EP 26 Transitions in Life as a Woman

After a decade of gathering women together for prayer, we are inspired to bring our words of encouragement to you. This is iRefresh. Welcome to iRefresh podcast. We are having a fun time with actually family and friends. So we have Veronica and Wendy and myself, Cheryl and Christy are with us today. And we are talking today about transition and it can mean all kinds of things. We were kind of conversing about really our kids are kind of in the same ballpark of age bracket. But even with transition with the kids kind of sort of in and out of our homes, that transition, and then there's transition with work, and then we've talked about transition with our own family, with our parents, as well as us parenting. It's so wide-based. But yet, in the midst of all of those things, I have to say... it's really been a challenge. And we really need each other to be an encouragement. So I don't know who wants to start first because like Christy, we talked about too, you've really had a lot of, like all kinds of transitions. It's, you know, they say that one transition, like a move or a sick parent or something like that, that's a lot, but when you pile them on top, there's a lot of stresses in your life. And my husband and I decided to build a home, and I'm grateful to say we're on this side of it. We moved in a few weeks ago, and we're very grateful for it. And it wasn't the horror story that we've heard, so that's good. But in the midst of that, my father got diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. And when his mom lived to 97 and he's 80, Florida. So it took us back. It was one of those, I looked at him and said, you owe me 15 more years, buddy, come on. So transitioning with a parent that is going through a life-threatening illness, and yet I'm a thousand miles away as well, and I'm unable to help. I'm a fixer. I'm the server. I want to be there to help my mom, who's caregiving. And I It's been a real challenge, and I'm grateful for a supportive husband who sends me out there when we're able to and those kind of things, but it's hard. It's very difficult to just say, I'm going to be praying for you because when you tend to be a mama and a fixer and what can I do to help you, and you're not able to do that from 1,000 miles away, you really have to go deep in your prayer life You have to find those scriptures that you're standing on the word for him, for my mom, for us as a family. And it's a journey I've never walked before. My husband has lost both of his parents in the past five years. So we've walked through that journey. But it's different when it's you. I'm just going to be honest. I loved my mom and dad-in-law. They were wonderful people. that I had no idea. Until you walk that journey, you don't know. You don't know. Wendy is my sister, and so we've transitioned with that. And Wendy, we've learned even in talking together is we both have a different frame of reference even in our transition with it, and losing our stepfather this year. I think the problem in Venice, it caught us totally off guard. we live a few thousand miles away, and I even live a few more thousand miles away on the other coast, and I had no idea that there was a health issue going on, and by the time we got the message and had made arrangements a couple weeks later to go check and see, it was only a couple days after that visit that he went home to be with the Lord, and It was that transition. I think we're still in it, you know, because I don't think we were really, there wasn't, we didn't have time to think it through and mentally prepare spiritually even prepare. Sure. And so that transition kind of in the middle of it, I've had a lot of transitions it seems like lately. Not by choice, a lot of those have been handed to me and it's kind of like raising a son and a husband that are baseball players. I've learned that they're curveballs in life and what I have learned from my son who was a pitcher that the way to hit a curveball out of the park is to sit back and wait. And I think that's been what I have understood about transitions and those seasons of life. They're waiting periods. And I'm not a big fan of sitting in that waiting room. But I also know that when I'm sitting there, it's not a passive time. I know that that has transitioned to something else. So I really find that that's where I put my efforts, my time with the Lord, and seek Him prayerfully as to what he's training me for for the next transition. So it's, you know, you kind of take them as they come, and you figure out at that point, you know, what's he trying to teach me? What or what can I glean? What can I learn from this? Becomes stronger. and persevere and may it strengthen my character to share with others. Well, Veronica's had a transition. Sometimes they're like, again, it's unplanned, but it was, your family was affected by your transition. Our business was leasing a space that we're running our business out of and it went into new ownership. And the new owner had a different idea of what he wanted to do with the space. And so it forced us to have to move our business for one year while we build another building. So we were hoping to only have one move, but it ended up being two. So we're in that process right now of staying in a space temporarily while our building is being built. I