BEST OF Episode: Standing Strong with Alli Worthington

Unedited Transcript

Okay, Allie, I am so thrilled to have you on today to talk about your new book standing strong. And this is so fun to have you today. I'm thrilled to be with you. We're going to have a great time. I know. Okay. So there's a couple of things just from reading your work and being in called creatives and having been around the block with you for a while that I feel like we need to get out of the way first.

Okay. Deal. So one, we both grew up in east Tennessee. Yes. Yes. So I lived, so I grew up north, Northeast, Tennessee in the Tri-Cities area for most of my life lived in Knoxville for about 10 years before I got married. So I now live in south Mississippi, but lived there my entire life until a year ago. So that's so fun.

Oh yeah. What a small world. Yeah, I know. So fun. So also we love the lion king. Oh, well, I mean, it's the best nineties movie, the world's best nineties movie also. I would argue the best Disney movie, I think. So it's my favorite. So I loved when you pulled up, I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to agree with that one.

Yeah. And there's a lot of good ones to choose from because I love a good Disney. Yeah. There, there are. They're so good. I'm so excited that Milan is finally going to be in our hands soon. That's going to be so fun. I already have scheduled next time. Yeah, absolutely. That's what I'm doing. Me too. That's what everybody should be doing next Friday night.

I'm so excited. So I love that. Well, I have been so excited really all year to talk to you about this book. I feel like because I've been in called creatives. I've been hearing about it for so long that when I got it in the mail, that was so fun. And then I finally got to read it. Talk about it. I love the subtitle.

It's called a woman's guide to overcoming adversity and living with confidence. I love that. So would you care to just jump off and tell listeners a little bit about your heart behind the book? Yeah. This is a book I didn't actually plan on writing with each book. I always ask the Lord what's the next book?

Yeah. And with this one, he called to mind a piece of a prayer that my mom used to pray over me every night. So when I was little, my mom would pray that I would grow to be a great woman of God, strong in my faith and fearless as a face, the future. I pray that over my sons every night that they be great men of God, and he just recalled a little piece of that into my mind.

And it was great woman of God. Not that well, that's dumb. I don't, I don't know what that is. So put it aside and a few weeks later, or maybe a month or two later, I went back and said, Lord, I would like to ask you what's the next book about? And he said, already told you clear as day. So I spent about six months kind of leaning into that, praying into kind of uncovering Lord.

What, what is it you want me to. And a few things came up in that season. It's kind of the messages that women are getting. What's holding women back and how to move forward. And I think the overarching message is that God wants to partner with us. God especially wants to partner with us as women. And I just had an overwhelming feeling that things were going to get difficult.

Now this two years ago, I couldn't have imagined what we'd be living through right now in fall of 2020, but as things have unfolded, I go, oh, I see what you're doing, Laura. I'm sure he's given different versions of this message to lots of different people to come into the world right now. And I'm just really honored to be one of those voices and get to be here in this space.

Right. That's so fun and you know, you're a podcast or two, so I'm sure you'd agree. It's been interesting. And just encouraging to connect with so many authors lately and hear what God put on their heart. Like you said, two years ago, you know, you hold a book in your hands and. You know, if you're not in the writing speaking world, you may not realize is these projects take years, right.

And God put that started putting that on your heart long before that. And so it's so sweet and so such a Testament to his faithfulness to see, uh, that this would come out, you know, for such a time as this. And I think it's so relevant. So I'm excited. So in chapter one, you say. Women of our generation are held down and held back not only by adversity, but also by crippling self doubt, beaten down by an inner monologue that says they'll never be enough.

They become drawn to the message of self-empowerment and man, amen to that. And there's so much of that out there these days. So how would you encourage women who have bought into that lie that sort of success and significance depend on your hustle? Well, I think that what we're going to see in the future is that the fruit of that message is destruction.

Whether it's in people's personal lives, whether it's in what they're doing, because it works for a little while. It sounds good for a little while, but it's so against the way God set us up to work. It sounds good. The whole pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You're the hero of your own story. You got to work harder.

You have problems cause you're not working hard enough. Go, go, go. It works for a little while, but what happens is for people who believe that, and when people come into a space and go, here's how you're supposed to live your life, here's how you're supposed to do your relationships. Here's how you can be healthy.

