July 10, 2025 • 26 mins
In this uplifting episode of The No Fruit Podcast, Kafi and Maurice sit down with Gail Cawley Showalter to explore a powerful and personal topic—trusting yourself with big goals.
Gail shares how self-trust, faith, and resilience are essential when you're stepping into something greater than you've ever done before. Whether it's launching a new dream, starting over, or reaching for something that feels out of reach, this conversation reminds us that belief in yourself is often the first breakthrough you need.
With wisdom rooted in experience, Gail offers practical insight into overcoming doubt, staying grounded in your purpose, and aligning your big goals with a deep sense of identity and courage. If you've ever second-guessed your potential or played small out of fear, this episode will help you take that next bold step forward.
Connect with our guest:
Website: https://www.gailshowalter.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61575903206005
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gail_cawley/?hl=en
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@gailshowalter1889
**************************************
Connect with Hosts Maurice and Kafi:
Subscribe to The No Fruit Podcast:
Support The No Fruit Podcast:
Check Out our Resources :
Gail shares how self-trust, faith, and resilience are essential when you're stepping into something greater than you've ever done before. Whether it's launching a new dream, starting over, or reaching for something that feels out of reach, this conversation reminds us that belief in yourself is often the first breakthrough you need.
With wisdom rooted in experience, Gail offers practical insight into overcoming doubt, staying grounded in your purpose, and aligning your big goals with a deep sense of identity and courage. If you've ever second-guessed your potential or played small out of fear, this episode will help you take that next bold step forward.
Connect with our guest:
Website: https://www.gailshowalter.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61575903206005
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gail_cawley/?hl=en
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@gailshowalter1889
**************************************
Connect with Hosts Maurice and Kafi:
- Instagram: https://bit.ly/followNoFruitonIG
- Youtube: https://bit.ly/followNoFruitonYoutube
- To be a guest: https://bit.ly/beaguestonthenofruitpodcast
- Business Email: mchism@chismgroup.net
- Business Address: PO Box 460, Secane, PA 19018
Subscribe to The No Fruit Podcast:
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Check Out our Resources :
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And we thank you very much for tuning in again
to the No Fruit Podcast. And so today we're going
to talk about dreaming big. But what if the first
step isn't planning, but it's trusting yourself. Today we sit
down with Gail Showalter to explore how to believe in
your own voice and if that is the key to
(00:22):
unlocking big goals, we'll talk about it. Right after this,
let's talk.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
About loving live man the way of God in send
like experience shap.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
To help you transfort. So we thank you very much
for tuning in. We have the graceful, we have the magnificent,
Miss Gail, And so we want to ask you, Miss Gail.
You know so so many people set big goals and
get stuck, not because of lack of vision, but because
(01:04):
of lack of trusting themselves. Why do you think self
trust is self trust is such a vital and often
overlook part of the process.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Well, I think the bottom line is fear. We fear
that we're going to be vulnerable. We feel fear that
we may fall on our face in front of people.
We fear that whatever this idea is, that this goal
is that we have might be look foolish. To other people.
We don't like that. We don't we don't want to
risk that. We're not comfortable with that, and we have
(01:40):
to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, you know,
and having faith in our visions. I could give you
lots of stories because I've been around a while. You know.
I say, I'm the old bird with feathers of wisdom
for women, and so I am. I've had a lot
(02:00):
of visions and I've had a lot of success, but
people need to know that I've also fallen on my face,
you know, been embarrassed. Maybe I looked foolish, and that's okay.
That's okay because I took what God gave me, and
I had maybe an idea and I went forth with
it and I pushed it. And I know over the
(02:21):
years some of the projects I've been in, I pushed
people to do things they might not have wanted to do,
whether it was production at church or something like that.
But you know, I look back and I don't have
any regrets over any of that. It was all good
and it was all fruitful. You came to a place
of restoring joy in lives of people, and I think
(02:46):
that's what I'm here for is to take my lessons
that I've learned and to give back to the community
of believers, mostly ways that they can go forward, even
if it's a tiny, little goal they have. In fact,
sometimes it's better to start with the small goal and
(03:06):
take baby steps towards your final goal. And I have
stories about that as well. Wow.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, I hear you say, you know something about being comfortable,
and we have to get in a place of being uncomfortable.
But in today's society, comfort is something that we're always
looking for, whether it's comfortable shoes, comfortable clothes, you know,
comfortable mattress to sleep on, Like you know, I look
around everywhere that we have there. We're always looking for comfort.
So you're telling us, like, hey, guys, we need to
(03:35):
be uncomfortable. So how do we do that? Like, how
do we switch to you know, feeling more at ease
with being uncomfortable?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Well, I've heard you know that we're creatures that seek pleasure.
We're pleasure seekers and all the ads you see on TV,
whether it's for a mattress you say, or you know,
a lazy boy recliner or whatever it is, we do.
