Podcast

Finding Peace in the Company of Jesus: Christine Hoy E125
Christine: [00:00:00] I’d been divorced, recently remarried, and I didn’t even feel like I deserved to have someone love me. I was just in a really not good place, and I thought most importantly that I had disqualified myself from serving
Christine: the retreat leader was speaking about God giving us a new name what name did I feel like people called me? The name Not Good Enough came to my mind.
Christine: I just started to weep as I realized that’s what I had allowed other people to call me “Okay, Jesus, give me a new name.” And he said, ” Christine, you are my precious pearl.”
Welcome to the Unshakable Hope podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kelly Hall, and this is where we wrestle through faith questions, such as how do I trust God’s heart when His ways and delays are breaking mine? We’ll hear from people just like you and me who have experienced God’s faithfulness when life didn’t unfold as they expected.
My prayer is that God would renew our hope in His [00:01:00] Word and His love through these conversations.
Kelly: Hey, guys. I’m joined today by my amazing friend and author Christine Hooy, who asks the question: What if drawing closer to Jesus doesn’t mean trying harder? In her latest book, Keeping Company With Jesus, we discover that experiencing peace in the presence of Jesus is easier and less complicated than we ever imagined.
Kelly: I was beyond honored to be asked to write an endorsement for this book, and I want to share a small portion with you. Never has Jesus’ invitation to keep company with Him landed in my heart with such intimacy and hope. I was captivated by the tenderness of God who chooses us, sees us, knows us, and transforms us through His abiding Spirit.
Kelly: I am [00:02:00] so looking forward to our conversation today, and I’m praying that it will refresh many weary hearts who are longing for more of Jesus in their messy, ordinary days. Christine Hooy writes and speaks to the woman who feels tired of trying to get it right with God. She is deeply grounded in scripture, and she points readers back to the kind of relationship Jesus is actually offering, unhurried, connected, and full of life.
Kelly: Christine lives in West Michigan with her husband Brian. Christine, thank you so much for joining me.
Christine: Kelly, thank you for having me back.
Kelly: Yes, our first conversation was out of your book. What was the name of your first book? Peace Beyond Perfection: Overcoming the Fear of Not Being Enough. That was a wonderful conversation, and I’m gonna put a link to that in our show notes as well.
Kelly: You are busy writing your third book. I don’t know how you do it, but this one is a [00:03:00] treasure, Christine. I have been using it even in my morning devotions just to connect my heart more intimately with Jesus, and it helps me just drop the distractions that interfere so often. Well, I want you to share your journey with us.
Kelly: You have learned a lot about keeping company with Jesus, and you have been finding more and more peace in that journey. So talk to us about how God has been leading you.
Christine: After I wrote my first book, Peace Beyond Perfection, I had realized … and just to sum that up real quickly, when we don’t feel like we’re enough, we tend to try harder, do better.
Christine: We become these performance-driven women just trying to prove ourself to others and even to ourselves. And then I realized too that we can fall into the feeling of we, we need to prove ourselves to God. , It was the beginning of 2025, Peace Beyond Perfection [00:04:00] was in publication and about to launch, and I prayed over what my word for 2025 was supposed to be, and God gave me the word abide.
Christine: And so of course, I did a deep dive into John 15 and really started, discovering , new levels to that and what that abiding process really looks like. I had been on my own journey about five years now, when God met me at one of, the lowest, most frantic times in my life.
Christine: I’d kind of put my life on hold for about three years. My mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Initially, they told her she had six months to live, and she stayed with us, uh, for two and a half years. And then I had six months of cleaning, cleaning out three homes she never really moved out of a house.
Christine: She moved from my childhood home into my grandparents’ home, where four generations had lived. And there was so much, and I spent months sorting through everything. So here I was, [00:05:00] six months later, it was May of 2021, I had not only been, cleaning out Mom’s stuff, dealing with her estate, but I thought, “Hey, I’m behind with my work.
Christine: I’m gonna do a business summit,” because of course that’s what every grieving daughter should be doing when she’s in the middle of things. And, there were a lot of other things going on, too. We were between houses. It was just kind of crazy. I had three friends that didn’t know each other within, I wanna say it was about 10-day period, come and tell me “Christine, you have to stop and take some time to grieve.”
