Interview with Joy Bowser - She Married a Non-Believer. Then Spent 7 Years Learning This.

She turned down his marriage proposal twice. Not because she didn't love him—but because he didn't know Jesus.

Joy Bowser married Bill anyway, trusting a prophecy spoken over her. Then came years of alcoholism, sitting alone in church, and wondering if she'd heard God wrong.

Now married 46 years, Joy shares what she learned: stop trying to convict your spouse and let the Holy Spirit do His job.

If you're in an unequally yoked marriage or sitting alone in a pew, you're not the only one. Listen and find hope.

Follow, share with someone who needs to hear they're not alone, and leave a review.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

God bless you and thank you for tuning in to Blossoms of My Life Radio. I'm super excited to bring back a guest. It's been a few years, but she has a new book out, and so I'm super excited to bring her back to you. Her name is Joy Bowser. She's a former factory worker, housekeeping supervisor, daycare worker, shipping manager, and now author. She was born and raised in a small rural northwest Ohio town called Liberty Center and still lives there today. She has a wife, a mother, a mother-in-law, and a grandmother. She's been a Christian since receiving Christ as her savior at eight years old and recommitted her life to Christ to Christ at 18. She married a mechanic whose name is Bill when she was 20 and he was 22, and her cars have never been the same. The fact that she was a Christian and he was not was a problem at first, but she allowed it to continue to give her things and insights on that. She searched for books to help her with the Christian, non-Christian marriage, and was unable to find any to help her during that season. So she trusted in the Bible. She did not did her own studies, looked up everything that she could on marriage and that particular situation. We'll talk about that too a little bit. But she had enough to write a book, and that was her first book, which I'm sure we can talk about too. But that's a wife and a witness. After listening to a woman give a testimony in church about her husband getting saved after 30 years of marriage, she came home and began writing that book. And now thousands of people have been in that same situation and have read that, and God has blessed her in wonderful ways, she says. And the two of them have made their marriage work. And that's that's her first book in the testimony, and that and the wife and a witness. And that's been a few years ago, and so I'm super excited to be able to catch up with Joy. Her and I had the same issue with the publisher that kind of did some bad things, and now we're kind of both self-publishing. So that part is that's how we met. And so, Joy, it's so good to have you back.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

It's always wonderful to chat with you and catch up and find out what God is doing in both of our lives. And I'm excited to bring you what God has given me today.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

I know. So it's been quite a few years since that whole fiasco with that publisher. About eight years, I think.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah, it's been a while. Eighty ten. I think it's ten because I was about 215, 216 when my first book came out. And so, you know, and and I in reading your new book, Move Off This Mountain, which we're going to talk about. You know, you had a section in there about that and that betrayal and everything. And I thought, wow, that really hit because it reminded me. There were so many people that just kind of gave up.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Yes, absolutely. And that's so sad, you know, and and your heart hurts for that because God has so much that he wants to share, especially through Christian authors, and and you know, you go forward and you think this is God, and and for many of us it was, but then evil gets in there and has to destroy it.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yeah, but I just pray for them. I know I'm still part of that one group on Facebook about them. So encouraging them, right? That's what we have to do. And so, Joy. Encouraging. Yes, Joy, let's talk about your first writing. And maybe we could address, you know, I know, and you and Bill have been through so much. But why don't we kind of reintroduce you to our audience and just kind of talk about that journey of first of all, I mean, how did you overcome, you know, being a Christian and your husband not? And I know I read about that in your your newest book, but let's just kind of let our audience know who you are and your walk with Christ.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Um God is a wonderful author of our lives. He has a plan for each and every one of us. And his plan for me was to be a wife and witness. And I had dated many Christian guys, and many being three, I'm not you know, crazy, but you know, three Christian guys, and they all were lacking in something integrity, honesty, purity, they were all lacking something. And shortly after I had had a prophecy spoken over me in a charismatic church that I would be a wife and a witness, I met my husband Bill. He was new mechanic at the old gas station in Grand Rapids, Ohio, where I stopped to get gas frequently. And he told me just a few months ago, and this was this was sweet, he said, I fell in love with your laugh before I knew your name. So that was funny because I would pull in, and him and another guy would rush to my car, and they would tease me a little bit and joke with me. And of course, this was back in 1989, where you had the guy come to your car, clean your windshield, need your gas, check your oil. You remember those days when our listeners would say, What are they talking about? But that's how we met. But we did not date until that was in September. I met him exactly one week after that prophecy had been spoken over me.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