We want that and we crave that and then we
get the attitude that we're entitled to that. And I
(04:05):
think entitlement is really not a good thing. If you're
going to grow spiritually, if you're going to get to
a place where you can achieve something, whether it's a
simple goal or a big goal, you have to not
feel like you're entitled. Like you put something out on
the Internet and you think you're entitled to get X
(04:26):
number of replies and all of these things. No you're not, No,
you're not. I don't know where people get the idea,
and in fact, I can go on and on about it.
I don't think that God promised us to be comfortable.
I don't see that anywhere anywhere when I've read it.
I haven't read anything about being comfortable in your situation. Now.
(04:48):
It says I have learned to be content, as Paul said,
but it doesn't say anything about you should be comfortable today.
You know, talk about shoes were they were just dirty?
So we need to reevaluate that whole attitude of being comfortable, uh,
(05:14):
thinking that we're entitled. Thinking if we do this, then
this is going to happen. You know, for generations, we
taught kids, okay, you get your four year degree and
everything will be fine, right, Well, we learned right away
that won the case. You know a lot of people
have four year degrees and that they're not doing so great, right,
So you know, it's more to it than that, a
(05:34):
lot more to it than that. Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
So how do we get over fear because a lot
of times, and Ali can speak based off of us
raising kids recently, where we have you know, you have
a contest or this, that and the other, and everyone
gets a trophy just for participating, right, you know, and
so you don't have that fear of real competition because
(05:57):
technically everybody wins. So how do we deal with that
in that culture? Because it seemed like everybody wins, there
is no loser.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Oh boy, oh boy, you opened a camp. You know.
Where that attitude came from? I don't know, But when
I first learned about it, my kids were already grown.
My kids have kids, you know now, So that wasn't
something I dealt with personally. But I really think that
(06:28):
kids should be taught that if there's a winner, there's
normally a loser. It's okay to sometimes be the loser. Yes,
sometimes you learn more when you're the loser when you're
the winner. And those kind of lessons are really valuable
in life. I have, gosh, we have fourteen fifteen grandchildren
(06:52):
and so I've got them in all kinds of situations
and they'll have one. I remember that he had a
lot of trouble losing the game. You know, it's on
a team. If the team long, it really got to him.
It took a while for his parents to explain to him,
you know, sometimes you're not going to be the winner,
right and in our world, goodness, that's a big lesson.
(07:16):
And I mean I could tell you stories though, I mean,
oh my goodness. I heard this one story about a
swim team. Okay, they were swimming and the kid that
was supposed to thought he was going to win didn't win.
And afterwards he was really angry and he says, well,
I should have won, and he just went on about
(07:39):
he should have won, but he didn't win, you know.
And there are other attitudes that even in the workplace,
for grown men and women who think, Okay, I've got
this degree and I did this, and I did that,
so you know what, I should get this job, not
the other guy. But maybe that's the reason you didn't
get it because there was than any humility involved. And
(08:03):
so I mean fear. Okay, you ask a question, you
ask any question, how do you get rid of the fear? Well,
the only way to get rid of fear is to
replace it with faith. There's no other way. There is
no other way. And most people don't like to be
told that. You have to allow God to work things
(08:25):
out for you without you telling God how to do it.
In other words, he's not your puppet and you're not
the one telling him. This is what I want and
this is how you can do it, and I need
it by such and such time. And I mean I've
heard a lot of prayers like that. I've been in
(08:46):
a lot of different denominations in my life. Not ragging
on that, for I've tried to find the perfect place.
You know, there is a perfect place. But one of
the things I learned and is to abide, to abide
in God, to try to reach that place where my
(09:09):
will matches His will. And I'm not telling God how
to do it, but that's what we want to do.
That's what we all want to do. And I've been
in churches where that's what they did. Do God, please
do this, you know, Well, I haven't seen it happen
too often. Not saying it doesn't happen. I've seen lots
(09:30):
of wonderful things happen, but most of the time they
weren't my idea. They weren't me, you know. In fact,
my best story it is. You can download it on
my website. It's called It's about a Baby. We were
in Russia. Long story. I'll try to make it a
little brick but the long story is we were in
Russia and my husband's and Dennis we're doing dental work
(09:53):
on children and orphanages and whatnot. My daughter had just
learned that she could not have children. I mean, they
had done surge. There's not any way you're going to
have children. Well, she was in a very traumatic place
and she was going to serve as a dental assistant
and all this, and we were in an orphanage that
we had donated to, and I'd kind of forgotten. This
is an example. I had kind of forgotten how much
(10:14):
we had donated to this particular orphanage, but the people
there didn't forget. And my daughter goes back down the
hall because she was crying and she was getting away
from the babies because it was making her real emotional. Yes,
And I started looking for her. And it was an
old building, probably one of the oldest cities in the world,
and it was real old and little hallways and plywood
(10:35):
here and there. And I went into this room that
was probably ten by ten feet and there were bascinets
made out of plywood. And my daughter was holding this
baby that was wrapped up from the head down. They
wrapped them in cocoons. And I had been working in
special ed and I had seen the worst of the
worst when it comes to disabilities and babies and stuff.
(10:59):
And I saw that baby and I thought, oh, I
saw a look on her face that she wanted this baby.
