Mind Renewal in Our Lives: Part 1

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hi and welcome to Revelation Within On the Go. I'm Heidi Biles-Mapperson, one of your hosts and the owner and lead coach of the Revelation Within ministry.

Speaker 2: 0:10

And I'm Christina Motley, your other host, also a Revelation Within coach and Heidi's partner in all things Revelation Within. We're so happy to invite you to join us for this episode of Revelation Within on the go.

Speaker 1: 0:31

Well, today we thought we would share with you some vignettes out of our lives, christina and I, and how renewing our minds kind of entered into our lives, how it began and where it went from there and where it is now sort of and this will probably be over the course of two episodes, so come back for part two.

Speaker 1: 0:52

If you feel like wait, I didn't get it all, that's okay Because there's more to come. Yes, so just by way of review, mind renewal is straight out of Romans 12, to the passage that says be transformed. Okay, how? By the renewing of your mind. So we want to do that and, as Christina and I like to use our working definition of mind renewal is thinking God's thoughts after him, about people, places, things, circumstances, challenges, trials, about ourselves, about God, about our habits, our counterfeit comforts, whatever it might be. We want to think God's thoughts about them. Sure, we find most of that in God's word, but then his Holy Spirit is in us, bringing home to our hearts targeted truth from God to address those targeted lies we tend to believe, and so this has changed our lives hasn't it.

Speaker 1: 1:46

It absolutely has. Yes, I hate to think where I would be without having learned how to renew my mind.

Speaker 2: 1:51

Oh my gosh, I know Absolutely yes, and I think I speak for both of us when I say that the last 10 years have been the hardest ones in our lives. Yes, and so I can't even imagine going through it without knowing how to renew my mind.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Right. So if you have just gone through a trial or challenge or circumstances that have been beyond your ability to manage, or you're in one right now, or 12, or you're about ready to go into that's probably the human condition is you either just got out of one, you're in one, or you're going into one. This episode and next is for you. I really believe it'll have something for you. I hope so. So, if you'll permit us to do a little story time, we're going to share with you these little vignettes out of our lives. So are you ready? I'm ready, all right. Well, back in 2000, I had the pleasure and privilege of working with Judy Halliday on the Thin Within book before it was published, and also the workbooks that we had. We had an online subscription service. We were kind of ahead of our day, but what that meant for me, though, was writing workbooks once a month, making sure I had new content to send out every month. I only lasted about four months doing that.

Speaker 2: 3:15

Yeah, that's a lot. The workbooks are amazing, though. They are fantastic.

Speaker 1: 3:20

They really kind of are, and you can get them on Amazon. So just type in thin within and just check and make sure it references the ministry, not the secular version. Anyway, but here's the thing Even though I was so involved with Judy Halliday she was like meeting with me every day, giving me her thoughts and her ideas so that I could put them on the page, so that we could send it on to the publisher and they would publish it I could do that, I could get inside her head and put it on the page, but I didn't have any success applying the principles that I was writing about. So why? Why?

Speaker 1: 3:54

Over the course of time, a couple of years, I asked God and it was shocking to me where he had me go. He took me in the direction of forgiveness. He laid on my heart that I was not thinking his thoughts about the things that had been done to me that offended me so much, that hurt me so much and maybe, in some cases, traumatized me. And so the very first place where I had to think God's thoughts this was before I even called it mind renewal was about things done to me that had affected me and had affected my eating. To be honest with you. It was very specific. God led me on this. I still remember it as though it was yesterday. I spent a number of months in a journal and with my Bible and he walked me through seasons of my life where things had happened. Different people had hurt my feelings, or hurt me very deeply or wronged me, and I had to write out how did that impact me? How did it impact me then? Is it still impacting me today? And then choose very specifically to write out forgiveness phrases.

Speaker 1: 4:57

And, looking back, I see now that there were times when I was what we often call bungeed, and so if you're in the moment and somebody says something and you have this enormous reaction and you know it's disproportionate to what they just did or said, chances are you've been bungeed back in time to a place when you were wounded and you're operating out of your wounded place. So for me, when I was bungeed, I would run to food for comfort and I would run to food to get back at someone too, which is so weird to me. Really, god showed me I was filled with resentment. I was filled with a lack of forgiveness. Sometimes it would be others in my past and sometimes it'd be now, and sometimes it was even God that I was harboring resentment towards.

