Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E204: A Demon’s Guide to Destroying Women—and How to Fight Back w/Emily Wilson
Transcript
- 0:00How many little girls learned at sleepovers and from their
- 0:03friends who's like, oh, my big sister said this.
- 0:05And I realized how much the enemy wants women to be confused
- 0:08and afraid of what's happening to them, so they don't
- 0:10understand the power of what our bodies could do.
- 0:13There are literally demonic forces out there that don't want
- 0:15us to have a good day or a happy eternal life.
- 0:18You get to the point where it's like, I don't even know what
- 0:19God's voice sounds like because there's so much noise in our
- 0:22lives. What does that look like to
- 0:24mother out of confidence versus fear?
- 0:26The enemy wants us to say, man, I hate myself.
- 0:29I hate all those choices I made. God wants to say, look how much
- 0:31you've grown. Look what you learned.
- 0:33I've forgiven you right taking. Things.
- 0:37Hey guys, welcome back to the Lila Rose Show.
- 0:39I'm very excited to have my dear friend Emily Wilson in studio
- 0:42today. She has a new book out guys, and
- 0:44it is one of those books that will change you.
- 0:46It will change you. You pick it up and you read one
- 0:48page and it will change you for the better.
- 0:51I love books like that because whether you read one page or the
- 0:53whole thing, either way you know you're coming out better for
- 0:56better for it. The new book is called Sincerely
- 0:59Stoneheart and it is live as of just a few days.
- 1:02Ago, I'm not sure exactly they were releasing this, but it's
- 1:04going to be live by the time you get to hear this episodes.
- 1:06You can buy it at the link in the description.
- 1:09Emily is an amazing person. She's a wife, she's a mother.
- 1:11She's also an author, a singer, a songwriter, A podcaster.
- 1:15But she is here in studio to talk about, yeah, the biggest
- 1:18lies that women believe in today's culture and really the
- 1:21truth, the truth that can set us free, especially in whatever God
- 1:25is calling us to our purpose, our identity.
- 1:27As always, don't forget to subscribe to the show wherever
- 1:29you listen to your podcast. And if you're here on YouTube,
- 1:32make sure you are subscribed and hit that notification bell.
- 1:34And you guys, we just launched Supercast, where I have
- 1:37something called the Rose Report, which is this growing
- 1:39community of people who are supporting this show, who are
- 1:42passionate about our mission to bring goodness, truth, beauty
- 1:44into the media marketplace. I would love for your support
- 1:47over. There we're going to be sending
- 1:48out weekly updates, dates, special behind the scenes
- 1:51access, you'll have the opportunity to put in questions
- 1:53for future guests and a lot of more fun stuff.
- 1:55And you can check that out at rosereport.supercast.com.
- 1:59rosereport.supercast.com. Thank you, Emily, I love talking
- 2:03to you. I'm so glad you're here.
- 2:04Thank. You I love.
- 2:05Congratulations. They're so warm and open hearted
- 2:07and always so encouraging and supportive.
- 2:09So thanks to all you listeners for letting me share with you
- 2:12again. Congratulations on the
- 2:13publishing of Sincerely Stoneheart.
- 2:15I know this has been I think you've shared. 4.
- 2:18Years in the making. Four years of writing and 14
- 2:21years of ministry with women, so this is a long time coming.
- 2:24Wow. And it's a very unique book
- 2:26because yes, there have been other books written in this
- 2:29format of the devil kind of scheming and what the devil
- 2:32would say. I know CS Lewis obviously wrote
- 2:34his very famous screw tape letters.
- 2:36Yours is really special because it's it's designed not just for
- 2:40women. It's designed for the modern
- 2:43woman in the kind of unique. Every century is unique, but
- 2:47today's era, there are unique challenges that women face and
- 2:49it's designed for her, for us. And I don't think any other book
- 2:53that I know of does that. So thank you for doing that, for
- 2:55writing. That it's such a gift.
- 2:57Yeah. So many people have done screw
- 2:59tape sequels. So since CS Lewis produces so
- 3:02many years ago, there's been many, many, many.
- 3:04And I have just watched the devil work in the hearts of
- 3:07women for these 14 years as I've watched alongside them and
- 3:09listened to them. And a number of years ago when I
- 3:12started jotting down ideas, writing down these letters from
- 3:15my own heart, it was initially a self-portrait of the way that
- 3:18the enemy has worked on me, but it became this oddly crafted
- 3:22memoir. I guess it's really a memoir, in
- 3:25an odd way, of all the ways that I've seen the enemy try to
- 3:28steal, kill and destroy the hearts of women in the world
- 3:32today. I think what is powerful is your
- 3:34fundamental operating assumption of this book is something that
- 3:38maybe a lot of us don't realize in the day today, which is that
- 3:42there is a war for our hearts and our minds and our souls.
- 3:46And it's being raged in a spiritual realm.
- 3:48Now, there's certainly a physical realm to it too, like
- 3:50physically being healthy, you know, having like moderated
- 3:53emotions and all of this. But there are literally,
- 3:56literally demonic forces out there that don't want us to have
- 3:59a good day or a happy eternal life.
- 4:01Like they just don't want that. And it's true.
- 4:04And being aware of it, not to the point of obsession, like,
- 4:06Oh, I'm, I'm so scared of the devil every minute.
- 4:08Like, is he around the corner? But just being aware of the
- 4:11larger landscape and how our own temperaments, our own life
- 4:15circumstances might interact with the spiritual realm.
- 4:18And of course, the mercy and grace of God that he wants to
- 4:20just pour on us. Having that awareness, I think
- 4:24is essential for for every woman and every person.
- 4:27So anyways, thank you for doing this labor of love because
- 4:29you've just, you've really nailed it.
- 4:31I mean, I'll share like reading Emily's book was, it was heavy,
- 4:37you know, it, it, it, it's definitely entertaining and that
- 4:39it's very clever how you did these chapters because they're
- 4:42all these different elements of the spiritual battle, the battle
- 4:45for our hearts and minds that is happening.
- 4:48You took these different lens. So we'll get into that.
- 4:50But like I remember reading the I think it was the chapter #1.
- 4:54And I was like, my husband's favorite is.
- 4:56Your husband's favorite. I'm curious why it's his
- 4:58favorite. Actually, you're you're well,
- 5:00I'm going to tell you why I I was touched by it and then tell
- 5:03me why Daniel, your husband, it's his favorite.
- 5:05But what's the title here? I want to tangled and tangled.
- 5:08OK, So it's about the World Wide Web and just the incredible
- 5:13impact that technology has had on the modern mind, particularly
- 5:17women. And yes, there can be a good
- 5:20impact and they're going to absolutely be a bad impact.
- 5:22And I know that everybody listening, if you are on
- 5:23Instagram or on X or on any social media platform, you will
- 5:26know that we're talking about. But I think what you really
- 5:30pinpointed in a very creative way is the specific ways that we
- 5:34might not even be aware of how the World Wide Web can really
- 5:39change our view of ourselves, distract us, our view of other
- 5:43people can be changed. And ultimately, yeah, it has a
- 5:46demonic. I think there's a demonic
- 5:47element there. And certainly it can interrupt
- 5:51God's provision in our life in terms of our receiving of what
- 5:55he has for us on the day because we're just turn the wrong
- 5:58direction. Oh, absolutely.
- 6:00I I talk a lot about screens and the use of screens in the book.
