May 9, 2025 • 22 mins
Do you feel rested and at peace? Or are you bombarded with obstacles keeping you from true soul rest?
Tessa Afshar, author of The Rested Soul, in an attempt to “rejection proof” her life landed instead in a pit of anxiety. She found the rest her soul was longing for in the One who will never reject you.
As Tessa shares her journey from anxiety to a rested soul she leaves breadcrumbs for us to find our way there too with truths like:
- God uses the pits in our lives even when they are painful.
- As long as we stay attached to Jesus we’ll get to the other side.
- Find scripture that speaks to your situation and let it anchor you.
- Know that God is shaping your character so that you are ready for what is still ahead.
Exhale. Heal. And find rest for your anxious soul in God.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:03):
It's the Perry and Shaunna podcast on the real life
journey with you, reminding you that you are ABBA's beloved
child and that Jesus has called you into his massive
mission to heal the world.
S2 (00:17):
And I've been pretty honest about my battle with anxiety,
but there was a point when I locked myself in
my bedroom and I dialed nine one, and with my
hand over the other one, I walked to the kitchen
to get a drink of water. Oftentimes with anxiety is
the idea that nobody could possibly understand what we're experiencing.
And though the circumstances are different, we all deal with anxiety.
(00:40):
We're not as alone as we think, and it helps
when we share our stories. Tessa, what started your battle
with anxiety and discouragement?
S3 (00:49):
I think that for me, the seeds were sown when
I was very young, but I was very unaware of it.
And it was about 20, a little over 20 years
ago now when I went through a season of burnout
with my job. It was essentially because I had been
working beyond my capacity. I had been pressing against both
(01:10):
physically and emotionally for a long period of time. I
think we all have a certain kind of capacity, and
God sometimes allows us a limited period of intense labor,
but really, he intends for us to have that biblical
pattern of rest and work. And I was pressing against that.
(01:31):
So I kind of went through this season of burnout,
because for me, that season had become a way of life.
And the burnout then gave to anxiety. I had to
take some time off work, and then I started asking
questions about, well, what if I don't get better? What
if this is my life? What if I can't pay
(01:52):
the mortgage? You know, things like that. And because I
was asking those questions so often, it became a pattern
in my mind. And so then the anxiety turned like
this general shadow wherever I went. When I woke up,
I didn't even have to think about those specific questions.
I just felt anxious.
S2 (02:12):
Before it became a constant state of being. Did you
know that you were dealing with anxiety?
S3 (02:17):
I think until that point I would have said, oh,
I'm worried about this or or this is giving me stress.
Like specific moments. And then once that was over, I
would be okay. But when I got to this particular
point in my life, the anxiety became so deep that
(02:38):
it interfered with my sense of peace. It interfered with
my sense of well-being. I couldn't pray, you know. I
would go for long walks and look at a tree
and say, Oh, God made that. And that would be
my prayer. You know, I just could not focus like that.
So I was in a deep well of anxiety. And
it wasn't until I started sort of praying through this
(03:02):
and looking at my life that I realized, because when
it first started, I thought the problem was external. The
problem was my job. The problem was all the expectations
that were on me. And while those were real, what
I realized was that the anxiety was my response to them.
And the very reason that that I was working so
(03:23):
hard was because in my younger years, I had experienced rejection.
And now I wanted to work so hard and so
well that nobody would ever want to reject me again.
In other words, I was trying to be so perfect
at my job that I could rejection proof my life
that nobody would say, you're not good enough or this
(03:43):
is not good enough. And so I was trying to
rejection for my life. And instead, I landed myself in
a hole of anxiety. Because you can't rejection proof your life.
Jesus is the one who's accepted you. do.
S2 (04:00):
There was a time when I felt so insignificant that
my core motivation was, I will prove that I have value.
S3 (04:06):
I love the way you put that. I will prove
that I bring value. And I think for me, it
was more that I will ensure that I have enough
value that you will not walk away. You know you
will not abandon me, you will not reject me. And
so I think that's a wound. When it's the wound
(04:26):
that's running your life, you're going to get into trouble
when it's the wound that's directing your life rather than God.
You're going to get into trouble. And unless I had
gone through this pit of anxiety like Joseph, God allowed
me to fall into this pit. It was too deep
to pull myself out. And the journey wasn't pretty. Like
(04:47):
the journey for Joseph wasn't pretty. But unless I had
fallen into this pit, I would not have been aware
that I had that wound and that the wound was
running my life.
S2 (04:58):
I don't I don't think we ever see the pit
as a gift. But if the pit is what reveals
what is true and leads us into our healing, it
truly can be a gift in disguise.
