You're welcome. This is the Ministry of Reconciliation podcast. And today we have a special guest with a special name. Holly Sweet Rappa. I had a discussion with Holly at the before we started recording. And uh I I I I she has a very wonderful name. I don't want you to miss the meaning of her name because some of you might be wondering why you call yourself. So yeah, we'll we'll give her an opportunity to tell us what her name means and then we will move on.
SPEAKER_02And and honestly, really, right? Holly Sweat Raper? People hear that, Emmanuel, all the time and they go, Are you is it sweet rapper or is it really sweat raper? And unfortunately, it's really sweat rapper. So let's talk about the name. I was married to an incredible man, Dan Sweat, and 25 years of marriage, and I'm a counselor. I have helped hundreds of thousands of people to identify what their purpose is and walk in it. And so many of my clients kept saying, Holly, please write a book, please write a book. So I ended up writing a book, Secrets of Landing the Job. And anyway, long story short, my husband passed away from stage four kidney cancer. And so when I wrote the book, I wanted to people know me by Holly Sweat. Well, in this later season of my life, God has restored in my life the most amazing man, Bruce. And I took his name on as well. But he had an equally terrible last name, Raper. So now I am Holly Sweat Raper. Two terrible last names, two absolutely extraordinary men.
SPEAKER_01Thank you very much. That helps. And then we yeah, don't mind. Your name is very great. It's memorable. Yes. Yeah, uh, Holly is uh a psychotherapist, a best-selling author, and uh, she has written many books. She has already mentioned the first one, and uh I highlighted one here for you created for success, purpose, and at some point later, we'll give her an opportunity to share with us where we can find those books globally, and also she'll be telling us her website. Today we are looking at navigating life's most difficult seasons. Yes, would you like to share with us an experience you had that led you to focusing on this kind of topic?
SPEAKER_02The most probably devastating or experience I recently went through was, as I mentioned, the loss of my husband Dan. And that is the catalyst of writing living in victory, not defeat. And it's like anything. It's how do we navigate life's journeys? And are we going to are we gonna live in in victory or are we gonna live in defeat? And if we can see the tragedies and the difficulties we go through through perspective of heaven's lens, then it helps us to go through all that we go through. And that is the very um the very thing that I talk about in Living in Victory, not defeat, is my husband after 25 years of marriage. We were having the time of our life, Emmanuel. Our twins, boy-girl twins, were in college, they they had left, they were doing well, and it was just my husband and I, and we were just enjoying life. And all of a sudden, he was diagnosed with stage four kidney cancer, and um, they didn't think he would live, but just a couple of months. But God showed up in the most amazing ways, and we saw miraculous healing. We I saw a tumor go down in my hand. The Lord spoke so clearly to us during this difficult journey. But even in that, you know, sometimes things don't turn out the way we thought, but God is always working, He's always restoring, He's always redeeming, and the very things that we thought were Satan meant to destroy us, God can bring to make us stronger and give us victory. And honestly, I think no matter what we're going through, it is really, really important that we look at the difference between fact and truth. And let me explain that. The fact is, my husband passed away. The truth is God says death, where is your sting? So the world can say, Holly, aren't you devastated? You're a widow and you're going through this difficult time, which can cause you to be angry and frustrated and hit a depression. But my God says Romans 8 18, I consider your current suffering not worth comparing to the glory I will reveal in you. And he said, Death, where is your stain? He revealed to me, Holly, your husband is completely healed. He is doing well. I'm just not done with you yet. You will see him again. But meanwhile, you and I still have work to do here on heaven in on earth. And Emmanuel, I had people say to me, Holly, aren't you mad at God for taking your husband? And I said, Well, that's a great question, but let me address that. Is my husband was an incredible father. And when the twins would come to him and they were hurt, my husband's response was either to comfort them or to make it better. Well, it's the same way as my heavenly father, he's there to comfort or make it better. James says, I will not be tempted by evil, nor will I be tempt by evil. It wasn't God who gave my husband cancer. So what happens is in life we will have tests, we will have tribulations, but God has given us an opportunity to be able to navigate through the trials and tribulations just as his son did and have victory in it to be able to see it in a different perspective. And when then when we walk through that, we have we become stronger, we have more victory and authority. I can now help people who are going through loss of um a loved one because I myself have experienced it, and they're looking and going, How can you still have joy? How can you still have hope? Because God wasn't finished with me yet. Because when we see we serve a God who's not just the God of the mountains, but in the valley. And so when we first got the diagnosis, Emmanuel, there were times that I was going, Lord, thank you that there's only 24 hours in a day because I don't know that I can I can handle the next five minutes. I don't know that I have the strength to even hold on right now. I don't know what what's happening in my life. I don't know what's going on. The person, I mean, everything has changed and I would hear so clearly you don't have to hold on. I'm holding on to you. When I was weak, he was carrying me, and that's the thing. I mean, I I'll never forget it. It was after my husband passed away. And um, it was three o'clock in the morning, and that's when Satan starts, you know, throwing his lies. And I woke up in a just fear and anxiety and a cold sweat. And I kept hearing these lies um that said, Your husband was your financial provider. You're not, what are you gonna do now? You have to sell your house. You can't live the way you used to live. Um, no one's gonna ever love you the way he loved you. You were completely alone, your kids are gone, you're no longer a wife, you're no longer a mother, basically. You haven't been working consistently for the last two years. What are you gonna do about your job? You're 57 years old, you're washed up. What are you gonna do with your life? It's all over. Nothing is ever gonna be as good as it used to. And I remember just laying there going, Lord, do you hear this? And I heard not audibly, but clearly in my spirit, yes, I