heard a message years ago and it stuck with me and I was reminded of it again when you talked about that waiting season. And the relationship to that waiting was, as we wait on the Lord, we need to look at what does a waiter do? When we go into a restaurant, a waiter comes over to serve. They are serving us. And that's what we need to look at our seasons of. we need to be serving Him. So when we're in the midst, and we're in the journey of it, if we can refocus instead of looking at our undecided, that if we can just go back to, okay, Lord, I'm going to serve you in this season because I've already, as you said, given it to you. And, you know, that's such a great analogy with the curveball because that's really what we are. They get thrown at us, and then we have to readjust and say, okay, wow, you know, we go to the Lord, we pray through, we stand on the scripture, but in that season of waiting sometimes is the hardest time. Because it's uncertain and if we can use that time to be a service and serving the Father serving the Lord the kingdom That's really what the life here. I love that. That's good. We talked earlier about Parents and being a parent and I know in my life my grandparents were Vital in my Christian faith. I was very blessed to have um a grandfather who's a minister and they were the most godly thing out there for sure. I mean I love them. I know they weren't perfect but I love them. And I look at the transitions even with what we're talking about with passing of parents. I realize the mantle that is passed generationally. is coming my way. Whether I want to pick up that mantle of prayer or not, I know that we all have aunts or mothers that prayed for us, and you definitely can go there about your mom with that. But I'm, for the first time, realizing my parents, as they are aging, there will come a day when my mom won't be on this earth to pray for me. And that is a very difficult place right now in my life because I rely on my mom's prayers. And I'm grateful for my mom's prayers. And I know that I am one of the few women in the world that are blessed to have that because a lot of women, as we minister to women, we realize that's one of the things we love about iRefresh is we get to pray for those, whether they have someone or not, to pray for them. But so many of them go, no one prays for me. And I'm facing a day when my mom and dad won't be on this earth. And it's, it then becomes my responsibility and my husband's and he's a praying man. I'm blessed with that. But, but that's a huge transition as well. So you ladies had a beautiful praying mom, godly woman. You've transitioned that already. So what did that mantle look like to you? And, And how did you adjust? Let me go, Wendy. Well, I would have to say it rocked my world a lot. I did not once again prepare to say goodbye. I did not know that she was going home to be with the Lord when she did. And I look back at it now, because it's been a decade. It doesn't, it seems like yesterday, and yet, What I learned about my mom, who was a prayer warrior and who was my spiritual mentor, is that I, too, now have become one. And I don't mean that in a haughty way at all, but it is, I have found that I used to just pick up the phone and call my mom. Yeah. And instead of that now, I pick up the phone and I talk to my Lord. I talk to the Father Father. continually throughout the day. And it has deepened my walk with the Lord in a place that I never knew. And I've grown up knowing the Lord. We were very blessed with a godly heritage. And yet, at the same time, my mom wasn't a spiritual crutch to me, but in a sense, it has told me to go out and walk on the water. And that's where I have taken my faith, and I've stepped out in that, and I have learned and gleaned, and I just can't learn enough. I have found that prayer is the catalyst of everything in my life, that my communion with my Father is what carries me through whatever transition I'm going through. So the mantle, picking it up and running with it, seems... a lot bigger assignment than I think I'm qualified or ready to do. But in each of our own little corners of the world, as my mom used to say, that is your place to minister, whether it was on the playground when my kids were younger, whether it was in a boardroom when I was doing negotiations, or now when I'm in a different season of my life, that is where I minister and I can share the goodness of the Lord. So the transitions, we can't avoid them. Right. They are going to come our way anyway. But I do think when we are walking with him closely in it, that's what will allow us to just trust his timing in all things. He knows what's best. You know, a transition, when Wendy and I experienced it, we experienced it a little bit different just because of our frame of reference and what we went through. Because we both were always relying on our mother to be, you know, what's God telling you? Yeah. And she would always put it back at us, and she's trying to teach us nowadays how to hear his voice and walk in it. But when you're thrust into a place where you no longer have that, almost we call it the crutch a little bit, it forces you into the places. And I think even, Veronica, you went through a transition too of the spiritual mentor, the one that you walked alongside with. Mm-hmm. you now, you take on those mantles, and that