God Hears Her Podcast

Does God have someone for me? It’s a question everyone wonders at some point or another, especially in a culture that suggests romantic relationships are the norm. Join Elisa and Eryn as they dive deep into their struggles with loneliness and healing after relationship loss, as well as discuss a unique and important twist on this popular question.

Notes and Quotes:

• “I don’t see myself the way God sees me. I was seeing myself through the lens of the person I was dating.”
• We are made for relationships and connection.
• “I think what I am learning in this whole journey of being single after being married is that I just desire to become the person I am meant to be.”
• “I was seeking relationships to fill voids that only God could fill.”
• “When you are single, there is so much work to be done because our identities have been formed in relationship to others.”
• “Relationships define so much around us.”
• “I think God has a lot of people for us. I think marriage is one thing, and it is an important thing. But I also think the reality is we are humans, and our relationships that can be fully satisfying can function a little bit like an island of intimacy.”
• “Until we let God love us, we can’t love ourselves. And until we love ourselves, we can not love another.”
• We ask the question if God has anyone for us. Well, He has Himself for us. And yes, He invites us into relationships.
• In seasons of singleness, we have time to show up and be present for the loved ones we have around us. Be careful not to overlook that.
• “Flip the question and instead of asking if God has anyone for us, ask ‘Can I be someone for God?’”

Links/Books/Resources Mentioned In Show:

• Show Notes on godhearsher.org
• Subscribe on iTunes! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/god-hears-her-podcast/id1511046507?utm_source=applemusic&utm_medium=godhearsher&utm_campaign=podcast
• Order God Sees Her: 365 Devotions for Women by Women on Amazon. https://amzn.to/32lYSgh
• God Hears Her website: https://www.godhearsher.org/
• Free eBooklet to Download: Divorce and Remarriage: What Does the Bible Teach? https://discoveryseries.org/courses/divorce-and-remarriage/
• Elisa’s Instagram: elisamorganauthor
• Eryn’s Instagram: eryneddy
• Listen to the song “Pieces” by Amanda Cook https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0FW--zidYA

We all experience life-defining moments. Some of those moments can be good and life-changing while other moments are not so good. What happens when we allow those not-so-good moments to negatively define our identities? In this “best of” episode of God Hears Her, Elisa and Eryn revisit their conversation with speaker and best-selling author Laura Smith as she shares ways in which we can learn to overcome the lies that we’ve believed and focus on God’s life-changing and freeing truth.

About our guest:

Laura Smith is an avid storyteller through her books, blog posts, and public speaking. Her recent book How Sweet the Sound focuses on the beauty and truth that come from Scripture-inspired hymns. Along with being a wife and mom, Laura’s hope is to use her writing and public speaking to help others discover the identity that God has instilled in each of us.

Notes and Quotes:

• “I think it’s so interesting how, you know, you can grow up thinking one way about your family life, and then you step into this awareness of what it really is.”
• “He loves us for exactly who we are, because He created us in His image—because He created us!”
• “In college, I had my Bible. I would read it every day, then I would put it under my pillow and go do whatever the heck I wanted. I believed in God, and I loved him, but I didn’t live like it.”
• “It was some sort of lie that I started to believe when I was younger, that if I do these things, then ‘this’ will make ‘this’ true.”
• “I am trying to honor the fact that forgiveness and trust are not the same thing.”
• “I can forgive [my dad] and be kind to him, but I don’t have to trust him and let him into my safe spaces.”
• “We tend to think that when we come to know Jesus that everything is just ‘BING’ and resolved and wrapped up in this box with a pretty bow on it. And real life is often: God promises and does meet the desires of our hearts. Sometimes it’s now, sometimes it’s later, sometimes it’s not really in this lifetime.”
• Three resounding themes: God is almighty. He loves us unconditionally. He will never leave us.
• “So many of us want to throw out the pain in our lives; the hardness of our lives; the embarrassing, depleting, revealing in our lives; and think, ‘Okay, now God can come in, and now He can do something with me.’”
• “God planted good in the soil of your pain.”
• “We have to really focus on who we are listening to for our identity.”
• Three ways to stay in the truth that God created me as a masterpiece: Read the Bible every day; pray every day “Who do you see me as?”; hang out with core people you can trust and confide in.

Links/Books/Resources Mentioned in Show:

• Show Notes on godhearsher.org
• God Hears Her website: https://www.godhearsher.org/
• Subscribe on iTunes! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/god-hears-her-podcast/id1511046507?utm_source=applemusic&utm_medium=godhearsher&utm_campaign=podcast
• Order God Sees Her: 365 Devotions for Women by Women on Amazon. https://amzn.to/32lYSgh
• Order Laura Smith’s book How Sweet the Sound: https://amzn.to/36wMRqp
• Laura's Instagram: laurasmithauthor
• Elisa’s Instagram: elisamorganauthor
• Eryn’s Instagram: eryneddy

Verses Mentioned in Show:

• Ephesians 2:10 NIV “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%202%3A10&version=NIV

A lot of us make a plan for our lives or have expectations for the way we think that our life will turn out. How do we react when things don’t go according to our plan? How do we trust God with the unexpected? Join Elisa Morgan and Eryn Eddy on God Hears Her as they talk to Brianna DeWitt about the ways her life has not gone the way she planned.

About Our Guest:

Brianna DeWitt lives, bakes, and works in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You can find her spending time with her friends or young nieces and nephews, reading a book, or making a new dessert involving peanut butter and chocolate.

