011: Our Baptisms, Justice Shares First Public Testimony | The Battlefield of The Mind

For the first time, I’m playing the audio from the day Justice and I were baptized at church. You’ll hear my testimony and baptism first, and then Justice shares his testimony in his own words.

Justice has never really had a platform. This is the first time his story has been shared publicly. It felt like such a gift to be able to include it here.

This episode also marks the beginning of something new.

Two weeks ago I finally sat down with our neighbor and landlord, Linda Cross. When we moved here, I had no idea she teaches the Bible every week to women in Spanish across Argentina and Chile. When I asked if I could see her curriculum, I realized it was exactly what my heart has been hungry to learn.

The very first lesson begins with a truth that feels simple but profound: The battle is first won or lost in the mind. 

Sow a thought.
 Reap an action.
 Sow an action.
 Reap a habit.
 Sow a habit.
 Reap a character.
 Sow a character.
 Reap a destiny.

From there we begin learning how real change actually happens.

Not by trying harder to fix behavior.

But by tracing the fruit in our lives back to the root of what we believe about God.

In this episode I share the framework I’m learning:

Fruit: the visible behavior in our lives
Trunk: the desires driving those behaviors
Root: the belief about God underneath it all

For example, my anxiety about provision might look like striving or fear on the surface. But if you follow it down to the root, it can reveal something deeper: unbelief that God will truly provide.

Transformation isn’t cutting a weed at ground level.

It’s uprooting the lie, repenting of unbelief, and replacing it with the truth of Scripture. We are TRANSFORMED by the renewing of our MIND.

Watch the Baptisms

You can watch the baptisms from our church service here:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEzIufDFveo&t=1977s
(((Our baptisms begin around minute 24 of the service.)))

📖 Scripture referenced
Matthew 6:26
Romans 12:2

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey friends, I'm Michaela Dunchaparo, and nearly four years ago, my son father died one week before his first birthday. I possessed the virtue of his air. For years, God has been pruning and stripping and evidently to the garden of our lives. And after years of white my way through the boss, I finally survived everything. My husband and I, along with our five children, sold our beloved home, we've raised them. We're selling nearly everything we own and uprooting our family in Texas to put nearly 1700 miles away in Pennsylvania. We don't know what's happening. We don't have a plan just to back it. We have no idea what we're doing, but we know the one who does. And we believe he's doing something. This is my honest real-time account of what it looks like to fight to become a woman of our right here in the middle of the window into my wrestle with a reasonable. Because the value of the fight really is the way of the woman. And this is where my soul is being forced. If you're wanting to see what I can do with chatterpieces, if you need to believe this to make beauty of Ashes with a chair. If you want to wave a life of our wife, he's got a belief he's writing something worth watching. And no matter what, unfolds here in this reckless event. This is simply an offering for his glory and my valor. Welcome, friends, to the dawn of valor.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

But if by chance a foreign irritant enters the oyster, as a defense mechanism, it will secrete a fluid to coat that irritant. Layer upon layer of this is deposited until a beautiful pearl is formed. This rare, beautiful mystery written in God's glorious creation reflects my salvation story. Being born and raised in the Bible Belt of Texas, I had been immersed in the waters of Christianity all of my life. The gospel may have been familiar, but it was never personal. I called myself a Christian, but my heart was ruled by pride and self-reliance, calloused by pain from a broken childhood. I became a mother as a teen and carried a deep sense of shame and confusion about who I was. Instead of finding my identity in Christ, I spent years searching for worth and validation in the world, and my family suffered because of it. But in March of 2021, at the age of 28, the foreign irritant of the gospel would flow through my ears for what felt like the thousandth time, but seep into my heart for the first. I was sitting on the floor of my office playing with our fourth child, Valor, who was six months old at the time. My dad was remodeling our house, and he began explaining the gospel to another man in the other room. I wasn't a part of the conversation. I heard him explain our depravity and how easily we use our wounds to dethrone God in our minds. We take what we have suffered and place ourselves in the seat of final authority and judge him for daring to judge us. But in honesty, whatever it is we've endured in this life, we actually deserve far worse because of our own sin. Yet in astonishing mercy, God poured the wrath and eternal terror that we deserve on his own son. And is patiently calling us to repentance in order to save us, even while we still hate him. Six months after this salvific moment, as an infant Christian, we would lose the very child I was playing with on the floor the day that God planted his truth in my heart. A week before turning one, Valer Monroe would leap into the arms of the Jesus I was just getting to know. As I plunged the depths of the deepest grief I had ever known. Through the loss of our son, I learned what it truly meant to share in Christ's sufferings. And it was in that cavern of sorrow that I came to know the tender and faithful character of God as he held me in my darkest hour. In the months and years that followed, the layers of sanctification have been at times confusing and almost always deeply painful. Yet has yielded a softened, transformed heart in me, weaned from its self-sufficiency. Just six months ago, the Lord very clearly beckoned us to sell all that we owned, including our beloved forever home, and uproot our family from Texas to Pennsylvania into a temporary furnished rental, having never been here and knowing not one soul. Having no work lined up and having no clue as to why he was calling us to such radical surrender. The owner of that rental was named Linda Cross, and is a beloved member of this congregation who invited us to this very church. And it was within the gut-wrenching surrender of our home that my husband finally surrendered his life to Christ. And why we get to stand united for the first time before yoked in the waters of baptism today. The work in me is far from over. But one day, when this fragile shell finally gives way, what will be revealed is not my own doing, but his workmanship. My life one sealed shell, now hidden in Christ, layer upon merciful layer. My soul will bear a pearl of great price.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Completely self-tender relying on alcohol each night if I look at the alcoholic. But the deeper issue is the outlook on life or God. My own tongue and the tent and no purpose and no. Everything felt pointless, and that filled me with bitterness and I was consistently harsh towards my wife forwards our kids. Always looking for a way to escape my family and a way to follow up for the father. I rejected the God of the Bible, specifically the reformed understanding of who God is. The idea that God chooses those he will say felt wrong. I believed my own sense of morality was better than the one before the world. After 33 years of life, the loss of our 11-month-old son, and the show of the kind of husband and father I born. I reached a point where I felt completely trapped inside the life I worked. I was surrounded by damage I brought upon my family, but it felt impossible to fix. I found a ledge where I planted jump. As I stood there looking down, imagining my body on the rocks below, something became clear to me. I was already a dead man, one way or another. And in that moment, I knew God was confronting me with two choices: a physical death or a spiritual one. I said, Lord, I do not want my life if you want it before. I stepped back from the edge, sat down and prayed. I repented and thanked Jesus for saving all and saving my family from despair. In a way, it still felt like a kind of death. But instead of taking my life, I was giving it to Christ. The entire drive home, I listened to the Bible along with sermons from pastors that had always provoked me before. The very truth that once offended the Lord were the ones bringing me peaceful. I cannot claim that I no longer struggle with sin or that everything has become easier. In a lot of ways, things have actually become more difficult because I am now convicted of my own fallenness and depravity. But in that struggle, there's now something that was never there before. Hope. The same God who saved me is still sanctifying me, tearing old roots out of my heart. He's using my past failures to humble and shape and to God to be. The life I tried to throw away now the world and throw it.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

