[00:00:01] Hey friend. Welcome to Perspectives into Practice, a place where life's stories meet practical wisdom. Together, we'll explore how faith filled perspectives can transform the way we live, love and grow.
[00:00:17] So grab a seat, settle in, and join us on this journey to turn inspiration into action.
[00:00:24] Let's dive in.
[00:00:29] Hey friend, welcome back to Perspectives into Practice. Today it's just me and I've actually been wanting to sit down with you and record this episode for a while now because we are just a little over two months out from the Wholeness in the Wilderness retreat. The this is the retreat that I hosted in Oregon back in June. And there's just so many pieces of that story that I haven't told you yet.
[00:00:56] And I really want to explain all of the little things that happened because the retreat wasn't just those few days together. Yes, that was the dates of it. But God was moving.
[00:01:09] Oh, he was moving long before we ever got to that date. And I just, I want to tell you about the, the people and the prayers and the random connections that weren't random at all and the provision and just every way that God, God provided in a way that I never expected and even talk about the scriptures the Lord gave me over and over again. So now that I'm a couple months removed from it, I can look back and see the trail of God's fingerprints that are just all over it.
[00:01:42] So today I want to take you back with me and tell you the story. This started way before the event actually happened. Wholeness in the Wilderness was conceived nine months before this retreat even happened. But it's been years of preparation to get there. So I want to go back to the nine months before the actual retreat. And we were in the redwoods of California in October, time frame the end of September. And I was going through or had been going through for a few months at that point. What I now know is a wilderness season. And I didn't have a name for it before. All I knew was that the Lord seemed very quiet and far away from me and I didn't hear from the Holy Spirit and the words from the Bible, they just weren't coming alive anymore. And so I was still going through the motions and doing all the things that I knew to do, but it was lacking something and I didn't know what that was. And I kept crying out to the Lord, asking him for answers. Fast forward to October is when we were in the redwoods and I'm praying to the Lord and I feel like I'm finally coming out of that heavy cloud. That darkness now I know as a wilderness season, as I'm walking through the redwoods, I'm talking to the Lord. I have my journal, and if you know me, I have my little Jesus bag that I take with me or that I take with me on walks when I go talk to Jesus and I journal and I have my Bible in there, and I always have my binoculars. But I took this on my walk and was asking the Lord these questions. And this is where this idea of wholeness in the wilderness came from. Holy Spirit downloaded that, I wrote it down, and I was so excited to get started. Now, some of you may have already heard this part, especially if you've listened to any of my other solo episodes, but that, that name, wholeness in the wilderness, I truly thought that it was for a retreat in the, in the wilderness, like in the woods, right in the. In nature and Made Whole is the name of one of the areas of my, of the ministry. And so wholeness in the wilderness, I'm like, oh, this is perfect, Lord, I'm so excited. Let's do this.
[00:04:03] And the verse that came to mind was in Mark 31, it says, Come away with me by yourself to a quiet place and get some.
[00:04:11] That was exactly what I knew I had to do. And so before I got ahead of myself, because I absolutely can, I asked the Lord to go before me and to not let me get ahead of him, which, I mean, he already has gone before me anyway. But I needed to have that outward reminder of, I'm not going to go until he says to go. And so I told the Lord, I, I, I will wait for you. When you say that it's time for me to begin the preparations of this retreat, because it is going to be so impactful, I want you to tell me, and I will wait until I, I get that. And so I was so excited from that moment. And then I closed my journal, and I didn't hear from him on this retreat subject until March of the next year, so many months later is when that happened. And it wasn't. It wasn't ever meant to be. This retreat was never meant to be something that's packed with a bunch of things. It was supposed to be a place to rest, because I was going to go back to that mark 6, 6 31, come to me and find rest, go to the quiet place. And so that was, that was what the invitation was. And so I knew that it would be great. And then I just waited. And waiting is hard, y', all, when, when the Lord gives you something Exciting. And you know that it's going to be so wonderful. I don't know about you, but I just wanted to run full force. But I knew that I had to wait for his timing. God was in that. In that time, he was changing all of the ways that I thought about the wilderness. And so coming out of my own wilderness season now, Lord, telling me, you're gonna do this, you know, this retreat idea. And now I get to really in next, let's see, October, December, January, February, March. Okay, so five months later, in those five months, I got to figure out what was a wilderness season and to learn from it, because that is when I learned that is what I was going through. And so the Lord is bringing me through this. This time in these five months, I actually wrote a devotional about wholeness in the wilderness. And so that that will be coming out at some point, but it's not ready yet. What I was learning was that the wilderness isn't evidence that God has left us. And that's what it felt like when I went through that was I felt like he had left me. And I was all by myself. But if you know what the Word says, it says that I will never leave you nor forsake you. And so I knew. I knew that he didn't leave me.