S3 (05:11):
Absolutely. If you look at Joseph's life, what you realize
is God is the whole time leading Joseph into that
position where he can then set and protect his his
people from destruction and also bring them into Egypt where
they need to become a people. Obviously, later that becomes
(05:32):
itself a problem and they have to be set free,
but they need to be in Egypt for a season
in order to grow larger and in order to become
the people that they become. So every pit, every yoke
of slavery, even the jail, all of the years, over
a decade of pain that Joseph goes through, is actually
(05:55):
one step at a time, drawing him closer to his
destiny and to who he's meant to be and to
what he's meant to do. So I think God definitely
uses the pits in our lives, even when they are
so painful.
S2 (06:10):
If we can, we want to avoid the pit of anxiety.
But can we? Is it even possible?
S3 (06:17):
I think that's such a great question, Shauna, and I
don't know the answer to that except to say if
you can avoid it, of course. Absolutely. Particularly if you
walk in Christ. I think the Lord will definitely help
us avoid unnecessary pits. But because we live in a
(06:39):
fallen world, there are certain things, certain things done to us,
certain choices we have made that create those pits and
they are there. And so if you cannot avoid it,
then navigate it with Jesus, because that's really what I
found was that's the hope. Like, I don't want anyone
(07:00):
who's right now battling discouragement or anxiety to sort of
feel like, oh my word.
S4 (07:04):
Like, yeah, I should have done this or I should
have done that.
S3 (07:07):
You know, because when you navigate it with Jesus, Jesus's
whole intention is not only to pull you out of
this pit, but is to use it for good in
your life. We just came out of Holy Week and
Easter and all of that, and when I was reading
all of those verses, there's a verse when Jesus needs
(07:29):
that colt of a donkey in order to ride into Jerusalem.
The words he says to the owners of the donkey
is the Lord has need of it. Now I want
to say this to you. I mean, because this is
so profound. The Lord has need of something in your life,
because there are going to be moments in your life
when Jesus is going to come to you and say,
(07:50):
the Lord has need of it. And before that moment,
think of all the preparation that went into that call
to being born, that Colt didn't just suddenly appear out
of nowhere. They looked after the mother. They, you know,
the birthing, the feeding, the all of that work went
into all of that sacrifice, went into it until they
came to this moment when Jesus said, the Lord has
(08:10):
need of it. So whatever you're going through is probably
leading to a moment. God is preparing you for a
moment when Jesus is going to come to you and say,
there's something in your life, and the Lord has need
of it. There's some courage, there's some trust, there's some knowledge,
there's some wisdom, there's some patience. There's some faith. And
the Lord has need of it.
S2 (08:30):
That reminds me of Mary. I mean, she had to
surrender what she thought her life was going to be
like for what God had for her. And her response was,
May it be to me, as you have said?
S3 (08:40):
Absolutely. And I think when that moment comes, the Lord
has need of it. Most of us who love Jesus,
it's like it's just this incredible blessing. But as you're
working toward it, because Jesus very rarely tells his children
You're going through this because this will be the fruit,
and I will have need of that fruit. He doesn't
give you the plan ahead of time because he's building
(09:03):
trust in you. In glassmaking, there's something called the glory Hole.
It's that very, very hot furnace in which you put
the glass to make it molten. When you go through
the glory hole of life and you feel all molten
and droopy, and you feel like I'm about to fall
in the on the floor and be destroyed, there's a
purpose to it. I took a class in glassmaking, and
(09:25):
one thing I realized was I was so in invested
in this molten glass because I was not going to
drop it. But as long as it was attached to
me by the rod, that glass was safe. And it
was going to be what I made it. So that's
the thing. As long as we stay attached to Jesus
while we're going through the glory hole, then we will
(09:45):
get to the other side.
S2 (09:51):
Tessa, someone listening is in the pit right now. What
should they stop doing or what should they start doing?
S3 (09:58):
That's exactly the question you ask is, you know, Lord, okay,
I'm in here, but what are the right steps that
you want me to take in this situation? I think
when you are in that position, you are really primed
to hear lies from the enemy, to hear lies from
your own brokenness, from your wounds. Your wounds will lie
(10:19):
to you and for you to believe them, because you're
often in a place of discouragement when you're in the pit.
And so, like you mentioned, Mary, you mentioned, uh, how
how Mary has to navigate this, but the word that
Gabriel uses to describe Mary is highly favored when he
greets her. So this is who she is. This is
(10:40):
in the eyes of the Lord. She's highly favored. Now,
I don't know about you, but if you were to
tell me I am favored, or I'm highly like. If
you're the favored kid, what does that mean? You get
the biggest piece of the pie. You get the best treatment.
