April 15, 2024 • 25 mins
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Welcome to a captivating episode of the Faithfully Feminine Podcast presented by the eloquent Imani Bailey. In this episode, we touch upon the profound topics of faith and hope, bringing to light their significance in navigating through the hurdles in our lives, particularly those relating to womanhood. Imani opens up about her personal challenges and emphasizes the value of hope during times of adversity, dispelling the distinction between feeling helpless and feeling hopeless.
We are delighted to announce some thrilling news about new changes including the shift of our podcast upload schedule. We transfer our uploads from Mondays to Wednesdays and invite you to join our devoted community for our upcoming content, free giveaways, and much more. We bring your attention to our latest venture, Faithfully Feminine Co., an Etsy shop bustling with unique digital products.
Building upon the Bible's teachings about hope, we journey through the Book of Romans and discuss how hope intertwines with faith and trust in God. Learn from Imani's personal experience with job loss and how she has turned her hardship into an opportunity for spiritual growth.
Imani shares heartfelt personal narratives and emphasizes how expectations tied to emotions can lead to unrest. Listen in as we delve into this predicament, offering healthier alternatives to foster positive mental health. We underscore the importance of understanding generational problems and the benefits this perspective has on tackling personal adversities. Aided by excerpts from the Hebrews and Luke, we witness faith and hope in action and their immense influence in getting through difficult periods.
Take home five impactful strategies for enhancing and preserving hope in your personal journey - developing a profound relationship with God, letting go of the reins, remembering God's promises, truly understanding the origin of your faith, and aligning with God's intentions. As we wrap up, never forget that adversities are temporary and faith everlasting. Join us every Wednesday for new insightful episodes and become part of our flourishing Faithfully Feminine community!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, it girls. I hope you all are doing amazing.
Welcome to Faithfully Feminine Podcast, where I, your host, Imani Bailey,
shares all things faith, all things feminine, and practical ways to transform
yourself through navigating womanhood.
While sharing lessons God has taught me along the way, sit back,
relax, and let's get into some things.
(00:24):
Girl, these allergies are literally kicking my butt. I don't know what is going
on. I can't even record video today.
No TikTok, no YouTube, no makeup on my face. This is crazy. My face is literally
itching and everything.
Pray for your girl as I'm going through allergy season in DC.
Share this episode with a friend, y'all. And before we have to do updates,
(00:46):
because I know we've had two bye weeks.
One, we have to go back to the Wednesday uploads.
I know, I'm sorry. And it pains me to do this, but the Monday uploads for the
podcast is just not working for me.
And I don't know why I changed it in the first place, but we're just gonna have
to change it back The good news is I think you all are used to me of uploading
the podcast on wednesdays Anyway,
(01:08):
this will be the last monday upload which is why it's coming so late because
I just was not able to get this Out this morning monday is just not a good day for me.
Like i'm sorry So from here on out I am declaring the podcast episodes will
be each and every wednesday weekly basically wherever you get your podcasts from.
(01:29):
Also, you can find them on my YouTube channel. There is an audio version of them.
And then if you want more content from me, if you enjoy what you are hearing,
you can also subscribe to my YouTube channel. Everything will be in the description box.
If you're listening to this and you are not part of my community,
go ahead, enjoy my community. It is free and you get a free gratitude journal.
(01:50):
When you input your email on the website. So be gracious, girly. Let's get right into it.
I think that's really all the updates I have for you all today.
Podcast episodes will continue on Wednesday. Signing up for the community and
you get a free gratitude journal.
Also, I'm forgetting the update. I also did upload and create an Etsy shop.
(02:13):
So we have more digital products coming soon.
For those of you all who utilize the website and everything,
you can also just get the the digital products when they do come out on there and via email.
But for the girlies who just, I don't know, want to support me in all my endeavors,
I do have an Etsy shop now and it's called Faithfully Feminine Co.
So that will be in the description box as well. And it will go out for next week's email.
(02:37):
You all get an email from me once a week on Mondays with new content.
So shout out to the girlies for today because I know y'all saw that Sephora email that was sent out.
So So love you bunches. Let's hop right into this message because this message
has, this is not something I want to speak about completely honest,
full transparency here.
This is something that God put on my heart to speak about.
(02:59):
And I had to humble myself and realize that it's not about me all the time.
It's not about me, period.
So hope, what is hope? And I had to do a extensive bit of research.
Y'all know I always start off with the definition. So we're going to start off
with the Webster's definition. of hope.
And that is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.
(03:24):
Then I was like, you know what? I don't know what hope is because in my head,
I was getting hope mixed up with faith.
And so I asked God, what is the difference between hope and faith?
And we're going to get there in this episode.
But before I had delved into my Bible, I picked up my Webster's first.
And then I was like, okay, now we're going to go into the book of truth, child.
(03:47):
This episode is coming at a time where last, if y'all follow me on TikTok,
I lost my job. The job lost me.
Let's get that squared away. I was the last Black woman standing.
I lost my job. I'm so proud of myself.
How I lost my job and everything, the story, I had went over it on my TikTok
(04:07):
live that happens every Thursday, 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time,
but that's not what what we're here for.
I talked about the story and how I lost my job and how everything aligned, right?
And so my friends and people who have reached out to me were asking me like,
how do you feel? Are you okay?
My mom was a bit surprised. It was like, you seem like you're in high spirits.
(04:29):
Like, and for once in my life, a catastrophe struck and I did not feel hopeless.
