Keep Moving Forward

In the final episode of this 3-part series, Amy talks about what it looks like to keep moving forward after realizing you’re stuck and taking those first difficult steps toward change. Moving forward isn’t always fast or flashy—but it is intentional.

Amy shares practical ways she has learned to continue growing and healing in her own life:
 • Learn — not only from your past, but from where you’re hoping to go
 • Be intentional — about what you’re aiming toward, who surrounds you, and what you allow into your heart and mind
 • Celebrate — take a moment to look back at where you started and recognize how far you’ve come

This episode is an encouragement to keep taking the next step, even when progress feels small. Growth takes time, but forward is still forward.

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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 kinds that come from life, love, family, friendship, and all the messy, beautiful parts in between. I started this 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, welcome back, y'all. My name's Amy Edwards, and welcome to the Edwards Table podcast. I am delighted to be your host and have been having the best time the past couple of weeks sharing just kind of a quick glimpse into my healing journey and what that looks like. Um, if you've been joining, you heard me talk about it uh two weeks ago, just talking about like this this sense of being stuck and then how do we move forward and make progress along the way. So two weeks ago was sitting in the middle of it, right? Like, ugh, when you're stuck, but you you start to have this realization, you know what, I've been here like a hot sec. I have been in this place. And then last week, just talking about when it's time to move on, um, just being able to move forward from being completely stuck. So kind of talk through that. Well, this week I wanted to wrap up this month, but also wrap up these few weeks with the final thing that kind of came to my mind when I was thinking about you all this this uh month, and that is this is my one of my absolute mantras of life, and that is keep moving forward. Um, I cannot emphasize enough how vital it is for us to continually be perpetually moving ahead. Now, when I say this from a place of healing, the reality is that doesn't mean that we're sprinting full force every single day all the time, right? Moving ahead can look um like to keep moving forward, it can look different depending on the day, the situation, whatever, but it also is very clear that our eyes are fixed forward and not behind us, that our emotion is moving us ahead and not falling behind. Um there are moments when we're even though we are keeping we're continuing to move ahead and move forward where we might need to pause and take a little bit of a break. I mean, life can be crazy, don't get me wrong. But to have this mantra, and this is something that I drilled into my kids when they were young too, is to keep moving forward. We want to make progress, we want to learn, we want to become the best version of ourselves. So that means we're growing and we're we're forever changing, hopefully, by getting rid of old stuff and learning new things and just becoming better and better with time. So when I think about this concept of keep moving forward, the first thing that comes to mind is learn. We have to learn. And when I talk about that, I'm not talking about just from our past, but I'm also talking about learn about where you're going and what your hopes and dreams are for your future. So for me personally, when I think about my story, and y'all go to season one if you hadn't heard it, because it's 12 episodes, it's a whole thing. Um, but when I think about learning and learning from my past and then also learning about my future, where I'm headed and what I'm aiming toward, I have the the privilege of being in my 50s early, albeit I'm only one year in, almost two. But um, I've got some time on my on my side in terms of experiences. I've experienced a lot of life. And um I usually, when I go back and I think about the past, I usually go in 10-year blocks, so each decade. Um, and usually each decade there's a theme that comes out of it, right? Like when you look at your 20s, and then when you would look at your 30s and your 40s, um, definitely a decade of things. And so when I look back um at my 20s, 20s was really and truly just figuring out who I was. And interestingly enough, in my 20s, I got married. Well, I graduated college, got married, had Quinn, had a miscarriage, got pregnant with Maddie and the girls, which was triplets, lost two of the girls, had mad, which was a very traumatic birth. Uh, she wound up in the NICU, thankfully, for just a short stint, but it was very traumatic. And then wound up having a complete hysterectomy. That was all in my 20s. So a lot going on physically. Also, I was fat Amy. That was my fat Amy era. I was gigantic back then, outweighing John Edwards. So if you've been on, you've seen him, he's not a small, small tot. He is a a man with girth. Uh, and I was outweighing him at that point. My 30s definitely I made peace with with Amy. I fell in love with her, and that is when I started my health journey. I lost 125 pounds, and um I started writing a lot more. Um, and I started sharing my story more. It wasn't until then that I actually confessed that I had had an abortion um in my 20s. That was very early on in my 20s, um, and in the shame that I talked about last week, you know, of I think it was last week or week before. It doesn't matter. We talked about it along the way uh in this these three weeks, but but just like um being so ashamed of myself, tagging on all the weight that I did, and not allowing myself to feel beautiful in my own body. And my in my 30s, I started to learn how to love myself. And so that meant taking good care of myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I started going to counseling, I started going to uh I worked out, I started eating healthy, um, I was continuing my growth in my spiritual life. Like there was a lot going on that I was pouring into me to make sure that I was the best version of me. And then in my 40s, um I would say for me was lessons learned of my 40s. I was turning 40 when we moved to Texas. Um, and y'all go back and listen to that story. That's a wild one to get out here. Um and it was interesting. My career path kind of wove a little bit into a few different things that I did. Um and I realized in my 40s that I actually loved who I was. And quite frankly, I was rather proud of what I had learned about not only myself and who I am, but also how I treat others, um, how I deal with um things like narcissism and abusive tendencies and lack of boundaries and so many of those um things that I had been uh dealing with or surviving for the good best part of my entire childhood and then my definitely in my 20s and 30s. And um my 40s were were a time where I really got serious about telling my story, um, thought I had it all figured out, and then the virus that shall not be named came along and that wrecked it for me. Um and it was a blow that I wasn't ready for, I was unprepared for. And unfortunately, um it just it crushed me. And I didn't realize it at the time. It took some like retrospective looking to go back and say, gosh, I I really was devastated by that. And so when I turned 50, um, I had a friend who said, you know, you're supposed to tell your story, and since writing is so hard for you to get it down, why don't you do a podcast? And so at 51 I launched it on my birthday. Welcome, here we are. Um, but but that said, you know, as I'm going into my 50s, I'm excited to see what what my lessons will be, my takeaways for my 50s will be. Hopefully good things. And um, hopefully I've grown to be that much um better as a human being and as a woman and closer to Jesus, like all the good things, right? So, like the keep moving forward for me is a mantra that I have always held dear. I've always poured that into my children. I've always been about that with John. So, like all the years back when we lost everything back in 08, 09, um keep moving forward came to be a big piece of who we were at our home. And that was something that I taught my children when I homeschooled them for a year. It was something that I just drove home to John uh as he struggled daily to like even get up out of the bed. He was so ashamed of losing our business, and he felt so responsible for all of it. Reality, the market crashed, and we lived in a place where the market crashing devastated our whole region. There was no like you didn't do it well enough or you were irresponsible, albeit he may have been, right, to a certain degree, but it wasn't him being so irresponsible. It was we couldn't get houses to sell, we were sitting on empty lots or lots that had partially built or fully built homes, and we were in debt for millions and millions of dollars. So keep moving forward was something we needed in our lives. We needed uh something to say and to believe in that if we keep moving forward, we know God is with us and we know he's taking us where we need to go. Um, I think about in scripture, there is, I think it's in the Psalms, which is not shocking because you know how I am, but and I apologize, I didn't pull that verse up today, but uh, where it talks about thy word is a lamp into my feet and a light into my path. And I think this the beautiful part about learning is when we have a lamp to our feet, we can't see what's behind us. We can only see a step ahead of us. So we're not talking magolite, mag light kind of situations here. Uh, we're talking a lamp, think candles on your toes. You're only seeing a little bit ahead of you of where you're actually going. That's what God promises. He promises to light our path. So, in other words, you're only going to see a small part because that's all you need to trust him. And also, he's gonna show you so that you're not like stepping off the edge of a mountain or stepping off the edge of a cliff. You're actually taking a good, healthy step on good solid ground. So I think about that when I'm thinking about this, keep moving forward because God's providing you what you need, whether it be, you know, food, money, um, a job, whatever. And I already can hear y'all in your heads because you're like me and you're like, girl, please, like, God isn't putting groceries on my front door. Well, girl, I know that, but you walking in that pantry and you still got canned goods on the shelf, he still provides you with some food. Come on now. Um, or you know, well, I don't have a job lined up, okay, but have you missed your bills? Well, I've missed my bills, okay, but do you still have electricity? Well, I don't have my my power turned on. Okay, but do you still have a place to live? Do you have a friend who helps you out? Like, I've been there. I'm talking from absolute personal experience when we lost everything. Y'all, it was daily that we would fight the wolf at the door, if you will, um, of like coming to turn off our power, coming to cut off our gas line, coming to repo our cars. Both of them got repossessed within, I think, a week of each other. It was insane. Uh, coming to service papers, that was that was hilariously ridiculous because I literally got to know the sheriff that came and served papers. He and I had a great standing relationship. Um, and I kept answering the door. I mean, why not? Uh so like I think when we learn, right, we learn from our past. For me, that's what it gave me, is exactly what I just rattled off. It's easy for me to go down the list and be like, okay, yes, it's bad. And is it this bad? Okay, it's this bad, okay, but it is it this bad, and keep going down the levels of what I've survived. I've survived all