And I dated one guy in September and October, I dated the other guy in November and December, I dated the other guy January, February, and I said, I'm done looking. I'm done. If you've got a guy, you're gonna have to bring to me because I'm I'm done. And I went and I had met Bill in September, but we did not start dating until May. And I had gone over to pump, have gas put in my car so I could drive my younger brothers to a movie in Toledo. And he said, How did they get that lucky? And I said, they asked, and he said, If I asked you to the movies tomorrow night, would you go? And I said, Yeah. And the rest is history. So he believed in God, he had a belief of God, he believed in heaven, he believed in hell, but he had not accepted Jesus as his savior. And so that was where we started with our relationship when we when he asked if if I would marry him, and it took three times because I turned him down twice, just because he was not a Christian, it was like, God, I can't wrap my head around this. But then there was a prophecy shortly before we got married where the Lord said, You will know. You won't have to look this way, you won't have to look that way, you will know. And so, based on that, and reading Galatians and the the fruits of the spirit, I recognized that my husband had some of those already. And so, God, if this is what you want, then I will next time he asks, I will say yes, and so I did, and that was the 25th of July, and we were married that in October on the 18th. So we dated about four months and then we got married. Wow, so it was quick, it was rolling, but then once the ink was dry on the line and life started coming at us, we had issues, and one of them was my husband was an alcoholic. I was not aware of that when I married him. We got through that again. I was struggling. God, if you said this, then how do I get through this? And so I was looking for books on the subject. There were not very many out there that that spoke to my heart that were where I was at, especially marrying a non-believer. And so I got into the Bible and studied and learned and had women's Bible studies, other godly women that pointed me in directions and again into the word. And so, based on these journals and all this, eventually I figured out that I needed to stop looking at my husband and I needed to look at myself and what it was that I was doing with my relationship with God, because I can't point my husband to somebody that I'm not looking at myself. So once I got my life straightened out, then I was a whole lot more a better compass for him to follow. A better compass to to point him to God. And so we about seven years in got got it together at the same time and started walking in that direction. And we have now been married in October, it will be 46 years.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

So we've been at this a bit a little bit, so yeah, and I cannot imagine my life without him. So that is where I come from. That is my story. It's all laid out in a life to witness, the good, the bad, the ugly, the names have been changed to protect the truly guilty.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Yeah. So wow, Joy.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

So seven years, there's a lot of people listening that go to church without their spouses, and and I know sometimes that's hard. What can you speak on about that?

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Actually, there are more people that come to church alone than than most people know. Back when I first wrote the book in 2008, I think it was close to, I want to say one in six people were coming to church on their own. Something like that. But Satan wants us to think that we're alone in this, and we're not. We're not in fact, what happens is people will come to church and see that they are alone and think that they are the only ones, and then they'll quit going. They won't they won't look around and see the other lady. Oh, she comes by herself a lot. She comes by herself a lot and and seek out friendships. They just see that they're by themselves and and and then they then they they quit, okay, because it's too uncomfortable. So my advice is look for the other ladies that are sitting by themselves and strike up a conversation. You might be surprised.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

And and it's sometimes it's husbands that come alone too, you know, that they're waiting for their wives.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Yeah. So and my book has gone both ways. The first time I was ever recognized as an author, I was at a book at a uh a marriage retreat in Nashville, Indiana, and we were having dinner with a couple, and the guy looked at us and he kept looking at me and he said, You look familiar. Have you ever been in Madora? And I had, and I had worked in VBS, and he said, Oh, I worked that same VBS. He said, I had to fill in on Friday because the person who had done it all week had to leave. And I said, That would have been me. So we had not met that week. But but then the next day we were walking around town, we were doing some shopping with some off time, and he came out of the door of one of the stores and he said, I figured it out. You're the lady that wrote the book on marriage.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Because he had he had been a Christian all of his married life, and his wife was not a Christian. So the minister that we had had for a while at our church, and the minister that was now at their church had given him a copy of my book. He said, Your picture's on the cover, that's how I know you. So that was, and we just giggled. We just thought that was hilarious because he walked, you know, yeah, walk out of a store, meets me on the street, and says, I know how I know you. So yeah, it was like weird. So Yeah, and you know it goes both ways.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