I didn't feel hopeless. I felt helpless, but I wasn't hopeless.
And I started to recognize the spiritual growth that I have.
(04:53):
It's a very interesting thing when you start to recognize, my pastor has said
this this past week, when you start to realize the growth, like when you start
to get them gains from the gym or lose those pounds on the scale and it comes
into fruition, like, wow, this is actually happening.
I started to realize and recognize my spiritual growth both because typically
when a catastrophe arises, I've talked about this before, I used to struggle with catastrophizing.
(05:16):
And if I would have lost my job in my head, I already would have been under
the bridge by the time three o'clock rolled around.
Like, okay, my furniture is going to be out on the street. Like,
I don't know how I'm going to pay for this stuff. I really don't.
But in knowing that I didn't know what I could do in that moment or what could help.
I mean, nothing could help. It's It's not like I was going to beg for my job back.
(05:39):
I was getting fired because discrimination is the color of my skin.
There's nothing I could do about it. Right.
I felt helpless in that moment because I knew that there was nothing that I
could do to fix anything, but I wasn't hopeless.
And at that time and in that moment in time, I didn't realize that I wasn't
(06:00):
hopeless. I didn't realize that I truly had hope.
I just realized I just knew like, OK, I felt at peace.
I felt peace. After I got off the call of them firing me, I closed my laptop.
I finished eating my lunch and I praised the Lord.
I did. I danced around my kitchen with my dog on my hip like he was a baby, a toddler.
(06:20):
I danced around the kitchen to one of my favorite songs and I had a good old time.
So what does it truly mean to be without hope or to be hopeless?
It means that you have no desires or expectations of God and his promises.
(06:41):
And one could say is adjacent to not trusting God and not trusting that he will
stand on his word and what is already written.
Hopeless is the feeling that nothing can be done by anyone to make the situation better.
Helpless is a bit different. helpless I knew that I
couldn't I couldn't help myself right I knew
(07:05):
that there was nothing I could personally do to make
the situation any better or to feel any
better personally there was nothing that I could do the only thing I knew I
could do and that I did was to just praise the Lord honestly it was my first
time like I'm so proud I'm like I have a huge smile because Because I'm pretty
(07:28):
sure it might not be you listening to this, like you lost your job,
but something probably has happened in your life before.
And typically you might've like gone off. Like with me, I probably would go
off on somebody, but this time I praise the Lord.
When they had sold those lies to me, usually I would respond because I'm very
quick at the tongue, quick at the mouth.
(07:49):
But this time I was silent.
And my silence, I understood, was not a weakness because I prayed to God and
I asked him, I asked the Holy Spirit to help guide me to be very,
to give me wisdom to know when to speak and when not to.
And if I needed to say anything, Lord, help me have the courage to say something.
(08:11):
But if I don't need to say it, help me have the courage to shut up.
And in that moment, I was told to shut up in a nice way. And so I was helpless.
So hope, in a sense, is having confidence that God is going to do what he says he is going to do.
(08:32):
And so we're going to open up. You don't have to open up, actually.
I'm going to read it out to you.
Romans 15, 4 reads, For everything that is written in the past was written to
teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the scriptures and the encouragement
they provide, we might have hope.
Hope and so when I was reading this in my she reads truth
bible I was delving into many
(08:54):
scriptures about hope and trying to understand the context
in which it was said right in the actual scripture itself and I
asked the holy spirit because I just I did not understand what is
the difference between hope and faith and I was led that I was led to faith
is adjacent to believing faith is believing in what God has already done and
(09:17):
believing that he already did it, for it is finished,
right? Jesus already died on the cross.
Everything that God did is already done.
Hope is believing what God is going to do.
Does that make sense? It hasn't been done yet, and so you're hoping for it.
Sarah and Abraham was hoping for a child.
(09:41):
I'm hoping to get another job. I'm hoping, not actually, I'm not hoping for,
I'm hoping to become a full-time content creator and entrepreneurship.
You are hoping for your marriage to, I don't know, blossom more.
You're hoping for your child to get into that college.
Hope is believing in what God is going to do for you.
(10:07):
And then I was at a crossroads because I was like, okay, it's possible to have
faith and to believe in God, but not have hope in your current situation and in your season.
Because let's face it, every season is going to have trials and tribulations, right?
And so in that moment of me getting fired, I didn't feel anything. Actually, I
(10:28):
I felt nothing. I had no worry. I felt peace.
And I didn't even hope for a different outcome.
I mean, now that has all come to fruition and reality and I'm able to sit,
I have hope in the Lord for I know that he is my provider and he provides provision
(10:49):
and he provides community and he provides outlets.
And in the span of a week from being fired, I have noticed all,
I've always noticed what God has provided for me, which is why I always talk
about my gratitude journal, because it helps you get into the practice of showing
gratitude for the things that you have, even the smallest things.
You can point out to say, hey, I'm really thankful for that.
(11:12):
I'm really thankful for my friend just calling me just to see how I am doing randomly, me, right?
And so in this week, I've seen God move so much. Oh my gosh.
But with that, what happens when someone who doesn't believe in God,
someone who does not know God, someone who doesn't read God's word,
someone who is lukewarm or someone who just does not know about Christianity
(11:37):
or about any of that, what happens when like the average person does not have
hope and they're they're hopeless.
It's because they're putting their hope and desires and their expectations on
something that is not firm. The foundation is rocky.
When you start to put your hope into people's words, that's where you start going wrong.