Speaker 1: 5:44

And the first place that God took me in 2002 was thinking his thoughts about all of that, about his place in my life, what he had called me to because, even though God does no wrong, I felt like he had done me wrong and he and I had to go toe to toe about that a little bit. Absolutely, I get that. Yeah, I had to align my thoughts with his about that and what I saw as I processed and forgave people, I was not triggered as much to eat. I wasn't triggered as much to eat to get back at someone, which again, I don't know, I don't really get that.

Speaker 1: 6:20

But anyway, I was more peaceful overall. Keeping short accounts I find it puts me in a place of tenderness to him and I tend to want to be on his page. That's a good thing, to be on his page, that is yeah. And I have seen over my life and since that time, as goes my forgiveness, so goes my peace. If I am forgiving, keeping short accounts, I have lots of peace. If I am not forgiving, I have very little peace. And it's really true what they say, that I am the one held captive by my unwillingness to forgive.

Speaker 2: 6:55

Wow, that's amazing, heidi. That's really amazing. Such a great story. I love that you were doing all this writing with Judy. I mean Such a great story. I love that you were doing all this writing with Judy. I mean, it's just, I'm imagining the workbooks are thick. I mean I don't know how you did that in a month and just imagining you, you were immersed in it, you were consumed with that. You know those materials, those thoughts, those truths, day and night Just amazing. God works things out in such amazing ways.

Speaker 1: 7:22

But I didn't get it.

Speaker 2: 7:23

I know I know, but eventually did. But obviously he was laying the groundwork for you in a pretty intense way. I just it's beautiful, yeah, Thank you His love for you so beautiful.

Speaker 2: 7:35

Okay, so you know I've shared some of my story here on the podcast before, but when I first came to this place of what is mind renewal, what does it mean to renew your mind I came because of a stronghold that I was dealing with with food and eating. That's why I came. I thought everything else in my life was okay, a-okay, I can handle it. I can handle being a mom. I can handle, I mean, challenging, sure, but I've got this. I can handle being a teacher, being a wife, I can handle helping take care of my parents and things like that. But this area food and eating was something that I could not. I felt like I could not get a handle on at all. I felt like God was saying to me Christina, you need me for this, you need me for this. And I was struggling, and not just struggling Like I was hopeless for many, many years and I I hid that away.

Speaker 2: 8:37

I didn't show anyone, but I would, you know, meet with the TV and food late at night. I would meet with certain shows that you know were all about reconstruction and about, like houses and things. I mean. I know that I was craving to be transformed myself. I was craving to be filled. I felt very, very empty. I felt like a failure. I felt completely hopeless.

Speaker 2: 9:05

I had spent so many years really since I was 14, hating my body, going on every single diet I could find, exercising at ridiculous amounts I mean just way overdoing it, injuring myself with that, just looking in all the wrong places for what I needed. And that's really what brought me to a place of okay, lord, I don't know what to do. I even, you know, we were thin within before, and I even took thin within and turned it basically into a diet for years. I thought, okay, I can do this, I'm just going to kind of follow these guidelines and these principles and I'm going to be good to go. And I could not get anywhere. I was so frustrated, hopeless, really in despair, and so that's how I came to mind renewal. And then I began renewing my mind with Heidi, who taught me with you.

Speaker 2: 10:02

Heidi, you taught me how to do it, yeah. And I just jumped in like it was a big giant lake and I just jumped in and started swimming and I thought, whatever it is God, that you want me to do, I'm going to do it. And you know, at the time my scale had broken anyway and my scale and I had a terrible dysfunctional relationship, so I just didn't buy another one and I let that whole weight piece go. At the time and it was summer and I was wearing kind of loose cotton clothing and flowy skirts and things like that and I really wasn't noticing that anything was happening with my body. But it was. It was happening and I kind of shared a little bit of that in the last podcast with the water slide bar, the water park.

