She Speaks Stories

We had the best time chatting today with Cindy Laenger! She has such a beautiful soul and genuinely comes to the table with incredibly encouraging one-liners. As she walked us through her spiritual story that rises and falls, ebbs and flows, she shares phrases that helped her unlock truth in her life. Here are a few teasers:

 “Busyness doesn’t equal spirituality.” 

“You don’t have to lie to give Him glory.” 

“God stops are as important as his starts.”

 “In the word ‘Surrender’ is the word ‘end.’” 

“God heals the real.” 

There were lots more in today’s episode and even more in her devotional! We hope our conversation brought some hope and peace into your life the same way it did for Katie and Julia! 

https://www.lifepoint.org/ 

Her book, Modern Day Well: 
https://a.co/d/0i8HeCzp

Sometimes life hits hard, and we really feel stuck or unable to improve. In this episode, Jacqueline Williams joins us to share her story of being an overcomer. She was born with an extreme birth defect and had to endure 24 surgeries before the 7th grade! She lived at the hospital for most of her childhood. But she realized that God was someone that she could always talk to, and through her constant relationship with him she found her strength. She decided she was not going to be overcome by these challenges but leaned into God and found peace, strength and the will to keep on keeping on! 

Our website:

shespeaksstories.com 

Her book, Overcomer

https://a.co/d/02VMmZgh 

Steps by John Ortberg

https://a.co/d/07fthShc

Life is full of decisions, and that is why this theme has brought us such a variety of guests and stories. On today’s episode we have Lauren Burns, who was kidnapped as a child by her father and taken to Jordan. Not only does her story have us on the edge of our seats because of the kidnapping, it also holds an even greater wow-factor when we look at the power of prayer. In this episode Lauren shares moments where God responds to prayer in life-changing ways. We may not have the same level of intensity happening in our lives, but the knowledge and perspective that God can handle it, and that his timing is a process where he’s working behind the scenes, gives power to prayer in such a dynamic way! We hope this episode will encourage you to just ask God, and watch how he can (in his timing) respond and in big and small ways, change your life too!

https://www.laurenburns.net/

We’ve been talking with so many great guests on our theme of Making Decisions, and today we have the lovely Cally Logan. She’s an author, speaker and teacher with such a great perspective on what it looks like to walk with Jesus. Sometimes we want the big and loud “signs” from God but Cally reminds us of the importance of paying attention to the small nudges from God and encourages us to walk in obedience towards those even when we don’t understand or know where they are going. In her story, we see how all these steps lead to God’s plan for her, and how each step prepped her a little more for the work he has her in right now. God doesn’t shout, and he loves to speak to us in such an intentional way. She encourages us all to not underestimate how God meets us in the ordinary for extraordinary things! 

https://callylogan.com/

Hey Friends, as we continue our theme of Making Decision we are delighted with the guests that God is bringing to our podcast. Today we have Amanda Hope Haley, who is a blast to hang out with, but also brings a very unique perspective of someone who explores the intersections of archaeology and the Bible. We were immediately intrigued and then wow’d by the easy and gracious way Amanda explains and connects technical elements with our everyday lives. She encourages all of us to really “dig” into the Word (archeological pun intended!) Because “God isn’t afraid of our questions.” And if we open our physical bible, we can usually find some helpful notes that the publisher adds to help us see and understand the historical background more easily. Knowing this makes His story real. It is real. And we should feel empowered to use the tools to get to know Jesus more! We hope you are as encouraged as we were from all that Amanda brings to our conversation in this episode!

https://redhairedarchaeologist.com/

We have another great episode in our current theme of Making Decisions! Today, Katherine Maribeth joins us to talk with us about her book, “Wayward Daughters” and all the decision making that was involved in her own life and in writing the book. Her book is a multigenerational memoir and the process of having, as she put it, “three voices and one author” continued some healing she had begun before God asked her to take on writing out this book. Katherine was raised in a dysfunctional home and had to wade through generational trauma to realize her solution for coping with it all, control, wasn’t working. So often we can scoot ourselves under the umbrella of religion and hold on tight, hoping everyone is buying it. But until we surrender control, and look to Jesus for everything, we just won’t find the healing we need. This story is a vulnerable one, and one so many of us can relate to. And even though life is hard, Katherine reminds us that no one is beyond God’s redemption and even though we hear the whispers of doubt, it is never too late to find and follow after Jesus!

