Guard Your Heart: Why Your Words Reveal What's Really Going On Inside You | Christian Healing

Guard Your Heart: Why Your Words Reveal What's Really Going On Inside You | Christian Healing 

What if the words coming out of your mouth are revealing the wounds you've been trying to hide?

In this deeply personal episode of Journey to Loveland, Maronda shares Chapter 11 of her healing journey and explains why our words are often the clearest indicator of what's happening in our hearts. Through her own experience of heartbreak, divorce, bitterness, and restoration, she reveals how God transformed her from the inside out—not by changing her behavior first, but by healing the root of her pain. 

Drawing from powerful scriptures including Matthew 12:34, Proverbs 4:23, Psalm 51:10, Ezekiel 36:26, Jeremiah 17:9, and Galatians 5:22-23, this episode explores how unresolved hurt, fear, pride, insecurity, and disappointment eventually show up in our conversations, relationships, and daily lives. 

In this episode you'll discover:

❤️ Why your words are a window into the condition of your heart
 ❤️ How unresolved wounds silently affect your relationships
 ❤️ The connection between emotional healing and spiritual growth
 ❤️ How bitterness, fear, and shame shape your conversations
 ❤️ What it means to guard your heart according to Scripture
 ❤️ How God replaces a heart of stone with a heart of flesh
 ❤️ Practical biblical steps to surrender your heart and experience lasting transformation

If you've ever wondered why you keep reacting the same way, speaking from pain, or struggling to let go of past hurts, this episode will help you move beyond surface-level behavior changes and invite God to heal the deepest places of your heart.

Because lasting transformation doesn't begin with changing your words—it begins with surrendering your heart.

Healing starts at the root.
 Your words reveal the fruit.
 God wants to transform both.

Journey to Loveland is part of the Chickology Podcast Collective, where women heal in the open, grow in truth, strengthen their faith, and discover God's purpose for every season of life.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey beautiful people, welcome back to the Journey to Loveland podcast. My name is Miranda, and I am super excited that you all are here with me on today. So get your pen and paper, your coffee, your tea, and get comfortable because we're going to have a great conversation today as I share my journey, chapter 11 of my journey to love land, to a place of loving myself, coming to a place of wholeness of where I need to be. You know, after heartbreak, after loss, after disappointment, you know, a lot of times our life starts to change because we stray away from God. We feel like, you know what, God is not there. What is going on? So we start to stray. But when we're going through heartbreak, pain, loss, disappointment, that is a moment in time for you to get closer to God, not to stray further away from Him, but to get closer to Him so He can heal us and He can comfort us during those times. So I want to share my continue to share my story in chapter 11 and share with you what the word reveals about what's really going on inside of you when you're going through those types of those seasons of your life. So if you're new here, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. And if you are returning, welcome back. Thank you so much for being here. Share this with a friend, a loved one, and someone who you feel may be going through a season where they need to really just come to a place of healing in God's presence. When we are healed in God's presence, wholeness comes about, peace comes about. No matter what is going on around us, our circumstance does not determine where God is taking us. That is just a part of our journey, a part of the story. Because a lot of times God allows things to happen in our lives so we can be better, so we can be the people He originally created us to be. I want to encourage you that today is a great day. This is the day the Lord have made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it and be thankful. Because this is a place in conversations that we have about faith, about healing, identity, emotional wholeness, and allowing God to transform us from the inside out. Because what's going on on the inside really impacts our outer lives, how we appear to the world and how we show up in our day-to-day lives. Journey to Loveland is proud to be a part of the Chicology Podcast Collective. A community of women sharing real stories, real faith, and real transformation. So, friend, thank you so much for being here. I'm so glad that you're here. We're going to be talking about the heart today, not the polished version of ourselves, the one that we dress up and we want to make sure that we look a certain way on the outside into the outside world. Not the version we present to people, but the real condition of our inner world, the thoughts we carry, the wounds we hide, the emotions we suppress, the things we rehearse in private, and the words that eventually reveal what's been living on the inside of us all along. You know, it's so easy to hide who we are. When we're at home in our private time, that reveals who you really are, what your thoughts, what's going on in your head, what you're saying to your family, to your loved ones, to your children, to your uh significant other, your spouse, that's who you really are. So if you're all nice and sweet at work and you're able to be kind to others and the world sees you as this amazing person, but when you get home, there's another side of you. And a lot of times, if we're not healed and we're really not being honest in the presence of the Lord, we can pretend all we want, but the real you is gonna come out. The real you is gonna be revealed. And unfortunately, when