Speaker 2: 10:48

But anyway, what I realized was that my thoughts were a mess. I didn't realize that my thoughts were so important, but they are. They're so, so important and so my whole thought life was really taking me down. So once I started going to God and asking him what his thoughts were, I started renewing my mind with his truth, his thoughts, with his design, basically for me, for food and eating for my body, yes. But then it started to spill over into other areas of my life and I realized that I needed him for every area and I realized that I wasn't thinking his thoughts in terms of other areas to areas that we'll talk about today and on our next episode.

Speaker 2: 11:42

But that's where I started with food and eating. I did end up releasing weight and that was very exciting, but honestly, it was just kind of the icing on the cake, because by then I was starting to really feel peace, and I had not really ever felt peace about my body and food and eating in my whole life, maybe when I was a little tiny girl. But I don't even remember that really. I mean, that was so incredible to me, so life-changing, that the weight loss was just kind of an extra and that has continued over the last 10 years and I'm so grateful, so so grateful Yay, and I look forward to hearing more.

Speaker 1: 12:23

So for me, forgiveness, of course, was front and center, and it really became very connected to my ability to surrender my eating to the Lord and not run to food anymore and to get to that place of being at peace with food and eating. And so for me, of course, that's how Mind Renewal entered my life. It was through forgiveness connected with my eating, and I began to see victory, a little bit at a time.

Speaker 1: 12:49

The second thing to fall into place was thinking God's thoughts about him and his character, because, see, that resentment of God, peace, could only really get taken care of. As I began to see him, as he discloses and reveals himself to be in his word, I mean I think I tended to relate to him a little bit more like an authority figure here on this planet who is defective and I would never have told you. That's who I thought God was. But that's how I responded in my life, as though I was serving a God who was distant, aloof, remote, maybe condemning even. I mean, I didn't know really by experience who God was. I mean, I was a Christian and I had given my life to Christ, but as soon as you brought Father into the picture, that he's my Father in heaven, I had issues. I had issues and certainly because of my human father, who was very fallible yes, because of my human father, who was very fallible, yes, I saw God Almighty through my eyes and my eyes were traumatized. I'd been hurt, I'd been wounded, and so I needed to let go of this false belief, this lie that he needed to do only in my life, or protect me from everything that I didn't think was okay. He needed to do only what was acceptable to me in my life, what, forgive God, he does no wrong. And I knew that. I knew that, but I felt like he had done me wrong.

Speaker 1: 14:16

And so I began to dive into the scriptures as though I had never done it before, and I began jotting down and I was teaching Thin Within classes online at the time, at our little chat.

Speaker 1: 14:27

We didn't have Zoom, we didn't have audio calls, we just had chat calls. That was so interesting and God led me to jot down what I was finding out about who he is, and it's the question of what is God like, what does he do for people and what does he want me to believe? And this is where what I ended up calling the God list was born. It's not a very clever name, but as I saw what he said about himself in scripture and as I pulled out of scripture, the things I saw him do and what he did for his people and how he responded to them, I would jot it down and write the chapter and verse down next to it, and then I would use it to praise him and I call that the praise fest, as I began to rehearse, if you will, and say it again and again this is who you are, god. Thank you that you are. As I began to do that, I began to believe that that's who he is, which is good, because that's what he says.

Speaker 1: 15:24

He is, I want to think God's thoughts about his character, and so this is where, again, it was still connected with my food and eating at this point, when I was tempted, instead of thinking, okay, I'm not going to think about food which doesn't work as soon as you tell yourself not to think about something. You think about it. Let me give you an illustration Don't think about a purple elephant, Yep.

Speaker 2: 15:49

It's right there in my mind he's adorable.

Speaker 1: 15:51

Mine has give you an illustration. Don't think about a purple elephant. Yep, it's right there in my mind.

Speaker 2: 15:55

He's adorable. Mine has a tutu on.

Speaker 1: 15:58

No, mine's got a little flower in his trunk, and so that just doesn't work. Tell yourself not to think about something. It's going to guarantee that you're going to think about it. So what I need to do instead was redirect. We talk about doing this with kids Redirect their attention.