Here's how you grow your business. And they're saying I have the answers to everything and they're not pointing anyone to Jesus. They're not saying. So it gives us our strength who gives us our wisdom, who gives us our ability, but it's all you, you're the hero. When our plans fail. When we get discouraged, when we hit roadblocks, what really makes me angry in this situation is the people who believe that lie.

They're not going to hit those roadblocks or go through hard times and go, oh, that whole message. And that beliefs. Was wrong. That set me up for disappointment. They're going to think that they are doing something wrong when really we don't find success outside of God's plan for us in partnering with him on it.

So it's a subtle. A subtle shift, but it's a shift that makes all the difference in the world. Yeah, yeah, it totally does. And I will freely admit, so I'm an Enneagram three and a lot of what you're saying when I'm in an unhealthy state is easy for me to take in and, and buy into. Right. Like doing all the things, being all the things to all the people at all the times.

And I can remember a time many years ago. I had read a book that was real popular and kind of the, the empowerment, personal development space, I would say. And I shared it with one of my mentors and she called me and asked me to go on a walk, but the next week, and she had just kind of, kind of skimmed it.

And she said, Rebecca, I realized why you like this book, but here's why. It's not healthy for you to read it. That's a good mentor as a good mentor. And that was one moment in my life that I can think back on where God really showed me just kind of a depth of. Part of my sin nature, right. That I'm drawn to that type of like message if I'm in an unhealthy place.

And so, um, I'm thankful that he did that then, because there's been so much surface since that time that has just shattered that message. And so I was so excited as I just read the opening chapters, just to see you kind of combat that in a biblical way. I just really appreciate it. Well, thank you. And I believe that God has given each of us as what chip Ingram calls a holy ambition.

Yeah. That depending on how we're wired, it's different for everyone. But we do have the desire to do things. We do have the desire to listen to where it God's leading us and do great things in this world, whether that great thing. I, you know, ending maybe generational habits that have been unhealthy in your family and saying, this stops with this generation, or it starting a garden or writing a book or a business or ministry, whatever it is, God has always kind of, kind of stoking that holy ambition.

So, so the, what we can do helps the world that's partnership. But the enemy takes our natural good ambition and twist it. And the enemy will use voices that look super successful and happy and wonderful, and just make that twist on what is good and healthy and wonderful. And it just tears us apart. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, definitely. And kind of to that point, I love how you talk about women seeking for this more in their lives. Right. And how we've all had. I love this various, how we've all had enough of them. I was obsessed with that when I read it. So would you talk a little bit to listeners about this? Right.

More than enough life that we have in Christ. Yeah. I think for a long time, you know, our rallying cry as women has been I'm enough. And whether it's in a Christian con context, I'm enough because, um, because of Jesus or it's in a secular context context where women just announced. And the enough movement did a lot of good things.

Women have the right to vote. You know, women have rights, women have voice, we have agency. However, we were never just supposed to be enough. Like you, like you said, God calls us in John 10, 10 to a life of abundance and God, isn't a God who says, okay, great. You're enough. Go sit in the corner and wait until it's time to go to heaven.

Or I come back. Woo. God is a God of renewal and restarts and rebirth. And in every season of our life, he's going to have adventures for us and things. We can do things we can learn and we need to lean into it to go, okay, what do you have for me right now? Now, as I saying this in 2020 fall of 2020, we're all like, Lord, what do you have for me right now?

Like, it's, it seems a little scary. But he knows what's going on. He's not in heaven. You know, looking around going, I had such great plans for her life, but then cope had happened and every, everything doesn't matter anymore, the plants that he's given us, the dreams that he's given us in their heart, they still matter.

They're they're still full of purpose. He still wants us to partner with them. We're just going through a rough go of it. Yeah. Oh yeah. I love that. And so another theme that I see in the book that I, I loved kind of hearing you unpack is you walking readers through just different seasons of your life, where God asks you to leave.

Things. Yeah. I think that's something that we don't talk about a lot. Right. And we don't, we don't celebrate those times. Right. Like we see that, we see that as kind of like, oh, that was a really hard thing when really that was a beautiful thing. And God was leading us into something new. But it's still hard and I'd love for you to encourage maybe a listener that finds themselves in that type of place right now.

Yeah. I have a long history of God being loud and clear with me when it's, when I'm on the wrong path or when I'm doing something that I don't need to be doing anymore. The season's ended it's time for me to grow or do something different. He always makes sure that his voice is unmistakable there. Okay.