Christine: And one friend just came out and said, basically, “You’re a hot mess.” So you know, one, one person you can kind of ignore, but three, “Okay, God, what are you trying to tell me?” And He very clearly said, “You need to take some time to rest.” So I thought, “Well, okay, maybe I’ll take the summer off,” but He made it clear, and He actually gave me a whole year.
Christine: And it wasn’t just resting. It started out as rest, and then [00:06:00] it turned into I need to surrender. I was trying to control so much of my life because I felt like if I lost control I was fearful of that, so God helped me to learn how to surrender and trust in Him, and that was really the basis of that first book.
Christine: So here I’m coming into 2025 and talking about abiding. I realized that I had been through a transformation and I looked back on what had changed in my life, and I was reminded of a scenario that had happened just that Christmas, um, just a few weeks before, uh, where my whole fam- We had moved from North Carolina back to Michigan where most of our adult kids and our grandchildren live, which is why we moved back.
Christine: So everybody had spent the weekend with us, and, we were sitting around the the Sunday brunch table, my back was to the kitchen, and one of my sons pointed out that my son-in-law had gotten up and was doing the dishes. I don’t know why, but I tend to have a ton of dishwasher stories.[00:07:00]
Christine: And It’s that control thing, right? I … Yeah, absolutely, right? And so I, I talk about one in the first book that I had totally lost it when friends were visiting from actually out of the country, and, were insisting on helping and loading my dishwasher. And here it was several years later, and I turned around, I looked at Chad, saw what he was doing, turned back to the rest of my family sitting at the table, and I was at total peace.
Christine: As I reflected on that later, I realized what a change God had done in me, where something that would previously have just, sent me into high anxiety, I was at total peace about. And that, that may be, something other people can’t relate to, is it was my thing. But I realized that there had been transformation, so I wanted to go back and see what had caused that.
Christine: And it was where I’d stopped striving. I mean, not completely, right? You know, I’m human. But I had stopped [00:08:00] striving in order to prove myself. I had stopped doing things out of the fear of not being enough, and embraced who God said I was. I share the story, in the book where I had been at a retreat.
Christine: This was, oh, probably 11, 12 years ago. I had been at a women’s retreat that a friend from church had invited me to, and all weekend everyone was hearing from God. And this was a point in my life where I’d been divorced, which I thought as a Christian woman meant I was completely disqualified from serving God.
Christine: I had recently remarried, and I didn’t even feel like I deserved that. Like, I didn’t deserve to have someone love me. I was just in a really not good place, right? And I thought most importantly that I had disqualified myself from serving and being useful for God. I didn’t feel like He didn’t love me anymore.
Christine: I just felt like I was that, you know, black sheep problem child. And- Yes … so when [00:09:00] I… starting Friday evening and all day Saturday, I kept seeing the women around me having these amazing encounters with God, and I thought I’m not hearing anything. That just proves my suspicion that God doesn’t wanna bother with me anymore.”
Christine: And then Sunday morning the retreat leader was speaking about God giving us a new name I went back to my room with the assignment to sit with that and ask God, first of all, what name was I answering to? What name did I feel like people called me? And the ph- the phrase or the name Not Good Enough came to my mind.
Christine: I just started to weep as I really … I, as I realized that’s what I had allowed other people to call me and what I had identified as myself. And so then following the instructions of the retreat leader, I started, you know, praying “Okay, Jesus, give me a new name.” And he said, ” Christine, you are my precious pearl.”
Christine: And I’m like- Oh, wow … ” Really? It just … It totally blew me [00:10:00] away and it, and it changed my relationship with Jesus where I could just be with him and not feel like I had to prove myself in any way. I could just show up. For years, decades, … My quiet time was following a, a Bible reading plan, which they’re not bad.
Christine: I don’t … I’m not discouraging people from that. But following a Bible reading plan. So I would open my Bible, read the chapters assigned for that day, close my Bible, open my, my prayer notebook, pray through, you know, the names in my notebook, and possibly if I had a little extra time, review a memory verse, but then I was done, you know?
