Welcome to the Spotlight Podcast: Trusting God's Provision

 📍 So  welcome to, From Surviving to Living Spotlight podcast.  And I am Holly Bot and I'm here with our guest,  Nena Harvath,  And today  we are looking at some 

 a central question. And that's, can we really trust God to provide for every need, emotional need, physical needs, financial needs, and  If we can, how does that trust begin and take shape?

 What does the process look like and how do we know it's real and based on God himself, how do we know it's God centered? And then finally, for our viewers and listeners, we want to share how you Can experience this trust and provision for yourself.

  📍 how do you get started?   And what does that process look like for you? 

Nina's Journey: From Childhood Faith to Adult Challenges

 So I'm going to turn it over to you, Nina, and I'm going to have you tell us a little bit about who you are and where you're from. 

 Great. Thanks Holly. So great to be here with you today. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah. My name is Nina. I live here in the twin cities of Minneapolis.

And I am a mother. 

of 

Four boys, and I'm a follower of Jesus. And 

so.  

to give you a little bit of my background I, I would say that my salvation testimony is that I was saved when I was six years old, I remember uh, being in a classroom with um, my teacher sitting at her feet and her telling me that, you know, Jesus could save a bring me to heaven with him  and save me from hell.

And really that's the only message I remember her sharing, but I was like all in 

 did I know anything about the character of God? Did I know anything about confessing my sin? No, I was only six years old and I didn't know any of that, but I truly believe, and I know for sure that.  At that moment, when I prayed with her, that God heard the desire of my heart. 

And at that moment, my spirit crossed from death to life. Now I had a lot of growing to do from that point, but um,  definitely have.  

  📍 ​

 that would be my salvation testimony. Then there's a point where God really gets a hold of your life and So that comes later 

 in my life story. But  from the beginning I went to a Christian school um, first grade through 12th grade, and then I went to a Christian university and I thought that I knew everything about God.

There was to know um, I was a good kid. I was a rule follower. I didn't cause any trouble.   Pretty much walked the straight and narrow, but God saw some things in my life that he needed to  get rid of.  I was blind to them. 

 And so over the next couple of decades, he showed me those things.

 There's a quote from A. W. Tozer that says that Some that it's doubtful whether God will use anyone until they are fully broken and that use them greatly in a way until they're fully broken. And so I think all of us in one way or another come to a point of brokenness in our lives, and we really should.

Um, As Paul says, we should count it all joy, my brothers. When you fall into these various temptations, because, or go through these trials, because God is working something and he believes in you and he has a plan to use you in a very mighty way. 



The Struggle with Self-Reliance and the Desire for More

  📍 So then for you growing up in the church and going to Christian school  Um, 

What happened after that brought you to a realization that maybe you were being self reliant or relying on other people and that this was a central thing?

Problem or  question for you, 

right? 

  📍 ​

 Yeah. So after I graduated from college I was engaged to be married right out of college. So I was 21 years old and it was always my desire to  get married, have a family, buy a house, all those different things. And so that was the path that I was determined to take. 

And so I did get married and shortly after that, like a year later, we bought a little starter house in Minneapolis and  and a few years after that we started a family. A few years down the road, 

um. 

is when God started to do some things that made me feel very uncomfortable. 

Uh, 

We had two children at that time.

 My husband had hit some very difficult um, layoffs and uh, he got fired a couple of times and he spent a lot of time unemployed and I, we had the two I had a traditional mindset that, you know, he needed to be the provider and I needed to stay home with the children. Uh, and,  And God was, was working in my heart and it was very uncomfortable.

 And I'll say that about that same time, it was about 10 years into our marriage, about the year 2000,

 I started to see something really interesting in the groups of people that we maybe went to church with, or we're in a small group with, and that is that I'll call it the great move up where they were all selling these starter homes and they were buying these brand new big homes out in the 

suburbs.

And 

what that created within me Was something very not beautiful  was called jealousy.  It was called covetousness and God revealed to me and not, it took me a long time to figure this out. But what I really realized is that I had an idol in my heart and that was love. Homes. I love homes. I love home decor.

I wanted a home. 

