February 17, 2025 • 45 mins
Embracing the Father Heart of God changes everything! Listen as Anna Harris, founder of Defined by God Ministries, shares her powerful journey of overcoming feelings of abandonment and discovering her true identity as God's beloved daughter. From adoption struggles to embracing the Father's unconditional love, Anna reveals how this revelation sparked healing and spiritual growth.
In this episode, you'll learn how to overcome feelings of rejection, embrace your identity as God's child, and find practical steps to deepen your relationship with Him. If you're seeking healing and transformation through God's love, this episode is for you.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey friends, welcome to the Her God Story podcast where you will always hear a good story to encourage and inspire you in your walk with the Lord.
(00:09):
I'm so glad you tuned in. I'm your host, Jodie Chiricosta, ministry leader at Somebody Cares American International, author and traveler on this journey with Jesus.
You know, God cares deeply about the overlooked and hurting among us, and he has a very special place in his heart for widows and orphans.
Over and over again in scripture, he directs us to care for orphans and widows, which is why Somebody Cares created the Widow and Orphan Fund.
(00:36):
As a company of women, we can do so much together to take care of the special needs of those he's put in the care of our ministry partners around the world.
Last year, we built an indoor shower house and bathroom for girls at a children's home in Kenya.
And together, we've been helping three widows living in rural villages in Africa whose husbands died in tragic circumstances, leaving them and their children destitute.
(01:01):
But now, they know they're not abandoned and that God has heard their cries and answered with tangible help.
Please pray about joining our number with a gift at hergodstory.org and click on Help Now. We even accept cryptocurrency.
Psalm 2710 in the New Living Translation reads,
(01:23):
Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.
Hebrews 13.5 tells us that he will never leave us or forsake us, because as John 16.27 tells us, the Father loves us.
Each of us has our own perception of God.
A lot of it's based on our experiences and encounters with people, and so our perceptions of God are often very wrong.
(01:49):
And quite frankly, it's difficult to fully understand who God is because no one is like him.
He is perfect in every way.
I imagine we'll spend all of eternity discovering new things about our wonderful God and Father.
But one thing he wants us to know, understand, and experience in this life is his Father's love for us.
(02:15):
My guest, Anna Harris, has had a revelation of the Father's heart of God, the Father heart of God, after years of feeling abandoned and struggling with fear.
The knowledge of God's love set her free and carried her through a very difficult time in her life.
Now founder of Defined by God Ministries, Anna is a certified trauma and resilience life coach to help Christians discover and live from their true core identity,
(02:39):
finding healing by connecting with the Father in life's journey.
She's also an author, speaker, podcast, and retreat host, and her book, Not Abandon, shares powerful truths of the Father's love for us.
I've enjoyed getting to know Anna, and I know you will too.
Welcome, Anna.
Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
Anna, you were adopted at birth and grew up in a loving, supportive family.
(03:04):
But for many years, you felt insecure and even fearful.
Tell us a little about the early years of your life and what you were experiencing on the inside.
I was adopted at birth, as you said, like into a loving family, and I should have, you know, felt secure and loved and everything.
(03:28):
And on the one hand, I did.
But on the inside, I was very much full of fear.
I had a lot of, like, very deep fears.
I was always afraid of being murdered.
I felt someone always was trying to kill me.
And I felt like I would always be rejected.
(03:50):
I really felt like I didn't even have a place.
Like, I shouldn't even exist.
But on the other hand, my family was very loving and, you know, really doted on me.
And like I said, I had been adopted at birth.
But back then, I was born in 1964,
people didn't think that adoption could have any impact on you because you don't remember it.
(04:17):
And so if we don't remember, how can it have an impact on us?
And it was a private adoption, so I didn't know where I had come from or anything like that.
I knew nothing about my birth family at all.
Yeah. And, you know, you're, you're adopted family, you're family that you grew up with.
I mean, they went to church, you had a knowledge of Jesus.
(04:41):
But in your teen years, you grew bored with church.
And in high school, one of your teachers who was a Christian with a very vibrant relationship with God
made you hungry again for more of God.
Share about her and how that really impacted you.
Yes. So I had grown up, like, really loving Jesus.
And I remember walking up and down my street, talking to Jesus.
(05:04):
But when I got to be a teenager, I kind of thought, you know, this is a boring church.
I don't know if these people really know Jesus very well.
You know, I'm just teenage things too.
But I also think it was the Holy Spirit drawing my heart.
And then one of my teachers, she was what now I know is a spirit, a spirit-filled Christian.
(05:30):
But at the time, I just thought, wow, she really seems to know God because she'll pray out loud,
which was not something we did in our family.
And she was always talking about the Lord and that kind of thing.
And we, she was young and we became good friends.
And so I thought, you know, when I go away to college, I'm going to find a church like she went to.
(05:57):
And so I really now looking back, like, I know it was just, it was the Holy Spirit just drawing my heart.
So when I went away to college, I found a similar church that similar to where she had gone.
And it was very life-changing for sure.
(06:19):
Yeah.
And also, you know, when you were at this church, you got rebaptized.
I mean, you really recommitted your life to the Lord.
And someone even, which was kind of strange to you, someone even had a prophetic word over you,
share about that and kind of what that, what was going on when you heard that in your mind.
(06:41):
Yes.
So this, the new church I was going to was spirit-filled and they had explained,
you should really get rebaptized because, you know, now you're really making a commitment to the Lord.
You know what you're doing.
And when you get baptized, you will be filled with the Holy Spirit and then we're going to pray over you.
(07:04):
And so this was all new to me, but I was 18 years old and everything that they said, I believed it.
I was excited about it.
And so I was filled with the Spirit when I was baptized and then they, someone, several people had prophetic words over me,
but one that really stuck with me was that I would have a ministry of inner healing.
(07:30):
And I didn't even really know what that was at the time, you know, but it turned out to be exactly true.
So it was pretty amazing.
Yeah.
And then when we hear those words, young or anytime in our life, we have to check it with the, with check it with the Lord,
see if it resonates with our spirit.
Obviously that one did because you remembered it many years later.
(07:53):
And we'll get to the second part of the story where you actually are doing that now.
But yeah, it's, you know, the Lord has good plans for us.
He has plans to prosper us and not to harm us to give us a future and a hope,
even though sometimes we take detours along the way, as many of us are prone to do, probably all of us.
And when you were in college, you were seeking the Lord, you met the man who seemed to be everything you were looking for.
(08:22):
And where did that take you?
Yes.
So we got married and we moved to Houston and we raised our children, four children.
We were attending Lakewood Church for a while.
And it was really great.
And, you know, raising our kids in church.
We, I loved Lakewood Church.
(08:44):
It was much, much larger than anything I had ever been to before, but just a great atmosphere, you know, the worship was great.
It was a long time ago when Pastor John Osteen was the pastor at the time.
So, yeah, it was wonderful.
Yeah.
And then in the 1990s, there was really, there were sparks of revival really starting all around Houston as well, where you were living and many other places.
(09:12):
And you started, you and your family started going to some of these meetings.
How did those encounters with God impact you?
And where did you go?
I mean, what did you, you know, what, what did you sense and how did they impact you?
When I had heard about, there was a revival, some revival meetings going on from a friend.