Christine: And, I wasn’t experiencing that ongoing abiding with him. And I tell a story in the book about a woman who, was, running to meet her friend at a coffee shop, and she had a favor to ask her. She was still holding her phone ’cause she had been talking to somebody on the way in, and she still had it in her hand, and she was glancing at some last-minute messages as she [00:11:00] was sitting down.
Christine: And her friend just reached across, grabbed her hand, grabbed her, put it over the phone- … and kind of tilted down so she’d catch her, catch Melissa’s eyes, and said, “Hello?” Like, “Hi.” ” I’m here.” And I just, I thought about that and how many times we go to God like that. Like, “Okay here’s the favor I had to ask of you.
Christine: Here’s the things…” You know, not that He doesn’t want us to bring what’s on our mind, but sometimes He wants us to just enjoy being in His presence. And, you know, if that’s sitting out on the deck enjoying a beautiful evening, if it’s going for a walk and enjoying a sunrise, just times just being aware of His presence.
Christine: I think that’s what we can be missing a lot of the time, is we’re so busy going through, you know, checking off the boxes on our to-do list, which can include our, our Bible reading and prayer time, that we don’t take time to truly abide.
Christine: [00:12:00] Oh my goodness. That story impacted me so much.
Christine: So many times we don’t understand what Jesus is really inviting us into. And so sometimes just taking a moment and being silent before the Lord, and maybe just saying something like, “You’re right here. You’re so big. You love me so much,” that centers our heart on the truth that we’re actually invited to have a conversation with this great big huge God who sees and knows everything wants to spend time with me. He loves me so much. In my prayer times, that story keeps coming to my mind. And so I’ll just look at Jesus in my mind and say, “Hi” Instead of just launching into needs or whatever. I remember that story.
Christine: You write, “Striving keeps a running tally of what’s undone. Abiding celebrates what’s been given.” That was such a powerful, that is such a powerful statement. I think [00:13:00] understanding this truth is crucial. Striving keeps a running tally of what’s undone. Abiding celebrates what’s been given.
Christine: One of the things we’ve been given is that we are seen, chosen, and loved by an almighty creator and savior. That’s something you learned along the way. That’s something you learned at that women’s retreat when God described you with a new name.
Christine: So talk to us more about that and how we can learn to, celebrate what’s been given rather than constantly keeping a running list of what we haven’t done.
Christine: Yeah, when you read that quote I was thinking to myself, that was a good quote. Who wrote that? Yeah. Yeah.
Christine: It is so true that , when we focus on what needs to be done we’re looking at that, at that gap, right? Between what we’ve done and what still needs to be done, and we’re not really acknowledging all that’s been done for us. Yeah. The most obvious being is Jesus died for us, and we live [00:14:00] in that grace and that mercy.
Christine: And there’s nothing that we can do other than just accept that. And I think it’s easier to abide when we’re thinking about Him and His gift to us and how much He loves us to be able to do that, to- To have known that we would exist someday, right? And to hang on that cross and say, you know, “Kelly, I, I’m gonna die for you right now.
Christine: And Christine, I love you so much.” Throughout our lives, even before we became His followers, we were seen and He chose us. And yes, He loves us so deeply. That is one of the key messages that I want women to walk away with, that there’s nothing to be gained by, this constant striving.
Christine: And one of my little taglines is, , live gentler, not harder. Yeah. And in Matthew [00:15:00] 11:30, it’s actually The Message version of Matthew 11:30 that the title comes from, Keeping Company With Jesus, because Jesus invites us, us, “Come keep company with me and learn how to live freely and lightly.”
Christine: And just before that, he uses the word gentle. That’s how I wanna live. I don’t wanna live, you know, rushed and hurried and I wanna live like Jesus did. He was not rushed. He was not hurried. He was on task for what the Father had given Him. And the reason He was clear about what the Father had given Him is because He was constantly in touch with His Father.
