Believe Big Podcast

87-Kristi Gaultiere - Hope in Deconstruction

• Ivelisse Page & Kristi Gaultiere • Season 3 • Episode 87

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Discover how faith deconstruction can be a transformative journey toward a deeper, more authentic spirituality in our latest Believe Big podcast episode featuring Kristi Gaultiere, author of Journey of the Soul.

Kristi shares profound insights into the stages of spiritual growth, offering guidance for those wrestling with doubts or seeking clarity in their faith. Whether you are navigating a personal crisis, like a cancer diagnosis, or simply yearning for a closer connection to God, this episode provides a compassionate framework for exploring your beliefs.

Learn how to embrace the questions that arise during life’s challenges and use them as stepping stones for spiritual renewal. Kristi’s wisdom will inspire you to lean into the process with hope and courage, finding peace in the journey. Don’t miss this empowering conversation—it’s a must-listen for anyone seeking strength and purpose in their faith journey. Tune in now to be encouraged and uplifted!

Learn more about Kristi Gaultiere and Soul Shepherding:
https://www.soulshepherding.org/

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Ivelisse Page:

Hi, I'm Ivelisse Page, and thanks for listening to the Believe Big podcast, the show where we take a deep dive into your healing with health experts, integrative practitioners, biblical faith leaders, and cancer thrivers from around the globe. Welcome to today's episode on the Believe Big podcast. My name is Ivelisse Page, and I am so honored to be with you today. It is my great pleasure to welcome back to the Believe Big podcast, my friend and soul sister, Kristi Gaultiere. Kristi is a frequent guest on our show that helps us to understand and care for the health of our souls and the need for caring for them. Kristi is a doctor of psychology and has dedicated her life to serving Jesus. She has also co-authored a bestselling book with her husband of 35 years called Journey of the Soul, A Practical Guide to Emotional and Spiritual Growth. Her and Bill have three grown children. She's a grandmother of two. She enjoys speaking, training, teaching, consulting, counseling, and retreat leading with Bill. as well as recording their weekly Soul Talks podcast. Welcome back to the show, Kristi.

Kristi Gaultiere:

Oh, thank you, Ivelisse. I'm so happy to be with you today and to each of our friends with us listening in.

Ivelisse Page:

Well, I'm so grateful that you're here to talk with us about hope and deconstruction of our faith. You know, I was just having a conversation with my family because, you know, many people have circumstances in their lives, especially in our community with cancer, that cause us as individuals to question our faith. It happened to me when my father died when I was 13, and also last fall when I got a second cancer diagnosis and the good news for people to hear today is that it's healthy to question things that you have been taught and learned because you're being honest with how you feel. But here's the important piece and I feel like this is the message of today is that, you don't have to lose your faith in the process and I know that Soul Shepherding works with many individuals who hit this wall and I'm so excited for you to shed light into this topic. But before we get into it you know we always start our show with with our favorite health tip and you have shared in the past about prayer, you shared about rhythms of life. What is another one that you can share with our listeners today?

Kristi Gaultiere:

Well, another one's pretty obvious pretty basic, but I've found it really helpful to me and that's just drinking a lot of water, really staying hydrated. I just am so grateful. I thank God every day for pure, clean water and in abundance and something easy to take for granted. But it makes a big difference when I get enough versus when I don't. Little things.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. Yes. Little thing that is a big thing. Yeah. Yes. So Kristi, for, for those who may not understand what deconstruction is. Can you explain what it is?

Kristi Gaultiere:

