Coffee and Bible Time Podcast
Join host Ellen Krause—co-creator of Coffee and Bible Time—as she sits down with authors, pastors, theologians, and everyday believers to explore Scripture, identity, relationships, and how to truly keep Jesus at the center of it all. Whether you're just starting your faith journey or looking to go deeper, this podcast is a space to learn, be encouraged, and draw closer to Christ.
Coffee and Bible Time Podcast
Loving Like Jesus (Even When It's Hard)│Jada Edwards
What does it mean to set Christian boundaries rooted in God’s love, not just self-protection? In this episode, we explore how biblical boundaries aren't built around our desires or others’ demands, but around obedience to God. Discover why healing any relationship starts with aligning your heart with His: and how God's love empowers us to love others well. If you’re navigating forgiveness, betrayal, or burnout, this conversation will bring clarity and hope.
Scriptures mentioned:
- Mark 12:30
- Romans 7
- James 1:5
- John 13:35
- 1 John 4:9-11
- Matthew 11
- Deuteronomy 32:35
- Romans 12:17-19
- Matthew 5:23-24
Jada's book: A New Way to Love Your Neighbor
Learn more about Jada: Website │ Instagram
Jada's Favorites:
ESV Bible │YouVersion │Blue Letter Bible │Bible Hub │Logos Bible Software
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At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. Our goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living. Each week we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk. We are so glad you have joined us.
Ellen Krause:Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. This is Ellen, your host, and today we are going to go on a journey to learn how to transform your relationship with God and people. You know we often underestimate God's idea of love, but with the right definition and intentional action, everything can change in any relationship. We're going to talk about limits holding you back from fully experiencing God's love, how to shift from earthly definitions of love to the divine definition, and how to be curious, free, brave, resilient and real in all your relationships. Today we are joined by someone whose voice, wisdom and love for Jesus have been such a gift to many.
Ellen Krause:Jada Edwards is an author, speaker, bible teacher and mentor. She and her husband planted One Community Church in Plano, texas, where she serves in a number of leadership roles and mentors and teaches women regularly. She's a devoted wife and mom and she's here today to talk about her brand new book, a New Way to Love your Neighbor, that released just last week, jada. Congratulations and welcome to the show, thank you, thank you, and thank you for having me. Well, we are so honored to have you, you know, at Coffee and Bible Time. We believe that our relationship with God directly shapes how we relate to others. Transformation in both areas can be deeply personal and powerful.
Ellen Krause:Can you share why transforming your relationship with God and with people has been personally important to you About three years ago.
Jada Edwards:It came out of just some personal relationships where I was trying to figure out how to navigate them well, frustrated marriage stuff, where I was like you know, lord, fix these people, the thing that we often ask and the Lord's like I think we're going to do that differently, and just this idea of what it meant to love the way the Lord has loved me just started to resonate with me differently. A few years ago he impressed upon my heart that you know, jada, you have a love issue, and I was like, no, I love you, lord. You know I do. But the issue was that I was loving the things I wanted from the Lord more than the Lord himself. I was loving the things that God was giving me, or things that I may have been expecting.
Jada Edwards:And then even, you know, starting to see it really show up in our culture, especially during COVID, when we were so heavy in social media, you know, I felt like it was the beginning of just a deep divisiveness that has shown up not just in our culture but even in our churches. And so the whole idea, I think, put me on a path to really see the idea of God's love, like how he says this is what the entire Bible hangs on. It put me on a path to really figure out. What does that mean? Because maybe I've taken this thing a little too lightly and so, yeah, it started showing up for me everywhere, and so that's really what inspired me to study this subject.
Ellen Krause:And I can definitely tell you you're not alone in that, that's for sure what would you say has been sort of the biggest transformation in your own heart or life that you've seen as a result of really focusing so much attention on this?
Jada Edwards:Yeah, probably the awareness that I cannot fix any issue in any relationship if I have not first resolved it with God. I think sometimes I'm a doer. I'm a give me the list of things to do and I want to knock things out and we can take that approach to our spiritual growth. We go to church and we take good sermon notes or we listen to our favorite teacher or do a Bible study and we often come out with like a list of things to do and I want to work on this. I want to work on this, and it's hard for us to not create an action list or to create a checklist, but to really ask God to check our hearts.