That man said that he was going to ask you to be his girlfriend, right?
(12:00):
So you start hoping for, oh, maybe
one day this is going to be the date he asked me to be his girlfriend.
But what you fail to realize is that people, People, we are all flawed.
Or what some of us fail to realize, me too, me included, people are flawed.
And so when you start hoping and having expectations from people who don't even
respect themselves or really don't even...
(12:21):
Show themselves love or show up for themselves, that's when you might become
hopeless because those things do not come to pass.
And then you start to log online and then all of a sudden it starts spiraling
because let's face it, there's no way we get online without hearing people bash women.
I can't tell you the last time I opened up my phone to get on social media and
(12:42):
I have not seen a man bash a woman.
I have simultaneously swept and changed my algorithm and still some some way,
somehow, I see men bashing women still on my feet.
There's no escaping it. And then when you're consuming stuff like that, you might get hopeless.
You might feel hopeless about finding a partner or feel hopeless about finding
(13:05):
a job because you hear that AI is going to wipe all the jobs away.
You might feel hopeless that you will never have buy a house because you're
looking at the financial market and all the homes you are are seeing are a million
dollars and you don't have a million dollars or a down payment in your bank account,
you might start to feel hopeless based off of the things that you consume because
(13:25):
you have these expectations on things that are ever moving and ever changing.
And then when you start to, especially for me, intertwine your expectations
and your desires, attach them to your emotions that change a lot. Oh my gosh.
Emotions do not last forever. I have to remind myself this.
(13:45):
And so when you start lumping in your hope and your desires and your expectations
on something that is so ever-changing, you will be in this circling the drain
moment of feeling hopeless and helpless and forget about it.
There's nothing anyone can do. All the men are terrible.
All the jobs are terrible. I'm just going to have to accept this.
I'm going to have to accept less, or I'm going to have to...
(14:06):
And then you start to do what is not on your path and what God has for you. And then, boom.
I literally just debunked part of the enemy's plan. You see how easy it just goes? Like.
So they'll be disappointed more times than others. You will start to believe
in what the enemy wants you to believe, that there is no good.
(14:28):
And I would tell this to my, I literally said this to my friend the other day.
She was just like, this generation is terrible.
Like, are we going to find husbands? This is terrible, blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, every generation is terrible.
It's just that we're able to see how terrible the people are, honestly.
The other generations didn't have social media. You didn't really get to see
it every day. You weren't consuming it every day. wasn't pinging you and giving you notifications.
(14:53):
I said, the men been horrible. There was men going to work when there was no
cell phones and not coming back and starting new families.
This has been a thing. Men needed regulation, which is why they got child support and stuff.
Come on now, which is why housewives were getting money after they got divorced.
There's always been this. It's just, it was different, but it was always the same.
(15:17):
There's nothing, the Bible talks about how there's nothing new under the sun. Nothing is new.
It's just a different way of perceiving it. We're able to see more of the world
and see that, oh, people in UK feel the same way about X, Y, and Z.
Whereas back then, you didn't really know.
My mom, for instance, was talking about back in the day when you had to go in
person to apply to a job. I was like, oh my gosh.
(15:39):
I was like, I just see I've applied for some jobs on LinkedIn.
I was like, I can only imagine back in the day, y'all actually have to like
dress up, go in person, get a job application, fill it out, give them your physical resume.
And she's like, yeah, but back
then it felt easier because you're only traveling in a certain radius.
You're not getting online resumes from all over the world.
(15:59):
And I'm like, oh, well, I mean, I guess.
Okay. I never put it in perspective like that. Right. And so promises from people
are not something substantial to have hope and to have a foundation in that is not firm.
One of Elevation's favorite songs, like I've been singing this song all week,
Christ is my firm foundation, the rock on which I stand.
(16:22):
If you got a faulty foundation, baby, you're just going to sway either way.
So faith is believing what God has already done. I touched on this a little
bit before because I honestly did not understand the difference between hope and faith.
And there are two verses that I have, Hebrews, both found in Hebrews.
So one is Hebrews Hebrews 11, one through six. The other one is Hebrews 6,
(16:44):
11 through 12. We're going to read Hebrews 6, 11 through 12.
I'm going to put the other one in the description so you all can read it on your own.
And we're going to talk a little bit about the woman in Luke.
And I'm going to give you some helpful tips and what happens when you increase
your hope and how to actually increase your hope so that when a storm happens,
(17:07):
whenever something falls through,
you are not hopeless.
Music.
States, we want each of you to show the same diligence to the very end so that
(17:28):
what you hope for may be fully realized.
We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those through faith and patience
inherit what has been promised.
So through faith and through patience, you will get what the Lord has promised, basically.
And so this is a beautiful verse. Holy Spirit led me me to this verse,
(17:51):
and I had highlighted it. I was like, oh, this is the one. This is here, right?
And then in Luke, I'm not going to go over the whole thing for the sake of time,
but in Luke 7, 36 through 50, that's about the woman who had washed Jesus' feet.
And it was very interesting because I kept praying to the Lord.
I said, I'm still not really grasping it. And once I had finished this, I had grasped it.
(18:14):
Basically, long story short, this is the Atlanta version. conversion,
Jesus came in, this woman had her baccarat, but it was only a smidgen left,
and she probably was much like me, she lost her job, and she's like,
I'ma just, I'ma just give her my last, like, I'ma wash his feet,
like, thank you so much, I'ma wash his feet, I'ma dry his feet.
