Who Are You Becoming? How Your Story Shapes Your Identity
The Christian Life Coach Podcast, Episode 68
Every person has a story.
Some stories include joy, success, and celebration. Others include grief, rejection, trauma, disappointment, or loss.
While we cannot always choose what happens to us, we often have more influence than we realize over the meaning we attach to those experiences.
Events and Identity Are Not the Same Thing
Something happens.
Then we interpret it.
A difficult experience can easily become an identity statement:
"I was rejected" becomes "I'm unlovable."
"I failed" becomes "I'm incapable."
"I was abandoned" becomes "I'm unwanted."
The event and the identity are not the same thing.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves Matter
Many women carry beliefs such as:
I always quit.
I'm not enough.
I can't change.
Nobody chooses me.
I'm broken.
These statements often feel true because they've been repeated for years.
But they are usually interpretations, not facts.
Identity Drives Behavior
What we believe about ourselves influences:
Our thoughts
Our emotions
Our actions
Our results
This is why renewing the mind matters so much.
When identity changes, behavior becomes easier to change.
God Redeems Stories
God does not ask us to erase our past.
He redeems it.
Romans 12:2 reminds us that transformation comes through renewing our minds.
God brings healing, wisdom, purpose, and growth from places that once only held pain.
Conclusion
Your story matters.
But your wounds are not your identity.
Your past may explain parts of your story, but it does not get the final word.
God does.
And perhaps the most important question you can ask today is:
Who am I becoming?
Watch Here
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[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:22:29
Everyone has a story.
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a story about childhood.
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a story about relationships.
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about disappointments.
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about successes.
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story about things we did.
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about things that were done to us.
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And some stories contain incredible pain.
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grief…
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trauma, rejection.
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Some contain abuse.
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And betrayal.
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The question isn't whether or not
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we have a story.
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The question is, what story are we telling ourselves about who we are?
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because of what happened.
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What is our story?
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about our story.
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Today, I want to talk about identity.
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The stories that we tell ourselves, and how God invites us
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into transformation.
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Welcome to the Christian Life Coach Podcast. I am your Christian life coach.
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Shanna, and I am so glad you're here today.
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So, before I go any farther in this topic, I just want to
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say that…
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I am not…
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about minimizing trauma.
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I'm not about pretending that painful things
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did not happen. This is not about just get over it.
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what happens, happens.
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Pain matters. Your pain matters.
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Loss, healing,
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it matters. And…
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It happened.
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So I am not minimizing that, I am not…
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trying to brush anything under the rug, sweep anything under the rug.
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Many people need counseling,
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coaching, support,
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community and time.
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to heal from
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things that have happened in the past.
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So the goal of today's episode is not to deny pain,
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It's to ask…
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Does my pain get the final word about who I am?
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So…
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Here we go.
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Things happen. Events happen.
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there are circumstances that happen.
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There are the facts of what actually happened.
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And then… we interpret them.
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Something happens, and then we assign meaning.
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to that.
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For example,
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we may get criticized.
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And we make that mean…
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I'm not good enough. I'll never measure up.
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Or… maybe your husband asked for a divorce.
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And you make that mean, I'm unlovable.
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Nobody stays.
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Maybe you experience some kind of failure.
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And your interpretation is…
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I always mess things up.
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I am not capable.
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The event is real.
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it happened.
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And the interpretation…
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of the event often gets taken on to us.
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as our identity.
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So…
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What meaning…
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Have you attached to the hardest parts of your story?
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What are those hard parts?
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of life that… that actually happened.
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And what is the meaning?
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that you've attached.
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about yourself because of them.
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And the event may or may not have been
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of our own choice.
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It may…
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have been something that we had control over, or something that we had no control over.
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But over time, we will begin living from the meaning that we attach to the event.
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Not that the event happened, but the meaning that we have attached to it.
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There is a difference.
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between what happened to you and who you are.
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Some people within the sound of my voice,
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truly were victims
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of a situation. Something wrong happened.
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Something harmful happened.
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And naming that matters, acknowledging what happened,
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is so important.
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But…
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you are only a victim in that experience, and I don't… I take that back.
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I don't want to say only.
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victim…
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describes who you were in that experience.
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It was never meant to become a permanent identity.
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And some examples of this might be…
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I was abused.
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And the identity that you take on is, I am broken.