I never used to talk about it because I felt like it was a little bit crazy. Like I don't want to be the person. Allie thinks Jesus is talking to her again. It's time to make it change. But the more people I talk about it with the more people go, oh yeah. I remember when God told me to do X, Y, and Z, or God told me to quit my job, or God told me to move to the city.

And it didn't make sense because we see it in the Bible and we're like, oh, okay. So Moses just goes out in the desert and he's just assuming it's going to be okay. Um, but then the more I've talked to people about it and the more I share my stories, the more just countless women go, oh yes. This happened to me.

Here were older women who have mentored me, have shared through the years, how God has led them to take a big, crazy step of faith. And so if anybody's listening right now, and God is asking you to close a door, or God is telling you that a certain season is over. The part that stinks about this is I can pretty well say with confidence.

He's not telling you what's next. Yeah. Or if he is telling you what's next, it's a vague vision. That you can't even understand completely. And it feels off and scary and weird, and you have no idea what it's going to look like or how long it's going to take. And in the meantime, you don't know what you're going to do because we wouldn't need faith.

If we knew what was going to happen, we wouldn't need to trust in God and go, okay. That will be done. Here we go. If we had the answer. So if somebody is wrestling with something that you feel like God is telling you, especially if it's confirmed by other believers. Um, what I would like to do is I'll have people pray for me, but I won't tell them anything that it's about, you know, nothing.

And then see, sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't, God works in mysterious ways, but if you feel like God's leading you somewhere and you have it confirmed by other believers, then. You're going to have to pull up your big girl pants and decide to trust God and take that first step, even though it's going to be super scary, even though you think the storm is completely going to take you out, but if you keep focused on what God wants you to do and just make baby steps every day, he's going to light up the path in front of you, right?

When you get there in a way that you never could have done on your own. Yeah. Yeah. And I love how you said. That oftentimes, when we feel God asking us to do that, we don't have the next steps. And I, I feel like my life, the last year of my life at least has been a Testament to that. So I, when I moved from Knoxville, I told you that right.

Kind of the beginning. So the season prior to that, obviously I was dating my now husband and I started to feel God calling me away from the job that I had. I didn't know what that was supposed to look like. And, um, I still work a similar corporate job remotely at our, in our home now, but obviously I didn't have that job then.

And so. Months before my husband proposed, I started looking for a new job and, you know, that's just, that's a, that's a tough thing in and of itself, especially I was looking for a remote position. And so I knew it was going to take a while to find the right thing. And, and there were some things that happened at the church.

I was a part of at that time. And so sort of visiting another church, they were just several like cornerstone pieces of my community and Knoxville. That God's slowly started uprooting. Wow. What an important part of that though, is none of it was fun. Like not all of that was hard. And I didn't understand any of it in, in, in that season, but it was also in that season that we started soon after that talking marriage and looking at rings and all of the things.

And so now as I look back and I can see how God provided that new job and our marriage and my husband's a pastor. And so it's. It's so awesome to be able to work from home and be available to him when he needs me and things like that. And I have a podcast now, right? I have more capacity than I did when I was in corporate America, driving an hour plus in my car each day, God provided all these awesome things in the life that we have now.

But it required going through a lot of undoing of my current season and a lot of uprooting of the season that I was in for God to plant me where we are today. And. I can look back now and be grateful for it, but just to the girl who's in the thick of it right now, it's hard. And taking those next steps.

Oh yeah. I cried off and on for months. Yeah. I remember one time my mom came to visit and I was, we took, we went to target as one does and I was driving and she was in the passenger seat and a song came on. I don't even remember what the song was. It might've been do it again. And I started crying. And talking about how scared I was to obey God, because I'm the breadwinner for our family.

We have five sons super scary. And she said, baby, are you sure that you're sure that you're sure that he told you to do this? And I thought about it for a minute. And I said, yeah, I'm sure. And it wasn't that I wasn't sure that he was calling. To do, you know, to take the step of faith and to, to do what I was doing.

I just wasn't sure that he wasn't going to let us all suffer in the meantime, because that's what our fear tells us. Sometimes our fears, like, yes, God loves you and you know, you're saved, everything's fine. You can obey God do everything. Right. But he may just want you to suffer for a little while. Yeah.

