Ep 2.17 Knowing You're Loved... Even When People Don't Show It

Transcript of Ep 2.17

Jill Simons

00:00:01

Hello, and welcome to the authentic uprising show. I'm your host, Jill Simons. I am so excited to grow in the radical art of standing in what God says about you with you today. This show is a place where we pour into our concept of who we are, how we've been created with intention by God and how we can live out of the freedom that he has for us more every single day.

Jill Simons

00:00:41

Hello and welcome to today's episode of the authentic uprising podcast. I'm your host, Jill Simons. And as always, I am so happy to see you today, and I am so happy to share our guest with you today. She is the very first person that popped into my mind when I knew that I wanted to record about this topic of really embracing the reality of God's love for us. Even when we have had people in our lives make freewill decisions that don't demonstrate to us how lovable we are. And she is just a beautiful human being. She's a running coach and she inspires thousands of women all over the world through her social media accounts at running myself together. And I had the great pleasure of spending a wonderful weekend with her on a retreat. It's been several years ago now, but I was just forever changed by the time that I spent with her. And I cannot wait to share just a little bit of her really, really beautiful and inspiring story with you today. So thank you Maria, for being here with me today.

Maria Abbe

00:01:42

Thank you so much, Jill. I'm super excited. I'm just so happy. I get to see your face again

Jill Simons

00:01:52

For those that don't follow you on social media, or maybe haven't heard of you before share a little bit about what it is that you do.

Maria Abbe

00:01:58

Yes, so I, oh gosh. Now maybe six years now started writing a blog on mental health and running because for years I struggled with the eating disorder, anxiety, depression I was in and out of therapy, but I fell upon running. I was never erasing thoughts, Matt, my racing body. And I could begin to piece life together, you know, one step at a time. So it was really instrumental in my journey of recovering from those things. Now I still sometimes struggle with anxiety and I talk about it a lot on my, on my platforms and such, but now I'm, I'm really dedicated to helping women implement running and physical fitness into their lives in a way that glorifies God and helps them work through their mental health issues or, you know, bumps in the road or whatever the case may be. And I do that through virtual run coaching and personal training. And then of course what I share my blog, that

Jill Simons

00:03:01

Is so awesome. And so what we're going to talk about today kind of it intersects with that, but it's a little bit different than what you share a lot, which is you do share a fair amount of your personal life through your social media and your work and things like that. But I want to spend our time today talking about really this journey you've gone on with the Lord in him, teaching you about your own lovability as a person. And you have an interesting history, both with God and with the people in your life that didn't love you in the way that they should. So jump into that story wherever it makes sense to you to get started.

Maria Abbe

00:03:41

Yes, absolutely. And it's interesting when you say, when you, when you bring that up of our lovability, God's love for us. It's still something that I'm learning. It's still something that I'm learning of. What does it mean to be loved unconditionally? Because especially someone who has struggled with people, pleasing, perfectionism, eating disorders, anxiety, you were constantly feeling like you were in this rat race of earning this love. So a good segue into answering your question that also seemed to infiltrate my dating life too. So it's been years ago now it was around the time that I had started writing this blog maybe a year or so after I started dating somebody who in my mind like seemed to have it all was Catholic budding career as a lawyer and had what I thought were the qualities that I was looking for, unbeknownst to me at the time, because that was young.

Maria Abbe

00:04:50

And I was constantly striving to, to grasp that love from somebody else to constantly be validated that I am loved and this person is going to help me see that I was pushing aside some major red flags and along the lines of like controlling where I am and always needing to know what I'm doing and blaming me for this and bringing it up. I passed about that. And it's one of those things where it was very much a, what felt like a manipulative narcissistic relationship, where I was, I would grasp onto what he said and believe it. And then, you know, try to always try to always FIPSE what he said was wrong about me. So it was constantly running this race of trying to make this relationship work when really it was a lot of what he was struggling internally. So we got to the point where we were at, am I going to go into too much detail?

