Episode 2 - Strong Faith

How do you hold onto faith when everything around you says to give up? 🏔️✨

In this episode, we sit down with the incredible Pastor Karen Bracken from Kings in Wasilla, Alaska. Pastor Karen opens up and shares deeply personal stories of her own faith journey, offering a powerful reminder of how we can stay anchored even in life’s most difficult seasons.

If you are walking through a hard chapter right now or just need a reminder of God's faithfulness, this conversation is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Hey, welcome to today's episode of our Radiant Women podcast. Today, we are extra blessed. We have Pastor Karen Bracken with us. She is coming all the way from Alaska, Kings, Alaska in Wasilla. So I'm so excited to have you. Thank you for joining us. I am so blessed to be here. Thank you so much for inviting us. I love it. I'm so excited to talk about faith today. We wanted to really lean into the topic of faith. I think it's such a broad topic.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Very broad.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

But let me tell you what, Pastor Karen, you have so much faith. You guys have walked through so much. So we're going to just kind of talk through the story today, talk about faith, and we pray that it is an encouragement to everyone that is listening and tuning into the podcast today. So, Pastor Karen, tell us a little bit about yourself. And I especially would love to hear your journey to Alaska. You guys have been there over 20 years now.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

It's just 20 years, just about 20 years. Right. So good. Right. Yeah. Well, I am Karen Bracken and I we were saved on the island of Maui. We began uh came to know Jesus on the island of Maui. And we were there for many years. And then we moved to Molokai for about a year and a half and then Kauai, island of Kauai for three and a half years. Our children were very young. We moved to Alaska in 2006 in the fall. And we were in the middle of, I mean, I never thought I would move to Alaska. Right. And it's so such a drastic change from the islands in every way.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

You couldn't get more opposite than Hawaii to Alaska.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

I mean, in every way. I mean, not just the weather, but the spiritual atmosphere, the people, everything is so different.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

We were on the island of Kauai, and we were, we had, we were overseeing two churches. So we would have church in LALA, then we would drive over and have our second or the first service in our church in Hanamalu. And then we would drive home and then have church Sunday night, 6 p.m. in LALA again. And in the middle of all of that, uh the Lord spoke to us and began to put Alaska on our hearts. And um we knew that uh well, Dr. Maraha had asked us to just go and check it out, and it was under uh in in transition, and uh we went on a trip to go check it out, and it was I don't know, it was pretty exciting. And then suddenly God began to uh just speak to us. I mean, it was like when all the Alaska shows came out, all those reality shows.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Right, yes, I remember that.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Yeah, and so they all started coming out everywhere, and then um every we kept meeting people from Alaska, and then my husband was on a run one day. He used to go running, and the Lord spoke to him so clearly and said, like the oil goes from the North Slope all the way to Valdez through these pipelines, right? The oil of my spirit is gonna come and be sent out to all the nations. I'm sending revival, and I want you to be part of what I'm doing there.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

So that's how we ended up going to Alaska. That is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

And you guys have done an incredible job in Alaska. I would love to hear a little bit of that faith journey. You guys took a church that was, we we won't get into all the details, but it was uh suffering. Suffering. It was struggling, it needed some love. And you guys come came in, and I would just I would love to see that faith journey real quick of like where it was when you started versus where you guys are at now. Because you just finished up building project not too long ago. Correct. A massive project. The church is huge and thriving, and you have you've launched another location in another city nearby, and you guys are doing incredible things. So I'd love to hear just that journey from the beginning to where you guys are now. 20 years.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