of those things. I've survived it all. Um, and that's just a one, for instance, in my story of surviving some really hard times, and that's financial. Um, but it's also more like the morale of that was exceptionally difficult. The second part of me constantly being able to stay ahead of like keep moving forward is to be intentional. So, like being intentional about the direction I'm aiming, right? What is my goal and where am I aiming myself? Being intentional with who is in my circle. And I have a circle that is tiny, tiny. I know a ton of people, but I hold my circle of people that pour into me and that speak to me very small. Um, and I am exceptionally intentional with who those people are. Believers, um, wise, all the things. Like I want to make sure that I am being poured into well. So the who I'm surrounded by, but then also what's going into me. Now I'm not excellent at this. Again, I know this is what I need. I need to be listening to music that's pouring into me well. I need to be watching things. If I'm gonna watch TV, it needs to be good stuff. If I'm on social media, which I really probably shouldn't be at all because I have a hard time getting off of it. Um, I need to be, you know, following people that are on the same road, if you will, as me. Um because it gets so easy to stop moving that progression of going forward continuously. The wheels stop turning, if you will. Um it takes so little to be distracted from our goal. It takes so little to turn our head away from the forward gaze that we should have in order to keep going. And then finally, celebrate. You guys, celebrate. Even in the hard times, you still celebrate. That's what helps keep that perpetual motion going. Go, go, go. Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving, keep moving. Um, again, the movement doesn't have to be fast and furious, it just needs to be continuous. We need to keep that moving ahead. And so celebrating for me, it is so important. And celebration does not have to be a confetti cannon and balloons and a sign made and all the things. But what it does mean is celebrate it. Say it out loud. Tell a friend, tell a loved one, hey, I'm super excited. Today this happened, or I made this decision. You know, sometimes I'll take a picture of my feet walking and I'll send it, you know, to John and be like, accountability, your girl got out and did it today. So celebrating. Take a look back at what where you were and what you've accomplished in keeping that movement forward going. I think um one of the easiest lies to believe is it's not that big a deal. Well, it's not that big a deal. Well, I I really didn't really didn't make that much progress. It's not that big a deal. And I do think that that is the enemy's way of getting into our heads and trying to make us believe lies about the the good things that God does for us in our lives. And it's not to say that God's dragging us along and we're not having to participate, like it's our responsibility, right, to make the progress happen. Um, but God is right alongside of us, cheering us along the way. And Satan wants nothing more than to jump in there and kind of, well, I say jump in there, it's more like sliding your dams kind of a situation. He's super slick and sly, and he tells just the the gentlest twist of a lie to get you thinking sideways, to get your mind off of where God wants you to go, to get your gaze going back to the past, and not back to the past to celebrate, but back to the past to point out all the bad things. When I'm talking about celebrating your past, I'm talking about progress. I'm talking about achievement, I'm talking about meeting and exceeding goals, I'm talking about growing into the man or the woman that God has intended you to be. I'm talking about sharing who you are with others so that they too can get to know the Lord. Like there are so many good things to be celebrating. So again, down those three, we need to learn to keep moving forward. We need to be intentional so that we keep moving forward. And then we need to celebrate, y'all. There is no reason we can't have a good party and celebrate even the tiniest of accomplishments. But when we're moving ahead and we're growing into the men and women that God's called us to be, that is the biggest deal to celebrate of all. Assure yourself, the angels up in heaven, I completely believe, are very excitedly celebrating every time there is someone that is gaining their entrance to heaven, that is accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Um, and that for people who are on the struggle bus, like me, who make goals and are achieving them and getting that much closer to Jesus. Like I know they celebrate, and they are gonna be celebrating big when we come up there and get to celebrate with them too. Well, I guess we're gonna close out for today. Like I said at the beginning of this three weeks, I didn't want these to be super long and whatever else. Healing can be heavy, healing can be well, whatever can be, is it's heavy, it's hard. Uh there's a lot, it's exhausting, you got to hash out, all kinds of old stuff, bli, bli, bli, bli, bli. And just when you start feeling good, then somebody accidentally pokes it, and it's not quite a scar, it's still a scab, so then it gets crusty. You get the idea. Healing's hard, but we can have fun while we're doing it, y'all. It doesn't mean that every day has to be begrudgingly difficult. And so with that, I'm gonna close this out. But thank you so much for joining me. It is always a pleasure to have y'all at the Edwards table for this podcast. And I cannot believe it. Next time y'all jump on here, we will be in the month of June. Can y'all? I can't. I absolutely cannot believe it. Well, make sure that you have the best week ever wherever you are in your day, your week, your month, your year. I hope that you are able to keep moving forward. And until next time, see y'all.