Maria Abbe

00:06:04

I, when I share stories like this, I tried to be as not, I try to be specific, but vague, vague so that they don't feel like if they ever, when they stumble upon this, they don't feel like I'm speaking unshared away about them because I've actually come to such a place of forgiveness and understanding that I can talk about these things without feeling emotional reactions or negative feelings towards them, all that, to say I broke things off. I tried to break things off and then it became this perpetual cycle of him constantly texting me nonstop, calling me nonstop, emailing me nonstop, showing up at my workplace, showing up at random restaurants that I was at. I woke up one morning and my tires were slashed. I have no idea who did it or how it happened. And then, so we went from in the short relationship, went from talking about marriage.

Maria Abbe

00:07:09

He bought me an engagement ring of him coming to my house in the middle of the night, bombarding me with all of these things, calling me some of the worst names that I have ever been called in my life to God, to the point where I called the police so many times. And I had been told so many times that there was nothing they could do because he, cause I didn't have a restraining order against him that there was a specific incident that happened where he showed up and like verbally assaulted me in public in front of everybody in this restaurant. And I called my father. I called the police and I called my dad and my dad drove down from New York in the middle of the night. And as soon as he got there, he put me in his car, we went to the magistrate's office and filed for one of those immediate restraining orders.

Maria Abbe

00:07:55

And then which was granted. And then about a week later, we had to go back to court and we went through about two and a half hour trial of battling for this restraining order because, because he was in school to be a lawyer, she kind of knew how to work things more than the average person would. So he decided to try to file a restraining order against me. So we are sitting in this courtroom, I have to get up and share all of these traumatic things that have just happened to me. I was scared for my life. I didn't know who I, I didn't, it's a very scary place to be. So I had to sit up in court and of course, you know, my lawyer was asking me questions to get my side of the story. And then he represented himself. So I had to sit across from my perpetrator perpetrator, if that's the right word.

Maria Abbe

00:08:54

And he had to examine me. And I knew because I had known him well enough, by that point to know that every single question he was going to ask me, he was going to try to be a trap because he was so determined to make me out, to be the bad guy. And so it was really, really hard. And it was really traumatic at the end of the day, his restraining order request got thrown out. Mine got granted. Now that didn't mean that everything stopped because after that, I had to reel with the emotional trauma that comes from going through something like that. And it wasn't, I mean, truly up until that point, I hadn't seen someone try so hard to hurt somebody intentionally. So it was my first brush with something like that. And I, I said in that moment, I need to not because someone like this exists in the world, I need to work extra hard to make up for that unkindness.

Maria Abbe

00:09:56

Now, whether that's the right way to approach it or not, it kind of goes back to the feeling like I have to constantly hustle and hustle and hustle to earn love and to bring love into the world. So maybe that wasn't the best way to handle it, but it was really my first, like I said, brush with someone who could treat somebody like that. So I felt like, okay, how can I make up for this? It really woke me up. It really shook me, but it also started creating a lot of guardrails around my heart. I was, I didn't, I immediately, whenever anything happened that was confrontational, immediately got super defensive, everything for months and months, multiple years after that happened. Because during that time, everything that I said was used against me. So if I flew off the handle in a text message, that text message was brought up in court.

Maria Abbe

01:10:48

If I said something off the cuff on a phone call that was brought up again, it was, it was extremely difficult, long story, short, other things happen. And we had to go back to court again about six months later. So it was this, it was this constant manipulation trying to, I don't know what the goal was, maybe to beat me down as much as I, as much as could be. But it was really my first interaction where I was, had been searching for love and painting this picture in my head of what I thought this person was and striving for what I thought that relationship could be. And then having to be abruptly awoken that, that, till years later that I went to Spain and Portugal on a, on a pilgrimage and in Fatima, I laid all down. I let it go. I had still been wrestling with forgiving this person for the harm that they had caused me the harm that they had caused my family.

Maria Abbe

01:12:03

It was a ripple effect. It wasn't just me though. I mean, my friends were impacted. My family was impacted. Everybody was worried about me. I had to be, I had my, you know, my, everyone had to know where I was at all times because we didn't know the capabilities of this person. So it wasn't until I knew that I was safe, like years had passed, I was safe. I hadn't spoken to that person, but it was Spain and Portugal where I had to let it go and truly, truly accept. God's love for me because in my rush to feel love in this dating relationship, it was all conditional. It was all conditional. And so I had to really let it go and let Christ in to be able to heal those wounds because those wounds were so deep. So I had to be extremely guarded, all that to say that that was a long way of sharing that story. But it, it was a stepping stone in my journey of understanding that God's love is not going to be met with condition. And that's still something that I struggled to understand, but if I do something wrong, it's not going to be held against me. He's not going to love me any less.