we're not healed, that ugly part of us, that damaged part of us, that unhealed version of us, really impacts those closest to us, like our family members, right? Because those are the people who get hurt the most when we're not healed, when we're not allowing God to heal that broken area in our lives. And I've mentioned before, and this is a scripture, you know, God is near the brokenhearted. He wants to heal us in those broken places. In his presence, there is healing available to us, there is wholeness available to us. So I want to encourage you today that, you know, don't run away from God when you're hurting. Don't be ashamed when you have these outbursts. You know, today we're gonna talk about what's really going on inside of you and how God is available to you for healing. So have you ever said something and immediately regretted it? Like, you know what, I shouldn't have said that. That was hurtful. But remember, you can't take back your words. They've already done the damage, they've already hit that person's heart, they've the arrow has been shot, and that person has already received what you said. You apologize, but sometimes, you know, you've apologized so much that that person is not going to receive your apology anymore. You've said so many hurtful things throughout the years. Your sorry means nothing to them. So, this is a place where you know God really wants to work on you because that is not the person that He created you to be. Your words need to be sweet and seasoned and life-giving and life-bringing and uplifting and encouraging. Your life should not be words of death and pain and bitter and evilness, right? Your words should bring forth life. Your words should build up and edify those that are in your life. So maybe it came out a little sharper than you meant it to be. You were defensive because somebody said something that hurt your feelings. Your words were it came across bitter because again, you're not healed, you're still dealing with that pain. It was laced with insecurity, jealousy, pride, fear, and unresolved hurt. All of these emotions that are not of God, all these things, they're real, right? They're real emotions, but that's not the character of God. That's not who He created you to be. And afterwards, you may think that is not who I want to be. This is not the person that I am. What is really going on inside of me? The truth is that sometimes our words expose what our hearts have been carrying long before our mouths even said it. Your heart really holds the key to all the things that's going on in your life. And I'm going to share some scriptures with you. Jeremiah 17, 9 says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it, right? Desperately sick, it means it's wicked. And the wickedness in our heart. The reason why it says that is because the human heart is fundamentally flawed. Until we come to Jesus Christ to uh to be redeemed and to be delivered and restored, our human hearts, because of all that because we live in a fallen world, is fundamentally flawed, and people are often unaware of the hidden motives in their hearts, right? That the biases that they carry and the capacity for deception that people carry. You think you might be doing something good, but deep down inside, what are your motives for doing those things? What was the reason why you said what you said? It is it laced with a little bit of insecurity? Is it laced with passive aggressive anger? Because sometimes we sit here and we say something and we'd be like, oh, I was just kidding, but really deep down inside, you meant what you said. It was laced with a little defensiveness, right? A little bit of anger, a little bit of unforgiveness and resentment. And a lot of times we're not really unrealizing until it comes out of us, right? Until we speak those things. So we must surrender our mouths, we still must surrender our hearts to the Lord. Psalm uh 139, 23 through 24 says, Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting. The word is saying here in Psalm, Test me, right? Search me. What is going on, Lord? Know if there's any anxious thoughts in me. So this is an opportunity for a heart check, right? David acknowledges that the human heart can be prone to self-deception. So if we're asking God to search us, I don't want to hide nothing from you. I don't want to uh continue to hold on to this. I surrender my emotions to you. I surrender my agenda to you because God is all-knowing in any way, but he wants us to surrender so we can be healed in that area. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. David is asking God to test his character. We want to ask him, what is going on inside of me? What am I worrying about? What am I anxious about? What am I fearful about? Why am I holding on to this unforgiveness? What is going on in me? And it says, see if there is any offensive way in me. David is proactively asking God right here, is there anything in my life that causes offense to God and to others? How am I offending others with the way that I'm behaving? Because sometimes there are blind spots in our lives. So we need to actively repent. Repentance meaning turn away from that behavior, letting go of it, not just apologizing and then you go do it again. But you really are asking for a change. You want to surrender this to God. And it's asking to lead me in a way of everlasting. The prayer, I'm flawed, my judgment is flawed. Lord God help me, direct my steps, show me what I need to do because I want my lifestyle, my words, my actions to be pleasing unto you. So our lives should be pleasing unto God. Just understand that the heart is deceitful and above all things and desperately sick. It's wicked, you know, because we don't really realize what can be hidden and underlying. We may think that everything is okay because we've suppressed whatever's going on around us