  📍 ​

 I wanted to be completely in charge of the place I lived. I wanted to love where I lived and I actually loved my little starter home, but I did want to have another baby and the starter home was just teeny tiny. And I really couldn't fit another kid in there. So I started to put a lot of pressure on my husband to not only get a job, which he did need uh, but to.

Get a better job, right? Uh, I was seeing these  other men who seem to  be doing really well in their careers and they were good providers for their family.

 And so they were all of a sudden able to afford, and I put that in air quotes because  he, you know, what appears on the surface may not really be the scenario.

But at any rate.  They were buying these new homes in the suburbs and we could not afford it. There was no way in the world. So I started to have, I started to go through this uh, time of comparison and self pity um, and all of these things, you know, from the outward appearance may not have shown up to a lot of people. 

 but they showed up to God  and he was going to do a process in me that  would, it was rooting out those idols and those hidden sins in my life.

And when I  when I think about the church right now, and maybe I'm talking to someone in the church and maybe I'm talking to someone who's not in the church, but I really believe that the church itself needs to be

more aware of  the seriousness of hidden sins um, that nobody really knows about, but God knows about them.

 So then 

what was a turning point for you? You mentioned um, You know, you're starting to feel that you're not being provided for in the lifestyle to which you'd like to  become accustomed. 

That's right.

And um, just felt kind of, it sounds almost like an insecurity

 and that you might at that point uh, need a resolution or a new place   📍 to find your answer. So what did that turning point look like for you? 

 Yeah. Yeah. 

A Turning Point: Facing Financial Crisis and Finding Faith

There was an absolute specific turning point. I remember it so clearly. It was 2009. It was January, 2009.

I was sitting in church one morning and we had, leading up to that, I don't know if uh, your listeners are old enough to remember this, but in 2008 the stock market took a huge crash and um, and the housing market market took a huge crash and most home values lost about 20 percent of their value and people found that they owed more on their home than.

 than the home was worth. And that led to a lot of bankruptcies and home foreclosures and a lot of financial job losses and things like that. So that was 2008  and guess what? We fell right into that  uh,  That segment. Um, So here we are at the beginning of 2009 and the crash had just happened in the fall of 2008.

  📍 ​

 And we had for months before that defaulted on our mortgage and we had received a note in the mail saying we were on the docket for foreclosure. And I was so scared.  And in my own way.  And I'll preface this by saying, I had not learned  the real,  how to hear God's voice and how to come to him for my daily needs.

 I'll call it manna, right?

God gave the Israelites in the wilderness, just enough food  for one day.  And I might pray.

 that Every now and then asking God to get me out of the hole that I was in,   but he wanted more from me. He wanted my heart.  So here I was sitting in church in January of 2009  and everybody, we were all standing up and we were singing

 and I was thinking to, I wasn't singing because I was saying, God.

How can these people sing?  Don't they know I am gonna lose my home? I am gonna be out on the streets with my four children. I have no place to live. My husband is unemployed.  I'm gonna be a homeless person.  And I was scared to death.  And at that moment,

 I had something happen to me that had never happened up until that point. 

And 

all I can call it is.   A balm of the Holy Spirit that just poured down over me. It was like a calming balm. And I heard an inaudible voice in my ear that said,  you will stay where you are until I return.   And at first 

when I, 

when 

I, I mean, 

okay, those were thoughts in my own head, right? I did not think that those were the words from the Holy Spirit.

I said to myself, Nina,  that's the most ridiculous thing. 

  Any thought, here you have a letter from the bank saying 

 you're going to be on the docket for foreclosure and we had no job, so there's no way we're keeping this house. Right. So, um, but  you know, I, I Know I heard that voice. I didn't mention it to anyone, but in 2010, and I'll say this was the beginning, it was a turning point. 

In my life, but did I realize what God was actually doing? 

 I had a long way to go. This was just the beginning of a journey that God was gonna take me on for probably the next,  I wanna say, eight to 10 years until about 2000 or 2020.  

So then you feel this, uh, voice and, and, um,  realization, you're not certain it's God,

  if it's coming from wishful thinking, that would be a very scary situation.  You would want to think that everything is going to turn out okay. Um,  Did the problem intensify with your home?

Um, Were there any  complications? Was your husband on the same page as you? 

The Journey of Trust: Learning to Rely on God's Provision

  📍 How did this unfold at first? Yeah. 