I was so excited to be able to share. I'm sorry if the audio of that, I just literally held my phone up to the mic and um recorded it in there hoping it would translate. Um I I just thought it was really important that I share what we actually shared in our church. Um because it's so it's so significant to our story and this chapter and our lives. And I was so excited to let Justice's voice ring in this um in everyone's ears for the first time, since he's not um he's not on this podcast and he is not really ever like in a visible part of like being on social media or having some sort of platform, or um, he doesn't share like like in the same capacity that I do, but the change that I've seen um and what I've I've watched him do in surrendering his life to Christ has been it's just experiencing it is so incredibly profound, and then getting him getting to hear him write his own testimony and share it in front of a congregation. Like I it's something that I never ever thought that we that I would hear, that I would experience. I I I say that, and then it's on the other hand, I I knew it would happen, if that makes sense. Like I don't know if that uh that rings true from any anyone else who who has had a a spouse who is an unbeliever and then became it's like you know it's gonna happen someday, like you're having faith and you hope, and then there's this other part of you that's like just never thinks you'll ever get there and that you'll ever see it come to fruition. And we're on the other side of that now, that weight, and just this full this fullness of the moment of hearing his testimony said publicly in front of our congregation, and like and really just getting to share my testimony and our story. They chose like who of us would go first, and they said, You're gonna go first, and we had already written our testimonies, but I really think um, and you know, our church is so new, and it's it's a pretty big church, and so um not many people knew who we were and they didn't know our story except for like the few people we've met and and gotten to share with. Um, and so it just um it was just so neat and so so wonderful to get to see um just that moment come come to pass. And I wanted to share that here because it was such a such a big moment in in the time that we since we've moved. And um, I shared on the last podcast like about a month ago. In fact, I think it was a month to the day that I recorded, and this was something I said, hey, we're gonna probably be baptized. And in the past month it was like planned and scheduled, and um, we had to write out our testimonies and then share them. And so um I thought I would just start off this episode with our with our baptism testimonies and get to share that with you all on here. Um and and just share how how incredibly powerful and and just gracio like I'm just so thankful to God for how far he's brought us in our journey um from where we were to where we are. It's like we have a lot of what I focused on is just how far we have to go, but truly to look back and see how far it is that he's brought us from where we once were is just um humbling and and so encouraging because it really has been such a change in us from who we used to be to where to where we are today. And not that we have changed in all the ways that we knew, but just that we're aware of and and we have a desire, like new desires and new um like new hearts, like we are truly just like new creations, and it's it's wild to to just to look back and and see um to see that and and I shared I shared his testimony with uh friends and family after we did I I texted people like the recording of our church service that day and said, Hey, this you know, minute marker our testimonies and uh baptism start, so if you want to watch them, and I had several people just be like, Man, the work of God and justice is life, like we know he would never have gotten up to do that in front of people, like he would he would rather die. He would never have done something public like that. And um, and it was j it was so true. It was like, I know, like I it's like he's a different person, like entirely, and and I can't emphasize that enough. Like, since he was saved so shortly before we left that a lot of I mean that those few months before we left were just such a blur getting ready for the the sale and the move, and then um it wasn't really settling into any life, but here it's just like been wild to watch and just see him move about in this new way and watch the way that he he is here. Um I've had to tell several people like like you the person you've met, like you are meeting, is not the person that like was in Texas. Like this is a complete, like you're meeting the new version of him that I'm I feel like I'm still getting to know. And you know, the process doesn't like ever stop of like changing and growing in Christ. And in fact, it was it was really cool that after after Justice's baptism, he he came to me the next night and he had talked to my dad for like two hours on the phone, um, which never happens, like they haven't talked one time since we moved here, and um, and also like they they I mean Justice is just not really like a a chit-chatter, and so they were on the phone for the longest time, and I just went to bed and I had no idea what they were talking about. But the next night he had told me he was like, I was like, Oh, what did you and my dad talk about? And um he was like, I can't explain it, but he was like, something happened to me in my baptism, and he was like, I know how weird that sounds. And I was like, What do you what do you mean? And he was trying to describe it for me, and he was like, I I went into it not I a hundred percent believed it was just a public declaration of faith, like it's more for you know, you doing something publicly to declare your like union with with Christ, and like he was like, I know it doesn't save me, and but he was like, It feels like he said, you know, in Bruce Almighty, when Bruce like lassoes the moon and pulls it in, and like it's like giant in the sky, and he's like you know, trying to win the love of you know his girlfriend or whatever, but he he lasso the moon and he pulls it and he makes it like huge, it's like covering the whole entire sky. And he said, That's what I feel like God did with me. Like he lassoed himself to me, where it's like he pulled me deeper and more into his presence where he's bigger and like I just feel him. And he said, I know that sounds like so you know, almost loony. Like, I don't know if that's maybe it's all in my head, and I was like, I don't think that's in your head, I think that's real. And um, and he just said, I just feel he was like, when I was talking to your dad the other night, he was talking about spiritual things, and we were talking about all these different things, and he was explaining things to me, and and I was listening, and he said, It's like it's like he either for the first time in my whole being married to you and being around your dad, like for the