And I'm thinking this is not gonna you know. And
my prayer was, Oh, God, you got to do something.
This isn't going to work. And you know what I
heard in my spirit, as God is my witness, I
(11:19):
heard in my spirit, you keep your hands off this.
I have my hands on it. Every time I started
to pray about it or worry about it, I kept
hearing that message. Now, my daughter usually listened to me.
I was really influential in her life. But she made
arrangements to bring that baby. Now, you don't go to Russia.
(11:42):
You don't go somewhere and bring a baby back. So
they had She and her husband had to get the money.
They had to go to Russia. He had to go.
Four months later, they brought that baby home. Wow, she's
twenty two years old. I wish I could show you
a picture. It is the biggest blessing in my life.
But you know, I wouldn't have had that blessing if
I hadn't listened to the voice within me, Because if
(12:05):
I'd had my way, I would have said this baby
is going to be disabled because she looked like it.
She was four pounds one thriving. It was really bad.
And now she's a grown woman. She's beautiful inside and outside,
just wonderful Christian girl. And it makes me weep to
this day to think if I'd had my way, I
(12:26):
thought was what was right, but I didn't have my
hands on it. I need to read the story. It's
published and it's there on my website. But you know,
I can go on and on. I just I just
think people need if they are if they're afraid, because
I was afraid. I was afraid that we were going
to have a baby, and that my daughter wasn't going
to be able to handle this, the baby was going
(12:47):
to be death and all of these things. I was afraid. Wow,
I had to let go of that fear. Yes, well,
let God take it over. And there was I haven't
had an I haven't had one. I've had some other
answers and some other experiences, but nothing that was that profound.
And it was me not getting my way, me not
(13:10):
telling God how to do it, but allowing it to
be by the Holy Spirit's power. So I didn't mean
to preach today. You got amens from over here. Amen. Amen.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I think that's one of the things that, like you said,
in certain denominations, and we've also have gone to different
churches as well. You know, sometimes we get into this
name it and claim it, you know mentality. I've actually
written about that, yes, you know, and then that seems
to feed the faith, and I think it needs to
be the other way around. You know, the faith needs
(13:47):
to kind of come first, and then you know, from
the faith you name it and claim it. But a
lot of times people kind of get something in their
mind and they name it and claim it and then say,
by faith, I want these things to happen. God, you know,
if it's your will, let it be, do you know?
Speaker 3 (14:02):
So?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
And like you said, we're not in alignment with God's will.
And sometimes we don't hear of God's voice and we
feel that He's not listening to us, you know. So
it talk to us a little bit about that, like
how do we deal with that? And in reference to
some of our goals, because we set goals and you know,
we think we want these things to happen and it
(14:24):
just takes forever for it to happen, and we think
God's not hearing us.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, well, I believe that that's the case with a
lot of prayer. A lot of our prayers, we think
we're not being heard. And I think you have to
pray rightly. You have to get into the place where
you know you're willing to accept God's perfect will for you.
(14:52):
And that may not be something you have in your
heart and mind at all, It may be something completely different.
And so, yeah, we set goals, but have we taken
that goal that we've set and run that through the spirit?
Have we really or is it mostly an ego goal
(15:12):
something we want to happen, We want to make it happen.
And I know I've done that. Oh yeah, and I
pushed and I pushed, and maybe I made something happen,
but it didn't flow with the spirit necessarily. You know,
it wasn't really as based in the Lord's word and
(15:37):
will for my life. I mean, my first marriage, oh
my goodness, was definitely not the perfect situation. And I
don't think most things are perfect in our lives. And
I don't think like we started out earlier. You know,
I don't think we're supposed to expect things to all
(15:57):
be perfect, but I do think that we need to
when we're making decisions, we need to run it through,
run it through the spirit, listen at you know, you
can ask for signs. You can ask I mean I've
done that over the years. My mom used to tell
me you shouldn't do that, but I mean sometimes I
would say, Okay, Lord, if it isn't your will, please
(16:21):
stop this or let me know. And I have had
that answered. I've had that. Sometimes it was heartbreaking because
it wasn't what I wanted to hear. But it's like
a parent and a child. You know, the parent knows
what's best for the child, so you have to have
that kind of faith. If you want to get past
the fear, well, I have.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
A question, now, how can I do that? Especially if
I am used to touching something because you you know, because
that spirit that you keep referring to the Holy Spirit,
you know, God, Jesus, whatever, whoever is listening to us,
wherever faith you're walking in a lot of times we
don't know how to deal with something that we don't see,
(17:02):
that we don't touch, that someone us hasn't really truly experienced.