do. What did I tell you to do? And I said, Well, Lord, you told me that I have more authority than the enemy. And he said, Yes, so stop talking to me about your problems and start talking to your problems about me. So I said, Satan, get out of this house. You have no authority here. I am the daughter of the king. And then I heard then after he left, I said, But Lord, I do have to sell my house. And what am I gonna do about my finances? And he said, What did I say? And I said, Well, you said you would take care of my needs according to your riches and glory, and you have unlimited resources. And I said, But Lord, I feel so alone. He said, What did I say? And I said, You said you would never leave me or forsake me. And I said, But Lord, I really haven't been working for the last two years. What am I gonna do about my job? I'm 57 years old. He said, What did I say? And I said, You said I know the plans I have for you, the plans that prosper you, not to harm you, to give you hope and a future. And I said, Lord, I'm I'm scared. And he said, What did I say? And I said, Lord, I don't know this one. And he said, daughter, I turned the water into wine at the end of the wedding. I've saved the best for last. Wait till you see what I'm going to do. And I said, Okay, Lord, you're inviting me to trust you, even though I can't see it, but I know your character. Honestly, my there have been so many moments that I go, Lord, how in the world could you take so much pain and turn it into purpose? And um, I'll tell you when I was going, okay, Lord, how can I help people who are going through the very same thing that I have gone through? Give them hope, give them encouragement, tell them, I know it's painful right now, but it will get better. And so I started doing that. And in fact, Emmanuel, that's one of the things I'll tell you is we can get so caught up in our own pain, but our lives are bigger than just us. When we start going, Lord, who can I touch? How can I impact others for your glory? And we get outside of ourselves, that's the wine moment. That's when we go, wait a minute, we are bigger than ourselves. And God has created us for a purpose. He created us for impact and for success. And success is never about how much money you have and how much fame you have. What success is about is how quickly you be bound after you get knocked on your butt. And so it was being able to help others who have gone through that very thing. And then having a book, living in victory, not defeat. Never could I have imagined that I would write such an intense book about going through so many, not just the loss of my husband, but the loss of finances in your career and all of those things that hit us, and then how God can restore and heal all of those things. And you know as well as I do, so many of your listeners are going through that pain and they're going, How do I navigate? Is there really hope? And we can say yes while you're still here, he's still writing your story. I wrote Secrets of Landing the Job for anybody who is looking. Who am I? What am I supposed to be doing? And how to step into that calling. And that is on Amazon that's available for anybody across the world to find. They just have to Google Holly Sweat, Raper. And that my new book, Living in Victory, Not Defeat, is truly, it's more than a book. It really is a motto of life that no matter what we go through, God will meet us there and He will turn pain into purpose, heartbreak into healing. And I go through so many different, just excruciating painful moments. And times I really screwed up, but he loved me anyway. Time that I totally got it wrong, and he redirected me. And so it I my prayer is that people see their own story in my book and how God showed up in their life.
SPEAKER_01Kindly tell us your website.
SPEAKER_02It's just Holly Sweat, S-W-E-A-T, Raper, R-A-P-E-R.com. My name.
SPEAKER_01You're a blessing to us. Thank you very much. And of course, I was asking you whether you still have pain, and you had said nope. And you referred to the hearing, the evidence that God has healed. Yes. Thank you. And uh yeah. Uh, and of course, you must be feeling that God has been your strength because he wants you to strengthen other people. I think that's what I now know about you.
SPEAKER_02Here's the thing, you know, only life is gonna have terrible things happen to us. We lose our house, we can lose our finances, we can lose our loved ones, and and so often we can just even question ourselves, my own identity. And so when we're going through that, the one thing that's constant is God's truth. When we say things like, Lord, I just feel like such a loser, he says, Are you kidding? You are chosen, you were a masterpiece. And then you're going, but Lord, I feel so weak. He says, When you were weak, I am strong. When when we're just going, but Lord, I'm angry. And he's just going, listen, anger, and and it's fine to be angry, but have righteous anger. And so when people hurt us, reconciliation, that is that bitterness that's gonna eat us up. So the forgiveness is not necessarily for the person who hurt us because they might not think they did anything wrong or they don't care enough to ask for forgiveness. The forgiveness is so it doesn't eat us a lot. And so we know that hurt people, hurt people. Forgiven people, forgive people. And when we have gone through a difficult situation, we can be bitter or we can be better. Everything we go through is a choice. So if it is, you know what, I'm going to choose this day to walk in victory and not defeat. And that's what I pray, Emmanuel, for your listeners as they're listening to this, is they get hit from left to right. And in my book, Living in Victory, not to feat, I I mean, I go through chapters of just Joe stories. From my husband having a brain tumor and the cancer breaking his ribs, and then my mother being in a car accident, and being in a coma, and then a deer hit my car, a car hit my house. I mean, it was like every time we turned around, something was happening, and we weren't getting a paycheck for I mean it was ridiculous, but God took all of that, saw us in all of it, and you know, and turned it around. You just can't give up because we don't know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much, and what would be your final message to our audience today?
SPEAKER_02My final message is in order to live in victory, not defeat, we have to be able to see things through an eternal perspective. Because in this life, it's short. I mean, I've been to the cemetery. You don't take a U-Haul with you, you don't take anything with you. The only thing you take is the people you touch, the lives that you love, and the impact that you make in each and every one of us is created for a purpose to love and to reach those people that are around us.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure hosting you on the Ministry of Reconciliation podcast. You're always welcome.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much. Thank you.