first time, he either dumbed it down enough for me to understand, or I somehow magically like could understand him. Like, I actually understood what he was saying, and I've never been able to do that in conversation with your dad ever. And I was like, No, that is real, and um and I explained to him, I said, when you were not saved, um, I wrote about this in my unequally yoked like blog that I had written about, like my experience in being in an unequally yoked marriage, and I said, it was like I was living with you and you spoke Mandarin, and I spoke English, but you thought we spoke the same language, and I couldn't articulate anything well enough for you to understand, and it was like we were speaking on two different in two different languages, like we just could not like connect. There was like this barrier that was between us, but it was like also a mental barrier because it wasn't like, well, you spoke Mandarin and I spoke this language, and we both knew that. It was like I knew that you were speaking a different language, and I was trying to like talk to you in a different language and explain to you things in my own language, and it's like no matter how hard I tried, I could not explain it um well enough or you know, eloquent enough, or you know, intelligent enough, or any like I I just couldn't, no matter what it was, it was like there was always this barrier, and that's what it feels like speaking, and it talks about that in scripture about it like it is a spiritual language, and no matter what you try to do, if somebody is not of the spirit, they're going to only understand how to speak in the flesh. And um, and so I said that's exactly what I I experienced. But it was like I also on the flip side, when I got saved, I would read the Bible and I would listen to sermons and I would c be able to have conversations with my family and um my dad about like deep theological discussions or or things, and I f like I understood it, like it finally like clicked like I was speaking the same language, and so I just was like, that's exactly like this is a real thing, and um and I know it's been happening like slowly in him because he has been, you know, going to church and um reading his Bible and and and understanding and grasping things uh slowly but surely, but at the same time, there was still probably some sort of barrier because he actually talked to. One of his good friends, Caleb, at church, about it, about his experience. And Caleb was like, Well, when you get saved, like to be in obedience, you should be baptized. Like it says, like, to be baptized when you believe. And so when you're when you're not baptized, you're in disobedience, basically. And so he was like, it probably was a spiritual hindrance from your growth in certain areas. Maybe that was like understanding. And so when Justice said it was like another layer of a veil being pulled off, it was just it was just so this whole experience, like this whole living out this surrender and this like deep oh my gosh, like this journey of walking through just some of the deepest loss and and trust, like choosing to trust the Lord and and not having any guarantees of what it's gonna look like or how it's gonna turn out or you know, anything, but just to like hear and see justice like in this new place and like really aware of his, you know, his need for Christ and his, you know, awakening to, you know, his his needing to lead our family and his role in our family and his um you know how vital his role is. And it's just been just so amazing. I can't emphasize enough like how in awe of God I am and just how there's so many times I can look back and and not be able to ever picture, like I I wasn't able to picture what justice would be like, what how how God would do anything with him because he was so hard-hearted, he was so stubborn, and he was so set in his ways, and and there was no arguing with him, and he was so convinced by his own sin that his his mind could like his judgment of morality was better than God's and like somehow he he was not able to submit, like he couldn't understand like God and and and just to see like I I just I don't know like I cannot believe that and I can I can believe because it's God, but there were so many times where I wanted to give up hope and that I just thought like there's just no way that God is ever gonna be able to penetrate his heart, and I often did think that like it was gonna have to like take some kind of insane life event, and I thought when Valor died, it was gonna be the thing that finally crushed him enough to humble him to the point of needing, like knowing he needed the Lord. And then when it didn't happen, I was convinced like if that didn't happen when that like I feel like the only like the next horrible thing that would have to happen is I will have to die. Like I will literally have to die in order for justice to be saved. And there's some truth in that. I I shared, I think, on a previous episode that there was at one point a time in our I think I shared this, um, there was at one point a time where after Valor died, and I was praying so hard for justice's salvation, and we were in such a hard point in our marriage, and I felt like I truly felt at a lot of times that it was hopeless, like that there it would never get better, and that we were doomed to fail, and that there would just be no way we could come out from this and that justice could be saved. Like he, I just couldn't see it. And and I remember, and one of the main things in my life is like I uh I had like had a panic disorder when I was young and I was always like afraid of death before like before especially getting before being saved. But even like after being saved, I still had this like pan, like I'd have anxiety attacks, I would have like these um moments where I thought I was having a heart attack, and I would um I would think I was dying, and I was like so fearful of death. And at one point I just walked around my house after, like I be I came to the end of myself, like truly in my spirit. Like it was almost one of these things where I was like, I because I thought that I would have to die in order to save justice, I was almost like, Lord, do anything but that. Do anything but kill me in order to save justice. Like, can't is there any other way? Like, I don't want to die, I don't want to leave my family, I don't want to, like I was so scared of death for some reason. And then I came to this like really softened place one night where I just like stopped white knuckling my life, even like where I truly in my heart of hearts, like it wasn't just words, it wasn't just like pretending or you know, kind of being like, oh, you know, maybe not, but like I'm just gonna say it just to sound, you know, good. But I really did like relinquish my life into the hands of God, like in a real way. And I was like, I had I went around my house and I anointed every single door frame with oil, with valor oil. Um, I didn't know what if there was any spiritual significance to that. I