(18:34):
And, you know, she, she was sinning before, you know, probably,
maybe her job was at Magic City, who knows, maybe her job was at Magic City,
and I forgot which, which, not me trying to recall, call this a memory.
Again, Atlanta version. Y'all please read the verses.
But basically, God was like, Jesus said, she had already, this is the Holy Spirit
(18:55):
led me to, because I didn't get it. I was like, yeah, she gave her last.
And I've heard this story many times.
But it's not that she gave her last. It's the fact that she was treating Jesus
and thanking him as if it has already been done.
And that's when he said, go and your faith has restored you.
You have been been forgiven, go in faith, you know?
(19:16):
And so that's when it dawned on me like, oh, I've never thought about it that
way, that she was praising the Lord as if it already happened.
That is faith because what God has already done, who has already showed himself
to be, and up until that point, of course, Jesus didn't die on the cross yet,
(19:39):
but up until that point, he already showed himself to be the Messiah.
And so she was thanking him as if she already was forgiven for her sins. That is faith.
And so let me give you all the verses again. Everything will be in description
box because that literally was an Atlanta version.
Luke 7, 36 through 50. And that's about the woman washing Jesus' feet.
(20:04):
And the last part of this is to how to increase your hope.
And so the first thing is to spend time with God.
You have to know the Lord. You can't have expectations and desires on someone that you don't know.
Because if you do, that's fair, like, I mean, come on now.
It's like the living in your delulu. Oh, I have expectations and desires from
(20:26):
this man, but you just met him. You don't know that man.
Know the Lord. And to know somebody, you have to spend time with him.
To spend time with him means you have to read your word, means you need to be
going to church, means you need to be spending time with him in community.
Just like when you date someone, the reason why I always have this parallel
to dating is because it's something that women, we can all, like we all can agree on dating.
(20:48):
We all know how it feels to date. Right?
But it's like getting to know someone is essentially dating them.
You can have dates with God. You can have dates with Jesus.
And when you date someone, you want to vet them, right?
You want your friends to meet him. You want to get to know God with other people
because they're going to have different perspectives.
They're going to have different outlooks on certain verses. They're going to
(21:10):
pull you up when you need reassurance. They're going to speak life into you.
And so that's the first thing, to know the Lord and to spend time with him.
The second thing is to relinquish control by knowing that you are not the author.
This is something that I struggle with. The Holy Spirit has condemned me on
this. You cannot be in control. You aren't the Alpha and the Omega.
(21:30):
You aren't the author of anything. You cannot always control everything and
its outcome. Right. right?
And so you have to be, when you relinquish your control, and if you're anything
like me, I was like, I thought I'm not being control freak.
And God was like, look how you're praying to me. You are trying to be in control.
You have to be okay with getting what God gives you daily. God gives you daily bread.
(21:53):
And so if God gives you a word or something to do, and you're like,
okay, but what about a week from now?
Okay, so what am I going to do next month when my car Cardinal is coming up.
And God is like, look, baby, worry about today.
That's me. I'm like, you asking me about next week. You need to be worried about
today. Relinquish your control.
The third thing is to recall God's promises.
(22:17):
And the only way you can recall God's promises is through repetition and community.
Because one thing about the Bible is a breathing document. argument.
Everyone can interpret certain things differently.
And sometimes there's a lot of verses in the Bible. I've grown up in the church.
I have recollections of, like I just said, the woman who washed Jesus' feet,
(22:38):
but I never looked at that verse that way.
And when speaking with others and being in community with others,
they can give you a different outlook on certain things.
They can remind you of certain promises that you might have forgotten that God
has given you. And also Also, repetition.
So repetition, when my mom, I used to, I used to be a cheerleader.
Practice makes perfect, right?
(22:59):
Perfection is not something that like actually really strive for.
But when you repetitive, like, okay, I'm going to remember this one Bible verse this week.
This is the Bible verse that I'm going to focus on and I'm going to meditate
and I'm going to sit at the top of my mind.
So that when a storm arises, boom, it pops up in your head.
It's like, it's just, it's like, oh, I started to worry, but then I started
(23:21):
to, the birds don't even worry and God feeds them.
Am I not better than the birds? I am. Okay, nevermind.
It's not even that big of a deal, right? So recall his promises is number three.
Number four is to understand your foundation.
What is your foundation on? Because if your foundation is on these men on Twitter
or these men on these podcasts or the US Consensus Bureau telling you that 33%
(23:44):
of people in DC will never buy a home, I don't know, I just made that up.
If that is your foundation, you are in trouble because your foundation has has to be the rock.
It has to be something that is never changing, something that is solid.
And the only foundation that is good at sowing into is God.
So check your foundation. What are you standing on? What are you putting your hope in?
(24:07):
And the last thing is to get in alignment with God.
I love when people always look, I don't know what verse that is,
but it's like, God will give you the desires of your heart.
And people just say that it's almost like a Kanye a waste type of situation,
how he's like beefing with God right now. Y'all saw that interview?
Kanye West apparently is beefing with God right now. He mad at God because he
(24:28):
asked God for something and God didn't give it to him.
And he just feels like God don't like him because he keep asking for stuff and
he keep like, apparently God
is just some genie that's supposed to do everything that you want to do.
But it's like, when you're doing the rest of these four things that I had talked
about, your desires will change.
Like my desires are not the same as they were as I am growing in my faith with God.
(24:49):
And my desire starts to align with his will.