It does happen. And a lot of times we come to church and you sometimes we need to be alone just to be with Jesus, you know, and to meet that presence. And so not to be discouraged, you know. I know when I was first starting out, I didn't like it either, and I don't want to be here alone, and then you know, as we mature in our faith, it doesn't it really doesn't matter because we're going to his house and we're going to meet with him, and sometimes I like being alone. I I don't know, that's just me sometimes because I want I just want to absorb everything I can absorb.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Well, my husband and I we we were going to church together all that time, he got saved about a year and a half in, but our habits don't end overnight, and so that takes time to come under the the influence of the Holy Spirit, the conviction of the Holy Spirit. I wanted to do all the convicting, but that's not my job. That's the Holy Spirit's. And so once I let God handle him and I worried about me, we got on a whole better, and that's what took about seven years was the me letting God be God and me just being the wife. So yeah, that made a big difference.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

That made a big difference, and so being a wife and a witness or being a husband and a witness, I mean, that's important, but what I'm hearing you say is that to make sure that our walk is right, you know, absolutely so that we can be the proper witness, right, Joy?

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Right. If I'm showing him the wrong way, that's not helping. That's not gonna help either way. No, because I have to be on the right path in order for him to see what I see what God is doing within me. And if I am loving him as I'm supposed to love God, and if I'm loving my spouse as God directs me to love him, then that's all gonna line up, and he's gonna say, you know what? I see some really good things in my wife. How is she doing that? How is she why is she doing that? I don't deserve that. Well, as I'm loving him with the love of God, that's deeper than what I can conjure up on my own. That's beautiful. So, in order to do that, I've got to be filled with the love of God consistently over and over through the Holy Spirit. And if I'm not looking for that, then I'm trying to walk on my own, and I'm gonna lead wrong.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

That makes total sense. Uh looking at your book, and thank you that you sent me a copy, Move Off This Mountain that just came out. A couple things that stood out. So you started, I love how you write it because like I was saying that you know, you talk about scripture and then you talk about your story and and the things and you've been through a lot, Joy. I mean, this book you started writing this book. Like you take it back to where with with your you know growing up and having a difficult time. What made you decide to finally get it published and finish it? I know it took years to get this dumb paper, right? Just because of everything you're going through, it's hard.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

We we have had in 2015 my mom fell, and I had to take care of her for the last three years of her life, and we've talked about that before, and so I won't go into that whole story, but as she was laying on her desk bed May 8th of 2018, so we had hospice there, family was around all the time, and I have always wanted to write a book similar to a wife and a witness, except call it a mom and a mentor, and that's gonna be leading our adult children to the Lord and being a mentor for them, and so it's between that and move off this mountain. And mom and I have talked over the last three years of our life about all the things that were that keep people from moving on when they should should move on, and God's speaking to us and has a plan for us, and we just for whatever reason, we just we just can't wrap our minds around it, the things that hold us from from moving on. And she looked me square in the eye, and she hadn't been very vocal at all for a couple of days, and she looked me square in the eye and she said, You need to write, move off this mountain. And I had no idea how writing this book was going to affect my life. I had no idea. So it was just two months after my mom got diagnosed with the cancer. That was May 9th. On July 18th, we found out my husband had some form of cancer, and in August, we found out that he had stage four nodular melanoma, and that carried with it a six-month prognosis. And so he started immunotherapy in October, and he had six years of immunotherapy, and he is now cancer-free. Praise the Lord. But we have had a lot on our plate in that same period of time. We left our home congregation, which we had belonged to, I had belonged to all my life. And he had belonged to ever since we had been married. So he'd been part of this congregation for 36 years. And we left that church and found a new church home. We've had situations with our children that have come up in the middle of his treatment, where one of our daughters is estranged, had estranged herself, and things are are healing in that. So I don't want to wanna say more about that because things are doing better. But in the meanwhile, we've led one of our granddaughters to the Lord. We've had her brother also give his life to Christ last November, and so we're hopeful in this. So God is working things for His good, for our good and for His glory. So we're we're excited about that. But my mom had a big influence on this book being written, and so if you look at that cover, you may not be aware of this, but I'll tell you now that that cover picture is my mom and I at Lookout Mountain, Tennessee in 2014. That was the last vacation I took with her before she fell. So and Bill is up higher on the mountain taking that picture of us. So that was the perfect picture for the for the book. And and I joke and I say, you know, it looks like she's getting ready to push me off. And probably she was because she she had she probably knew that once I got things flowing and got things going right, and that this was gonna heal me, and it truly has. I've been able to set a lot of things aside that that had kept me frozen.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