Speaker 1: 16:10

Well, I needed to redirect my attention to thinking about God, his beauty, his goodness, his glory, his sovereignty. And how did I do that? By returning to the praise fest. So I had incorporated that into my quiet time that I'd spend with the Lord in the morning, and that way it could flow out other times of the day on the fly. So if I found myself in, you know, heading into the drive-through when I went into town, I would go okay, wait a minute. God, you are all I need. God, you are the one who is sufficient for everything I'm looking for in life, you are the one who really delights my heart, and so on and so forth.

Speaker 1: 16:50

I could then find that, oh, I don't really need food as much. It's when I exalt God, I'm taking my rightful place at his feet as his child, and he is Abba, he is King. When I do that, it's really hard for me to grab for things anything really outside of his will for me, because I'm aware of what the grand order of things. He's the loving, wonderful king, and I am his daughter, his princess daughter. That's who I am and I want to honor him as such. So when I would think you know, poor me, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling lonely. Only a hot fudge sundae will make it better. Instead of woe is me, I can glorify him and say great is God and jump into a praise fest, and it really does shift things quite a bit. So I saw a lot of victory there.

Speaker 2: 17:38

Yes, oh, I love that story, heidi, and really the God list and the praise fest. I mean, it's something I use pretty much every single day and have for the last 10 years. It is an incredible tool, so simple but so powerful, and I just love how that came to be in your life. I love that. Okay, so I talked about how mind renewal. You know, I started out with this strong hold of food and eating, but when Heidi first asked me a few days ago to kind of look at this and talk about it, I was in tears. I was, yeah, I had thought, oh, you know, this will be great, I'm going to sit down and kind of jot down some notes and get ready. And the tears just came and I thought, lord, what's going on? What's going on? I'm supposed to talk about this wonderful topic and all I can do is cry. And he showed me what was going on. And so this is another area where mind renewal has spilled out beautifully, like a fountain spilled out into my life, and that is grieving.

Speaker 2: 18:42

Okay, so what am I grieving this week? What am I grieving right now? So our house has been so quiet this week. I have three kids they're all adults now which I just can't believe. That it's just, yeah, it's taken me a while to get a grip on it, and we have one child who's still at home, almost finished with high school she just has a few weeks left and she's on a trip for the whole week, and so the house has been quiet. Also, we recently well over the last year, two years we've lost both of our dogs, and so the house is quiet, quiet, quiet, and my husband is loving it.

Speaker 2: 19:28

I asked him this morning if he misses any of the noise, any of the giggling, the teenagers coming through, and he said no, he's really been enjoying the quiet week, but I'm having a hard time, and God led me to see this and he was so kind and gentle and we sat together and I cried. I am grieving the little shoes by the door. I'm grieving the children's books. I'm grieving taking the kids to school and connecting with the moms helping with the homework. I'm grieving the toys all over the floor that I used to complain about. You know that I used to complain about because I thought I'll never have a clean house and now everything stays in place all day and I'm just missing the mess and the noise, the giggles oh my gosh. So, yes, I'm grieving and of course it's normal and good and right for my kids to grow up.

Speaker 1: 20:22

I want them to grow up.

Speaker 2: 20:24

I don't want them to all stay here forever in the house, of course not. But I have a dear, dear friend from many years ago who told me she's in heaven now. But she said, christina, it's okay to feel more than one thing at once. It's really okay. And so that's where I'm at. I'm feeling very excited and hopeful for them as they find their way, and I'm also grieving and crying in my bedroom about the little shoes that are not by the door anymore.

Speaker 2: 20:55

So how do I renew my mind about that? What do I do with that? How does mind renewal come into grieving? And, of course, grieving can be all kinds of things Grieving a career, grieving a loved one, grieving a relationship that fell apart, grieving a season of life, grieving a health change, things like that. There's so many ways that we grieve.

Speaker 2: 21:19

Maybe you, who are listening, are thinking about something that you're grieving. Okay, so it's so simple, it's not complicated. I go to God and I say, Lord, what is true? What is true from your point of view? What do you see? I want to think your thoughts after you about this. And yes, it's sad. It's not going to take away my sadness. I'm still going to be sad. But the first thing that I did was went to a praise fest, which Heidi just shared.

