Podcast

A Move, A Wilderness, A Soul-Healing. Sarah Nichols

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Unshakable Hope Podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kellie 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 Word and His love through these conversations.

Kelly:

Hey guys, I’m so glad you’re joining me for this conversation. You’ll be hearing from a friend of mine, Sarah Nichols. She’s a writer and speaker and I love that she was also a military spouse, but she has a rather intriguing story that impacted me, so I wanted to share it with you.

You’ll hear about a time when God led her and her husband to step out in faith and make an unexpected move. Instead of the great things they hoped to [00:01:00] see happen in their new home, life seemed to fall apart pretty rapidly. Sarah’s going to share how the Lord met her in the middle of all that confusing hard. And if you’ve ever been in a situation where you wondered if you made a mistake or maybe you were simply trying to figure out what in the world God was up to, I think just like me, you’ll not only gain some interesting insight into the heart of God, but also a richer perspective about God’s goodness and the creativity of his purposes.

And so Sarah, welcome to the show.

Sarah: Thanks, Kelly. I’m excited to be here.

Kelly: I love the pictures of your family. I’ve had so much fun stalking you on through your website and Instagram. Tell us about them.

Sarah: My husband, Brent, and I have four kids, Catcher, who’s in high school, Easton’s in middle school, Maddox is in elementary school, and Fielder is one.

And so we have them in all stages. And if you sensed a baseball theme, [00:02:00] you’re right, my husband’s a baseball fan, so we kind of stuck with the baseball theme.

Kelly: I love that. My husband’s a big baseball fan

Sarah: too. Oh, okay. So you get it. Yeah,

Kelly: I totally get it. When we first met, all I knew was football and I thought baseball was the most boring game ever, but he has since educated me and now I’m a baseball fan too.

Sarah: Oh, fun.

Kelly: Yeah. Well, one of the things I love to start out just asking how God is speaking to you these days.

Sarah: Yes, recently it’s been Matthew 1128 come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. And in some other translations, it says, come to me all who are weary and I feel like.

Our family and I know we’ll talk more about this, but there’s been so many seasons of waiting and our family is currently in another season of waiting. And you can just feel so weary when you’re in those seasons of waiting. And our family was also a military family. My husband was in the military for [00:03:00] several years.

And so you kind of, you’re used to that in the military. And I thought when we got out that that would end and we’re waiting just as much as we were. When we were, active duty.

Kelly: Yeah, I feel such a kindred spirit with you because of the military connection and because of the seasons of waiting you’ve been in I’m just right there with you. I know that sense of weariness the struggle to navigate it. So that’s what I really want to talk about. Also, I just want to say, I love that scripture, Matthew 11. Is such a beautiful invitation to rest in Jesus, who, who wants to lift our burdens. We can cast our burdens on him because he cares for us.

So what a comfort that has been to probably both of us over the years.

Sarah: I was going to say, I wrote it down at the beginning of the year on a note card, and I’ve had it taped to my bathroom mirror, but then if I’m like off to pick up the kids from school and I’m feeling a little weary and I just need the reminder, I’ll actually untape it and take it in the van with me.

And it’s just, it has, it’s been a [00:04:00] comfort.

Kelly: I love that traveling verses I have a few like that to taped inside my pantry door and I’ll rip it off and take it with me somewhere. So I I heard you tell this story on another podcast of how God led you to move to a particular place.

And then it was. Really a hard time and so I’d love for you just to set that up and walk us through some of that.

Sarah: Yeah. My husband had been in the Air Force for 11 years and we had gone back and forth with would he retire when was the right time to get out. And after a lot of prayer, we decided it was the right time he was at the end of that contract where we were in northern Virginia.

And he could either sign another 1 or we could get out. So we decided it was time to get out. And I was really excited to come back home. And for us, that’s Arizona and plant roots. And so that was the plan, and we call their family and told them the good news and then just a [00:05:00] couple of months before we were set to move, we started feeling like.

We were maybe supposed to be in Missouri and it wasn’t just 1 thing that led us to that. It was like this subtle nudge and Missouri wasn’t completely new to us. He had attended. A year at the College of Ozarks when we were 1st married, which is in Branson, Missouri. So we were familiar with that area, but his degree was in marketing.

And so we knew we would need to be near a bigger city. And so that meant Kansas City for us it and so we just prayed about it. And the more we did, we felt that was where we were supposed to go. So he flew out there and lined up some job interviews and did not come back to Virginia with a job, but we were already set to move and felt like God was calling us there.