You get the best seat on, you know, you get
to watch what you want. Like, that's what highly favored means.
But you look at Mary's life and what you see is, well,
(11:01):
first of all, highly favored means, oh, uh, I'm going
to be pregnant and I don't have a husband. And
by the way, my betrothed is thinking about divorcing me
and setting me aside because, you know, he thinks I've
been unfaithful. Now God takes care of that. But the
next step is now I'm very large with child, and
now I have to travel probably by foot. But whatever
(11:23):
it is, whatever the means of travel is, it's not
going to be very convenient. It's not going to be
very easy. Well, surely not that I'm pregnant. God is
going to give me a four star hotel. No, I'm
going to go into a manger to give birth. This
does not look like highly favored.
S4 (11:36):
Yeah.
S3 (11:37):
But it is highly favored because highly favored sometimes comes
with trouble. So I want to tell you right now,
if you're starting to believe because you've been in the
pit for a while, that God does not care for you,
that somehow Jesus has set you aside, that you're less
than his other children, that for whatever reason, you are
(11:59):
the forgotten one. I want you to remember this. You
are highly favored because you belong to God. So do
not forget that you are favored because highly favored and
trouble often walk through the door at the same time.
S4 (12:14):
Hmm.
S2 (12:15):
So, standing on the truth of our identity that we
are highly favored because we belong to him, made in
his image, loved by him, adored by him. Those are
the things that we can grab onto and that we
can start doing. What do we need to stop doing
to turn the tide?
S3 (12:31):
Absolutely. So, you know, one thing is, as you said,
is know the truth about ourselves. The second thing is
know the truth about God. How are you looking at God?
That may not be true. So if you have believed
any lies about God, you need to remove those. They
may be stumbling blocks toward you, receiving the comfort that
you need right now in the Bible, we're told that
(12:52):
Jesus is called the Consolation of Israel. Well, we've been
grafted into Israel through Jesus Christ, so that promise is
for us as well. He's supposed to be your consolation
right now. And I know if you're going through anxiety,
if you're going through fear, that you need consolation. So
you need to be close to Jesus. But if they
are stumbling blocks that are preventing you from being close
(13:14):
to Jesus, you need to remove those stumbling blocks. So
for me, one of those stumbling blocks was that I
was listening. Well, I was allowing my wound to run
my life. I was allowing that. So for you, your wound,
your stumbling block might be something else. It might be self-pity.
It might be a discontentment. It might be jealousy, it
might be anger, it might be resentment, or that you're
(13:37):
very judgy, you know, whatever it is that that you're
blocking and those things, you don't need to judge yourself
about those things. You need to understand the root of them,
how you got there. And you need to allow Jesus
to break through. There's a verse, Micah two three, where
Jesus in some of the translations is called the breaker.
He's the one who comes through before them and they
(13:58):
can't follow through. He's the breaker because he breaks through.
He breaches through whatever blocks your way to get to
know the breaker in your life.
S4 (14:07):
Yes.
S2 (14:13):
Tessa, what's a scripture that has acted like an anchor
point for you when you were in the pit of anxiety?
S3 (14:19):
You know, anchor points. That word came for me because
I was taking a class in archery. I was doing
some research, and I needed to learn how that worked.
And the class on archery, what I learned was, because
I'm only five feet tall, I'm kind of wimpy. And
so when you're doing archery, you're draw hand is continuously
drawing and your left hand is holding the bow and
(14:42):
you have to hold it straight after a while, when
you keep doing this again and again and again, your
muscles will literally start shivering. This is not good for Aim.
S5 (14:52):
When your hand is shivering and your muscles are shivering.
S3 (14:55):
When I first came into my lesson, I noticed there
were arrows in the ceiling in the wall everywhere and
I was like, what are arrows.
S5 (15:00):
Doing in this room?
S3 (15:02):
About an hour I started realizing, oh, that's what happens
because your muscles are shaking so much, your arrows go wide.
But they taught me something. If you rest your draw,
hand your fingers of your draw hand. As you're pulling
the string, you can rest it on something that's called
the anchor point. It can be your. For everyone, it's different.
And you have to figure out what that is. It
can be your chin. It can be your cheek. It
(15:24):
can be your neck. When you rest it now, there's
somewhere steady on your body. No matter how unsteady you are,
at least one part of you stops shaking and it
helps you. And I started hitting the arrows at least
into the target, which is really important. So I started
realizing that I needed things like that, something very quickly
(15:46):
that I could rest on And in internalizing verses in
a deeper way, because all of us know some verses
in our heads. But bringing that to a place that
as soon as I say that verse, I know what
that means and I can rest on it. There's a
verse in Deuteronomy seven where the Israel is about to
(16:08):
enter into the Promised Land, and God says to them,
you will not conquer them all at once, but little
by little. And I'm sure the Israelites are like, well, why?