And so when it's like, well, God will give you the desires of your heart.
That's not the desire of your heart every other Sunday when you may or may not
show up outside of any type of community.
You just go on to God for like a genie in a lamp type of situation.
So those are five ways you can increase hope so that you will not feel hopeless
(25:14):
whenever something happens in your life. And yes, when I lost my job,
I didn't feel nothing that day.
The next day I was like, wait a second now.
I sure did wanted to shop this sale. Now I can't.
That's when reality had started to set in. And I was like, hurt.
My feelings were still valid.
(25:36):
That doesn't mean that I can't feel how I feel, but I know how I feel is not
going to last forever. ever.
And so with that, I want you to share this with a friend. I love you all so much.
Don't forget to sign up to be a part of my community and I'll see y'all next
Wednesday, babe. I'll see y'all next Wednesday, not Monday.
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, it girls. I hope you all are doing amazing.
Welcome to Faithfully Feminine Podcast, where I, your host, Imani Bailey,
shares all things faith, all things feminine, and practical ways to transform
yourself through navigating womanhood.
While sharing lessons God has taught me along the way, sit back,
relax, and let's get into some things.
(00:24):
Girl, these allergies are literally kicking my butt. I don't know what is going
on. I can't even record video today.
No TikTok, no YouTube, no makeup on my face. This is crazy. My face is literally
itching and everything.
Pray for your girl as I'm going through allergy season in DC.
Share this episode with a friend, y'all. And before we have to do updates,
(00:46):
because I know we've had two bye weeks.
One, we have to go back to the Wednesday uploads.
I know, I'm sorry. And it pains me to do this, but the Monday uploads for the
podcast is just not working for me.
And I don't know why I changed it in the first place, but we're just gonna have
to change it back The good news is I think you all are used to me of uploading
the podcast on wednesdays Anyway,
(01:08):
this will be the last monday upload which is why it's coming so late because
I just was not able to get this Out this morning monday is just not a good day for me.
Like i'm sorry So from here on out I am declaring the podcast episodes will
be each and every wednesday weekly basically wherever you get your podcasts from.
(01:29):
Also, you can find them on my YouTube channel. There is an audio version of them.
And then if you want more content from me, if you enjoy what you are hearing,
you can also subscribe to my YouTube channel. Everything will be in the description box.
If you're listening to this and you are not part of my community,
go ahead, enjoy my community. It is free and you get a free gratitude journal.
(01:50):
When you input your email on the website. So be gracious, girly. Let's get right into it.
I think that's really all the updates I have for you all today.
Podcast episodes will continue on Wednesday. Signing up for the community and
you get a free gratitude journal.
Also, I'm forgetting the update. I also did upload and create an Etsy shop.
(02:13):
So we have more digital products coming soon.
For those of you all who utilize the website and everything,
you can also just get the the digital products when they do come out on there and via email.
But for the girlies who just, I don't know, want to support me in all my endeavors,
I do have an Etsy shop now and it's called Faithfully Feminine Co.
So that will be in the description box as well. And it will go out for next week's email.
(02:37):
You all get an email from me once a week on Mondays with new content.
So shout out to the girlies for today because I know y'all saw that Sephora email that was sent out.
So So love you bunches. Let's hop right into this message because this message
has, this is not something I want to speak about completely honest,
full transparency here.
This is something that God put on my heart to speak about.
(02:59):
And I had to humble myself and realize that it's not about me all the time.
It's not about me, period.
So hope, what is hope? And I had to do a extensive bit of research.
Y'all know I always start off with the definition. So we're going to start off
with the Webster's definition. of hope.
And that is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.
(03:24):
Then I was like, you know what? I don't know what hope is because in my head,
I was getting hope mixed up with faith.
And so I asked God, what is the difference between hope and faith?
And we're going to get there in this episode.
But before I had delved into my Bible, I picked up my Webster's first.
And then I was like, okay, now we're going to go into the book of truth, child.
(03:47):
This episode is coming at a time where last, if y'all follow me on TikTok,
I lost my job. The job lost me.
Let's get that squared away. I was the last Black woman standing.
I lost my job. I'm so proud of myself.
How I lost my job and everything, the story, I had went over it on my TikTok
(04:07):
live that happens every Thursday, 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time,
but that's not what what we're here for.
I talked about the story and how I lost my job and how everything aligned, right?
And so my friends and people who have reached out to me were asking me like,
how do you feel? Are you okay?
My mom was a bit surprised. It was like, you seem like you're in high spirits.
(04:29):
Like, and for once in my life, a catastrophe struck and I did not feel hopeless.
I didn't feel hopeless. I felt helpless, but I wasn't hopeless.
And I started to recognize the spiritual growth that I have.
(04:53):
It's a very interesting thing when you start to recognize, my pastor has said
this this past week, when you start to realize the growth, like when you start
to get them gains from the gym or lose those pounds on the scale and it comes
into fruition, like, wow, this is actually happening.
I started to realize and recognize my spiritual growth both because typically
when a catastrophe arises, I've talked about this before, I used to struggle with catastrophizing.
(05:16):
And if I would have lost my job in my head, I already would have been under
the bridge by the time three o'clock rolled around.
Like, okay, my furniture is going to be out on the street. Like,
I don't know how I'm going to pay for this stuff. I really don't.
But in knowing that I didn't know what I could do in that moment or what could help.
I mean, nothing could help. It's It's not like I was going to beg for my job back.
