Embracing Vulnerability and God's Guidance: A Conversation with TESS SCOTT

In this powerful episode of Out of the Darkness, I had the pleasure of talking with Tess Scott, a speaker and award-winning author who took a leap of faith and quit her job to begin speaking and writing. 

Together, we explored Tess's journey of embracing vulnerability and obedience to God, taking one step at a time, and the power of honesty and accountability when connecting with a community. Tess also shared her experience of blending a family with eight boys and the importance of finding quiet time to connect with God. 

We delved into the significance of mentoring, generational prayer, being real with ourselves and others, and the healing that can come from recognizing and accepting God's forgiveness. 

Don't miss this inspiring conversation as we continue on our journey as followers of Jesus Christ.



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✔LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tess-scott-a5a091217/

✔Top 10 signs your life is a Freakshow:  https://tessscott.com/freakshow 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Life's Trials
• 14:22 Real Lessons in the Fake World
• 29:54 Fill Your Head with Truth
• 40:02 Connecting with Tess Scott

Transcript

0:00:00
I was speaking at this event, and I was, like, I always am, like, honest. And a woman came up to me after she was probably my age. And which is in my fifties. And she said to me, I had an affair twenty years ago. And I've been living under the shame and guilt of that for twenty years and never Have I heard anyone speak about Christian women who fall? And g, you know, and I bowed my head off. Like and prayed with her. We prayed together. And because whatever we've done, God says when we come to him, we're forgiven. Hi. I'm Ruth Hovsepian

0:00:45
Welcome to the Out of The Darkness Podcast. Where we help you navigate life's trials based on faith and difficult truths. Test God is a black sheep turned to Jesus Girl on a mission to encourage women with messy stories that they are not alone. She reminds them of who they are in Christ so they can shed the shame and embrace the power of God in their imperfect lives. For some, this looks like having the guts to share their own story for others. It's finally embracing a life of freedom. She obeyed God, left a job she loved to begin speaking and write a book. She also started a ministry called Listen Sister encouragement for women.

0:01:34
Welcome, Tess. I am thrilled to have you join me today on out of the darkness, especially since you are maybe the second Canadian guests that I have. So there's there's something that I don't like my American and overseas guests but there's something about having That's it. We're like homegirls. That's it. That's it. We're we're long distance neighbors, but we're neighbors. To, you know, province apart. So welcome. I'm so glad to have you here today. Thanks for Let oh, you're welcome.

0:02:08
Let's start off with you telling us a little bit about yourself and your journey to getting to where you are today? Okay. So, well, obviously, my name is Tess Scott. So, I'm a a speaker and award winning author. And my journey, I have been if we just look at an overview of my life, I've been married four times, twice to the same guy. So that's something I'm not even a celebrity. I've been married a lot to And we have this big blended family of eight boys. One is adopted, special needs. He has fetal alcohol, spectrum disorder, so that That's a bit of a thing to live with. And, yeah, this great life.

0:02:52
And I felt a few years ago now the calling to share my story. You know? And I and as time went on, I don't know. God doesn't speak to me in this big roaring voice. Thank goodness. Because who could stand. Right? Yeah.

0:03:07
You just know, like, you're, you know, you're in you're reading your bible and you read the same things. And, like, no matter where you read, you open it anywhere and it's God's thing. I want you to do this. And then you go to church and the pastor speaking about the same thing. And then on the way home from church, you turn on the radio and the song is like, test obey God. And, like, you can't get away from it. I couldn't get away from it. And I didn't wanna do it. Like, I have to be honest. I thought so god, you you want me to share about my freak show life and all the times I've screwed up and all the mistakes I've made and all the pain and And, no, so I don't want to. And, are you with God? It's never it doesn't sound like it's a good thing. Right? But I still did. And I didn't want to do it because it's it's vulnerable. And and being honest, it's it's really terrifying. Yeah. It's really scary. Yeah. It's really scary, so I didn't wanna do it.

0:04:02
And I was working at a community college in our in our town, Hampton College. And my favorite job ever at the fire school. I was the administrative assistant at the fire school. So it was sort of like radar on mass. If you remember all those years ago that to Joe mass, so I was a radar. So I was like, dude, everybody came to me. I felt also good about myself. Oh, test. She's the one, you know. I loved it. I didn't wanna quit my job.

0:04:28
So this one morning, I was getting ready for work. And I was in the washroom putting on makeup, you know, this doesn't just happen. And I'm getting already and I look in the mirror and my my smile is crooked. I thought, oh, that doesn't look good. That's worse than normal. But I still put on my makeup and I still went to work because, you know, life can't go on without test there. That's what I thought. And every I kept looking I unlocked the door for the students, getting ready, kept looking at myself in my phone, thinking that's not any better. And then my boss came in and he said, what is wrong with your face, which no woman wants to hear that. So he sent me to emerge. And And they kept me there.

