It’s no secret that women often struggle with other women. We compare ourselves, we compete against each other, but in our efforts to win the comparison game, we all come out as losers.

Join host, Barb Roose, and one of her dear friends, author, Bible teacher and comedian Amberly Neese for a powerful conversation about how to love each other better as women.

Big Ideas from Today's Show

1. Focus on the character of who God is. 

Amberly encouraged us to avoid getting caught up in the comparison trap and instead focus on the character of God. When we get stuck in the "if onlys" (if only I looked more like her, if only I had a bigger house, if only I had a flat tummy, etc.), it robs us of truly enjoying our lives and our relationships with other women. Instead we should focus our eyes on God who is good, who loves us, and who is the giver of amazing gifts. 

2. Realize that we need each other.

We were created by God for community. When we lock arms with one another despite our differences, we can accomplish amazing things for the kingdom. 

3. Practice gratitude. 

Amberly reminded us that when we practice gratitude and thankfulness to God for His provision, we start to see His presence all throughout our lives. 

About Our Guest Amberly Neese

Amberly Neese is a popular speaker/teacher, comedian, author, and all-around encourager dedicated to helping you become the joyful person you were created to be.

 She helps people like you and your group experience the freedom found in meaningful relationships with God and others. Her bible study, “The Belonging Project: Finding Your Tribe and Learning to Thrive” was released in May 2020 by Abingdon Press.  Her latest study, “Common Ground: Loving Others Despite Our Differences” and devotional “The Friendship Initiative: 31 Days of Loving and Connecting Like Jesus” are scheduled to release May 4, 2021.

 Amberly is a featured speaker for the Aspire Women’s Events and the main host and female comedian for Marriage Date Night, two popular Christian events that tour nationally.

 She and her husband have two teenagers and live in Prescott, Arizona, where they enjoy the great outdoors, the Food Network, and all things Star Wars.

Links from today's episode:

Amberly's Website

amberlyneese.com

The Friendship Initiative: 31 Days of Loving and Connecting Like Jesus

Get your copy here.

Common Ground Bible Study

Get your copy here.

Better Together host Barb Roose is a popular speaker and author with a passion to help women live beautifully strong and courageous in Jesus' name. She's the author of multiple books and Bible studies, including Surrendered: Letting Go and Living Like Jesus and Joshua: Winning the Worry Battle. Visit Barb's online home at barbroose.com.

What does it mean to be a strong woman? How do you do it?

Join host, Barb Roose, and speaker and author, Lucinda McDowell, as she talks us through the 7 keys that equip us to be soul strong in spite of our circumstances. If you need encouragement, feel lost in your life, or love to be inspired, this episode is for you!

Big Ideas from Today's Show

1. The 7 Keys

Lucinda shared the 7 keys to staying soul strong and living a vibrant life. They were:

1. Live Loved

2. Be Authentic

3. Dwell Deep

4. Pray Always

5. Overcome Pain

6. Extend Kindness

7. Share Stories

2. When we call out to God, He strengthens our soul. 

The inspiration verse for Lucinda's book, Soul Strong, was Psalm 138:3 which says, "On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased" (ESV). This verse shows us that we have the privilege of calling out on God in our times of difficulty with hope that He will hear and answer our earnest cries.

3. True authenticity can truly transform our lives. 

Lucinda taught us that being authentic means knowing who we are and who we are not. True authenticity helps us to realize and embrace our unique calling instead of comparing and competing with others who have gifts and strengths that differ from our own. When we stop comparing ourselves, we are freed up to genuinely celebrate one another.

About Our Guest Lucinda Secrest McDowell

Lucinda McDowellis a storyteller and seasoned mentor who engages both heart and mind while “Helping You Choose a Life of Serenity & Strength.” A graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and Furman University, McDowell is the author of 15 books and contributing author to 30+ books. Her award-winning books include new releases Life-Giving Choices(2019) and Soul Strong (2020), as well as Dwelling Places, Ordinary Graces, Refresh, and Live These Words.  Lucinda, a member of the Redbud Writers Guild and AWSA, received Mt. Hermon “Writer of the Year” award and guest blogs for The Write Conversation, Blue Ridge Christian Writers Blog and (in)courage. Whether co-directing “reNEW ~ retreat for New England Writing & Speaking,” pouring into young mamas, or leading a restorative day of prayer, she is energized by investing in people of all ages. Lucinda’s favorites include creative words, tea parties, good books, laughing friends, ancient prayers, country music, cozy quilts, musical theatre, and especially her family scattered around the world doing amazing things.  Known for her ability to convey deep truth in practical and winsome ways, she writes from “Sunnyside” cottage in New England and blogs regularly at LucindaSecrestMcDowell.com

Links from today's episode:

Lucinda's Website

lucindasecrestmcdowell.com

Soul Strong - 7 Keys to a Vibrant Life

Get your copy here.