Yes. Well, it's actually a season that often we can experience in our life, and we often maybe will experience it as questioning our faith, feeling dryness spiritually, feeling doubts in our faith, it's something maybe, maybe it'd be best just to use a description from our book, Journey of The Soul. We say just a simple definition Christian deconstruction is the experience of questioning your faith, your traditions, the Bible or your church. It's taking apart your belief system. So that you can rebuild it, founded on a relationship of healthy trusting Jesus. So we all have experienced in our spiritual life a construction of our faith. And there are certain, you might even say, bricks that we've been put in there that are pretty foundational. We write about this in our book, Journey of the Soul, which is about our stages of faith and emotional, spiritual growth. So when we build a faith, we get some basic building blocks in there, and then we build on those as we grow and mature in our faith. But it is normal for us after some years of building that, that faith. that faith and those pillars and putting those key components in to start to question some of those. They, they get knocked on pretty hard. They get assaulted. We hear things that are in conflict with them that are different than them. We experience things in life that don't seem to fit that box that we've kind of maybe put God in. And so it starts to get challenged. And then we run into a new set of experiences. Like many of your listeners right now, or like I have with, you know, I've had four family members with cancer and the last two years, and I've lost two of four of them to, to cancer. Uh, the other two are doing great and have fully recovered. But, um, you know, those kinds of challenges they bring about questions that we haven't had before. Those experiences test our faith. They push really hard on those those beliefs we've constructed and, um, cause us to relook at our life and some things that we hadn't really questioned before. And that can be a deconstruction of those things that maybe we'd felt pretty confident in. Maybe they've supported us well, held us up well, and now it's, it's getting pretty wobbly. Another thing that we write about in the chapter, The Wall, This is the stage of faith where we are often in some sort of a deconstruction. There's different kinds of walls. It can be a personal crisis, like a cancer diagnosis. It could be a dark night of the soul where you really are not experiencing God's comfort and presence and consolation. Maybe you're reading scripture and it feels dry and dead, where it used to feel alive and speak to you, now it's just boring. Maybe you can't find anything motivating or that feels good in your spiritual life that used to feel so great. Now it just feels all blah and boring and old and dry and familiar. Maybe you don't want to go to church anymore. Maybe you're feeling burned out on all the the things that you were doing in your life in serving God and you don't have any motivation to join it anymore. These are can all be a part of that season at the wall. And one of the things that can happen at the wall is this deconstruction where we start to think what's happening to me. Well, is God even real? Is anything I believe even true anymore? Do I still believe it? Is it working for me? Those are the kind of things that we start to look at and ask ourselves in a deconstruction of our faith.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes, and you have shared, you know, that even some of our heroes of faith went through deconstruction. And I was like, what? At first, when I first heard that, it surprised me. Until you started to share about it. Can you share with our audience some of the biblical examples of those who went through this process, like Moses and Nicodemus even?

Kristi Gaultiere:

Absolutely. We do write about this in our book. One of the things we write about is we talk about Paul's journey through every season and stage of faith, and Abraham's, and most importantly Jesus's, as well as Bill and I share our stories and the stories of others we've journeyed with but Jesus experienced a testing of his faith where, he was drawn into the wilderness there for 40 days where he was tested by Satan in every way and tempted in every way that we are we know that he was he was also tempted very much by the religious leaders of his day who are constantly peppering him with questions and challenging him We know even John the Baptist his cousin who he loved so very much questioned if he was the Messiah And we know that Jesus suffered other walls that we write about in our book. He, he experienced and encountered at least three walls, which are that, that stage of faith where you hit a wall, a really a testing and a trial time and, um, certainly we know that one of those walls was early on in those hidden years of his life when he was stuck at home in the hick town of Nazareth working as a blue collar worker, providing for his family. We knew he had multiple brothers and sisters and his mom was a widow. And so he would have been the head male of the house and household and provider and he was probably working for his enemies, um, the Romans who occupied Israel at the time and be persecuted by them. And what a dry time. Here he was, uh, with so much knowledge and giftedness and this huge call of God on his life. And it sure didn't look like it in that season, that long season, 18 years, uh, of waiting between him being 12 years old at the synagogue, teaching the religious leaders, till he was 30, launching his ministry. And then we know he had a deep wall there of temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he was being tested by Satan. Again, um, but certainly we know Paul hit a big wall, a big deconstruction on the road to Damascus, when he was kicked off his horse and blinded, and here he was a Pharisee, he had constructed a whole faith and religious system, he had been trained by Gamaliel, it was a very highly respected. He was A++ student, summa cum laude, you know, he was the top of his religious order there, devout. And here, what a deconstruction to encounter the living Christ, saying, why are you persecuting me? And all of a sudden you had all these, but Lord, who are you? All of these questions. And he was blinded and we experienced often a sort of blinding, maybe not physically like Paul did, um, but he experienced a total deconstruction and it was a good thing, and he went, then went, three years into the desert of Arabia to work through that deconstruction and that reconstruction of a healthy faith. And that's the opportunity in deconstruction is the reconstruction. We maybe have some things that were built into our faith that need to be taken out in order for the Lord to reteach us and put some healthy new beliefs in there.