- 6:04And I'm not saying that screens are evil in and of themselves.
- 6:07I'm saying that our unhindered use of screens is ruining our
- 6:11lives if we're not paying attention and if we're not
- 6:13careful. So talk about the World Wide
- 6:15Web. And one of the things that, as I
- 6:17really unpacked this, was seeing and understanding how cluttered
- 6:21our minds actually are. And one of the things that the
- 6:25devil doesn't want us to be able to do is to hear God.
- 6:28And so he tries to distract us with noise as much as possible.
- 6:32And as I unpacked this in my own life, I realized how, you know,
- 6:36you go to a concert when you're young.
- 6:37You ever been to a concert and your ears hurt for like a day
- 6:40after a week after If it's like really loud, but the noise in
- 6:43our lives is often silent. And there's this line in the
- 6:45book that I wrote when most of the noise is silent, she won't
- 6:49realize how truly deafening it is because so often, right, we
- 6:53have the the volume on our phone down, but we're watching a video
- 6:56and we're reading the captions and we're taking in all this
- 6:59information constantly. So it's not loud.
- 7:01My ears don't hurt, but like my brain hurts like because it's
- 7:05all getting cluttered. I say it's like a grandma's
- 7:07house like filled with Knick knacks.
- 7:08You ever you have a grandma who's like has just stuff
- 7:10everywhere. And that's our brains because so
- 7:13many people the moment they wake up, they're just starting to
- 7:15ingest information. What's this person saying?
- 7:17What's this that person saying? And so articles, all these
- 7:20things, they're silent, right. Podcasts aren't, you know,
- 7:23sometimes we watch things with volume on, but so often it's
- 7:26not. And I you, you, it blocks the
- 7:29voice of God. And that's exactly where the
- 7:31enemy wants us is entrapped in the web.
- 7:33I talk about how the World Wide Web is this, you know, was this
- 7:36trap for all of us where we got we're so often we're just stuck
- 7:40in it. And if we're not choosing well,
- 7:42the enemy will use like the screens in our lives to amplify
- 7:45that noise. So you get to the point where
- 7:46it's like, I don't even know what God's voice sounds like
- 7:49because there's so much noise in our lives.
- 7:51You have this scene in there where you're, if I remember it
- 7:54correctly, you were basically detailing this woman who like,
- 7:57there's something that she sees that was just really bad or like
- 8:00caused her so much. She was so upset about what she
- 8:02saw and she just was like, like brooding on it.
- 8:05Like, and, and again, I mean, you can read a news headline and
- 8:09be like, I can't believe this injustice is happening.
- 8:11Or you see this post of someone and you're like, oh, that.
- 8:14It's so that's so terrible what they just posted.
- 8:17How could they post that? Or you know, it's so dangerous
- 8:19or misleading millions of minds or whatever, right?
- 8:22And you get worked out. I mean, the social media, like
- 8:25it is designed to work you up. It is literally designed for
- 8:28that. And most of the workups are not
- 8:30good ones. No, and it's just such a place
- 8:33where the enemy just sews division and this lack of peace
- 8:36and how many people out there listening, you've had a whole
- 8:39day that was your piece was just wrong, robbed by something you
- 8:43saw online or this argument that you're in with someone on
- 8:46Facebook or Instagram and you're just going back and forth and
- 8:48back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and it
- 8:50literally consumes your whole day, right?
- 8:53What does the enemy want more than your day?
- 8:55To be consumed with fighting and bitterness and stress and to be
- 9:01thinking about it in the night, right?
- 9:02You're walking your baby in the night or you're just up in the
- 9:05night and you're just thinking about what that one person said.
- 9:07That's what the enemy wants for us because it's such an
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- 10:19That's we Heart nutrition.com when you were writing this.
- 10:23How did you balance the reality that yes, we should some of us
- 10:28maybe are called to engage in social media or there can be at,
- 10:31you know, positive advantages, right, And you're you're
- 10:34creating this basically a story, right with these chapters.
- 10:37It's like the demon writing about how he can entrap people
- 10:39with it, which is absolutely true.
- 10:41Like that that happened when you were praying on it and writing
- 10:44it. I know it took you four years.
- 10:45You were really like methodical and intentional about how you
- 10:47did it. How did you like, what was your
- 10:49kind of mechanism or your approach towards writing it in a
- 10:53way that, yes, gave the devil his due, so to speak, of how he
- 10:57may be using these things to trap people.
- 10:59And you will have other examples in a minute versus the reality
- 11:02that God can redeem so much things can be used for good.
- 11:06Sometimes what might look like a bad motivation actually can be
- 11:10redeemed, right. There's there's like obviously
- 11:11all kinds of grace around the margins with this stuff.
- 11:15What was sort of your method? Yeah, for sure.
- 11:16For how to even identify what the temptation would be, how to
- 11:19explain it, you know, etcetera. So yes, I unpack, you know, kind
- 11:24of a different, I guess, temptation or struggle that
- 11:26women face because of the enemy throughout the whole entire
- 11:29book. So looking at something like
- 11:31screen use right in in this woman, right, it's a character,
- 11:35it's one woman, and she encompasses the stories of all
- 11:38of the women that I've ever spoken to over these many years.
- 11:41Not only do I talk about kind of, you know, the the ways that
- 11:44she's using media to distract her to cope with her problems,
- 11:48right to, you know, run away from her feelings, but Ioffer
- 11:51antidotes to think the ways that she's breaking free from those
- 11:55right. So in one of the letters, I talk
- 11:57about how this woman, she just signs off from all social media
- 12:01for, for an extended period of time.
- 12:03And I talk about the clarity that that brings her and the
- 12:05piece that it brings her. So throughout each letter, I
- 12:08look at, okay, what are the lies or what are the tactics that the
- 12:11enemy is using and kind of how can I combat those?
- 12:14And it's, you know, like I said, it's a different way to kind of
- 12:17say like these are some of the answers to the problems that
- 12:19we're having. And it's not that screens are
- 12:21evil, it's that I am choosing to ruin my own life and my own
- 12:24peace, right, by giving into those things.
- 12:27So trying to walk that fine line of saying here are the lies and
- 12:30here are the truths and the practical things that we can do
- 12:33to combat that took a lot of, like you said, time and prayer.
- 12:37And looking at, OK, what are practical things that I can give
- 12:41the reader to really like, you know, combat these things in
- 12:44their life so they can live more fully and freely and use their
- 12:47screens in a way that they're not a slave to it and they're
- 12:51not just totally addicted to it to the point of ruining their
- 12:54lives. But how can they use it in a
- 12:55healthy way? I tried to kind of help the
- 12:58reader see these are some healthy ways that we can do this
- 13:01in a way that you can live in a more peaceful way.
- 13:04That's not just like, oh, I have to give up everything, you know?
- 13:07Why was entangled the first chapter, Danielle, your
- 13:10husband's favorite chapter? He said he's never thought about
- 13:13the noise that way, about the noise being silent and
- 13:16cluttering his mind so much. And he said, I never thought
- 13:18about the World Wide Web that way, that it's this sticky
- 13:22substance that has infiltrated everything, He said.
- 13:25It's like such a bizarre thing to to actually have it named the
- 13:29World Wide Web and it actually is connecting us all, but we're
- 13:32all kind of stuck in it now. And the spiders are coming to
- 13:36get. US.