Christine: He would take times … I mean, crowds were chasing Him down, and He would take time to go and separate Himself and be alone and spend time with the Father, and He knew exactly what His purpose was. He knew exactly what He was on Earth for. And He was so clear on that, and that’s, I believe, what we need to be as well, and not being [00:16:00] distracted by all the other things, not being caught up in things that really aren’t His, aren’t ours, that He has not given us.
Christine: I’ve been studying the word entrusted and how we are stewards of what He’s given us, and whether that’s our time, whether that’s our gifts whatever that is. He’s entrusted us with these things for us to use for Him, and not to run off and do every little good thing.
Christine: There’s so many good things we can do that we busy ourselves and distract ourselves with those so we’re not available when He wants to call us for His assignment and not what we think we should be doing. And how many times do we say yes to something without asking Him first, right? We just plow ahead and then like, “Oh, God, y- you approve of this, don’t you?”
Christine: And He’s like, “Well, no, that’s not really what I had in my plan.” Fortunately He’s a bigger God and, you know, we can’t really mess things up.
Kelly: Yeah. That’s so good. I love what [00:17:00] you explain in the book is that Jesus is not sitting there with a performance checklist.
Kelly: And so when we’re living in this time-crunched life on Earth where we begin to have kind of a scarcity mindset that we have too much to do, too many needs to meet, and not enough time, we can depend on our God who is completely outside of time and says, “I got enough. I got enough for everything you need.”
Kelly: As we picture him already giving us these things that we can’t even imagine to meet those needs, we’re able to rest in him. We’re able to depend on him and let go of that striving, and that is part of celebrating what’s already been done for us.
Kelly: Absolutely.
Kelly: Let’s transition to some ways that we can practice practically keeping company with Jesus.
Kelly: One of the things you describe is being fully present. And in doing so, we actually learn what to do with our scattered, divided [00:18:00] hearts. Here’s what you write. “The antidote is deeper trust in God’s sovereignty. It’s a settled belief that we’re exactly where He wants us to be, that His timing is purposeful, and His presence with us right now is the greatest gift we could receive.”
Kelly: And I have a Bible study with young moms that kind of live in some chaos, sure. And they’re always like, “How do I connect with God’s heart when all this is going on?” But even for those of us who don’t have young children running around all the time, we also are very distracted by the world.
Kelly: And so when we remember that His presence with us right now is the greatest gift we could ever receive, I think that really helps settle us in into a place where we can take a deep breath in His presence.
Christine: Absolutely. And it’s true. I have a daughter with three children three and under I see how she, struggles to find that, those longer periods of [00:19:00] time with Jesus.
Christine: And I think, when we are going through seasons that just are very stressful that I think especially as a recovering perfectionist there’s that, that feeling that we have to set aside an hour, say, for quiet time, and that’s not always the case. You know, maybe on a Sunday afternoon you can do that, but, you know, maybe it’s quiet time with Him in the car as you’re driving and just s- turning off the radio or podcast or whatever and just talking to Him.
Christine: Like, I have a half-hour drive into into town. And when I … I don’t go in every day, but, you know, once a week or so when I find myself driving into town, I’ll use that time just to talk to Jesus. And I think it’s, it’s, Finding time to connect with Him, not just once a day, but throughout the day. I’ve been using an app for several years.
Christine: It’s, from John Eldredge, and, it’s called the, What is it called? Pause. One Minute Pause. Yep. Yep. One Minute Pause. And I’ve been using that for [00:20:00] several years now, and it’s . such a good reminder. I have the timer set for 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM, and it goes off, and I just, they have selections anywhere from one minute to 10 minutes, and they’re just, like, meditations that get you to stop and, set aside the busyness, the distractions, and focus on Him, and just draw you into that time with Him.
Christine: And just breathing. I don’t think that- We realize that breathing slows down our nervous system, and a lot of times when I’m doing talks, I’ll have women stand up, ’cause they need a break anyway from sitting, right? And I’ll have them stand up and if you simply, i’ll try to hold my hands up. Turn your palms outward. It opens up your chest, and all of a sudden, you know, your, your lungs, you can fill with air. And just turn those thumbs out. It opens up your chest, and just breathe in. And do that several times, and then talk to Jesus. And I feel at times, like when I’m so busy that I [00:21:00] have these little toddler grandchildren and I feel like God is just grabbing my little cheeks and saying, “Hey, Christine, look at me.”