  

  📍 ​

 A man's identity is wrapped around in his career usually.  And my husband had been through so many, so many years of unemployment that he sunk into a very deep depression  so much so that he was pretty much paralyzed on the couch, wasn't looking for a job. 

Couldn't really get himself together. And I was like, dude, get off the couch and get a job. And I 

was like,  

 Get your life together. And so at that time we started to have some very severe relational problems. We had absolutely no money.  I did go back to work, but I had just had a baby in 2007. He was my fourth child. So I had some little kids and I, 

 God, I'll just say, as we're talking about provision  God provided something for me that was a beautiful thing. And as I look back at it, I didn't ask for it  and  he just did it. And here's what I mean.  We lived within walking distance of a little sweet 

 preschool that belonged to a Lutheran church.

And they took my 18 month old child free of charge. After like they had preschool, but then they had aftercare or,  you know, a little bit longer extended care. He was actually too young to fall into their program. This is a preschool. This is supposed to be like two, three and four. And he was like 18 months,  but they took him and they didn't charge me for it.

 And so that gave me some freedom to work in the afternoons, which I needed to do to bring in some income.  That for me, and they did this until he was at five, till he went off to kindergarten.  That was God's provision for me. They didn't expect any tuition or any daycare fees. And if anybody knows about daycare fees, they are exorbitant.

 That was a huge provision for me.  I never even thought to ask for, but God knew my needs before I even asked.

That's what the Bible tells us is that we, you know,  God knows what we need before we even ask for it. So as I look back on that time, I think, Oh my goodness, Lord, you just provided for me right there.  And, but yet I still had my eyes on the wrong thing. 

 And I was, really hard on my husband, like I said, and just, You know, telling him to, you know, Pull yourself together and get your life back together.

And but God was continuing to work in my life through those provisions. So it 

sounds like you had taken your eye off  your husband as the source of provision and we're moving away from that, but weren't yet moving to eyes on God himself.

 Now, maybe you were feeling some pressure that it was all on you. up to you. And did you have any  short lived successes in this where you felt, okay, maybe things are better. I don't need to rely on him. It's going to work out even if he doesn't get off the couch. But um, coming to understand later that even doing things yourself might not be the way to go.

 Yeah. Oh, yes. As you were, Asking that question, I was thinking about some things that I had gone through. Um, So yes I, I did go back to work, but it wasn't full time and that wasn't enough to support my family. Um, so, you know,  To be really transparent, we ended up at the food shelf and, and for six years, Holly, we did not pay our mortgage and we still never got a call.

From the bank or from.  You know, We weren't evicted by the bank or whoever. So for six years, we lived essentially mortgage and rent free,   but I will go back to something that happened in that time. But before I do, I want to tell you that I, when you say, did I take my eye eyes off my husband as my provider?

Overcoming Hidden Sins and Embracing God's True Provision

  📍 So there was a book that I read that was transformational for me, and it was called lies that women believe  um, by um,  Oh, now I'm trying to remember what her name is.

Um, I'm drawing a blank, but one of the lies that women believe is that my husband is my provider.  And God was saying through this book no, no I, I am your provider.

 And that was like revolutionary to me. I was like, really?  I was depending on him completely, depending on my husband completely. But God was saying, trust me. Trust me for your provision now as I talk about going through six years without paying a mortgage,  I have to go back to something uh, that I feel is really important to share because a lot of times  as the church or as a believer,  we are praying for breakthrough,  but there's something standing in the way. 

Um, Something that. 

  you know, We haven't dealt with, and God wants us to deal with it.

And here's what I mean.  So back in 2005, when we bought this house um,  and this was before the market crash uh, there was something in the mortgage industry called a liar's loan. Okay. First of all, I'm a real estate agent, so I know a little bit about mortgages and both. My husband had worked in mortgages as well.

 So a liar's loan is the type of mortgage where there is no income verification. Meaning, okay, has anybody out there applied for a credit card and they say, how  much money do you make?  Okay. Who's lied about how much money that you make. Okay. To qualify for a particular amount of credit, right? Well, This mortgage is the same way you state the amount of money that you make.

And then the mortgage company does not verify with your employer or with your tax returns, how much money you make.  So you could put any amount of money.  As your income, right?