Jada Edwards:What's my relationship like with you, God? How is my relationship with you really affecting this other issue? I just want to work on my finances or be healthier or be more kind, and I think the challenge has been for me that the Lord has said you can't. Those things are the outcome of your relationship with me. You're trying to fix outcomes without first checking your alignment with me, and so if you want to be more patient with people or more gracious, then you need to fully receive the grace and patience I give you, Because once you're aware of that, you will feel compelled to be patient with people.
Jada Edwards:And so just a different way of thinking that has forced me to stop being, stop the tendency of quickly taking action and saying I need to figure out what's going on in my heart, because the Bible says you love the Lord, your God, with your heart, soul, mind, and Mark adds strength and love your neighbor as yourself. The second one is like it it's as important, but it's also second. It comes in an order Loving the neighbor is as important as loving God, but it is impossible without loving God. And so it has forcing me to stop and check every challenge I have in a relationship and ask myself where is this showing a gap or a deficit in my?
Ellen Krause:relationship with the Lord that's so profound, and I think I need to be doing more of that as well. It's hard, it's hard, it's hard to kind of flip your framework when we're so used to, like you say, trying to fix it and ask for all the results without really first checking our heart. Well, it's also important for us to understand how limited we are when it comes to experiencing the love of God.
Jada Edwards:What do?
Ellen Krause:you think some of us have trouble fully experiencing God's love.
Jada Edwards:Well, I think it has a lot to do with what I was kind of mentioning about our own relationship with God, and that is impacted by a lot of things. When you first become a Christian, even if you grew up in church, there's some moment that's probably some definitive moment where you owned your faith and said, yes, ok, I want to surrender my life to the Lord. I just think sometimes we so love the idea of newness and new life and new creation that we forget that that newness is laid on top of old creation. We still bring a lot of stuff to the table. In our relationship with the Lord. It's not the new creation, is not that the old is wiped clean, but the cost of the old, the punishment that the old creation deserves, the gap that it creates in our relationship with God. Like that has passed away, but our old nature is still there. That's why we wrestle, that's why you suddenly don't wake up after becoming a Christian and say, gosh, I have no tendency to want to overspend, I have no tendency to want to lie Like that doesn't go away, and so I think a lot of the things that impact us is because we're not paying enough attention to what we're bringing to the table and so I can try my best to love God and receive God's love.
Jada Edwards:But if I'm not mindful of how my relationship with my father may have impacted me, or my childhood, or things that I've always wrestled with, even the way I'm wired, childhood, or things that I've always wrestled with, even the way I'm wired If I'm a naturally anxious person, then it doesn't matter how many times I quote don't be anxious for, be anxious for nothing, but in every.
Jada Edwards:You know like you can quote that, but you don't really.
Jada Edwards:You don't really know the work that it needs to do in your heart.
Jada Edwards:The work that verse needs to do in my heart is different than the work it needs to do in your heart heart because we're different people, we bring different things to the table with different background, different story, and so I think, holding intention, this idea that, yes, I'm new, I'm redeemed, I'm redefined in Christ, but, as Paul said in Romans 7, I still have to wrestle, there's still things in me that do the things that I hate, and so I have to understand that the same scripture, even taught on a Sunday morning to 200 people, is going to hit every one of those people differently, and some people are going to be like, great, I can start doing this tomorrow. And some people are going to be like wait a minute. Why is this so hard for me? Because we all bring different things and so you know, doing that work and keeping the awareness that my new creation is also having to deal with my old creation, how do I really get specific and let the Lord do surgery on my own heart.
Ellen Krause:Yeah, that's. That's something that I think each one of us, as you said, we come with all different types of backgrounds and I love that the scriptures do teach. You know, it's the same scripture, but we're all impacted by it in some different way, but it's exactly how God wants to speak to each one of us and into our hearts. Well, what are some of the obstacles that you are seeing people face as they try to experience God's love, as they try to experience God's love.