Maria Abbe

01:13:24

You know, it's. And so that's still something that, you know, I I've worked through on a daily basis.

Jill Simons

01:13:32

It's so interesting how we create these templates. Also, almost, almost whether it's from our parents or the people we've dated or other people that have come into out of our lives, friends, et cetera, where we then can so easily like copy and paste their way of being onto our impression of how God is. And I think that sometimes it doesn't even start somewhere because correct me if I'm wrong. But it sounded like from your story that this kind of hustle mentality predated this relationship a hundred

Maria Abbe

01:14:12

Percent.

Jill Simons

01:14:13

And so this is something and I, I am the same way where like I grew up in a loving home and all of these things, and it's been kind of a question my whole life is like, why do I have so much struggle with this? Because it seems like I should have like a good template really to apply to God. But it's so interesting how every single one of us deals with challenges and conflicts and interpersonal relationships. And we're so quick to take those. Like, even if they're isolated and because like, you know, out of your life, like you said, this was your kind of one and only time of someone trying so hard to hurt you and treat this way. And yet these things end up becoming just what we expect almost from life. And I wonder if part of it is out of, like you said, these guard rails around your heart, you know, protecting ourselves. And we develop that same kind of protectionist mentality towards God, because we just don't want another instance of the heartbreak. And I think we've got a lot of times we feel like maybe we don't know how we know that he loves us. So as you came out of this time, you eventually entered into another relationship. Right. And this one also though, quite different was another instance of really learning on this front. So share with us about that.

Maria Abbe

01:15:43

Yeah. I'm laughing because you don't think about these things until people ask you these questions and you're like, oh my gosh. Yeah. That's what happened. Wow. Maria, let's be more self-aware next time. But yeah. So a few years after that, I entered into another serious relationship and it was the complete opposite. So like when you're in a relationship where the person is manipulative or it ends very traumatically or dramatically, and something comes into your life, that's the opposite. You sometimes assume that it's the best or the good, right. And that's what I did naively as I can be. That's what I did. And on the onset, it was fine. Like it was, it was a decent relationship. We loved each other very much. We talked about marriage very early on. I am Catholic. He was not Catholic. So we did butt heads a lot there and trying to navigate that. And we dated for about three years in the middle of that dating time is when I met you. And we had broken up for a period of time because of the faith differences. And I was devastated. I was absolutely devastated. I thought, for sure, that was my person. I thought, for sure, that was the person I was going to marry. So then to abruptly be broken up with, I was crushed and you saw it. I was crying the whole day retreat. I was just crying.

Maria Abbe

01:17:24

But for some reason, and God has a plan. God had a plan. I did not want to let it go. I had worked so hard in that relationship to, in my mind, make it work. Like even though there were, again, things that should have probably been addressed earlier on, I was working again, keyword working so hard to make it work when it was very clear. Now looking back that it probably wasn't going to work from the onset and people around me knew it probably wasn't going to work for the, from the onset. But because I was so headstrong and making it work, we got to that point where we broke up, got back together. He and I went through RCAA together to learn more about the faith together. Even though I was born and raised Catholic, I thought it would be, he thought it would be a good thing.

Maria Abbe

01:18:20

We thought it'd be a good thing to go through together. And all the while talking about marriage, talking about marriage, we're working through this stuff cause we want to get married. We want to get married. We want to get married. I got to be 2020 and middle and end of 2020. And we had, we had talked about marriage that whole year, this year we're getting engaged. And I always felt this unsettling feeling in my stomach of, I am not being told the truth here. There's something underlying here, but maybe if I can just keep hustling and asking a lot of questions and figuring this out, it'll all be fine and we'll get married and it'll be fine. It'll be fine. But it wasn't. And as time went on, you know, we went through all the motions of what people do before they get engaged, looking at rings, all that kind of stuff.