[00:06:55] So I had to press in even more.
[00:06:59] And if you look through the Scriptures over and over in there, it talks about the wilderness is over where God meets people. It's where he forms them, he feeds them, he speaks to them, and he even teaches them about dependence on Him. And so some of those Scriptures, which I won't read all of them, but I really encourage you to go back through and read these Scriptures. But these are some of the ones that really stood out to me. And I've written down at many places is Deuteronomy 8.
[00:07:31] He, God led Israel through the wilderness. He humbled them, he tested them, he fed them, and he taught them dependence. And then in Matthew 4:1, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. So that was an interesting one too, because the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. It wasn't because of anything he had done, but it was to. To do God's will. And in Isaiah 43, Matthew 3, 3, I believe, voice of the One calling in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord. And then in John, John 30, John 6, 31 and 49, God fed His people in the wilderness. And then, of course, in Psalm 23, such a beautiful, precious passage. He leads us, he restores us, he stays with us. Through the valleys. Such, such a great encouragement when you're going through wilderness. And then in Ezekiel 34, 11:12, God Himself searches for his sheep and he gathers them. He's not leaving you out there. He's not left you to be lost.
[00:08:42] And then another One is Isaiah 35:1 and two in there. He. He talks about that even the wilderness can bloom. There's a lot more, but these are the. The main ones that really just highlighted the different ways that God works through a wilderness season. Going back to the retreat in March, when he said, all right, it's go time, I was so excited. And then I immediately got terrified because I didn't know what was next. I was so excited to do this retreat and get the go and. And pedal to the metal. And I realized I have zero budget for this.
[00:09:23] Zero. Lord. How am I going to do a retreat in California and Oregon, which is the opposite side of the country of where I'm used to, in a town that I've only driven through once? How am I going to do this with a zero budget?
[00:09:40] There was so many things I had to think about. It's not just the money at that point, but they all have surround it. There's a house and food and transportation and workbooks and the little gifts that you get and flowers and supplies and insurance and all these things that I hadn't thought about.
[00:10:01] I've planned a lot of things, but I didn't think about him when he said go until he said go.
[00:10:08] And then everything started flooding in and I doubted that it would happen. In April, I started specifically praying about provision. So the end of March, he says it's go time. And then in April, once I got over my how is this even going to work Mindset, in April, I started specifically praying for provision. And while I was walking, I got this idea of a sponsorship, which asking people for money, period, has just never been on the forefront of my mind. So I knew that this was Holy Spirit. And he gave me one specific person to reach out to. I reach out to that person. And they were not able to. To do this supporting. So then I thought, okay, Lord, well, you haven't given me anyone else to ask. And this person said no. So now what am I supposed to do? And what I learned from that is that the Lord, and you'll see this all throughout, is that the Lord would send me in a direction and not always would the that direction that he'd sent me would be the answer, but it would be adjacent to the answer or close enough to the Answer for me to figure out what really it was which was so great. So it was kind of like Jesus and me went on a scavenger hunt and figured out all of these pieces, which was just so much fun. One of the, one of the biggest things that the Lord was teaching me in this was that his provision wasn't necessarily going to look like what he had pointed me in the direction of or necessarily what I had specifically prayed for. And that had to be okay. There are battles where God asks us to position ourselves to trust him, obey, and then he handles what we cannot. And this was the battle that I was having to prepare for. And so as we got closer, I had, let's see, at the end of May, I still had my spots open.