That's a lot of that's a lot of energy. How do you do that? You know, I don't know. Uh well, you know, we went there and um, like you said, the church was really struggling. And uh maybe about 25 people there. And um, you know, I think one of the one of the main issues is, you know, it's not everybody's called to be the lead person of a church. So I mean, the pastor was incredible. He was he loved, he was a gatherer and things like that, but his heart was to plant churches and start groups and things. So we went up there and uh there was just a lot of dysfunction. Some people needed healing, and um within I don't know, the church began to grow, and um what was interesting is we knew we were gonna be in trouble in one one night uh we were sleeping in the middle of the night, and all of a sudden we woke up. And I'm not somebody who said likes to talk about an angel visited me. No, but we did. We had I woke up and I was so terrified, we both woke up in the middle of the night, and I was so afraid that I pulled the covers over my head, but there was something in my room, and it was an angelic presence, and we were told, my they said, you are gonna go through a very difficult time. Now we thought that meant war is coming, it's the end of the world, you know, great difficulty is coming in the earth, Jesus is coming back. I mean, that's the good thing, but we thought the great tribulation was coming, and we were just so on fire about, you know, making the church be strong. We're just praying and contending and everything. But right after that, um, a difficulty hit the church with the previous pastor and his family, and they went through a really difficult time. And so and the in and within a few weeks' time, the entire foundation of the church left. Wow. All of the people tied to them left. And uh, we were pretty devastated. Right. We loved those people, it was very hard. And uh, but we knew that God had called us there. We knew that we were supposed to be there, he had confirmed it so many, so many ways. And so anyway, we began to, and the church had a black eye in the community, and so we just began to um pray. I mean, I would have to say that we just began to pray so much, fasting, yes, so much, um, and believing just for um just to take the next step forward. We didn't always have the big picture of what, except that we had a promise that God was pouring out a spirit and we were gonna be part of it. Yes. And it I was like, when is that ever gonna happen? Right. But over the course of time of um our the church just began to grow, began to expand, and suddenly we had no room in our building. Right. We had so many services, we had four services on Sunday. Yeah. And then we knew we had to buy property or find a place, and there was no building in our area that could house our church. And so um the purchasing of the land was supernatural. Uh, it was very incredible. I don't know if you want to hear the story about how uh what we went through in the building of that project.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Yeah, I'd love to hear because I know that story, and I know there's a few moments in that story where you're I I could imagine you'd be like, Lord, are you sure you're calling us to this or how is this gonna work? Because yeah, that that whole building project was was a miracle. Because you guys started a little bit before COVID, but then through COVID building, which the building took 10 years to complete.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

Insane.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

10 years. They're talking about faith and oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Well, what's funny is um our global leader, Dr. Morocco, he um he said it'll take about 10 years, or he said one of the churches took 10 years to build, and my husband's like, it's not gonna take 10 years. And Dr. Morocco's like, I love your faith.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Took 10 years.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

He knew in advance. But we had uh first we had you know secure the property, and then the company that we were working with to get financing strung us out for an entire year.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

Then COVID hit, right? And that was insane, but amazingly, God grew the church. Our church grew by 30%.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

People and finances during COVID. We didn't shut down.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

That's amazing. Uh way to go.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Right. And then then in 2018, we had a 7.1 earthquake in the middle of we had broken ground, we had put up this the framing, the steel. Well, let me just say that the price, the other issue was the pricing. Everything doubled, quadrupled in price, the steel, everything. Yeah. That was when Trump uh decided to put such tariffs on the Chinese-made steel. And so we bought all the steel in America right before the prices went through the roof. Right. All the timing of all of that. Wow. Then the earthquake took place. Then we had a massive windstorm. Oh my gosh. A hundred mile an hour winds for four days straight over the beginning of the year, which caused $2.5 million of damage because of the supply chain issues. Our windows were stuck somewhere in California for a whole year. Wow. And they couldn't get silica to make the rest of them. Wow. So there were a lot of issues there.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

But finally, but finally.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Finally, we were able to move in.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Made it in.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