or what's going on within us. But without intervention from Jesus, we can't heal ourselves. We can't do it on our own. We have to ask God for help. We have to ask God for intervention. And that's what this is all about. After my divorce, trying to understand everything that was going on around me, losing everything that I had, having to start over at the age of 39 years old. There was a lot of bitterness there for me. There was a lot of anger. And a lot of times in my speech, in my behavior, in my responses, I was lashing out. I was spiraling out of control. And it came across in the way I responded to people. And I did not want to continue that cycle of bitterness and anger. And I had to surrender my heart to God and say, Lord, create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. And that's Psalm 51 and 10. It says, Created me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. So I had to confess and ask God, Lord, created me a clean heart. I need a heart transplant because I am having a hard time right now. And without you, I cannot move forward. I can't be the best that I can be, or be the woman you created me to be, the mother, the employer, the boss, everything that you wanted that you purposed me to do or to minister to others. If I'm bitter and I'm angry and I'm bleeding on other people, our words are not random. When we're speaking these things, there's something going on. They're not accidental, they're not disconnected from our spiritual and emotional condition. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. We speak what's in our heart. And this is another scripture. And it's like, you know what? I need to make sure that I keep my heart with all vigilance. So I'm going to share these different scriptures with you as we move through this particular chapter. Jesus teaches us something that is deeply sobering and deeply healing at the same time. Our words are fruit. And fruit always tells the truth about the root. I'm going to say that again. Our words are fruit. So if we're speaking bitterness, that's rotten fruit. If we're speaking pain and heartbreak and things that are not nice to other people, our fruit is dead. It's sour, it's bitter, it's not a good, healthy piece of fruit. And our fruit tells the truth about the root, where it's coming from, what is going on? The root of the matter is something that's going on internal, just like when you're growing vegetables, if something grows up and it's rotten or something like that, it's like, what's going on with the soil? What's going on with the fertilizer? What's going on beneath, underneath the root of it all that's causing my fruit, my garden to be rotten? What is causing your garden to be rotten? And we're going to explore that on today. So if what's coming out of your mouth has been ugly, anxious, harsh, cynical, unkind, faithless, I want to remind you, friend, that this episode is for you. So hold on. I'm going to share some truths with you. Some things that I've gone through that helped me. This is about inviting you into a heart check. I want you to really just think about if you've been dealing with some of these things. I want to share with you some scriptures and some real life things that I've gone through when I was in that season where my words were bitter and unbecoming of who I was as a woman. I was newly divorced, but even though I was divorced, God still had a purpose for my life. So why am I still, why am I so bitter? Why am I so angry? Count it all joy when you're going through these trials because the testing of our faith produces patiences, producing things in us that's going to make us better in the long run. It may seem so hurtful and painful in the time that we're going through it, right? But God has a plan for that heartbreak. God has a purpose for that pain. So it's not for not. So I want to encourage you that even if you're going through something, it's not for nothing. It's not going to be in vain. Hold on and trust God. My words were laced with unforgiveness. My words were laced with anger and shame. I was ashamed about what I had gone through. And I didn't like the woman that I saw in the mirror. I was like, who is this woman? This is not me. This is not who I want to be. And so I had to let go and let God and allow God to heal those places in my heart to heal the woman that was going through all that she was going through. God wants us to be healed. He wants us to be whole. And he's not looking at your image. He doesn't care about all that. He deals with the heart, that love and that glow and that inner being that he has produced in you is going to flow on the outside anyway. So he has to work on the heart first. He has to heal those broken places first. And it's easy to look on the outside. So he challenges us with his word and saying, Hey, I want to help you. You need to get into my word. You need to surrender your life to me. I'm here to help you. And I want to also remind you that outside of God, we can do nothing. So I encourage you to get closer to God. Get out your Bible, pray, seek God's face, and ask him for wisdom. The word says in Matthew 12, 34, For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So Jesus was showing me that my mouth revealed what my heart had been storing up all those years from the pain, the heartbreak, and the disappointment. So the words that I was speaking out of my mouth was not disconnected from my inner life. It was an overflow from what was going on within. From out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So if your heart is broken, you've gone through some things, some challenges, and you haven't mourned the loss, you haven't healed from the brokenness, you haven't dealt with the anger and all the fear, the worry, the anxiety, your mouth is going to reveal what your heart has been holding on to. So I want to remind you