[00:12:10] The event is the end of June, in May. I still had 0 people signed up for this. So you can imagine my discouragement of saying yes to the Lord and moving forward in it with only his guidance and then nobody signing up. However, he didn't give me the go ahead to do a full blown marketing thing for this. This was. If you go back and look, I did not post about this much. There was, there's a few videos sparkled sprinkled in. There was a couple episodes of the podcast where we have a little clip it ad on it. But there was not a lot. And I think that was very intentional for from the Lord. I don't think I know because it gave me no way to say look at what I did. All I can say is look at what the Lord did. Because none of this would be possible without Him. I had conversations that were happening around the situation. I had women considering coming, but I didn't know who was coming. I didn't have the money or the funds for it. And even if I did, how was I going to get a house? That's what I kept wondering. What I am telling you and what I was telling these women is that all you have to do is say yes. I was telling myself that all I have to do is say yes and then the Lord is going to provide and it's all going to work out. But looking back and telling those women, all you gotta do is say yes. If the Lord is calling you to this, say yes and it's gonna work out. But really I was telling myself that. And so I had to just keep saying yes to the next thing over and over. And I knew that all of the pieces were going to come together. I just had no idea how they were going to come.
[00:14:08] And I remember writing on my whiteboard Joshua 1, 8 9. It says, Be strong and courageous. And so I had to continue to remind myself that, that I can do this. I can be strong and courageous and move forward. I definitely did get nervous as it was coming to a month before and I had zero registrations, as you can imagine. I am doing all of this prep around behind the scenes and no one's there. And I remember this is. Fast forward a little bit. This was a week before I had, at that point, only two people registered. Which those two people registered was not enough for me to rent the house. It was barely enough for food and the travel. I mean, there was just. There was so many things. I'm like, lord, you have given me these beautiful women and they have bought their plane tickets and they trust that this is going to be a successful event and they are looking forward to it. God, I don't even have a house for them. And so I even took a picture of myself sobbing in the truck as I'm crying out to the Lord, Lord, what. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? And I don't. I don't often, actually, I very rarely take a picture of myself crying. But I did this one because I wanted to remember what it felt like on the other side. Knowing that the Lord had provided, even though I didn't know how he was going to. God started connecting people. He started having conversation, having other people have conversations. And. And one person who had registered had invited other people, and then I was having conversations with them and then they were inviting other people, and it was just so, so cool. And one of the other things that the Lord brought to my attention was reaching out to local stores, coffee shops, grocery stores, florists, like all of these local things, and asking for a, a donation and seeing, you know, is there any possibility? And knowing that I was only asking for a maximum of eight women because it's a, you know, this is a small event. I only needed a small amount. I felt a lot more confident in asking. I even reached out to churches and printers and I mean, I just, I was like, lord, you tell me who to reach out to and I'm going to send emails and if nothing comes from it, then I will know that I have done everything that I can.
[00:16:39] And it was all so beautifully orchestrated on the back end. And I never, never could have imagined what happened. I made a post about flowers on a community post for the city that we were going to have the retreat in. And I was just asking, hey, does anyone know a florist in Town or does anyone have a garden that maybe I could come pick a few flowers for a retreat that I'm hosting next weekend in the city? And that post got so much buzz. Not only people telling me who I needed to reach out to, but I had no less than four women reach out to me saying, I want to hear more about your retreat. Now, mind you, I only put that retreat sentence. One. One sentence just says, I think that my retreat woman would really enjoy the flowers. That was the very last sentence. So either they had to read it all or that was the only sentence they read. But that was at the end. So four people reached out to me asking about this retreat, one of which signed up and joined last minute. It was two days before the retreat was happening and she signed up. Not only did she sign up, she went with us to pick flowers from a garden of a person who commented on the post. We also stopped and picked up wildflowers along the highway and filled the house with beautiful, beautiful flowers, all for free from people who were willing to say yes.