(09:35):
And so I was like, well, I'll check that out.
And when I went, went there, there was such a strong, tangible presence of God, like where you can actually physically feel the weightiness of his presence, the tingling, you know, on your face and hands.
(09:56):
And so it's like, Lord, if this is you, I want more of it.
So at first I was a little bit cautious.
I wanted to make sure that this was really, really the Lord and not something weird.
But people kept giving testimonies like of healing that they had gotten physical healing and emotional healing.
(10:19):
And I was feeling God's presence there too.
And so I just started going to more and more revival meetings.
I went to different ones around town, different ministers and eventually two things happened.
One, we started having what we called river meetings or Holy Spirit meetings at our house.
(10:44):
And we did that for several years.
And it was amazing that the Holy Spirit will show up at a house.
It doesn't have to be a church, you know.
And so, but then someone said to me, you should go to Toronto because they're really doing what you're doing.
It's there's a soaking school.
(11:06):
That's what y'all are doing, but you could just learn more and all of that.
So, so I went to Toronto and there was a soaking school that led up to a conference.
And the conference was called the Father Loves You Conference.
And at the time, I had no clue how life changing that would be.
(11:30):
I kind of felt like, oh, that's so sweet, you know, Father loves you.
And because at the time I was more into the faith and glory and power of God.
But it was absolutely just what my heart needed.
And so when I went there, I really met God as my heavenly Father for the first time.
(11:58):
So I had known about God and technically he's our Father.
And I really had a strong relationship with Jesus.
But when I went to this conference, I really met God as my Father and realized that I'm his daughter.
Like that's my true identity is his daughter.
(12:21):
And as he we would just lay on the floor and just soak in his presence.
And as his love came into my heart, I just realized like, I'm his daughter.
That's my true identity is I'm his daughter.
So then at the one of the days of the conference, one of the speakers was also adopted.
(12:45):
And he had everyone come to the front that had been adopted.
And I went up for prayer and I just, you know, again felt that presence of God, that love of God.
And it's like it washed away a lot of the feelings of rejection, a lot of the feelings of abandonment.
And I just knew, I just knew in my heart, I'm God's daughter and he loves me and he's he's my real Father.
(13:14):
So, yeah, some of the, you know, when God's love came in, I also had some, you know, some of the pain from being adopted would come to the surface.
And then also my adopted dad was wonderful, but he wasn't a real expressive type of person.
(13:35):
Later in his life, he would say, I love you, but when I was growing up, it really wasn't something that we said to each other.
And he was kind of like a high performance, you know, had high expectations.
And so some of those, the pain of just not really having, you know, a lot of affection and stuff with him kind of rose to the surface and God just began to heal it.
(14:00):
You know, as his love came in, the pain just kind of left in a lot of ways.
How did that impact your day to day life, your outlook, the way that you encountered, you know, dealt with your children?
Did you, did you see a change in your, in your actions and your attitudes going out of that?
There was so much change in my heart.
(14:23):
I had prior to going there, prior to really encountering God as my father, I used to have a lot of anxiety and I would wake up every day thinking,
Oh gosh, I need to please God today.
God's probably disappointed with me.
I need to please him today.
But when I came back, I was just like, it had left, you know, it was like that, that feeling that I need to do something to please God and that he's disappointed with me.
(14:55):
It was just gone.
Another major thing that is important to the rest of the story.
So I'll just throw it in here.
I had also gone to get training from restoring the foundations, which is for inner healing.
And as part of the training, you go through ministry.
And one of the major things was just right after going to Toronto, not long after going to Toronto.
(15:22):
One of the things that was very healing to my heart was the Lord had shown me a picture of myself in the womb.
And as a baby in the womb, I could hear angry voices, I could hear shouting and just a lot of chaos.
(15:43):
So I realized that is where a lot of the fear of rejection, the fear of being murdered had come in because there was a lot of arguing and that kind of thing.
And so then when I asked Jesus to bring healing, I saw a picture of him speaking right to me in the womb, and he was saying, you have a right to exist because I created you.
(16:12):
And I'm so happy that you're about to be born.
And so then I saw a picture of him holding me, you know, after I'm born, he's holding me and he's just so excited.
That moment is one of those mountaintop moments that like I will never forget and that was so life changing.
Because until then I didn't know where, like what was the root?
(16:38):
Why did I feel so different?
Why did I feel like I would always be rejected when other people to my knowledge, you know, didn't feel like that.
So after all of that, yes, it definitely changed how I felt.
It changed the way I parented.
You know, I went from there was a lot of teaching in the 80s and 90s about, you know, parents just need to, you need to teach your kids to obey.
(17:06):
Like that's the number one thing.
But as God did a real work in my heart, it's like I began to parent from my heart and I realized that relationship, like that's the main thing for them to know that they're loved, for them to know that they're accepted and to really encourage them to operate in the gifts that God has given them.
(17:30):
So all the training that you received in Toronto and through the inner healing ministry.
That burst of vision in you, you know, and also kind of out of the river meetings that you were having that burst of vision in you to start a church that would minister healing in the same way.
Share what God did in and through you and that and that church.
(17:52):
How did that get started and what did God do there.
One of the things I had thought was I really felt to start a church and but the thing is being part of the Bible bell.
You know, there's there is a church on every corner pretty much.
And so I thought, well, why would God need us to start another church.
(18:15):
And so but after I went to Toronto, I loved what they were teaching really being founded on the Father heart of God on the prophetic and on inner healing.
I okay, that's what we can do is we'll bring what we've learned there and what we're continuing to learn there to the area we were in the sugar land area.
(18:40):
And so that's what we did.
We started a church really based on the love of God and we brought in speakers from from Toronto and other places that carried the Father heart of God or inner healing and things like that.
And then I taught a lot about inner healing and walking in your true identity and things like that.
(19:06):
So yeah, so and then I had started a school of ministry and really based on everything that you know was learning through Toronto and other places.
God was doing a great work.
I mean, you had that church for a number of years.
And he was doing mighty things.
(19:27):
You were seeing people set free from bondages.
But not everything was healthy on the home front, unfortunately, and your marriage ended in a divorce.
So how did you get through that hard season and reconcile what God was doing in the church with what was happening in your life.
It was a very hard time.
(19:48):
Very difficult.
There had been there was a lot of pressure within the church and just some financial pressures and different things.
But the church had been like my baby and I really did not want to leave it and the relationships there.
(20:09):
And so, but I really felt like the Lord asked me to lay it down.
Because I was senior pastor at the time and but I felt like the Lord said to lay it down and he did show me a scripture where Jesus says no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down and I can raise it up again.
(20:36):
And so I felt like it was a promise from God that he would raise up a ministry again for me. And but that I needed to lay it down at that point.
And I was very, very burned out.
I was very, you know, I'd been ministering for a long time and then there was other the other difficulties and stuff.
And so it was very burned out.
(20:58):
And I at the time I thought, if I could just rest for about a month, I'll be okay.
And then I thought, okay, if I could just rest for six months, then I'll be okay.
But it ended up being almost four years of taking off time from ministry.
God actually gave me a dream that it would be four years before I restarted a ministry.
(21:23):
But I was like, that no, no, no, it won't take that long. But, you know, God knew that I needed that time to rest to recuperate to grieve the marriage to grieve the future that I had thought, you know, I would have and to grieve the church, because, you know, I had left that.
