Giving Your Best Life

Episode 98: Simple Stories to Help You Find Peace through Rest, Trust & Believe, and Embracing Faith

• Stephanie L. Jones, Giving Gal • Episode 98

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Have you ever felt the world weigh heavily on your shoulders, seeking solace but not knowing where to turn? In this episode, Stephanie shares her journey toward finding peace through rest and faith. Through personal stories, including an impactful weekend with her friend Amy, she invites listeners to reflect on what God has for their life. 

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Speaker 1:

Hey friends, it's Stephanie here with episode number 98 of Giving your Best Life podcast. Thank you so much for joining me and thank you for just like engaging sending messages. Shout out on this one to Shepherd's Heart Fellowship Church over in Oceola, indiana. I was there this weekend and got to keynote their event. They so graciously. When we were talking about a theme, I pitched the idea of giving your best life and they loved it, and we've spent the last year planning that. So I just want to say thank you to them, because it's always a pleasure that I in such an honor that I get to do what God has calling me to do, and that only happens if Church churches invite me in, or, yeah, churches is for their, their women's retreats, or last year I got to do some Christmas events that I just loved. So if your church is doing a women's retreat and you need a speaker, please reach out to me. I would love to chat, but so I wanted to get a shout out to them because all the women were fabulous and I met so many people and, at the end of the day, I feel like I become friends with some of them, so I want to get back to the topic at hand today. So my husband has a woodshop and if you're interested in seeing any of his stuff, you can go look for Fallen Timbers Woodshop on Facebook. He has a group with his beautiful work and I'm always designing something, popping out there saying, hey, can you make this? And I've done bracelets, which I love, and I've done bookmarks and ornaments.

Speaker 1:

But for a while I was spending time just like drawing out this little symbol. It's a circle and then there's a cross in the middle and it has four words on it, the words rest, trust, faith and believe. And then in the middle on the cross, it says it is finished. And I just did this because I wanted a reminder on my desk of these things, like these four words of. Am I doing this each and every day? And to be a reminder that almost everything doesn't else matter. You know what I mean. I don't know if that makes sense. You know like sometimes we can get bogged down by so many things of this world. We can get bogged down by people and their opinions. We can get bogged down by our work. I don't know. We can get bogged down by the stresses of life and illnesses and just like everything, we could get bogged down and I just wanted this reminder of these four things actually five, these five things. And then, in addition to this, I wrote a little bit about each of these words and kind of what it means to me, or just a reminder of certain times in my life, of God's goodness. And I want to spend today just reading through that little card and I want to say, if you want one of these, feel free to message me and I'll put a picture in my Facebook group. You can join giving your best, like Facebook group if you're not in there and I'll put a picture of this. But so the four words plus the phrase is rest, trust, faith and believe. And it is finished. So I'm going to read rest first.

Speaker 1:

I've spent the last two years battling back from an infection from a spider bite, numerous allergic reactions from antibiotics, er visits, lyme disease and mono. There were days when I could not get out of bed. Exhaustions seeped into my bones. Years prior to this health challenge, I had slowed down significantly, but this forced me to wipe my calendar clean. I barely held onto my day job without having to take a leave of absence. I said no to almost every request that came in for review. I quit seeking speaking engagements and I spent a lot of time at home, Over and over Matthew 11, 28 through 30, bubbled up into my soul. Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is in your heart, is easy and my burden is light. Friends, if you are a go-go person like me, where you just always feel like you're on the go and you say yes to a lot of stuff is I encourage you to take time to rest. It is through rest that I have been able to heal. I want to read the next one, which is Trust and Believe, and this is a shout out to my good friend Amy Tucker.

Speaker 1:

At Salty Bridges, when my friend Amy and I started chatting about an adventure together, we quickly decided that we had done enough big, challenging adventures. We had nothing to prove, so we settled on renting a cabin on the water and planned nothing. On the second night of our Do Nothing Girls Weekend, as the rain poured outside, we put on comfy clothes and grabbed our Bibles. She curled up in a chair and I cozied up on the couch. Amy would read a verse out loud. We then flipped the pages and read another verse. We did this for over an hour. God sent us a clear message Trust and believe Him. It was one of the most beautiful moments of my life. In a powerful reminder, when we rest in His Word, he gives us what we mean. A little commentary on this is we had both brought our Bibles to this Girls Weekend. We went, we were near Charleston and we didn't talk about bringing our Bibles or what we were going to bring. We just both did it. God, just it was such. If you have a Girls Weekend, I really challenge you to do this. We didn't even know it. We had the same version of the Bible, which made it even more special because we were literally reading the same things and seeing it. We just started flipping pages and, over and over and over again, we heard those trust and believe. We heard those trust and believe and Amy and I are both entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is hard. There is a lot of struggles and we're constantly trying to do things on our own and try to be in control and try to make mountains move when they seem immovable and what both of us were just constantly reminded is no, god has this. We just have to trust and believe. And that's where I've really come up with this, like there is power in taking that step of faith, which is what I want to read next, because that is the next word that I have on this little I guess ornament type thing that my husband made me in the story that I have on the card Faith.

Speaker 1:

I had spent a year cutting a trail system in the woods that surrounded my property. Every so often I would pass the smallest opening that went from our backyard into the woods. Each time I looked at the indent in the weeds I would think I need to cut that trail, but I always dismissed the idea as it seemed overwhelming. Unlike the other trails I had cut, I didn't know where this one was going. It was a mess of thorns, weeds and downed trees, but every time I passed it I felt called to take a step of faith and cut the trail. After much resistance, just like pursuing a big dream, I got the weed wacker out and started to open the trail, and do you know what happened? One shoot off the trail led to another trail I was able to cut that led to the most majestic tree. I hadn't seen another one like it on the property. As I cut the trail straight, it connected to another trail. I had already finished, or so I thought. This little trail taught me so many lessons about faith, but the biggest one is that when we take a step of faith, it can lead us to places we would have never seen and experienced if we would have stayed in the comfort of our own backyard.

Speaker 1:

My friends, this is just one thing that I'm really really passionate about and hopefully, if you've been with me for a while on the podcast or go back and listen to some of the episodes is really. I think there's so many of us, including me I've been on this journey for a long while now of God calling us to do and we're just stuck in our own mind, we're stuck on trying to do stuff on ourselves, we're stuck in excuses, we're stuck filled in the blank and God's just constantly saying you don't have to do everything on your own, you don't have to see where that trail is going, you don't have to get through the thorns and the weeds of life on your own. I'm going to be with you, but you have to take that step of faith. I cannot do that for you, and so I just have this great visual and I got to share that this weekend with the women at the conference, that story, because it's just so powerful. And if I think about that tree, it's like such a beautiful tree, but I never would have seen that tree on that property and I think that's what it looks like for our lives is. God has something so beautiful for us, but we have to take that step of faith. I want to end with the last thing, that is on this little wooden ornament that I've created and it is finished, and this is what my little card says is stop striving, stop trying to be perfect, stop trying to earn your way to heaven.

Speaker 1:

When Jesus died upon the cross and rose again three days later, he finished the work that was prophesized over and over in the New Testament, in the Old Testament, and completed the redemptive work of forgiving us of our sins, reconciling us with our Father in heaven.

Speaker 1:

I just wanna finish with a couple of verses that I don't know that relates to this invitation, god's invitation to salvation, john 3.16,. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ. I'll end with this Titus 3.5. He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. Friends, I just wanna thank you for continuing to go on this journey with me, and I just hope that some of this is giving you encouragement and just another way to get to giving your best life.