Autumn Hensley:

Hey, Believe Big podcast listeners. I hope you're enjoying today's episode with Kristi Gaultiere and finding our podcast encouraging and uplifting. Today is New Year's Eve, and as we end 2024, we'd love for you to consider supporting cancer patients by helping us provide resources like this podcast. We can't do it without your generosity. Joining us is easy. Just text BELIEVEBIG, no spaces, to 53555 on your smartphone. That's BELIEVEBIG to 53555. Thank you for Believing Big with us and happy 2025!

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. Yeah, and I think that's where it gets a bad name, right? So I think this whole progressive Christianity that we hear about now, you know the improper way of Deconstructing and then reconstruction with what you believe is what we hear a lot. This is my truth. You have your truth when we know that Jesus says that he is the way, the truth, and the life. So how does one reconstruct faith after deconstruction in a healthy way?

Kristi Gaultiere:

Well, the good news is that's the goal. That's the goal. And that's why God allows these times of testing and for us to go through this disorientation. Um, the, the deconstruction time we hit the wall, it is disorienting. It is a time it's destabilizing as we're questioning things before were so stabilizing for us as we have these new wrestlings. Um, and so it's not something that usually we choose, but we can choose how we respond to it. And that's, what's really key is that it can, are we going to respond by just spinning out and seeking other, um, kind of other beliefs, other religions. And a lot of people, unfortunately, when they hit a wall, they don't know that there's any other choice and they will leave and totally abandon their faith in Christ. Thinking that I guess this is all there was and it was immature and there's nothing more and they start to seek all these other kind of spiritual experiences and they kind of diminish what they had experienced before and they can lose sight of some of the jewels and the treasures there and that's really, really sad. So very sad. And so, uh, deconstructions can be a dangerous time and we want to really empathize with people who are in a deconstruction and we want to make sure that we make space to really listen to those doubts, those wrestlings, to empathize with that emotion of how that feels and the pain in that for them. And, um, how hard it feels to feel untethered from some things that were really secure for them, but we also want to help keep them tethered to the truth of Christ and the presence of Christ and his great love for him and not wander out to where they lose their faith in Christ and they lose the goodness of him and his light, his life, his power, his grace that we, we so need. So to remember that it's an opportunity for a healthy reconstruction and to, to not deconstruct to the point where you abandon Jesus as the way, the truth and the life is, is really, really important in that. And it can be helpful in our journey to look through, look back and say, um, okay, so what, how do I know any of this is true. So there's, there's four things that can be really helpful in that too. One of those is we want to look at scripture. Scripture is the source of truth in our life. We want to look at reason. Reason is the source of truth in our life. Experience is a source of true our spiritual experience. How have I experienced God? What, how do I know God was real? Um, what does the Bible tell me? What are other people's experiences? What are my experiences? What's reasonable that I believe? Reasonable that it's true. And then also tradition. We've got thousands and thousands of years of tradition, Christian tradition of followers of Jesus and they're wrestling through deconstructions and they're their experience, their reason, their knowledge, um, their interaction with God's word and truth. And we want, we don't want to forsake 2000 years of tradition just because we're having some doubts or some questions. We don't want to be quick to abandon that. So having those four supports can really help us as well in our reconstruction of our faith and asking God to lead us to some of some reminders of that. So it was really helpful to me in my time of deconstruction to remember all the consolations that I had experienced in my life in Christ through those earlier stages of my first coming to Christ, my when I first put my confidence in Christ, through my help and discipleship, where I was really learning to study scripture and receiving truth from the Bible and through my responsibilities in ministry, where I really did experience the presence of power of God in my life, ministering to me through other people and their gifts, but also empowering me and giving me joy gifts that I got to use and experienced His power through me far beyond my own abilities and knowledge. And so holding on and kind of going down memory lane and remembering those good things. Um, it's one of the things we encourage people to do in our Journey of the Soul book and in our Institute Retreats is to do a journey map of our, our spiritual journey so far and really mining what are those treasures? Where have I had those experiences with God? Where have I experienced these other things that people in my, in my Christian tradition testify to and have experienced and looking at other people's journeys like we spell out in Journey of the Soul and finding out what, What of those are true in my journey? Okay, I want to keep those, those are, those are bricks I want to keep in my faith life and wall and not let those tumble or get thrown out in my deconstruction process. And then where do I have longing for God? Where are there others that are ahead of me on this journey? And where's God inviting me on my journey that maybe I've been, I haven't been ready to go there because I have been closed minded. Because oftentimes before deconstruction, my thinking might be very black and white. And God might want to grow me beyond that black and white thinking, or I might have put God in a box that he wants to grow my view and my image if anyone want to correct my image of God. I probably along the way have gotten some mistaken images of God, which you know we talk a lot about in our spiritual formation retreat. So these are the kind of opportunities we have at the wall, to be able to look at what are my ideas about God? Where have they been, uh, boxed in maybe by immature faith? Where's God expanding them and growing me or where have they gotten out there and I need to bring them back in an alignment with God's truth and scripture and experience.