- 13:37Potentially. Yes, we read all the letters and
- 13:40I said, what was the one that, you know, resonated with you the
- 13:42most? And of course, he's not a woman.
- 13:43But he's not a woman. If I'm giving it to my friends
- 13:46who are priests, who are like all men, I'm like, if you want
- 13:49to understand your wife more deeply and what she has
- 13:52struggled with, I go all the way back to our childhood as little
- 13:54girls when we're told the most important thing about you is
- 13:57your exterior. So you better start working on
- 14:00the exterior so that you can get a boyfriend, right?
- 14:02I go all the way back to those lies that are given to us as
- 14:04little girls. So if men want to understand
- 14:07their girl friends, you know, more, their wives more my priest
- 14:11friends, I'm like, if you want to understand the the women that
- 14:13you serve in your parish more, read this and see these
- 14:17struggles and the ways that the enemy has worked on us since we
- 14:19were little girls. You have 42 letters in here with
- 14:2342. Some of the topics are broken
- 14:25out into multiple letters like a topic about motherhood or about
- 14:29different ways about we might have insecurity as women or you
- 14:32know as friends moms. We would in a dating or romantic
- 14:36a marriage relationship. How did you pick 42?
- 14:40Was there a particular method you used or is it just kind of
- 14:42from the heart you just started writing?
- 14:43Totally from the heart, I really I, I wouldn't even know what I
- 14:48was going to sit down and write about that day.
- 14:50All of these ideas, I had been writing them down on little
- 14:52papers for a long, long time. I'm a paper and pen kind of
- 14:55person. I'm not like I don't I have a
- 14:57paper and pen calendar Even so I have little papers everywhere.
- 15:00I'm just like that kind of author.
- 15:02And that day I would sit down and I would just see really what
- 15:06came out of my heart. I the Lord, you know, for many
- 15:09years as I was preparing to do this, just what what stories do
- 15:13you want me to remember in my own life and the lives of the
- 15:15women that I've talked with And every day like something there
- 15:18were letters that came out of my heart that I was like, I did not
- 15:21see this coming at all. And I would get home from
- 15:24writing and I would tell my husband, I would say, I can't
- 15:26believe what I wrote about today and you're not going to be able
- 15:28to believe it either. So I just, I, it was really a
- 15:32natural conclusion. I don't remember what the last
- 15:35letter that I wrote. And then I put them all in the
- 15:36order that I wanted them in, but it was like this natural
- 15:40conclusion. I really felt this like it's
- 15:42done. Like that's it.
- 15:43That was the last letter I'm going to write.
- 15:45It was the most natural you. Covered all that.
- 15:48I feel like the topics were all there.
- 15:50Like if I were to like write a list of all the topics that
- 15:53women are have lies about, about their identity, their
- 15:56relationships, you know, God, I think this would be I don't know
- 16:01that there's anything I would have added in.
- 16:03Thank you. I think you covered it.
- 16:05I appreciate that. I mean, I guess there's more you
- 16:07could do if you really zoomed in really close on like marriage as
- 16:11an example. You, you have marriage in there,
- 16:13but you wrote it in a way that it's kind of a baseline for any
- 16:15woman, whether she's married or not now she has kids or not.
- 16:17Yeah, and that's the thing about the book.
- 16:19It's for women of all, you know, in all seasons of life, it's for
- 16:23all adult women. But not every letter is going to
- 16:25apply to every woman, right? You might not be a mother or
- 16:28there's a letter about women who feel really deeply and they were
- 16:30made to feel like their feelings were are crazy and over dramatic
- 16:33as young girls. That wasn't from my experience.
- 16:35That's something I've listened to women share with me over and
- 16:37over again. So you might read some of these
- 16:39letters and be like, this doesn't really apply to me.
- 16:40But I'm hoping that people who read each letter, it kind of
- 16:44widens our compassion for women around us and what they've
- 16:47struggled with. It's like I'm reading this
- 16:49letter and maybe I don't struggle with this, but it's
- 16:50helping me to see, you know, ways that other women I know,
- 16:54maybe my sister, maybe my friend, maybe my mom has
- 16:56struggled with and grow in compassion for one another.
- 16:59And just the ways that the enemy has been against us and try to
- 17:02divide us every step of the way as women and try to steal our
- 17:06peace every step of the way too. So I'm grateful that you feel
- 17:09like there's nothing you would have added.
- 17:11I appreciate that very much. What was the hardest letter to
- 17:14write for you? I cried the most writing the
- 17:17letter about the enemy, trying to get me to believe every day
- 17:20that I'm ruining my children, that the choices that I'm
- 17:23making, they're not making him or her now better, that they're
- 17:28ruining him. Which chapter is that?
- 17:30That letter is called it's all up to you and I just realized
- 17:35and what this book writing this book helped me really was to
- 17:39discern what is the voice of the enemy like how like when I hear
- 17:44the voice of the enemy now to say you're ruining him.
- 17:46I know, I'm like, I know that voice and that is not the voice
- 17:49of God, the voice. Of or there's like primal fear.
- 17:51Yes, that's been a voice that I've learned.
- 17:54I'm learning to identify where like you really think something
- 17:57really bad is going to happen to your your kid and you're and
- 18:00you're negligent. Like this is something that
- 18:02you're responsible for and it can kind of make you do
- 18:04sometimes almost irrational things because you're so worried
- 18:07about your child. Absolutely that the that's not
- 18:10of the Lord, right. So when we look at that voice of
- 18:12the enemy, it's meant to steal, kill and destroy.
- 18:15It is pressuring and it is intense and is the words are
- 18:18never good. So when I hear that lie, you're
- 18:20ruining your child. Just you know, for these moms,
- 18:24the food that you're choosing and the sleep method and are you
- 18:26going to sleep train or not and all these different kinds of
- 18:28things, this information overload.
- 18:30That's like drinking out of a fire hose for moms all the time.
- 18:33And the amount of people, I call it in the book A Motherhood
- 18:37fears Filing cabinet, because so often older mothers, they say,
- 18:42oh, you think you're dealing with the tough stuff now, just
- 18:44wait until they're teenagers and you have real problems on your
- 18:46hands and you're like, oh, and you get so like, Oh my gosh, I'm
- 18:50not looking forward to that. I'm terrified of the teenagers.
- 18:52The enemy wants you to be terrified of everything that's
- 18:56going to come up ahead, whether you're a mother or not.
- 18:58He wants us to be stressed. There's a whole letter about
- 19:02being stressed versus surrendered.
- 19:04The enemy wants us to be stressed about what God is going
- 19:06to ask us to do. If you get close to the Lord,
- 19:09what's He going to ask you to give up?
- 19:10You know, all that stress rather than surrendered in all things
- 19:15and writing that like coming to terms with how much I've
- 19:19listened to that voice and mothered out of fear, a fear of
- 19:22ruining them and like operating in those choices, like what is
- 19:26going to ruin him less? That was hard.
- 19:29That was I cried a lot like, Oh my goodness, the Lord wants me
- 19:32to mother out of confidence, not fear.
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- 20:29Look like to mother out of confidence versus fear.
- 20:32Really to try to rely more on your own intuition than the
- 20:36deluge of information given to you online.
- 20:40Yes, there's a there's a letter called Never Stop talking and
- 20:45how people online never stop talking and you could choose to
- 20:47listen to them how so often in our lives if we want an answer
- 20:50to something this. Is one of the letters in the
- 20:52book We Go the endless commentary.