Jada Edwards:I think part of the biggest, one of the biggest challenges that I face, that people face, is that it is really difficult to keep a divine or elevated kind of view of love when we are experiencing it in the flesh and day-to-day life. So if somebody hurts my feelings, somebody hurt my feelings it is work for me to hear something that's offensive or read a text that hurt my feelings, or find out somebody betrayed my confidence or someone was disloyal to me. It is work to take the disappointment that inevitably happens even in our healthy relationships, to take that and then somehow translate that to well, it's bigger than what I feel. How do I deal with my feelings based on this divine idea? That is not natural. We are naturally all Cain. That's who's in us. I'm jealous of this. I don't like this. I want to lash out. We are all Cain.
Jada Edwards:In that Cain and Abel story, we are all Eve. I see something I want. I know what God said, but this is what I want, and so it just becomes effort, work to partner with the Holy Spirit and say, okay, this is how I feel, this is how I want to respond. But, Lord, what should I do? That's why I love Mark's version of that great command? Because he says love the Lord with your heart, soul, mind and strength. It's going to take work. You're not going to miraculously pray or sing the right worship song and all of a sudden all your relationships are easy. He's like it's going to be work, and so I think we have to be okay with that and know that that's a normal thing to really strive to put forth effort into that. We do it through the power of God, but we have to do the work to partner with him to see that showing up in our everyday relationships.
Ellen Krause:Absolutely. The word that comes to my mind when you said that is just intentionality, because so many things in life don't just happen. Right, it takes intentionality on our part to be actively seeking God, and I love that he gives us wisdom when we ask right.
Ellen Krause:James says that. So if that's something, you're listening to this and you're seeking and wanting more wisdom on this topic, even for God's love to reveal more of that to you is something that you can ask of the Lord. Well, jada, our world so often seems to be filled, as you mentioned at the beginning, with division and outrage, conflict, division and outrage, conflict. It's not just families or marriages that need help with loving well, but just about every human relationship out there. Yes, how can we model a love that truly heals and brings people together?
Jada Edwards:You know, if you think about the way that God has loved us, it really is overwhelming to think about the sacrificial, compassionate, generous love of God. It makes us rethink. I think, all of our relationships, because I think even the people that we love the most our closest friends, our spouses, our kids, our family it is still often some kind of condition attached to it that we have to work through. And that's with our favorite people, Like I love my kids, but will there be disappointment if they don't turn out to be the adults that I want them to be? I love my husband deeply. Will I still be disappointed if he doesn't do the things that I require? Love my friends, et cetera, et cetera. We are inclined to love with a condition. I love you, but also don't go past this point, because then it's going to challenge how I can relate to you. And then you think about God's love, how we show that is asking God to help us work through those conditions. And that is not to say you don't want people that are kind and considerate and thoughtful, but it is to say that I have to be asking God all the time how do I love these people well, even when they don't meet my conditions, or how do I remove the condition? How do I love without condition? And that doesn't mean that I don't set boundaries or don't have wisdom, but that means I don't cut people off and disengage in relationships. Ask the Lord how to navigate it and he may show me how to navigate relationships differently when I've been betrayed or when someone's broken my trust or whatever the case may be. But it means as a believer, if I believe that love is the mark John 13, 35, like they will know you're my disciples by your love. They will know you're my disciples by your love. If I believe that's the mark of what, what makes me identify as as a believer, then I can't just walk out on things when they're really hard. I have to be asking God what do I do in that situation? And so you know, trying to pursue unconditional love, trying to pursue a love that makes the first move, the love that seeks to reconcile, before the person comes and apologizes, before they explain, even if you don't know how it's going to be received. All that is very, very humbling. But that's the way God loved us. The Bible says that while the world was against God, he was reconciling us to himself. He made the first move.
Jada Edwards:So those kind of things, I think, challenge us to really depend on God to love well, because you cannot do it in human strength. We keep score and we get offended, and so it takes God's divine power really to say look past this, Think about how I've loved you. Let me show you how to do this well, and God's going to keep you safe. He's not going to set you up to, you know, be destroyed. In relationships. Hard things happen, but I don't believe that's the plan of God. I think that's just humans doing what we do, but God will show you how to do it in a way that you know is beyond your capacity and still reflects the goodness and the glory of his name, which is really the ultimate.