Ivelisse Page:

And it can happen at all, at many different points in our life. It's not just, Oh, there's this one time where, you know, I hit this and, and that's it. You know, it can happen several times in our life, can't it?

Kristi Gaultiere:

Yes, it can. I know, um, in Journey of the Soul, we talk about we can hit a wall like a deconstruction multiple times. It usually happens after some years in the first three stages of faith, which are the C, H, and R stages, which we talk about Confidence in Christ, Help in Discipleship, and Responsibility in Ministry. But it can even happen after we've progressed into the latter stages, which are Inner Journey, Spirit Led Ministry and Transforming Union because we, we have an enemy at every stage of our development and he's always trying to kill, steal and destroy us. And so we will get other times of doubt, other times of questioning, other times where we will be back in that deconstructing and re examining our beliefs. And also because we have a Lord who loves us, who's always calling us into more and always wants to teach us. And experience is a great teacher.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes, and and I think also one of another thing that the enemy tries to do is to divide us, right? So many different denominations and the gifts of the spirit and what does that mean for me? And and I loved how you said that, allow our hearts to be soft enough, so that he can do the work in it, so that we can receive things that he may have for us in this next season, so as we're evaluating how we grew up, you know, whether it was conservative or more evangelical, that we can be open to understanding and like you said, not putting God into a box of what He can do and what He can't do in each of our lives. And I know, I've had that happen several times in my faith journey. And, it is a humbling experience because when He shows you something that you've always thought was a certain way, you're just like, okay, Lord, I am this small and I, I need to remain so closely hemmed into your garment that I can just see you clearly and that I only see you and not all the noise from the world and not all the things that are being thrown my way or the things that the enemy is trying to distract and discourage me from believing who you really are. And, and for me personally, I think one of the, powerful things that's really helped me is to always remember his, his promises because we know that they are true for us. So even when we're having this, wall, time of the wall where we're questioning and, you know, why is this happening and he can handle it. Knowing his promises can give us peace to move forward. And I just recently shared with a friend of mine, shared this with me and I shared it with my family. And I thought it was just fascinating, you know, so many people trying to disprove who, who Jesus is. And, you know, I love the prophecies that have been in scripture, like you said, compared to scripture, because that is truth. And they said that over the 2000 prophecies, right, that have all been fulfilled in Jesus. 2000, right? And many people have tried to debunk them, like try and prove it wrong, but out of the 2000 or more, it says the likelihood of that is as if you had a half dollar and you put an X on it and then you buried it in the state of Texas, knee deep in coins, then being able to find it. That is the likelihood of all 2, 000 prophecies coming true. And so when you hear things like that, it's just like amazing what what God has for us and the treasures that we need to hold on to when we're going through something difficult like this.

Kristi Gaultiere:

That's right. Yes, and there's, there's those treasures and God's prophecies and promises and then he also is at work in our lives And as we remember, and we look at how he's worked in our lives, and we, we don't forget that and we hold on to that, that also can really help us in a time of deconstruction. I know in my deconstruction, that was so helpful to me to look back and say, Lord, where have I experienced your grace in my life, your action in my life, your provision in your life, your saving in my life, your, your work, where has that been? And as I, as I looked back to remember, no, I don't think that was coincidental. And I don't think that was just my own doing. And I don't think that was just fate. And I, and here's why, and being able to reexamine that and ask him to show me those things. And then in my deconstruction, another thing that really helped me was, I felt like the Lord drew me to the scripture where, Peter says, to where Jesus says, are you going to go to, are you going to leave me to, because many people have wandered away from him because his teachings are hard. And he says, are you going to leave me to? And Peter says, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe that you, are the son of a living God. And so I would, I would constantly proclaim that myself, even in my deconstruction. To whom would I go? And anywhere I looked was inferior and inadequate. And then the other thing that, that really helped me was remembering Peter after his fall and his denial of Christ. When Jesus came to the beach in Galilee, and his restoration and he's walking with him and he's telling him about what's ahead and Peter says to Jesus and what about him and points to John and I was identifying with with me. What about me Lord and Jesus says to Peter you don't worry you follow me What what I'm gonna do in his life is none of your business you follow me and I just kept again saying, okay Lord I will follow you. That's mine to do. My job is to trust you and to follow you and his word in John 6:10 when the disciples asked him, what is it that God wants? He says he wants you to believe and trust and follow the one whom he sent. That's the one thing in our deconstruction we can't lose sight of is Jesus as that anchor, hope that is the anchor of our soul.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes, and I know that whether it's someone listening today who is feeling far from God and going through this process, or a parent whose child has walked away from the faith, or, uh, can you give some advice as to what are the best things that we can do for someone who is struggling with their faith or who has walked away. How can we navigate that well instead of imposing shame or trying to fix them through this process that we all try and do?