And so we took a step of faith and. Moved to Missouri with no job and no house and just a couple of paychecks that we had left coming from the military.

Kelly: Wow. That was a big [00:06:00] step of faith.

Sarah: It’s so weird because I don’t really feel like I’m a, I wouldn’t consider myself a brave person.

I don’t like a ton of change despite having lived several years, in the military, but. It was like, I couldn’t deny that that was what we felt we were supposed to do. And I didn’t know why, but I knew that I wanted to be faithful.

Kelly: Yeah, we’ve been in many seasons where, what we were doing did not make sense to outsiders looking in.

And so that was kind of hard how did you handle your family at that time? You’re moving without a job. You don’t have a place to live. You have all these kids.

Sarah: Yeah. It’s funny because I don’t think that they, gave us a hard time, but I think we automatically thought anyone we would tell would kind of think we’re a little crazy. They did, and they just kept those thoughts to themselves. I’m not sure,

we just explained what we felt God calling our family to do. And they [00:07:00] were supportive, so we were lucky in that sense. But yes, we definitely felt like that must look weird for us to just be saying, hey, we made all these plans to move back home and see all of you. But now we’re going to do this completely different thing.

Kelly: Yeah. So what was it? You got there. Y’all didn’t have a place to live. Tell us how everything transpired.

Sarah: Yes. So we didn’t have a place to live and we had been in the military bubble so long that. Yeah. We didn’t even realize, oh, yeah, no one’s going to give us a loan for a house because you don’t have a job.

So my husband booked us an Airbnb and that was the 1st thing that kind of felt off. We pulled up to this Airbnb and it didn’t look too bad from the outside. But when you got inside it. I would have rather stayed in a tent than this house. It was just, it was dirty and the water heater would go out while we were there and the septic tank overflowed and just several things with the house alone.

And then[00:08:00] that unfolded into a few weeks later. My husband still didn’t have a job, but. He did manage to find our boys a baseball team one weekend. We’re at a tournament and we had been there Friday night and all day Saturday. And now it’s Sunday night. And our son made it to the championship game and our daughter’s growing board and.

Asks if she can go play with some friends and so. They’re playing in a batting cage and I don’t know if you’re familiar with those, but they have these netted light curtains. And a few minutes later, she comes running, screaming, holding her mouth and she’s bleeding. And in some kind of freak accident, a kid had swung the net and it latched onto one of her eye teeth and ripped it completely out.

Yes. And thank goodness there was a nurse in the stands who made sure it was clotting properly. But it just seemed like it was 1 thing after the other. So it started with the Airbnb and then it was this freak accident with my daughter. And then a month after that, [00:09:00] she split her head open and required staples.

And then after that, my son broke his wrist and then he broke it again a few months later. And on top of that. We had 20 sicknesses and colds probably run through our house within the first year that we were there. And then my husband went camping with some friends one weekend and they went to cut some fire some wood for the fire one night, and he accidentally put an ax, cut his foot with the ax and he hit an artery.

And thank goodness there was a paramedic at the campsite next door who was able to put a makeshift tourniquet on his leg. But there were a few hours that night where we thought that he could lose his leg or or worse his life. And so there are all these physical hardships that just. Happened over and over one after the other and then on top of that, it just, I was emotionally suffering like marriage felt harder [00:10:00] than ever.

Parenting felt harder than ever and I had never felt so broken. And I just remember thinking, why would God bring us here? If. All these things were going to happen.

Kelly: yEah. Did you, Did you have 3 kids at that time?

Sarah: Yes. At that time we had 3 and our guest was she had just started kindergarten and so that was another layer on top of it.

I had spent several years as a stay at home mom and that was what I always wanted to do growing up and. And then when she went off and started kindergarten, it also opened this Oh, what do, what do I do now? What is my role in my purpose? And so I was struggling within that area too, and just really kind of felt lost.

Kelly: Well, and also every move is a transition, but the moves that were the hardest for us were when we moved to a place that wasn’t a military community, because you didn’t have that comfort zone where you were [00:11:00] surrounded with people that were in similar situations to you and they understood when you’re in the military, you start making friends in the first 5 minutes because you’re only going to be there for 2 years.

Sarah: Yes, and we weren’t near a military base and at that point my husband had gotten out and so you’re right. There was a loneliness because we weren’t near the familiarity of all the people that understood what we were going through. Yeah.