We made it in there. And your husband was the first speaker.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Oh, that was such an speaker in our church. Wow. Such an honor and a privilege. I love that. Yeah, I think um there is so much to be said about that. And I I wanted to kind of get practical. I love the idea of just getting practical and taking it down. I know a lot of people listening are probably not building, what is it, like 37,000 square feet. 73,000 feet. 73. So I got it backwards. No, but you've got it backwards, but it's close. It's huge. So it's amazing. And I love that. Like it takes so much faith to step out and say yes and to trust the Lord. So if you could boil it down into a few key things that practically no matter what anyone is believing for and they're they're holding on to faith for and just believing God for something, whether it's just, you know, a family member or a healing or a job or a position or something, like we all have things we're believing God for, hopefully. If you don't, I would pray about like have something you're believing God for, right? But what would you say are some key principles that you took away, you've been taking away, you know, in the last handful of years that you would say would help you in really holding on to faith and not letting go in seasons of discouragement? Because I know that comes.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Oh my goodness, did it came? We were wondering what we were doing. Well, I mean, prime of the very first thing I would say is um, you know, we had a very clear word from God.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Very clear. We knew we were to move to Alaska, we knew about the building project, we knew we had a word from God. But you know, the Bible is full of God's promises. So whether it's doing something like that, or like you said, believing for a family member to be saved, right? The Bible is full of promises. And so uh we we we stood on that. And when it was the most horrible, we wondered, oh my gosh, are we making the wrong choice? Did we make the wrong choice? Right. But we had that very clear word and confirmation through so many sources, through his word, through two or three witnesses, through other people. So having a very clear word from God, and you know, for family salvation or for your marriage, I mean, all those promises are in the Bible. And we would stand and declare in the face of great adversity, in the face of that windstorm, my I did not do this, but my son and my husband, I did it at home. But my son and my husband stood on the edge of that ledge and pointed in the wind and just said, you cannot stop what God has started. Yes. This, you know, that God has called us to be here. You said that we were gonna um be here, you're gonna pour out your spirit, and we're gonna be part of it. And you're, you know, we would just stand, and and that of course, those are biblical principles, but not the not the actual word, but just taking the word of God, declaring it, praying it, declaring it, and and just not shrinking back in that area. Amen. So that is one of the main things. Uh our life also has been marked by prayer, and we are big into prayer, absolutely, corporate prayer. Yes. As a church, we wouldn't be here if I mean at the beginning when our church should not have been here. I mean, at the very beginning, I believe the enemy tried to wipe our church out by causing those difficulties at the beginning. Oh, yeah. And in the place of prayer, our whole church worldwide praise, but then also personally having that time of prayer, prayer and fasting has saved our lives. It's caused things to happen that needed to happen, it's caused breakthrough and things that the enemy wanted to do, it's you know, thwarted the works of the enemy.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yeah. What I love about prayer is anyone can pray. Anyone can pray. Anyone can pray. It doesn't have to be this deep. Even the Bible talks about that. Jesus talked about it. He's like, you don't have to pay pray these long, arduous prayers. He's like, no, go in your prayer closet, just shut the door and just pray. Just talk to your heavenly father. You anyone can pray, right? I love David. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

I love I love the Psalms because he is just pouring his heart out to God in every area, you know, of his life, every struggle, everything, you know. Oh, he's talking about how unhappy he is. And then he's like, Oh, wake up. Yeah, why are you so downcast my soul? I'm gonna put my hope in God. You know, he talks to himself.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

And I feel like I pray a lot like David, where I often will come to the Lord with like, Lord, kill my enemy, help me. Why have you loved me? And then by the end of it, I'm like, Lord, you're so faithful and you're so good, you know. So funny. I know. I mean, those prayers. Prayer turns you around, even in your own spirit. I feel like prayer moves the hand of God, but I feel like more often than not, it moves our out of the way. It changes in our mindset. And by the end of my prayer, I'm like, forgive me, Lord, you're so good. You know, so I love reading through the Psalms and the prayers of David and some of the things I can really.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

One of the things I love is how um uh how you said that you know, your heart changes during the prayer. Like if you have an enemy or if you have somebody that's really you know antagonizing you, or you're so annoyed with, you pray for them and God changes your heart. I love that. Every time.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Every time I'm like, fine, I'm the problem. It's probably me. Right. Jesus help me. But you know, that's good. That's so practical. I love that. So standing on the word, holding on to that promise from God. I love that. Believing in faith and and prayer. Prayer really love that. That's something anyone can do.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