Little by little, God, like I won and all at once.
Answer please, can we just conquer them all at once?
But God gives them an answer. God says the reason
(16:28):
is there are wild animals, and if you conquer them
all at once, you're no match for the wild animals.
So there's something besides the enemy that they're facing. There's
something even worse right behind them. And they need to
do this little by little, or that something worse is
going to get them. So one of my, um, really
verses that I kept coming back to was little by
(16:48):
little because, you know, I was praying for this. It
took about two years for me to really come out
of that depth of anxiety to a place of stability.
And so you can bet that I kept praying for
those all at once prayers a.
S5 (17:01):
Lot along the way.
S3 (17:03):
Jesus was teaching me there little by little. And so
find those verses that will speak to you that you
can lean your weight on and bring them deeper by
spending a lot of time.
S2 (17:18):
We all want the God of the miraculous to just
immediately move in our lives, just in a moment. And
I've seen God do that, and I am so grateful
for it. But I've also seen that there's something pretty
miraculous and wonderful about a God that sees you through
long seasons. Talk about what you learned from it being
(17:40):
a long journey, rather than it being a short journey.
S3 (17:44):
I love how you put that, Shauna and I think
that will preach like we should just sit on that
because it is true. There is a fruit to the
long seasons. When God sees you through one step at
a time, rather than immediately, that you cannot get in
the immediate answers. So one of the things that God
(18:07):
did to me was he increased my capacity for a
number of things. He increased my capacity for trusting him
because I had no strength to lean on anymore. The
only way I could get through it was to wholly
throw the weight of my life on him. And I
would never have learned that if I hadn't gone through
what I went through, through that depth. So he increased
(18:28):
my capacity for trust. He increased my capacity to know
him as father, the one who provides for me. The
weight of my life was not on me. The weight
of my provision was not on me. I learned he
was my provider, and when I came to the other side,
What I realized was, in general, my capacity to do
(18:50):
the work that he had set aside for me, because
at that point I was working in the church, I
was working in women's ministry, and it was a it
was a job that had a lot of requirements. And, um,
it was hard. I won't say it was joyful, but
it was hard. But if you had given me what,
what he has entrusted me with now, which is much bigger,
(19:12):
I would have just gone splat under the weight of that.
I would not have been able to carry it. But
by going through that season, little by little, he added
to me the strength and the fortitude I needed for
this life so I can live this life now with
joy and not go splat under the weight of it.
S4 (19:31):
Yes.
S2 (19:32):
I mean, Joseph and all that he went through, it
was all to prepare him to save a nation. But
I'm sure he wasn't thinking that as he was going
through it when he was in the pit or when
he was in prison. He probably wasn't thinking, you know what?
God's really shaping my character through this.
S3 (19:47):
And the truth is, I cannot tell you because I'm
mature enough to know that truth, that God is shaping
my character. I actually think about that, but I cannot
tell you how many times I've said, Lord, I'd rather
just be a doorkeeper at the house of the Lord
than go through any more of this. Like I'm good.
I'm good now. Like, don't make character any better. Just
make life easier. We go into that place where we're like,
(20:09):
I know I'm. I'm imperfect. Just cover me by the
blood of the lamb and just take me as I am.
But please don't make my character any better as the
price right now is too high. But that is part
of the process of learning to lean on God. The
strengthening cannot come without the glory hole. The strengthening cannot
(20:29):
come without you melting to the very core of your being,
so that on your own you cannot stand. And you
need through and through to the marrow of your bones.
You need Jesus to hold you up. It's seasons like
that that teach us who he is. Not just who
we are, but who he is.
S2 (20:49):
There's someone listening right now who is so in the
middle of the journey, and they need rest for their soul.
And they just need they need truth and they need encouragement.
And I'm wondering if you would just pray over them
right now.
S3 (21:06):
I would be delighted to. Oh Heavenly Father, how you
treasure that person, how you deeply love the one who's
going through the midst of their pit, whether it's discouragement,
whether they're so anxious, whether they don't know where their
bread is coming from tomorrow, whatever it is that they're going, Lord.
(21:30):
However broken they are, however shattered they are. I ask
right now that you press your hand round about them,
that they may feel and experience your consolation, that they
may know there's coming that time where you are increasing
their capacity for joy, for hope, for life, where you
(21:52):
are breaking the broken patterns in their lives. Help them
right now to trust you, to lean on you, and
to know, oh Lord, that you care for them. I
ask Jesus that as much as possible, you make this
season go by quickly, and that they will get to
that place where they can. When you say to them,
(22:14):
the Lord has need of it. They'll have. That is beautiful, Jesus.