And that's not God's heart. And even though I've been through trial after trial with the Lord, when I get in the middle of the storm, I have a tendency to sink. Yeah. I think he's always giving us new new opportunity to learn how to trust him and to know how good he is and learn that we aren't going to sing.

Even when the storms roll up on us and even thinking you said, do it again, the song and it runs. A conversation that I had with my husband maybe a week ago. Um, you know, the story I just told was very redemptive, right? Like, God, I went from a to B and, and now my life looks like X and. But, you know, my husband and I have dreams for our future and there are ways we feel God's leading our ministries.

And, you know, my husband said to me the other day, I just look back over how God has provided, you know, in this season. And while we're still waiting right until, until we meet Jesus, right. This side of eternity, um, life is going to change. Seasons are going to change, but as it. God's word and the promises we have and know, and claim it about his character and how we know he'll provide as if that isn't enough.

The cherry on top is to be able to look back and see. What he has done and know he can do it again. Yeah, exactly. So good. Okay. So sometimes we start to view our identity and, uh, really kind of all together, different way than God originally intended. So you say in the book, what God wanted me to learn was that greatness is an obeying, loving and trusting him and living my life well, being a great woman of God, isn't rooted in that.

Success that comes with wall street, Silicon valley and south beach. It's grounded in God's greatness. And what greatness means for my future. I had to let go of the life that my identity was wrapped up in my work. Okay. That really hit home with me Enneagram three. Right. So how would you encourage somebody who that kind of hits home with, right?

That they really. You know, tend to see their identity as their work. Well, it's so easy because we just like when we were in school, we get grades for how well we work. We get grades. When we work, we get a paycheck. People tell us we're doing a good job. Maybe we get a promotion. All those things feel good in there.

External benchmarks of how we're quote unquote, doing everything else for women is nebulous. And. Nobody is coming around, clapping for us the way we folded that fit in. Right. I mean, every once in a while we may hear that dinner was good, but most of the time, like I have five sons, most of them everyone's just swallowing it, you know?

And when we have, when we are feeling like we're in need of encouragement and the only place we get encouragement is through our work. It can be really dangerous because we've start unconsciously feeling like our work is the best thing about us. Our work is what matters when I believe that the greatness that God is calling us to it is it's marked by our willingness to, to get help.

To make sure we're emotionally and spiritually healthy, that we love other people well, that we're willing to sacrifice our own selfishness and love other people that greatness in terms of, I don't know, running for office or doing all these big things. Those are great for some people, but most of the greatness that God is calling us to is, are things that no one else will ever see.

Um, and when we confuse our calling and the greatness that God is calling us to, to how we perform at work or how, how we produce things that make people tell us good job, it skews it. We always want to be going to the Lord and going, help me have the ability to see myself as you see me, help me, help me understand who I am, not in what I do, but who I am because.

Yeah. That's where the power is. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. Kind of along those lines too. You talk also about how oftentimes our worst critic is our inner critic. And I so agree with that. You say we don't have to give our shaming inner critic, a seat at the table, such a good quote. So how do we learn how to recognize her?

Reject her lies and silence her. Well, I think sometimes we think the inner critic is like a higher version of ourselves. Like the inner critic is there just to help us do a better job. But I think of the inner critic as a mentally unstable nanny, screaming at us to stay safe. And I picture my inner critic is looking like Mrs.

Stout. Oh, she doesn't. Yeah, she doesn't know more than I know. She just doesn't want me to make any mistakes. She doesn't have any higher knowledge. She's not calling me to be the best I can. She just wants to make sure that I don't do anything wrong and get hurt or hurt anybody else. The inner critic is there to slow us down to shut us up and to make sure we don't take any.

That's the inner critic's job. And once we start thinking of the inner critic, that way it's easier for us to not confuse our own inner critic with the holy spirit, because that's what we do sometimes. And we'll go, oh, okay. Is this, is this the Lord, you know, telling me to stop doing something? Or is this me being hard on myself?

And one thing that I. Kind of tool that I've used is when I'm trying to identify the voice of the Lord, or if it's my own boy voice or, you know, someone else's voice in my life that I'm recalling is I ask is what I'm hearing shaming or credit. Because if it's shaming or critical, it is not of the Lord.

The Lord never speaks to us in a shaming and critical way. He will convict us, but he's always loving and kind, he's a way nicer to us than we are to ourselves. So whenever we have a thought, we need to go, okay, is this, is this harsh and shaming or critical, or is this loving? If it's loving, then we can lean into it.