Notes and Quotes:

• It’s difficult to desire something that God made, and said it’s a good thing, and to not have it. —Brianna DeWitt
• Comparison is hard when other people have the things we want in our lives. —Brianna DeWitt
• You can let yourself be sad, you just can’t stay in that sadness. —Brianna DeWitt
• Do you truly believe that the life God has planned for you is better than anything you could try to do on your own? —Brianna DeWitt
• The Lord can’t drive a ship with an anchor. —Erin Eddy
• Sometimes it takes a long time to be able to see what God is doing. —Brianna DeWitt
• It’s hard to come up with answers to the questions that I, and others, have about my own life. —Brianna DeWitt
• Be open to the ways life is going to look different from the way you thought it would. —Brianna DeWitt

Verses:

• (The story of Joseph) Genesis 37–50
• “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” —Genesis 50:20

Links:

• God Hears Her website: https://www.godhearsher.org/
• God Hears Her newsletter sign-up: https://www.godhearsher.org/signup
• Subscribe on iTunes! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/god-hears-her-podcast/id1511046507?utm_source=applemusic&utm_medium=godhearsher&utm_campaign=podcast
• Elisa’s Instagram: elisa morgan author
• Eryn’s Instagram: eryneddy
• Brianna’s Twitter: @bwitt722

How often do you feel stressed? Frustrated? Overwhelmed? Do you feel those ways more often than you feel at peace? This world is filled with events and people that can make us feel far from peaceful. On this episode of God Hears Her, Eryn and Elisa talk to Kay Wills Wyma about feeling the real, full peace that God grants us when we lean into Him.

About Our Guest:

Kay Wills Wyma is a blogger, speaker, video podcaster, and mother of five. Kay writes on cultural and societal issues that impact family and friends. She is an author of four books, including The Peace Project: A 30-Day Experiment Practicing Thankfulness, Kindness, and Mercy where she leads readers through 30-days of finding and feeling peace. She’s also a former White House aide, International Capital Markets banker, and entrepreneur.

Notes and Quotes:

• “To just slow down for a second and really enjoy the people that walk beside you is such a gift.”
• “Friendships are giving relationships also.”
• “I grew up in the South, so there became this strange relationship with Jesus because I had to ‘do and be’ to be okay.”
• “It’s easier in the hard times than the good times. In the hard times you’ve got nothing.”
• Soul30: Practice finding moments of peace every day for 30 days.
• “Why does being thankful feel good? Because it is literally firing parts of your brain that deliver dopamine and endorphins.”
• “You have neural pathways in your brain that are highly traveled pathways, and they tend to go along the lines of fear, anxiety, worry. What if you can change the routes?”
• “You can actually change the pathways in your brain so that peace is where you are going instead of anxiety.”
• “He says: ‘I keep in perfect peace those whose minds are fixed on me.’”

Links/Books/Resources Mentioned in Show:

• God Hears Her website: https://www.godhearsher.org/
• Subscribe on iTunes! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/god-hears-her-podcast/id1511046507?utm_source=applemusic&utm_medium=godhearsher&utm_campaign=podcast
• Order God Sees Her: 365 Devotions for Women by Women on Amazon.
• Check out Kay Wills Wyma’s blog: http://www.themoatblog.com/
• Purchase The Peace Project: A 30-Day Experiment Practicing Thankfulness, Kindness, and Mercy https://amzn.to/3mvkK4p
• Elisa’s Instagram: @elisamorganauthor
• Eryn’s Instagram: @eryneddy

How do we follow God’s will for our lives? Some of us have dreams and goals that end up changing over time, or are completely changed by a God who then provides in unknown ways. Finding peace in these moments is hard! Teresa Swanstrom Anderson had a plan for her life when God stepped in and completely altered it! On this episode of God Hears Her, Teresa shares with hosts, Elisa Morgan and Eyn Eddy, how she embraced the unknown and the unexpected good plans of God.

About Our Guest:

An unlikely mom of six children (two biological and four from Ethiopia), Teresa is a community builder, party and beauty lover, author, speaker, and huge “Bible nerd.” Obsessed with helping overwhelmed women learn to slow down with Scripture, Teresa teaches how to say yes to God, lead wherever you are, and create a life you love. She currently has four books published, including three best-selling Bible studies (three more are set to release in the next several years).

Notes and Quotes:

• Just because you’re passionate about something, doesn’t mean that’s your calling. –Teresa
• There has to be a time of preparation in our lives. How scary would it be to walk into our calling unprepared? –Teresa
• Sometimes we have to do the hard work in order to accomplish what God is calling us to. –Teresa
• Sometimes what God has in mind for us doesn’t make sense [to us]. –Elisa
• The enemy wants us to think that we missed God and His plan. –Eryn
• If you make time with God, He will make time for you to do everything else. –Teresa

Links:

• God Hears Her website: https://www.godhearsher.org/
• God Hears Her newsletter sign-up: https://www.godhearsher.org/signup
• Subscribe on iTunes! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/god-hears-her-podcast/id1511046507?utm_source=applemusic&utm_medium=godhearsher&utm_campaign=podcast
• Give to support God Hears Her: https://donations.ourdailybread.org/int62.html
• Elisa’s Instagram: elisa morgan author
• Eryn’s Instagram: eryneddy
• Teresa’s Instagram: teresa.swanstrom.anderson
• Teresa’s website: https://heyitsteresa.com