- 20:55Endless commentary and how often in my life I go like what are
- 20:59other people doing? Or I consult Google rather than
- 21:02the Lord. So practically to mother out of,
- 21:05you know, confidence and out of fear really is to consult with
- 21:08the Lord. Yes, there's information that
- 21:09helps us, of course, but to consult the Lord, to say Lord,
- 21:12what do you want me to do here rather than going to the
- 21:14Internet or rather than going to what other people are doing?
- 21:18Well, it's it's really picking a posture.
- 21:21I mean, I think it's like picking a motherhood identity of
- 21:24I'm not just going to be the composite of like Tom, you know,
- 21:28not Tom, Dick and Harry, because they're all women, but like, you
- 21:31know, Susie, like like Clara and Sally, I don't know.
- 21:34And they're all different approaches to motherhood.
- 21:37That's not to say we can't learn from other women, but I think in
- 21:39the day-to-day, it's like, what is what is your sort of North
- 21:43Star for how you're going to mother?
- 21:44What are your chosen principles? You can tweak them, you can
- 21:47change them, but and, and be confident in that because I
- 21:51think confidence is something that is really hard for a lot of
- 21:56women, generally speaking, certainly mothers, yes.
- 21:59And you can get your confidence so easily rattled by just
- 22:03looking and listening to what other people are doing and then
- 22:06doing that comparison game, yes. It's, it's, it's mind boggling
- 22:10how much it's affected us. And I didn't realize how much it
- 22:12affected me until I started writing this.
- 22:14And I thought, I mean, the amount of things that came into
- 22:17view of like, wow, I have never even thought about it this way.
- 22:21Like what, as I was writing it, Oh my gosh, so many different
- 22:24things. I talk about the way that girls
- 22:26learn about their periods when they're young, right?
- 22:28And in my own life, I felt really led by my mom in that
- 22:31way. But how many women I talked to,
- 22:33it was like nobody ever talked to me about like my period or
- 22:38what was going to happen. It was like the short
- 22:39presentation from a nurse. And I realized how much the
- 22:42enemy wants women to be confused and afraid of what's happening
- 22:45to them. So they don't understand the
- 22:47power of what our bodies can do, right?
- 22:50And how this like, how many little girls learned at
- 22:53sleepovers and from their friends who's like, oh, my big
- 22:56sister said this. How many women were like cheated
- 23:00out of the opportunity to be LED in love and like, spoken to
- 23:03really plainly, like, this is going to happen to you.
- 23:05And This is why, right? What presentation, right?
- 23:08And there might be people who are making changes in this area.
- 23:10Does the nurse come in and say the the power of fertility is
- 23:14incredible. And This is why we have periods.
- 23:17I talk about in the book how it's like so often presented to
- 23:20little girls as such a needless cross.
- 23:22Like we just have this unfair saying and it happens to us.
- 23:25And men have it so easy. But it's like, no, if little
- 23:28girls like learn to be in tune with their bodies, there's a lot
- 23:32of beautiful power there. And the enemy doesn't want that.
- 23:36So things like that came into view in my own marriage.
- 23:39I realized the lie that the enemy speaks to me is you're so
- 23:42much harder to love now than you were when you first started
- 23:45dating or when you were first married.
- 23:47Like looking at myself right in the hurricane of all these years
- 23:50and bearing children and having 3C sections that the enemy comes
- 23:53to me and says like that version of you back in the day was so
- 23:57much more carefree and was so much more easygoing.
- 24:00And look at how stressed you are now and look at what a friends
- 24:02you are now. You're so much harder for Daniel
- 24:04to love. Meaning like you're less
- 24:05attractive. Less attractive not only on the
- 24:08exterior but back in the day when I didn't have all these.
- 24:13You know, responsibilities. But I was more carefree.
- 24:16I was more spontaneous. I was more easygoing in life.
- 24:20And the enemy wants me to look back and say, you know, oh, man,
- 24:24I wish I was more like her, which is good.
- 24:26It's good to, like, learn from the past.
- 24:28But there was a gal online who talked about how she feels like
- 24:30when her husband looks at old pictures of her, she feels like
- 24:33he's cheating on her with her former self.
- 24:36And how much so sad. God wants to write.
- 24:38God wants us to embrace who we are today and embrace the ways
- 24:41that we've grown for the better, but the enemy always wants us to
- 24:44look back and be like, oh man, like I was so much better back
- 24:47then or, you know, all those things, but just stir up
- 24:50discontent. You said something earlier, you
- 24:53know, back to the It's All About You chapter, which I think is
- 24:57really, really a powerful one and and what you're sharing that
- 25:00that was the one that brought the most tears for you
- 25:01personally. What is the truth?
- 25:05The truth? What is the truth we got?
- 25:06I mean, it's you wrote it, but what's the truth for that?
- 25:10And how does one learn to trust themselves, which is really
- 25:12trusting Jesus in them, but to have confidence that that's what
- 25:16they're doing? I write the truth.
- 25:18Yeah. I tried to write the truth as
- 25:20much as possible into every chapter.
- 25:22Like the the enemy is saying the truth out loud to that his.
- 25:25You know, in this correspondence, the truth is
- 25:28that each child is given to us like each unrepeatable child is
- 25:33given to a mother for a purpose that she, her heart of love for
- 25:38that child was made for that child, whether through biology
- 25:41or through adoption, that her heart is for that baby and she
- 25:45has unique strengths and gifts that she brings to her
- 25:49mothering. We can't do it all perfectly.
- 25:51We can't do it all well, but that the Lord wants to see that
- 25:54that child's unique DNA, she was created to care for it and she
- 25:58was created to tend to it. And sometimes that's hard to
- 26:01embrace. Well, you know, when in moms who
- 26:03go through difficult periods with their children or feel
- 26:05like, Oh my, my gosh, I am not cut out for this at all.
- 26:08The enemy wants you to believe you are not cut out for this at
- 26:10all. Every other mother is.
- 26:11Look around at all those mothers.
- 26:12They're all cut out for this. You are not right because.
- 26:15Of how they do it different. How they do it differently.
- 26:18Oh yeah. How they seem to be all put
- 26:19together or they're just doing XY and Z and you're like, Oh my
- 26:22gosh, I just feel like I'm such a mess and I'm failing at
- 26:24everything and look at these bombs.
- 26:25Look at how they dress. Look at the parties they put on.
- 26:27Look at all these things, right? And so the the truth is that
- 26:33this child's unique DNA was meant for you like a garden for
- 26:37you to cultivate and to love and to cherish and care for.
- 26:42And you could spend your whole life frittering about looking at
- 26:45all the other moms and looking at all the other things instead
- 26:47of being present to the mission that God has for you.
- 26:50When the enemy distracts us from our mission, distracts us from
- 26:53our children in 1000 different ways, we we can't be as focused
- 26:57as God wants us to be in the mission that He has entrusted us
- 27:00with. That's so good.
- 27:02And it's really, it's really a truth about our individuality
- 27:07and our personhood because I think the devil wants to destroy
- 27:10our personhood, like treat us like robots, cogs in the
- 27:13machine, things like that. And what you're like, really
- 27:16nailed here is this idea of the uniqueness.
- 27:20Every single person is unique. You know, little St.
- 27:23Therese of lists you as a little St.
- 27:25I love like we're all flowers and some are big lilies and flat
- 27:28roses and others are tiny little daisies are violets.