S1 (22:21):
Thanks for letting Mary and Shawna walk the real life
journey with you. The content from the podcast comes from
their live show Gary and Shawna Mornings on 89.3 Moody Radio,
Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reach out to us by texting 800
968 8930. And please subscribe.
It's the Perry and Shaunna podcast on the real life
journey with you, reminding you that you are ABBA's beloved
child and that Jesus has called you into his massive
mission to heal the world.
S2 (00:17):
And I've been pretty honest about my battle with anxiety,
but there was a point when I locked myself in
my bedroom and I dialed nine one, and with my
hand over the other one, I walked to the kitchen
to get a drink of water. Oftentimes with anxiety is
the idea that nobody could possibly understand what we're experiencing.
And though the circumstances are different, we all deal with anxiety.
(00:40):
We're not as alone as we think, and it helps
when we share our stories. Tessa, what started your battle
with anxiety and discouragement?
S3 (00:49):
I think that for me, the seeds were sown when
I was very young, but I was very unaware of it.
And it was about 20, a little over 20 years
ago now when I went through a season of burnout
with my job. It was essentially because I had been
working beyond my capacity. I had been pressing against both
(01:10):
physically and emotionally for a long period of time. I
think we all have a certain kind of capacity, and
God sometimes allows us a limited period of intense labor,
but really, he intends for us to have that biblical
pattern of rest and work. And I was pressing against that.
(01:31):
So I kind of went through this season of burnout,
because for me, that season had become a way of life.
And the burnout then gave to anxiety. I had to
take some time off work, and then I started asking
questions about, well, what if I don't get better? What
if this is my life? What if I can't pay
(01:52):
the mortgage? You know, things like that. And because I
was asking those questions so often, it became a pattern
in my mind. And so then the anxiety turned like
this general shadow wherever I went. When I woke up,
I didn't even have to think about those specific questions.
I just felt anxious.
S2 (02:12):
Before it became a constant state of being. Did you
know that you were dealing with anxiety?
S3 (02:17):
I think until that point I would have said, oh,
I'm worried about this or or this is giving me stress.
Like specific moments. And then once that was over, I
would be okay. But when I got to this particular
point in my life, the anxiety became so deep that
(02:38):
it interfered with my sense of peace. It interfered with
my sense of well-being. I couldn't pray, you know. I
would go for long walks and look at a tree
and say, Oh, God made that. And that would be
my prayer. You know, I just could not focus like that.
So I was in a deep well of anxiety. And
it wasn't until I started sort of praying through this
(03:02):
and looking at my life that I realized, because when
it first started, I thought the problem was external. The
problem was my job. The problem was all the expectations
that were on me. And while those were real, what
I realized was that the anxiety was my response to them.
And the very reason that that I was working so
(03:23):
hard was because in my younger years, I had experienced rejection.
And now I wanted to work so hard and so
well that nobody would ever want to reject me again.
In other words, I was trying to be so perfect
at my job that I could rejection proof my life
that nobody would say, you're not good enough or this
(03:43):
is not good enough. And so I was trying to
rejection for my life. And instead, I landed myself in
a hole of anxiety. Because you can't rejection proof your life.
Jesus is the one who's accepted you. do.
S2 (04:00):
There was a time when I felt so insignificant that
my core motivation was, I will prove that I have value.
S3 (04:06):
I love the way you put that. I will prove
that I bring value. And I think for me, it
was more that I will ensure that I have enough
value that you will not walk away. You know you
will not abandon me, you will not reject me. And
so I think that's a wound. When it's the wound
(04:26):
that's running your life, you're going to get into trouble
when it's the wound that's directing your life rather than God.
You're going to get into trouble. And unless I had
gone through this pit of anxiety like Joseph, God allowed
me to fall into this pit. It was too deep
to pull myself out. And the journey wasn't pretty. Like
(04:47):
the journey for Joseph wasn't pretty. But unless I had
fallen into this pit, I would not have been aware
that I had that wound and that the wound was
running my life.
S2 (04:58):
I don't I don't think we ever see the pit
as a gift. But if the pit is what reveals
what is true and leads us into our healing, it
truly can be a gift in disguise.
S3 (05:11):
Absolutely. If you look at Joseph's life, what you realize
is God is the whole time leading Joseph into that
position where he can then set and protect his his
people from destruction and also bring them into Egypt where
they need to become a people. Obviously, later that becomes
(05:32):
itself a problem and they have to be set free,
but they need to be in Egypt for a season
in order to grow larger and in order to become
the people that they become. So every pit, every yoke
of slavery, even the jail, all of the years, over
a decade of pain that Joseph goes through, is actually
(05:55):
one step at a time, drawing him closer to his
destiny and to who he's meant to be and to
what he's meant to do. So I think God definitely
uses the pits in our lives, even when they are
so painful.