So how do we overcome that space because that's something
that we don't A lot of us are more tangible. Hey,
I learned better with my hands, I learn better with
my eyes. But they don't understand the real miracles that
they see in front of them. So how do you
(17:23):
deal with those individuals that's in that place?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Well? I can tell you another story, but honestly, you know,
each individual has to reach their own place. Whatever I
say here is not going to fit for everybody in
your audience. Right if it's a twenty five year old,
they're going to be in one place. If it's this
sixty five year old, they're going to be in a
(17:49):
completely different place. Right now, I have and I'll try
to make this a little bit briefer. But I had
a situation where I was extremely unhappy at work and
I had gotten a master's degree. I thought I was
going to get another job. I thought I wasn't gonna
have to go back to the teaching that I was in,
and I was really not happy. And yet I'm under contract,
so I have to start school again. And I started
(18:11):
school and I was exhausted. I was a single mom,
three kids, you know, teaching high school. It was just hard.
And so what I did was something I have never
done before. Even though I'm a Christian, I had never
done this before. I was exhausted. Every night, as soon
as the kids would get in bed, I would fall
on my knees next to my bed and I'd say
(18:34):
the same prayer, Oh God, I don't know why I'm
still here, but you do, so please just get me
through another day. I'd go to bed every night for
six weeks. I did that. On the sixth week, I
(18:55):
get a note from my superintendent. See me, I thought,
I'm in trouble now. I've been complaining too much. He knows,
and I'm going to be raked over the call. You know,
I really did I thought I was in trouble. So
I went by his office after school and I walked
in and he put this big grant on his face,
which he does, and I knew I was in trouble.
(19:17):
But that was when they recruited me to teach children
with visual impairments in two school districts. These children were
blind braille readers, and some of them were severely impaired children.
Nothing I had ever anticipated in my life. I didn't
even know the job existed. So actually what I did
(19:40):
was I took a week end to pray over it.
I knew I was going to take it because it
was too big of an opportunity to refuse, but I
had to go back to school to get the certification
to do this. I was the only person in Texas
who had ever been able to teach without a certificate
to teach these kids. And today I'm still in touch
with read the women that were bill readers that I
(20:04):
that one of them has a child that's blind now,
and one of them has a PhD. And I mean,
it's just it was by far the most rewarding professional
experience I ever had teaching a child to read Brell
And so I mean I can tell some more stories.
They're all in the book. I just I just think
(20:26):
whenever you you say that, you know, what do you
do if you can't put your hand on it? You
have to reach out for something you can't touch it.
And my Hopeing has trouble with that. He has a
lot of trouble with that. He's very scientific, you know.
So I do understand that some people have that until
they have their own experiences really hard for them. And
(20:48):
I don't expect every day to be a miracle fixing everything.
I know, it's not like that, right. I don't think
it was like that for the Apostles or anybody. You know.
Every day was a great day.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Right, it wasn't, you know. And I think that's something
that because of the world again we live in, you know,
because of social media, we see it all day every day,
and we want to we want what the next person has.
We're envious, we gluttonous, where jealous, you know, all these pieces,
(21:22):
you know, and not understanding that, Hey, what God has
for me is for me, and what He has for
you is for you, you know. So so and let
me allow me to rejoice in what God has blessed
you with. Because he's gonna he's gonna reward me in
another way, you know, anyway. So I think those are
the type of things that we don't always understand and
we don't always accept and be happy for the person
(21:46):
next to us, you know, because that's the that's the
to me, that's the greatest joy, because you want to
help somebody else and you want them to be happy
along the way with it, you know. So, So I
think those are some of the things that we kind
of miss in life today.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Yeah, we do. There's a lot of things we miss
with all of the computerized social media everything, everybody on
their phones every minute. You know, there's a lot that
we miss, but we don't really realize we're missing.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
It right right right, you know. So, But you know,
I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate you sharing. Look,
these are stories, these are testimonies. Let's be honest. Let's
call it what it is, you know, and I appreciate
you coming on and sharing with us and enlightening us.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Man.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
You please let everyone know where they can find your
book that you're referring to, any other these other testimonies
that you'd like to share.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Well, the book is called Living Learning, Loving, and it's
full of stories and its testimonies and it's a great
book for study or for a group. And it can
be purchased. It can be purchased almost anywhere Born's and Noble, Amazon,
you know, Walmart even, but it helps me. Purchased it
at Barnes and Noble, and you can order it in advance.
(23:04):
It'll come out in September, but you can pre order,
which also helps me a lot. And it's being published
by Morgan James in their Faith department, and you can
reach me at Gails Gailshowwalter dot com. The organization and
nonprofit I have for single mothers is called Single Moms Empowered,
(23:28):
and we help moms get through college so they can
get a degree that brings them to work, helps them
get a really good job. You know, that's what is happening.
And we've got over ten million single moms in the
United States now and a third of them are living
in poverty. So we really need to look at that situation.