0:05:09
They thought I was having a stroke and did tons of tests, called my husband to come in, and because I didn't wanna wake him up. Like, he's on nights. He was on nights. Sleeping. And it's not it's no big deal. I drove there. And they called him in.

0:05:22
And by the time he came, like, my vision was really blurry. And my words were all garbled up like I couldn't even get the words out. But I remember praying and thinking, like, just praying and saying, Like, I thought you wanted me to talk to women. I thought you wanted me to write. And now I can't see and I can't I don't have words and I just don't understand.

0:05:42
And they kept me in for three days in the hospital because we're in Canada, which is, you know, healthcare is not bad here. And Anyway, and they said it was a TIA. Right? So a little mini stroke, a little warning. Wow. But no permanent effects of it. Like, it's nothing. It's fine.

0:06:01
And I came home, and honestly, I can still see my husband standing with his arms crossed. In the kitchen. And I said, I'm so thankful that this was a false alarm. And that man looked at me. And he said, is it tests Is it a false alarm or is it a real alarm that you know what God wants from you? You know what he's asking you to do and none of us know how many days we have and you need to do it. I'm like, oh, you know when he's right. I you know when he's right.

0:06:33
So I went back to work and I quit my job and I retired. I say that with Air quotes, because, you know, hadn't worked there long enough to have any kind of a a pension or anything, but he'll just work ten years longer, you know. And so I So I quit my job and I started writing and I'm not a writer. I mean, I have a high school diploma here. And but I just started and that was April first was my last day of work. And in June, I got a book contract.

0:07:05
Like, what what is up with this? I don't know what I'm doing. And then, you know, and I just kept going one day at a time. Whatever that looks like. And and it's hard.

0:07:17
Like, now I I speak, so I go and stand on a stage in front of a whole bunch of women and tell them about my free show life and it's being vulnerable and and difficult. But, you know, the best thing women say, you get me. Right? Like, I can say, this is a god thing. Like, if ever, there was a god thing, like, test Scott does not know what she's doing. I don't know. And I am nobody, I'm below nobody. But God says to do it. He said to do it. I felt like I was supposed to do it. One step at a time as doors open, I do it. And god is glorified through it. Yeah. That's all I know. Yeah.

0:08:03
It it is scary too and vulnerable to let go of things that we can control. Like, I like to be in control of things. And I too am in a stage in my life where I've I've let go and it's scarier than anything I've ever done, not knowing what my next step is or how to go. I've yeah. Volner ability is not easy for me. In any aspect of my life.

0:08:33
Tell us a little bit about the freak show life because I know we all have a story. And we all put a a label on our story and it intrigues me to know what that freak show. Life was about Well, when Rick and I got together, when we got married, I had four kids he had two kids which made six -- Mhmm. -- adopted our special needs son. He was a foster kid, which we adopted. They told us we'd have him for about three weeks, and now he's twenty four, so lied about that. He's twenty four. And so that made seven and then and I got pregnant. So yeah. Yeah. Even numbers. Even numbers were always going for the even numbers. So eight boys.

0:09:24
And at one time, we had five teenagers, five teenage boys in our house. So the milk, my friend, the milk we went through. And and the shoes. There were shoes. Like, Lord, have mercy just scattered everywhere in our house and like by the door, my husband would come in, trip over shoes, every day. You know? And just the just the little things, but it was also it was there was also really great days our kitchen, we had this big open. It was an older house because it's hard to find a house that has five bedrooms, so that we could afford. So it was a big old house, and the kitchen area had we didn't put a table in there. We ate in the dining room, and the kitchen area had big open space and every night they had wrestling tournaments on that kitchen floor because it doesn't matter what your place is in the family like your birth order. It matters who can take who. So, yes, that was always a thing.

0:10:23
And the thing I love about boys, because I don't know anything about girls. I'm barely one. Like, I'm not a girly girl. But boys, like, they can be so mad at each other. Like, so mad, and then it would be, like, eight o'clock at night, hey, who's gonna play Marco Polo? Okay. Everybody out to the pool, and they're all out there. And they're playing together. Mhmm. It doesn't matter. They never held grudges. Right? And I think maybe that's more common in boys. I don't know. I don't have girls.

0:10:50
But we've played tons and tons of board games. We're a big board game family. And I think that's because, like, as we're blending this family together, two boys are the same age. Like, they were both born in August of the same year. So these five boys, two of his, three of mine, are all within four years. And there's a lot of testosterone, man.