Kristi Gaultiere:

Yes, and such a loving question, Ivelisse, thank you for that. Well, we want to understand that the deconstruction, um, is a time where we really want to be mediating God's grace and truth to them, not in lectures, but in really walking with them through the deconstruction with wisdom, with empathy, and with patience. This takes a long time. This is not an overnight quick fix. This is a long season. So educate yourself, get our book, Journey to the Soul, read about the wall, read about deconstruction, read about the stages of faith and educate yourself. You might want to pick up our leader's guide that has all kinds of great questions that you can, um, help them by asking those questions. You're not providing answers. You're asking the questions to help them in their time of seeking. Don't, don't push pearls, trying to fix them. No, guide them as the Lord is working, and the Lord, trust the Lord to awaken in them a new longing for God, and pray for that for them. Being someone who can understand these stages of faith, and understand the deconstruction, is a great grace and gift. And so we don't want to hurry people into believing the right thing at all. We want to offer empathy, gentle questions, validate their emotions. That's not the same as a validating their opinions that you might not agree with, or that might be concerning. You take those to prayer and don't engage in arguments there. Take those to prayer, the validate their emotions and we want to also join God's compassion for them when we lack faith. God offers us compassion. He doesn't, he doesn't come to us with anger. And another thing that could be really helpful is to ask them specifically, well, which, which beliefs specifically are you questioning? Which beliefs are changing for you? And ask them how they feel about that in their life. How is it going with them with that? Listening with empathy and and letting that inform your prayers for them. I think it's really important that you help them articulate their emotions and their experiences sometimes especially early in a deconstruction. They might not know how to even articulate it. So one of the things that the language in our book and Journey of the Soul will help with that. We've also put together a playlist on Spotify with a whole, about 40 contemporary Christian songs for the wall, specifically, um, that are Christian artists articulating their questions, they're wrestling with that faith, but then they're recentering and the songs do this. There's so many wonderful songs of lament that are really helpful in articulating what someone in a deconstruction feels and letting them know they're not alone. Actually, the psalmist experienced this and articulated this for us, so some of those Psalms, Psalm 77 is one, a psalm of deconstruction, where we are seeing in there an apparent lack of faith that's being articulated by the psalmist and. But there's also in Psalms like Psalm 13, Psalm 42, there's the, the doubts, the questions, the wrestling, but also the words of trust for God who listens so lovingly to us. So that can be really helpful is to engage with some of those psalms of lament that help them put words to what it is that they're, that they're feeling. And then also to remember it's Paul tells us in Philippians 2:12-13, how, um, to continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling for it's God who works in us to will and to do according to his purposes. And to, to remember that for our friends that are in deconstruction and be praying that for them for them. And then to be participating with God in that, by journeying with them, not abandoning them, not rejecting them because they're wrestling, not judging them. It was so hurtful. I remember somebody who came to our retreat, we were teaching this and she was like, Oh, thank you for understanding. I went to my pastor at my church and he questioned whether I was even a Christian anymore. And it was so hurtful to her. And so she stopped going to the church. Because she didn't feel comfortable. She felt so judged and we were so thankful that she didn't give up on Christianity and that she came to this retreat where she was reignited in her faith and where she was able to be able to be honest with the questions and the doubts, and she was able to actually identify some of her wrong ideas about God that weren't consistent with who Jesus is. Um, and They were a reason why she was having trouble trusting God and she was able to identify some past wounds that she had that really needed healing that surfaced in this deconstruction. So deconstruction can actually be a good thing because it can be an opportunity where we can get emotionally honest with God, ourselves, and others, but we want to make sure those others are wise trail guides who understand this season and can lead us towards renewal and um, and grace in this adventure on our journey with Jesus and to renewed love and hope with him.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes, thank you. And I would love the link to that Spotify list that we can add to the show notes. I think that would be really great for us to be able to share and include. And, you know, and then there's beauty on the other side of that wall. And I know that, you know, we're coming to the end of our podcast, and you shared the Christ stages of Confidence in Christ, Help and Discipleship, Responsibility and Ministry, and sometimes the wall hits there. But I wanted just to make sure we shared the other three real quick, which is Inner Journey, uh, then Spirit led, and Transforming Union is on that other side of that wall. Can you just briefly just kind of summarize what that means and for those who want even more detail about it, we'll also put a link to the Journey of the Soul book there for them to to be able to get more in depth