 So this was a pretty popular loan, especially with uh, self employed people, and that was the kind of mortgage that we got. Well, I was so, uh,  Caught up with my duties as a mom and  the duties around the house and things like that,  that my husband took care of the mortgage and I really didn't even question. I don't know what he put on there for income.  But the fact of the matter is I'm sure it was not the truth.

  📍 ​

  Now, did I do my due diligence as a woman to hold him accountable to not lying about things? Because God tells us  he hates lies, right?  If there's something that we're praying for us for a breakthrough, and yet we're living in a lie, he is going to, that's going to, you know, the sows, the seeds that you sow,  you'll reap them, right?

 So that's the principle of sowing and reaping. You're going to reap what you sow. And so at the time I had, I didn't even think about. That kind of a loan, but a lot of those people who took those kinds of loans then ended up defaulting because they really couldn't pay the mortgage as we could not. And they ended up in foreclosure or bankruptcy or both.

 So here we are several years beyond  2009,  we had not paid a mortgage for six years, and we kept getting these.  Letters in the mail from the bank saying, you know, you're going to go through foreclosure, you're going to go through.  So about four years after I remember standing in church with that word from the Lord, and I hadn't told anybody about it and it had been four years that we didn't pay this mortgage.

So I was like, Oh, maybe I should tell my husband about this. So I did. And he said, Nina, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.  and we kept getting these.  Letters in the mail from the bank saying,  We're going to go through foreclosure.  Not only that, we're going to go through bankruptcy too, because we actually, we already had in 2010,  we went through bankruptcy and then we were headed to foreclosure as well.

 So literally we went through every type of financial crisis that people can go through. Right. Um, so, So for me uh, I was like, yeah he, he might be right. But, But at that point I kind of had realized, I really think that God was telling me that's, and he was like, why would God tell you and not me? I'm like, what?

Cause maybe I was listening. I don't know, but at any rate, our relationship just continued to deteriorate over those years.  And um, you know, I, I definitely bear some responsibility about that. I didn't understand depression. I didn't understand um, I didn't understand what God was doing,  but I remembered, um.  I had started to really press in to  my, my prayer time. 

 I had really started to press into understanding my identity in Christ. I was going, you know, I was having, I had made a decision to get up early every morning in order to have a little time with God before I The day of, you know, before all the kids woke up or whatever.   📍 So it was beginning to do that.

Deepening Faith Through Challenges and God's Assurance

And as I did,  God was just showing me  that I was loved  that I would be provided for. Did I still fear? I have journals where I'm like, God, just please, I need this or I need this. And, And you know what? There was not a day  that I went without food. There was not a day that I didn't have a roof over my head,  but on the other hand, things were very, very tight financially.

Did I get overdraft fees? Oh yes, I sure did. So God still provided for my every need and he was still teaching me.  I only give you what you need. 

 So it sounds and you can correct me if I'm wrong,  that initially this process started with an aha moment, but you  didn't necessarily know that's what it was, but this was God getting your attention and helping you to think about things in new ways.

  📍 ​

 And then as you moved forward. This isn't a process you initiated or, or an agenda that you were carrying out. It was, sounds like it was God's and he is drawing you along and you are having this dawning  realization that this is what's going on here. And perhaps um,  some of the challenges might have been other people not recognizing it in the process.

 And um, I think of.  I don't know if this is a good analogy or not, or a good comparison, but Joseph in the Bible, absolutely. And when he had these dreams um, his, Brother certainly didn't believe this was a real uh, concrete thing that was going to happen. His, His parents did not, his dad did not. And I am certain that as he was carted off to Egypt as a slave, he was wondering maybe has that been a wishful thinking dream?

How can I see this born out?   Pressing closer to God himself. 

Understanding God's Guidance and Confirming His Presence

And  that's something else I want to discuss is.  How do we know that this is real and really from God? And you talk about prayer and  looking through the Bible and things like that. Um, Can you tell me a little bit about  any challenges you had with that? Or did that seem to confirm? 

A Journey to the End of Self and the Beginning of Faith

What was going on for you?   📍 Did that push you closer to this understanding that God provides? Yeah. Yeah. Good question.

 so  somewhere around age 38 um, I would say I came to absolutely the end of myself.