Maria Abbe

01:19:13

But I still in the bottom of my heart knew that this wasn't, this there's something wrong here. And so we had talked about getting engaged before the end of that year. I, I got to be December 26, December 31st and nothing was happening, but I was being reassured over and over again. We're getting engaged, we're getting engaged December 31st rolls around, I get a phone call. We're not getting engaged. And I don't know what, what his perception was really. But in that moment it was like, the answer that I had been praying for for three years of is this right, is this right? Was finally straight in front of my face. This is not right. Because I have been spending all of this time, again, searching for love when it's very clear that there were things that were not, were not right, but I kept brushing them aside and brushing them aside because it was still good.

Maria Abbe

02:20:23

You know what I mean? Like in comparison to that other relationship, it was great. It was great. So I kept pushing it aside and pushing it aside and striving and striving and striving and asking God every single day. Why do I feel so little piece about this? Why do I feel a little piece about this, but I'm still gonna go forward anyways. And so it really was, it was humbling. It was difficult. Again, thinking that you're going to marry somebody and working so hard to try to make that relationship work. And then having to say, God, I CA I need to surrender all to you. I can't, I can't keep striving and striving and wearing myself down. So I let it go. And it was difficult, but not as hard as that, as you would think it would be, it was, it was hard. Yeah, it was. It took me a while to work through the emotions of what that caused. And also I had built in my head a perception of what I thought was going to be my life. So unraveling this, this ideal that I had, that actually wasn't grounded in reality, it was something that I was making up because of, for whatever reason conversations we were having, whether they were true or not. So I finally let it go. And it was in that surrender. It was in that surrender that I could let Christ in.

Maria Abbe

02:21:50

'cause I, it, because instead of me striving, I was like, I'm done striving. I'm done, I'm done. I'm done. I did the consecration to St. Joseph. I prayed nonstop. Novena is in front of the blessed sacrament every single day. And he just showed me how much he loved me. And I never felt that way before. And it's interesting now, because looking back, and it's interesting now, looking back, because I hadn't even come to this realization until literally this moment, but I have gone through a lot of change, which we can talk about, but I have gone through a lot of change over this past year. And my mom keeps saying to me, I am just so impressed with how well you've handled it. And I think now looking back, I've handled it so well because I have actually for the first time, truly surrendered and let God just love me and know that he is always by my side, walking me through it.

Maria Abbe

02:22:50

So it's not easy. A lot of, I think a lot of what, a lot of the issues in life, we kind of create ourselves sometimes with our own stubbornness and our own pride. And I'm the first to say that was me, especially in dating relationships. You, you want to feel that love. You want to whether, whether you realize it or not, sometimes you want that other person to fulfill this hole that might be in your heart. And that's what I was striving for. Even though I would have been the first to say, no, no, no, I'm not no way I'm too self-aware. I know, but I was, I was, and it caused me a lot of heartbreak and pain, but then God redeemed it all. And it's been beautiful ever since. And so do you have this like beautiful experience of like coming to this place with God?

Maria Abbe

02:23:41

And then what did he get you? I break up with that at the end of 2020, I was doing, I was in the middle of my consecration to St. Joseph for my future husband, for me, for my job and my career. And it ended on the feast of the holy spices, which is January 23rd. And on the 29th of January, I was introduced to a girlfriend of mine. Cause I went to college with her fiance at the time brother. I said, I have, she's like, are you open to meeting a nice man? And at that point I was like, nothing ever works. So what harm is this going to be? Let's just do it. And she introduced us and I was just blown away. I was blown away by his authenticity, the way that he cared about me, the way that he wanted to get to know who I was deep down inside instead of trying to change me.

Maria Abbe

02:24:48

And I felt like for the first time I could actually be myself and not, and not have to worry. What is he thinking? Does he want to be with me? Does he not want to be with me? None of that. None of that happened. And I never experienced that before. So it was funny because we now learned that one of our other friends, a mutual friend of ours had been praying a rosary. My fiance's name is Gus had been praying a rosary for him, or just praying the rosary in general. And he was on her heart for finding somebody. And then all of a sudden she just felt pressed upon her heart Maria. And so then she reached out to the friend that I went to college with the friend from college, reached out to me. So it was felt very divinely inspired. So we met in January dated long distance cause I was living in Charlotte.

