When you think of Father’s Day, what comes up for you? Is it a day where you love celebrating your Dad? Or is it hard for you?

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When I was a kid and my Dad lived three hours away, I would have told you it was hard because I felt a bit abandoned, even though I knew he loved me. He wasn’t in my everyday life, except every other weekend and lots of phone calls. My heart couldn’t comprehend it. 

14 years ago when he passed suddenly, and all that abandonment came back, I never thought I’d be able to celebrate Father’s Day again. For years I cried about the loss on that day, but I found out early on in recovery that God truly was my Heavenly Father. 

Even though Dad couldn’t be here and there was physical distance and he had flaws (just like any Dad) when He was on earth, God showed me he could fill in every crevice of my heart Da couldn’t. 

Because of that, I enjoy celebrating my Dad and the impact he made on my life without losing it. Praise the Lord for healing. 

Every one of us who struggles with Father’s Day and says, “It’s hard,” has had some sort of pain in that relationship. Some of you may have extreme pain that has left deep resentment maybe for years. Some of you may have just cut him out and some of you are just grieving that He’s passed on. 

Whatever that pain looks like, it is a Father wound and I believe you are supposed to listen to this podcast today because He wants to heal your heart at the deepest levels that only He can reach. 

He wants you to know that even though your Dad didn’t meet your expectations - God can and you know what? He loves you more than you can imagine. I know that can be hard to hear when you have a Father wound, and that’s why we’re doing this podcast.

Today’s guest is my friend Sara Sosnowski. She is a daughter of God. Wife. Mom. Worship leader. Teacher. Sister. New Grandma…and she’s got a huge heart for helping people break chains and generational curses. 

She and I go to church together. What I love about her is how vulnerable and honest she is about the broken parts of her story that God has redeemed. She is so willing for the Lord to use her story to help someone else come out of their darkness and overcome. 

Today, she shares with us the part of her story about her Dad and it’s quite a story. What it was like, how God worked in her with “one more day.”

One other thing about Sara is she’s on my leadership team for Guiding God’s Daughters. She went through the mentor leader discipleship training with me last year (that we’ll make available again soon) so she’s committed and I love love how God is using her story for His glory. 

I hope you enjoy it.

If you’ve been stuck in a place with your father wound, I pray the Lord uses this to help pull you out of it and help you feel a little less alone and make you believe that healing is possible. Don’t let the enemy lie to you! You may have had not a great Dad. But God can heal that wound if you believe — and you’re wiling to take the steps toward healing. 

Have you ever had a time in your life when you’ve been forced to rest? It’s like you are taken out of the game, the race of life. What do you do with that time? Recently I had a case of the shingles (at 47). I’m not young! But I also thought it was mostly for old people (not so much). As someone who seeks the Lord as much as I can and knows how He can speak most at the times when you are most in pain, I leaned in. In fact, there really was nothing else I could do because I was in so much pain and couldn’t function. So with my awake time, when I wasn’t with my family, I was in the Word, just seeking His will and His way.What I pray with this episode is that it will give you new insights to how you can see God working in your times of forced rest. You know why? Because it is in those times that the enemy works so hard to keep us focused on our pain. But God speaks loudly in these times and I want to help YOU see that.#suffering #pain #mentalhealth #healing #hope #anxiety #god #emotions #peace #Scripture #secretplace

Infertility is something so many women struggle with silently so it can feel tremendously lonely and isolating. There aren’t a lot of places to talk about it, let alone in the context of our faith. But here, we like to get real and go deep about the issues nobody likes to talk about in the context of faith.

On that note, this was one of those conversations that felt very relevant of our day. So, I’ve invited two of my friends to join me. Both of them have walked the walk in some way and both know God can use their story for His glory so I’m grateful for their willingness to step out and share their stories. 

You will hear our testimonies from different aspects including what our childhood perspective of motherhood was like, how we started to navigate this journey and what we did to address it. But you will also hear the common theme of how we’ve seen God show up in the midst of the storm. 