didn't know like I'd never anointed anything before, like I didn't grow up in a charismatic, like where people were just like anointing people all the time, um, or things, or like, you know, doing any of that, like voodoo in your house or whatever. Like it was just it was it was just like a random thing I did one night, just like weeping and coming to the end of myself. And I I remember anointing every doorway while while people slept and crying and weeping and just crying out to the Lord, and I said, Whatever it takes, Lord, even if it costs me my life, even if it costs me my life, save him. Please save him, even if it means I have to die. And I just I I think of that moment often because I'm there are so many things that aided in Justice's salvation, for sure. Like, so many people have prayed for him, so many people have like prayed for our family, I've had pastors pray for him. Like, there has been so much that's gone into his salvation for sure. And it's not all my own doing or anything like that. That's not what I'm trying to claim, but there was like this softness in it, and it is ironic that I look, I don't know what happened in the spiritual realm, but I relinquished my life and was like, even if it kills me, even if you have to take my life, save him. But at the same time, I was anointing these doorways in that moment, and it was through the relinquish of our relinquishment of our home when I finally said, Okay, God, and we sold our house, and I had no idea why he was pushing us into this corner where we we were clearly being called to do this radical surrender, and I relinquished that five days after accepting an offer, Justice surrenders his life to Christ. And in a way, it did cost me my life, like everything that I deemed my life, like my my home, my stuff, my like just all the things that made up my life, like my hometown, my like my family, everywhere I lived, everything that defined who I was and where I came from, it did like in a way, it was like that's why after he did come to Christ, I wrote a blog about it called um a home in exchange for a heart. And it felt like that to me, where it's like, I don't know how this works in the spiritual realm, but it feels like the Lord saved him and saved his heart, like in this surrender. And after so many years of like white knuckling and prayer and petitioning and um and and just trying to be obedient even when it didn't make sense, and even when it felt like so much friction in my own household was like against me. Um, but it's just it's just truly magnificent to see how far and how faithful the Lord has brought us. Like, I can't stress or emphasize that enough. Like the Lord is just so good, and there is no one too far gone. Like, there is no one with a heart that is too hard or a life that is too far gone. Like, we give up so easily on people, like we give up so like after a few prayers and after like a few, you know, we may like petition a few times or like ask for what we want or the salvation of whoever, but like it took years. It took so many years, and like I can't explain how far, like how deeply the Lord drew me into him through the time that justice was not saved. Like he was doing a work in me. I was in my Bible, studying scripture, un trying to understand theology, trying to like be a better apologist, trying to be, trying to like equip myself to be to understand my Christianity, my religion, like all of the like to be able to defend the faith. Like I was enriched in this process through justice's hardened heart. And then in his timing, he made this, he he did it. He he's the one who brought justice to the end of himself, and he did it in an entirely like way that I could have never predicted or seen. Like I would never have thought, oh, my husband's gonna go to the Grand Canyon and nearly kill himself, and that's where he's gonna surrender his life. Like that was never on my radar, and yet God saw fit to just align things and make things happen in the way that they did, and then did it in his timing, and he gets all of the glory for that. And I'm just so I'm so thankful for how far he's brought us in our relationship with him and what he's doing in in this in this season, like in this new season, in this new place, and how how much he is just planting in us and how much change he is allowing to take shape. But it's also would not have been possible. Like I see all the change in us and all of the the things that are moving and the pieces that are moving and the the softened ground in our hearts and like the way that he is rest like promised to restore the years that the locusts have taken. And like the way that he is he's working in our lives, but it would not be possible if we were not in a position, like in a heart posture of surrender, like where we were we wanted, like he did it with us, like in in conjunction with our like God's sovereignty was working along with man's responsibility. Like we still had to relinquish control. We still had to um to come to the end of ourselves and be willing to be stripped and pruned and and walk through it and become and look at through the lens through the lens of our pain, all the things that we've gone through, like having to cling and look to Jesus instead of like at our pain and our past and what was done to us and what has happened to us and like all of the things like we've we've worked alongside him, and he's been able to accomplish so much good on our behalf, and maybe not good to the world standards, but good for our souls, for the etern, the eternal good of us and the um the eternal good of our family. And so um I just share, I just wanted to share all that because that's what kind of was on my heart and just what I've seen and what I was so excited to share in this episode about our baptisms and getting to be baptized alongside each other. Like that was not something that was on my radar either. Like I've been a Christian since 2021, and I had been baptized in the past, and I never thought that I should be baptized again. Like I was just looking forward to Justice's baptism. And then, you know, our pastor here really strongly encouraging me to get baptized as well, was like, oh, I guess that does make sense to get baptized after I'm a professing, like actual regenerate person, um, to do that as a public declaration of my faith. So just getting to do it together alongside each other and it being this beautiful kind of like story that was knit uh together because both of our testimonies are so intricately woven in one another. And as a husband and wife, to just like be able to stand in the waters of baptism like the same day and go through that together was just so so incredible. Like I can't explain what it was like to be able to do that and to have this like physical thing I could see as like you know, what he's done inside us, like an outward expression of this inward transformation. So I wanted to share that, and then I also wanted to just um I wanted to share probably one other thing because I feel like this episode could