(21:44):
But the main thing that got me through was my relationship with God. And I felt like the main thing he had said to me was, I want you to just be a daughter, just be my daughter.
And that I just held on to that I held on to my relationship with him.
(22:06):
I spent many days and hours just laying on the couch and listening to worship music. And I journaled, I'm a, you know, almost daily journal or that's really pouring out my heart to God and then listening to what he wanted to say back to me was so healing.
(22:30):
And, you know, I did go through ministry and stuff. Also, which was very helpful, but I really just needed time, you know, to recuperate after that.
I also started a business, you know, I had to support myself. And so at the time I started an insurance business.
Yeah, when I was in my early 30s, I was working at a different ministry than I am now and I was I'm type a person, you know, I was saying yes to everything every opportunity that came along I was like this must be God I got to say yes to it I wasn't really stopping to say Lord is this for me.
(23:07):
And I just said yes to everything and and I was enjoying it I was traveling internationally which I love adventure. But one day I woke up in some other country I don't even know where I was, but I woke up and I realized, you know, I love everything I'm doing, but I hate my life,
but I have a relation to me. And I was exhausted. I had lost connection with friends I had missed family occasions because of my ministry business.
(23:40):
And I was, you know, I went back to the office, it was a ministry, you know, and told my boss I can't do this anymore, blah, blah, blah, and fortunately he was a gracious wise man I said okay, let's put some boundaries.
I put some boundaries there and but it took me a year. It took me a year to recover and I, and you know it was just being still, I obviously you still work and used to but it not being busy with every other thing and just letting God restore my soul.
(24:16):
And I was so grateful that the Lord allowed me to learn that fairly early in my life because I have been able to help others who I see are on the path to burnout to say slow down, stop.
Let's intervene here before you get to that point because it takes a long time to recover.
(24:38):
Because you know it's easy for us to want to say yes to everything that comes but not everything that comes is our assignment.
Right, right. And we see like Jesus had very good boundaries, and he would take time, you know, alone he would take time with his small, you know, group of friends to rest and I love the scripture Psalm 23 that says you know he leads me besides still waters he causes me to lie down.
(25:07):
And there he restores my soul. And so since then, even a little bit before I left the church, I make it a regular practice to go away every year, and just have, you know, as long as I can like a week or even two weeks away just for quiet time with God like I find that it's good to be proactive about it before you like you were saying before you get to the burnout stage.
(25:36):
I'm a big proponent of those times away vacations, whatever refills you and you know God created us each differently.
So what those things are that refill us is is different for me than you or somebody else but we have to learn how to be God's child, how to be God's sons and daughters and be with him in and enjoy him.
(26:02):
And I think often we can get so busy with our lives that we forget to enjoy him. One of the early fathers who were I can't remember his name right now.
You know said what is goal of Christianity but it's to know God and enjoy him forever.
Exactly.
It's the enjoying part that we often forget. And that's what saps us of our strength in our, in our energy. Yes.
(26:27):
So during this time when you were being restored you also started researching your birth family. Yes. And you weren't getting really anywhere with it like you said back in the 60s.
The options were closed.
But when your mother, your adopted mother passed away, you decided to pursue it a little further and sent your DNA to an ancestry. Right.
(26:52):
And one of those ancestry things to see what would come up and something did come up. Yes. So share what happened. I had tried several years before I had tried researching to find my family and I was told I found an adoption researcher, but she said your records are sealed.
I don't have, you know, can't really help you.
(27:14):
And so then right when my mom was about to pass away, I didn't know for sure she was about to, but I thought she might be.
It just occurred to me one day, you know, I think I'll send in my DNA to ancestry.com, you know, my mom, she's 95 at that time and she won't know so it's not going to hurt her feelings or anything.
(27:37):
So, so I sent it in. And that was early 2020.
I got the results back in March of 2020. But that's also when the pandemic was starting.
I looked at the results and I was like, I don't even understand what this is. My son helped me and we were like, we think we know who my birth father is, but it looks like he passed away a long time ago, but we couldn't find any information on my birth mother at all.
(28:12):
And so I kind of put it on the back burner because I was moving and there was also, you know, the COVID happening and so, so I moved about three hours away to where I live now and near Austin.
And I happened to see the information about the adoption researcher again. So it occurred to me, well, maybe now that I've got my DNA results, maybe she can help me.
(28:43):
So I reached out to her and she said, sure, just send me your login information and I'll see what I can find for you.
And I gave her the little bit of information that I knew, which was from the adoption attorney that my parents had used, which was that it was, I was born in Dallas, and my birth mother already had two children.
(29:08):
She was single and didn't feel she could raise another child in that, oh, and that she was of English, Irish descent. That is all the information that I had.
So I told her that information. And so she called me the very next day, and she said, you will not believe what I have found for you.
(29:31):
She said, you have a full brother, and he knows about you and he wants to talk to you.
And it was so amazing because first of all, I didn't expect to find a full brother. I thought if I find siblings, they'll be half siblings.
And then to find out that he knew about me and he wants to talk to me, you know, for adoptees, there's a fear of a second rejection, you know, what if I find this family and then they don't want me, they don't want to know anything about me.
(30:08):
So it was very heartwarming to find out. He knew about me and wanted to talk to me.
So we planned, we talked that night, and I talked with him a couple of hours, and his name is Billy.
And he gave me a lot of the family history, and he basically said, you know, you were blessed to have been adopted because, you know, certain things in his upbringing had been difficult.
(30:39):
He told me that his mom, our mom, her name is Rita, he told me that she had told him about me before she passed away.
She had passed away about two years prior to, you know, my finding them.
And I think he may have mentioned that she looked for me at that point, but two days later, he texted me a picture, and it was a picture of Rita, and she's holding a poster.
(31:15):
And it says, I am searching for my daughter due to circumstances beyond my control. I had to place her for adoption.
And then she gives a lot of the details. And then she says, I've never stopped searching for my daughter.
And then she says, if you have any information, you know, please reach out to me.
So she had placed that she had posted that on Facebook.
(31:39):
And it was just so amazing for me to find out that she had looked for me.
She had actively looked for me. And I basically cried that whole day.
I was just flooded, you know, with emotions that day.
So, yeah, so it was just another level of healing, the whole experience.
(32:05):
I've, you know, I got to meet my half brothers that were older.
I've spoken with several of my, I also have half sisters.
So I went from being, having just one older, much older brother that I was raised with to having six, seven, you know, siblings.
(32:28):
And so that's been a lot of fun.
And your brother was able to confirm for you what you had, what you had, what you had seen, what the Lord had revealed to you about the tumultuous time when you were in the womb.
So you really had confirmation that it wasn't just some weird thought, but it was really the Lord was showing you the root cause and healing you from that.
(32:54):
Yes. So I found out that exactly what the Lord had shown me and also what he'd kind of spoken to me later, you know, and when I would pray was that my birth mother had wanted to keep me, but that my birth father did not.
And he actually gave her an ultimatum.
(33:16):
Like it's either keep the baby or, you know, I'm leaving.
If he, if she kept me, he would leave her. So, and she, my birth mother was very young at the time she was 21.
And I was her third child.
And he was much older.