- 27:31And similarly with a mother and her child and their
- 27:34relationship, every relationship is different.
- 27:36That's so freeing to think about.
- 27:38Like there are certain principles you can return to and
- 27:41you can certainly learn from other people, but you are your
- 27:44only. You are your child's only
- 27:46mother. Yes, and God is the one who
- 27:48wants to lead you in loving that child rather than all of the
- 27:53information. God wants to lead you and you to
- 27:55be in tune with His heart rather than all of the information
- 27:59first. He wants you to go to Him first
- 28:02in all things. And I think that too for women
- 28:04who don't have children yet or they don't know if they want
- 28:06children or they're like, you know, not married yet or they,
- 28:09they're just not sure how they feel about motherhood because of
- 28:11any number of reasons, maybe wounds or just things that they
- 28:14experienced or sense of calling. But it also, I think, removes a
- 28:18lot of the fear and the pressure because if you're rooted in your
- 28:21identity as God will give you what you need, and he made you
- 28:24uniquely for this. If you have a child, that child
- 28:26is uniquely your child. You're uniquely their mother.
- 28:29Yeah. It's going to be OK.
- 28:31Yeah. It's going to work out, yes.
- 28:32And if you're rooted in your identity as beloved, right?
- 28:35I have a chapter on identity. It's called looking for the
- 28:39keys. Have you ever got like gone to
- 28:42go to an appointment or whatever and you lose your car keys?
- 28:45Have you ever does this ever happened to you?
- 28:47And you're like it's. Always in my purse and I just
- 28:49can't find it and it's like. And you're frantically looking
- 28:51about like, Oh my gosh, where did I leave it?
- 28:53Where did I leave it? And you're looking like all the,
- 28:55you know, your your night out bag that you had on Friday night
- 28:57when you went out for a date. I like take a little pocketbook
- 28:59and I'm looking around everywhere.
- 29:00And that's how the enemy wants women to look for their
- 29:03identity. Like they're looking for the car
- 29:05keys and they have like 5 minutes to do it and they're
- 29:07trying to get to this thing and they're rushed and panicked so
- 29:10that we look for identity in appearances and accomplishments
- 29:13and all these things rather than realizing my the keys are here,
- 29:18the keys have always been here because my identity is beloved
- 29:21and I don't have to look for it anywhere.
- 29:24Like as the beloved of God, when you let everything flow from
- 29:27that place, rather than frittering about thinking, oh
- 29:30maybe if I look better or get this accomplishment, then I'll
- 29:32be fulfilled in life. When you rest in your identity
- 29:36as beloved, it changes everything.
- 29:38The keys were there all along. The keys are always with you.
- 29:41God's heart is always with you. Making decisions out of that
- 29:44place changes everything. I love that.
- 29:47I love that. It's an, it's so needed that I
- 29:49mean, it's the principle of what is love?
- 29:52Love is delighting in the good of the existence of the other.
- 29:55Just the fact that you exist is good.
- 29:58Yes, it is good that you exist. Yes.
- 30:00You don't have to do something to be good.
- 30:02You don't have to do something to prove yourself.
- 30:04The fact that you are a human being, a son or daughter of God,
- 30:08that is good. And I think about our own kids,
- 30:10like if you're, if you have children or you'd forget, you
- 30:12don't even have a child. You have a niece or a nephew.
- 30:15It isn't enough for you to just like love on that niece and
- 30:19nephew. Give them a hug.
- 30:19They don't have to go perform for you.
- 30:21You love them already. And we are imperfect, flawed
- 30:25human beings and we love that child already, whether we're
- 30:28the, the big sister or the niece or the, or the, excuse me, the
- 30:31aunt. I guess it would be or you know,
- 30:33the parent. Of course God is that way even
- 30:36infinitely more than we are to us.
- 30:38Totally. You don't have to do anything.
- 30:40It is received. And yes, we get the chance to
- 30:43respond to God's love. We get the choice with our
- 30:45lives, but we get to receive it just by being.
- 30:49What a beautiful thing. Did you know that over 140,000
- 30:54US family farms have closed down since 2017?
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- 31:46monthly subscription. Plus, using the code Lila,
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- 31:52goodranchers.com. You've had another chapter
- 31:55called Allergic to Depth. Can you share more about that
- 31:58one? That one was very powerful.
- 32:00So God is depth himself, the vastness of everything we cannot
- 32:05comprehend with our minds. And I started to see this is
- 32:08another thing that totally came into view, how much the enemy
- 32:11has wanted to move us away from depth so that we are
- 32:14uncomfortable with God. So in so many different ways,
- 32:17you just think about small talk. It's really surface talk.
- 32:20We're just on the surface, We're so connected as human beings.
- 32:22We're all suffering. We're all, we all have highs and
- 32:24valleys and hills and valleys and highs and lows.
- 32:27But the enemy wants in order for us not to thrive in being
- 32:31connected deeply, he wants us to be uncomfortable with
- 32:34vulnerability and uncomfortable with depth.
- 32:37So often in, you know, social situations, people are made
- 32:40uncomfortable by a person who's asking real questions and who
- 32:43just is like, oh, tell me about your life story.
- 32:44And you're like, wait, what? You're not just going to ask me
- 32:46Like, So what do you do for work?
- 32:47You know, so people who, you know, ask these people questions
- 32:51are so often seen as like intrusive or awkward.
- 32:54When the enemy knows that we thrive when we're really
- 32:58connected to one another and we're when we're really
- 33:01vulnerable with one another, that is where the connection
- 33:04that we long for, like we long to be connected as humans, right
- 33:08as children of God. The enemy wants us to move away
- 33:11from that so that we're lonely so that we feel just totally
- 33:14disconnected because we feel miserable there.
- 33:17Like in the disconnect, we, our souls feel miserable because we
- 33:20were made for unity and communion with one another.
- 33:23That's like the way we were, you know, the fabric of who we are.
- 33:27If the enemy can move us away from that so that we're lonely
- 33:29and we feel like everybody belongs except me or whatever
- 33:32that might be, we we can't thrive.
- 33:36We can't thrive if we're not talking about real things, if
- 33:38everything's just surface talk, everything like how are we not
- 33:43going to feel lonely? How are we not going to feel
- 33:45sad? And also, you know, moving us
- 33:47away from our feelings, right? If I'm feeling the XY or Z way
- 33:52instead of, you know, going to the Lord to scroll, or if I'm
- 33:55feeling XY or Z way to get a snack, right?
- 33:57Oh, a snack will solve my problems, right?
- 33:58Moving away from those feelings, the depth of our feelings, is a
- 34:02way that the enemy prevents us from connection with the Lord, I
- 34:05really believe. I think there's so many people
- 34:07who who also they don't maybe have a friend or someone on a
- 34:12regular basis that they can be fully raw with.
- 34:16I think that's so lost today because we're living in the
- 34:19superficial relationships, not to say they're not a real
- 34:23relationship in terms of it's not, there's not like, it's not
- 34:26like you're trying to trick the other person or they're trying
- 34:27to trick you. But there's a lack of, as you're
- 34:29saying, depth. And part of that people might be
- 34:31afraid of like tapping into that depth because it's scary and,
- 34:35and there's sort of a fear around it and that
- 34:37vulnerability, but you got to do that if you're going to grow.
- 34:42I mean, and, and not saying you have to go bare your soul to
- 34:44everybody that you need, of course, but you need, we need
- 34:47friends, you know, we need people close with us.