Kelly: So tell us how long did it take before your husband found a job.

Sarah: So he found a job. I think within a month, maybe a month to six weeks, and then we were able to get in a house a couple of months after that. And thankfully, we only had to stay in the Airbnb for about 5 or 6 weeks. We ended up having some really sweet, gracious friends who opened up their basement to us that we could stay in until we closed on our house.

And that was such such a blessing because the [00:12:00] Airbnb was. Was awful.

Kelly: What a sweet gift. Were these people you met right after you moved there?

Sarah: So they actually were old acquaintances that we didn’t realize were living in the area when we moved there. Who we knew back from when Brent attended College of the Ozarks in Branson, Missouri.

It was some friends we had met there and they had since, lived in other states and we both just kind of ended up there.

Kelly: Okay. So you still didn’t really understand why you’d moved there, but I do want to just take a breath and acknowledge the enormous stresses and difficulties your family had dealt with in such a short, compacted time. It’s so much, and I know there’s even more you’ll share.

But thankfully there did come a time when you began to understand a little bit more about God’s purposes in this move. So can you walk us through that whole discovery?

Sarah: Yeah. So 1 day I was babysitting for a friend she had come back to pick her kiddos up, [00:13:00] and she just asked me how our transition was going. I think it was the first time that I even let myself stop and think about that. Internally, I knew I wasn’t doing too well.

I don’t even remember what I told her, but I know that it was through tears and she just looked at me and she, I, she could tell I was hurting and she said, look, I’m going to stay here and babysit your kids and you need to have a date night with Brent and you need to go talk through some of this stuff.

So it was over dinner that I kind of opened up with Brent for the 1st time about just how much I was struggling and how hard it was. For me, and he suggested that maybe I should see a counselor and so that was kind of the beginning of, of moving forward.

Kelly: So when you’re with the counselor, some things began to be uncovered and ultimately you received a lot of soul healing in this place.

Sarah: Yeah, and, it’s funny, Kelly, it was almost harder for me to say yes, to [00:14:00] picking up a phone. And calling a counselor than it was for me to move across the country, a job or home. I just felt this was a, this was a few years ago and I think we’ve come a long way, but I just felt like there was such a cultural stigma around seeing a counselor.

Yeah, and I just felt I Had done so many military transitions before, like, why is this particular one so hard for me? I remember my 1st session, the counselor, she asks me why I’m there and I tell her about the move and how we were a military family and how this has just been so hard.

And it was a Christian counselor, which was great. She would pray with me at the end of every session and I, so I told her, we were there because we felt God call us there. And so she gets through all that. And then she starts asking me about my childhood. I hadn’t really realized up until that point that I was carrying a lot of hurt from my childhood.

And so it opened up a door to start [00:15:00] working through some of that.

Kelly: Yeah, can you just talk about what it was in your childhood that was uncovered? What did you need to heal from?

Sarah: Yeah, so I grew up in the church. My parents were on the worship team and led small groups and went on missions.

Trips. But right before I entered high school, they walked away from each other and the church that was like a second home to us. And so it was like, I lived part of my childhood with this is our belief system. And this is who we are. And it was like. The rug had been taken out from underneath me.

It was like everything changed. And so my parents went through a season for years at that back then where they stopped going to church. So it was like, I still had this, this stuff that I believed, but I had no one coming alongside me to help me. Or even if I wanted to go to youth group at that point, my, my dad lived across the city and my mom was.[00:16:00]

pretty much a single mom at that point. And so she didn’t have the energy after long days to bring me to youth group. Life in that way looked different. it was a very difficult divorce. There was a lot of dysfunction. I went through that in childhood, but then, it happened right before I entered high school and then in high school, it’s a difficult time anyway.

It is, it’s probably when it was the worst time for it to happen because you’re already questioning, who you are and you’re trying to just become an adult and being launched. I love my parents and I know that our parents loved us, but they and I think that they would say them this themselves, but.

During those years, they were pretty much absent, emotionally, physically. And so it was like, I had to grow up overnight and I was the oldest of 4 girls. I would be, watching my younger sister. So my mom could go on dates and, just so many, there were so many different layers to that.

Kelly: Yeah, I’ve heard psychologists say that when we’re growing up and when we have these [00:17:00] big losses at formative years, and then we’re thrust into a place where we haven’t been able to heal from those things. That what happens is we skip, we skip a lot of steps on the ladder toward a healthy maturity.

