personally, that's very much what it was. Back in my 20s, I I purposefully stayed stuck in being morbidly obese. I was gigantic, I was so big and so unhealthy and so unhappy and so uncomfortable and so disgusted with myself. Um, I'd never struggled with weight before, and so for me that was a new thing, um, which made it difficult but then also easy to keep, difficult to understand, but easy to maintain. Because why would I want to be thin again if I really shouldn't be pretty? Because I have been such a gross human being. Very, very side games that our minds play when we allow the lies to see them. Anywho, so thinking about it in those moments that that we begin to open our eyes, that God allows us to start to see some of the truth of what is going on in our situation. And I think with being able to begin to open our eyes, then comes vision, then comes the sight where we can actually start to see. So if you think about it, if you close your eyes really tight, or like when you wake up in the morning, if somebody flips a light on before you've woken up, it's it's that kind of a sense where we're starting to open our eyes, and when we've been stuck, it's painful to see. Like it's like you're you're squinting, you're like flash, batting your eyes as many times as you can to try to get your your vision in focus and all of that. I think it's very much when we've been stuck, what happens when we start to begin to open our eyes. So there's the first part. The second part is is then it's something that we have to do is start to lift our view from ourselves, right? We're looking down like this. I'm talking a lot louder, probably right now because I'm looking down, but like you're looking down and all you're doing is you're seeing you. It's me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. I'm stuck in this spot. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Well, you can't move anywhere, you can't see anything if all you're doing is looking down at yourself, right? So, like, second part to how do we move on is we actually have to pick our our eyes up and look outside of ourselves. And one of my favorite psalms, I feel like I say that every week uh when I talk about psalms, but whatever, there are a lot in there. Uh, Psalm 121. That is an excellent psalm. I would highly recommend you go read the whole thing. I'm not going to do that to you today. I know you're sad, but um, one verse in particular. At the uh very beginning of the psalm, it says, I lift my eyes to the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord. And then it goes on to explain all of this amazingness about who God is and what he does and how he protects and sustains, and and it's just beautiful. So go read it, Psalm 121. But I think about that particular piece of the verse, right? It it's the writer telling us, like, pick your eyes up and look to the mountains. Well, why in the world would they tell us look to the mountains? You know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, okay, fine. Mountains kind of treacherous back in the day because you'd have to be like hoofing around on them or whatever. But also the magnificence, the majesty of mountains, how big and grand they are, how powerful they are, um, what a beautiful way to help move water into great places that we need it, right? Like if you've got a river running between two mountains. Um, but all this to say it's it's picking our our eyes up to grab a view that's bigger than us. Mountains gigantic and we're we tiny, right? So, like multiple reasons, I think the writer like drives us toward looking up, look up at the mountains. And then when you look at a mountain, you can't help but imagine God because it's so magnificent. And to think about like picking our head up, looking up, getting our view up instead of down on ourselves, looking up, then allows us to really question our capacity for then to receive things. So like we can hear God's voice, we can really see his creation, see all the beauty of the mountains and uh what all is offered there as well. And then the third thing that I was thinking about when I'm thinking about like how to move it forward is to practice gratitude. Y'all, if you are being grateful, right, there is no way to be depressed. You can't hold those two together. You can't be depressed and grateful at the same time. Um, I've heard it said. And if you're being grateful, I think it's important that we're not only grateful with our words, like saying things, thinking things about being grateful, like, gosh, I'm I really am thankful that I've got a sink of dirty dishes. Literally, if I were to turn the camera, you'd see them. Um, because that means that I have family that I've been feeding and we've been able to afford groceries and we've been able to have good food, and I can invite friends over to have a treat with me as well. Like finding things to be grateful for. I'm thankful and grateful for laundry. That means that I've got my family home and uh we've got clothes to wear. If John's going through work shirts every single day, that means that we've got work. That is something to be grateful for. And then so I think about words and actions. So showing my gratitude is something that is really on my heart lately with my actions of how I show gratitude. And especially today, I got to catch up with a very dear friend who has this horrific chronic pain that she lives with. And um, there are many times where she will come to the forefront of my thoughts when I get whiny about my hips hurting. Um, so I've got this degenerative situation and shape with my hips, and I like will one day have to have them replaced, um, probably sooner rather than later, but we're not gonna talk about that right now. Um, but like when I think about her versus me, like I can take Tylenol on a bad day and I'm cool. Uh, she can take the strongest drugs out there and it doesn't touch hers. Um, but to know her and to see her, you would never question that about her because she always is just bubbling out with love and joy for people around her. And so I think about actions of gratitude. And how am I, especially right now, like having a funky day yesterday, how am I showing gratitude with my body and with my actions? So, God, I'm so thankful that I am able to take a walk. I went walking today. Um being grateful to, you know, hold my tongue when somebody is maybe saying or doing things that make me angry, like they're coming at me uh with gossip or something. And instead of piling on more gossip about them or getting really mad and popping off about them, that I show that I'm thankful that somebody actually is giving me that kind of thought by keeping my mouth shut, um, by praying for them. So I think about you know, ways to show gratitude for what I've been given, but also for the opportunities that I have. Me being able to sit down and have a phone conversation with someone for hours is such a privilege. And to be grateful that God allows my work schedule to do that. Um, that I have this beautiful group of young women that like want to learn how to sew, and they come over usually about once every week or two and bring their sewing machines, and we just go to town. And um had I still been