(05:39):
I was getting fired because discrimination is the color of my skin.
There's nothing I could do about it. Right.
I felt helpless in that moment because I knew that there was nothing that I
could do to fix anything, but I wasn't hopeless.
And at that time and in that moment in time, I didn't realize that I wasn't
(06:00):
hopeless. I didn't realize that I truly had hope.
I just realized I just knew like, OK, I felt at peace.
I felt peace. After I got off the call of them firing me, I closed my laptop.
I finished eating my lunch and I praised the Lord.
I did. I danced around my kitchen with my dog on my hip like he was a baby, a toddler.
(06:20):
I danced around the kitchen to one of my favorite songs and I had a good old time.
So what does it truly mean to be without hope or to be hopeless?
It means that you have no desires or expectations of God and his promises.
(06:41):
And one could say is adjacent to not trusting God and not trusting that he will
stand on his word and what is already written.
Hopeless is the feeling that nothing can be done by anyone to make the situation better.
Helpless is a bit different. helpless I knew that I
couldn't I couldn't help myself right I knew
(07:05):
that there was nothing I could personally do to make
the situation any better or to feel any
better personally there was nothing that I could do the only thing I knew I
could do and that I did was to just praise the Lord honestly it was my first
time like I'm so proud I'm like I have a huge smile because Because I'm pretty
(07:28):
sure it might not be you listening to this, like you lost your job,
but something probably has happened in your life before.
And typically you might've like gone off. Like with me, I probably would go
off on somebody, but this time I praise the Lord.
When they had sold those lies to me, usually I would respond because I'm very
quick at the tongue, quick at the mouth.
(07:49):
But this time I was silent.
And my silence, I understood, was not a weakness because I prayed to God and
I asked him, I asked the Holy Spirit to help guide me to be very,
to give me wisdom to know when to speak and when not to.
And if I needed to say anything, Lord, help me have the courage to say something.
(08:11):
But if I don't need to say it, help me have the courage to shut up.
And in that moment, I was told to shut up in a nice way. And so I was helpless.
So hope, in a sense, is having confidence that God is going to do what he says he is going to do.
(08:32):
And so we're going to open up. You don't have to open up, actually.
I'm going to read it out to you.
Romans 15, 4 reads, For everything that is written in the past was written to
teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the scriptures and the encouragement
they provide, we might have hope.
Hope and so when I was reading this in my she reads truth
bible I was delving into many
(08:54):
scriptures about hope and trying to understand the context
in which it was said right in the actual scripture itself and I
asked the holy spirit because I just I did not understand what is
the difference between hope and faith and I was led that I was led to faith
is adjacent to believing faith is believing in what God has already done and
(09:17):
believing that he already did it, for it is finished,
right? Jesus already died on the cross.
Everything that God did is already done.
Hope is believing what God is going to do.
Does that make sense? It hasn't been done yet, and so you're hoping for it.
Sarah and Abraham was hoping for a child.
(09:41):
I'm hoping to get another job. I'm hoping, not actually, I'm not hoping for,
I'm hoping to become a full-time content creator and entrepreneurship.
You are hoping for your marriage to, I don't know, blossom more.
You're hoping for your child to get into that college.
Hope is believing in what God is going to do for you.
(10:07):
And then I was at a crossroads because I was like, okay, it's possible to have
faith and to believe in God, but not have hope in your current situation and in your season.
Because let's face it, every season is going to have trials and tribulations, right?
And so in that moment of me getting fired, I didn't feel anything. Actually, I
(10:28):
I felt nothing. I had no worry. I felt peace.
And I didn't even hope for a different outcome.
I mean, now that has all come to fruition and reality and I'm able to sit,
I have hope in the Lord for I know that he is my provider and he provides provision
(10:49):
and he provides community and he provides outlets.
And in the span of a week from being fired, I have noticed all,
I've always noticed what God has provided for me, which is why I always talk
about my gratitude journal, because it helps you get into the practice of showing
gratitude for the things that you have, even the smallest things.
You can point out to say, hey, I'm really thankful for that.
(11:12):
I'm really thankful for my friend just calling me just to see how I am doing randomly, me, right?
And so in this week, I've seen God move so much. Oh my gosh.
But with that, what happens when someone who doesn't believe in God,
someone who does not know God, someone who doesn't read God's word,
someone who is lukewarm or someone who just does not know about Christianity
(11:37):
or about any of that, what happens when like the average person does not have
hope and they're they're hopeless.
It's because they're putting their hope and desires and their expectations on
something that is not firm. The foundation is rocky.
When you start to put your hope into people's words, that's where you start going wrong.
That man said that he was going to ask you to be his girlfriend, right?
(12:00):
So you start hoping for, oh, maybe
one day this is going to be the date he asked me to be his girlfriend.
But what you fail to realize is that people, People, we are all flawed.
Or what some of us fail to realize, me too, me included, people are flawed.
And so when you start hoping and having expectations from people who don't even
respect themselves or really don't even...
(12:21):
Show themselves love or show up for themselves, that's when you might become
hopeless because those things do not come to pass.
And then you start to log online and then all of a sudden it starts spiraling
because let's face it, there's no way we get online without hearing people bash women.
I can't tell you the last time I opened up my phone to get on social media and
(12:42):
I have not seen a man bash a woman.
I have simultaneously swept and changed my algorithm and still some some way,
somehow, I see men bashing women still on my feet.