Speaker 2: 21:52

God, you are God. You are the one who chases after my kids. You are the one who grew them up Really, he's the one that did it. You are the one that plans their steps and their days. You are the one that brings me through different seasons of life. You are the one who has a new season coming and you're preparing it for both me and my husband, even if he's more ready than I am. You are the one who walks with me 100% of the time, day after day after day. You are the one whose calendar has my name on every single line. You are the one who never sleeps, is never too busy, is always engaged with me. You are the one, and just right now, just saying that, right this minute. It encourages me, it uplifts me, it fills my heart and soul. My mind is filled with who God is. That is so much a better place to be than woe is me. My kids aren't at home anymore and the house is too quiet.

Speaker 2: 22:59

And yes, I need to feel those feelings, I need to share those with my best friend. I need to share those and let those tears fall Absolutely. But I can also be praising and practicing gratitude in those times. So what are your thoughts, god, about the kids being raised up and leaving home? That's your plan, it's your design. You designed it that way and that is what I want. Do I trust you with that? Yes, am I having trouble trusting Sometimes? And when I'm having trouble, I can ask him for help, but it brings me to a place of peace that I could never get to on my own.

Speaker 1: 23:53

Well, as my story continues to unfold somewhere, I would say probably about 2006,. Maybe a little bit later than that I landed on Barb Raveling and she's at barbravelingcom. She now has a lot of books available that she's written and published. But at the time she was not yet published and at the time all the goodies were at her website and she called something the weight loss, bible study and stuff like that doesn't attract me now at all, but at that time I'm like, okay, what is this all about? Well, it had questions for everything. Basically, I'll just refer to it now as the book or the app. I deserve a donut. Yes, this is a plug for Barb Raveling. This book has helped, so much.

Speaker 2: 24:33

Oh, my gosh, me too.

Speaker 1: 24:35

Even though she's not a participant in our programs and ministry, I learned a lot of things from her. I guess she wrote this in 2013 to be published in 2013. But I met her earlier than that, online, so anyway, I would go to her website and it's basically what are some lies that can make you think you want to eat, or what are some emotions that make you want to eat? And now that it's a book published gosh 11 years ago, lies that make you eat like I'll never be skinny, so I might as well eat. Or I might as well eat since I'm not losing weight. I need a little excitement in my life. That's another lie. It's just one bite, is it really? And so on and so forth. And then emotions anger and annoyance, discontentment, boredom, loneliness, envy, frustration, etc.

Speaker 1: 25:21

She had all of these with lists of questions, and what I began to do was journal all these questions and I'm going to explain a little bit by giving an example. One of my favorite sets of questions as I did this and I've done it a lot since my copy of the book is just torn up but is insecurity, feeling like I'm not enough, feeling inadequate, so, like the questions, I would imagine God asking me these questions, and then my journaling is like a prayer of response. So this is like what came into my life next, and again it was focused on food and eating for me. But as I began to do this, I began to see, wow, she doesn't say anything about food and eating in some of this, so like why do you think you're inadequate? This is God asking me this question and I would respond to him what do you think you have to do or have to be to be acceptable? And I would respond to him in prayer in my journal Are you capable of making that happen right now? And what do you look like when you see yourself through the eyes of the world or the eyes of your own expectations?

Speaker 1: 26:29

And then the fifth question is is that how God sees you? And I would, of course. Is that how I see you? God sees you. And I was like, well, no, of course not. You see me so differently than that. And then the question goes who are you in my eyes and how do I feel about you? Oh, my goodness. And then she has verses that you could look up to get answers and this okay. So I journaled through I don't know how many different sets of questions. There actually are, but dozens of questions and dozens of sets of questions. I would eat over anything. I would eat over any lie, I would eat over any emotion. And so for me to do this proactively every morning as part of my quiet time. I was being strengthened for whatever eating battle might be ahead, but it was slopping over into other areas of my life.