(33:37):
And so she was very dependent on him.
And so, you know, it's an impossible ultimatum that, that he gave her.
So, but it was definitely confirmation to me that, yes, what, what the Lord had shown me was absolutely correct.
Yeah. And how, how sweet and gracious God was to give you a loving, wonderful family to grow up in.
(34:02):
So right from the very beginning, God was guiding your life.
And as you stepped into your destiny and healed from the burnout and the loss of, you know, what you thought life was going to be like, God opened, God's opened up new doors of ministry for you.
So it's been exciting.
Tell us a little about what God has you doing now.
(34:23):
Yes, it has been so exciting.
So one of the things I learned, this was even after I connected with my birth family.
I started, I'd been interested in trauma for a long time and he had even taken a couple of graduate courses about it.
But as I read over like the list of symptoms of PTSD, I started thinking, oh my goodness, this is how I was growing up as a child, like hyper vigilant and fearful and anxious and all those things.
(35:01):
Because I didn't really have that anymore.
But I thought, oh my goodness, I was probably born traumatized.
And so the more I studied brain science and I studied trauma, science has now confirmed that we can be impacted in the womb from the trauma that our mothers, our birth mothers are going through.
(35:26):
So that was so interesting to me. And so I began to study trauma and I got certified as a trauma and resiliency life coach.
And so I started a ministry as well. It's called defined by God ministries.
And so what I've done is I combine trauma and resiliency life coaching with heart healing ministry.
(35:52):
And I have found that they go very well together when we address basically the pain that we have from trauma.
And then we also address like, well, how do I recognize how trauma has impacted me?
How do I recognize when I'm dysregulated and how do I get re-regulated and those types of things.
(36:17):
So that's what I do with my coaching and heart healing clients.
Yeah. And I know that you can't get into real deep information here in our short conversation, but just give a couple of key points or tips or thoughts about what builds resiliency in people.
(36:39):
Because it seems to me that we have a whole generation of younger people who don't know how to bounce back from even slight challenges, I'll say.
So how do we build resiliency in ourselves and how do we build resiliency in our kids?
(37:05):
Well, one of the things that I've learned is that if we can build on the strengths that we already have.
So the trauma and resiliency coaching program that I studied is based on the, it's called a solutagenic approach.
So the opposite would be pathogenic, which is like, here's the problems. Let's fix the problems.
(37:30):
Well, the solutagenic approach is really building on the strengths that people already have.
And a lot of times people are more resilient than they realize.
And they just need someone to kind of walk alongside them and support them and, you know, point that out to them.
Depending on the person's situation, they may just really need a hand because they may be in such a dire situation that they need someone to help pull them up.
(37:59):
But for less serious things, I really love the scriptures where David and the Psalms, who will talk about, you know, he will pour out his complaint to God.
He moans and groans. He says, all day long, basically, I pour out my complaint to God.
But then often by the end of the Psalm, he'll say, but my hope is in God.
(38:25):
And then one scripture says he encouraged himself in the Lord.
And so to me, that is resiliency. It's like, yes, we get down. Yes, we have things to complain about to the Lord.
I love the scripture and I can't think of it right now, but where he says, you know, I pour out my complaint morning, noon and evening.
(38:49):
I pour out my complaint to God.
And he hears me. Like, I love that he's like, God is listening to me, even though we're complaining.
God is listening. And so, but I love the fact that he says he encourages himself.
And so that's what that's one of the things that we can do to build resiliency.
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The other is really realizing the strengths and the talents or gifts or things that we've already overcome.
When we can realize that it was amazing that we overcame it, that can help build resiliency for the future as well.
(39:34):
I think for one thing, and you can tell me if this plays into resilience here or not, but one thing that I've observed also is the ability to forgive and not harbor offense.
Because harboring offense just eats at your soul and forgiveness releases that out and allows God to fill it. Fill you again.
(39:57):
Yes, when we hold bitterness, it's actually physically not healthy for us because it releases certain chemicals, hormones into our body, you know, and stress hormones.
And so we're much better off releasing forgiveness for sure.
And is there a, you shared a couple of scriptures, but is there any other scripture you want, you know, that God used particularly to minister to you that you want to share?
(40:23):
Yes, I'll share two. One is you mentioned it in your opening, which is Psalm 2710.
That had meant so much to me all my life being adopted, you know, even if my mother and father abandoned me, the Lord will take me up and make me his own.
(40:44):
Like that just ministers to my heart so much.
And then the other one is 1st John 3 1. See what great love the father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God.
And that is what we are.
And so I love that because it encompasses the love that he does lavish on us.
(41:10):
And then it also states, that's what we are.
We are his children. So that's why I really love that verse.
Well, as we close, would you share about a woman of the Bible who's inspired, encouraged or taught you something?
Yes, I really admire Deborah from, she's not mentioned too much in the Bible, just a little bit in Judges.
(41:34):
But I admire her because as a female, she didn't let anything stop her from following the call of God that was on her life.
She was a prophet and a judge. She was a leader.
She obviously heard from God.
She was well respected and, you know, as a leader.
(41:58):
And so she's someone that I have really looked up to because she walked in authority and that's what we can do.
You know, that's what we can do as well.
Yeah, you know, there's a song as you've been talking, there's a song written by a gentleman named Stuart Townsend that talks about God's love.
We've been talking about the father's love.
And the first stanza goes, how deep the father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure that he should give his only son to make a wretch his treasure.
(42:32):
How great the pain of searing loss the father turned his face away as wounds begin, which marred the chosen one, bring many sons and daughters to glory.
You know, the father, God paid an enormous price, the pain, death and resurrection of Jesus to adopt each one of us into his family.
We're all adopted into the family of God.
(42:54):
And he's a loving father who has a plan and a purpose for each of us.
And that plan and purpose is good.
So I encourage you listeners, dear listeners to step into the father's love without fear.
Anna, would you take a moment and pray for our listeners?
Father, I just thank you so much for everyone who is listening to this podcast.
(43:19):
I thank you, Father, that they would just come into a knowledge of how very much they are loved and accepted by you.
Father, I thank you that every person will be able to open their hearts to you, they'll be able to just pour out their heart to you and feel closer and closer to you.
(43:45):
Father, I thank you if there's anyone that doesn't know Jesus, that you would just draw them by your Holy Spirit, draw them to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
And that he would just minister to their hearts and bring them to you, to know you as their loving Heavenly Father.
(44:10):
And Father, we just thank you for, as your amazing love saturates each person.
We know first John says that you lavish your love on us.
So I pray that every person listening will experience your love, just filling them and filling their hearts, that they would feel your love very, like it's fresh.
(44:39):
And just filling their hearts.
And I just pray that your Holy Spirit will bring comfort, your Holy Spirit will bring wisdom and just minister to their hearts today in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, thank you for tuning in.
Check out the show notes at hergodstory.org for scriptures and other information we talked about.
(45:03):
There you can also find a free six-week devotional on Women of the Bible.
And consider joining our company of women to support our Witte-Wenorfen Fund.
We'd love also to pray with you on our 24-7 prayer and text line.
So give us a call or text anytime at 855-459-CARE or email us at prayer at somebodycares.org.
(45:24):
And now, dear friends, I bless you with an adaptation of Deuteronomy 3312.