Um,  There's a quote from Billy Graham that says, when we come to the end of ourselves, we come to the beginning of God.  And that's where I found myself.  Like I said, I knew God, I believed in Jesus, but I had come to the end of everything, all of my self sufficiency, all of my um,  you know, things that I thought I could do on my own.

God completely wiped them away.  He knew that I had come to a, a place of complete and utter brokenness, and I remember falling down on my knees beside my bed and just bawling out to the Lord to just, you know, provide for me and, and just saying, okay, God, I surrender I, I cannot do this. And unless you step in and, and do something. 

  📍 I don't know what I'm going to do. 

The Dream That Foretold Three Major Losses

 And I, I remember having a dream and the dream was.  Has anybody ever had a falling dream where you feel like you're falling and you kind of jerk yourself awake?  Well, I was having one of those dreams and the weird thing was, I had, I was falling and I could see the bottom and when I got to the bottom, I crashed right through the bottom and I kept on falling and then I could see the bottom again and I go, Oh good, I'm gonna hit the bottom and then boom, I went right through the bottom again.

This happened three times that I crashed through three bottoms and I was falling.  

  📍 ​

 I didn't know what that meant at the time.  That was a long time ago that I had that dream. And now I understand what that meant. And here's what it meant. I had three losses that I just crashed right through all three of them. The first was I went through bankruptcy. The second one was I went through a foreclosure and the third thing is I went through a divorce.

   And after I hit that.  know, it crashed through that last bottom.   I was completely at the bottom. I had nothing. 

 The only thing I had left, which praise God, I had my children. Um, And that's a whole other, maybe a whole other episode talking about, you know, what I went through with, you know, my um, Divorce proceedings and child custody and things like that, which was a whole other thing.

But, But by that time, my divorce was final in 2020. And by that time,  God had taken me through this decade of really  understanding his character,  weeding out of my life, the, those sins that were hindering me, they were hindering my breakthrough,   📍 they were hindering my  joy, they were holding me back.

Finding Contentment Through Gratitude and Trust in God

 Comparison is a joy stealer. And I finally realized that. And I, one of the scriptures that really spoke to me during that decade of where I was comparing myself was um, that.  Paul said that he had finally learned the secret of being content. And as I read that, I thought, I don't know what that means. God teach, just teach me.

And that was my prayer. Whenever I would come across a passage of scripture like, what does that mean? Teach me, Teach me the secret of being content. And so he did. He was so faithful to teach me. I don't really know what it was, except that I. I decided not to compare myself.  Actually, I do, I do know what it was and it was thankfulness. 

 And I went to bed every night that I didn't pay this mortgage, and then I'll tell you how I'm still in the same house. 

 Um,

I took my eyes off of what everybody else had and I decided to thank God every day, Lord,  thank you for a roof over my head. Lord, thank you for the diapers I was able to buy. Thank you for the food I was able to give my children today.

Thank you for the provision of this daycare that I had. Thank you for my job. It isn't enough, but thank you for the job.  And when I, when I started to  be thankful and have an attitude of thankfulness,  all of a sudden I, I realized, Oh my gosh, I'm. I feel so um, content. I don't need this or that. I don't need that big house.

God, thank you for the house I have. And as I looked around my house with um,  I just have to tell you when we bought this house, like I said, it was a really ugly split level and 1960. Everything was original. It was really nasty. Um,  We had taken off a lot of the doors. We were, we had all these plans of, you know, remodeling this house. 

 But as we were going through the demolition process is when my husband sunk into this depression and he was great at demolition, but he was horrible at  putting it all back together. So literally I had. A stack of boards about, you know, 10 high behind my couch uh, for 15 years. I bet it was 15 years to windows with no trim uh,  awful carpet that, I mean, the moment I moved into that house, I said, this is the first thing I'm going to do is replace this carpet.

Well, I lived with it for about 15 years. 

 But uh, you know, I started to thank God for 

that.  

The house I had and  my circumstances really didn't change. In fact, they kind of got a little worse as we went on because yes I, I,  I still didn't know if I was going to go through foreclosure or not because I was still in this house and we weren't paying any um,  paying any mortgage.