transition, it's, you know, really when you look at it, it's painful, and yet the goodness of God to help us in that place where then we have to be put into a place where we have to step into it. You know, God helps us in that. We can't rely on ourselves, right? Right. I mean, because I think that's, you had a similar experience in transition. Yeah, in my case, it was my aunt, and she was in the ministry. serving her. I went along with her, I carried the bags, I drove the car, I got her the water, whatever she needed. And then the day came when she transitioned and went to heaven and it was devastating to think that I don't have that phone call. I don't have that person anymore where I could just call and say, I don't know what to do. Or how. But we did go through the same similar transition where she would start saying to me, you know, the Lord wants you to hear him. He's not going to always tell me. He wants you to learn to listen. And that was a season that I did not want to do. I did not take it willingly. I resisted and said, no, it's easier just to call you. Yeah. You know, but I will say that this opportunity, And she threw these scriptures out and basically was challenging our faith and said, how can you believe this? You know, how can you say this is okay? They were taken out of context. Everyone was a little caught off guard. And so I just stepped in and said, okay, first of all, we don't take the scripture out of context. And second of all, the Bible does not say this. This is your interpretation. What the Bible does say is this. And I really, for the first time, felt that I had taken on that mantle, but also that responsibility to her to help her great-granddaughter be well-informed and to know the Word of God as true. And so I would say, you know, just recently, it hit me probably harder than it's hit me up until now. Right. When I, we're using the term mantle. So I want to go back and make sure our listeners are understanding that because I brought that word in. So my analogy is going to be Esther in the Bible. So Esther was a Israelite girl, Hebrew girl, Jewish girl that was not known. innocent young girl going about her life, thrown into a pool of other women who has to pray before the king to see if she'll be the wife. and she was chosen. And so that would be like a mantle being put upon her like a robe, a crown, something like that. It's a position. So when we were referring to a mantle, it's a position of the person of prayer and that household. And then to take Esther one step further, she then had a job to carry out to go before the king and save the Hebrew nation. So obviously I don't think our mantles are that huge. I pray they're not. But God does have different jobs, different situations through the transitions of life, whether it's praying for your family or defending the faith with your family or out in the community. We all have a role to play. And so I just wanted to make sure that our listeners understood that term because I didn't want to be too, using a term we weren't familiar with. You know, I think in general, we talk about any type of transition. You know, a lot of times it's almost we walk in maybe an anxiety of the unknown and where it's gonna take us. Because it's a new territory, what we have to go through. And it's usually painful. Because whether it's transitioning of the empty nesters or whatever it is, even if your children are young and they are going to school for the first time, or they go to high school, they graduate, they go to college, all of those different challenges that we will walk through, the emotions that we all walk through, if it wasn't that God didn't give us his word and assist us to really hear, that's what I found is, that Wendy and I, when we lost our prayer warrior, and that was my last words with her. I said, you cannot die. You must declare the works of the Lord, and you must pray for my family. It was very selfish. And so I'm like, you can't because you are my covering. And I realized when that was gone that that meant I did have to step into a place. And I pondered that the week after. And that's actually what burst. I refresh was now I have a responsibility is who I went to for prayer. Right. And she would be sensitive to know how to pray. Right. But I didn't realize when I really started reflecting on it, there's times when, Christy, we've been praying together for years since our kids were really young. Our youngest ones are the same age. And there'd be times that she would feel prompting. I'm like, oh, no, if she has the prompting, it is. Don't tell them. Please don't tell them that prompting. That transition would be like. It was not usually a good one. It was usually preemptive of something not pleasant. But when I realized, too, actually there are more people around us if we will engage and realize that there are other praying people. And if you haven't discovered that, that there are other people or we need to help to activate it in one another. And I think, if anything, what it did, it activated a new part of my life that was dormant or nonexistent. that it was probably there, but it needed to be exercise. They had, just like we do physical exercise, we had to work a muscle, and it was not pleasant. However, we liked results. And I think when we see each one of us, when we're going through a transition, whether