So yeah, in writing, I know it is therapeutic, and it really is. I love I'm on page 27. Look, it says in order to understand the mountains, we must first see our lives as a journey. We must acknowledge that there is a mountain that represents where we are standing spiritually, and then we need to know some terminology. And so I like how you then take us into the different definition, but that's a true statement there, you know, understanding the mountains. Because some of us could have mountains of joy, right? We'd be at the mountain and we're like, okay, well, I don't ever want to come off of this. But but we have to eventually come down for the next journey, you know, because there's gonna be something else that's gonna happen. And some of us are at the mountain and it's it's it's trauma, you know, it's that we're having a hard time, and and we're we can't wait to go down and get rid of this. And so I I do I love the title and I love what you're trying to say. Like, how can we move? Because we can sometimes get stuck.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Well, I if you look at the introduction, our pastor did a sermon probab sermon series probably in 2019, 2020. I had been struggling with what to put in my introduction, and he nailed it for me, and I had his permission to share this in my book. And he shared these four principles about mountaintop experiences. Mountaintop experiences are wonderful because the presence of the Lord is there. He's found in the people and the word of God and in the prayer of the whole hour of the Holy Spirit. Mountaintop experiences are wonderful, but they are temporary. You have to go back where you live and work. Mountaintop experiences are meant to teach us something that was needed and life-changing, whether it's good, whether it's bad. We won't need it or change it if we stay on the mountain. Mountaintop experiences are meant to be shared, but at the appropriate time and in appropriate ways to encourage and uplift others. And what he said was it reminds us that the mountaintop is never to be the destination, but a treasured stop in the journey. So yeah, he summed it up better than I could, and I asked if I could steal it, and he said I could. So there you go.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

But um a treasured stop in the journey. That's true. Like that's our place where we're up closest to the Lord's presence. I love that. I love the title, you know, and like how you said, this book has been in the years of making because there were several areas and you know, journeys as you went on, but then those journeys were, you know, were you writing in between all of these things that were going on?

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Yes. Okay, yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