Christine: And it’s, you know, like we do that with the little kids when they’re running around like crazy and, and just stop them and grab their little cheeks and say, “Hey, pay attention.” And I sometimes feel like He’s doing that with me. Like, “Hey, just stop the busyness for a little while and just chat with me for a few minutes.
Christine: Tell me what’s going on with you.” So I just, I want women to realize that you know, spending time , with Jesus doesn’t require this huge chunk of time. As you would, , talk to a spouse or a roommate or anybody throughout the day. You don’t just talk to them first thing in the morning or last thing at night.
Christine: I think I just want to encourage women to not, it’s not all or nothing,
Kelly: right. I think, too, we tend to stuff what we’re feeling because we’re just dealing with the day.
Kelly: If we can remain in the truth that we are held and open our hearts to how deeply we’re loved, in our doubt, in our pain, in our [00:22:00] overwhelm. bring it all to Jesus, who is actually living- Totally
Kelly: inside of us and knows it already, and we can gain a lot of peace with that. this list you gave us helps us. So
Kelly: what was your favorite one, Christine?
Christine: So one that I’ve really leaned into a lot over the years has been borrowed faith, and really the sense of community. I think being part of a, not necessarily a whole church, but a small group within your church, or maybe it’s not.
Christine: I, I have a local group of, uh, speaker writer friends that I get together with, and there’s like a core group of us that share prayer requests with each other have really stood in the gap, you know, with one another when we’ve been going through rough times. But it … You know, I, I highly recommend getting involved in a small group, uh, with your church of, different people call them different things.
Christine: Connect Group, House Group, whatever it is. And those are the people that consistently, through times when I’ve just been in a really rough [00:23:00] season, have stood beside me and walked through that with me. And, you know, women that would reach out with a text of… I’m thinking of one person, reached out with a text daily during a rough season in my life and shared a Bible verse with me, and just an encouraging word.
Christine: And I think that’s so important to, to surround yourself with people that can hold you up when, when you’re just really struggling, and not to try to do it on your own. I think the reaction is, maybe it’s just me ’cause I’m more of an introvert, but I think our reaction is when we’re in pain to kind of go off and, huddle- Right
Christine: up by ourselves and, and, uh- Right … and that’s not how God intended us, for us. And, you know, even Jesus when He was on this earth, He had his 12 disciples, and He had His core group of three that He was, that He shared things with. And, not that He needed holding up, but even when He went up to pray, He, He had those, [00:24:00] His core group of friends come with Him.
Christine: And so, I think that’s the one- Not the most important one, but one that, that really means a lot to me is to lean into community.
Kelly: You actually told some beautiful stories about how one community had kind of rejected you because- Yeah. … y’all traveled too much.
Christine: Yeah. We got kicked out of a small group because we traveled too much, so.
Christine: God’s way of saying that wasn’t the church we needed to be in.
Kelly: Right. And so community plays a huge part in all of our lives, and it just reminds me too of the story of the friends who lowered their injured friend into the house where Jesus was so that Jesus could help him.
Kelly: They carried him to Jesus, and that’s what often happens when we borrow faith from our friends. When they come around us, they’re carrying us to Jesus. Another truth that I enjoy so much is the one called, you call radical honesty. And it was just this moment where the daughter [00:25:00] is asking her mom what’s wrong, and she says, “Nothing.”
Kelly: And then later she realizes, ” I’m angry at God.” One of the things that God wants to do is uncover everything that stands in the way of deeper intimacy with Him so He can heal that. It’s extremely precious when He helps us understand and put language to the truth that we’re angry, we’re hurt, we’re disappointed, god may not give us the answers we want, but He is always, always, always pouring out His unconditional love that rescues us and draws us closer to His heart in those places. I’m so moved and so touched by a God who does that.
Christine: Yes, He’s very special. And once you’ve experienced that firsthand there’s really no substitute. There’s really not. None.