May you, beloved of the Lord, rest secure in him, for he shields you all day long.
And may you, who are loved by the Father, find rest between his shoulders.
Her God Story is a ministry of Somebody Cares America and International.
(45:45):
To find out more about or support the ministry, go to somebodycares.org.
Hey friends, welcome to the Her God Story podcast where you will always hear a good story to encourage and inspire you in your walk with the Lord.
(00:09):
I'm so glad you tuned in. I'm your host, Jodie Chiricosta, ministry leader at Somebody Cares American International, author and traveler on this journey with Jesus.
You know, God cares deeply about the overlooked and hurting among us, and he has a very special place in his heart for widows and orphans.
Over and over again in scripture, he directs us to care for orphans and widows, which is why Somebody Cares created the Widow and Orphan Fund.
(00:36):
As a company of women, we can do so much together to take care of the special needs of those he's put in the care of our ministry partners around the world.
Last year, we built an indoor shower house and bathroom for girls at a children's home in Kenya.
And together, we've been helping three widows living in rural villages in Africa whose husbands died in tragic circumstances, leaving them and their children destitute.
(01:01):
But now, they know they're not abandoned and that God has heard their cries and answered with tangible help.
Please pray about joining our number with a gift at hergodstory.org and click on Help Now. We even accept cryptocurrency.
Psalm 2710 in the New Living Translation reads,
(01:23):
Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.
Hebrews 13.5 tells us that he will never leave us or forsake us, because as John 16.27 tells us, the Father loves us.
Each of us has our own perception of God.
A lot of it's based on our experiences and encounters with people, and so our perceptions of God are often very wrong.
(01:49):
And quite frankly, it's difficult to fully understand who God is because no one is like him.
He is perfect in every way.
I imagine we'll spend all of eternity discovering new things about our wonderful God and Father.
But one thing he wants us to know, understand, and experience in this life is his Father's love for us.
(02:15):
My guest, Anna Harris, has had a revelation of the Father's heart of God, the Father heart of God, after years of feeling abandoned and struggling with fear.
The knowledge of God's love set her free and carried her through a very difficult time in her life.
Now founder of Defined by God Ministries, Anna is a certified trauma and resilience life coach to help Christians discover and live from their true core identity,
(02:39):
finding healing by connecting with the Father in life's journey.
She's also an author, speaker, podcast, and retreat host, and her book, Not Abandon, shares powerful truths of the Father's love for us.
I've enjoyed getting to know Anna, and I know you will too.
Welcome, Anna.
Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
Anna, you were adopted at birth and grew up in a loving, supportive family.
(03:04):
But for many years, you felt insecure and even fearful.
Tell us a little about the early years of your life and what you were experiencing on the inside.
I was adopted at birth, as you said, like into a loving family, and I should have, you know, felt secure and loved and everything.
(03:28):
And on the one hand, I did.
But on the inside, I was very much full of fear.
I had a lot of, like, very deep fears.
I was always afraid of being murdered.
I felt someone always was trying to kill me.
And I felt like I would always be rejected.
(03:50):
I really felt like I didn't even have a place.
Like, I shouldn't even exist.
But on the other hand, my family was very loving and, you know, really doted on me.
And like I said, I had been adopted at birth.
But back then, I was born in 1964,
people didn't think that adoption could have any impact on you because you don't remember it.
(04:17):
And so if we don't remember, how can it have an impact on us?
And it was a private adoption, so I didn't know where I had come from or anything like that.
I knew nothing about my birth family at all.
Yeah. And, you know, you're, you're adopted family, you're family that you grew up with.
I mean, they went to church, you had a knowledge of Jesus.
(04:41):
But in your teen years, you grew bored with church.
And in high school, one of your teachers who was a Christian with a very vibrant relationship with God
made you hungry again for more of God.
Share about her and how that really impacted you.
Yes. So I had grown up, like, really loving Jesus.
And I remember walking up and down my street, talking to Jesus.
(05:04):
But when I got to be a teenager, I kind of thought, you know, this is a boring church.
I don't know if these people really know Jesus very well.
You know, I'm just teenage things too.
But I also think it was the Holy Spirit drawing my heart.
And then one of my teachers, she was what now I know is a spirit, a spirit-filled Christian.
(05:30):
But at the time, I just thought, wow, she really seems to know God because she'll pray out loud,
which was not something we did in our family.
And she was always talking about the Lord and that kind of thing.
And we, she was young and we became good friends.
And so I thought, you know, when I go away to college, I'm going to find a church like she went to.
(05:57):
And so I really now looking back, like, I know it was just, it was the Holy Spirit just drawing my heart.
So when I went away to college, I found a similar church that similar to where she had gone.
And it was very life-changing for sure.
(06:19):
Yeah.
And also, you know, when you were at this church, you got rebaptized.
I mean, you really recommitted your life to the Lord.
And someone even, which was kind of strange to you, someone even had a prophetic word over you,
share about that and kind of what that, what was going on when you heard that in your mind.
(06:41):
Yes.
So this, the new church I was going to was spirit-filled and they had explained,
you should really get rebaptized because, you know, now you're really making a commitment to the Lord.
You know what you're doing.
And when you get baptized, you will be filled with the Holy Spirit and then we're going to pray over you.
(07:04):
And so this was all new to me, but I was 18 years old and everything that they said, I believed it.
I was excited about it.
And so I was filled with the Spirit when I was baptized and then they, someone, several people had prophetic words over me,
but one that really stuck with me was that I would have a ministry of inner healing.
(07:30):
And I didn't even really know what that was at the time, you know, but it turned out to be exactly true.
So it was pretty amazing.
Yeah.
And then when we hear those words, young or anytime in our life, we have to check it with the, with check it with the Lord,
see if it resonates with our spirit.
Obviously that one did because you remembered it many years later.
(07:53):
And we'll get to the second part of the story where you actually are doing that now.
But yeah, it's, you know, the Lord has good plans for us.
He has plans to prosper us and not to harm us to give us a future and a hope,
even though sometimes we take detours along the way, as many of us are prone to do, probably all of us.
And when you were in college, you were seeking the Lord, you met the man who seemed to be everything you were looking for.
(08:22):
And where did that take you?
Yes.
So we got married and we moved to Houston and we raised our children, four children.
We were attending Lakewood Church for a while.
And it was really great.
And, you know, raising our kids in church.
We, I loved Lakewood Church.
(08:44):
It was much, much larger than anything I had ever been to before, but just a great atmosphere, you know, the worship was great.
It was a long time ago when Pastor John Osteen was the pastor at the time.
So, yeah, it was wonderful.
Yeah.
And then in the 1990s, there was really, there were sparks of revival really starting all around Houston as well, where you were living and many other places.
(09:12):
And you started, you and your family started going to some of these meetings.
How did those encounters with God impact you?
And where did you go?
I mean, what did you, you know, what, what did you sense and how did they impact you?
When I had heard about, there was a revival, some revival meetings going on from a friend.
(09:35):
And so I was like, well, I'll check that out.
And when I went, went there, there was such a strong, tangible presence of God, like where you can actually physically feel the weightiness of his presence, the tingling, you know, on your face and hands.
(09:56):
And so it's like, Lord, if this is you, I want more of it.