That's what I thought.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

And in the one chapter, I mentioned that every time I would get going and start writing, something would happen with that situation with my granddaughter and my daughter, and I would freeze me. It'd be I could hear Satan, well, what are you doing writing a book? You got all these issues in your own life. Nobody, you don't deserve to have anybody listen to you. You screwed this up, you screwed that up, and all of these things. But the flip side of that, yes, it froze me for a while, but when I started to untangle the things that were the issues in my life and my daughter's life, the things that she was accusing us of, and uh accepting blame for what I could and put, you know, saying I can't own this to some other things. I finally reached a point where it was like I've done all I can do in this relationship. I've addressed what I can change, and I'm not gonna be uh spoken to like this, either by her or by the by Satan. I've dealt with all this all that I can, and uh it's enough. What God has done on the cross for me is enough. And part of that was to look back at the experiences in my life that have made me not ever feel like it was enough. The times where I always felt less than, the times where I wasn't walking with God as I should have been, and I let myself get turned this way or that way instead of keeping my focus on God. It was at those times that it was like, no, I'm done, I'm done listening to that. That's under the blood of Christ, and we're not bringing that back up again. And there are things that you need to get out and you need to look at it and say, Yep, that was wrong, and then you put it aside. You don't let Satan bring it up and shove it in your face anymore. And so, in doing this book, I've done a lot of that, pulled it up, looked at it, and said, Nope, I'm done with that, and put it away, and and and it's done. And in doing that, I have found the joy of my salvation again. Psalms 51 talks about re return to me the joy of of thy salvation, and I am there. I have had a beautiful friendship with a a friend Penny from our fellowship, and a lot of other ladies in that group, Jan, and that a lot of my dear friends at our new church have just embraced me and taken me under their wing. And the Penny and I have a special relationship. She comes from a charismatic background, also, and we've just been able to sit and talk about the Holy Spirit. She's become an accountability partner for me, and I appreciate that role in my life because I've not had a close sister in Christ for a long, long time. And so to be blessed with six or seven of them now, eight. I mean, the the line of is I'm sitting here thinking, well, my my good Christian friends that are women, it's like it's way bigger than it ever was before. But God has brought us to a place where we could heal and be restored, and writing this book has been part of that, and so I'm very thankful for the people that God has put in our lives that have helped us heal and be restored. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yeah, I love that. Writing does do that. I'm reading this part on page 96. I will admit that this chapter so far has been the hardest to write, it has hit me where I am at. And in writing this chapter, God has dealt with my own heart in every word that I have written. He wants us to be free and to move on. So very true, right? So very true. And forgiving ourselves, you know, like Peter did. Show up for your brothers and sisters in Christ. He went away for a couple days, but he was found with John and Mary. Right? Stand up for Christ. A very much-changed Peter said the life-saving words to 3,000 souls on the day of Pentecost. Repent and be baptized, all of you. Yeah, I love how you put a lot of scriptures. And the other thing I love about the book too is then you put your application questions, you know, where you have the reader to where, you know, the question here, you know, what has happened in your life that has caused you to close up spiritually? Because we can have those moments, like what you're saying. You're experiencing a spiritual rebirth, regrowth, return me to the joy of my salvation. You're experiencing that as you're healing through writing.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

Yes, absolutely. And God does not leave us where we're at. When we face these things, when we see them, it doesn't matter where we're at on the journey, how far we've gotten off center, God will not leave us where we're at. When we confess, when we repent, when we turn around, he will take us back where we need to be. That move is not on us, that is on him. That is on his holy spirit wooing us back, bringing us back into alignment where we need to be spiritually. And if we're not, you have to be honest when you're looking at these application questions. You you you can you can fool me, but you can't fool the Holy Spirit, you can't fool God. And yeah, these application questions, they went so well with the first book in A Life and a Witness, and especially the test this questions, if you remember. But the application questions is where the rubber meets the road. If you're just reading it to read it, you're missing the point. You gotta you gotta answer the questions, you gotta answer it honestly. And if if there's nothing there for you, then you move on to the next chapter. This is one of the few books that the the reader gets to determine the outcome. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

So I love that. I'm not all the way done with it yet. Like I told you, I'm on page 103, so I'm excited to see what's next and what's coming up.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

I don't know if you want to share you're in a tough, you're in a tough chapter. 103 is on this is one, this is one that I had to put away for four months. Oh wow. This was a four-monther because I deal with a situation in there that I was presented with at our new church, our new congregation. And I asked one of my sisters, I said, How do I present this in the book without having somebody mad at me? Because it's it's a dicey situation. And it's like we ended up doing two or three rewrites to make it perfect, but it's like I think we're good there. But you get in these, and I'd be remiss to not say that the title of the book is Move Off This Mountain, with the subtitle being Living Beyond Your Experiences, because things happen in our lives that cause us to be this way or that way or whatever. But in this one, you find this thin line between being self-reliant and being self-righteous. And I in the story that I address in here is there's a lady in it that had left her famil her family situation. She brought her children several states away and raised them on her own. She had a good job, she was able to provide for her kids, but she was a single mother, and she was manning the table at a sale, and a lady who had three or four kids and had talked to some of us, and she was a single mother, had brought up a few items to the table, and this was a by donation sale. So there was not a price on anything, it was by donation. And this lady who had been the member looked at the young mother and said, I think you can do better was her donation. And I was floored because I thought I expected empathy. Yeah. You know, I'd have given her back a five and said, No, this is enough. Yeah. You know, I would have had empathy. But this woman I was just absolutely flabbergasted. But to me, it seemed like she had crossed the line and she'd gone from being self-reliant to the other side. And it was like, but how many and and like I said, it took me four months to finish writing this chapter because I realized as I'm pointing these fingers at her that there's a whole bunch pointing back at me. So when you get to the end of that and the your the our the your story at the end of that, I think it's gonna say ouch.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