S2 (06:10):
If we can, we want to avoid the pit of anxiety.
But can we? Is it even possible?
S3 (06:17):
I think that's such a great question, Shauna, and I
don't know the answer to that except to say if
you can avoid it, of course. Absolutely. Particularly if you
walk in Christ. I think the Lord will definitely help
us avoid unnecessary pits. But because we live in a
(06:39):
fallen world, there are certain things, certain things done to us,
certain choices we have made that create those pits and
they are there. And so if you cannot avoid it,
then navigate it with Jesus, because that's really what I
found was that's the hope. Like, I don't want anyone
(07:00):
who's right now battling discouragement or anxiety to sort of
feel like, oh my word.
S4 (07:04):
Like, yeah, I should have done this or I should
have done that.
S3 (07:07):
You know, because when you navigate it with Jesus, Jesus's
whole intention is not only to pull you out of
this pit, but is to use it for good in
your life. We just came out of Holy Week and
Easter and all of that, and when I was reading
all of those verses, there's a verse when Jesus needs
(07:29):
that colt of a donkey in order to ride into Jerusalem.
The words he says to the owners of the donkey
is the Lord has need of it. Now I want
to say this to you. I mean, because this is
so profound. The Lord has need of something in your life,
because there are going to be moments in your life
when Jesus is going to come to you and say,
(07:50):
the Lord has need of it. And before that moment,
think of all the preparation that went into that call
to being born, that Colt didn't just suddenly appear out
of nowhere. They looked after the mother. They, you know,
the birthing, the feeding, the all of that work went
into all of that sacrifice, went into it until they
came to this moment when Jesus said, the Lord has
(08:10):
need of it. So whatever you're going through is probably
leading to a moment. God is preparing you for a
moment when Jesus is going to come to you and say,
there's something in your life, and the Lord has need
of it. There's some courage, there's some trust, there's some knowledge,
there's some wisdom, there's some patience. There's some faith. And
the Lord has need of it.
S2 (08:30):
That reminds me of Mary. I mean, she had to
surrender what she thought her life was going to be
like for what God had for her. And her response was,
May it be to me, as you have said?
S3 (08:40):
Absolutely. And I think when that moment comes, the Lord
has need of it. Most of us who love Jesus,
it's like it's just this incredible blessing. But as you're
working toward it, because Jesus very rarely tells his children
You're going through this because this will be the fruit,
and I will have need of that fruit. He doesn't
give you the plan ahead of time because he's building
(09:03):
trust in you. In glassmaking, there's something called the glory Hole.
It's that very, very hot furnace in which you put
the glass to make it molten. When you go through
the glory hole of life and you feel all molten
and droopy, and you feel like I'm about to fall
in the on the floor and be destroyed, there's a
purpose to it. I took a class in glassmaking, and
(09:25):
one thing I realized was I was so in invested
in this molten glass because I was not going to
drop it. But as long as it was attached to
me by the rod, that glass was safe. And it
was going to be what I made it. So that's
the thing. As long as we stay attached to Jesus
while we're going through the glory hole, then we will
(09:45):
get to the other side.
S2 (09:51):
Tessa, someone listening is in the pit right now. What
should they stop doing or what should they start doing?
S3 (09:58):
That's exactly the question you ask is, you know, Lord, okay,
I'm in here, but what are the right steps that
you want me to take in this situation? I think
when you are in that position, you are really primed
to hear lies from the enemy, to hear lies from
your own brokenness, from your wounds. Your wounds will lie
(10:19):
to you and for you to believe them, because you're
often in a place of discouragement when you're in the pit.
And so, like you mentioned, Mary, you mentioned, uh, how
how Mary has to navigate this, but the word that
Gabriel uses to describe Mary is highly favored when he
greets her. So this is who she is. This is
(10:40):
in the eyes of the Lord. She's highly favored. Now,
I don't know about you, but if you were to
tell me I am favored, or I'm highly like. If
you're the favored kid, what does that mean? You get
the biggest piece of the pie. You get the best treatment.
You get the best seat on, you know, you get
to watch what you want. Like, that's what highly favored means.