Kelly: Another thing that helps us, and you mentioned this, is accepting mystery.
Kelly: Mm. One of the things that is hard for us as [00:26:00] believers is we want everything to be certain and planned and laid out and understood. Yep. Right? Yes. So when things don’t make sense, it’s not an invitation to control everything.
Kelly: You say it’s an invitation to step into the mystery of God who’s already in control.
Christine: Absolutely. I think that’s when we really experience that intimacy with Jesus and with our Father is when we are able to surrender and able to say, “I trust you. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why this is happening.
Christine: I think back to the story of Job, and I’m sure, he couldn’t figure out, you know, “I’ve done everything right basically.” You know, “Why is this happening to me?” He and God had, had some talks about that. But I think just this knowing that He’s got this, I don’t have to, and knowing that we can trust Him, absolutely.
Kelly: Yes. You know one of the things that gives me so much hope in this long journey we have on this earth with our Jesus is that His Spirit is [00:27:00] transforming us to become more like Him. Mm-hmm. And so sometimes I would just have women, and I do this myself, look back over the last five years, look at where you were, look at what you struggled with, and now look at where you are today.
Kelly: You are becoming more like Him. Because in this long journey we can get lost in, in feeling like nothing’s happening, and where’s the purpose. But you remind us to look at what He’s done in you, and to find hope in the fact that we are becoming more like Him every day. the things that can feel so hard and dreary are actually quite purposeful and beautiful.
Kelly: I know you’ve experienced that in your own life, Christine.
Christine: well, the one that comes to my mind immediately is the other half of that story I s- shared at the beginning about the three women that God sent to me the messengers He sent to me- Yeah … in May of 2021 that said, “Slow down.
Christine: Take time to grieve.” One woman used the word lament. The one gal said, [00:28:00] “Christine, you’re a hot mess.” Three years later, I mean, to the same month, uh, it was May of 2024, and again, within, like, you know, less than two weeks, God sent three other women, again, who didn’t know each other, that told me things like, “Christine…”
Christine: I had lost a lot of weight, and one gal said very specifically, “Christine, it’s not the weight that you’ve lost that’s most noticeable about you. It’s the peace that you’ve gained.” She said, “Your whole countenance has changed.” That just blew me away. Another friend said, “You exude peace.” And I hadn’t really realized that much change had happened.
Christine: I mean, I knew I felt different, but I didn’t know it was visible to other people. Yeah. And I felt kind of like it, Peter, you know, with his rooster story, right? Where, after, uh, denying Jesus three times, and then when he has breakfast with Jesus on the beach after the resurrection and [00:29:00] Jesus looks at him and says, “Peter, do you love me?”
Christine: You know, “Yes, Lord, I love you.” Two more times, “Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me?” And each time Peter is given the opportunity to acknowledge, “Yes, Lord, I love you.” And it was, kinda canceling out- The three times he had denied Jesus, I felt like God was doing that to me. Like, “Hey, I had to send people to to wake you up to let you know that, that you’re not taking time to rest and surrender and trust in me.
Christine: But now I want you to know that I see you.” You know, you talked about being seen and chosen and loved. He was … You know, prompted these three women to very specifically tell me what He needed me to see, that He saw this in me, that, you know, I now exuded peace. I’m not, certainly not sharing any of that to pump myself up, ’cause I don’t believe that at all.
Christine: But behind the scenes, when we are truly surrendered to Him, when we’re really abiding with Him and spending that time with Him, He [00:30:00] changes us. And, trying to remember the story, but in, in Acts it talks about the, the two disciples that went before I believe it was the Sanhedrin.
Christine: And, they were challenging them and somebody said, ” they’ve been with Jesus,” and that’s what makes them different. I want people to see me and be able to say, “She’s been with Jesus. That’s what makes her different.” Because we’re mirrors, right? And there’s a Greek word called, I can’t pronounce Greek, but katoptrizio, gazing into a mirror.
Christine: That’s the word that’s used. We’re supposed to reflect our Lord and Savior and give honor to Him through the way we live, and we can’t do that if we’re disconnected from the vine.