Uh, and, And interestingly, we didn't pay a mortgage for six years. And I feel like that's kind of this principle of for six years you'll work, but on the seventh year you should rest. I didn't understand that principle at that time, but that's kind of how it was. And um, anyway, I had prayed that God would  Send an angel to my door with enough money to buy my house back, which he never did.

 He sent my parents along for help. And I was like, Lord, I really didn't want them to be the ones to pull me out of this  scenario but, but they did. And so I'm still in that house.  I don't own that house. My parents own that house, but as I, and I didn't want it to be that way. Um, But as I did end up going through divorce in 2020 um, amazingly, the house was not part of the divorce because  we didn't own it, not me and not my husband, but God had taken it away from me and has remained.

 It still isn't mine. Um, And so he removed this idol. That I had out of my life, he removed the self sufficiency belief that I had. He removed um, the,  the belief that.  had to support me. There was a lot of things that just were weeded out of my heart and my life at that time. So it sounds 

like

  that you had growing up and as a young adult, some ideas about what ideal circumstances would look like.

And then you set out to either make that happen or allow it to continue.  To happen  and God steadily removed these things and then allowed you to see that it hadn't been a pillar. All along that propped up your house, you were mistaken about that. And once you had come to acceptance, then now is the next thing being removed and then everything's okay.

 And so he's slowly changing your definition of reality  until you have, it sounds like a final  test, perhaps we could call it of.  Ideally, this house has to be in my name. I have to own it. It has to be my property as opposed to seeing it as a safe place to be and just to live. And I think of  when my own parental rights were terminated with my youngest son, I thought going into that trial, that.

The,

The perfect, most ideal way was that, that, that not happen, that I retain my rights, but um, great things happened as a result of me losing those and having um,  stability outside of my own ideas of perfect and coming to understand God's ideas.  are so much greater than anything we think up on ourselves.

 And so you talk about 2019 or 2020 uh, being kind of an, an end,  or I should say a resolution of this process. What, what,  What was your final, was there a commitment or a decision that. Now I understand, I'm looking back, I've seen all of this and I get it. And so moving forward, I have this new um, understanding of life and God.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so. Over that decade,

  God, like I said, he just took me through probably every area of my life to, to show me my absolute and utter neediness of him. So not only did he weed out the things that he found offensive, but he also showed me  not only, like I said, he showed me the secret to being content. 

But then he, he has started and then to take me on this journey of um,  of really understanding the scriptures for what they are  and to understand the character of God and to understand the more hidden things in scripture that I never read before, looking at it very differently. And so, um, Like I mentioned that A.

W. Tozer quote at the beginning saying that

 it's unlikely that God will use someone greatly until he hurts him deeply. Um, So all of that to say, I would never want anybody to go through what I've been through or what you've been through.  But  if you,  if your listeners are finding themselves in a position in a circumstance where they're praying for God to remove the circumstance,  he often won't until you understand that he will deliver you amidst your circumstance, that he will provide for you amidst your circumstance.

And even though the provision feels insufficient,  It isn't, and the more we step out in faith, the more he honors that. And so I remember, so like I said, 2020 was the year that um, my divorce was final but, but the two years before that, from 2018 to 2020 was the time of going through um, the divorce.

splitting up all of our assets, going through the custody process and everything.  And there was one, one thing in particular that was the most um, significant to me, I guess. and, um.  that was the schooling of my children. We had pulled them out of public school um, for a lot of reasons that I won't get into, but uh, I was homeschooling them and they loved homeschooling. And my husband had given me an ultimatum that no, no more homeschooling, not going to do that.

Um, And so I said well, if, if we're not going to homeschool, then  I want them to go to a private school.   We couldn't afford private school. Are you kidding? Um, but, But I knew that together he and I had made the decision to pull them out of public school.  So why would we go back on that decision and put them back in private school or public school?

I'm sorry. 

 So I brought it to God and this is how I had approached every single thing. I'm like, okay, God,  here's my need.  I don't know if I can qualify for some kind of a, you know, scholarship or whatever.

I didn't know of any way I could do that,  but he connected me with a person who said, Oh yeah, how about this school? Why don't you contact the principal and see if,  You know, there might be a scholarship. She, She was like, I don't know if there is one, but she and I had done some swapping of homeschool materials.