So I'll have to message you. I'll have to message you and say you're right.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Yeah. So anyway, yeah, I I think that's the ouch chapter because there's so many things that we do in our own on our own that line right up with what Jesus was complaining to the Pharisees about. That self-righteous opinionated looking down the nose. And it's like, you know, we all kind of do that. So there's something for being self-righteous, and then there, but there's something about self-reliance and self-righteous. There's a real fine line there. So we have to be careful with that. So a lot of times we think, well, I've done this on my own, I don't need to listen to God.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

You know? Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of people that just want to try to do it on their own, and then you know, it doesn't it doesn't work when you're doing it on your own. And you know, we have to have God in all of it. And I that's the other part I appreciate so far is that you made sure that you had scripture reference and biblical story to, you know, show the part. And you know, like what you were saying, that that one little bit took you four months. And so, you know, encouraging others that are listening that maybe you feel like this is taking too long. You're trying to get past a certain spot in your writing, and you really want to share your testimony, but you don't know how and you feel stuck. It's okay, just just write it, and you know, just write it, take your time, have somebody help you and have somebody read it and give you clues on, you know, like why don't we change this and do this? Because and and find people that can do that for you. And you know, because your story does need to get out there when God uh it it just the love of Christ comes in and redeems you that ugly past is gone because he said he's erased it. But other people need to know hey, look, I'm walking in something new, and they're not gonna know if you don't tell them what you came out of, you know, and in the word like there's that board part where it says, you know, you know stench of smoke. None of that's gonna be there. It's like you're just gonna walk out and but you have to share what you came through for other people to say, wow, look what God did.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

Yeah, and that was what was if I if I could sum it up this way a wife and a witness is my story of our marriage. Move off this mountain is more my story. Yes. I don't know if you caught that or not. I am so glad a lot of what I have faced in my life. I have had some wonderful stories, times to one of my cousins that I always it was funny because there were two of them, and I was always the odd guy out. I think I talked about this earlier on. And I had the opportunity to talk to one of them last August, and she said, you know, I'd never thought of that. And when when we met up the next time we were together, it was for a funeral dinner at our old church, which we were, I was able to go back and help serve a funeral dinner there for a dear friend. And four of my three of three of my cousins and I were all in the basement at the same time taking care of this. And she came over to me and she said, you know, you are absolutely right. I am so sorry. She said, I after I got done talking to you, she said, I thought about it. And she said, I remembered all the times, but Mary and I would go outside and we would hide in the dark, knowing that you wouldn't come out and find us after Mary's mom told us we had to go out and play with you. And she said, we were awful to you. She said, I am so sorry. Well, my my cousin Mary and I have have been close for we bowled on the same bowling league for almost 40 years, and and her husband and and and her have become very dear friends to Bill and I. And she was down there, and and Kath, she said, Well, what are you talking about? She said, I'm talking about all those times. You used to go outside and play with her. She said, I didn't realize how devastated and how traumatic that was to Joy. And Mary looked at her and said, Oh, foolie, she'll just have to get over it. And it was like, there you go, this is why I am like I am, you know, and I'm saying, oh foolie, she'll just have to get over it. But I got the last laugh because they had me. I and I told I told my cousin Kathy this. I said, when Mary walked away, I said, Well, I have the last laugh because I said, I've not put anything away in this church kitchen in 10 years. And I said, I feel like I'm playing the best game of hide and seek ever. So I'm getting the ultimate revenge. He's never gonna find this the spoon. So you know how you know how church kitchens are, you know where everything goes, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I have no clue. It's just going in a drawer. I said I'm playing the best hide and seek game here. I love it. So and he humor comes into that too. You know what I'm saying? I've dealt with it, I've taken it out, I've looked at it. I can move on from that, and now I can laugh at it.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