That's one of my passions because I was a single
mom for sixteen years and it was a long haul. Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
All of that information will certainly be in the show notes,
so all of you who are listening, you can certainly
just look at the show notes and you'll be able
to just link directly to Gail through all of those
links that we'll have there in the show notes. So
as we're winding this show down this scale, we have
one more question that's been kind of in the back
(24:15):
of our mind since we first met. If you could
sing a duet with anyone in the world, living or deceased,
who would you sing that duet with.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Oh, there's so many names going through much I'm just
gonna say Reba McIntyre. I had a chance to meet her,
(24:46):
and I just think she's a single mom. I think
she's yes, a really neat person.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Nice, nice, nice. But we thank you very much for
coming on.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Thank you so much for having me. This has been
great pleasure.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Of course, y'all. Thank y'all very much for listening to
the No Fruit Podcast. Again, all of miss Gail's information
will be in the show notes, So if you're walking, running, jogging, snowboating,
you know, skydiving, you'll be able to come back and
get the information and we'll talk to you just a
little bit later. Thanks for tuning in to another episode
of the No Fruit Podcast.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Where we bring you fruitful conversations, ripen wisdom and love
that's deeply rooted. We hope today's discussion left you feeling uplifted, encouraged,
and ready to take on life's journey with purpose.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave
us a review, and share it with someone.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Who could use a little inspiration in their dead You
can catch up on past.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Episodes, send us your thoughts, or learn more about us
on social media. Until next time, stay rooted in love,
and remember.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Every seed you plant today shape the fruit of tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Take care, and we'll see you next time.
And we thank you very much for tuning in again
to the No Fruit Podcast. And so today we're going
to talk about dreaming big. But what if the first
step isn't planning, but it's trusting yourself. Today we sit
down with Gail Showalter to explore how to believe in
your own voice and if that is the key to
(00:22):
unlocking big goals, we'll talk about it. Right after this,
let's talk.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
About loving live man the way of God in send
like experience shap.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
To help you transfort. So we thank you very much
for tuning in. We have the graceful, we have the magnificent,
Miss Gail, And so we want to ask you, Miss Gail.
You know so so many people set big goals and
get stuck, not because of lack of vision, but because
(01:04):
of lack of trusting themselves. Why do you think self
trust is self trust is such a vital and often
overlook part of the process.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Well, I think the bottom line is fear. We fear
that we're going to be vulnerable. We feel fear that
we may fall on our face in front of people.
We fear that whatever this idea is, that this goal
is that we have might be look foolish. To other people.
We don't like that. We don't we don't want to
risk that. We're not comfortable with that, and we have
(01:40):
to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, you know,
and having faith in our visions. I could give you
lots of stories because I've been around a while. You know.
I say, I'm the old bird with feathers of wisdom
for women, and so I am. I've had a lot
(02:00):
of visions and I've had a lot of success, but
people need to know that I've also fallen on my face,
you know, been embarrassed. Maybe I looked foolish, and that's okay.
That's okay because I took what God gave me, and
I had maybe an idea and I went forth with
it and I pushed it. And I know over the
(02:21):
years some of the projects I've been in, I pushed
people to do things they might not have wanted to do,
whether it was production at church or something like that.
But you know, I look back and I don't have
any regrets over any of that. It was all good
and it was all fruitful. You came to a place
of restoring joy in lives of people, and I think
(02:46):
that's what I'm here for is to take my lessons
that I've learned and to give back to the community
of believers, mostly ways that they can go forward, even
if it's a tiny, little goal they have. In fact,
sometimes it's better to start with the small goal and
(03:06):
take baby steps towards your final goal. And I have
stories about that as well. Wow.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, I hear you say, you know something about being comfortable,
and we have to get in a place of being uncomfortable.
But in today's society, comfort is something that we're always
looking for, whether it's comfortable shoes, comfortable clothes, you know,
comfortable mattress to sleep on, Like you know, I look
around everywhere that we have there. We're always looking for comfort.
So you're telling us, like, hey, guys, we need to
(03:35):
be uncomfortable. So how do we do that? Like, how
do we switch to you know, feeling more at ease
with being uncomfortable?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Well, I've heard you know that we're creatures that seek pleasure.
We're pleasure seekers and all the ads you see on TV,
whether it's for a mattress you say, or you know,
a lazy boy recliner or whatever it is, we do.
We want that and we crave that and then we
get the attitude that we're entitled to that. And I
(04:05):
think entitlement is really not a good thing. If you're
going to grow spiritually, if you're going to get to
a place where you can achieve something, whether it's a
simple goal or a big goal, you have to not
feel like you're entitled. Like you put something out on
the Internet and you think you're entitled to get X
(04:26):
number of replies and all of these things. No you're not, No,
you're not. I don't know where people get the idea,
and in fact, I can go on and on about it.
I don't think that God promised us to be comfortable.
I don't see that anywhere anywhere when I've read it.
I haven't read anything about being comfortable in your situation. Now.
(04:48):
It says I have learned to be content, as Paul said,
but it doesn't say anything about you should be comfortable today.
You know, talk about shoes were they were just dirty?
So we need to reevaluate that whole attitude of being comfortable, uh,
(05:14):
thinking that we're entitled. Thinking if we do this, then
this is going to happen. You know, for generations, we
taught kids, okay, you get your four year degree and
everything will be fine, right, Well, we learned right away
that won the case. You know a lot of people
have four year degrees and that they're not doing so great, right,
So you know, it's more to it than that, a
(05:34):
lot more to it than that. Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
So how do we get over fear because a lot
of times, and Ali can speak based off of us
raising kids recently, where we have you know, you have
a contest or this, that and the other, and everyone
gets a trophy just for participating, right, you know, and
so you don't have that fear of real competition because
(05:57):
technically everybody wins. So how do we deal with that
in that culture? Because it seemed like everybody wins, there
is no loser.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Oh boy, oh boy, you opened a camp. You know.