that resentment will eventually flow out from the words that you're speaking. I was fearful about what was going to happen to my future, and it was coming out in the way I was speaking. I was being negative, like, oh, I'm not going to make it. I don't know what I'm going to do. Nobody wants me. All these negative things, the pride sometimes was like, I don't need God. He's not going to help me. The insecurity, the offense, the unhealed pain was taking up residence in my heart. And those things will make themselves known through our tone. My tone was very harsh in the way I reacted and responded to certain things that happened in my life. My conversations were negative. My responses a lot of time weren't that healthy. It would show up here and there. So a lot of times when we'd be like, Oh, I'm all right, because it happens occasionally, eventually it continues to happen and it poisons your relationship. It poisons your character and your life. So you want to address it right away. You don't want to allow it to linger. You don't want to allow it to fester. You don't want to allow it to go unchecked. Because again, you know, for example, you're driving your car and your engine light comes on, but then it flickers off and you're like, oh, it's fine. And then it comes on again, right? So you know there's something going on. There's some faulty wiring, and you don't want to ignore that. You want to get it checked because you don't want to be out there one day stranded on the side of the road because you ignored it. And that's the same with your mouth. You don't want your mouth to get you caught up in a situation where you're out there looking crazy and because you didn't address the issue. It gets you in a place, like they said, your mouth is going to write a check that you can't cash. You're going to say some things that you didn't mean to say, right? You're going to say some things that you can't take back. And it's only so many apologies you're going to be able to say, right? So I want to share some points with you. So the first point I want to share with you, your mouth reveals what your heart has been holding on to. One of the easiest things that we can do is to focus on what we said without asking, why did it come out of my mouth in the first place? You said what you said, but why did you say what you said? You apologize, but you've already said it. You try to clean up the conversation and go back and say something different, but the person already heard what you said. But Jesus wants us to go a little deeper than the symptom and deal with the source. So he wants you to deal with the source of the matter, and again, that's your heart. If irritation is constantly coming out of your mouth, maybe your heart has been carrying frustration for a long time. This is a heart check. If you can easily criticize people, you're always saying something sarcastic and rude. Maybe your heart has become hardened, defensive, or prideful. If hopelessness is always in your speech, maybe your heart has been overwhelmed by fear or disappointment. And God does not want that for us. Your words are often the fruit. And so when we address the heart of the matter, we let God deal with these areas of our lives with the root of it. That's where the healing comes in. Allow God to prune that dead branch. Allow him to do the pruning, prune the jealousy, prune the anger, prune the envy, prune the sins of your life. So now you can start to grow and blossom healthy fruit. And I want to share another uh scripture with you. Galatians 5, 22 through 23. And it's about the fruit of the spirit. It's listing out these positive traits. If you're a believer, the fruit of the spirit, it's not the fruits of the spirit, it's the fruit of the spirit. So it's all encompassing this fruit that has been given to you that should be growing effortlessly from your life because you are a child of God. So these are character traits that should be uh produced within you love, joy, peace, patience, forbearance, which is patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So these are the fruit of the spirit according to Galatians 5, 22 through 23. And these are qualities, godly characteristics and behaviors that you should be carrying throughout your life. And when you're broken and hurting, it's hard to be patient with your children when you haven't addressed the hurt. It's hard to be kind to others when you don't even know how to be kind to yourself. It's hard to be good when you're grieving and you're going through things that you're not addressing and you're not being honest about, right? Being faithful and gentle, having self-control because when you're lashing out at others and you're saying these mean things, you're not in control of your mouth, you're not in control of your words. Once he's pruned us of that anger, the bitterness, the envy, the works of the flesh, these sinful behaviors in our lives, now we're able to flourish and grow and have a godly character that God wants to be our outer garments. You can dress up the outer, but if the inside is rotten and bitter and hardened, nothing fruitful can come from your life. So if you're able to let go and let God heal you in those areas, now you're able to produce a healthy fruit that others can see and glean from and learn from and seek the God within you. God's light can shine so you can be a witness for Jesus Christ. So you can share the gospel with others by the lives that we live. Point number two, I want to share with you: a wounded heart will eventually speak wounded words. A lot of us don't mean to wound people with our words. We're regretful afterwards. We want to immediately apologize, but if we don't address the matter, it's gonna have to happen more often, right? So we're speaking from a place that hasn't been healed. When I was speaking, lashing out and was bitter