So at first I was a little bit cautious.
I wanted to make sure that this was really, really the Lord and not something weird.
But people kept giving testimonies like of healing that they had gotten physical healing and emotional healing.
(10:19):
And I was feeling God's presence there too.
And so I just started going to more and more revival meetings.
I went to different ones around town, different ministers and eventually two things happened.
One, we started having what we called river meetings or Holy Spirit meetings at our house.
(10:44):
And we did that for several years.
And it was amazing that the Holy Spirit will show up at a house.
It doesn't have to be a church, you know.
And so, but then someone said to me, you should go to Toronto because they're really doing what you're doing.
It's there's a soaking school.
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That's what y'all are doing, but you could just learn more and all of that.
So, so I went to Toronto and there was a soaking school that led up to a conference.
And the conference was called the Father Loves You Conference.
And at the time, I had no clue how life changing that would be.
(11:30):
I kind of felt like, oh, that's so sweet, you know, Father loves you.
And because at the time I was more into the faith and glory and power of God.
But it was absolutely just what my heart needed.
And so when I went there, I really met God as my heavenly Father for the first time.
(11:58):
So I had known about God and technically he's our Father.
And I really had a strong relationship with Jesus.
But when I went to this conference, I really met God as my Father and realized that I'm his daughter.
Like that's my true identity is his daughter.
(12:21):
And as he we would just lay on the floor and just soak in his presence.
And as his love came into my heart, I just realized like, I'm his daughter.
That's my true identity is I'm his daughter.
So then at the one of the days of the conference, one of the speakers was also adopted.
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And he had everyone come to the front that had been adopted.
And I went up for prayer and I just, you know, again felt that presence of God, that love of God.
And it's like it washed away a lot of the feelings of rejection, a lot of the feelings of abandonment.
And I just knew, I just knew in my heart, I'm God's daughter and he loves me and he's he's my real Father.
(13:14):
So, yeah, some of the, you know, when God's love came in, I also had some, you know, some of the pain from being adopted would come to the surface.
And then also my adopted dad was wonderful, but he wasn't a real expressive type of person.
(13:35):
Later in his life, he would say, I love you, but when I was growing up, it really wasn't something that we said to each other.
And he was kind of like a high performance, you know, had high expectations.
And so some of those, the pain of just not really having, you know, a lot of affection and stuff with him kind of rose to the surface and God just began to heal it.
(14:00):
You know, as his love came in, the pain just kind of left in a lot of ways.
How did that impact your day to day life, your outlook, the way that you encountered, you know, dealt with your children?
Did you, did you see a change in your, in your actions and your attitudes going out of that?
There was so much change in my heart.
(14:23):
I had prior to going there, prior to really encountering God as my father, I used to have a lot of anxiety and I would wake up every day thinking,
Oh gosh, I need to please God today.
God's probably disappointed with me.
I need to please him today.
But when I came back, I was just like, it had left, you know, it was like that, that feeling that I need to do something to please God and that he's disappointed with me.
(14:55):
It was just gone.
Another major thing that is important to the rest of the story.
So I'll just throw it in here.
I had also gone to get training from restoring the foundations, which is for inner healing.
And as part of the training, you go through ministry.
And one of the major things was just right after going to Toronto, not long after going to Toronto.
(15:22):
One of the things that was very healing to my heart was the Lord had shown me a picture of myself in the womb.
And as a baby in the womb, I could hear angry voices, I could hear shouting and just a lot of chaos.
(15:43):
So I realized that is where a lot of the fear of rejection, the fear of being murdered had come in because there was a lot of arguing and that kind of thing.
And so then when I asked Jesus to bring healing, I saw a picture of him speaking right to me in the womb, and he was saying, you have a right to exist because I created you.
(16:12):
And I'm so happy that you're about to be born.
And so then I saw a picture of him holding me, you know, after I'm born, he's holding me and he's just so excited.
That moment is one of those mountaintop moments that like I will never forget and that was so life changing.
Because until then I didn't know where, like what was the root?
(16:38):
Why did I feel so different?
Why did I feel like I would always be rejected when other people to my knowledge, you know, didn't feel like that.
So after all of that, yes, it definitely changed how I felt.
It changed the way I parented.
You know, I went from there was a lot of teaching in the 80s and 90s about, you know, parents just need to, you need to teach your kids to obey.
(17:06):
Like that's the number one thing.
But as God did a real work in my heart, it's like I began to parent from my heart and I realized that relationship, like that's the main thing for them to know that they're loved, for them to know that they're accepted and to really encourage them to operate in the gifts that God has given them.
(17:30):
So all the training that you received in Toronto and through the inner healing ministry.
That burst of vision in you, you know, and also kind of out of the river meetings that you were having that burst of vision in you to start a church that would minister healing in the same way.
Share what God did in and through you and that and that church.
(17:52):
How did that get started and what did God do there.
One of the things I had thought was I really felt to start a church and but the thing is being part of the Bible bell.
You know, there's there is a church on every corner pretty much.
And so I thought, well, why would God need us to start another church.
(18:15):
And so but after I went to Toronto, I loved what they were teaching really being founded on the Father heart of God on the prophetic and on inner healing.
I okay, that's what we can do is we'll bring what we've learned there and what we're continuing to learn there to the area we were in the sugar land area.
(18:40):
And so that's what we did.
We started a church really based on the love of God and we brought in speakers from from Toronto and other places that carried the Father heart of God or inner healing and things like that.
And then I taught a lot about inner healing and walking in your true identity and things like that.
(19:06):
So yeah, so and then I had started a school of ministry and really based on everything that you know was learning through Toronto and other places.
God was doing a great work.
I mean, you had that church for a number of years.
And he was doing mighty things.
(19:27):
You were seeing people set free from bondages.
But not everything was healthy on the home front, unfortunately, and your marriage ended in a divorce.
So how did you get through that hard season and reconcile what God was doing in the church with what was happening in your life.
It was a very hard time.
(19:48):
Very difficult.
There had been there was a lot of pressure within the church and just some financial pressures and different things.
But the church had been like my baby and I really did not want to leave it and the relationships there.
(20:09):
And so, but I really felt like the Lord asked me to lay it down.
Because I was senior pastor at the time and but I felt like the Lord said to lay it down and he did show me a scripture where Jesus says no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down and I can raise it up again.
(20:36):
And so I felt like it was a promise from God that he would raise up a ministry again for me. And but that I needed to lay it down at that point.
And I was very, very burned out.
I was very, you know, I'd been ministering for a long time and then there was other the other difficulties and stuff.
And so it was very burned out.
(20:58):
And I at the time I thought, if I could just rest for about a month, I'll be okay.
And then I thought, okay, if I could just rest for six months, then I'll be okay.
But it ended up being almost four years of taking off time from ministry.
God actually gave me a dream that it would be four years before I restarted a ministry.
(21:23):
But I was like, that no, no, no, it won't take that long. But, you know, God knew that I needed that time to rest to recuperate to grieve the marriage to grieve the future that I had thought, you know, I would have and to grieve the church, because, you know, I had left that.
(21:44):
But the main thing that got me through was my relationship with God. And I felt like the main thing he had said to me was, I want you to just be a daughter, just be my daughter.
And that I just held on to that I held on to my relationship with him.