all be dedicated to just the baptism thing, but and I I have so much other things that have happened and things I could say, but I decided like I if I have to trim it down to one thing, it was gonna be the baptisms and then this other thing that happened, which um so we moved here and I've shared the story of Linda Cross, our neighbor and landlord. And you know, this is how we found this house, and she was a missionary for 30 years, and you know, so great. She was a Christian, and we get to rent from a Christian, and then she's who, you know, connected us to her church, and that's how we found the church, and you know, that's how justice is like we've, you know, kind of like found our growth groups, and we're in this marriage and family class, and we're in Roman study in our sermons on Sunday, and we're just really drinking from a fire hydrant when it comes to like just learning and growing and um in in Christ in in the body, and we're gonna become church members next Sunday and all really exciting things. But Linda is somebody who I didn't actually get a lot of time to connect with in this six months that we've been here. Um, we had Thanksgiving over there. She invited us for that, which I was so grateful for. But we had previously tried to c connect, and I wanted to go see her and wanted to kind of get to know her on a personal level um several times, but it was like right when we moved, I got sick and I herniated my back and we couldn't get together. And then she went out of town to see her daughter in another state and ended up being injured, like falling and getting injured and having to have surgery, and took her a while to get back, and then once she was back, she had to like, you know, recover. And then stuff kept happening like back and forth and back and forth. And finally, two weeks ago, we were able to meet. We finally nailed down the date, and you know, nothing happened, nobody got sick, we weren't, you know, nothing catastrophic happened. So we finally were able to come together and meet for one afternoon. And so I went over there, I just walked next door, and we sat down and we talked, and I was, you know, I was trying to get to know her and more of her story and and all of that, and and she just, you know, she ends up sharing that she teaches. Um, she's fluent in Spanish. She was a missionary in Chile, but she also teaches at a college um in Spanish online um once a week. And so she teaches and I was like, Oh, well, what do you teach? She's like, I teach a Bible to women. So um she kind of focuses on um women, like, you know, biblical, like Bible truths about, you know, how to live, basically, how how to go about the Christian life. And um, and so she teaches on these things. And I I said, that's fascinating because I feel like that's exactly what I need to learn. I have not really had like a spiritual um, like I've not had really close discipleship um or or like a mother of some sort, like no one to emulate, in other words. And um, other than my my aunt, honestly, my aunt Faith back at home. Like she was probably um just one of the I mean most incredible women that I've ever known. And I um have had her example, but again, she's my aunt and we um had limited time together. It's not like she, you know, came and discipled me or or something. So um, so yeah, I just I I've been needing like a spiritual mother of sorts, and um, and she she's explaining all of this. And so I said, Can I look at your like curriculum, like what you've written? Because she develops and writes her this curriculum. And so she she's like, Yeah, I have an English version. Um, so she gets me the copy and I like start flipping through it. And I mean, like, I'm gonna read you the first of this, and I want you like the Lord is just so good. Like, this has been my whole pursuit on like this is what this podcast is, right? Like, we're I'm pursuing how to become a woman of valor. And really, those are pretty words, but what does a woman of valor mean? Like, really in a biblical sense, like a woman who knows how to live, how to live a biblical life, how to live out my calling, how to be courageous and bold and um in my faith and to be well equipped to disciple my own children and to raise them up to love and fear the Lord and um and how just how to be effective, how to how how to be an effective human as a Christian, like and to stop like flailing about and not like I said in the last um podcast episode, like how to stop staying in Romans 7, where Paul is like, what I want to do, the I don't do that, but what I hate doing, that's what I keep on doing, and like I don't know why my you know flesh wars against me all day, every day. And how to move into more of Romans 8, where there's no condemnation in Christ, and we don't have to live in the flesh because we live in the spirit and we set our minds on the things of the spirit, and we are transformed by the renewing of our mind, and we are, you know, we're we're living out this life, we're doing, we're being doers of the word, not just hearers. And so that's essentially what I've been on a quest, if you will, to do. And then here she comes along, and this chapter one, this is the first like part of her, like, and the whole thing is like a nine-week um, I think, a nine-week thing, but um, chapter one, the battlefield of the mind, the war within, this is the introduction. Every believer soon learns that the fiercest battles of the Christian life are not always fought in visible arenas, but within the hidden territory of the mind. Before words are spoken or actions taken, the battle is first won or lost through thoughts. Paul gives this call to arms. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10 5. The mind is not neutral. It's a battlefield where competing voices, God's truth and Satan's lives, vie for control. Our thoughts shape our desires. Our desires shape our actions, and our actions shape our character. This is why Proverbs teaches, for as he thinks within himself, so he is. Proverbs 23:7. The direction of our lives will always follow the direction of our minds. John Piper once observed, the mind is the citadel of the soul. If the enemy plants doubt, fear, or pride within our thoughts, he can unravel our obedience. But when our thoughts are guided by truth, our faith grows strong and our lives stand firm. In the ancient world, fortified cities often built watchtowers along their walls. These towers gave soldiers a high vantage point to scan the horizon for danger. In the same way the Christian is called to be a watchman over the mind. Our thoughts are gateways of the soul. What we allow to enter will either strengthen us in Christ or slowly erode our faith. Okay, so this is like chapter one. These are like part of what I'm trying to show you that she is like teaching on. And it talks about peace for the guarded mind and what the enemy's strategy is. I love this timeless principle. Um it said, sow a thought, reap an action, sow an action, reap a habit, sow a habit, reap a character, sow a character, reap