and angry, I was speaking from an unhealed place in my life. And I didn't want to let it go. I had started to feel comfortable in my dysfunction until I realized I was tired of living that way. And when you get tired of yourself, that's when God can really come in because you're making room for Him to do a mighty work in your life. So when your heart is full of rejection, like mine was, you start speaking from a place of insecurity. I'm never gonna uh get past this. My life is horrible now. I'm never gonna be where to where God wants me to be. When my heart was full of disappointment, it was because I was coming from a place of bitterness. When I was speaking from a place of fear, it's because I wanted to be in control. I was anxious because things had fallen apart around me and I felt like I couldn't do anything about it. So when your heart is full of shame, like mine was, you may speak in ways that tear yourself down. I'm not pretty enough. He didn't want me. Oh, I must not be good enough. I'm too old. So you start pushing people away. You don't want people in your life because you are ashamed of what happened, you're ashamed of what you've gone through. But we have to understand that God is not ashamed of us. He loves us. He wants us to heal from those areas in our lives. And you may be hurting on today, but you need the Lord to touch those places that you've been hiding, you've been holding on to. You don't want to release because you got comfortable there. But I want to remind you that God wants to clean those places in your heart. Don't hide from God. Again, God wants to create in you a clean heart in Psalm 51 and 10. That's why this discussion matters so much because if you're carrying around heartache and pain, you can't live the life that Jesus Christ died on the cross for you to live. You're going to live a life of mediocrity, you're going to live a life of anger and bitterness, and you're not going to be able to witness because how are you going to share the love of Jesus Christ when you're angry and bitter? So many Christians that are bitter and angry because they don't want to deal with the issue, because they don't want to let go. It's not about learning how to talk better. It's about allowing Jesus to heal your heart because your heart is the one that's doing the talking, right? Your heart is the one that's speaking. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So point number three says, you can't fill your heart with negativity and expect holy fruit. You can expect to be negative, but then your words are positive and encouraging and uplifting, right? You're speaking bad fruit. The fruit that comes out of your mouth, the fruit that you're producing is rotten, is spoiled, is not good, it's not edifying, it's not going to heal someone who's going through something or broken heart. The fruit that you provide to others should be nourishing and healing. So if your heart is filled with negativity, you can expect holy fruit. We have to be honest about what we're feeding our hearts. What are you dwelling on all day? What are you listening to? Are you listening to the news all day and all this negativity that's going on in our world? You want to be aware, but if that's the first thing you wake up to every morning is the news. That's what you're putting into your system, into your spirit first thing in the morning. So, yes, you're going to be negative as soon as you're feet at the floor because you're listening to all this death and destruction all around you instead of going to God first in prayer. You're scrolling social media all day, ingesting gossip and things that's going on with celebrities. What kind of conversations are you having with people? Are you being negative? These conversations are shaping your perspective about life. They're shaping who you are as a person. What are the voices that you're listening to? Are you listening to a bunch of negative people that's complaining all day long and they don't have anything good to say? You're allowing people to dump on you, you're allowing your family members to call you and just complain all day long and dump on you, and you're just a trash can for people. What offices are you rehearsing over and over in your head? What are you replaying over and over that's negative? What disappointments are you nursing instead of surrendering to God? That's why your heart is producing this rotten fruit because what you're taking in all day is negative. So whatever repeatedly fills your heart will eventually come out of your mouth, will form your speech, form what you're saying and what you're thinking. So Matthew 6.21 says, For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Your treasure is referring to what you deem most valuable. So what are you giving your energy to? What are you focusing on? What are you pursuing on a regular basis? And God is saying that these are your priorities. This is evidence of what you find important. So you have to be mindful of the things that's going on around you and step away from social media, turn off the news, stop listening to the gossip, stop allowing people to call you and complain all day long. You might have to make some changes, you might have to change some conversations, you might have to let go of some people or let them know, set some boundaries and say, hey, you can't call me every day complaining. I'm gonna pray for you, but you need to go to God with this, you need to ask God to help you with this because complaining is not gonna change it, worrying is not gonna change it. A lot of times we're going through certain things because God wants to change some things in us, and if we're not mindful of that, we're going to be bitter, we're going to be angry, we're going to be upset, right? So we have to know that God wants to change our hearts, but we can't marinate on gossip