Ellen Krause:Yes, absolutely, it is in the book. One of the things that I loved your authenticity and I loved how you know. You said that you approach situations much more. What's the right word? Just sort of more matter of fact? Yeah, I do. As opposed to maybe someone else who might be responding to a situation more empathetically, or, and that God challenges all of us to consider how we do things, how we're loving versus how he loves. But I appreciate that. You know you. You were so honest about that, yeah.
Jada Edwards:You have to know yourself and just be okay with it. It's not a matter of guilt or shame or one person is better than the other. I mean, it's just how we all are. Some of us are, we want to slowly understand the details of every person's story and some of us are like give me the bullets, just give me the, give me the 30 seconds. You know, we're all different, some of us. Some of us want to receive encouragement.
Jada Edwards:Just this morning I got a text from a friend of mine and she was relaying some very serious information about a family member that's going to undergo a medical procedure. She wanted prayer and all these things and I know her well enough. I knew in that moment how to love her. Well, I just text her back and said I love you, glad to be your friend, I'm glad I get to be in this with you, I'm praying for you. The end.
Jada Edwards:I have other friends who may have sent that message and I know the way to love them. Well, would have been a phone call. They want to talk through it, but I know her. She actually even said I don't have capacity for questions, but I need this, this, this, and so sometimes, if you don't. If you don't get out of yourself, you'll just assume, well, the loving thing to do would be to call or to show up because that's what you like. But actually it's not the loving thing to do for that friend. I know her. She's like here's I'm putting this out here. It's a big deal for her to even ask for prayer. I know she's going to give me updates whenever she's ready and when I sent my message back she just hearted the message. Heart, that's it. That's probably all I'm going to get you know until she's ready. But it's that sensitivity in the moment. God, what do I do? How do I respond?
Jada Edwards:to her, because everybody doesn't want what I want. How, what does she want? What makes her feel loved? And I needed to just acknowledge that she sent me, that she liked the message and that's it. Might not get an update till tomorrow or the next day, but you know it's just asking that question how do I love the other person?
Ellen Krause:Yes, that is definitely the question. What are some red flags that indicate someone might be stuck in unhealthy relationship patterns and how do you think they can begin to shift towards healthier dynamics, begin to shift towards healthier?
Jada Edwards:dynamics yeah, red flags, I think show up when the person, the other person that you're in relationship with, becomes the center of the relationship rather than God. So that means the other person then has the power to ruin your day or change your mood or, you know, disrupt your joy or your peace. These things that are gifts and promises from the Lord, if we find ourselves in places where someone we're in relationship with whether it's a friend, a sibling, a child, a parent, someone we're in relationship with can begin to disrupt what I know is a gift from God, means I may have put them in a God spot in my relationship. Because if the Lord says I'm your peace and peace is yours, that means even on a hard day with someone I love, I can be disappointed, I can be sad, I can be hurt. I can feel all those emotions and still feel settled, that tranquility that the Lord promises me.
Jada Edwards:So when I'm tossing and turning at night and can't function at work and can't think through the day because of something someone said or someone did, or I'm waiting on a response, those are my signs that hold on.
Jada Edwards:You have made this thing more important than the God, who says you always have joy and you always have peace. And then, in addition to that, I'm probably expecting from them some things that only God can give me, because a red flag is, if I need this person to respond or function in my life in a certain way in order for me to be content or happy or joyful or whatever, I have given them too much power and too much responsibility. I'm asking them to do something only God can do, and so it's trying to check that. Well, who's at the center of this relationship? Are they, is the other person? Am I? Am I being arrogant? Have I put myself at the center of the relationship, or is God really the center? Because then it helps me to love freely, and not with this demand on other people that they will typically not be able to meet because they're not God. And that's a hard lesson, that's a hard thing to keep learning.