- 34:49If you're certainly like in a marriage, you need to be able to
- 34:51do that in your marriage, right? And absolutely, we all need to
- 34:55do it with God. Otherwise we, we, we get kind
- 34:59of, we get stunted. We get stunted.
- 35:01And I love how you describe that, that word allergic.
- 35:04But you know the devil like in in your book, of course, but
- 35:08training people to reject vulnerability, maybe because
- 35:12it's impolite, or it's weird, or it's improper, or you know you
- 35:15don't want to deal with the discomfort.
- 35:16Whatever it is, there can be 1,000,000 reasons not to choose
- 35:19to go deep. Yes, and the enemies telling so
- 35:23many women telling me, I heard it lies so many times.
- 35:26If you're vulnerable, if you like reveal who you really are,
- 35:28they will flee like these people, like you're not likable,
- 35:32you're not even lovable. So don't like just close up
- 35:35those places because if you reveal those parts of your
- 35:37hearts to people, they will run. They will say, Oh my gosh, this
- 35:40woman is crazy. I do not want to be around this
- 35:42lady. That's what I feel like the
- 35:43enemy has said to so many women, to prevent them from true
- 35:46connection with one another. What was the easiest chapter to
- 35:50write for you? The easiest 1 for me but one of
- 35:53the hardest ones also was one of the last ones and it's called
- 35:57the empty theater. I've struggled a lot with self
- 36:01forgiveness and forgiving myself in life for stupid.
- 36:04I'll cry talking about it. Stupid things I've done, bad
- 36:07choices I've made, things that I've said, things that I wish I
- 36:11would just would have, should have done differently.
- 36:15And how the enemy wants women in a place of self hatred for all
- 36:19those things. We're so hard on ourselves as it
- 36:22is, but the enemy wants us constantly looking back at could
- 36:26have, would have, should have. And I describe it like I'm
- 36:30sitting in a movie theater, like I'm sitting in a movie theater
- 36:34and I'm watching the movie of my life playback like constantly.
- 36:38And these scenes where I wish I would have made a different
- 36:41choice or I wish I would have like chosen a different path or,
- 36:45you know, those things. I'm like that I'm talking about
- 36:47all you listeners out there. Those replay again and again and
- 36:50again, right? And I feel like so often it
- 36:53happens when we're laying down trying to sleep at night and the
- 36:55enemy brings up these memories like, oh, you're like, Can you
- 36:58believe you did that? And like in this, you know,
- 37:01analogy, I'm just like shouting at myself, like, no, why, What
- 37:05are you doing? Why are you doing that rather
- 37:07than seeing myself in the past and just like feeling a heart of
- 37:12compassion for all of the things that I so many choices.
- 37:16We didn't, you know, we didn't know we're learning and we're
- 37:18growing all the time. Like I like looking at that and
- 37:22just being so upset with myself rather than having a heart of
- 37:25compassion for the ways that I was growing and the ways that
- 37:28God was leading me and how the enemy just wants me there.
- 37:32Angry with myself, hating myself instead of having the Lord.
- 37:37And I talk about how the Lord wants to look at us and say,
- 37:40look at how far you've come. And the enemy wants us to say,
- 37:44man, I hate myself. I hate all those choices I made.
- 37:47God wants to say, look how much you've grown, look what you've
- 37:50learned. But can't you just be
- 37:52compassionate with yourself? I've forgiven you, right?
- 37:54Taking things to the heart of the Lord, I have forgiven you.
- 37:57Can you not forgive yourself? And so that was really freeing
- 38:02for me. And I, it really moved me into a
- 38:04place in my life where through prayer, as I was writing this,
- 38:08the Lord would take me back to those places that I would see,
- 38:10you know, coming up on the screen and just be there with me
- 38:13and allow literally myself in prayer to give myself a hug in
- 38:17that moment where I wish I would have made a different choice to
- 38:20give myself a hug. And really, the Lord to say,
- 38:22look at how far you've come. She was learning and growing.
- 38:25And you don't have to hate yourself for learning and
- 38:27growing. And so that was really freeing.
- 38:31And it was very easy to write that because it's something I've
- 38:33struggled with a lot over the years.
- 38:36And, and that belief in the Lord's forgiveness, like so
- 38:39often, it's the lie of forgiveness is for everybody
- 38:42except me. Like I'm, I'm the most broken,
- 38:46I'm the most messy. I am the problem child in the
- 38:49Lord's house, right? And how the Lord wants us to
- 38:53believe, no forgiveness is for me like his forgiveness is as
- 38:58much for everybody else it is as it is for me.
- 39:00And I need to rest in that it's. So good, Emily.
- 39:04And it's like Satan hates the fact that you're sitting on
- 39:07there watching the movie theater with Jesus and he's like, just
- 39:10give your give that girl a hug. She's like, don't judge yourself
- 39:16forever in eternity. And you're like, no, like God
- 39:19Forgives me and he wants me to walk in freedom now.
- 39:23Yes, I'm going to give her a hug.
- 39:25Yes, the the Lord wants women to be women who can forgive
- 39:29themselves and to say it's OK that I'm learning every single
- 39:33day no matter our age, it's OK that I'm growing.
- 39:35The Lord wants us to be kind to ourselves, and the opposite is
- 39:38true of the enemy. How do you address the I think
- 39:42there is this I, I think because of social media, probably
- 39:46because of just all of the woundedness that people face
- 39:49today and all of the brokenness, there is this sort of
- 39:54resurgence. It's not a resurgence.
- 39:56It's just a general, you know, proclaiming of this word
- 39:59narcissist where everyone is like, they have narcissistic
- 40:02tendencies. You have narcissist.
- 40:03I have like, this man is a narcissist.
- 40:05This woman is a narcissist and. Certainly narcissism is, I
- 40:08think, an actual personality disorder that people can have
- 40:11because of a lot of maybe factors.
- 40:14I was talking to father Robert Spitzer about how the soul can
- 40:16get really broken in early childhood if they're not given
- 40:20certain love and nurture. Like like severe like child
- 40:23abuse or neglect like that could potentially lead to a potential
- 40:26personality disorder. Anyways, what I'm getting at
- 40:29here with regard to sincerely Sternheart is how do you address
- 40:34in the book the temptation that maybe we have to selfishness
- 40:38right as women where it's not about we're like afraid of of
- 40:42deep relationship. We're afraid of maybe
- 40:44commitment, sacrifice, because it's it's not doesn't seem to
- 40:50immediately serve me. You know, we're maybe addicted
- 40:52to like a superficial living pleasure.
- 40:55What are your thoughts? On that, so that the, that
- 40:58letter is called have it all. And it talks about how, you
- 41:02know, in the, the temptation to just want everything as quickly
- 41:06as possible because the enemy wants us to believe life is all
- 41:09about me, me, me and how much I can get out of this, right?
- 41:12And we see it in, you know, on social media and influencer
- 41:15culture, right? Where women are just getting new
- 41:18things every day, all the time. They're going on 7 vacations a
- 41:20year and you're like, Oh my gosh, how is this even possible,
- 41:23right? And and so the enemy wants us to
- 41:26just turn entirely inward and say, how much can I get out of
- 41:30this life because the Lord made us to say, how much can I give
- 41:34in a healthy way, not to just deplete myself to burn out, but
- 41:37the the gift of femininity in the world is what the enemy I
- 41:41believe wants to prevent is making women believe.