and anger and offense and cynicism and fear and expect to have a happy, peaceful life and expect for things around us to be good. The opposite is to be true: that when your heart is filled with God's truth, his presence, his peace, and his wisdom, your words they begin to reflect his character. So you want to make sure first thing in the morning you're worshiping God, thanking him before you get out of bed, getting your Bible out, reading a scripture, having a devotional, having some prayer time, spending time with God. It's not about being fake or phony or having fake positivity, but the goal is a heart that is submitted to God. That is the goal. Surrender and submit your heart to God. Be honest with him, confess these things to him, and then your speech will begin to change. You're going to start to see some changes, some positive changes in your life. So, point four, God is not just interested in correcting your words, he wants to transform your hearts. And Ezekiel 36 and 26 says that, and I give you a new heart and a new spirit, and I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. So God wants to give you a new heart. So that heart that was stony and hard and wasn't producing any fruit. Because remember, when your garden, the soil in your garden is stony, filled with rocks, and it's hard. Your garden is gonna be dead plants, weeds, and it's not gonna even grow. But God says, I want to remove that stony heart. Bring him your anger, bring him your envy, your grief, your disappointment, bring him your insecurities, your offense, your secret bitterness, your hidden fears. Bring it to the Lord in prayer. God is not standing over you, pointing his finger down at you. God is inviting you to bring all of this to him so he can give you a heart of flesh, he can soften that heart and heart. He wants to begin to transform you and he wants to do a deep work in you so you can have some behavior management. That real transformation comes by surrendering to God, surrendering these things to him that have been creating this pain in your life or this disconnection. Like, who is this person in the mirror that is not a reflection of God's character? He wants to change what lives in you so that what flows from you begins to change too. And the transformation is possible when we stop pretending and we start surrendering. Surrender is where it all begins. Surrender is where the transformation begins. Proverbs 423 says, Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. So guard your heart. Protect your heart from all the negative conversations, gossip, mindless scrolling. This is just basically saying your internal thoughts, your emotions, your desires dictate your actions. So all of this is about the heart, the root of the matter, what's inside of you, what's going on within. So he wants you to guard your heart with all diligence. As we wrap up this conversation, is that your mouth will always tell what's going on in your heart. So if your words keep revealing pain or pride or fear, bitterness or unbelief, don't just edit your speech. Invite God to heal the places where it's flowing from. Invite him to heal your heart. Ask God to do a spiritual check, identify who you really are and what you believe in, what you're standing on, what you're leaning on, who you're leaning on. So no more excuses. It's time to take accountability for your behaviors and what you've been saying in your life. You can't keep telling yourself, I just talked like this. My mom was like this, my dad was like this. Let's time out for excuses. When your words are consistently leaving damage behind, you can't keep saying, Well, this is just the way I talk. You can't keep baptizing harshness as honesty. You can't keep dressing up bitterness as discernment. You can't keep excusing a sharp tongue as this is just being real. Because those are things that I did, right? I was like, oh, you know, I'm just being real. I'm just being telling the truth. What's wrong with that? But I wasn't taking accountability for the damage that I had caused because of the words that I spoke. And definitely, you can't keep ignoring the condition of your heart while asking God to bless the fruit of it. Real maturity, calling yourself a Christian is not just knowing scriptures and memorizing scriptures, but it's allowing God to confront what is going on when your words reveal you're still bleeding on people, still reacting to old wounds, still speaking from offense and still operating from fear. You can't sit there and call yourself, oh, I'm a Christian, but your mouth is saying otherwise. Your behavior, the way you live, is saying otherwise. You need to be honest and say, My heart needs healing. Lord, I need you. The most spiritual thing that you can do is stop defending your tone and ask God to heal you. Ask God to come into your life. And I want to invite you to Christ. If you're not a Christian on today, or if you want to rededicate your life to the Lord, or if you just want to repent and ask God for forgiveness, maybe today you realize that the words that you've been speaking have been revealing that your heart is tired, is wounded, is heartened, you're angry, you're fearful, and that you've strayed away from God. You've fallen away from God because of some things that's happened in your life. The beautiful thing about Jesus is that you know what, he does not expose us to reject us. He's that he does not expose you to shame you or to make you look bad. No, he reveals what is going on in us because he loves us and he wants to heal us. You know, we serve a gentle Savior, we serve a good God, a patient God. All those things that He's asking us to do, He's that. He is the character creator. So He is those things and He wants us to be more like Him every day. That's why He's exposing these things, these character flaws within you, because He