Maria Abbe

02:25:38

He was in Jacksonville and it's really nice cause we have mutual friends. So I felt like I could easily blend into the friend group. And I got to know his family and they're wonderful. And we decided in the summer that, okay, this relationship could work. This could work, but we can't do long distance forever. And I wasn't tied to Charlotte. I didn't have any family there plus I was ready for a change. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to discern moving down. So I did, I moved down in October, October 23rd, a month later, we got engaged and now we're getting married May 13th, 2022. So in the span of a year of a year, God has just in that, that moment of surrender, that moment of faithfulness, he has just swooped in and been like, I love you. And I care for you. I know that it is on your heart to be a wife and to be a mother.

Maria Abbe

02:26:43

And to do that with a man by your side, who is a man of God and who is going to guide you and help you get to heaven. And I'm going to give that to you. And I feel so unbelievably blessed, unbelievably blessed, but here's the thing. Every other relationship I've been in, I have had constant anxiety because I knew deep down in my heart, something wasn't right, but didn't want to address it for various reasons. In this relationship, there is no anxiety. There is none because I don't have to constantly be chasing after my fiance to know if he loves me to know if he cares about me. And so this is, it is a type of dating and engagement relationship that I never thought even existed. And today's dating world. It's a lot of playing hard to get and playing games and people not being forthright with their feelings and emotions.

Maria Abbe

02:27:41

And that that is hard. And it makes you feel worthy. It makes you feel like you constantly have to be searching for someone's love because it becomes this game. And I never had that with Gus and I still don't have that with Gus. He knows how much I love him. I know how much he loves me. And there have never been any games. There's been a lot of open communication. There's been hard conversations since I had recently gotten out of that other relationship and dealing with emotions and how we process things together. But there was never a feeling of, I have to strive for his love. I would hope that he would say the same for me, that he doesn't have to strive for my love. I feel like we both are open very transparent about it, but at the end of the day, God is in the center. And that's what, that's what we are striving for together. God is at the center. It's not easy. There are definitely highs and lows, but if you're going to strive, instead of striving to find love in this world, strive to have God at the center.

Jill Simons

02:28:42

Absolutely. When I got, when I saw on Instagram that Maria and Gus were engaged, I had not texted you for probably almost a year because both of our lives had been crazy and everything. And I was having children and you were doing all of your running and coaching. And, and I saw that on Instagram. And I don't know if I have ever been so affected by somebody else's good news before. Like I know couples who have had babies after years of infertility and I'm so excited for them, but this was just so like visceral for me because like Bria said, when she was in the middle of her second relationship is when I had come into the story just a little bit and was just so, so aware of how much you deserved. Like everybody does somebody to look at them way that God looks at them and where it really to be in a relationship that images, that way that you know, really is called to image the Trinity.

Jill Simons

02:29:49

Really when you're married, you're called to create from the love between you a third person, just like the holy spirit comes from the love between the father and the son. And I was just like, gosh, this is just, she deserves this Florida and she needs this and I want this for her. And I was newly married myself at the time and was just like, gosh, this is just not fair. I'd always felt that. And so when this had happened, I was just could not be more excited. I've never met your fiance at all, but I'm just already loved him so much because I know how much he loves you. And that makes me so happy.

Maria Abbe

03:30:29

Oh my gosh. Thank you for that encouragement. Oh my goodness. I, that means so much to me because, so the thing was social media, as we all know, it's a little, it's, it's weird sharing your good news for me personally. Cause I don't want anyone to feel like their life isn't going forward or they're not receiving blessings. But I think because I had been so transparent with the tough time that they had with those situations, then sharing that good news of like us not getting engaged. It was, it was a form of encouragement for other women who might be in the throws of, of, or in that chapter that I had previously been in and understanding that it's not going to be like that forever. It's not going to be like that forever. Just keep surrendering, keep surrendering. And it's broad. Like I've had now a lot of conversations with women on social media, email, all that stuff about what they're experiencing in dating.

Maria Abbe

03:31:34

And if you had told me five, six years ago, when I started writing about running, I never would have thought that I'd be writing about dating, but that's the beauty of us sharing our stories. And I think that, you know, it's so much easier said than done. It's so much easier said than done when you just want something to work out so badly. And someone says, just keep going, just surrender. God's got you so much easier for other people to say that than it is to hear that in that moment, because you are still so uncertain. If that's actually going to happen, the best advice I got during all of this time with someone telling me to step out of the boat, step out of the boat and go forward and trust the Lord is going to be there. And so that's just what I, that's just what I did.