Speaker 1: 27:19

It really was. I began to even memorize some of the questions, because some of them show up in several different sets, a lot of different sets. Like is there anything you need to accept? Yeah, oh, my gosh, that one. What can you thank God for in this situation? Those are constants, and so that began to be a part of my mind renewal.

Speaker 1: 27:40

On the fly, like just in the moment, I didn't have to be with a journal, I didn't have to be with a Bible, I didn't have to be sitting down, I could be driving, I could be at home doing vacuuming, whatever it's like.

Speaker 1: 27:51

What do you need to accept, heidi? What can you thank me for in this situation? So, no matter what the situation was, no matter what struggle I was facing, I could think on those things and actually start giving thanks and admitting to God. I need your help accepting this, that the other thing, whatever it might be, and as I continued to go on with this, this ended up developing for me into what I later called truth lists and truth cards and I'll tell more about that in the next podcast probably, and you've probably heard some of that already. But they change these lists, these truth lists or truth cards, change the way I relate to everything. There is nothing that God doesn't want me to think his thoughts about. I mean, he gave us the mind of Christ, 1 Corinthians 2.16. I think he wants me to think with that mind not my own, he sure does.

Speaker 2: 28:45

Oh my gosh, I have spent so many hours in that book over the years, especially the first couple years when I was learning to renew my mind, and that section on I feel inadequate. That was my number one. I went back again and again and those verses on insecurity, oh, so good, so much truth there. Okay, so we've been talking about mind renewal has spilled over into different areas of our life. So here's another spilling, and I love this one. Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine going back to before. I knew how to renew my mind, and that is impossible days. Okay, impossible days. What does that mean? I mean, that sounds ridiculous. Maybe, oh no, it doesn't.

Speaker 2: 29:32

You know those days that come along and maybe you see that day coming. Or maybe you wake up and it's there and you're confronted with this, that and the other, and you're just thinking what? I can't do? This, this is impossible. And Heidi and I over the years, being prayer partners for 10 years now, I can't believe it, but 10 years, we use that terminology. Sometimes We'll say I've got an impossible day coming, or I'm having an impossible day, and we'll say things like I can't do this, like I can't do it, and so mind renewal is incredibly valuable for these kinds of days. Going to God and asking him okay, wait a minute. What are your thoughts about the word impossible? Well, we know what his thoughts are, because it's in the word of God. All things are possible. With God, so going to him really changes everything on those days. I'm going to share an example of one of many, many, many impossible days in the last years and how I use mind renewal to get through it.

Speaker 2: 30:42

Okay, one of the most impossible days of my life. One of them was the day that we had to move my mom into the Alzheimer's Center. This was several years ago and it felt like an impossible day. I remember that it was snowing. I was in contact with Heidi a lot. I know that she was praying for me and others too. We knew the day was coming. It wasn't a surprise day. We knew it was coming. But wow, my mom's Alzheimer's had become so advanced that we were not able to manage at home anymore. We had tried. My dad was taking care of her. It had just become completely overwhelming. We needed a team at that point to help us, and so I knew it was the right thing. God had led us in amazing ways to this beautiful Alzheimer's center. It was a beautiful place, but getting her there, actually bringing her in and then leaving her, that felt impossible.

Speaker 1: 31:44

Oh, I remember that day with my own mom.

Speaker 2: 31:46

Yes, yes, I know you've been through it, heidi, and that was before I knew you, so I couldn't pray you through yours, but anyway. So we basically had to trick my mom into going because her mind was so confused and so mixed up that she, you know she wouldn't have gone. She wouldn't have, she would have thrown a fit, her emotions were all out of whack. Her thoughts were so mixed up at that point, and so we had to do this. And for my dad, it was just this enormous heartbreak First time. And so you know, they had been married for so many years I'm trying to think how many, probably 50, almost, I don't know, 50, some odd years at that time. And so for him to do this, to take her and then leave her okay, that I mean. It just felt impossible, and I thought I'm not going to be able to hold it together, I'm going to be crying. And then, on top of that, I was struggling with Lyme disease, symptoms that were awful and overwhelming, and so I didn't feel well when the day came. Well, we had to do it. We had to do it. We had no choice.