Better Together host Barb Roose is a popular speaker and author with a passion to help women live beautifully strong and courageous in Jesus' name. She's the author of multiple books and Bible studies, including Surrendered: Letting Go and Living Like Jesus and Joshua: Winning the Worry Battle. Visit Barb's online home at barbroose.com.

Every one of us experiences traumatic moments in life. Whether you’ve suffered a devastating loss or even struggle with PTSD, God sees you in your struggle and healing is possible!

Join host, Barb Roose, and certified life coach, author, and Bible teacher, Elisa Pulliam, for a powerful conversation on how you can recover and align your life with God’s best for you. She will also tell us more about equine therapy for trauma recovery.

Big Ideas from Today's Show

1. The Definition and Kinds of Trauma

Trauma is when your brain perceives the need for survival and goes into fight, flight, freeze or fawn mode but remains stuck in that place. This results in us living in a state of fear or alarm. Elisa makes it clear that trauma is meant to be a state, not a trait.

Causes of trauma include: experiencing the death of a loved one, a car accident, betrayal, and even a sudden job loss or the need to relocate on a moment's notice.

Common symptoms of trauma are: struggling to connect with others, issues being present, anger issues, shutting down thoughts of the past, and hypervigilance (this can include perfectionism, overperformance, and workaholism).

2. Barriers to Healing

Elisa shared common barriers to healing including the fear that therapists are not credible or trustworthy. To overcome this barrier, she encouraged us to do our research! Check out their history, education, and therapeutic method and then give them a try! If you don't hit it off, it's okay to switch therapists after giving them a genuine chance.

3. Important First Steps

Elisa taught us about the power of equine therapy and how horses can be used to help us in the process of trauma recovery. She also provided us with incredible resources to help us discover if coaching is right for us! You can find all of those resources in the links section below!

About Our Guest Elisa Pulliam

Elisa Pulliam is the founder of MoreToBe.com, where she offers biblically-based coaching and coach training for women as well as in-person equine-assisted coaching for women, families, and leadership teams. Her passion is to see women align their lives with God's best through the pursuit of whole-life healing. She is also the host of the More to Be Podcast and author of numerous books and bible studies, including Meet the New You, Unblinded Faith, and Impact Together. Her joys include her relationship with God, her husband of nearly 25 years, their four entering-into-adulthood children, and unrushed time with God, people, and horses.

Links from today's episode:

Elisa's Website

moretobe.com

Equine-assisted coaching:

Learn more about equine therapy here.

The Align Quiz:

Take the Align Quiz here.

The Sisterhood Membership:

Join the sisterhood here.

Better Together host Barb Roose is a popular speaker and author with a passion to help women live beautifully strong and courageous in Jesus' name. She's the author of multiple books and Bible studies, including Surrendered: Letting Go and Living Like Jesus and Joshua: Winning the Worry Battle. Visit Barb's online home at barbroose.com.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned my struggle with overeating as well as the freedom that I found in relying on my relationship with God instead of rules. I’ve had to make peace with the fact that I may be fighting this battle the rest of my life.

It’s okay for us to have to keep battling something. There are some who believe that freedom can’t exist in an area of our lives unless the problem, temptation, struggle or habit is eradicated forever.  But the Apostle Paul demonstrates that isn’t true.

In 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, Paul writes about everything he had done as a messenger of the gospel. If there were a superstar checklist, Paul could have ticked all of the boxes. However, Paul says that in order to avoid becoming prideful, a messenger from Satan afflicted him with a thorn in the flesh. Why would God allow this?

 ⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9 NLT)

Before his conversation to following Christ, Paul zealously followed the law. He gave himself brownie points for all the things that he did for God.