Ellen Krause:Yeah, yeah, it sure is. And what that kind of brings to mind for me is that part of Matthew 11, where Jesus calls us to yoke our burdens with him. And I think too, if we're feeling that stress that you're describing too, it's because maybe we haven't asked him to yoke that burden. I love that. This just kind of all ties together, because that's only something that God can do. Yep, absolutely, absolutely Well, jada, you talk about the importance of boundaries in loving relationships, and I'm just going to read a little bit from your book.
Ellen Krause:You say many times life demands we set boundaries in our relationships and create space from unhealthy circumstances. But love is so much bigger and braver than boundaries. God demonstrated it and calls us to the same transcendent love. It's possible to have guidelines that govern a relationship without lessening our love. Boundaries don't negate love, and distance doesn't have to mean disconnection. There is a way to set healthy boundaries that still give us the space to love the people we need distance from. And I'm kind of excited to talk to you about this, because it does seem that that's kind of a buzzword now setting boundaries. We love boundaries. What do godly versus worldly boundaries look like, and how can we set limits that honor both love and truth.
Jada Edwards:Yeah, I'm at the risk of sounding like a broken record. It's like who's at the center of the boundary. Is it this person that you are trying to disconnect from? Or maybe you're trying to punish that person? They've done something to you. Now I'm not gonna engage with you in the same way. Are you at the center of the boundary? I need to protect myself because you're not safe or you've caused me harm or you've caused me hurt. Or is God at the center of the boundary?
Jada Edwards:And when I read through, especially the life of Christ, you have Peter, you have Judas, two significant people who betrayed Jesus. But they had very different heart postures, very different. But here's the thing that blows me away about Jesus Both of those men were at the table of the final supper, both of them that even when he called Judas, he knew that Judas would betray him. Now, judas wasn't in his inner three. Judas wasn't the name mentioned often throughout scripture as the disciples were mentioned, but Judas was at the table and Jesus let God deal with Judas said to him in so many words you basically cannot thwart my plan. I'm going to allow you to do what you're going to do. So none of us wants to have a Judas at the table. But I believe that if I trust the Lord more than I trust myself, I will know that there's going to be some times where the person I really don't want to connect with, the person I know has ill intentions, the person I know doesn't have good will toward me, that God may allow them in my space for a season to serve his purpose. That doesn't mean we have to be best friends. That doesn't mean we have to go to lunch. That doesn't mean it's just that I need to give grace and room for God to do what God is going to do and for me to watch God take control of that situation and not me.
Jada Edwards:You have situations where you have a Peter who not only denied Jesus three times and kind of overreacted in a few situations, even when he's brought into the inner three, falls asleep at one of the most crucial moments in the life of Christ, where he's broken, his humanity is coming forth and he wants to share the brokenness of how he feels about the cross. His three closest friends fall asleep. He doesn't kick them out of his life, he doesn't kick them out of the garden. It is the ability to deal with the disappointment of people without disconnecting from them, and I think that only comes by being found fully stable and healed in the Lord and asking the Lord what do you want done in the relationship? Because here's the thing it makes sense to cut off a Judas. But if Jesus had cut off Judas, could we have seen that grace is shown even to our enemies? Because the Bible doesn't tell me that everybody's feet got washed except Judas. Bible tells me that he was washing feet.
Jada Edwards:If you were at that table, how? What human being would say I know you're gonna betray me, but still come to dinner, come to my last dinner, like, and I'm gonna wash your feet, like that is so foreign to us. And Jesus did it in an act of not only servanthood but of trust to say I know the father's going to take care of you. I don't have to mete out my own justice. Even Jesus practiced vengeance, being the Lord's.
Jada Edwards:And then you have Peter, who betrayed him, denied him, did everything, and somehow, at the end of the story is the one that Jesus says I'm going to build my church on you, peter, like what if Jesus had said I can't believe you fell asleep on me in the garden, I'm never talking to you again. That was my lowest moment and you were not able to stand with me. What if he had said, peter, I'm done, you're out of my life? As a human, we would have missed the fact that God is now calling us to partner with this person, or some divine assignment, like building the church or doing something great in the name of God, with the very person that has hurt us more than once. So those kinds of stories make me question, when I know I might need to set a boundary.