- 41:45How much can I get? Whether that's possessions,
- 41:47whether that's, you know, acclaim, whether that's, you
- 41:49know, how beautiful can I become?
- 41:50Life is all about me, me, me. So this life is spent grasping
- 41:55rather than receiving, right? We look at even the garden.
- 41:58What did she do? She grasped because she didn't
- 42:01believe that God was good and she didn't believe that God was
- 42:04all loving. So she went out to get it for
- 42:06herself. And that's another part of the
- 42:08have it all is that you have these desires of your heart and
- 42:11you're going to have to go out there and just get all that you
- 42:13can in terms of fulfilling those desires.
- 42:16And if you have unmet desires right in your heart that it's
- 42:20unfair and that God loves the women, like the women who are
- 42:23receiving those desires of their heart.
- 42:25He loves them more than he loves you, right?
- 42:27The enemy sneaks in to say that. So the the the the life spent
- 42:31grasping as a woman is so I think, a tactic that the enemy
- 42:37uses against us. How much can I get?
- 42:39It's the antithesis of what God created us for.
- 42:42Which is abundance in him. Yes, and is about being his
- 42:46hands and feet in the world instead of saying how much can I
- 42:48get, how much can I give? How much can I pour out from my
- 42:52heart again in a healthy way of love and goodness and mercy and
- 42:56be God's hands and feet Instead of looking around saying what
- 42:59new am I going to get today? Who can I love today?
- 43:02Well, I think the underpinning piece of that, what you're
- 43:05describing is this, the idea that if you, you know, I think
- 43:08of some women, they're afraid of being mothers because of the
- 43:10sacrifice it requires. And they look at other women who
- 43:13are sacrificing so much and they still, they look at, they see it
- 43:15as misery, right. So there's this lie there that
- 43:18says that you're going to like, you have to cull things like
- 43:21this in order to have some sort of joy or happiness aside this
- 43:26in this life. And if you let go or if you open
- 43:28yourself up to a certain commitments and responsibilities
- 43:32and giving, giving of yourself back, you're going to lose
- 43:34yourself and lose some good things that you value.
- 43:38Yes. Oh yeah.
- 43:40And I think about that little, you know, that image of that
- 43:42little girl holding the teddy bear with Jesus, that little
- 43:45cartoon. One of the good things that come
- 43:47from the meme wars on social media.
- 43:49There's like the little kid holding the teddy bear and, and
- 43:52Jesus, like the like, I want it so bad.
- 43:54And Jesus is like, just give it to me.
- 43:55But he's has a bigger teddy bear behind him.
- 43:58Like if you just trust in me, I'm going to give you the
- 44:00desires of your heart and more like I will, I will give you
- 44:03more than you can imagine. But my my ways won't look the
- 44:07way you might expect. Like it might not look the way
- 44:08you will expect. That's so hard for some people
- 44:11to trust. Yes, well and going to the
- 44:13foundational reality that the the desire of our heart is Jesus
- 44:17himself and he already gave himself to us and the world says
- 44:21the desire of your heart are in all these things.
- 44:23Those are secondary to the desire of our heart just to be
- 44:26one with Jesus, right to to have all of himself, which he's given
- 44:30all of himself. One of my favorite prayers is
- 44:32Henry Nowen. He says, Lord, unclench my
- 44:35fists. Good.
- 44:37And I just love that posture in life, in so much of our life is
- 44:41spent like that with our fit, just like goat.
- 44:44And then sometimes you like get one hand open, but you still
- 44:46have this hand closed because you're still holding on to
- 44:48things that that posture of openness to receive whatever God
- 44:52wants to give in life, right? That we don't love God because
- 44:55of what he gives. We love him because of who he
- 44:57is, right? So good, it's like.
- 44:59The prodigal son coming home to the father, right?
- 45:01He just wanted the father in the end.
- 45:03He thought he wanted all these things, but in the end he just
- 45:05wanted his father's love and it was there all along, right?
- 45:08So to live with hands like that, whether you know if God wants to
- 45:11give you the gift of a child or whatever it might be to open
- 45:14your hands to receive like what an amazing posture of heart and
- 45:18in life. We got to do one more can we do
- 45:21one more chapter that top of the podium.
- 45:25I thought that was very, there was some real like I, you know,
- 45:30whether it's personal, I just know like, I, I feel like Carrie
- 45:33personally, like some of my close friends, this idea of
- 45:37competition with other women that because someone else is
- 45:41different from you and and maybe objectively seems better in this
- 45:44category, right. And you're almost always
- 45:47material categories, but sometimes they're there's more,
- 45:50you know, things that are less tangible, like a virtue, like
- 45:53this person just seems so patient or so organized or so I
- 45:58don't know, whatever. Like you pick the virtue or it's
- 46:01a material thing, a physical thing.
- 46:04What inspired top of the podium? I mean, how, you know, we go
- 46:08back to being little girls and how everything seems.
- 46:10It starts to become a contest from so early on for you to look
- 46:14around and oh, she's getting a boyfriend, She's prettier than
- 46:17me or she's she made the varsity volleyball team and I'm only on
- 46:21JV when we're little. That messaging starts to arise
- 46:25that this is a competition and I whether it's the way that I
- 46:28look, whether it's the team that I make, whether it's my report
- 46:30card or getting into a certain college, I'm competing with
- 46:34other women rather than celebrating right All our unique
- 46:37strengths. It can become kind of trait, but
- 46:39I just talk about in life all the time of the women how
- 46:42femininity is was meant to be a celebration of God's image and
- 46:46likeness alive in each and every single one of us in a beautiful,
- 46:49unique way. But the enemy wants us to
- 46:52believe that femininity is a contest and that I have to do
- 46:56the best and be the best and everything is a beauty pageant
- 46:59so that we're spent, we spent our lives striving.
- 47:02I have to strive to, you know, be better than her or get into
- 47:05the these colleges if she's getting into those colleges and
- 47:08how instead of a world full of women, really.
- 47:11And this is something that people talk about often who can
- 47:14really celebrate each other to say go girl, right?
- 47:17Not in a cheesy way, but in a way that really is.
- 47:21And I try to be this woman, a woman who was always found
- 47:24uplifting and always found encouraging, no matter what's
- 47:27going on in my life, you know, through throughout life, the
- 47:30highs and lows, to always be the one who says you're amazing.
- 47:35You are made in the image and likeness of God.
- 47:38And I'm so proud of you and I'm so proud of what you're doing.
- 47:41A world full of women who really saw each other as the image and
- 47:45likeness, right? And we could celebrate one
- 47:47another. It would change everything.
- 47:49And it's that's what I've seen the enemy work to divide is us
- 47:53to say like just a clamor. Imagine like the podium at the
- 47:56Olympics, right? There's these different levels
- 47:58and looking at that woman on the top level to say, oh, God loves
- 48:01her the most, right, The most beautiful, the most talented,
- 48:03God loves her the most or whatever that might be.
- 48:05And so we clamor to get to the top when it's like we're all,
- 48:09we're all just standing on the same ground because we're all
- 48:11made by the same hands of the same creator.
- 48:14He made each of us with such unique gifts and strings.
- 48:16And if we're so busy looking at, oh, what's she good at?
- 48:19Instead of saying, Lord, what gifts have you given me?
- 48:21How do you want me to share them with the world?