[00:18:18] One of the other beautiful women that said yes to helping out, this retreat also owns a bed and breakfast and a tea room and a massive garden. So not only did she say, hey, you can come get some flowers for my place, she also said, I would love to host you and your women for a tea and then pick lavender and bundle it up. We got to do that during the retreat. It was such a beautiful, refreshing time and it actually was sprinkly that day. And I remember that. And I thought, lord, I really wish that it wasn't sprinkling so that we could enjoy the outside. But even in the sprinkles, we enjoyed our time with the tea. We had such beautiful conversations and we got to meet and bless this woman that was there and pray for her. And we also got to pick our own lavender. And we bundled it up. And if you look at the pictures, you'll see us standing out there. Such an. An amazing connection just from saying yes.
[00:19:20] So much beauty came from it. We also got provision in. Well, let me step back. When I was praying for provision, I was in my little mind thinking, money if someone would.
[00:19:35] Would donate money if they would, you know, pay it forward type thing. I didn't know. I was thinking maybe gift cards. In my small finite brain, that is where I was thinking, provision. Oh, he's going to provide financially for the people to be able to come. That's where my mind was.
[00:19:53] And what the Lord showed me through this whole thing was that his provision is not is not just about the money. And you're probably listening to this going, well, of course, Jessica, provision is so much more than that. But when you're so close to it sometimes, and this is one of the biggest lessons that I learned through this thing, that sometimes you're so close to it. What I prayed for was provision. And in my head, provision looked like money. But God started providing through people, through relationships and businesses and gifts and registrations and conversations. And he even during one of my podcast episodes during, after the recording, me and this gal got to talking and she said, hey, I would love to donate the, the gift bags for your women. And I, I was blown away. So just a conversation did that. So here's all of the ways that God provided. He provided donations, blessing donations in actual monetary value, which not only covered some of the, the fuel costs, but it also covered all of the transaction fees online that we, that we got. So that was a huge, huge blessing.
[00:21:15] We, we got flowers, beautiful, beautiful flowers that my daughter and this new friend helped arrange, which was so amazing. We got coffee donations. So not only did they give us little coffee bags for each of the women to take home a little piece of, of that side of Oregon with them, but they also donated and provided coffee beans for us to drink coffee throughout the weekend. We got a gift card for pizza for after we had come home from our long hike in the redwoods. We stopped and picked up pizza and we had pizza and salad on the back porch at sunset.