And it sounds like you were just thrust into a place where you skipped several steps of growing up. And so there were a lot

of holes there.

Sarah: Yes, definitely. I think that’s so true. , so that happened right as I entered high school, I met my husband in high school. So we were married a few years after high school.

So it was like, I kept walking from one season into the next. So I walked through this dysfunction, never really processed it. Then my husband and I get married, then he joins the military. And then I enter motherhood with a baby who came two and a half months early. And then there were deployments and, TDYs.

And it was like just one thing after the other. And so I, when I look back and in [00:18:00] counseling, what it felt like was I was able to look back and realize that I had kind of been sleepwalking through that whole chunk of my life. It was just like, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other let’s do the next thing without really stopping to process.

Any of it. I had our first, while my husband was away with the military and like I said, he came two and a half months early. Just really significant things that happened that I never stopped to. I didn’t know that, that I needed to work through them.

Kelly: Yeah. So your husband was deployed when your child was born at 29 weeks. Is that right?

Sarah: He was actually away at tech school. He was able to come home about a week after our oldest was born, but everything happened so quickly. So he was technically supposed to be home by the due date. We thought we were good to go.

Then I got put in the hospital on bed rest where I was supposed to stay for 2 and a half months, but. In the middle of one night, like I was [00:19:00] experiencing a lot of pain and come to find out like I was in labor. And so I delivered when no one knew I was going to. So that’s why he was still away at tech school.

And then they allowed him to come home one weekend to meet our son and see him, but he couldn’t. Come back fully, or he would have to restart the 6 month tech school, which we also didn’t want. So we decided for him to finish that. So our son was in the NICU about 7 weeks, which was actually really not bad at all for how early he was born. And then

Kelly: that’s pretty amazing.

Sarah: Yeah. And then he got to come home about two weeks after our son came home from the NICU.

Kelly: Okay. Wow. Well, so what I’m hearing is you were going through a lot of things, but you just kept thinking you’re fine. You’re fine. You’re fine. Putting one foot in front of the other.

And I can relate. I remember when our oldest daughter was going to have cochlear implant surgery. And my husband, Was starting a particular school and he had already taken a lot of time [00:20:00] off out of the Air Force to help us move to this new place where we knew no one. And then he had to go back and I said, oh, you don’t need to be here for the surgery. It’s no big deal. It’s just. Considered a minor surgery, but really it ended up being not so minor and I felt really alone in the hospital where I didn’t know anyone. And I thought, why did we do this? This wasn’t a good, good decision, but you’re just doing the next thing, moving to the next place, setting up new services for your kids, wherever you are. Yeah. One thing I’ll add is we often don’t pay attention to our souls. That’s most of us go through life on autopilot and then we suddenly realized there’s an issue and that’s what forces us to pay attention.

So, what were you discovering as you did begin to pay attention? How did you process this? And what did you learn?

Sarah: Well, you mentioned the word soul and that that’s funny because I remember at the [00:21:00] beginning of my counseling journey, I was reading through, I forget what verse this is, but it says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul. And I remember thinking, how can we love God with all of our soul if we are not emotionally.

Healthy, we just can’t. And so that was an eye opener … like I wanted to get emotionally healthy. And so I would show up to counseling and she would give me homework and on weeks she didn’t, I would ask for homework because I was learning all of this stuff about. How my soul hadn’t been healthy for so long.

For instance, I think when you come from a broken home and maybe not in all situations, but definitely mine. I remember from a young age, like really feeling homesick. I would be at home and I would be in our house, but I would feel homesick. Like I didn’t have a family. I didn’t have parents I could go to.

And so I think when I got [00:22:00] married, I really put Brent on this pedestal that he shouldn’t have been on. It should have been God, but I didn’t know that was my person. That was who I clung to. And so during our time in Missouri. In the counseling sessions, not only was I healing from childhood trauma, I was becoming aware of where I had put Brent in places God should have been.

And so that also created a shift in our marriage for, for the better. But I think it was a shock at first, I think for both of us. And so I was able to heal on that level as well.

Kelly: Wow. That’s a lot. So it sounds like Brent became an idol because you put him on the throne ahead of God and you were relying on him in ways that you really should have been looking to God for.

Sarah: Yeah. I definitely put him on an idol. I put control on an idol. There’s so much that you can’t control. I couldn’t [00:23:00] control my parents divorce and I couldn’t control in military life.