Kristi Gaultiere:

Yes, we'd love to that inner journey season is a season where we begin to get emotionally honest. We've got ourself and our other we didn't open up our souls and more of his soul His healing touch, we start to get more, take courage to get honest about and look at some of our early woundings to our soul that we've been defended against, or that we've been, uh, maybe an early in our season of faith, stage of faith, we've been, defended against even with spiritual disciplines, being really busy for God and service to God, or trying to even get caught up in earning favor with other Christians or trying to impress other people or trying to prove ourselves. And this is, this inner journey season is a season that's usually the quieter season where we cut off our busyness. We cut off all that striding. We cut off all that activity of serving and focusing on others or being busy doing things for God. in order to spend time with God and to let the Lord minister to us because we get to a point where we start to realize the neediness of our soul and we start to realize how desperately we need His unconditional love and grace and healing for those areas where we've missed it and where we're able to see the Lord is ready to begin to reveal to us some hidden sins that we have not been aware of that are more unconscious, unconscious habits. So this this all happens in our inner journey season as we get emotionally honest and do some of that emotional growth work. The other side of that as we begin to reawaken to a greater longing for God as we, as he, as we do the inner journey work. And in that, he then begins to invite us into spirit led ministry as we've grown in this deeper longing for God and we begin to have deeper and maybe even some mystical experiences, some ways where God really shows up for us in key ways that are such deep consolations and so personal to us. And we begin to understand that God's power is much bigger than we ever, ever dreamed and much more personal and much more accessible to us personally. And that as we get out of his way, he actually empowers us and uses us in ways that bring us great joy. And that's spirit led ministry. It's no longer us busy doing all these great things for God, but it's us with God by the power of the spirit, moving in step with his spirit and incredibly fruitful life in that spirit led ministry season of overflowing because we've become wounded healers. God has used our experience through the wall and our deconstruction and our inner journey work to bring about such healing and growth that then we are able to offer that to other people. And then the transforming union stage, that T stage, is when we've walked along with God. We've been faithful through all the ups and downs of our journey. The joyful times, the hard times, the times of great faith, the times of terrible doubt, the times when it just felt so great to be a Christian and be serving the Lord. Those times we felt the cost of it, the sacrifice and suffering of being united with Christ suffering, and we've been faithful and we have come to a place where we can trust God, no matter what our circumstances, where we can love our enemies, where we, like Jesus, have learned to bless the one that curses us. And we've learned to forgive and we've learned God's grace and abundance of forgiveness for ourselves such that we, we get free of shame and we get more confident in God and his love and grace at work in us. But at every season we write about injuring the soul at every season, there is unique temptations because there are different ways the enemy comes to try to test us. And so even in those lighter stages, there's still more for us to grow on, go on, because we're always at work. God is always calling us to greater intimacy with him and deeper joy and stronger faith and hope.

Ivelisse Page:

That's beautiful. Well, Kristi, thank you so much for shedding light into this really important topic. Thank you for being with us today and, uh, you know, until next time.

Kristi Gaultiere:

Thank you for letting me be with you and thank you to each of your listeners for pressing and making space and time to value your soul as God does in joining Ivelisse and Believe Big and letting me be a part of that too.

Ivelisse Page:

If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support our podcast, please subscribe and share it with others. Be sure to visit believebig.org to access the show notes and discover our bonus content. Thanks again and keep Believing Big!