When we give ourselves "brownie points" for how often we read our Bible, attend church or pray, the result is usually pride, rather than faith. That leads us to believe that we've earned our blessing or that God should bless us because we've been so good for Him. Anyone ever guilty of that? Me, too.

While purely speculation, perhaps the thorn was God’s ways of vaccinating Paul against a re-infection his former legalistic past, which would have undermined the gospel of grace.

There’s been a lot of speculation about Paul’s affliction, but we know three things from 2 Corinthians 12:8-9:

Paul prayed and asked for God to remove it;

God didn’t remove it;

God said that His grace was stronger than Paul’s struggle.

 Here’s the hard truth about some of what we face as believers: There are some struggles we will live with until we leave this earth.

Some of you have beat yourselves up or questioned your salvation because you’ve struggled with addiction, weight issues, sexual attraction or some other issue. While God’s grace isn’t permission to sin first and ask for forgiveness later, grace means that you can't to fix yourself  - and that God may have a plan and purpose for your struggle. Therefore, if you've accpeted Jesus Christ as your Savior, then your struggle can't cancel your salvation. 

When you question your salvation because your struggle keeps coming back, that’s your fear speaking. Tell it to shut up. Seriously.

One of the key themes of my new Breakthrough Bible study is that God’s grace isn’t based on your performance, rather His promises accomplished through the death and ressurection of Jesus Christ.

As much as I want my emotional eating struggles to disappear, they haven’t. That doesn’t mean that I don’t trust God or that I’m not saved by God’s grace. It just means that like Paul, it’s my thorn in the flesh. I could get discouraged about it or I can choose to see this struggle as a vehicle that drives me back to God. As I experience victory, I give glory to God rather than give attention to myself.

Remember, roses always grow above the thorns. It's a reminder to me to not focus on my struggle, but that God can use that struggle to make me stronger, which like a rose is a beauitful thing to celebrate!

Ultimately, God’s goal for your life isn’t to make all of your problems go away. But when you allow the Spirit to fight for you (Galatians 5:16), you’ll experience victory. When you allow the Holy Spirit to guide your life, the result is holy living—even if there are occasional setbacks. Even when there are persistent pressures, seasonal resurgences, or surprise attacks, you can face them assured of victory in Jesus’s name.

COMMENT BELOW:

Have you experienced God's grace in an on-going struggle in your life? How has that struggle drawn your closer to God?

 * A quick note: Even though I cling to God’s grace when it comes to the thorn of emotional eating, that doesn’t mean that I ignore the wisdom of exercising and eating healthy foods; it means that I don’t rely on those things to manage my struggle.

Let go of feeling like you are not a “good enough” Christian and find freedom in Christ by studying Paul’s letter to the Galatians in my new study, Breakthrough: Finding Freedom in Christ.

Have you ever felt that being a good Christian means you’ve got to follow a bunch of rules and measure up?

If so, you aren’t alone! In this six-week Bible study of Galatians, Barb Roose shows us that even the believers in the early church struggled to let go of rule-keeping and performance in order to embrace God’s free gift of grace.

If you’ve ever struggled with feeling like God is disappointed with you or felt trapped by rules or religion, this study will provide a path to discover your freedom in Christ.

When we are walking through tough times, it can be easy to feel like we are alone or that our prayers are hitting the ceiling.

Join host, Barb Roose, and author and Bible teacher, Donna Snow, as they talk about three ways we can know that God is present in our circumstances, even if He feels absent.

Big Ideas from Today's Show

1. God is never mentioned, but His fingerprints are everywhere.

Although we never read God's name in the book of Esther, we can see that He is at work in all of the events that transpire. Donna explained that Esther could not have gone from being an orphaned Jew to the Queen of Persia on her own. Only God could have done this! When we cannot feel the presence of God in our lives, Donna encourages us to spend some time journaling and writing down the promises of God to remind ourselves of the truth. He loves us, cares for us, and is deeply involved in our stories.

2. Esther is not a fairytale as some people think. It's a historical book that is closer to a nightmare than a Cinderella story.