a destiny. And isn't this like this is maybe not like literally mind blow I don't know, it felt kind of mind blowing to me, but it's also like not something like I don't it's like, oh yeah, I that makes sense. Like obviously what you think translates into like what you believe, and then that ends up you know being what you do. It's like the actions, and then what you what you you do turns into a habit and then that forms your character and then you know that you know determines your destiny so it was just it was so it was so amazing to to just like see this written out and I was like I need to go through this like I need this class like can I take this class how much does this cost um and she just let me take the packet and like begin working on it and she said well do you want to meet once a week and we'll just go through this and we'll work on the things that you need to work on and we'll just like have a Bible study and just start learning how to do this and I was like um yes I absolutely do need to and want to do that. Um and I just said I I don't want it to feel like I'm just trying to like you know take up your time or like your energy or anything but like I I've needed this for so long and she was like no I love to teach like I love to teach and she's older in age she's in her 70s and you know she just can't um teach in the way that she once did like she used to travel and like go to these different countries and um and she just can't do those that anymore and so she you know she expressed like this is a gift to be able to do this. So you're an answered prayer to being able to like pour out in this way. And so I was like well that's crazy and I'm so thankful. So um we're beginning that process and we're meeting once a week we just met again on um yesterday was our first like actual meeting and um my friend Andrea who is from Chile who she has been one of our close friends here her and her husband James um have really like taken our family under their wing and just been you know just pursued friendship and relationship with us and she's went she came with us um and and wanted to go through the packet too. So in a way like I'm I'm being like I'm being discipled in this which is just really foundational truths. It's like teaching me things that I like I should probably know how to do this. But you know I was never really like taught it was never broken down in this way and um and just getting to understand like my whole thing has been like how do how do I change? Like how do I stop doing what I use you know like what I hate about what like the way that I act or behave or you know the way that I respond to my children or the way you know that I talk to my husband or the way that um you know I operate just like my the way that I am and and the world will just say like oh it's just the way you are or it's other people's fault or here's you know some self-preservation way of looking at things and and know like scripture calls us to sanctification and calls us to die to ourselves and to slay our flesh and that we don't have to be slaves of the flesh because we're we have freedom in Christ. So we don't have we don't like that those thoughts and our habits and our sin and and what we don't we know doesn't align with um a life of godliness and holiness like that doesn't get control over us. Like we get to live differently and we get to stop bowing to our sin and we get to be free in Christ. And so I've just loved going through this um there was like this one I love word pictures I'm such a word picture person. I feel like if I can just see a word picture it helps me understand the context and the content of whatever it is I'm learning better. And um when we're talking about fruit, you know, producing fruit in our lives and if we want good fruit but we continue to see bad fruit in our life essentially like how is it that we get rid of the bad fruit and start producing good fruit like it's so easy to say well I'm gonna just stop yelling at my kids or I'm just gonna stop you know drinking or I'm just gonna stop watching porn or I'm just gonna stop you know doing this or doing like I'm just naming these random sins. But like it's so easy to just say you know you get fed up with yourself and you're like I'm just gonna stop doing that. But there's really no there's no like there's no lasting effect in just deciding one day like I'm just gonna stop doing that because I hate that about myself. There's not um there's not a biblical way in which you're going about that. And I love this word picture of this, you know, this plant or tree and um it's like the behree, like what's pretty being what you see, you know, the leaves, the fruit, those are your behaviors. So whether they're good or bad, that's what you're gonna see outwardly. The trunk of the tree or plant is the desire like what your actual desires are and then the belief that goes down into the roots underground is what you can't see. So like what's really producing up top the behaviors like what you're what you're doing is really if you trace it all the way down it's gonna be what you believe. So let's say that you know as an example like one of one of my behaviors that I tend to constantly fall into is you know feeling the weight of provision. And so I feel I produce a lot of fruit of anxiety um because I constantly am thinking how am I going to make things work? How it's I it's it's up to me. I've got to figure it out I've got to do this I've I've just oh I've operated that for like that and for a very very long time because of my childhood the way that I grew up and then getting out on my own and being a teen mom and being you know I I had to provide for myself and no one came to save me and no one like ever helped me. And so I just I've always felt this like it's up to me. I've got to do this and then you know once I found success in entrepreneurship and in photography I was like see I finally figured it out and so I have so then that produced pride in me because I was good at something and then I got you know recognized for it and um I was better known for what I did. And so then I you know I there was all this rotten fruit because really if I trace it back down all the way down to my belief it's that I don't actually believe I didn't actually believe and I haven't for a long time that God is my provider because if I did believe that then I wouldn't produce pride or anxiety. And so in order to up like I can't just say well I'm gonna stop doing I can't just cut it like it to just say I'm gonna stop doing something like I'm gonna stop you know being anxious. I'm gonna just stop you know I'm just gonna stop being anxious I'm gonna stop being prideful I'm gonna stop being you know this way is like basically just getting a weed and chopping it down at ground ground level. It's like for a while it looks better and maybe for a while I can stop doing that thing but you're not actually getting it out. Um you're not actually rooting it out of your life you're leaving that root system in there