[00:21:55] We had provision in local business connections and hey, I know this person. Reach out to them and tell them my name. Provision in referrals and registrations in friends, inviting friends and, you know, having these conversations and connections. And now not all of them got to come, but I know that there was a seed planted. And side note, we are going to be continuing having these retreats all over the country. So be aware, pay attention for your neck of the woods and bring your friend with you. Okay, back to it. We also had provision in my husband covering the gas from all of the driving, which was beautiful. Provision in the gift bags, which I, which I already mentioned, and in some of the supplies. We had provision in all of the thrift stores and antique shops that I stopped and picked up little pieces of decoration and blankets and prophetic gifts and just so many different parts. The Lord provided in beautiful, beautiful ways. Every tiny detail is all because of him, because I didn't make it happen. The Lord made this happen. And I know that as he continues to help each of the retreats happen in Every single time we have it, that he will be first and foremost in front of all of the places. And it's so important to remember that. And I feel like sometimes I know this is for me, this is true for me, that sometimes I pray for God to provide and then I decide ahead of time what his answer needs to look like, what I think it's going to look like. And that can't be further from the truth. So if, if you're one that, that prays that way, I encourage you to get outside of your own limited beliefs, limited thinking, because I know that that's where I got stuck. And know that he doesn't answer in an exact way, and he definitely doesn't always answer in the way that we think that he's going to answer. But just because he hasn't doesn't mean that he hasn't answered. Be aware of that. He. He is answering your prayers all around you. We have to just be still and notice. Remember I told you that just before the retreat was going to happen? I believe at this point it was seven days, maybe, maybe six days before I was told that one of the gals that I had been praying for for probably about six weeks at this point, she. We've been praying for provision. We didn't know what it was going to look like. But six days before the event, she says, guess what? And I was like, oh, my gosh, what is going on? She says, I can come. The Lord provided. And I'm like, of course he did. Of course he did. And so she was able to come. It was just so beautiful. And one part that I think that I've told y' all before, but God showed me, I get, you know, I talk about God winks all the time. I. If you go back a few posts on my social media, you'll see that I posted about this. But God gave me, through this whole course of preparation, through this whole nine months of preparation, he gave me godwinks of dollar bills randomly found in places. And I would write God will provide on it, because the first one that he ever gave me, I was crying out to the Lord God, I don't know how you're gonna do it, but I trust you. I believe that you're going to provide for this, even though I have no idea how. And as I was walking on the back rows of some tree line, underneath some leaves, was. Was sticking out a little dollar bill. And I picked it up and I wrote God will provide on it. And then a few weeks later, on the beach buried under the sand, I saw the tip of a dollar and I pulled it out and I wrote, God will provide. And then a little bit later, I was walking through. This was actually just recently. So this was after the ret was walking through a sheep field. And underneath the hay, sticking out a little leaf, was a dollar bill. And I wrote on it, God will provide.
[00:26:11] As a reminder that he will provide, but also as a remembrance that he did provide in every single way possible. This retreat was nine months in the making. And then less than a week before, y' all know that there was still pieces that weren't there. I didn't have a house.
[00:26:34] I had not secured a house because I did not have the funds to do so. And so I kept crying out to the Lord, lord, I know that you're going to provide.
[00:26:44] Please show me. I had dreamt about a house that he was going to provide for us. I actually found this house on a random website that was. That has vacation houses. And I knew immediately I was like, that's the house in my dream. And I go and I see it and I look at it, and it was so lackluster. I was so disappointed because I thought this was what he was going to provide. I even reached out to the people asking, is there a way that we can get a better deal on this? Can we work something out? Can I help you power wash the outsides, clean the windows, pick the weeds? I mean, I was. I was grasping at straws at this point. Like I said six days before, I was praying as I was sitting out by the river, I got a bling on my phone. And that bling was an email. And I looked down, and it's from a vacation home rental company.
[00:27:38] And I looked down at it and I immediately delete it because I had not been released from the Lord to look for any other houses. So I delete it. And as I deleted it, I felt holy Spirit say, go look at that email. And so I did. I went back and I looked at it, and it was such a gorgeous house. And I started to get emotional and I said, hey, Jeremy, wanna go? That's my husband. Wanna go look at this house? And he's like, okay, come to find out. If you look at the house that he gave me in the dream, if you turn left on that road, 10, 15 houses down is this second house. That's how close it was. Remember in the very beginning when I told you that the Lord may tell you a direction, but that might not be the final destination? It might be somewhere close? Well, that's what happened with this. So I turned down this road, and I see it far off in my distance. I see this house, and I start getting emotional, and I see this house, and I'm like, jeremy, this. This is the house.
[00:28:39] And so we look at it, and I just slowly roll around, and I'm like, lord, this is the house. And I go and I park super close, within walking distance to the beach you can get from the house. And I park and I say, jeremy, just sit right here. I'm gonna go.