But you look at Mary's life and what you see is, well,
(11:01):
first of all, highly favored means, oh, uh, I'm going
to be pregnant and I don't have a husband. And
by the way, my betrothed is thinking about divorcing me
and setting me aside because, you know, he thinks I've
been unfaithful. Now God takes care of that. But the
next step is now I'm very large with child, and
now I have to travel probably by foot. But whatever
(11:23):
it is, whatever the means of travel is, it's not
going to be very convenient. It's not going to be
very easy. Well, surely not that I'm pregnant. God is
going to give me a four star hotel. No, I'm
going to go into a manger to give birth. This
does not look like highly favored.
S4 (11:36):
Yeah.
S3 (11:37):
But it is highly favored because highly favored sometimes comes
with trouble. So I want to tell you right now,
if you're starting to believe because you've been in the
pit for a while, that God does not care for you,
that somehow Jesus has set you aside, that you're less
than his other children, that for whatever reason, you are
(11:59):
the forgotten one. I want you to remember this. You
are highly favored because you belong to God. So do
not forget that you are favored because highly favored and
trouble often walk through the door at the same time.
S4 (12:14):
Hmm.
S2 (12:15):
So, standing on the truth of our identity that we
are highly favored because we belong to him, made in
his image, loved by him, adored by him. Those are
the things that we can grab onto and that we
can start doing. What do we need to stop doing
to turn the tide?
S3 (12:31):
Absolutely. So, you know, one thing is, as you said,
is know the truth about ourselves. The second thing is
know the truth about God. How are you looking at God?
That may not be true. So if you have believed
any lies about God, you need to remove those. They
may be stumbling blocks toward you, receiving the comfort that
you need right now in the Bible, we're told that
(12:52):
Jesus is called the Consolation of Israel. Well, we've been
grafted into Israel through Jesus Christ, so that promise is
for us as well. He's supposed to be your consolation
right now. And I know if you're going through anxiety,
if you're going through fear, that you need consolation. So
you need to be close to Jesus. But if they
are stumbling blocks that are preventing you from being close
(13:14):
to Jesus, you need to remove those stumbling blocks. So
for me, one of those stumbling blocks was that I
was listening. Well, I was allowing my wound to run
my life. I was allowing that. So for you, your wound,
your stumbling block might be something else. It might be self-pity.
It might be a discontentment. It might be jealousy, it
might be anger, it might be resentment, or that you're
(13:37):
very judgy, you know, whatever it is that that you're
blocking and those things, you don't need to judge yourself
about those things. You need to understand the root of them,
how you got there. And you need to allow Jesus
to break through. There's a verse, Micah two three, where
Jesus in some of the translations is called the breaker.
He's the one who comes through before them and they
(13:58):
can't follow through. He's the breaker because he breaks through.
He breaches through whatever blocks your way to get to
know the breaker in your life.
S4 (14:07):
Yes.
S2 (14:13):
Tessa, what's a scripture that has acted like an anchor
point for you when you were in the pit of anxiety?
S3 (14:19):
You know, anchor points. That word came for me because
I was taking a class in archery. I was doing
some research, and I needed to learn how that worked.
And the class on archery, what I learned was, because
I'm only five feet tall, I'm kind of wimpy. And
so when you're doing archery, you're draw hand is continuously
drawing and your left hand is holding the bow and
(14:42):
you have to hold it straight after a while, when
you keep doing this again and again and again, your
muscles will literally start shivering. This is not good for Aim.
S5 (14:52):
When your hand is shivering and your muscles are shivering.
S3 (14:55):
When I first came into my lesson, I noticed there
were arrows in the ceiling in the wall everywhere and
I was like, what are arrows.
S5 (15:00):
Doing in this room?
S3 (15:02):
About an hour I started realizing, oh, that's what happens
because your muscles are shaking so much, your arrows go wide.
But they taught me something. If you rest your draw,
hand your fingers of your draw hand. As you're pulling
the string, you can rest it on something that's called
the anchor point. It can be your. For everyone, it's different.
And you have to figure out what that is. It
can be your chin. It can be your cheek. It
(15:24):
can be your neck. When you rest it now, there's
somewhere steady on your body. No matter how unsteady you are,
at least one part of you stops shaking and it
helps you. And I started hitting the arrows at least
into the target, which is really important. So I started
realizing that I needed things like that, something very quickly
(15:46):
that I could rest on And in internalizing verses in
a deeper way, because all of us know some verses
in our heads. But bringing that to a place that
as soon as I say that verse, I know what
that means and I can rest on it. There's a
verse in Deuteronomy seven where the Israel is about to
(16:08):
enter into the Promised Land, and God says to them,
you will not conquer them all at once, but little
by little. And I'm sure the Israelites are like, well, why?
Little by little, God, like I won and all at once.
Answer please, can we just conquer them all at once?
But God gives them an answer. God says the reason
(16:28):
is there are wild animals, and if you conquer them
all at once, you're no match for the wild animals.