And you can do it all day long, you know. I'm just being real. I mean, I want to say that I'm this person that spends, you know, seven hours of prayer in the morning before I start my day, or even three, or you know, sometimes even an hour or half an hour. But you can pray. I mean, I love what the apostle Paul says it, you know, pray, always be in prayer. Yes, all the time. So I'm praying all the time. So you can pray, pray while you're doing the dishes for all you young moms out there.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Pray while you're rocking your babies and pray while you're changing diapers and pray while you're trying to do laundry. Just pray.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah, just pray. Just be talking to God. Yeah, my kids are older, so I feel like I have so much time in the car. We're driving from here. It's like the pickup and drop off and pick up and drop off. I have so much time, you know, to listen to the worship music, to pray, to take that time because yeah, life life is busy, but you can get it in there.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

My some of my most profound encounters with God have been in the car. Yes, in prayer. Same. So same. Because I think you're alone. Yes. No distractions.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

You have to focus. You can't be on your phone. You can't be on your phone. Yeah. And there's been times where I get to where I'm going and I'm like, Lord, thank you for getting me there safely.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

How did I get there?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Because I was so just caught in a moment or you know, a song, or just praying about something. And so I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

And you don't remember even the roads you took.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

I know it's a little scary. Scary. I love those car prayers. Me too. They're so good.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Well, I think also, um, in addition to uh getting the word from the Lord and in prayer, is um, you know, ultimately God's timing and I and having uh trust in the fact that yeah, you know, we were talking about Sarah, who had to wait forever for her promise to be fulfilled. And um, she had her way, or she did whatever she could to make it and even try to help God out a little bit. And uh, but uh, you know, his timing ultimately and the way he does things is not always the way we think it should be done. Like we, like I said, we we thought that we would be in that building. We thought that things were gonna happen, and then all these other things took place, which I mean, who in their I I mean, I don't it's insane the things that we walked through right with that building. Right. Absolutely insane. Yeah, earthquake, 100 plus mile an hour, COVID, plagues, supply chains. I mean, right, and then just yeah, and it was it was tough on our marriage. I mean, we had to get like counseling afterwards because it was so stressful. But trusting that God He He is He is gonna fulfill His World Yes, He will fulfill His word, He's faithful and trusting His timing and His leadership and not getting offended and not giving up, yeah, you know, no matter what that looks like.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yes, you know, I love that waiting on God's timing. You know, I keep thinking about the word tenacity. It's one of those words that like just keeps coming to my mind. And I didn't know what to I didn't know the real meaning of tenacity. So I was like, yeah, tenacity. Like I I immediately think perseverance, right? That's where my brain goes. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have tenacity. I'm gonna persevere to the end and I'm I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna make it. And the Lord is like, look up that word. Like, I'm giving you this word tenacity, and you don't even know what it means. And he's so kind to me. It's like, just look it up, Penny. It'll be, it'll be okay. And so I look up this word tenacity, and it's it's to actually to hold on, it's to grip something so tightly. And so this idea of you know, faith is really, we have to have tenacity in our faith. It's not like a persevering, which we should, right? But it's more of a holding on to faith. It's like a grip that you don't let go of faith. Like you gotta wait, you gotta stand on that. And it might take longer than you think. And I I don't know if you got it. Do you have okay, have you ever heard of a limpet? Yes. Oh, that's like little PLs, uh, they like stick on the rocks. Barnacles. Yeah, things like that. Yes. So there's there's one called a limpet, and so I'm I'm like looking up this limpet and like I'm down this like rabbit hole of of just tenacity. And they have one of this, they are one of the strongest um animals, you know, sea animals, it's like a barnacle, like it looks like a little shell, but they they have a tenacity level that is unmatched in the animal kingdom of just being able to grip onto the rock and just stay there and stay there, like nothing can move them off of that rock until they want to be moved. Fascinating. And I just was like, thank you, Lord. Like that's the kind of I want to be Olympic, right? I want to have like such tenacity that I'm just I'm able to hold on to something, unwavering. Hold on to that faith. Like, no, God has given me a promise and I'm gonna hold on to that. Nothing can can remove us from that. And so I was thinking about, I just keep going back to that word of tenacity to really like hold on to faith. And I think that's what it takes. Like, if we're gonna have faith, it doesn't always look sexy. It it this is what we were talking about last night. We were talking about just long-term faith isn't sexy like we would want it to be.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