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Someone abandoned me.
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becomes, I am unwanted.
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someone rejected me.
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And I believe I am unlovable.
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One statement describes an event,
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And the other describes the identity that has been taken on because of the event.
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And your identity drives everything.
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You are more.
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then the worst thing that has happened to you.
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if identity drives our behavior, if we act,
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from who we believe that we are.
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then we need to pay attention.
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So that identities that we are carrying around.
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that we are living from.
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The stories we tell ourselves become
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self-fulfilling. That is the whole self-fulfilling prophecy.
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If you believe something to be true about yourself, you will make it true.
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And many of us carry around identity statements, not even
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Um, below the surface, not even surface level, we might not even be saying it out loud.
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Or thinking it consciously.
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But it's… it's hovering under the surface.
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It's having an impact.
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I always quit. I never follow through.
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I'm bad with money. I'm lazy.
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I'm anxious. I'm not enough.
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Nobody chooses me.
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I don't matter. I can't change.
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One of my clients recently uncovered the belief that
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She's an afterthought.
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Ah. And these statements…
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When repeated,
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And again, subconsciously or consciously, when they are repeated,
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they start sounding like facts.
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But they are not facts, they are interpretations.
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And when we believe these,
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stories as though they're fact,
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we start thinking from them.
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It's how we view the world. We feel from them. We act from them.
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We create results.
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from…
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these stories that we tell about ourselves.
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that aren't even necessarily true.
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And again, back to the creation cycle.
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The way that we think our collection of
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thoughts, our thinking, our beliefs,
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generate how we feel inside our body,
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And our feelings drive the actions that we take, the way that we behave.
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And those actions and behaviors create the results that we experience in life.
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So, identity sits underneath all of that. Our identity is what we believe to be true about ourself, what we're thinking.
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on repeat, generating those same emotions.
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on repeat, driving those same actions or inactions,
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on repeat.
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Resulting in our experience of life.
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So,
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Another question.
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What identity statement
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Have you been rehearsing over and over?
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And over.
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And it might take time to uncover it.
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Might take some thought. Maybe some journaling.
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And this, my beautiful…
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friend is where the Bible offers
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Us.
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all the hope.
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Because God specializes in redemption.
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Romans 12.2 tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.
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2 Corinthians 5.17 says, You are a new creation.
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the old has gone, and the new has come.
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You're a new creation in Christ.
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Romans 8.28, and this is my
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Like, one of my core foundational verses that I remind myself of all the time.
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Romans 8.28 says that God is working all things together for the good of those who love Him,
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And are called according to His purpose.
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That's you. That's me.
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And God isn't telling us…
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to erase our stories, to pretend like it never happened.
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Because God is in the redemption business. God redeems our stories.
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And redemption isn't pretending, it's not minimizing.
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Redemption is God bringing healing.
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and wisdom, and compassion,
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and purpose, and growth.
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from those places,
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that once only held
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pain
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God can redeem
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what he never wanted for you.
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And I…
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I just said it today in a call.
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Um… sometimes people will say,
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like…
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it was… it was supposed to happen that way because it happened that way.
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And I don't know that I believe that. I don't think that I do.
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Because…
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we are in a fallen world. Sin happens.
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things happen that grieve God's heart.
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And, like, the story of Joseph,
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in the Old Testament,
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He tells his brothers, what you meant for harm,
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God has used for good.
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That was God redeeming.
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situations, several situations, where Joseph was a victim.
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But he did not live as a victim. He lived.
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In his redemption and overcoming.
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And I just read a book.
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It's so interesting how things work together,
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And I truly believe that God is
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confirming when we are on the right path.
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And I just came across… I'm an avid reader,
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I just came across a book this past week that is an older book,
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by Karen Kingsbury, who I've read a ton of her books.
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And I had never seen this one before, and it's called Divine.
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And it is…
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it was inspired by the life of Mary Magdalene.
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In the Bible, when Mary met Jesus,
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she had 7 evil spirits in her, or 7 demons, and Jesus
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rebuked the demons, and…
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released her from them.
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And Mary went on…
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to follow Jesus,
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to help fund his… excuse me.
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help fund his ministry.
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And she was there at the tomb.
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She suffered all kinds of things.
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And…
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She did not stay in that victim.
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in victimhood.
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Her story was redeemed.
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And she went on to do amazing things.