(22:06):
I spent many days and hours just laying on the couch and listening to worship music. And I journaled, I'm a, you know, almost daily journal or that's really pouring out my heart to God and then listening to what he wanted to say back to me was so healing.
(22:30):
And, you know, I did go through ministry and stuff. Also, which was very helpful, but I really just needed time, you know, to recuperate after that.
I also started a business, you know, I had to support myself. And so at the time I started an insurance business.
Yeah, when I was in my early 30s, I was working at a different ministry than I am now and I was I'm type a person, you know, I was saying yes to everything every opportunity that came along I was like this must be God I got to say yes to it I wasn't really stopping to say Lord is this for me.
(23:07):
And I just said yes to everything and and I was enjoying it I was traveling internationally which I love adventure. But one day I woke up in some other country I don't even know where I was, but I woke up and I realized, you know, I love everything I'm doing, but I hate my life,
but I have a relation to me. And I was exhausted. I had lost connection with friends I had missed family occasions because of my ministry business.
(23:40):
And I was, you know, I went back to the office, it was a ministry, you know, and told my boss I can't do this anymore, blah, blah, blah, and fortunately he was a gracious wise man I said okay, let's put some boundaries.
I put some boundaries there and but it took me a year. It took me a year to recover and I, and you know it was just being still, I obviously you still work and used to but it not being busy with every other thing and just letting God restore my soul.
(24:16):
And I was so grateful that the Lord allowed me to learn that fairly early in my life because I have been able to help others who I see are on the path to burnout to say slow down, stop.
Let's intervene here before you get to that point because it takes a long time to recover.
(24:38):
Because you know it's easy for us to want to say yes to everything that comes but not everything that comes is our assignment.
Right, right. And we see like Jesus had very good boundaries, and he would take time, you know, alone he would take time with his small, you know, group of friends to rest and I love the scripture Psalm 23 that says you know he leads me besides still waters he causes me to lie down.
(25:07):
And there he restores my soul. And so since then, even a little bit before I left the church, I make it a regular practice to go away every year, and just have, you know, as long as I can like a week or even two weeks away just for quiet time with God like I find that it's good to be proactive about it before you like you were saying before you get to the burnout stage.
(25:36):
I'm a big proponent of those times away vacations, whatever refills you and you know God created us each differently.
So what those things are that refill us is is different for me than you or somebody else but we have to learn how to be God's child, how to be God's sons and daughters and be with him in and enjoy him.
(26:02):
And I think often we can get so busy with our lives that we forget to enjoy him. One of the early fathers who were I can't remember his name right now.
You know said what is goal of Christianity but it's to know God and enjoy him forever.
Exactly.
It's the enjoying part that we often forget. And that's what saps us of our strength in our, in our energy. Yes.
(26:27):
So during this time when you were being restored you also started researching your birth family. Yes. And you weren't getting really anywhere with it like you said back in the 60s.
The options were closed.
But when your mother, your adopted mother passed away, you decided to pursue it a little further and sent your DNA to an ancestry. Right.
(26:52):
And one of those ancestry things to see what would come up and something did come up. Yes. So share what happened. I had tried several years before I had tried researching to find my family and I was told I found an adoption researcher, but she said your records are sealed.
I don't have, you know, can't really help you.
(27:14):
And so then right when my mom was about to pass away, I didn't know for sure she was about to, but I thought she might be.
It just occurred to me one day, you know, I think I'll send in my DNA to ancestry.com, you know, my mom, she's 95 at that time and she won't know so it's not going to hurt her feelings or anything.
(27:37):
So, so I sent it in. And that was early 2020.
I got the results back in March of 2020. But that's also when the pandemic was starting.
I looked at the results and I was like, I don't even understand what this is. My son helped me and we were like, we think we know who my birth father is, but it looks like he passed away a long time ago, but we couldn't find any information on my birth mother at all.
(28:12):
And so I kind of put it on the back burner because I was moving and there was also, you know, the COVID happening and so, so I moved about three hours away to where I live now and near Austin.
And I happened to see the information about the adoption researcher again. So it occurred to me, well, maybe now that I've got my DNA results, maybe she can help me.
(28:43):
So I reached out to her and she said, sure, just send me your login information and I'll see what I can find for you.
And I gave her the little bit of information that I knew, which was from the adoption attorney that my parents had used, which was that it was, I was born in Dallas, and my birth mother already had two children.
(29:08):
She was single and didn't feel she could raise another child in that, oh, and that she was of English, Irish descent. That is all the information that I had.
So I told her that information. And so she called me the very next day, and she said, you will not believe what I have found for you.
(29:31):
She said, you have a full brother, and he knows about you and he wants to talk to you.
And it was so amazing because first of all, I didn't expect to find a full brother. I thought if I find siblings, they'll be half siblings.
And then to find out that he knew about me and he wants to talk to me, you know, for adoptees, there's a fear of a second rejection, you know, what if I find this family and then they don't want me, they don't want to know anything about me.
(30:08):
So it was very heartwarming to find out. He knew about me and wanted to talk to me.
So we planned, we talked that night, and I talked with him a couple of hours, and his name is Billy.
And he gave me a lot of the family history, and he basically said, you know, you were blessed to have been adopted because, you know, certain things in his upbringing had been difficult.
(30:39):
He told me that his mom, our mom, her name is Rita, he told me that she had told him about me before she passed away.
She had passed away about two years prior to, you know, my finding them.
And I think he may have mentioned that she looked for me at that point, but two days later, he texted me a picture, and it was a picture of Rita, and she's holding a poster.
(31:15):
And it says, I am searching for my daughter due to circumstances beyond my control. I had to place her for adoption.
And then she gives a lot of the details. And then she says, I've never stopped searching for my daughter.
And then she says, if you have any information, you know, please reach out to me.
So she had placed that she had posted that on Facebook.
(31:39):
And it was just so amazing for me to find out that she had looked for me.
She had actively looked for me. And I basically cried that whole day.
I was just flooded, you know, with emotions that day.
So, yeah, so it was just another level of healing, the whole experience.
(32:05):
I've, you know, I got to meet my half brothers that were older.
I've spoken with several of my, I also have half sisters.
So I went from being, having just one older, much older brother that I was raised with to having six, seven, you know, siblings.
(32:28):
And so that's been a lot of fun.
And your brother was able to confirm for you what you had, what you had, what you had seen, what the Lord had revealed to you about the tumultuous time when you were in the womb.
So you really had confirmation that it wasn't just some weird thought, but it was really the Lord was showing you the root cause and healing you from that.
(32:54):
Yes. So I found out that exactly what the Lord had shown me and also what he'd kind of spoken to me later, you know, and when I would pray was that my birth mother had wanted to keep me, but that my birth father did not.
And he actually gave her an ultimatum.
(33:16):
Like it's either keep the baby or, you know, I'm leaving.
If he, if she kept me, he would leave her. So, and she, my birth mother was very young at the time she was 21.
And I was her third child.
And he was much older.
(33:37):
And so she was very dependent on him.
And so, you know, it's an impossible ultimatum that, that he gave her.
So, but it was definitely confirmation to me that, yes, what, what the Lord had shown me was absolutely correct.
Yeah. And how, how sweet and gracious God was to give you a loving, wonderful family to grow up in.