Where that attitude came from? I don't know, But when
I first learned about it, my kids were already grown.
My kids have kids, you know now, So that wasn't
something I dealt with personally. But I really think that
(06:28):
kids should be taught that if there's a winner, there's
normally a loser. It's okay to sometimes be the loser. Yes,
sometimes you learn more when you're the loser when you're
the winner. And those kind of lessons are really valuable
in life. I have, gosh, we have fourteen fifteen grandchildren
(06:52):
and so I've got them in all kinds of situations
and they'll have one. I remember that he had a
lot of trouble losing the game. You know, it's on
a team. If the team long, it really got to him.
It took a while for his parents to explain to him,
you know, sometimes you're not going to be the winner,
right and in our world, goodness, that's a big lesson.
(07:16):
And I mean I could tell you stories though, I mean,
oh my goodness. I heard this one story about a
swim team. Okay, they were swimming and the kid that
was supposed to thought he was going to win didn't win.
And afterwards he was really angry and he says, well,
I should have won, and he just went on about
(07:39):
he should have won, but he didn't win, you know.
And there are other attitudes that even in the workplace,
for grown men and women who think, Okay, I've got
this degree and I did this, and I did that,
so you know what, I should get this job, not
the other guy. But maybe that's the reason you didn't
get it because there was than any humility involved. And
(08:03):
so I mean fear. Okay, you ask a question, you
ask any question, how do you get rid of the fear? Well,
the only way to get rid of fear is to
replace it with faith. There's no other way. There is
no other way. And most people don't like to be
told that. You have to allow God to work things
(08:25):
out for you without you telling God how to do it.
In other words, he's not your puppet and you're not
the one telling him. This is what I want and
this is how you can do it, and I need
it by such and such time. And I mean I've
heard a lot of prayers like that. I've been in
(08:46):
a lot of different denominations in my life. Not ragging
on that, for I've tried to find the perfect place.
You know, there is a perfect place. But one of
the things I learned and is to abide, to abide
in God, to try to reach that place where my
(09:09):
will matches His will. And I'm not telling God how
to do it, but that's what we want to do.
That's what we all want to do. And I've been
in churches where that's what they did. Do God, please
do this, you know, Well, I haven't seen it happen
too often. Not saying it doesn't happen. I've seen lots
(09:30):
of wonderful things happen, but most of the time they
weren't my idea. They weren't me, you know. In fact,
my best story it is. You can download it on
my website. It's called It's about a Baby. We were
in Russia. Long story. I'll try to make it a
little brick but the long story is we were in
Russia and my husband's and Dennis we're doing dental work
(09:53):
on children and orphanages and whatnot. My daughter had just
learned that she could not have children. I mean, they
had done surge. There's not any way you're going to
have children. Well, she was in a very traumatic place
and she was going to serve as a dental assistant
and all this, and we were in an orphanage that
we had donated to, and I'd kind of forgotten. This
is an example. I had kind of forgotten how much
(10:14):
we had donated to this particular orphanage, but the people
there didn't forget. And my daughter goes back down the
hall because she was crying and she was getting away
from the babies because it was making her real emotional. Yes,
And I started looking for her. And it was an
old building, probably one of the oldest cities in the world,
and it was real old and little hallways and plywood
(10:35):
here and there. And I went into this room that
was probably ten by ten feet and there were bascinets
made out of plywood. And my daughter was holding this
baby that was wrapped up from the head down. They
wrapped them in cocoons. And I had been working in
special ed and I had seen the worst of the
worst when it comes to disabilities and babies and stuff.
(10:59):
And I saw that baby and I thought, oh, I
saw a look on her face that she wanted this baby.
And I'm thinking this is not gonna you know. And
my prayer was, Oh, God, you got to do something.
This isn't going to work. And you know what I
heard in my spirit, as God is my witness, I
(11:19):
heard in my spirit, you keep your hands off this.
I have my hands on it. Every time I started
to pray about it or worry about it, I kept
hearing that message. Now, my daughter usually listened to me.
I was really influential in her life. But she made
arrangements to bring that baby. Now, you don't go to Russia.
(11:42):
You don't go somewhere and bring a baby back. So
they had She and her husband had to get the money.
They had to go to Russia. He had to go.
Four months later, they brought that baby home. Wow, she's
twenty two years old. I wish I could show you
a picture. It is the biggest blessing in my life.
But you know, I wouldn't have had that blessing if
I hadn't listened to the voice within me, Because if
(12:05):
I'd had my way, I would have said this baby
is going to be disabled because she looked like it.
She was four pounds one thriving. It was really bad.