Day to day, just I don't want to say trudging it out because I mean, kind of it feels like it is, yeah, but then there's yeah, I mean, I mean, it's just living your life day by day, but there's joy and there's excitement. And I mean, God, I mean, of course, the abiding and loving him, but and then wrestling with the fact that you want it done faster. You want it right when am I gonna see this? And then having that tenacity to just continue. It doesn't feel good sometimes. Sometimes it, I mean, it felt, you know, right when we were getting ready to move in. It was like every felt like every devil in hell was trying to, and and it was war, right? It was war. Yeah, it was warfare. We were not, I mean, every day we were we would wake up ready, just we'd go to prayer and we would just be like, okay, what you got today? Because we're gonna we're having a breakthrough. Right. And then sometimes we would get, you know, we're like, okay, seriously. And then some days it was like, oh my God, not another day of war, but I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna go. Yeah, like you said, it's not sexy. Yeah, but it's just being faithful, it's being faithful. Faithful just continuing to put one foot in front of the other. Yes. And I you know, we didn't know, you know, God doesn't show us the big picture of all this stuff. And He doesn't even show us sometimes the end. You know, I was reading in um Hebrews 11. All those heroes of the faith, those people in the Hall of Faith, they didn't, they they did not receive their reward, their, their, the, the end result of their faith in their lifetime. Right. They saw it far off and they contended and like they had tenacity and they acted on that. They had certainty. They had conviction. Yeah. And and knew that they weren't just hoping in some pie in the sky thing that, but that God was real. Right. His promises are true. Yeah. And I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Having the discurance of faith. And just go back and read that and get encouraged by that. Yeah. Yeah. You got to fight. It's a fight sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

It is. A lot of times, many times. Yeah. I think, I think too, like you think the Bible describes faith as like a shield of faith, right? It is. It's something you got to hold it up. Right. Like that is a choice we make every day. Like, am I going to choose to hold up the shield of faith? And when my arms get tired, Lord, send me people to help me hold that shield of faith up. Because when we lower that shield of faith, it's when the enemy doesn't ever stop shooting fiery arrows. I'm convinced of that. Oh, agreed. But it's when I put my shield down that they start landing. When you're vulnerable. And it's like, no, Lord, give me, give me the strength I need to hold it up, that tenacity to not set it down and to grab a hold firmly. But I think too, I think another practical way to really have that faith to see God's, you know, answer come in our life, whatever He's promised, you know, is people too. Like we need each other. We need community that help us when we feel weak and remind us of what God has spoken, because we can develop spiritual amnesia really quickly.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Quickly, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Where we forget what God promised. And I love when uh people in my life are like, no, like you're you you can do that. God called you to that. Cause my uh natural tendency isn't to just like go for it and and just my natural tendency is to be like, I mean, did the Lord really say? Like, are you sure you want me to do this or say this or step out? Like, I I'm more of a reserved person. And so I need people in my life that to help me grab that shield and be like, no, you can have faith. Like, you can do it. God's called you to it. This is the promise, and and help me in that. So community, I think. Community is so important.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