Jada Edwards:What do I do with this person? I have to ask the Lord what do I do? I loan this person money. They didn't pay me back. And they're not always the same answer, because sometimes the Lord says, hey, don't loan that person money anymore. I'm working on some things with them. We need to work on responsibility and stewardship. That makes sense to me. But then there are other times where the Lord says I want you to loan them money again, when they ask because I'm teaching them grace, I'm going to work on this with them. And then you have to say it does not make sense to me. But okay, lord, because otherwise you'll get in a formula. You're like, if you don't pay me back more than once. I have a rule I'm not going to loan you money. That's what we do. We set up something. We have a rule.
Jada Edwards:Once you do this, this is my action and God's like no, it's case by case. Because, jada, haven't you been given grace? Didn't somebody give you a chance? I cut you off? No, because you wouldn't have any friends. We've all messed up, and so I have to be asking God, moment by moment how do I love you well, and this person well, because sometimes it is to create a distance or a space, and sometimes it's to keep giving grace and letting God work through both of those. So I wish there was a formula. I like formulas. I like A plus B equals C. This is what I do in this situation, but it's not. It's Holy Spirit led. He's like ask me, I love them more than you love them. Just ask me, I will tell you what to do in these moments, and so that's the dependence that we need so we can set boundaries, but that the Lord is at the center of them. That was a mouthful.
Ellen Krause:Oh no, those were incredible examples, and I think exactly what we all need to hear, because I think it is our natural instincts for when we've been hurt, is to put up this wall and boundary. And, like you said, though, Jesus that's he forgives, he. You brought up Peter as an example, and just three times you know, he claimed not to know Christ. So this kind of weaves into forgiveness, what role does forgiveness play in loving others? Well, and what would be one practical step someone who's struggling with forgiveness today they could take?
Jada Edwards:Man, forgiveness is huge and it's something that a lot of us struggle with. Sometimes we don't realize how much we struggle with it, because if it wasn't a huge trauma or a huge offense, we might think we're pretty good with it. But sometimes we hold very minor offenses that keep us from loving well. And so you know the Bible says if your brother has ought with you, don't even come to the altar. Go and make that right. God so prioritizes restoration and reconciliation. So for me, and what I talk about in the book is taking approach like a two step. Here's the things that need to be happening Coming to terms, coming to the reality that this person cannot pay me back, whatever I think they owe me, that one of the foundational ideas of forgiveness is to release or to send away.
Jada Edwards:It means to send away like I'm wiping this debt in the way God forgave me. So this person I have to decide this person cannot pay me back. If they hurt me, then there's no apology or no explanation or no making it up. That is going to unhurt me. It may help our relationship, but it's not going to undo the hurt. If you put a nail in the fence, it doesn't matter if you take the nail out and repaint it. There's always a hole in that wood under the paint. That reality should make me dependent on God. I say you know what? God, this person left a little hole created some disappointment.
Jada Edwards:Can you mend that for me and help me to not expect it from them? That's the forgiveness part. Then restoration and reconciliation. That requires the other person to also agree that there's been disappointment and to want to make amends. And one of the things we have to realize is that we often, we are always called to forgive, but we're not always able to restore or reconcile. And so you can release a person of what they owe you because the Lord is healing you for that, even if a parent that's not living anymore or a person that you may never see again, the Lord can still give us the power to release that person. However, the reconciliation is a very different thing. It requires two people to mutually say, yes, there's been brokenness and I want to work on this, and so we have to be okay with those different phases, knowing that we're absolutely called to always forgive. But we don't have to force reconciliation or restoration. We need to let the Lord lead in that as he sees fit.
Ellen Krause:Yes, we definitely do, because, left up to us alone yes, we definitely do, because, left up to us alone, we get ourselves into trouble and it's just not God's way. We know and we trust, if we can trust, that he will use it for his glory. Yes, and we can. He will help us get through it. Absolutely, jada, as we start to wrap things up here, what encouragement would you offer to someone who feels disconnected or distant from God's love?