it's with kids and work, our families and families, loss or anticipation of something changing in our life, or sometimes we don't have it, that we just need the God, the Father to really be present. And that's why I think all of us can say is our time in the Word all the time, faithfully, where it says we're not necessarily called intercessors, it just says pray without ceasing. So we all have that responsibility. It prepares us so no matter what happens, we're not going to be called intercessors. We know that, one, we have a great group that we can literally text each other, communicate instantly, and we know they will rise into prayer for us. But then we know our Father truly hears all his prayers, our own personal prayers. But then it's like we have this little army. We're going out, and it helps. And, you know, that's where we can feel for each other, and whether it's sending out text messages or something to encourage each other. It's been a wonderful help in our transitions, I think. Well, I mean, I also encourage our listeners, too, because I live a few thousand miles away from this wonderful group and the home base of iRefresh. But the Lord knew that and had been in the transition of our mother's home going. He knew my heart's desires and he brought into my life an amazing life. prayer warrior, a woman who has become somewhat of a spiritual mother and mentor to me. And she, I call her my best friend. She's in her 80s, but she is someone that I had met and seen at church. 20 plus years ago, and I was like, I want to meet that woman. Oh, what a pillar of faith. And she knew how to pray and tap in. And I remember telling my mom about this person. And it wasn't until about four years ago that things were just lined up that the Lord was like, I'm going to bring Mary Jane into your life. And this dear woman has become my spiritual mama and has encouraged and helped teach me how to pray. And so the Lord knows that sometimes where there's a void or what have you, so that if you don't have, if you're not local and there's not an iRefresh prayer team close by, and you need someone tangibly and physically there, he knows that. I would say just give those hearts cries to the Lord. But as we are also aware here at iRefresh, you can contact us through the website and let us know how we can pray for you or whether it's through social media. We're constantly DMing is what it's called, right? Okay. Let us know what your requests are so that we can come together and pray stand in the gap for you and help pray those things to the Father. So the Lord knows our hearts, and He always, in His perfect timing, brings about what we need. That's right. Cheryl, you said earlier about the not knowing. And so I spoke about our transition into the new house. Well, it wasn't as easy and flawless as I made it to seem earlier because we were supposed to sign on a Monday day to sell our home and it ended up not being until late on a Friday. So we stayed in a hotel every day waiting to hear, waiting to hear, are we signing today, are we signing today? I can remember saying to my sister and my mom, I just knew what was going on, I can deal with it. It's the not knowing. And so many times during transition, that's really the hardest part. They're obviously with a loss of a loved one, those kind of things. doesn't compare. But when we're going through something, we don't know the end result. We don't know how it's truly going to be, whether it's in a marriage or whether it's with children. We were talking about our children earlier and transitions with those. So we all are in different stages. I have one in college. I have one out of college that's living at home. And I don't know where they're going to go next. I have a daughter who's interested in moving to California after college. I have a son who hasn't quite figured it out yet, doesn't know, he knows he needs more education, but it's that if I knew, I could tell him. But he doesn't know. And so I have to continually give it to the Lord and say, reveal yourself to him. Lord, please allow the destiny that you have set him upon this earth to fulfill to be fulfilled. Don't let him miss this. And I realize that a lot of our transitions aren't just our personal transitions, but it's our husbands transitioning and jobs. Whether they change jobs or whether they retire, we're not at that stage yet, but they're, you know... All different places. I know in America today a lot of people are transitioning because they don't have a job. So maybe you're going through that and you're unsure. So it may sound flippant to you to say give it to the Lord because you can't fix it. But really that's the only way to get through these with peace. His grace is sufficient. His mercies are new every morning and great is His faithfulness. I know that in my life, when we transitioned from Georgia, I was pregnant, five months pregnant with our first child. We had no job, no insurance, so we're moving from Georgia to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Huge transition, and someone gave me the scripture, I once was young, but now I'm old, but I've never seen the righteous forsaken, nor their seed begging bread. I lived with that scripture for years as I watched and God transitioned us into Tulsa and into the ministry and what we were supposed to do. That was a very