So there's something besides the enemy that they're facing. There's
something even worse right behind them. And they need to
do this little by little, or that something worse is
going to get them. So one of my, um, really
verses that I kept coming back to was little by
(16:48):
little because, you know, I was praying for this. It
took about two years for me to really come out
of that depth of anxiety to a place of stability.
And so you can bet that I kept praying for
those all at once prayers a.
S5 (17:01):
Lot along the way.
S3 (17:03):
Jesus was teaching me there little by little. And so
find those verses that will speak to you that you
can lean your weight on and bring them deeper by
spending a lot of time.
S2 (17:18):
We all want the God of the miraculous to just
immediately move in our lives, just in a moment. And
I've seen God do that, and I am so grateful
for it. But I've also seen that there's something pretty
miraculous and wonderful about a God that sees you through
long seasons. Talk about what you learned from it being
(17:40):
a long journey, rather than it being a short journey.
S3 (17:44):
I love how you put that, Shauna and I think
that will preach like we should just sit on that
because it is true. There is a fruit to the
long seasons. When God sees you through one step at
a time, rather than immediately, that you cannot get in
the immediate answers. So one of the things that God
(18:07):
did to me was he increased my capacity for a
number of things. He increased my capacity for trusting him
because I had no strength to lean on anymore. The
only way I could get through it was to wholly
throw the weight of my life on him. And I
would never have learned that if I hadn't gone through
what I went through, through that depth. So he increased
(18:28):
my capacity for trust. He increased my capacity to know
him as father, the one who provides for me. The
weight of my life was not on me. The weight
of my provision was not on me. I learned he
was my provider, and when I came to the other side,
What I realized was, in general, my capacity to do
(18:50):
the work that he had set aside for me, because
at that point I was working in the church, I
was working in women's ministry, and it was a it
was a job that had a lot of requirements. And, um,
it was hard. I won't say it was joyful, but
it was hard. But if you had given me what,
what he has entrusted me with now, which is much bigger,
(19:12):
I would have just gone splat under the weight of that.
I would not have been able to carry it. But
by going through that season, little by little, he added
to me the strength and the fortitude I needed for
this life so I can live this life now with
joy and not go splat under the weight of it.
S4 (19:31):
Yes.
S2 (19:32):
I mean, Joseph and all that he went through, it
was all to prepare him to save a nation. But
I'm sure he wasn't thinking that as he was going
through it when he was in the pit or when
he was in prison. He probably wasn't thinking, you know what?
God's really shaping my character through this.
S3 (19:47):
And the truth is, I cannot tell you because I'm
mature enough to know that truth, that God is shaping
my character. I actually think about that, but I cannot
tell you how many times I've said, Lord, I'd rather
just be a doorkeeper at the house of the Lord
than go through any more of this. Like I'm good.
I'm good now. Like, don't make character any better. Just
make life easier. We go into that place where we're like,
(20:09):
I know I'm. I'm imperfect. Just cover me by the
blood of the lamb and just take me as I am.
But please don't make my character any better as the
price right now is too high. But that is part
of the process of learning to lean on God. The
strengthening cannot come without the glory hole. The strengthening cannot
(20:29):
come without you melting to the very core of your being,
so that on your own you cannot stand. And you
need through and through to the marrow of your bones.
You need Jesus to hold you up. It's seasons like
that that teach us who he is. Not just who
we are, but who he is.
S2 (20:49):
There's someone listening right now who is so in the
middle of the journey, and they need rest for their soul.
And they just need they need truth and they need encouragement.
And I'm wondering if you would just pray over them
right now.
S3 (21:06):
I would be delighted to. Oh Heavenly Father, how you
treasure that person, how you deeply love the one who's
going through the midst of their pit, whether it's discouragement,
whether they're so anxious, whether they don't know where their
bread is coming from tomorrow, whatever it is that they're going, Lord.
(21:30):
However broken they are, however shattered they are. I ask
right now that you press your hand round about them,
that they may feel and experience your consolation, that they
may know there's coming that time where you are increasing
their capacity for joy, for hope, for life, where you
(21:52):
are breaking the broken patterns in their lives. Help them
right now to trust you, to lean on you, and
to know, oh Lord, that you care for them. I
ask Jesus that as much as possible, you make this
season go by quickly, and that they will get to
that place where they can. When you say to them,
(22:14):
the Lord has need of it. They'll have. That is beautiful, Jesus.
S1 (22:21):
Thanks for letting Mary and Shawna walk the real life
journey with you. The content from the podcast comes from
their live show Gary and Shawna Mornings on 89.3 Moody Radio,
Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reach out to us by texting 800
968 8930. And please subscribe.
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