And now she's a grown woman. She's beautiful inside and outside,
just wonderful Christian girl. And it makes me weep to
this day to think if I'd had my way, I
(12:26):
thought was what was right, but I didn't have my
hands on it. I need to read the story. It's
published and it's there on my website. But you know,
I can go on and on. I just I just
think people need if they are if they're afraid, because
I was afraid. I was afraid that we were going
to have a baby, and that my daughter wasn't going
to be able to handle this, the baby was going
(12:47):
to be death and all of these things. I was afraid. Wow,
I had to let go of that fear. Yes, well,
let God take it over. And there was I haven't
had an I haven't had one. I've had some other
answers and some other experiences, but nothing that was that profound.
And it was me not getting my way, me not
(13:10):
telling God how to do it, but allowing it to
be by the Holy Spirit's power. So I didn't mean
to preach today. You got amens from over here. Amen. Amen.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I think that's one of the things that, like you said,
in certain denominations, and we've also have gone to different
churches as well. You know, sometimes we get into this
name it and claim it, you know mentality. I've actually
written about that, yes, you know, and then that seems
to feed the faith, and I think it needs to
be the other way around. You know, the faith needs
(13:47):
to kind of come first, and then you know, from
the faith you name it and claim it. But a
lot of times people kind of get something in their
mind and they name it and claim it and then say,
by faith, I want these things to happen. God, you know,
if it's your will, let it be, do you know?
Speaker 3 (14:02):
So?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
And like you said, we're not in alignment with God's will.
And sometimes we don't hear of God's voice and we
feel that He's not listening to us, you know. So
it talk to us a little bit about that, like
how do we deal with that? And in reference to
some of our goals, because we set goals and you know,
we think we want these things to happen and it
(14:24):
just takes forever for it to happen, and we think
God's not hearing us.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, well, I believe that that's the case with a
lot of prayer. A lot of our prayers, we think
we're not being heard. And I think you have to
pray rightly. You have to get into the place where
you know you're willing to accept God's perfect will for you.
(14:52):
And that may not be something you have in your
heart and mind at all, It may be something completely different.
And so, yeah, we set goals, but have we taken
that goal that we've set and run that through the spirit?
Have we really or is it mostly an ego goal
(15:12):
something we want to happen, We want to make it happen.
And I know I've done that. Oh yeah, and I
pushed and I pushed, and maybe I made something happen,
but it didn't flow with the spirit necessarily. You know,
it wasn't really as based in the Lord's word and
(15:37):
will for my life. I mean, my first marriage, oh
my goodness, was definitely not the perfect situation. And I
don't think most things are perfect in our lives. And
I don't think like we started out earlier. You know,
I don't think we're supposed to expect things to all
(15:57):
be perfect, but I do think that we need to
when we're making decisions, we need to run it through,
run it through the spirit, listen at you know, you
can ask for signs. You can ask I mean I've
done that over the years. My mom used to tell
me you shouldn't do that, but I mean sometimes I
would say, Okay, Lord, if it isn't your will, please
(16:21):
stop this or let me know. And I have had
that answered. I've had that. Sometimes it was heartbreaking because
it wasn't what I wanted to hear. But it's like
a parent and a child. You know, the parent knows
what's best for the child, so you have to have
that kind of faith. If you want to get past
the fear, well, I have.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
A question, now, how can I do that? Especially if
I am used to touching something because you you know, because
that spirit that you keep referring to the Holy Spirit,
you know, God, Jesus, whatever, whoever is listening to us,
wherever faith you're walking in a lot of times we
don't know how to deal with something that we don't see,
(17:02):
that we don't touch, that someone us hasn't really truly experienced.
So how do we overcome that space because that's something
that we don't A lot of us are more tangible. Hey,
I learned better with my hands, I learn better with
my eyes. But they don't understand the real miracles that
they see in front of them. So how do you
(17:23):
deal with those individuals that's in that place?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Well? I can tell you another story, but honestly, you know,
each individual has to reach their own place. Whatever I
say here is not going to fit for everybody in
your audience. Right if it's a twenty five year old,
they're going to be in one place. If it's this
sixty five year old, they're going to be in a
(17:49):
completely different place. Right now, I have and I'll try
to make this a little bit briefer. But I had
a situation where I was extremely unhappy at work and
I had gotten a master's degree. I thought I was
going to get another job. I thought I wasn't gonna
have to go back to the teaching that I was in,
and I was really not happy. And yet I'm under contract,
so I have to start school again. And I started
(18:11):
school and I was exhausted. I was a single mom,
three kids, you know, teaching high school. It was just hard.
And so what I did was something I have never
done before. Even though I'm a Christian, I had never
done this before. I was exhausted. Every night, as soon
as the kids would get in bed, I would fall
on my knees next to my bed and I'd say
(18:34):
the same prayer, Oh God, I don't know why I'm
still here, but you do, so please just get me
through another day. I'd go to bed every night for
six weeks. I did that. On the sixth week, I
(18:55):
get a note from my superintendent. See me, I thought,
I'm in trouble now. I've been complaining too much. He knows,
and I'm going to be raked over the call. You know,
I really did I thought I was in trouble. So
I went by his office after school and I walked
in and he put this big grant on his face,
which he does, and I knew I was in trouble.