Esther's story is not as neat and pretty as some storybooks make it out to be. Donna explained that Esther had about a 1 in 400 chance of becoming queen. After spending one night with the King, if she had not been chosen, she could never get married and would have to spend the rest of her life in the harem. However, Donna also reminded us that sometimes the areas where things do not look great is where God needs us the most.

3. In Esther's story there are two decrees, and in God's narrative there are also two decrees.

In the book of Esther, Haman passed a decree to destroy all of the Jews, but Mordecai's law was able to defend them. In God's narrative, when Adam and Eve sinned, God decreed that all of us would die. However, on Calvary Jesus wrote decree number 2 with His death that promised eternal life for those who put their faith in Him. 

About Our Guest Donna Snow

Donna Snow has authored over 35 Bible studies, numerous magazine articles, and travels throughout the United States and internationally to teach from Scripture.

She has published five books through Concordia Publishing House. Her sixth book, a full-length Bible study based on the book of Esther, released on March 2, 2021. Donna has also authored four DVD Bible study series in partnership with the Lutheran Women in Mission, which were taught before live audiences.

Donna also offers professional online tutoring on writing, developing Bible studies, and public speaking through Wyzant.

Donna is a life-long Texan and coffee lover. She is an adventurous traveler, avid reader, dabbling gardener and closet chef, but home is always her favorite place to be.

Links from today's episode:

Donna's Website

artesianministries.org

Holy Land Tour (December 1-10)

artesianministries.org/events

Chosen: A Study of Esther

Buy your copy here.

Better Together host Barb Roose is a popular speaker and author with a passion to help women live beautifully strong and courageous in Jesus' name. She's the author of multiple books and Bible studies, including Surrendered: Letting Go and Living Like Jesus and Joshua: Winning the Worry Battle. Visit Barb's online home at barbroose.com.

Journaling is a great way to connect with God and open yourself to hearing His voice.

Join host, Barb Roose, and Sally Sharpe, certified spiritual director, to talk through the basics of journaling - even if you hate to write things down.

Big Ideas from Today's Show

1. Journaling helps us to slow down and pay attention to our hearts so that we can share and unburden our hearts to God.

Sally showed us the positive mental, emotional, and spiritual impact that journaling can have on us. When we slow down and unburden our hearts, we can experience incredible results including reducing stress, soothing anxiety, reducing the symptoms of PTSD, panic and addiction, strengthening our immune system, and so much more!

2. There are no rules when journaling, but there are some helpful guidelines that we can follow!

Sally shared 10 guidelines for journaling including making it part of our routine, letting go of our inner critic (you don't even have to spell correctly!), being authentic, and keeping it private.

3. Journaling helps us to integrate our heads (minds) and our hearts, which gives us greater understanding of ourselves and enables us to experience God.

Sally explained that when we journal and write our thoughts and emotions out on paper, we are actually integrating the left (logic, reason, thinking) and right (emotions, intuition, experiences and beliefs) side of our brains together. It is then that we are able to make sense of what we are feeling and experiencing.

4. Journaling helps us to make sense of our story in light of God's love for us, which brings emotional and spiritual healing.

As we process through our experiences and emotions, we are better able to see how God is at work in our lives.

About Our Guest Sally Sharpe

Sally Sharpe is a Certified Spiritual Director who offers spiritual direction for individuals or groups (in person and through video conferencing), as well as workshops and retreats on various topics related to spiritual practices and soul care—often utilizing Scripture, journaling, and the exploration of our own stories to facilitate inner healing. She also enjoys partnering with her husband, Neil, a licensed marriage and family therapist, to lead classes, seminars, and retreats for individuals and couples on relationships, marriage, and parenting. With thirty years of experience in Christian publishing as an editor and writer and over twenty years of participation and leadership in women's Bible study, she currently is Senior Editor of Abingdon Women, a line of in-depth Bible studies published by Abingdon Press, where she oversees the development of both print and video resources. Sally and Neil have two young adult daughters and live just outside of Nashville in Mt. Juliet, TN.

Links from today's episode:

Sally's Website:

sallysharpe.net

Better Together host Barb Roose is a popular speaker and author with a passion to help women live beautifully strong and courageous in Jesus' name. She's the author of multiple books and Bible studies, including Surrendered: Letting Go and Living Like Jesus and Joshua: Winning the Worry Battle. Visit Barb's online home at barbroose.com.