So then the things. That I could, I would really hold on to. And that was actually something I discovered in counseling too, because not only did I have a lot of change in childhood, but there were assignments where we weren’t at a military base. And so, because we weren’t in a military base, while we would wait for, while we would look for housing, there were different seasons we would end up in a hotel.

I remember when we first moved to Virginia, we were in a hotel. For weeks before we were able to find a place and not just 1 hotel, because then that availability would run out and we’d have to move to hotels. And so. When that when everything around me would feel out of control, I would control the stuff that I thought I could, and I don’t even know what.

Sarah: Practically that that looks like, I’m trying to think what small things, but control was definitely. An idol for me, and I think that that’s why the move to Missouri[00:24:00] was such a shock because I thought that we had, I thought that because God was asking us to move to Missouri that he was going to use us in some.

I don’t know, to maybe do a work in other people and in reality, it turned out him doing a work in me. And so, just slowly I had to release control from everything.

Kelly: Wow, that’s so huge. I remember 1 saying I could tell God was on a rescue mission, but I was surprised to discover that the 1 he was rescuing was me.

Sarah: Yes, and, what’s funny is during that season, I was also reading a lot. In exodus, and I felt like I was an Israelite, I’m like, this is totally my season in the wilderness. And I learned so much about that, in that kind of context, just thinking about how, when God had Moses lead them out.

Then they can’t find [00:25:00] water for days and then when they do, it’s bitter. And I think that sometimes we think a rescue is going to look one way, but it looks completely different than we thought it was going to.

Kelly: Yeah, because things are being exposed and we’re having to let go of things so it’s painful.

Sarah: Yeah,

Kelly: there’s this beautiful verse that I turned to during a particular wilderness season in Hosea and it said God led them into the wilderness. Now, that really stood out to me. God led me here. This isn’t a mistake. I didn’t misunderstand him. This is where we are.

It’s not our fault. Just like it says the spirit led Jesus into the wilderness for a time of testing. We were led not a mistake. And then this verse Hosea. Who gets a verse from Hosea? I just think that’s weird, but it’s Hosea 2, 14 God is speaking. I will allure them into

the wilderness. I will speak tenderly. To her, and then I will turn the valley of trouble into a door of hope. And that [00:26:00] just meant so much to me that tender. I felt the lord’s tenderness. You are with me. You are leading me through this and you are speaking to me and then you are turning my valley of trouble into a door of hope. I can look beyond this and expect hope. I can look for your goodness in this place of darkness. And it was very comforting as it just adjusted my perspective in a big way.

Sarah: Yes. Yes. That reminds me of another verse that kept coming up during that season. Isaiah 43, 19, see, I am doing a new thing.

Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. And that’s really what I felt God doing for me in that time. I’ve talked about this with my husband, but I don’t know if we would have never taken that step of faith, and then things unfolded the way they did and me end up in such a low place where I thought, maybe I should talk to a counselor about some of this.

I don’t know [00:27:00] if I would have ever ended up seeking a counselor on my, my own and working through or even recognizing that there was a lot of past trauma and stuff that I needed to work through. So, not only for me, for our family, but for me to see God in a different way, I felt so lost in that season. And he really reminded me of who I was and who he’s always been. And that when I look back don’t get me wrong. I look back and I’m like, I wouldn’t want to relive that, but there was also a sweetness to it because of that.

Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. So what were the things that you know about God now that you didn’t know then? And what did you discover about your identity now that you didn’t know then?

Sarah: Yeah I think that for so many years, I was very insecure and it gave me this confidence, but not like a confidence in myself, a confidence in him as my father and him as like , what he has in store for us down the road, really looking back, I was also able to [00:28:00] see even despite a lot of that childhood. Hard stuff. Like I was able to see where he was with me then. And, and that was helpful. And I think looking back can help us do that.

Kelly: Absolutely. God was with you. Then you were with me in that time of pain, because a lot of times we feel abandoned and left, you already described feeling very lonely, even though you were in your own home.

So that can see how that was very healing. There’s a phrase Susie Larson often uses, which is something of what you described. Godly confidence and humble dependence. It sounds like that’s what God taught you.

Sarah: Yes. Yes. For sure. Something that I’ve just been thinking about a lot lately. And when I look back, I’m like, this is actually true in so many different areas.

But I have been learning. That I have to let go of ideals because there’s this idea of how I think something’s going to look, whether how I think my childhood should have looked or how I thought marriage was going to look or parenting [00:29:00] and often it’s different than what we think.