wants to heal you, He wants to love on you. So if you've never given your life to Christ, today is the day. And if you've drifted and if your heart has become cold or distracted, heavy or compromised today is a beautiful day to surrender. Jesus is not asking us to clean up ourselves first. No, he's asking you to come as you are. Come with your mess, come with your anger, your shame, come with your hidden pain, come with those broken places, and he is asking you to come as you are. He is able to forgive you, he is able to clean you up, he is able to restore and make you new. So if you want to give your life to Jesus or can recommit your heart to him, you can pray this prayer with me. Jesus, I need you. I confess that I have sinned and that I cannot heal or save myself. Thank you for dying for me and rising again so I can have life. I surrender my heart to you today, Lord. Forgive me, cleanse me, and make me new. Heal what is broken in me and teach me to live for you. I receive you as my Lord and Savior in Jesus' name. If you said that prayer with me on today, I hope that you sincerely open your heart to the Lord and allow him to heal you and find a church in your area that teaches the Bible so that you can become more like Christ. So I am so thankful that you all were able to join me today for this episode, for this chapter 11 of my journey to Loveland, because in order for me to be able to love the way God loves, I needed to be cleaned up, I needed to be healed. And he didn't say you gotta do it yourself. No, God said, Come to me and I will heal you. Come to me and I will give you a heart of flesh and I will replace that stony heart. He will create in me a clean heart, he will create in you a clean heart. I hope that you wrote down those scriptures on Proverbs 4 23 says, Keep your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the uh springs of life. Psalm 51 and 10, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Ezekiel 36 and 26, and I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit, and I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh, so a f a heart that is pliable, that can receive his word and his love. Jeremiah 17 9 says, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick, it's wicked. Who can understand it? Only God, the Creator, understands the heart, and he knows what you need. Galatians 5 23, for the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And Psalm 139, 23 through 24. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. So God wants to heal us, everyone. God has healed me, He has brought me to a place of wholeness, and I'm so grateful for that. And I want the same thing for you on today. So let's pray as we close out chapter 11 of my story. Father, in the name of Jesus, thank you for loving us enough to deal with our hearts and not just our habits, Lord. We bring you the places in us that still need healing. We bring to you bitterness, Lord, anger, insecurity, fear, grief, pride, Lord, disappointment, and the pain that has been hiding beneath the words, Lord. We ask you to search us, reveal what's in us, and cleanse what does not reflect you, Lord. Create in us hearts that are soft toward you, hearts that are honest before you, and hearts that are healed enough to stop bleeding on people with our words. Teach us to pause before we speak and to recognize when our words are being shaped by wounds instead of wisdom, Lord. Teach us to surrender our inner life to you so that what comes out of us reflects your love, your truth, your grace, and your peace. Heal every listener who has been carrying silent pain, Lord. Restore every place that has become hardened by disappointment. Lift the heaviness of shame, resentment, and fear, and let this be a season where you transform us from the inside out, Lord. We surrender our hearts to you again on today, Father God. Have your way in our lives. In the mighty name of Jesus we pray. Amen. And I want to give you some questions that I want you to reflect on over the next week or so. Number one, I want you to ask yourself, what do my recent words reveal about the current condition of my heart? Number two, are there wounds, offenses, fears, or disappointments I've been ignoring instead of surrendering to God? Number three, in what areas have I been trying to manage my speech instead of allowing God to heal the heart behind it? Number four, what would it look like for me to intentionally fill my heart with things that produce life-giving words? So I want you to reflect on those four questions, rewind it and listen to those again and write them down. And I really want to thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Journey to Loveland. My prayer is that this episode doesn't just make you more aware of your words, but you surrender your heart. You surrender your heart to God because God does not want to do a surface level healing in your life, He doesn't want you to do a surface level modification. He wants to heal you deeply within, in the innermost part of your life and love you through the healing. And that's what it's all about love and transforming you from the inside out. So, friends, I want you to know that God loves you. Share this with a friend, share this with someone who may need to do a heart check, share this with someone in your group, on your job, you know, in your family. And I want to remind you that Journey to Loveland is part of the Shikology Podcast Collective, where we keep having honest conversations that help women heal, grow, and walk with God in truth. So until next time, take care of your heart, stay close to Jesus and keep journeying toward holiness. And I'll meet you back here again for another episode, another chapter of my life through Journey to Loveland. Again, my name is Miranda. Thank you so much for being here on today and have an amazing day. Be encouraged.