Kelly: Yeah. When we read John 15 Jesus invites us into abiding- Yeah
Kelly: We’re a branch. We’re connected to the vine. He’s the source of everything. He’s not telling us to strive. He’s just inviting us to source from Him. Yes. When we rest in [00:31:00] Him, He gives us everything we need. And then verse 15 talks about His joy.
Kelly: He gives us this unbelievable, overflowing joy that can be ours even when things are hard. As we are sourcing from Him, we can experience the joy of being aware that He is with us and working in us and changing us. It’s really so encouraging that He meets us in those places, and we’re not having to produce the fruit or the transformation ourselves.
Kelly: He does it. As we abide in Him, it happens naturally. Yeah. That’s what you’ve just described, and that’s peaceful.
Christine: And we can’t produce what I call false fruit. I remember years ago when I was a young mom going to Bible studies, and maybe I misunderstood, but they were studying the fruit of the- fruits of the spirit.
Christine: And I’m like, “Oh, well let me just try to be more gentle. Let me just try to be more kind. Let me just try- Yeah … to be more f- have have more self-control. And that’s not [00:32:00] what the word says at all. It says to stay connected with Him, to follow Jesus, and these will be fruits of that. We can’t produce those things separate from the vine.
Christine: We can’t produce these things on our own. Right. And so I think that’s key.
Kelly: Yes. And as you describe surrender, I mean, this whole book, even when you’re not using the word surrender, this whole book is about resting in Jesus and surrendering to Him. It just reminded me of this funny story when I was a young mom and I was very stressed out.
Kelly: And so I told Jesus, “I want more peace.” He reminded me of Proverbs 3:5-6. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, don’t lean on your own understanding.” He was inviting me not to have it all figured out, not to control everything, but to surrender to Him and trust Him.
Kelly: Mm-hmm. And He brought the transformation. As I look back over, 30 years I can see that there is way more trust and surrender that has brought peace [00:33:00] into my life.
Kelly: Well, Christine, as we close up why don’t you leave us with one word of encouragement
Kelly: and also tell us how they can connect with you. I want them to find you and I want them to read this book.
Christine: Oh, well, thank you. I think for me the overall message is that peace that we want comes from being with Him, and to make time to be aware of His presence. Yeah. It’s not one more thing to do, it’s something to experience.
Christine: And just to go and sit and be still. Maybe take one verse and just meditate on that one verse and let, His spirit just speak to you about that. Ask for one word from that verse that He wants you to dwell on. And speaking of dwelling is abiding with Him, right?
Christine: At the end of every chapter, I give a practice. So there’s 12 chapters, 12 practices, because I don’t want women to just read a chapter, ” Oh, that was nice, whatever,” [00:34:00] and move on. And I did this in my first book as well. So there’s a practice at the end of every chapter where women can immediately put into practice what they’ve learnt.
Christine: And I took four of those and put them into a document that they can find on my website. My website is Christine Carter Hoy. C-H-R-I-S-T-I-N-E Carter, Hoy is H-O-Y. com. There’s several giveaways there, and the come and stay is what they’re looking for. That should be at the bottom of the home page.
Christine: And there’s also , a freebies page with other things that they can look through that might help with their walk with Jesus and spending time with Jesus.
Kelly: Yeah, that’s wonderful. Thanks, Christine. Hey, thanks for sharing this time with us. It was really fun to talk about this book and these practices. I loved it.
Christine: And I just wanna say, too, I don’t write as someone who’s got it all figured out. I write about the things Jesus is teaching me. Right. I want readers to know, yes God has revealed [00:35:00] things to me, and I’m sharing those, but it’s not like I have it all figured out because as soon as, I, finish one book, God’s already saying, “Okay, well, now we’re ready for, this next thing I want you to take a deeper dive into.”
Christine: So we’re all on the same journey. We’re all sojourners, right? Because we all have the hope of spending eternity with Jesus, but it starts right now.
Kelly: Amen.
If you were encouraged in your faith today, . I’d love to hear from you. You can reach out through my website, kellyhall.org, and pick up some free resources while you’re there. Thanks for listening to the Unsh