You know, uh, that just reminds me of the fact that, you know, when you're trying to figure out and have faith and standing on the word, you know, uh sometimes people can move out in faith where would they, it's more like an assumption or presumption as well. That's another aspect of uh trying to move forward in faith. You know, you can take a promise and say, Oh, I know, you know, there's a for instance, I know some young women who are just believing God for a particular person as their husband. Oh, yeah. I don't have the answer. God knows if that's right, and you can presume and start to pray. You know, I'm just there are young, yeah, right. And I remember what it was to be somebody who wasn't married and believing God for a husband, you know, one day. Um, but having that community of people that can say, listen, you're kind of going off the because where what what is faith and presumption? Like what and and having that community of people around you, people that you're accountable to that you can bounce things off of. And it you never get that if you're not really involved with community, right? Really involved and having, I mean, everybody needs a pastor, everybody needs people that are surrounded with faith, somebody that'll hold your shut up card. We're really into that, you know, somebody that can say, I love you so much, to tell you that that's that's not God. That's not God, you know. Or I'm gonna move to Timbuktu and I'm I want to do all this, but what about all that? Right. You know, God's trying to heal you, but you want to move around from church to church instead of getting healed of those things on the I feel I I'm moving in faith that God wants me to go to this church, and then three weeks later you want to go to that church over there, right? You know, something like that. Right. So having that community and really digging your roots down deep is so vital. So vital. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

You can't grow and mature in Christ. No, you can't. You have to be planted somewhere. Yeah. You want to grow like a righteous oak tree, you know. Yes. That doesn't happen if you don't plant yourself somewhere and then build community around that. I love that. Yeah. Good friends will hold you accountable. Right. I love the show.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

No, no. They'll say go or you're being weird.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

So like just weird. Weird thinking. Yeah, that's no red flags all over the place. Like, you're just, you're just really desperate right now. Just knock down.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

You know, I think that's even like what happened with Sarah. You want to talk about Sarah? She, one of the mothers of the faith, you know, God had promised her in Abraham, right, that they would be the the mother and father of nations, right? And and yet she was barren. And so she she didn't, no one told her to shut up. Right. And so she's like, take my servant and have a baby this way. Like she was so desperate. She had faith. She's listed in Hebrews 11 as a person of faith, like we can model our lives after. But she made a mistake and she's like, Man, I so want the will of God to pass in my life. Here, Abraham, you take my servant, have a baby with her, and that'll be how God's promises are fulfilled, you know? And it's like, no, we need we need people in our lives to be like, no, Sarah, God specifically said you would have a baby. This isn't gonna be how God's will is gonna pass in in your life, you know. But listen, she made that mistake. She's like, nope, I'm gonna do that. And I'm gonna for, you know, I'm gonna force the timing. She didn't want to wait. And listen, I think that's such a beautiful, real picture of face. Like, God send me people to tell me when I'm trying to force it my own way, or there's red flags everywhere. Like, we need those people in our lives to be like, no, no, right, let's take another little little bit to keep praying about that and you know, ask the Lord to help us. Because, you know, Sarah made she made that mistake, and it's it doesn't negate the fact that she still had so much faith, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:01

And she's yeah, she's listed in there.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

She's listed Hebrews 11. Yeah, she's listed so many places, it's it's amazing, like a great model of faith.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

Right. Um, and I I do love the mercy of God because even even Hagar, I mean, he was a child of the promise as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

You know, I mean, I mean, you know, Isaac, but yeah, no, God still God still uses it and he still uses us in our mistakes. I think sometimes too, we can get so nervous about making mistakes. And again, I go back to I naturally am like, I don't know, like is the Lord, is he asked, you know? And it's like, listen, take take the steps. And if you take a misstep somewhere, that's okay. You know, it really is. Like it's gonna be okay, you know.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Like you know, Lisa Bevere, I love what she said. She said that God is a really big target, yes, and he's so gracious. Yes, but I do have to say that when you're some of the most important decisions that you're ever gonna make besides getting saved is who you marry. Yeah. So that is absolutely that is a yeah, that's a big choice, a big decision.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Oh, yeah, it's it's huge. And I've seen honestly, listen, we do a lot of weddings and counseling pre-marriage counseling. Please do pre marriage counseling. Please, vital. It can help you so much. But there has been couples where you you try to say, Hey, I'm seeing some red flags, like I want to help you in this, but you know, they just get dead set, and then I've seen it derail people, you know, and so it is it's just such a it's such a big deal. And yeah, so the some of those things, like big major life-changing decisions. If you're married, if you're moving away, like all those things, like gotta get a word from God, make sure, yeah, word from the Lord, pray, fast. I love that. He's a he's a speaking God.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Yes, he speaks and he'll guide you and he'll lead you. I can't tell you how many times we've, you know, in that in the supernatural walk with with the Lord, that that he's you know, he knows that he he can get our attention when we dream. I mean, he's been faithful that way. I mean, you know, in our the beginning of our walk, we wouldn't trust our, we we weren't gonna trust our dream life. We weren't gonna trust, you know, right? God give me a dream that I'm gonna get that mansion and this five night, you know. I mean, that's so extreme. But you know what I mean? We we began to know that he began to speak that way and and learn how to hear the voice of God, learn the leading of the spirit and learn. And um, that was such a vital part of our process.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