Maria Abbe

03:32:31

I would pray and discern, but I wouldn't over discern things when it came to like moving and I also accepted a new job during this time, I was like, I'm going to step out of the boat and I'm going to trust. And that was the best piece of advice I had gotten. Another thing is a mentor of mine, mentor and friend. She was like, cause I I'm, I tend to now because of these situations be like, well, worst case scenario, what's going to happen. What's the best thing that could happen. What's the best thing that could happen. You move down to Florida, you fall in love, even deeper, you get engaged, you get married and you have kids. Okay. And then what's the worst thing that could happen. You moved on to Florida, you guys decided isn't it, right? You either you move back home, you moved to Charlotte, you move wherever you want to move, but it was a stepping stone to get you to that next spot. So that's now how I try to approach things in, in my life because it really allows for that place of surrender.

Jill Simons

03:33:31

Absolutely. And I think so just in case, because I have a like 18 year old Jill in my head all the time as I'm recording these things and she's always like, well, but here's the way I can make this negative and make this not apply to me and whatever the case may be. And so what I want to draw out of your story is that I, if for someone who is, you know, maybe still in that place of really struggling with their own lovability, there can be the tendency to fixate on. Like, I want to find my Gus, like I want that, that to happen in my life. And as we know, that's a good desire, but at the same time, I really want to just draw attention to the order that you shared with us, Maria, where there was this, the breakup, and then this time really sitting with the Lord. And I want you to share a little bit more about that time and really what would have happened. Hypothetically, if you had just stayed in that place, like if Gus hadn't come right away, like he did, do you feel like that would have been a place of poverty to stay?

Maria Abbe

03:34:50

I think that's such a great question. I've actually thought back to that and I'm like, okay, so what if Gus didn't come into the picture? Would I still have this much hope and faith and dating? And it's hard to answer that question because I don't know, but what I do know is it was, it was, I, I felt truly, and I think I wrote this in my journal. I felt truly like I was in the desert. Like I no longer had anything and all I could do is surrender. And for me it was almost sort of an awakening in that when I was in that three-year relationship, I didn't realize how much anxiety I had. I kept pushing it down and pushing it down and it down. So then once that ended actually finally had an answer as to why I was having so much anxiety.

Maria Abbe

03:35:45

So it was a little relieving. But then to your point, I had, I had to walk back out into the desert. So act well, what I did was I sat on that couch with my mom and my sister and my dad and I, but I was like, this is what I wanted, man. This is what I need in a man. And so it helped me. It helped me see my worth, if that makes sense. Like, because I was in the desert, I was, it was God in me, just us. And I just kept leaning on him to say, to tell me how worthy I am. And so I'm a list person. So in creating that list, I felt like, okay, at least, at least these other relationships in my past, they've been stepping stones, stepping stones to help me realize what I want in a man.

Maria Abbe

03:36:43

Now, if that man, if I could have been sitting here today, not meant, man still wouldn't have come around. I at least had gotten to the point in the desert with our Lord to know that I deserve that and I didn't have to settle for anything. Other than that, I'm sure I would have had moments where I would want to rip it up and give up and go back to the, you know, typical dating scene or whatever. But I, but I didn't. And it was really an, the surrender that I learned to just let Christ love me and learned my worth, honestly. And that, that came from the Lord, speaking through other people too, like friends reassuring me that I am worthy because you know, it was hard for me to be 30 and break off of a break off a three year engagement that I thought was about to end in marriage and then having to start all over again.

Maria Abbe

03:37:38

And it's really funny. This is a little, a little aside, but I remember when we broke up thinking, oh my gosh, I have to like meet someone else's friend group now and get acclimated into a whole other friend group. And lo and behold, the Lord provided because he was already friends with a bunch of people I was friends with. So it's, it's just, it was an easy transition, but the Lord, the Lord knew what I needed and I had zero expectations. And I think that was another thing I had CRO expectations, none because I had lived so many years of my life with expectations of how I thought relationships should go and that kept not working. So I just, I had to let it go as hard as it was.