There's no escaping it. And then when you're consuming stuff like that, you might get hopeless.
You might feel hopeless about finding a partner or feel hopeless about finding
(13:05):
a job because you hear that AI is going to wipe all the jobs away.
You might feel hopeless that you will never have buy a house because you're
looking at the financial market and all the homes you are are seeing are a million
dollars and you don't have a million dollars or a down payment in your bank account,
you might start to feel hopeless based off of the things that you consume because
(13:25):
you have these expectations on things that are ever moving and ever changing.
And then when you start to, especially for me, intertwine your expectations
and your desires, attach them to your emotions that change a lot. Oh my gosh.
Emotions do not last forever. I have to remind myself this.
(13:45):
And so when you start lumping in your hope and your desires and your expectations
on something that is so ever-changing, you will be in this circling the drain
moment of feeling hopeless and helpless and forget about it.
There's nothing anyone can do. All the men are terrible.
All the jobs are terrible. I'm just going to have to accept this.
I'm going to have to accept less, or I'm going to have to...
(14:06):
And then you start to do what is not on your path and what God has for you. And then, boom.
I literally just debunked part of the enemy's plan. You see how easy it just goes? Like.
So they'll be disappointed more times than others. You will start to believe
in what the enemy wants you to believe, that there is no good.
(14:28):
And I would tell this to my, I literally said this to my friend the other day.
She was just like, this generation is terrible.
Like, are we going to find husbands? This is terrible, blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, every generation is terrible.
It's just that we're able to see how terrible the people are, honestly.
The other generations didn't have social media. You didn't really get to see
it every day. You weren't consuming it every day. wasn't pinging you and giving you notifications.
(14:53):
I said, the men been horrible. There was men going to work when there was no
cell phones and not coming back and starting new families.
This has been a thing. Men needed regulation, which is why they got child support and stuff.
Come on now, which is why housewives were getting money after they got divorced.
There's always been this. It's just, it was different, but it was always the same.
(15:17):
There's nothing, the Bible talks about how there's nothing new under the sun. Nothing is new.
It's just a different way of perceiving it. We're able to see more of the world
and see that, oh, people in UK feel the same way about X, Y, and Z.
Whereas back then, you didn't really know.
My mom, for instance, was talking about back in the day when you had to go in
person to apply to a job. I was like, oh my gosh.
(15:39):
I was like, I just see I've applied for some jobs on LinkedIn.
I was like, I can only imagine back in the day, y'all actually have to like
dress up, go in person, get a job application, fill it out, give them your physical resume.
And she's like, yeah, but back
then it felt easier because you're only traveling in a certain radius.
You're not getting online resumes from all over the world.
(15:59):
And I'm like, oh, well, I mean, I guess.
Okay. I never put it in perspective like that. Right. And so promises from people
are not something substantial to have hope and to have a foundation in that is not firm.
One of Elevation's favorite songs, like I've been singing this song all week,
Christ is my firm foundation, the rock on which I stand.
(16:22):
If you got a faulty foundation, baby, you're just going to sway either way.
So faith is believing what God has already done. I touched on this a little
bit before because I honestly did not understand the difference between hope and faith.
And there are two verses that I have, Hebrews, both found in Hebrews.
So one is Hebrews Hebrews 11, one through six. The other one is Hebrews 6,
(16:44):
11 through 12. We're going to read Hebrews 6, 11 through 12.
I'm going to put the other one in the description so you all can read it on your own.
And we're going to talk a little bit about the woman in Luke.
And I'm going to give you some helpful tips and what happens when you increase
your hope and how to actually increase your hope so that when a storm happens,
(17:07):
whenever something falls through,
you are not hopeless.
Music.
States, we want each of you to show the same diligence to the very end so that
(17:28):
what you hope for may be fully realized.
We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those through faith and patience
inherit what has been promised.
So through faith and through patience, you will get what the Lord has promised, basically.
And so this is a beautiful verse. Holy Spirit led me me to this verse,
(17:51):
and I had highlighted it. I was like, oh, this is the one. This is here, right?
And then in Luke, I'm not going to go over the whole thing for the sake of time,
but in Luke 7, 36 through 50, that's about the woman who had washed Jesus' feet.
And it was very interesting because I kept praying to the Lord.
I said, I'm still not really grasping it. And once I had finished this, I had grasped it.
(18:14):
Basically, long story short, this is the Atlanta version. conversion,
Jesus came in, this woman had her baccarat, but it was only a smidgen left,
and she probably was much like me, she lost her job, and she's like,
I'ma just, I'ma just give her my last, like, I'ma wash his feet,
like, thank you so much, I'ma wash his feet, I'ma dry his feet.
(18:34):
And, you know, she, she was sinning before, you know, probably,
maybe her job was at Magic City, who knows, maybe her job was at Magic City,
and I forgot which, which, not me trying to recall, call this a memory.
Again, Atlanta version. Y'all please read the verses.
But basically, God was like, Jesus said, she had already, this is the Holy Spirit
(18:55):
led me to, because I didn't get it. I was like, yeah, she gave her last.
And I've heard this story many times.
But it's not that she gave her last. It's the fact that she was treating Jesus
and thanking him as if it has already been done.
And that's when he said, go and your faith has restored you.
You have been been forgiven, go in faith, you know?
(19:16):
And so that's when it dawned on me like, oh, I've never thought about it that
way, that she was praising the Lord as if it already happened.