- 48:23And how do you want me to celebrate the gifts of other
- 48:25women? That is transformative.
- 48:28Did you feel like a spirit of competition kind of in your
- 48:31life? Even for some people, it's like
- 48:32among siblings, right? That spirit of competition that
- 48:34that is sown. Did you feel like that?
- 48:36Like as a small girl through high school and college?
- 48:38I think for me, it was this perfectionist spent where even
- 48:42if I wasn't like, yeah, there would be occasional comparisons,
- 48:45but it was more like I was constantly fighting against how
- 48:48I thought I should be, how I was supposed to be.
- 48:52So you don't, that's a weird thing with comparison.
- 48:54You don't even need another person to to beat yourself up.
- 48:58You can just like have yourself and be like, I'm not good
- 49:02enough, you know, I'm not doing enough.
- 49:03So, so that it's gonna be an ideal.
- 49:05And honestly, I think the, the girls that I would most compare
- 49:07myself to would be like characters and like books that I
- 49:10would read or, or honestly, people like Saint Joan of Arc,
- 49:12remember reading, you know, Mark Twain about her life at age 12.
- 49:16And I was like, how do I do that?
- 49:18Like I can never, like, I could never like have her mother
- 49:21marry. Like she's so amazing.
- 49:23So, but they can, it can be you. They can be inspirations like
- 49:29another woman's good, or truly remarkable attributes like
- 49:34really exceptional attributes, character traits or otherwise.
- 49:37Couldn't be a source of inspiration or like a heavy
- 49:41burden. It's so true.
- 49:43And we got a choice. What's what lane will we choose?
- 49:46But how do we like? What would, what would be the
- 49:48truth then that you have on top of, of the podium to step into
- 49:52the truth of being inspired maybe by other women and, and
- 49:56the beautiful gifts that other women are, well, not taking it
- 50:00as making it into this competition.
- 50:02And I think a key to that too is like the scarcity mindset, like,
- 50:05well, if they're like, if mother Mary is really holy, then I
- 50:08can't be really holy. And it's like, well, you might
- 50:10not be ever. You're not going to be mother
- 50:11Mary. That's OK though.
- 50:12You're you're you, and God will give you everything you need for
- 50:16you. Absolutely.
- 50:19It's that choice of am I going to let the remarkable nature of
- 50:22this woman inspire me or get me down?
- 50:25And when I'm rooted in the Lord, I say, Lord, let this woman
- 50:27inspire me rather than me to negatively compare myself.
- 50:30It takes a really conscious choosing because so often we, I
- 50:34believe, are wired into that comparison mindset, that
- 50:38conscious choosing to say Lord, like in prayer, right?
- 50:43Even just a simple prayer, right?
- 50:44Some woman gets some part in some play that you want and
- 50:47you're so devastated and you just want to be like, you're so
- 50:51mad. Lord, in this moment, help me to
- 50:53celebrate her. Help me to celebrate her win.
- 50:56Even though I don't feel like celebrating her win, help me to
- 50:59celebrate her. And the Lord will be there with
- 51:01you and He will be there for you, and He will comfort your
- 51:04heart in the way that only He can.
- 51:07When it's, you know, an opportunity given to someone
- 51:09else that you want wanted, or you're just struggling with
- 51:12insecurity about who you are as a person.
- 51:14When you look around at all the women around you and feel like
- 51:16everybody is so much better than me.
- 51:18The Lord wants to meet you there and show you who you are as
- 51:21beloved with the gifts He's given you.
- 51:23So good. This book is very intense.
- 51:25Yes, it is. It's very intense and it's
- 51:28substantive, it's entertaining and engaging, but it's like
- 51:31it's, you know, it's a, it's like eating a whole sandwich
- 51:35Chapter 1. And you might not be ready to
- 51:37eat the next sandwich. So you might be able to depends
- 51:41on your appetite, I guess. But what, what's, what's, what
- 51:44has been, what have been the reviews like in terms of the
- 51:47impact of people reading it? So one woman described it and I
- 51:50just thought it was such an appropriate response.
- 51:53She said it's like a box of chocolate truffles.
- 51:56She said some people will be tempted to to eat them.
- 51:59All right. You want to just eat all 24 in
- 52:00one sitting. But she said you should take it
- 52:03one at a time to really savor what is being said here, to
- 52:06allow it to resonate in your heart again, whether it's about
- 52:09your life experience or not. Sometimes you'll be able to get
- 52:12through 5, right? And sometimes you, you'll think,
- 52:14wow, that was enough for me to think about for three weeks to
- 52:17take to the Lord in prayer, right?
- 52:19For three weeks. I had a friend who she read the
- 52:22book in the fall and she did a personal retreat for herself for
- 52:26a weekend and she did the whole personal retreat on one of the
- 52:28letters. She let that be her spiritual
- 52:30direction because it was, she found it to be a pain point of
- 52:33such unbelievable depth in her life and her experience that she
- 52:37just unpacked that with her spiritual director for the whole
- 52:40weekend. So some people will do 5-10,
- 52:42some people will be one at a time.
- 52:44It's going to be. Or read, maybe read until you
- 52:47get to that letters experience. Yeah, for me the 1st letter like
- 52:51that made me put it down for a little while because so much of
- 52:54my work is on the World Wide Web.
- 52:55Yes, and it's hard. Yes, for sure to find that
- 52:58balance. To be to even do the work on the
- 53:00World Wide Web because of all of this snags and snares that come
- 53:03with it. For sure, and this book is
- 53:05perfect for women's groups. But I will warn you, you will
- 53:08get through one letter and two hours later, you'll still be
- 53:11talking about it. I had my sisters read some of
- 53:13the letters and we talked about one letter together for an hour
- 53:16and a half. Just one.
- 53:17You don't even like, do you? Just at the end of the thing,
- 53:20say, how does this relate to your experience?
- 53:21And women, I have found, will just share from the depths of
- 53:25their souls. And just it is fodder for
- 53:29incredibly vulnerable conversations, which I want to
- 53:32encourage among people with the meat and the depth and the
- 53:35intensity that is obviously present in the book.
- 53:38I love that Emily sandwich and truffle.
- 53:40Whatever you want to call it, good for you.
- 53:44Thank you for writing this book. Thank you for writing sincerely,
- 53:47Stoneheart, and pouring so much of your heart into it.
- 53:49I know it was a labor of love. Of a lifetime, I don't know that
- 53:53I will ever have to labor like this and at any point in my life
- 53:57from the heart. So thank you for allowing me to
- 54:00share it with your listeners. And I hope that whoever out
- 54:02there reads it, that it really helps set you free from the lies
- 54:05that you've believed into living in freedom and hope and the joy
- 54:10that the Lord wants for you. Where can people find and buy
- 54:12sincerely Stone Heart. It is available wherever books
- 54:15are sold, so you can get it on Amazon or at Barnes and Noble.
- 54:18Christian Book books-a-million. You can find it anywhere and I
- 54:21would love for you to read and share with your friends.
- 54:23Amazing. Thank you, Emily.
- 54:25Thank you and. A huge thank you to EWTN Eternal
- 54:28Word Television Network, which is the largest religious
- 54:30broadcaster in the world. You can get access to Lila Roe's
- 54:34show episodes 24 hours in advance at ewtn.com.
- 54:39Slash on demand and a big thank you to EWTN and their incredible
- 54:42mission to bring souls to Jesus.