But if it's shaming and harsh, we can automatically know that it's not of the Lord. And there's something we said and called creative this morning earlier today. Whenever we are making a decision about where, what we're going to do or where we're going to go in life, or even how we talk to ourselves, the language that we use, we want to ask, does this make God happy or does this make the enemy happy?

I love that so much, right? God has a plan for our lives, but let me tell you, the enemy has a plan for our lives too. He can't steal us. He can't steal our salvation. Once we're in Christ, but he's going to do everything he can to depress us and discourage us and to try to keep us off track. So we don't want to partner with the enemy by giving that shaming, inner critic voice.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going through Jenny Alan's new book with my small group right now, get out of your head. And one of the most powerful things we always come back to that she read, I think in the opening chapter is just how, you know, the greatest battle of our generation exists between our ears and our mind.

And, you know, I think sometimes it's like the enemy doesn't even have to try very hard. You know, if he can get thoughts in our minds is distracted or believing a narrative that's untrue, then his work's done. You know? And, and I think, man, how often does that happen in my own life? So I love that reminder.

So another chapter that I super loved was your chapter on prayer. And you said we wouldn't need to partner with Cod if we could do it on our own, which is, which is so good. So, how would you encourage the woman who maybe is discouraged in her prayer life, or maybe she's grown stale and is just struggling with that desire to spend time with God and in prayer.

That's a great question. Sometimes when I don't want to pray. Um, I turn on worship music. I have a, a 19 hour worship music playlist on Spotify. So anybody can go listen to it for free. It's called worship for fierce faith. And it's all my favorite worship songs. And I'll put it on shuffle and I don't know how God does it, but sometimes it's the first song.

Sometimes it's the second or third and it'll break me down and something will shift and I'll be like, okay, Lord, I hear you. I'm ready to go. Um, For, I can only speak to myself when I lose the desire to pray. Sometimes it's because life is stressful. Um, and worship will fix that for me. Sometimes I lose the desire to pray when I'm not getting an answer to a prayer that I want.

And then I'm angry or he's told me something that I don't want to hear. And I'm like a middle stomping, my feet. And I have to work my way into it. And the thing about God, you know, I mean the, the clearest picture we have of how God relates to us is the father and the prodigal son story, where we go far away, we ruin everything.

And as soon as we're ready to come back, boom, there he is open arms, you know, holding up tuna, grunted down the road and he's always there. Um, but something from me then. That helps me when I'm not hearing from him when I'm not feeling led. When I'm in a season of storm, I'm like, Lord, where are you? What I'm not hearing from you?

I feel on my own is I always try to go back and think about what's the last thing that I know that he told me to do. And I try to obey. I try to focus in there and develop those daily practices for me. It's music for some people it's, it's diving into scripture, whatever it looks like, that kind of shifts the atmosphere for you.

Yeah. It's worth it to, to shift. And he uses everything from music to podcasts, to movies. As you know, he talked to me during lion king. He'll he'll use whatever we need him to use to, to get through to us. And the one thing that I want everyone listening to hear is that we haven't been talking to him. If you don't feel close to him, or if you're upset with him for something, I mean, we might as well say it out loud.

He already knows. Don't let a shaming voice tell you that you messed up and keep you away from him because that by definition is letting the enemy. Yup. Amen. Amen. That's what I was just about to say, because I can think of the times in my life where maybe, you know, it's harder for me to get into the word or, um, my sense of community isn't as strong.

Sometimes it is, it is hard. It is discouraging. I think sometimes we want to be, we want to check all the boxes and we want to appear like we have it all together. Right. But we've all had seasons where we struggle in that way. And. You know, something you've came back to a few times in this conversation is just.

Think about really what you're feeling and evaluate is this from God or is this from the enemy? And if it's from the enemy it's junk and just, we don't need to think that way anymore. And that's easier said than done, but it goes back. It makes me think of that whole, like having 20 seconds of insane courage thing, if we can just make, you know, if we can just make baby next steps of obedience choices that are courageous over and over.

That's what God's leading us to. I think we also get super overwhelmed by the thought of like the will of God and our calling and things like that. When a lot of these things that we're talking about are just next steps of obedience. Like, yeah. Can I speak to that a little bit, please? Um, I think people get really concerned about finding their purpose in life, but the, our purpose in life is to decide if we're going to follow Jesus or not.