(19:17):
But that was when they recruited me to teach children
with visual impairments in two school districts. These children were
blind braille readers, and some of them were severely impaired children.
Nothing I had ever anticipated in my life. I didn't
even know the job existed. So actually what I did
(19:40):
was I took a week end to pray over it.
I knew I was going to take it because it
was too big of an opportunity to refuse, but I
had to go back to school to get the certification
to do this. I was the only person in Texas
who had ever been able to teach without a certificate
to teach these kids. And today I'm still in touch
with read the women that were bill readers that I
(20:04):
that one of them has a child that's blind now,
and one of them has a PhD. And I mean,
it's just it was by far the most rewarding professional
experience I ever had teaching a child to read Brell
And so I mean I can tell some more stories.
They're all in the book. I just I just think
(20:26):
whenever you you say that, you know, what do you
do if you can't put your hand on it? You
have to reach out for something you can't touch it.
And my Hopeing has trouble with that. He has a
lot of trouble with that. He's very scientific, you know.
So I do understand that some people have that until
they have their own experiences really hard for them. And
(20:48):
I don't expect every day to be a miracle fixing everything.
I know, it's not like that, right. I don't think
it was like that for the Apostles or anybody. You know.
Every day was a great day.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Right, it wasn't, you know. And I think that's something
that because of the world again we live in, you know,
because of social media, we see it all day every day,
and we want to we want what the next person has.
We're envious, we gluttonous, where jealous, you know, all these pieces,
(21:22):
you know, and not understanding that, Hey, what God has
for me is for me, and what He has for
you is for you, you know. So so and let
me allow me to rejoice in what God has blessed
you with. Because he's gonna he's gonna reward me in
another way, you know, anyway. So I think those are
the type of things that we don't always understand and
we don't always accept and be happy for the person
(21:46):
next to us, you know, because that's the that's the
to me, that's the greatest joy, because you want to
help somebody else and you want them to be happy
along the way with it, you know. So, So I
think those are some of the things that we kind
of miss in life today.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Yeah, we do. There's a lot of things we miss
with all of the computerized social media everything, everybody on
their phones every minute. You know, there's a lot that
we miss, but we don't really realize we're missing.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
It right right right, you know. So, But you know,
I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate you sharing. Look,
these are stories, these are testimonies. Let's be honest. Let's
call it what it is, you know, and I appreciate
you coming on and sharing with us and enlightening us.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Man.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
You please let everyone know where they can find your
book that you're referring to, any other these other testimonies
that you'd like to share.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Well, the book is called Living Learning, Loving, and it's
full of stories and its testimonies and it's a great
book for study or for a group. And it can
be purchased. It can be purchased almost anywhere Born's and Noble, Amazon,
you know, Walmart even, but it helps me. Purchased it
at Barnes and Noble, and you can order it in advance.
(23:04):
It'll come out in September, but you can pre order,
which also helps me a lot. And it's being published
by Morgan James in their Faith department, and you can
reach me at Gails Gailshowwalter dot com. The organization and
nonprofit I have for single mothers is called Single Moms Empowered,
(23:28):
and we help moms get through college so they can
get a degree that brings them to work, helps them
get a really good job. You know, that's what is happening.
And we've got over ten million single moms in the
United States now and a third of them are living
in poverty. So we really need to look at that situation.
That's one of my passions because I was a single
mom for sixteen years and it was a long haul. Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
All of that information will certainly be in the show notes,
so all of you who are listening, you can certainly
just look at the show notes and you'll be able
to just link directly to Gail through all of those
links that we'll have there in the show notes. So
as we're winding this show down this scale, we have
one more question that's been kind of in the back
(24:15):
of our mind since we first met. If you could
sing a duet with anyone in the world, living or deceased,
who would you sing that duet with.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Oh, there's so many names going through much I'm just
gonna say Reba McIntyre. I had a chance to meet her,
(24:46):
and I just think she's a single mom. I think
she's yes, a really neat person.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Nice, nice, nice. But we thank you very much for
coming on.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Thank you so much for having me. This has been
great pleasure.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Of course, y'all. Thank y'all very much for listening to
the No Fruit Podcast. Again, all of miss Gail's information
will be in the show notes, So if you're walking, running, jogging, snowboating,
you know, skydiving, you'll be able to come back and
get the information and we'll talk to you just a
little bit later. Thanks for tuning in to another episode
of the No Fruit Podcast.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Where we bring you fruitful conversations, ripen wisdom and love
that's deeply rooted. We hope today's discussion left you feeling uplifted, encouraged,
and ready to take on life's journey with purpose.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave
us a review, and share it with someone.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Who could use a little inspiration in their dead You
can catch up on past.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Episodes, send us your thoughts, or learn more about us
on social media. Until next time, stay rooted in love,
and remember.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Every seed you plant today shape the fruit of tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Take care, and we'll see you next time.
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