Speaker 2: 32:54

This is what God had brought us to, and so, days before, I started preparing with Mind Renewal days before I started asking God what is true, lord? What is true about my mom? What is true about this Alzheimer's center? What is true about the disease that she is facing? What is true about my dad and their marriage? What is true about me as their daughter and decision maker at the time? What is true, most importantly, about you, god, and where you are and what you're doing during this time? You know what is true, and so I started writing down some of those truths. I wrote a truth list about what was true and I started reading it again and again, renewing my mind with God's thoughts. I went to scripture. I found scripture on comfort and fear and, you know, directing our steps, all those kinds of scriptures on guidance and peace and trust, and I was renewing my mind with the truth in the scripture.

Speaker 2: 33:59

I wrote truths from the scripture and so I was preparing because I knew that that would change that impossible day for me. I also talked to people that I loved, who helped me through that, and I also talked to God a lot. We had a lot of conversations about it, and I also practiced gratitude before that day, thanking God for every little way that he had directed us toward this impossible day, because he was the one that had put it all together, practicing gratitude and lots of praise too, just praising him, because that would fill my heart. And if I could approach that impossible day with a full heart, it would still be sad, it would still be hard, but, wow, I would have a totally different mindset. It would still be hard but, wow, I would have a totally different mindset, really a different heart set going into it right, one of surrender, and I would have the ability to let go.

Speaker 2: 34:59

And so we did it. We brought her. It was snowing. God took care of it because he put thoughts in her mind that she was going out to eat and if he hadn't done that, I don't know if it you know what would have happened. But she thought it was a big, huge restaurant, and so we walked in and we ended up going to a table and sitting down as if we were going to order food, and I remember I was able to hold it together for her. I was able to not cry till after. My dad had amazing strength.

Speaker 1: 35:32

When I think about it, amazing makes me well up just thinking about how much he loved her, so mind renewal was definitely a big part of you making it through that impossible day and a whole bunch of other impossible days too.

Speaker 2: 35:45

Yes, and you know those impossible days. We all have them. We all have them. And what's incredible is that if we are thinking God's thoughts, after him and depending on him, it changes everything.

Speaker 1: 36:00

Everything, it really really does it really?

Speaker 2: 36:03

does, and that's his design, and it's beautiful.

Speaker 1: 36:07

It is, yeah, and I love that because what would ordinarily have in the past drawn us to food or some other counterfeit comfort, we have proactively, preemptively, gone to the only one who can satisfy, who can quell that ache, that tide of emotion. I mean, he doesn't stuff it, he lets us process it. And it's almost like for me, doing the mind renewal when I'm in a situation is like putting the situation in context of God's amazing character, his love for me that took Jesus to the cross, and that is a perfect context in which I should be seeing my life and circumstances and challenges. It is all ordained by a loving, sweet, compassionate God. Yeah, how do I do it any other way? Because I still try. I still no, god, no, yeah, it's just it's amazing.

Speaker 2: 37:08

We're not perfect certainly. No not perfect, and that's okay. It's not a journey, that, where perfection is required, but it is an amazing way to walk with the Lord. It really is.

Speaker 1: 37:21

It builds intimacy with him that I never had before.

Speaker 1: 37:25

Certainly I mean it was the toughest 10 years of my life. Yeah, it's not as tough now as it was then, thank you Lord, but those 10 years taught me how to build intimacy with Him, because I was so desperate and mind renewal was where it was. Listener, is there anything in your life right now that you need that kind of new perspective? Grab the tools and start using them We've talked about them on these podcasts and incorporate them into your life. And if you aren't sure where else to start, start by going into the scriptures. Dive in and jot a list down of what is God like, what does he do for people, what does he want me to believe? And then praise him for what you find there, you know, praise him for the attributes that he shows you, and see if that doesn't just help give you a different perspective. At least it has for me over these many years.

Speaker 2: 38:18

Yes, for me too, and we're so glad that you've been here today and we really hope that you know something here for you has been helpful and we hope that you'll join us for our next episode. You has been helpful and we hope that you'll join us for our next episode, because we're going to continue with part two here at Revelation Within on the go.

Speaker 1: 38:44

Thanks for being here, bye-bye.