working my old corporate job, I never would be able to do that because there just wouldn't be time and capacity. But where I am now, slow pace. My my life is, but but thank you, God, that you give me open time and I can fill it with meaningful activities like that. So that's what I'm talking about when I say actions and words. So we're doing both, both things, right? Of of showing gratitude. And I will say that's one of the biggest things that helps me when I get stuck in really funky places is to be grateful, to find things to be grateful for, and to act grateful. But when I started thinking about this whole practice of gratitude and thinking about the term like gratitude, right, I go into the book of Colossians, it's Colossians chapter three, verse 16, and I'm gonna read it to you. It says, Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. I don't know if that lands quite where it landed for me with you, but here's kind of where I come from. So when I think about gratitude, I've already talked about actions, words, and that kind of a thing. And in this book of the Bible, we think it's written by Paul, but don't don't quote that because there are some folks out there, Bible scholars, that kind of debate whether or not it was Paul, or maybe somebody who was kind of of his school of thought, or maybe it was Timothy writing on Paul's behalf, but Paul was telling him the things. Bottom line, we think it's Paul's ideas, maybe transcribed by another person. Okay. So it's a letter he's written to the people of Colossian. And um, I just think about that. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish. So it's talking about being around other believers and what that should look like. So I find it interesting because he says, um, teach and admonish. So teaching someone, but also admonishing, kind of wrangling them back in, if you will, um, if they're kind of going off track. So make sure that they're staying aligned with what it is God's wanting us to know and what Jesus taught while he was here on earth, okay? But then the other thing is is by doing that admonishing, it's through um wisdom. And that wisdom comes from Psalms, which I talk about all the time. You gotta love the book of Psalms, hymns, which are songs and songs. So uh don't get tripped up on terminology. Bottom line is is that we have a lot of great teaching out of the book of Psalms, and there's a lot of great music out there too. Um, and we want to have a great spirit when we're doing that. So when we're using psalms and hymns, and Songs, that is our way to bring it back to God. And we want to do that with gratitude in our hearts, appreciative that we have the opportunity to be able to belt out a worship song while we're in the car or while we're giving our kid a bath or while we're sitting down to dinner or while we're taking a walk for the day or whatever the opportunity may be. But I find it so interesting that he talks about that when we're singing, we need to sing to God with gratitude in our hearts. I don't know about y'all, but sometimes I am guilty of being a good whiner and a good fusser. You know, God, why? Why this? Why that? How come it's so hard? How come it's so this? How come it's so that? Instead of first and foremost going to God and being grateful, grateful for the fact that He is my father who will sit down and listen to me at any time, at any location. He is everywhere, so I can call on him anytime. That he knows me so intimately, that he knows the number of hairs on my head, and that he created me with a very divine plan and purpose. Like that is so powerful to know those things. So our first inclination should be, according to this word that we're given, um, is to go with him to him with a spirit of gratitude. We should be grateful. We should be grateful even though the world tells us otherwise. If I don't know about y'all, you turn on the news, you listen to music, you watch movies, you go on social media. It sounds like we are just living in a dumpster fire, and maybe we are a little bit, I don't know. But also, if you go and read anything in the Old Testament, and quite frankly, most of the new, uh, we're really not far off from where we were then. Sadly, history repeats itself because we've not yet learned. Um, but even in the midst of all that the world tells us is going awry and amok, and you know, we get caught in those circles of constant, you know, the sky is falling, the sky is falling, oh my god, everything's terrible. Um, we are to come to God with gratitude. And so I think for me, in this process that we're kind of talking through over these three weeks, last week of acknowledging where we are when we're sitting in it, this week talking about um how, like, how do I even start to think to move forward, right? Um I think these are some great tips and tricks that I've learned and that are effective and actually work. Um it takes time. And I think I said this last time, or it may have been at the beginning of this podcast, but the amount of grace that we have to show ourselves as we are healing is gigantic. Um, and I think too, what I'd love to say, and I hope that someone out there hears this, is that healing is a beautiful gift that we're given. Um but healing is not easy. Healing is hard, healing is painful, um, healing is not on a timeline. And so when we're stuck, but making we've we've now acknowledged it and now we're ready to make some progress, that's a huge big deal. That's a huge big deal. And so I hope if you're out there struggling with being stuck, I hope that the past episode and this episode and hopefully next week as well is gonna be helpful for you. I hope that it gives you a sense of of calm, like, wow, okay. So I've realized I'm in a spot and I realized I don't want to be in that spot. And now I know some, you know, ways maybe that Amy shared that helped get her back up, looking up and looking out and realizing where she's gonna go next. And you see like the progression of how this goes. Before you can really run, you have to learn how to walk, and before you can learn how to walk, you have to learn how to crawl. Before you can crawl, you have to learn how to sit up. Before you learn how to sit up, you have to learn how to roll over. And before you learn how to roll over, you have to learn how to turn your head. So wherever you are in the process of your life and healing and whatever it may be for you, just remember there are steps to get there. It's not all one and done. If it were, you know, we'd probably live for about 45 seconds on this planet, but it's not that way. That's not reality. So, with that, y'all, I'm going to close out for this week. And thank you so much for stopping by. Be sure to give us a like and a follow wherever you are listening or watching. Means a lot, helps it get over this podcast to go out to other people, and definitely be sure to share with any friends or family members that you know that this could be beneficial for. Um, they just want a kind of a nice spot, they can sit down and take a listen to this southern sass and attitude and accent. I would love it. But in the meantime, remember there is always a seat for you here at the Edwards table. See you next week, y'all. Bye.