(34:02):
So right from the very beginning, God was guiding your life.
And as you stepped into your destiny and healed from the burnout and the loss of, you know, what you thought life was going to be like, God opened, God's opened up new doors of ministry for you.
So it's been exciting.
Tell us a little about what God has you doing now.
(34:23):
Yes, it has been so exciting.
So one of the things I learned, this was even after I connected with my birth family.
I started, I'd been interested in trauma for a long time and he had even taken a couple of graduate courses about it.
But as I read over like the list of symptoms of PTSD, I started thinking, oh my goodness, this is how I was growing up as a child, like hyper vigilant and fearful and anxious and all those things.
(35:01):
Because I didn't really have that anymore.
But I thought, oh my goodness, I was probably born traumatized.
And so the more I studied brain science and I studied trauma, science has now confirmed that we can be impacted in the womb from the trauma that our mothers, our birth mothers are going through.
(35:26):
So that was so interesting to me. And so I began to study trauma and I got certified as a trauma and resiliency life coach.
And so I started a ministry as well. It's called defined by God ministries.
And so what I've done is I combine trauma and resiliency life coaching with heart healing ministry.
(35:52):
And I have found that they go very well together when we address basically the pain that we have from trauma.
And then we also address like, well, how do I recognize how trauma has impacted me?
How do I recognize when I'm dysregulated and how do I get re-regulated and those types of things.
(36:17):
So that's what I do with my coaching and heart healing clients.
Yeah. And I know that you can't get into real deep information here in our short conversation, but just give a couple of key points or tips or thoughts about what builds resiliency in people.
(36:39):
Because it seems to me that we have a whole generation of younger people who don't know how to bounce back from even slight challenges, I'll say.
So how do we build resiliency in ourselves and how do we build resiliency in our kids?
(37:05):
Well, one of the things that I've learned is that if we can build on the strengths that we already have.
So the trauma and resiliency coaching program that I studied is based on the, it's called a solutagenic approach.
So the opposite would be pathogenic, which is like, here's the problems. Let's fix the problems.
(37:30):
Well, the solutagenic approach is really building on the strengths that people already have.
And a lot of times people are more resilient than they realize.
And they just need someone to kind of walk alongside them and support them and, you know, point that out to them.
Depending on the person's situation, they may just really need a hand because they may be in such a dire situation that they need someone to help pull them up.
(37:59):
But for less serious things, I really love the scriptures where David and the Psalms, who will talk about, you know, he will pour out his complaint to God.
He moans and groans. He says, all day long, basically, I pour out my complaint to God.
But then often by the end of the Psalm, he'll say, but my hope is in God.
(38:25):
And then one scripture says he encouraged himself in the Lord.
And so to me, that is resiliency. It's like, yes, we get down. Yes, we have things to complain about to the Lord.
I love the scripture and I can't think of it right now, but where he says, you know, I pour out my complaint morning, noon and evening.
(38:49):
I pour out my complaint to God.
And he hears me. Like, I love that he's like, God is listening to me, even though we're complaining.
God is listening. And so, but I love the fact that he says he encourages himself.
And so that's what that's one of the things that we can do to build resiliency.
(39:13):
The other is really realizing the strengths and the talents or gifts or things that we've already overcome.
When we can realize that it was amazing that we overcame it, that can help build resiliency for the future as well.
(39:34):
I think for one thing, and you can tell me if this plays into resilience here or not, but one thing that I've observed also is the ability to forgive and not harbor offense.
Because harboring offense just eats at your soul and forgiveness releases that out and allows God to fill it. Fill you again.
(39:57):
Yes, when we hold bitterness, it's actually physically not healthy for us because it releases certain chemicals, hormones into our body, you know, and stress hormones.
And so we're much better off releasing forgiveness for sure.
And is there a, you shared a couple of scriptures, but is there any other scripture you want, you know, that God used particularly to minister to you that you want to share?
(40:23):
Yes, I'll share two. One is you mentioned it in your opening, which is Psalm 2710.
That had meant so much to me all my life being adopted, you know, even if my mother and father abandoned me, the Lord will take me up and make me his own.
(40:44):
Like that just ministers to my heart so much.
And then the other one is 1st John 3 1. See what great love the father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God.
And that is what we are.
And so I love that because it encompasses the love that he does lavish on us.
(41:10):
And then it also states, that's what we are.
We are his children. So that's why I really love that verse.
Well, as we close, would you share about a woman of the Bible who's inspired, encouraged or taught you something?
Yes, I really admire Deborah from, she's not mentioned too much in the Bible, just a little bit in Judges.
(41:34):
But I admire her because as a female, she didn't let anything stop her from following the call of God that was on her life.
She was a prophet and a judge. She was a leader.
She obviously heard from God.
She was well respected and, you know, as a leader.
(41:58):
And so she's someone that I have really looked up to because she walked in authority and that's what we can do.
You know, that's what we can do as well.
Yeah, you know, there's a song as you've been talking, there's a song written by a gentleman named Stuart Townsend that talks about God's love.
We've been talking about the father's love.
And the first stanza goes, how deep the father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure that he should give his only son to make a wretch his treasure.
(42:32):
How great the pain of searing loss the father turned his face away as wounds begin, which marred the chosen one, bring many sons and daughters to glory.
You know, the father, God paid an enormous price, the pain, death and resurrection of Jesus to adopt each one of us into his family.
We're all adopted into the family of God.
(42:54):
And he's a loving father who has a plan and a purpose for each of us.
And that plan and purpose is good.
So I encourage you listeners, dear listeners to step into the father's love without fear.
Anna, would you take a moment and pray for our listeners?
Father, I just thank you so much for everyone who is listening to this podcast.
(43:19):
I thank you, Father, that they would just come into a knowledge of how very much they are loved and accepted by you.
Father, I thank you that every person will be able to open their hearts to you, they'll be able to just pour out their heart to you and feel closer and closer to you.
(43:45):
Father, I thank you if there's anyone that doesn't know Jesus, that you would just draw them by your Holy Spirit, draw them to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
And that he would just minister to their hearts and bring them to you, to know you as their loving Heavenly Father.
(44:10):
And Father, we just thank you for, as your amazing love saturates each person.
We know first John says that you lavish your love on us.
So I pray that every person listening will experience your love, just filling them and filling their hearts, that they would feel your love very, like it's fresh.
(44:39):
And just filling their hearts.
And I just pray that your Holy Spirit will bring comfort, your Holy Spirit will bring wisdom and just minister to their hearts today in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, thank you for tuning in.
Check out the show notes at hergodstory.org for scriptures and other information we talked about.
(45:03):
There you can also find a free six-week devotional on Women of the Bible.
And consider joining our company of women to support our Witte-Wenorfen Fund.
We'd love also to pray with you on our 24-7 prayer and text line.
So give us a call or text anytime at 855-459-CARE or email us at prayer at somebodycares.org.
(45:24):
And now, dear friends, I bless you with an adaptation of Deuteronomy 3312.
May you, beloved of the Lord, rest secure in him, for he shields you all day long.
And may you, who are loved by the Father, find rest between his shoulders.
Her God Story is a ministry of Somebody Cares America and International.
(45:45):
To find out more about or support the ministry, go to somebodycares.org.
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