Jada Edwards:You know what I would say to them ask God to show himself to you. I don't think that, whether you're a new Christian or maybe you're not a Christian, that you stumbled on this podcast, or maybe you've been a Christian for a very long time I don't think there's ever a point in our journey where we are too mature to ask God just for some evidence. I know we're supposed to walk by faith. I know that's what God calls us to do, but he also meets us where we are, and sometimes he does give a sign. Sometimes he will point your heart to things he's already doing in your life, because he knows what we need.
Jada Edwards:And so when I have my own moments of wondering, like God, I feel far from you, he will just show me in the smallest things. It might be a gesture from a friend, it might be something in nature, it might be a word my kid says, it might be a book I stumble across or a song I hear. God is so faithful and he wants to keep making himself known to us, and so if you feel far from him, or that you can't find him, or you're not feeling his love, ask him point blank. Show me God, show me how you love me. And I'm telling you he will blow your mind because there's some things that we're maybe overlooking because we have hurt in our life and we're overlooking all these other ways that God has generously loved us. And he will show you because he wants you to see it. And that's the first step to really reconnecting and finding that closeness.
Ellen Krause:Yes, absolutely so. Listeners, I hope that you feel encouraged by that, because throughout our lives, our connection to God and feeling his love does sort of ebb and flow and ask, ask God to show you. That's a prayer that he wants to answer. Well, jada, where can people find out more information about you and your book?
Jada Edwards:more information about you and your book. Well, it's available in several Christian bookstores, including Mardell. It's also online, amazon and I have a website, jadaedwardsorg. I'm on social media like all the things, so I love it. I love Instagram posts and things going on in our church, and so I'm mostly probably on Instagram. But, yeah, my website, jadaemblissorg, and the book is available pretty much everywhere books are sold and it's on Audible. I recorded the book. I did an audio version of it. I hear people say that they love audio books, and so it is on Audible too.
Ellen Krause:That's fantastic. Okay, we will make sure we put all of those links in our show notes. Before I let you go, jada, though, I have to ask you a couple of questions. What Bible is your go-to Bible and what translation is it I've?
Jada Edwards:been loving the ESV, been in that for a while. I grew up an NASB girl, new American Standard and the ESV is just a slightly simpler version of some of those ideas, but it's still a word for word translation which I really love.
Ellen Krause:Yes, it is an awesome one. I use that one as well and it's fantastic. Do you have any favorite Bible journaling supplies that you like to use?
Jada Edwards:I do not. I am the person that buys multiple Bibles and I write notes in my Bible because I lose journals or I'll write in them, write in them for a week or a month and then I can't find them. So I have several Bibles and when one gets full of stuff or if I want another one, I'll just buy another one, and one Bible has tons of notes throughout the Psalms. Then I have another Bible that has a lot of notes in John. It's very chaotic. I don't know if that system works, but I'll jot down pieces of paper. So the Bible has paper paper clip to the page where the scripture is. It's got posted notes hanging out of it.
Ellen Krause:It looks kind of like a train wreck, but it works for me. Yes, that's amazing. Okay, it sounds like it is well loved, all right. Lastly, what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?
Jada Edwards:Well, when I want a quick fix, I'm sitting somewhere and I have time to listen. I love YouVersion. I actually have a reading plan too for the book on YouVersion, but I love them. They have plans. If you're new to Bible especially, they have really simple day-to-day plans and, of course, the verse of the day when I'm studying. I love Blue Letter Bible. It has an online lexicon. Bible Hub has tons of commentaries and so, yeah, I'm kind of a nerd with logos and all the tools. I like to inundate myself with all the information and figure out what to share.
Ellen Krause:Those are all excellent, excellent resources. We will make sure we put the links to those as well, Jada. Thank you so much for being here. Absolutely Just your vulnerability and your wisdom and just the encouragement that you have given us. Yeah.
Jada Edwards:Thank you for having me.
Ellen Krause:All right, and for those of you that have joined us, we thank you so much for listening. Be sure and share this episode with someone who needs a fresh perspective on love, healing and God's grace Until next time.