and eventually it will grow and it'll spread and so you just that's why people keep continuing to struggle with sin and with different areas and that's that's just one example that I'm you could use this for any sin that you struggle with in your life but I loved the word picture of that and how how she describes in this that I'm learning is that like to take to actually produce different fruit and to stop struggling with this to uproot it you have to actually recognize like it and it does take mental effort because you have to go okay because it's not always obvious sometimes it's like what is this actually rooted in is this is this actually like a belief about God like and and you have to think about what is that belief that I don't you know that I believe that I have to uproot and so um so you have to trace it back. It does take some effort to to feel like you are getting a real handle on what the belief is and then you have to recognize it like you're not gonna be able to uproot something if you can't even admit to yourself that that's like an a belief that you have about God or it's an unbelief like maybe you don't actually believe what God says in his word. Maybe you don't believe that he's your provider or maybe you don't believe that he will give you everything that you need and so you look for it in substance or you look for it in you know a person or you look for you know your needs to be met by these other things and it's like the really the root of that is that you have an unbelief in God. Like you don't believe that he is who he says he is and that he's going to provide for all of these needs and that he can be your sufficiency and he can be um and that he loves you and that he sees you and that he is enough and that he is satisfying. And so you you know all of this rotten fruit is produced in our lives and then we just kind of like ignore it or we just say well this is just how I am or we like just stop trying to do certain things and it's like cutting the root or cutting the weed like at the you know ground level but in order to uproot it you have to recognize it first and then you have to uproot it by repenting by repenting of the actual thing that it is you're doing and it's not I repent for being anxious it's I repent like it's specific I repent for being for not believing that you're my provider how like it's a heart posture of like Lord you everything you say and your infallible word is true and you say you're my provider. So I repent of relying on my own strength and and thinking that I that things are up to me and that I can make anything happen or that any amount of success or money or not having money like that it's up to me that it's on my shoulders it's not it's all you and it's up to you. And so I repent of that you know that wrong belief that you're not my provider and then and then you have to replace it. You can't just leave it void because then it will you're not going to produce the new fruit in its place of just take root uprooting it and then again the a lie can be sown a a habit can fall back in there where you're you're believing the same thing and you're following back into the same patterns. So you have to replace that void with truth so that the truth can then be planted and grow the new fruit from your new desire that's rooted in a right belief and a in a truthful belief. And then the fruit of that is going to produce um like a a righteous fruit like fruit of the spirit and so you know in my case maybe that's you know meditating on scripture that like you know you see the birds of the air and they need they neither sow nor reap and yet your heavenly father feeds them all. Like and then meditating on that truth and like speaking that truth and praying that truth like we are called to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And the renewing of our minds is washing ourselves in the word daily and then having an active prayer life that prays scripture back to God that's like Lord thank you that the birds not even the birds sow or reap and you take care of all of them and that I don't have to rely on my own strength for my own provision. I don't have to strive and toil in a way that it's um you know it's it's self-serving or self-seeking but that I can just simply offer my gifts and my vocation up to you and do it as unto the Lord and you will provide you will send your manna you will send your daily bread and you will provide for every single need that I have and I I can trust and I can find my sufficiency in you and you will provide and those are the kinds of prayers that you can start praying the scripture back to the Lord and you can replace and you can meditate on and you can um you know I'm I'm gonna actually print out there's gonna be a lot of the a lot of the sin struggles that I have I'm going to I'm in the process of finding out exactly what scriptures counter those lies and what his scripture and his promises actually say and then I'm gonna print them out and I'm gonna put them everywhere in my house like every place that I stop like by the sink by the door by my mirror by my I mean just like on my ninth stand anywhere that I am just like constantly and I'm just gonna read them and I'm gonna meditate on them and I'm going to remember to pray them back to the Lord. And um you know it says that um in the in the Bible it says you keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you in this packet it says notice what this verse does not say it doesn't say um it's not the promise that life will be free of trials, losses or uncertainties. It does not suggest that peace comes when problems disappear. Instead it teaches that peace comes when our thoughts cling to the Lord in steady trust peace is not the absence of struggle but the presence of God. Paul echoes this truth and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So there's just so much I just wish I could like just go through and read this entire packet. Maybe I will maybe that's that's what this podcast is going to be changed to I'm just gonna read through Linda Cross's uh curriculum and teach you guys because I said you're invited to listen as I learn too so I'm just this is what I'm learning and I'm just going to read through it because honestly I feel like you guys would be better served by her than me. But I just it's so good. It's just such a it's such a deep and just I it's so easy to understand the way that she's put this and I told her that the first time that I met her I was like I wish I had the gift of teaching and I just don't like I feel like I have the gift of storytelling but I just like don't know how to like take my own stories and like translate it into like actionable um teaching for other people and I feel like I wish I had that strength but she does she has the gift of teaching and so I will just teach you guys what I'm learning from her because it's just invaluable and it's so I love the practicality of it too because right we like go to church or you know women's groups or conferences or whatever and