 And she said, if I, you know, if I could afford it, I would put my child at this school. So  I thought, what have I got to lose? So I called the principal and I said, this is what I'm going through. And I had to um, I had to submit a form, a scholarship form, and the scholarship was only 50%. You know, They, so I still had to come up with thousands of dollars that I didn't have.

 But I had two children and I said, okay, God,  I'm going to trust you for this.

 I was scared to death to step out on this limb and say, God, you're going to provide the tuition for this school.  I had no idea where it was going to come from. I had absolutely no idea,  but God did. And so  interestingly enough, he did provide in ways I never would have imagined, and it reminds me of this story.

 I don't know if you remember the story of Elijah, he had gone to this widow and um, he said, This widow had two sons and she was like, I have nothing. And, you know, I think we're going to die. And he said um, what I want you to do is I want you to Have your sons go to all the neighbors and collect as many pots or jars as you possibly can not, not just a few, but a ton.

 And so they did, they went and collected every jar that they could. And then it says that they went into her house and shut the door and she took one little pot of oil that she had and she filled from one little pot, all of these jars.  Lots and lots of jars and the oil just kept flowing. It kept flowing and it kept flowing. 

And before they knew it, all the jars were filled.  And so she was able to sell all the jars of oil. She paid off her debt and she was able to have enough leftover to live on.  And that was my story. I can't even tell you the way it was within my own house, the things I had, just this one little, I'll call it a jar of oil, but it was  stuff in my house that I sold and it was worth thousands of dollars and God provided everything I needed, as you're 

talking, I am reminded of,

   In the book of Philippians, when  Paul is talking about having peace and you talk about having anxiety and how  the key for you was gratitude, but not just a general attitude of gratitude. It's specific to the person who's giving, which is God.  

  📍 ​

 And Paul says in Philippians 4. 

  📍 Do not fret or have anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance in an everything by prayer and petition, definite requests with thanksgiving, which is a key. You can't leave that out in every situation. Be thankful.   📍 continue to make your wants known to God. And then the next verse tells you what you'll have as a result.

  📍 Following that and God's peace shall be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ. And so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace, which transcends all understanding. Shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 

And that, as I'm listening to your story  is um, really central to um, you coming to understand continued provision. And I can tell that God was providing all along, but it's that fear of the future and not being thankful for what's here today that robs us of that belief that this is provision, you know, because the fear of the future.

 Um,  And so I want to bring this back to, we talked at the very beginning of how can the people listening and watching. Um, Experience this trust and provision for themselves, understanding

 that it's a process with many moving parts that God draws us closer to him. And then also asking, you mentioned it, when you would read the Bible, you would Read something and then you would ask for that thing. This is a new thing. You didn't know you needed, but now you can see that and you don't even know necessarily what it is to expect what you're asking for.

Just, it's a biblical idea. In your own  life, have other people and friends that you have known benefited from watching you go through this experience? And do you see them now stronger or in a deeper relationship 

with Jesus themselves? Yeah. That verse from Philippians

  was so central for me. I quoted it probably every single day to my children.

Don't be anxious about anything. Because I had a son who struggled with anxiety too. And it's don't be anxious about anything,  but with prayer and petition, make your requests known to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.

And that was so central to  putting that along with another scripture that I had read and I didn't understand it.  And I had to ask God again,  show me what this means in real life. How does this have boots on the ground? Right? And it was delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Well, I, I didn't know what that meant because I had a lot of desires of my heart that weren't being met. Right. And so I had to ask God, what does that look like? And you know what? He, He showed me. And basically 

 With understanding the nature of God, the character of God and how he provides your life begins to come into alignment. 

With his desires and when your desires are in line with God's desires,  he gives you everything you desire because it's his desires for 

you and he makes all of his desires come true. He carries them to fruition. So it's becoming on the same page. It's yes.  

And that, like I said, this takes years. And so if you're, if your listeners are finding themselves.

Either in a pit or in a circumstance where they're just kicking against the bricks and saying, get me out of this. And they're hoping and praying for a breakthrough. What I want to say is God has begun a good work in you and  he will carry it to completion.  So be thankful that God sees so much potential in you that he is helping you Allowing 

 this hard time in your life  to show you how much he values you and he wants to, he wants the light of Jesus to shine in you.