That is faith because what God has already done, who has already showed himself
to be, and up until that point, of course, Jesus didn't die on the cross yet,
(19:39):
but up until that point, he already showed himself to be the Messiah.
And so she was thanking him as if she already was forgiven for her sins. That is faith.
And so let me give you all the verses again. Everything will be in description
box because that literally was an Atlanta version.
Luke 7, 36 through 50. And that's about the woman washing Jesus' feet.
(20:04):
And the last part of this is to how to increase your hope.
And so the first thing is to spend time with God.
You have to know the Lord. You can't have expectations and desires on someone that you don't know.
Because if you do, that's fair, like, I mean, come on now.
It's like the living in your delulu. Oh, I have expectations and desires from
(20:26):
this man, but you just met him. You don't know that man.
Know the Lord. And to know somebody, you have to spend time with him.
To spend time with him means you have to read your word, means you need to be
going to church, means you need to be spending time with him in community.
Just like when you date someone, the reason why I always have this parallel
to dating is because it's something that women, we can all, like we all can agree on dating.
(20:48):
We all know how it feels to date. Right?
But it's like getting to know someone is essentially dating them.
You can have dates with God. You can have dates with Jesus.
And when you date someone, you want to vet them, right?
You want your friends to meet him. You want to get to know God with other people
because they're going to have different perspectives.
They're going to have different outlooks on certain verses. They're going to
(21:10):
pull you up when you need reassurance. They're going to speak life into you.
And so that's the first thing, to know the Lord and to spend time with him.
The second thing is to relinquish control by knowing that you are not the author.
This is something that I struggle with. The Holy Spirit has condemned me on
this. You cannot be in control. You aren't the Alpha and the Omega.
(21:30):
You aren't the author of anything. You cannot always control everything and
its outcome. Right. right?
And so you have to be, when you relinquish your control, and if you're anything
like me, I was like, I thought I'm not being control freak.
And God was like, look how you're praying to me. You are trying to be in control.
You have to be okay with getting what God gives you daily. God gives you daily bread.
(21:53):
And so if God gives you a word or something to do, and you're like,
okay, but what about a week from now?
Okay, so what am I going to do next month when my car Cardinal is coming up.
And God is like, look, baby, worry about today.
That's me. I'm like, you asking me about next week. You need to be worried about
today. Relinquish your control.
The third thing is to recall God's promises.
(22:17):
And the only way you can recall God's promises is through repetition and community.
Because one thing about the Bible is a breathing document. argument.
Everyone can interpret certain things differently.
And sometimes there's a lot of verses in the Bible. I've grown up in the church.
I have recollections of, like I just said, the woman who washed Jesus' feet,
(22:38):
but I never looked at that verse that way.
And when speaking with others and being in community with others,
they can give you a different outlook on certain things.
They can remind you of certain promises that you might have forgotten that God
has given you. And also Also, repetition.
So repetition, when my mom, I used to, I used to be a cheerleader.
Practice makes perfect, right?
(22:59):
Perfection is not something that like actually really strive for.
But when you repetitive, like, okay, I'm going to remember this one Bible verse this week.
This is the Bible verse that I'm going to focus on and I'm going to meditate
and I'm going to sit at the top of my mind.
So that when a storm arises, boom, it pops up in your head.
It's like, it's just, it's like, oh, I started to worry, but then I started
(23:21):
to, the birds don't even worry and God feeds them.
Am I not better than the birds? I am. Okay, nevermind.
It's not even that big of a deal, right? So recall his promises is number three.
Number four is to understand your foundation.
What is your foundation on? Because if your foundation is on these men on Twitter
or these men on these podcasts or the US Consensus Bureau telling you that 33%
(23:44):
of people in DC will never buy a home, I don't know, I just made that up.
If that is your foundation, you are in trouble because your foundation has has to be the rock.
It has to be something that is never changing, something that is solid.
And the only foundation that is good at sowing into is God.
So check your foundation. What are you standing on? What are you putting your hope in?
(24:07):
And the last thing is to get in alignment with God.
I love when people always look, I don't know what verse that is,
but it's like, God will give you the desires of your heart.
And people just say that it's almost like a Kanye a waste type of situation,
how he's like beefing with God right now. Y'all saw that interview?
Kanye West apparently is beefing with God right now. He mad at God because he
(24:28):
asked God for something and God didn't give it to him.
And he just feels like God don't like him because he keep asking for stuff and
he keep like, apparently God
is just some genie that's supposed to do everything that you want to do.
But it's like, when you're doing the rest of these four things that I had talked
about, your desires will change.
Like my desires are not the same as they were as I am growing in my faith with God.
(24:49):
And my desire starts to align with his will.
And so when it's like, well, God will give you the desires of your heart.
That's not the desire of your heart every other Sunday when you may or may not
show up outside of any type of community.
You just go on to God for like a genie in a lamp type of situation.
So those are five ways you can increase hope so that you will not feel hopeless
(25:14):
whenever something happens in your life. And yes, when I lost my job,
I didn't feel nothing that day.
The next day I was like, wait a second now.
I sure did wanted to shop this sale. Now I can't.
That's when reality had started to set in. And I was like, hurt.
My feelings were still valid.
(25:36):
That doesn't mean that I can't feel how I feel, but I know how I feel is not
going to last forever. ever.
And so with that, I want you to share this with a friend. I love you all so much.
Don't forget to sign up to be a part of my community and I'll see y'all next
Wednesday, babe. I'll see y'all next Wednesday, not Monday.
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