That's it. If we follow Jesus, let's glorify him. Let's go. That's our purpose. If you are 12 years old or you're 82 years old. That's your purpose. Yeah. Decide follow. Now our callings look different. Our callings look different from when we were 12. They do in a 22 or 32 or 42 or 52. Um, there's always a new thing that God is calling us to.

It's not stable. And what happens is so many times people have connected calling with work or calling with vocation. Generally you pick kind of the old traditional model. You pick what you're going to do in your young twenties, and then you work that same thing until you retire. And in your thirties, if it was 20 years ago, you don't just pick up and go.

I'm going to change careers. People do that all the time now, but we're left with this old mentality of, oh, this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm 40 it's too late now. Or I'm 60. It's too late now or I'm 30. I never started anything. So. That's the work of the enemy. God is always calling us to do new things, to discover new things, to grow in every season of our life.

My calling to be quite honest, looks a little bit different in fall of 2020, as it did fall of 2019, because of COVID it's he has different work for me to do different people for me to help different ways to, to live my life, children, to homeschool. Now, all of a sudden. Our callings are dependent on the situation and what God has for us.

It's the work that he's put in our hands to do. It's not something that we just missed the boat. And then we're like, well, I'm somehow I missed my calling a few years ago. So now I'm stuck. He has great things for people at every age and every season of life, what we have to do is just realize it, because what happens so much is in our thoughts, like you mentioned, Jenny's book.

Self doubt is what will hold women back more than anything else, because we tell ourselves we're not good enough. We're not smart enough. It's too late. Our past will always be our future. The things that we've done in the past have negated all the things that we can do in the future. And we just don't take us.

Yeah. Yeah. And God expects us to take some steps. That's so good. And I think sometimes we forget that like, nothing is beyond redemption, right. So if we take a step and God ends up leading in another direction, that's, that's great. So that that's one thing. And then also God is the author of time. And we forget that we are not.

And so, you know, to your point of, you know, our calling and our purpose looks different in different seasons, I think that's so, so good. And that shame or that, you know, FOMO feeling of, am I doing the right thing? Am I missing out on the thing? All that's crap and it's from the enemy. And so that's a good reminder.

And I think we, we forget that a lot and that's, that's really relevant to my audience because, you know, By and large, we have women listening who are all over the spectrum of stay at home mom too. I have a multilevel marketing gig thing that I'm trying to build, or I have, um, you know, business that I'm starting, or there's a, there's a way that God has gifted me and I'm making him known in the world, but that looks different for each different one.

In each different season. And so I think that's a great reminder for this time as well, because all of our lives look vastly different than they did at the beginning of 2020. And I think it's easy to feel like guilt and shame over that when we're just like trying to make it right. We're just surviving kind of glorify guy in the middle of it.

Yeah. Well, there's also, I want to speak about seasons of life. So when I was in school, I, I came from a childhood with a lot of trauma in it, and I knew that I wanted to get married and I wanted to have a large family. That was my goal to the point where my husband and I met on a blind date. And I told him I wanted five children, which is amazing that I didn't run him out the door.

And I was a stay home mom for all those years. And in 2007, my husband lost his job in 2008, four weeks after we had our fifth son, we lost our home to foreclosure. We had gone through her savings and we were homeless. We lost everything that we owned, except what fit into two little storage units and mobile pods storage units.

We lived for a summer with my grandfather and we. But drive to a McDonald's play land every day. Yeah. And he would apply for new jobs and I would Google, how do you start a business on the internet? Because I knew. That's what I had to do to survive and what God was doing through that tragedy in our lives, as he was recalibrating how our lives and he was putting my feet on a new path and never would have been, I never would have been doing what I'm doing, what I'm doing today.

Had we not gone through that in 2008? And. He put me in the business world. He put me in the ministry world. Now I'm this interesting person. Who's half in business, world, half in ministry, world. Um, but often he uses times of great tragedy and loss. Uh, for his glory and our good by recalibrating our lives.

And when, gosh, 12 years ago, my husband, I would lay in bed at night. And my, my goal great-grandmother's bed that I remember sleeping in when I was a little girl and one night we were holding hands and I was asking him if I could sell our wedding ring. And he said, if you sell the wedding ring, it's going to break my heart.