I think you said it earlier too of the like you get a word from the Lord, but then it was confirmed multiple times in different ways from like different people. I think that's a big thing too. We miss sometimes is, you know, listen, there's things that come up in that just come up from our own heart. And it's like, let's, let's, especially if it's a big thing we're believing God for, and get that word from the Lord. But then He is so faithful and He is so kind to us so kind that He will confirm that. I remember when my husband and I we stepped in the role of senior pastor, not just, you know, lead pastor, but senior pastor, and with this, you know, the baton passing. It was such a beautiful season. But the Lord is like, you know, okay, now you're the ones carrying the baton. What's the vision for the house moving forward? And the Lord asked us, he's like, okay, like he dropped that word in my husband's heart of 10 cities, 10,000 decisions for Christ. And at the time we were nowhere near those numbers. And so we're like, are you sure, Lord? Like that's that's a big thing. But that's a word from the Lord. And we want to step out in faith and you know, hold on, like the tenacity, like we're gonna go after it. But when God drops something in your heart like that, for us, it was confirmed multiple times in different ways from different people who had no idea what we were even praying about or believing God for. And they'd be like, you know, have you heard about, you know, this number 10 and what it really means in the Bible? It just kept coming up over and over and over again. And so I think the Lord is so kind to do that for us when we do get a word from God. Like we need help and encouragement. Like, no, this is from the Lord. And so when we have a word we're standing on, listen, God will confirm it again and again so that we don't get that spiritual amnesia and so we don't forget and we don't get off track, like trying to do our own thing. Um, he he's so faithful in that, isn't he so kind?

SPEAKER_02 33:42

He's so good. And he wants to fulfill his his word.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

So it's so good.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Lord, tune our ears to hear us.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Thank you, Jesus. Oh, any final words that you would like to share before we wrap up on the the idea of faith or just what what he's brought you through?

SPEAKER_02 34:01

I would have to say that uh we were talking to somebody and um yesterday and she made a a profound statement, it's just so simple and so profound, but faith is faith in God is is like the sun coming up. Yes. You know, you can always count on him. And if you'll just trust the process, it's such a process sometimes. Yeah. And of course, your faith grows by hearing the word and then and continuing in that walk with the Lord, you know our our faith grew, but you know, we didn't have the whole big picture. It was just the day by day, making choices, doing those different things, like praying and believing. And I mean, I'm not just talking about with the move to Alaska and ever, but in every in every place, just doing the next thing, not having the A through Z, but just doing the A and okay, okay, now you can do the B.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

And then not knowing necessarily what the big picture is, or you know, and just day by day making choices, doing those spiritual disciplines, so to speak, of praying and seeking his face. And um that is basically how we've just continued to grow in faith. I don't know, it's it's just really a miracle when I look back. I feel like such a little kid still. I don't know how we're here, but yeah, God, you're amazing. How did you you did all this stuff? But he's just looking for a person to move through, to accomplish his will.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

He is wow, so good. Thank you, Pastor Karen. Yeah, thanks for wonderfulness and sharing. I know, I love it. It's I never get tired of hearing it. Alaska is intense, and it is intense. I admire the faith that you and your husband have to be faithful, to do that next step, the A and the B. And so thank you for what you're doing. I love to see God moving through you and your husband. It's it's a beautiful thing, and it's a great picture of just faithfulness and what God can do in a life that's submitted to him. So I hope this was an encouraging conversation for you guys. Bless you.