But I think that there’s grace in that, or at least that, that’s what I feel God showing me lately. And so I’m leaning into that.

Kelly: Yeah. Letting go of ideals, letting go of a vision of normalcy and just receiving God’s grace in that place and believing that God has something beautiful rather than normal. Something so much better than normal. I love that.

Sarah: Yeah. And God is still a redeemer and he taught me that through that season. Actually, a few weeks ago, I was invited to speak to a mops group and it was a full circle moment for me because it was the church that was my church home that my parents left.

And the lady who asked me to speak, she didn’t know that when she asked me to speak there, but. The fact that I was able to come back and have worked through all this stuff and speak at my old church home where all of that hurt had happened, felt so redemptive.

Kelly: WOw. [00:30:00] That is beautiful.

So catch us up with your family now. You’ve moved back to Arizona. You’re in Tucson and you’ve adopted a fourth child, right?

Sarah: We did, and that’s, that’s another sweetness, from God. So we found our adoption agency in Missouri when we lived there. And we, we probably waited close to three years. At one point, we had, disrupted match twice where we thought we would be bringing a baby home. And we had, we moved back to Arizona, had to redo home studies, all of all of that. And when we finally did get the call that our son was born it was Missouri that we were brought back to, to bring him home, which was really sweet because even though our, our agency was in Missouri and we found him there, they were in several other states, but he was, Born in Missouri, and we were brought that back there, and it just there were so many times when we thought did we hear God wrong?

And why are we here? And. Now with hindsight, you [00:31:00] can look back and you can just see God’s hand in it all along. That’s just beautiful.

Well, I would encourage everyone to go check out your family pictures because this little kid you adopted has the most beautiful smile

I’ve ever seen. Yes, he’s we’ve got quite a big age gap, because we, he’s one and then our next oldest is 10 and 13, 16.

And so the older three are just, he’s like the best thing that’s ever happened to our family. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, they’re they’re great with him

Kelly: I loved perusing your website. I loved reading your blog. You’re a beautiful writer and you also offer a free devotional on there. So I’d love for you to tell us about that.

Sarah: Oh, yeah. I did. I did a devotional that I have on my website with a friend where she’s written half of the devotions and I’ve written half of them. And some of them are definitely about that season in Missouri for sure.

THe devotional is Falling for Freedom. You can use it any time of year, but when we released it, it [00:32:00] was in the fall. So there’s some fall recipes in there as well, which are fun.

Kelly: Yeah, it’s really fun and it’s free and downloadable.

And so I’ve been going through it. You use a phrase called failing faithfully, and I’d love for you to just describe what that means.

Sarah: That phrase actually I it’s funny. I had a blog post titled failing faithfully back when we were in the midst of making the decision to move to Missouri and in those weeks before we made the final decision to let family know . Brent, and I knew that we felt God calling us there. We were just waiting and praying and I felt he would take a phone call with with a job opportunity. And I’d be sitting there, trying to listen. Are we going to get it? And the kids would be screaming and I would feel like I was frazzled.

And here we were wanting to do this thing and take this step of faith. But I felt I was failing at it, like I wasn’t being faithful, even though I knew God was [00:33:00] calling us to this thing. And so I thought, well, if I’m going to feel like I’m failing as we, we can sometimes, then I want to fail faithfully.

And for me, I tend to be a black or white thinker. And I’m trying to get away from that. That’s I think I just grew up that way. And so a lot of times I’ll think there’s a right or wrong way. And if I feel like I’m getting it wrong, then I feel like I’m failing. And so to me, that just meant I’m going to try.

I know that I might not get this right, but I’m going to be faithful even when I feel like I’m failing and when it doesn’t look like I thought it was going to.

Kelly: Yeah, one of the verses I turn to when I feel that way is 1st Thessalonians 5, I think 24, which says the one who called you is faithful and he will do it. He is the one who is the power in our weaknesses. And so I love that phrase. But tell us how people can find you.

Sarah: So, my website is SarahNicholswrites.Com and that’s also where you [00:34:00] can find me on Instagram. That’s my email.

Kelly: Okay, it’s Sarah with an H, and I’ll put a link in the show notes so people can find you. Thank you so much for being here. Sarah.

Sarah: Thanks for having me, Kelly.

If you were encouraged in your faith today, it’d be great if you’d help get the word out by subscribing, sharing with a friend, or leaving a review. 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 Unshakable Hope Podcast.