We can't. And I never would have imagined that night, that out of such loss and such difficulty, that he would bring such good to our lives. You know, we're, we're settled. We've been in a house 10 years now. Um, I get to do great work. I get to help women every day. I get to write about what God's doing in my life.

If you had asked me 13 years ago, if I had any desire or any, any inkling, I would have laughed. So there are women listening today who are in the biggest struggle of their lives. And what I want you to hear listening today is that God had me write this book for you. So when you feel like everything is impossible and you see the storm clouds on the horizon, and you maybe even are worrying that the dreams that you feel like God put in your heart are never going to come to fruition, that he's there, that he's not going to leave you, that he has great plans for you.

And that if you will just partner with them and hang in there, he's going to bring them to be no matter what it looks like. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. I love that you share that and you know, you are a totally different woman than you were prior to going through that, right? Like God did such a work in you.

And I think we can probably all look at our stories and think of a time when God did that. I know in my own life, my mom, about six years ago, went through breast cancer. She's a survivor now. And so we're, we're so thankful for that, but I. I think really in that season is when God really just did a work in my heart and showed me just the brevity of life and gave me more of an eternal perspective than I think I've ever had.

And just really started putting, writing on my heart and speaking on my heart and. While mom was actually still going through treatment. I went to, she speaks for the first time and I can remember meeting with an agent for the first time having absolutely no idea what I was doing. Right. Like I thought I had written the best book proposal the world has ever seen.

I was 22 years old. And uh, so funny to look back on that now. You know, fast forward, like six years and month ago, I assigned with that same agent and congrats. Thank you. And actually just before this call, so I feel like it's relevant to the conversation. I got a Facebook message from Lynn Kowald, you know, Okay.

So she sat with me, we just bumped into each other at the conference. I was about to go in, to meet with my agent, my now agent. And it was the same agent that, that was her agent at the time and our guests still now. And, um, I just remember how she encouraged me going into that meeting. I was so scared. I was, I was just such a baby and I had no idea what I was doing and, uh, She messaged me this morning just in saying hello, we'd connected on Facebook.

And I, I got to remind her and thank her for just how she encouraged me five years ago. And it's just so cool to see. How God, just how God works over time. And we can all see it in hindsight. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm sitting where I'm sitting right now, partly because of what I went through a few years ago and how God used that to stir my affections for him and to give me a heart for ministry that I didn't have prior to that season.

Mm. Yeah. So good. Okay. It's time for my favorite question. So I asked this, okay. And so I'm excited to hear what you have to say. And that is, what do you think is the best piece of advice that you've ever been given? Oh boy, what's the best piece of advice I've ever been given? It's from my mom. It's a very Southern statement.

The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on. Oh, that's so good. That's right. The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on. Oh, I'm going to have to use that. You know, I'm a pastor's wife, right? Like the best quote ever, especially for so much in life. Oh yeah. Cause everybody's bargain. Cause everybody has an opinion.

Yeah, it just, it just works. We just, we, the caravan has to keep moving on and the dogs will bark. Sometimes it's the bark you want to pay some attention to, but most of the time it's just. Gosh, that's so good. I'm going to tell my husband that right after we get done with this, I love it. Well, Allie, I, I am so excited for this book to come out into the world.

So when this airs listeners will be able to go grab it, wherever books are sold. So tell all the people where they can find you connect with you. Get the book all. Yeah. Um, I'm Allie Worthington, everywhere, Allie, with an O. And if you go to my website, it has everything about the book. And I just built a new quiz.

Can I share about the quiz please? Do I built a super fun quiz? If you like personality tests or any Agram or anything like that, you're going to love this. It's called what's your secret superpower. And I go through what your secret superpower is, what your personality type is, what the Bible verse is for your type that I think so it's super fine.

If you text the word superpower to 500. 4 4, 4, you'll get a text from me immediately with a link to go take it. It's super fun. So it's 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, and all one word, super power. But if you're in the car right now and you can't do that, you can also go to my website. It's on there too, but it's so, so fun.

Everyone's loving it so far. Oh my gosh. Okay. Two things I have to do. I have to tell my husband that quote, and I'm going to go take your quiz because I'm obsessed with quitting. Yeah. Okay. I hope you love it. I can't wait. Okay. Allie, this has been so much fun. I'm so thrilled about your book and can't wait for it to get into people's hands.

So thank you for being my guest today. Thank you so much. It was great to join.