[00:28:54] He says, okay. So I take off and I go walk down this and I take some. Some video footage, because I was like, I do not want to miss this breathtaking moment. It truly was breathtaking. The. The sun was. Was setting so that it was just gorgeous. And the sand was glistening. It was just absolutely amazing. And I remember there, sobbing with my arms stretched wide, thanking the Lord for this house. I said, this is the house.
[00:29:22] I went back, and I immediately messaged the lady, hey, I would love to rent your house. Is there any way that we can get into it a day early without the extra fee? And she says, hey, I love that you love our house. Yes, you can. Absolutely. So not only did God provide the house that we would ultimately be in for the retreat, but it was $700 less than the first house that I saw in my dream. And I didn't have to pay for an extra day to be there to get all set up and everything, because she let us get in there earlier. That is just one of the amazing stories. I mean, I've told you several of them, but there's just so many more amazing stories that I don't even have time to tell you all on here, but he provided every single bit of the way. And, you know, I. I prayed for. For God to give me a perspective shift so that I could see how all of these pieces were gonna come together. Because like I said, this happened all like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Right at the end. I knew that I wasn't gonna find out these things in real time, but I knew Jesus. I knew the Lord already knew how everything was going to fall into place. I knew he. I knew that he knew every single woman that he was going to invite into that room, every single conversation that was going to be had, every prayer that would be prayed, every bed that would be fil.
[00:30:52] Woman who didn't get to come, every provision and every detail he knew. And it reminds Me of Jeremiah 29:13 is, you will seek me and find me when you seek me. With all your heart. I'm learning after this. This whole thing is that ultimately this wasn't about filling a retreat. It was about creating space for women to encounter Jesus. And not only did these women encounter Jesus at this retreat, I. I was able to encounter Jesus. I didn't have to be busy planning all of these things because God had already gone before me and prepared every single thing that that was going to happen. As I did prepare for this, I was preparing my body, mind and soul for this retreat. I spent 40 days intentionally praying and preparing and fasting. I even did a secondary fast that the Lord asked me to do.
[00:31:52] I prayed for the women and their circumstances and their family and provision and transportation and utterances to be known unto them, and burdens to be relieved, and the teaching of surrender for each of us and the open hearts to be had. I y', all, I prayed and prayed. I interceded on behalf of these women for this entire time I was preparing. So it wasn't just a physical preparation that was happening for the retreat. There was a spiritual preparation in these women before they even showed up at the house.
[00:32:34] And that's something that the Lord kept bringing back to me, was that it's about Jesus, it's about the Holy Spirit, it's about reading His Word, and it's about community. And that is where we, I would say I was teaching from. That is where we were learning from at this retreat, was that wholeness wasn't going to come from another formula. It was going to only come from Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and being in community. And so we got there. We got to June 25th, southern Oregon coast. We walked into this beautiful house, and after nine months of dreaming and praying and planning and questioning and paying for things and finding things and connecting people and wondering how God was going to do it, we were finally there. And we had every bed filled, every bed filled. And we even had money left over because my God is so good.
[00:33:36] We had money left over for the next retreat.
[00:33:40] There are so many stories that I could tell you again, I don't have time now, but there's so many beautiful things that happened, all because we said, yes, yes, yes. We didn't know what was going to happen during that weekend. We didn't know how everything was going to play out. Heck, I didn't even get to read all of the notes that I had lovingly prepared to read to these women and walk through with them. Because we allowed the Holy Spirit to take over and, and. And make room for what he wanted to do. Now here I am, two months later, a little over two months later. And I can see the things that I couldn't see. Then I could trace a thread back. One person led to another person.
[00:34:26] A post led to a connection, a connection led to provision.
[00:34:30] Just on and on and on. And I can see how God was already there, already there and already moving before I even knew he was moving. Provision didn't always look the way that I thought that provision would look like.