And so to answer your question regarding, did other people see. This um, I hope my, I know my children saw me go through this um, and they too have had their struggles to go through. 

The Power of Forgiveness and Letting Go

  📍 And I think one of the things that is so key to not holding back your  um,  deliverance, I'll say, I'll say it that way is forgiveness.

 So not only being coming to God with an attitude of forgiveness. Thankfulness for what he has provided, but then being willing to forgive the people who may have in your mind, been the ones who are the cause of your pit, so to speak.  And I remember going through some counseling where a counselor had given me this,  a sheet and he said, now on this form, I want you to write down every offense.

That this person has caused to you or whatever. And there was a prayer at the bottom and it said,  today I choose to forgive so and so for this particular offense and I release it to your perfect justice.  And I read that prayer. I probably worked on this list for, I know it was at least two weeks.  Which may not seem like a whole long time, but I was really holding onto some bitterness and some anger in my life.

And um,  after a couple of weeks of, I mean, writing this list front back, all the other pages and reading that prayer at the bottom and I go, Nope, I am not ready to pray that prayer. Um, After a couple of weeks of that, I was like the, the prompting of the Holy spirit was. Again, it's God's, it's trust that  God is the one who will judge and who will  hold that person accountable for their actions. 

It's not my job to hold that person accountable for their actions. It's my job to forgive them.

  📍 ​

 as hard as that may seem God's justice. Is far better than anything that we could hold against that person.

And so understand that forgiveness is different than reconciliation.  Forgiveness is between you and God and reconciliation, if that is possible, is between you and that other person. But God says you need to forgive. He doesn't command reconciliation. He commands forgiveness. So in the Lord's prayer, we see.

Forgive us our debts in the same way that we forgive others.  and we are being held in bondage.

To our unforgiveness. Um, So during that 10 years of releasing all of these things

 forgiveness was a huge, big piece.  And I remember one day,  the day, the day that I  said, okay, Holy Spirit, I just release this.  I am going to God.

I, I choose.  To forgive, and I release this person to your perfect justice.  I can't tell you, Holly, I felt like I was levitating. I was sitting, I literally felt a physical weight being lifted off of my shoulders. And  I was like, Whoa. That was incredible. It was a incredible experience. So God took me through,  you know, removing these sins out of my life to showing me that uh, he will be my provider to showing me, he can give me freedom in Christ.

If I forgive and to show me that um, I can be content with his provision for my life.  And that I can have the desires of my heart.   And this took a whole long time. 

Reflecting on the Journey and Encouraging Others

And I want to encourage your  listeners that if you press in to the difficulty that you find yourself in right now, trust me when I say,  God may not remove your circumstances, but he has begun a good work in you that he will complete. 

before the day of Christ Jesus. 

 And so I hope that your, as you, as you. Surrender yourself to this sanctifying process.  Believe me that other people will see the light of Jesus shining. And that is God's goal. That is the ultimate goal is that you reflect  who got, who Jesus is the light. Remember, he says the light. Is within you the light of men.

He is the light of men and he wants to shine that light through you into a very dark world,  but you have to be submitted to this 

process. Yeah. It reminds me as you're speaking,

  and this is. Part of the application for us continually and for the people listening. And this is God's own word.

He, He is describing in Proverbs chapter 16 uh, what this looks like. This is God's how to, and he says,   📍 roll your works upon the Lord, commit and trust them. Holy to him, he will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to his will. And so shall your plans be established and succeed. And there's a very similar verse to that in Psalms.

 So just like you said we, we give it all to him. We talk about it as we would with a trusted friend and he adjusts our desires to match his, so that we're excited about the outcome. And we recognize the goodness. Of the outcome.

   So that's going to be it for our time today, but I do want to, I want to thank you so much for. 

And I hope, I hope that you will join us again in the future because um, your story has, as you briefly talked about, so many other important things that can be helpful for others to learn when you share them. So I hope you'll be back. Absolutely. I would love to. Thank you. Yes. 

  Look for more episodes that inspire@hollybot.me. Until next time, remember, your story is never over. God's grace is always waiting to rewrite it. This is from Surviving to Living.