So, whether you’ve just realized you are on the infertility journey, you are smack dab in the middle of it, you feel like you’re coming to the other side of it or you’ve been through it and you remember the pain if it vividly, we want to help you see you aren’t alone. We even welcome you if you are someone who’s never experienced this but you love someone going through it.

Today’s episode is dedicated to those of you praying for a baby. We’re lifting you up in prayer for God to bless you with a miracle. We also pray that our testimonies will bless you.

Make sure you listen all the way through for 10 ways to get closer to God on the journey, strategies for recognizing the enemy’s attempts to defeat you, and a powerful Scripture and prayer at the end. 

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Make sure you Follow and Subscribe to my Podcast on Spotify, Apple and You Tube.Find me and follow me @getrealwithmeredith on Tik Tok and InstagramIf you’re interested in the 10 things we shared, check my Instagram page to find out more.Also, if you’d like to get more extensive teaching on those ten things, you can be one of the first to sign up for my Mentorship Program. In it, you will get monthly calls with me and access to all kinds of videos to help you on your journey towards Christ.If you are local (Southwest Michigan or Northern Indiana), come join us on Saturday, May 17th for a workshop I’m going to be leading called, “Get Real on Infertility.” We will be sharing testimonies and want to hear yours, so we can support you on the difficult journey. It’s from 9-11 at Summit Church, on US 12 in Niles.

Do you ever struggle with comparison? I think this podcast might help you. I think it will give you some spiritual insight and why we all deal with it sometimes and I way to get out of it.

Proverbs 1:7 NLT
Matthew 7:24-27 NLT
2 Corinthians 10:12-13, 17-18 NLT

For more content, make sure you follow me on Facebook, Tik Tok and Instagram @getrealwithmeredith.

If you like to read blogs, go to my website at https://getrealwithmeredith.com. There, you can also find more about my books, mentoring ministry and merchandise.

Make sure you are also following my podcast on Spotify, Apple or anywhere you get your podcast.

You are looking for strength, but you can’t find it within. You are looking for it. Well, I’m here to tell you where you can find it, because you and I both know that true strength isn’t just physical. It goes much deeper than that. It’s spiritual and the only way you can truly find strength is from the source. That’s God.

Did you catch Simone Biles in the Olympic qualifying round and capturing the gold?! Awesome, right? Well, you may not be able to be the Olympic athlete she is. But the greatness she has in her? You've got that potential too. Maybe you need to be reminded of it in this video. Maybe you have no idea how. Either way, it's time to believe that you can be an overcomer. It's also time to realize that if you are already an overcome, you can help someone be that too and if you want to be one, there really are women out there who can help you find it inside of you - who've been there, done that and are willing. Above all, there is only one who can make you an overcomer. Find out more by watching this video. #simonebiles #2024olympics #gymnastics #overcomers #faith #courage #hope #mentoring #scripture

Mountains, we all have them in our life. We don’t want them. But, they are part of what helps us grow spiritually…

This is the last episode of the summer season and we are talking about the mountains in our lives and how we climb them. What are the mountains in your life? What is your approach toward the mountains? Is it, “Why is this mountain here?” or is it, “Okay, it’s here. Now what am I going to learn climbing this.” Even more important, who am I going to help because I climbed it? Listen as I get real about some of the mountains I’m facing in my life right now, and help you learn how to approach yours. We can get so focused on reaching the mountaintop that we don’t realize we learn the most in the climb and in the valleys.

Note: This is the last episode of this season so until the next season airs I recommend you go back through the earlier seasons on You Tube, Spotify and Apple and listen to older episodes. There is a playlist below for this episode. Make sure you follow me on Instagram and Facebook @getrealwithmeredith. If you want to message me about any topics to cover or you’d like to be one of the interviews on our next season, message me at [email protected]

Spotify Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4miXXrkyjYHqN2HrSeTEuc?si=acd4700c61f24c23

Scripture

Deuteronomy 10:17 AMP (Could use as a post) “For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, the awesome God who does not show [g]partiality nor take a bribe.”

Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

James 1:2-3 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 

Romans 5:1-5 5 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we[b] boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we[c] also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Psalm 121:1-2 “I lift my eyes up to the mountains where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.”

Isaiah 54:10 “Though the mountain be shaken, and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken not my covenant of peace be removed, “says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”

Matthew 21:21, ‘“Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.

Matthew 17:20, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to the mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Music Mentioned

“Mountains” by Lonestar

“Shoulders” by For King and Country

Spotify Playlist for this Episode called “Mountains”

Devotional Mentioned

Utmost for His Highest, July 6th: https://utmost.org/visions-becoming-reality/

We are talking today about the conch shell and how God used one on the beach in my early recovery to help me learn how to tune into His Voice. I think there are many women, especially Millennials and younger who want to know how to connect to God but don’t want to do it in the religion or ways they were shown growing up. They want something personal. I believe, they want a relationship and to do that, you need to learn how to tune into God’s voice. So this week I’m going to share about how God started to do that with this conch shell and I’m praying, that some of you use this podcast to seek that deeper relationship with the Lord.

SCRIPTURE

“The Lord God is with you,

the Mighty Warrior who saves.

He will take great delight in you;

in his love he will no longer rebuke you,

but will rejoice over you with singing.”

Zephaniah 3:17

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Matthew 7:7

John 10

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” - John 14:6

“For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.” Matthew 24:5

“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters,

he refreshes my soul.” Psalm 23:1-3

RESOURCES

Definition of Ambient noise: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ambient

Relevant Magazine article, “New Studies Reveal Americans’ Spiritual Beliefs Are Radically Changing.” July 24, 2023: https://relevantmagazine.com/faith/church/new-studies-reveal-americans-spiritual-beliefs-are-radically-changing/

NEWS

Description

We’re talking this week about how the pearl is formed in the oyster shell and it may not be how you expect. We’re going to talk about outside irritants in our lives, how we respond to the bad things that happen to us, how we can form our own protective layers that keep God from healing us and then about how this isn't just about us but it’s about the Kingdom of God.

Subscribe to the Podcast on You Tube, Apple and Spotify.

Follow me @getrealwithmeredith on Instagram and Facebook.

Find my 2 books on Amazon:

How to Let Go Of your Food and Weight Obsession: A Guide for the Woman who Wants More for Her Life

https://www.amazon.com/How-Let-Go-Weight-Obsession/dp/1949856658

Healthy Voice: Life Beyond the Weight

https://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Voice-Life-Beyond-Weight/dp/0988386704/ref=sr_1_1?crid=G9CTF87DX015&keywords=healthy+voice&qid=1689881918&s=books&sprefix=healthy+voice%2Cstripbooks%2C175&sr=1-1

Scriptures

Psam 46:1

Psalm 32:7

Psalm 139:13-15

1 Corinthians 1:26-29

Matthew 7:25

Matthew 6:33

Matthew 14:44-46

Resources

https://animals.howstuffworks.com/marine-life/question630.htm

https://www.americanpearl.com/historyoyster.html

This week, I’m talking about one of my favorite rocks to find on Lake Michigan - the heart rock. Not only that - big and small rocks and broken rocks. It’s amazing how often they can look like our hearts, and I believe Scripture has some truth to say about that. So many people today have the hearts hardened to the Lord, but it’s evidence to me that there is a need for those who are willing and wanting for God to soften their hearts. Then we go into storing up treasures here on earth versus heaven and addressing clutter. I want to help your heart get ready for your next step.

SCRIPTURE

Ezekiel 36:26

Psalm 34:18

Matthew 6:19-20 NLT

Matthew 6:21 NLT

Matthew 19:21 NIV

REFERENCE

“How do we pursue treasure in Heaven?”

https://seedtime.com/storing-up-treasure-in-heaven/

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