[00:34:47] And sometimes the smallest connections that you think are nothing that makes a really important part of the story. My responsibility was obedience. I just had to keep saying yes and then taking that next choice, right step. So if you stayed here this long. Thank you.
[00:35:07] Here is the perspective that I want to share with you. Because you know that I don't ever leave you without giving you a perspective. So here's what I want to leave you with, okay? You don't need God's whole plan to give him your next yes. You don't. You don't need to know what the whole puzzle is going to look like. God just gives you one puzzle piece at a time and says, place this where I want you. And here's what I want you to practice. Before you spend all of your energy trying to figure out what's next, I want you to look back, look back at the last few months of your life. Who has God brought into it? What random conversations may have happened? What doors may have been closed or unexpected doors opened? Where did provision come from? What scriptures keep coming back to your mind over and over and over? What have you been praying about that you are looking for a certain answer, but God maybe has provided in a different way? I want you to write those things down. I want you to ask God, is there a thread that I have been too close to see that you want me to see now? Because sometimes while we're living it, while we're in the middle of it, it feels like a bunch of completely unrelated moments. And then we turn around and there's a trail God was moving the whole time.
[00:36:26] So I think that's really what I wanted to share with you today. This has taken a long time to get out, but. And I know this is a longer, longer episode, and I'm so thankful that you've listened to the whole thing. So when I look back at these nine months of preparing for the wholeness in the wilderness, I can see God in places where at the time, I mostly saw questions. I saw empty spots, I saw expenses. I saw random conversations that seemed. Seemed to go nowhere. But God knew the women that were coming. God knew the provision that he was providing.
[00:37:00] He knew the connections to the story that I couldn't even see, even though I didn't trust perfectly through all of it. I'm just being honest with you. I worried, I questioned, I cried out, I tried to figure things out on my own. And there were definitely moments that I wondered, God, are you even going to make this happen? Am I going to look like a fool by saying yes? And the answer to that is no, because he did it. It's not exactly how I pictured it. It's even better than I could have imagined. And it's. It's him being faithful. He was faithful through it all. And I can say the same thing about so much more than the retreat. I look over our marriage and I can see his provision. I look over this retreat and I see his provision. And now I look ahead toward Texas, wink, wink, without knowing exactly what he's going to do there. And I could trust in his provision again, not because I know how the story ends, but I know the one who is writing it. So wherever you are today, maybe don't be so quick to judge what God is doing by what you can see right now. Because you might be right in the middle of a story that you'll understand differently when you look back on it. Keep saying yes, keep paying attention and keep looking for that trail.
[00:38:21] Friend, if you are listening to this and thinking, I have a story that I want to share with you, you know that I would love to hear it. Reach out to
[email protected] and let me know. And come join us in the story haven. It's a free community where we're making room for exactly this. Honest stories, real faith, genuine community. It's a place where you don't have to have everything figured out before you show up up. You just have to come. So come and find your
[email protected] and if you've been listening to this entire episode, first of all, you get a gold star. Maybe you've been thinking, hey, when's an extra treat? I want to be a part of this. Pay attention because wholeness in the Wilderness is headed to Texas next January 2027. I want you to hear this part too. Every single wholeness in the Wilderness retreat will be different. We're not trying to recreate an Oregon somewhere else. There will be different women from different stories and different places, different seasons and different things that God will be teaching us in our lives. So there's a piece of wholeness in the wilderness that will always stay the same. But I never want them to become a formula, because God is moving in every season. I want to leave room for what God is doing, for God to do what he wants to do with the women that he brings to the particular place at the particular time. So Texas won't be Oregon, and whatever comes after Texas won't be Texas. And I think that's part of what makes this super special. So keep looking out for the next retreat. Come join us in the Story Haven, and if you have a story to tell, I would love to hear it. And remember, even small shifts in perspective can lead to big changes. Now go put those perspectives into practice. Talk to you next time.