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And in this book called Divine, the main character, Mary,
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goes through horrific.
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abuse, neglect, like, terrible childhood situations.
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And, um, I believe that…
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Karen Kingsbury had, like, 7… 7 specific things that she experienced, just like the seven
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um, evil spirits that Mary Magdalene was delivered from.
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And, I mean, the things that this girl went through was just… it was horrific.
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And…
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When she…
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comes back to her faith in Jesus and puts her trust in Jesus. She is absolutely transformed.
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And her past…
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didn't disappear, and I know this is a book, but it was…
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I mean, I'm sure.
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there are stories just like this in real life.
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Um, her past happened, it didn't forget about it.
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She still had all of those memories.
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but her identity changed.
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She wasn't focused on…
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the things that happened to her.
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she focused on her rescue.
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And her rescuer.
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She focused on her Redeemer,
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:38:16
Rather than the painful story.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:38:19
And she focused more on who she was becoming than who she had been.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:38:24
Same woman, same history.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:38:29
different identity.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:38:32
And I think… I believe, I truly believe that God offers that to every single one of us.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:38:41
So, who are you becoming?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:38:47
And maybe…
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:38:50
the question to be asked isn't…
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:38:54
what happened to me.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:38:57
But who am I becoming?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:01
because of what God is doing in me.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:04
am I becoming someone who trusts God?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:07
Am I becoming someone who follows through?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:10
Am I becoming someone who believes truth?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:14
Am I becoming someone who believes, who lives, from my identity in Christ?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:21
Am I becoming someone who lets God redeem my story?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:28
And if God redeems it,
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:32
The idea is not to keep taking it back.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:37
to live in the redemption.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:39
of that story.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:43
Which takes effort. It takes…
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:46
renewing your mind.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:50
Your past may explain parts of your story,
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:55
But it does not determine your future.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:39:58
does not determine who you are.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:40:01
And who you can be.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:40:06
So, I have some journal prompts, and I'll also put these in the show notes.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:40:12
What story do I most often tell about my life?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:40:20
What labels have I accepted?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:40:23
about myself.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:40:27
Which of those labels came from painful experiences?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:40:35
Do those labels align with what God says about me?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:40:42
And that is so important.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:40:46
Who do I believe God is helping me to become?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:40:56
And I think you'll find such clarity
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:00
And maybe I pray that you find relief.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:05
And you find a new way?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:08
to tell your story.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:11
Unless it's a great one. I mean, if it's a great story, then keep it, for sure.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:17
Okay.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:19
That is what I have for today.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:22
and I'm a little bit nervous to even say this, but…
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:28
My plan is…
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:31
that throughout this month of June.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:33
Each week, I'm going to…
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:35
have a couple… a guest or two on the podcast. We'll see how it shakes out.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:40
And… I want you to hear from women that I know in my life who have walked through difficult circumstances,
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:51
Experienced hardship,
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:54
have believed lies.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:41:57
who have wrestled with their own identity,
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:00
And they are women who are learning.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:03
to renew their minds and become who God created them to be. Not perfect women.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:08
Not people… not women who have arrived.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:12
And have everything in life figured out.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:15
But women who are becoming, just like you,
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:19
And just like me.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:22
I am a work in progress.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:25
Just like you are.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:30
And in closing, your story matters.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:37
And… the story that you tell about your story
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:42
matters.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:44
Because that becomes your identity.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:49
So you want to make sure that it's a good story.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:42:57
your wounds are not your identity.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:02
And your past?
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:04
is part of your story, but it does not get the final word.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:07
God does.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:12
So, go get those journal prompts from the show notes.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:18
Please make sure to subscribe, like,
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:22
um, follow whatever it is on the platform that you're listening.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:27
or watching from.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:29
And if you are willing, I would love
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:33
if you're… especially on Apple Podcasts, or… I don't know if you can do it on Spotify or not, but…
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:38
A 5-star review,
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:40
would be amazing.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:43
comments…
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:45
would be… are always welcome. Share with a friend who you think might appreciate this.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:51
All of that helps to push the show out to more listeners, and I so appreciate
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:43:57
So, so appreciate you doing that.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:44:01
Thank you so much for being here.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:44:04
And remember that life coaching
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:44:07
is life-changing.
[Shanna Pyzer | shannapyzer.com] 14:44:10
One renewed thought at a time.