I love that. And that's how a lot of us need to get to that place in different parts of our lives. Wow, Joy.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Wow, and so I can't do another heavy book, so my next book is gonna seriously be Joy in My Journey. I love it. Laugh Until You Leak. I love it. So, and it's gonna be short stories. One of the things that we've dealt with with my husband's cancer is his attention span. Uh-huh. He's doing well, but especially when he was doing his immunotherapy and stuff, he just did not have a lot of focus. So we're these are gonna be short stories, probably less than five minutes to read a chapter, and it's gonna be kind of short and kind of fun. But yeah, I'm excited about it. I was talking to another um couple that are also going through cancer right now, and they shared a wonderful story yesterday, and we laughed until we cried. And then I said, Can I share your story in my next book? And she said, Absolutely. So it's not just our stories, it's gonna be some other ones too. I love them. You know, you you move on, and the Holy Spirit gives us back joy when we're when we're able to give up the things that are keeping us from dealing with him, um, the way we need to. So amen. And I spoiler alert, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

I love it. Joy in my journey. What was that part second part?

SPEAKER_02 40:18

I said laugh until you leak.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

Laugh until you leak. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

Either from your eyes or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Whatever, exactly. As we get our age, we get our age. Joy, um, how can people get a hold of your book?

SPEAKER_02 40:35

My book is available at Amazon.com. Okay, it is Mrs. Joy Bowser. That was thanks to that whole debacle with the other publishing company. I had to change my name. So I am Mrs. Joy Bowser. Okay. And then yeah, just or you can just type in move off this mountain. It usually comes up there too. So anyway, it's available on Amazon.com. We also have a website, awife and the witness.com, but that's just gonna link you to Amazon anyway. So there you go. But everybody is welcome to go to the website, check us out. There's a video there, our mission statement, a daily blog, all the things.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

So awesome. Well, Joy, it's been a pleasure talking about your newest book that has proven to be very healing. And I think other people that pick it up are gonna resonate with those different places and and you know, go through those places and get healing themselves. And so thank you so much for taking the time today to talk about your newest book.

SPEAKER_02 41:48

Well, thank you for having me, and that is our prayer in all of this is that people will come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ and that they will grow in faith and wisdom and make it to the final plateau. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Do you have any last words for our audience before I have you pray us out? No.

SPEAKER_02 42:11

Um, just um, I pray that anybody that has this book, there's a disclaimer at the beginning that if you there's anything in this book that you're unpacking that is too much for you, to please find a licensed Christian counselor to help you with it. Amen. There are some pretty heavy things in here that I'm not qualified to help with, but there are some great Christian counselors that are available to help you unpack it and to keep you in in line with where where God wants you to be. He does not want us to go through this world beat up, torn down, discouraged, destroyed for any reason. And there are experiences in all of our lives that have the potential to do that to us.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 43:03

And so if we are facing that and we get in a place as we're reading this, that we just no, I can't deal with that. Find somebody to help you deal with it because I don't I don't want anything that God has allowed me to write and his Holy Spirit to to lead me in sharing that will do that will make anyone that discouraged, despondent. God has a plan, and it that plan may be for you to seek out someone to help you with that. And so that is my prayer in this study.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

So amen. Thank you for sharing that. Why don't you go ahead and close this out in prayer, Joy?

SPEAKER_02 43:45

Okay, thank you, Lord, for this opportunity today to present to California, the Western Coast, anybody that's in the in the sound of the voice, either podcast, whatever, father, the opportunity. To share the vision and the hope behind Move Off This Mountain. Father, I just pray today that the Holy Spirit will guide those that need to read this book, that they will guide them to it. Yes, Father. Father, that they would be blessed by being able to give up the experiences that they've had in their past that keep them from moving on. Father, we just ask that in all of this that you would be glorified and that we would all reach the final plateau, healed, whole, and complete in you through your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen and amen.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Thank you, Joy. Thank you.