we're like given you know we we can read the Bible and we can listen to a sermon and you know we apply it to our lives and yes it absolutely changes us. Like it it does I mean the Bible is sharper than a two-edged sword it's living it's active it's live even when you're reading it and you're like I don't even understand what it is I'm reading it's still changing you. Like it is still it it's still doing a work in you because it's alive and it's not just like black words on a white page but at the same time like it's so nice sometimes to have like teachers that can tell you that can show you like okay do this like you want to change the way that you are you want to stop doing you know this thing then do this like meditate on God and it's all biblical like it's not like the Bible doesn't say to do these things it's just helping like this is just putting it in a word picture and helping my brain comprehend like oh to renew my mind and to be transformed you know and to understand that like my character has been shaped by like my habits and my habits by you know choices and these you know and these desires and um and just all of it like it's it's all this and then it's like shaping my destiny and where I'm going. And if I want to change the trajectory of my life then I've got to change my character and how do I change my character I have to change who I am and what I do and how I respond and how like just all the things about my life. And so how do I do that? Well I've got to change these things well how do I do that I've got to change these oh oh it all leads back to a root of belief about I've got to change my root beliefs about God. That's really how the enemy changed the trajectory of Adam and Eve's life right like it was just a subtle lie. It wasn't like this you know big ugly thing. It's not like it was just this you know overt in fact it sounded really good. It sounded really you know beautiful in the way they the the serpent said hey you know what that's not what God said like God just you know you know this is what it actually means like he doesn't want you to eat it because like you're gonna be like him and you're gonna know good and evil and it's gonna, you know, look how beautiful this fruit is and like it's you know the the enemy is like always alluring and and seems I mean he's he's an uh you know he prances around and like disguises himself as an angel of light. Like it's always these you know half truths or little truths that we're constantly like we're engaging like we're we're taking in in social media or the news or things we're reading or you know audiobooks or podcasts and like we don't know how to sift them or decipher like what's a lie from truth and then it roots beliefs in us and then it starts sprouting character and you know behaviors and desires and and and changing the way that like who we are and it's you know it produces um all of these you know this rotten fruit in our lives and then you know we look up one day and we're like how did I how did I get here? When did I stop you know when did I stop caring about the way that I was you know treating my my husband or my s my kids or my my spouse or my family and and when did I start you know numbing out on social media and like being addicted to this and drinking every night and and you know hanging out with these people and cussing and what like I know that all of this is just not you know good but like how where did it start and how did I get here and why am I this way and how do I change? And so that like I just as I'm going through this and I'm like reading it and I'm just like how is it that the Lord literally out of the whole state of Pennsylvania said I mean it's insane. Like we looked at the whole state of Pennsylvania and he literally placed us in Linda Cross's house next door to her and I'm now able to walk next door and get spiritual discipleship and be taught these things from a woman who has lived a life of sacrifice and has walked and gone through hardship and I told several people I was like it feels like I live next door to like a version of like Corey Tenboom or Elizabeth Elliot or like like this amazing you know woman of faith that you know is just going down in history as like one of the greats you know like it feels like that's who I I moved in next door to which is exactly the woman who would be the best woman to learn how to become a woman of valor you know um so I just I I just I wanted to share I wanted to share what I was learning because I just feel like it's so pertinent it would be helpful to somebody listening and um and if you want to hear more like of what I'm learning from her like please tell me maybe send me a DM DM on Instagram even though I'm not on there. I like check it once a week on my computer and I just like go and like to my messages and make sure I don't have any any messages that are super important that I need to get back to. And then I check my business one but you can do that or you can send me an email um or something. Like I just I would love to know what your thoughts are on like hearing more from Linda Cross's curriculum because goodness gracious it's it's so good. But anyway I feel like I'm running out of time for this episode and I just wanted to share what the Lord was doing share about our baptism stories and our testimony and just all the work in um Justice's life and in our life and and just say like to God be the glory because it's truly incredible what he can do with like the most broken vessels that seem like the very like we are the last people on the earth that deserve his mercy and kindness and transformative grace that he's bestowed on our life and um to hear that he's able to use our brokenness and our stories and our testimonies for like the the betterment of his people and you know to speak into other people's lives. I mean so many people came up to justice on the Sunday that he shared and just said that was the most beautiful testimony I've ever heard. People had messaged him on Facebook and um you know it's just it's really it's really amazing to see how the Lord just uses everything and that nothing is wasted and um that he could use the likes of us for anything good. It's just incredible and undeserved and I just I just love laying my life bare before him to use and um it's truly just a it's a miracle it's a joy and it's a delight to be to be his daughter and I cannot wait to See him face to face. Thank you for listening to The Dawn of Valor. I'm just a wife and mom toiling in life's garden out loud in real time. This podcast is self-produced, and your support helps me keep writing, creating, and showing up in the way God has called me to. If you'd like to support, you can join me as a paid subscriber on Substack, where I share deeper reflections, personal writings, and QAs. Or you can give a one-time gift through Buy Me a Coffee. Both links are in the show notes. Whether you support there or simply listen, it means more than you could ever know. For his glory and my valor, I'll see you next time.