https://www.katherinemaribeth.com/

Get her book here: https://a.co/d/aHJhz6z

Hey Friends, today we are sharing our chat with Kay Sumner, one of the producers behind the famous Dog Whisperer show and a newly released documentary Survivors. Kay walks us through her small decisions that lead to big opportunities and examples of how encouragement can do a world of wonders for people and help lead them to create and make good decisions. She reminds us that Jesus is with us, and even comes to challenging meetings! After hearing about her walk towards becoming a producer, we chat about her son Josh and the choices he made that lead to her making a documentary about overcoming addiction. Our lives are full of decisions and one of the most important is making Jesus the first option!

https://www.kaysumner.com/ 

Watch Survivors Here

In this season of Decision Making we are absolutely enjoying the diversity of stories! Today we have Elaine join us to share her unique story of breaking free from a doomsday, fear-based cult that she was raised in. She shares what steps she had to take to get through the confusion of misunderstanding who God is and all the fear that was an entangling part of her former religion. Although the cost for walking away from this religion was losing her family, God pulled her close to him and handed her a mission. With this mission came a new family, all over the world, and the joy she traded in for her fear, was discovered as reading her Bible became everything to her. 

Wherever this episode finds you, we hope it encourages you to seek a deeper understanding of who God is and do so by spending time reading about him in the Bible. We mention The Bible Project as a helpful resource to get started: https://bibleproject.com/ 

www.youtube.com/@JWEscape

www.JWEscape.com

book: https://a.co/d/gOCRSDc

We are continuing our season’s theme of Decision Making and delighting in all the guests that have been joining us! Today we have Rebecca George who loves connecting with women which led to her calling to be a communicator. Which is not just to share her thoughts and wisdom, but she writes, speaks and podcasts with the hope of helping others find their unique gifts. She shares her belief that these unique gifts, when we surrender them to God, enables us to do such good work with them in his timing. And HIS timing sometimes requires a bit of waiting, but waiting is not wasted time! Rebecca encourages us to “keep doing the thing in front of us.” as we wait! And in her books she comes alongside us (because we’ve all been in or currently are in) seasons of waiting and longing for something. While we wait, molding and shaping can happen and it gets us to a different place, an arguably better place, to receive the next thing. It’s so important to wait well, even though it’s hard. Kaite and Julia cannot wait to get and read her books and we hope you do too! 

https://www.radicalradiance.live/

As we continue our theme of Making Decisions we were SO pleased to have Katie M. Reid join us! Not only is Katie a fabulous person to chat with, but she also has written a bible study all about making decisions! She really has spent some time in her life accepting grace and the wisdom in how to unlock the doors of understanding in overcoming her "deficit in daughtership” in seeing Jesus as “family to enjoy not company to impress” and in knowing that “to do lists do not determine our value.” She explains the importance of giving ourselves grace as we begin to act from our grace! We won’t have it all figured out and that’s okay. It truly was a life-giving chat! Katie and Julia can’t wait to get her bible study for themselves to grow in the understanding too!

Katie Reid reminds us that obedience really is a first step to all of this, and the ripple effect (large, medium and small) of obedience leaves a legacy of belief that has the potential to encourage others and brings Jesus so much glory! We hope you find her words as inspiring as we did!

Link to the free Bible Study lesson to help others make wise decisions: https://katiemreid.myflodesk.com/biblestudyfreebie1 

Link to Bill Murray photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/BupVBFUhRTE/

Link to McDonald's song: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9pjCgoMPZNQ

Here is a link to her online store listing for God, What Do I Do (if people buy 5-9 copies they'll automatically get $2 off per copy at checkout, if they buy 10 or more, they'll get $5 off per copy at checkout). https://katiemreid.myshopify.com/products/preorder-god-what-do-i-do

Link to my teaching videos on RightNow Media: https://app.rightnowmedia.org/en/content/details/932091

Link to Leader's Guide: https://katiemreid.myshopify.com/products/leaders-guide-for-god-what-do-i-do

Link to Made Like Martha book: https://katiemreid.myshopify.com/products/made-like-martha-autographed