difficult time, and we had to trust. And so I'm saying God is faithful. God is faithful. And his trust. I mean, everything I think we can hear with all of us is we had to trust God, and we had to have faith. And it may take a while is the point. It may take a while to get there. And the timing for everything, even the unexpected things, there is a timing, and it's always right on time for him. Right. There's been things I've looked at recently, I'm like, why is there such a delay? And then all of a sudden, when I'm having the wait process, then I'm like, oh, I get it. I'm so glad I did not force something to happen because if we trust God and his timing, it really, in the transition of what I've been walking through, he's doing a good work. Right. And we can't stop. We just have to continue to trust him daily. It's like if you pulled a souffle out of the oven and it's not time to pull it out, it would not be anything remotely close to what we want. So I trust his timing in all things. I just have to remind myself of that sometimes because that's not probably one of my virtues when patients are waiting. But I have learned now, though, I think I went through a transition process, And I think we're on a health journey. And a few years back I had a mammogram that didn't quite go like I thought it would. And so it required another visit. And sitting in that waiting room and watching women come and go and come and go, and I'm still there going, okay. And so the only thing I knew to do, I had prayed. I had prayed a few times that morning on the way and while I was sitting there. And I put praise and worship in and continually filled my thoughts with that. And then when they finally called my name to go in for the first procedure, and then it ended up being a second one, I will never forget that moment. While I waited then for the doctor to come in and read the results, I sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit and that Jesus was right there in the room with me, that I was not alone. So during all of the waiting period, He is with us there through every step of the way. He never leaves us, and he never forsakes us. I mean, I also know from a year ago, you're aware of we transitioned from a job change that we had no idea was coming in 25 years in the same place and same job. And that's as long as I had known my husband in that place. And our family did not realize when he was going to lose a job what happened. my head. And I would have to say now looking back at that, since we have now gone through that transition, is that His peace, which passes all of my understanding, it was so ever-present and ruled and reigned through that period. When I look back, there was no stress. There was no strain in our home. There was no anxiety. It was an odd thing, but it wasn't an odd thing. It was a God thing. Because I totally know that he carried us through that. And when it was time to open the next door, then the new job came. So, you know, with hindsight, you look back at it and go, okay, I get it. But you know what? That peace carried us through. And that was what was so amazingly such a gift from the Lord. And have you ever been in a situation where someone goes, I don't know what I would do if I was in your shoes. And you're like, I'm okay. I'm okay. Isn't it wonderful how God gives us grace for the situations that we're walking through our transitions? Because I can look at that and go, oh, my goodness, I don't know what I would do if my husband lost his job after 25 years. Thankfully, I don't have to. But I'm amazed. You're saying there's grace. There is peace. He's faithful. And I love how whatever it is we're walking through, there is that grace and peace. And we can count on that. And he will see us through. That's good. You know, if you have been going through a situation in your life, it's a transition. And we have given you a whole gamut, you know, from family or work, children, whatever it is. The whole thing about that is God's faithfulness. And he never will leave us or forsake us. He gives us all that we have, and if we ask him, he says, if we lack, we ask, and he gives. That's simple. It truly is that simple, and that's all he's asking for us is to look to him and trust him in the midst. We'd love to hear from you. If there's something you've been going through, like Wendy had said, is... Reach out to us. We'd love to pray with you. That is our joy. We delight in the opportunity to pray. It's an honor for us. And even as Veronica talked about serving, and that waiting that you might be going through, this is a time for you to serve. And if you aren't, I hope that will resonate with some of you as, God, I need to serve. Where is that? Because then it gets our focus on not just our situation. but on serving while the Lord's taking care of our own personal things. So we'd like to hear from you, whether it's prayer requests, praise report, and what has God been doing because he's intentional, he's looking after us. And until that time, we hope that as you hear this, share it with somebody else and maybe need a word of encouragement that in your transition, he has been faithful. We can each testify if he's faithful. We're glad you tuned in. Join the iRefresh community by subscribing to podcasts and following us on social media. You can go to iRefresh.net for more inspiration.