Jill Simons

03:38:25

And I think that so no expectations in terms of like, you know, the timeline or what it was going to happen and things like that. But holding to those for how he was going to treat you and who he was going to be. Correct. Okay.

Maria Abbe

03:38:42

Yeah.

Jill Simons

03:38:44

I think that that's like a thing that, you know, another phrase that then people can take in the wrong direction and be like, well, I'm just not going to have expectations and let that be something where they're like, well, I'm going to just take what I can get. And so often, you know, the circumstances kind of rise to the level of our expectations in terms of how we want to be treated and, and the things that we will accept from other people and things like that, as opposed to not having expectations about how God is going to bring something about, which is where I think we also keep a lot of expectations. It's like, this is the timeline, God, and this is what you need to execute on.

Maria Abbe

03:39:28

Yes. And that's yeah. Thank you for clearing clarifying that for everybody. Cause that's exactly what I, I meant expectations in what I deserve, but no expectations on how the Lord is going to work in my life and trusting that the way that he's going to work is the best way, because it's his way, which is hard. That's hard to like surrender that stuff. But the other thing is that's been super helpful for me in this journey is Gus has shown me how I deserve to be treated. And I was never treated that way before. So I can't say that I did any of this on my own. It was the Lord. It was the Lord working through Gus showing me how worthy I am. I mean like he's, I mean, he still treats me so, so well he everyday is still pursuing me and he like, he's got me, like, he's what he's full pursuing me.

Maria Abbe

04:40:25

And it's so beautiful. And I think, you know, cause I talked to some of my friends and other people that are single and struggling with that and I'm like, let him pursue you, let him pursue you. And if you're going to let him pursue, you, let the Lord pursue you too, because you, you deserve to be pursued and the Lord wants to pursue you. He loves you. So, so, so, so much. And I think that that is, I think we get so caught up in our timelines and what we think should happen, that we forget that we deserve to be pursued.

Jill Simons

04:41:06

Yeah. Yup. I think that, that is so true. And that is such a pivotal thing for then also accepting the fact that we are worthy of being pursued because I think like a lot of things, you know, you talk to, you've said a phrase that I just love and I pray with a lot, which is like, let the Lord love you. And that is something that I think in a lot of cases, excuse me, people think that, you know, like, oh, I just want to be loved, but then you put yourself face to face with like, are you willing to let the Lord love you? And it's kind of like, what does that involve? That sounds kind of terrifying. Like, I don't know if I actually would like that because it really is putting, letting the ball be in his court. And that's, that's something that he's really been teaching me in my personal prayer life right now.

Jill Simons

04:41:59

Totally different circumstance. I'm a special needs mom. And so that's a lot of what I've been wrestling with is just like how, how, how, how, how, in terms of dealing with my child with special needs. And the other day, as I was praying, Lord was kind of like, you're kind of just stuck on this house thing. And I was like, well, it's important. Like I need to know how, and, and that was very much the response as well, was like, you know, if you are willing to lay down your expectations for how you can expect that I will deal with this situation, I will move in this situation. Same with, you know, if you're willing to lay down your expectations of how you will experience being loved. And that is what I would love to leave people like listening to this episode with is that it doesn't necessarily come through the avenue that you think the Lord wants to love you. And he also wants to put people in your life to love you, but that won't always be the way that you think it's going to be. And I'm sure you know, what our expectations are is particular to each person, but it might surprise you if you let it. Yes. Amen. Yes. And amen. Well, thank you so much, Maria, for being my guest today, it is always such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much, Jill. This has been, this has been an edifying conversation and I'm so glad we got to do this.

Jill Simons

04:43:34

Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the authentic uprising podcast. If you're watching on YouTube or listening on a podcast app, make sure that you hit subscribe so that you can get all of our updates automatically in your app on YouTube. And we also ask that you leave us a review or comment. If you're in a podcast app, leave us a review that helps us get seen by more people and on YouTube, leave us a comment, let us know what you loved from the episode and send it on to a friend. I am sure that you know, someone who really needs the message in this podcast from today. I also encourage you to check out pink salt riots. That is my company that sponsors this podcast. We have an incredible online shop full of all kinds of beautiful and unique Christian lifestyle goods. You can shop our whole line at pink, salt, riot.com. I'll see you next week.