0:11:14
And if I would've said, like, hey, let's call audience. Sit on the couch. We're all gonna talk about our feelings and how we're gonna relate and all that. No one's showing up for that. But if I say today, we're gonna play settlers of Khitan and you get to annihilate each other, so come on in. They're all there. Right? And so they think they're just playing this strategy game, and we play that game every single day for more than a year. Seriously, sometimes more than once. And some of them don't like it anymore. But but most of them don't like it. And and that's how we kind of related to each other. And also, we were poor. Like, we didn't have a lot of money. So we're not taking all the kids to the movies. Right? We're doing cheap stuff at home. Yeah.

0:11:59
You do what you have to do to pass the time and get to know your kids, right, and talk to them, and understand where where they're coming from and what their needs are. How do we how do we distinguish what the Lord is calling us to do? You know, you had a calling from the Lord and you pushed it aside, you know, and ignored it. So he grabbed you. Right? Mhmm. And he said, test This is this is what you have to do. How do we hear that voice? How do we listen for that for God's voice? Because as you said, he doesn't come with trumpets and loud voices all the time. Some people hear it. Like you, I'm glad he's never spoken to me that way. Excuse me. But How do we hear that voice?

0:12:47
Well, I think part of the problem that maybe I had for some time is that There's not a lot of silence in my life. We we live in this society where there's a lot of noise and we we need to intentionally find the quiet because And I love, like, this is difficult for me because I'm an extrovert, which you may have guessed. But I love people and I wanna talk to people and have coffee with people and I wanna text them, I wanna be with them, and I wanna like, that's just my rocket juices being with other people. I'm relational. But God does he uses no air horn, you know? He does not snapchat. That's what I know. And our we have to intentionally create that quiet time and commit to that quiet time. I thought, you know, I've heard that people rarely go pee without scrolling through their cell phones. The struggle is wrong, sister. Yeah. So we need to we need to be intentional with the quiet time and spending time in the word. Right? And like, ruminating over it, thinking about it, reading, and rereading it, and connecting with God, and something that happened for me when I was trying to avoid doing what I was knew I was supposed to do. But I was you know, because we don't know. Like, if Glenn sent us an email. Like, I've often asked that if you could just send me an email or something that I would know for sure this is what you're saying because I wanna believe it's not what you're saying right now because pretty scary.

0:14:22
But I went to a conference in our city, not at our church, had a different church where Carol Kent, She's a bible teacher. I don't know if you've heard of her, but she's pretty amazing. And so she the it was full. Like, the place was packed. I was by myself for whatever reason. So I was sitting on mile, about halfway back. And I think she looked right at me. Like, this is the way I remember it. She looked right at me, and she pointed. And she said, you know what God is asking you to do, and and you're scared. And tonight, I'm going to give you the answer. And I thought, hot dignity. Like, she's getting me out of this. This is awesome. I was so excited to lean forward, you know. And she looks me right in the eyes and she said, Do it, scared. Are you kidding me? That did not get me out of it.

0:15:08
But I did, like, one step, one day, one piece, like, one write one story. You know, one thing at a time, just one thing. I don't think that God asked us to just do it all the the same day. Right? Like, we're he's only you know, I'm thankful for this. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm thankful that he only gives me a little sliver at a time. Because I'm learning things now in my fifties. I probably, like, more than halfway through my life, I figure, unless I lived to be, like, a hundred and twenty. But he did not download all the great things I need to learn all at the same time. He just giving me these little slivers because that's all I can handle. Well, he prepares us for each phase. Right? And that's how I look at it. Right? I could if he dumped it all on me today, there's no way I could deal with it.

0:16:05
I am learning every every time I take on a task for the Lord. I'm learning something. My podcast, I keep repeating this like a broken record for those people that know what a record is. But like a broken record. Right? I mean, not everybody knows what a record is in this day and age, but like a broken record. I keep saying that Starting this podcast has been a blessing to my life because every person that I speak with I take a nugget of truth and knowledge away and I can apply it to my life and many times I hear confirmation of the steps that I've taken, and it's because I don't know about you test that one thing that I've been learning over the last four, five years is this.

0:16:56
The closer I get to the lord, the deeper I dig into the word of God. The more I hear what he wants me to hear or what he's telling me, You know, in the past, I've always said, well, I don't know what God wants from me. I can't hear his voice well. First, as you said, my life was too busy. Second, I didn't have a relationship with him to hear those very private words to me -- Yeah. -- they weren't there. And it's only as I Let go of the noise drew closer to him. Do I hear it? Am I ready for every one of those steps? Heck no. I'm scared because, you know, you let go of my you know, I've let go of my security blankets in every way, but hundred percent I'm with you. You know, I'm glad he gives a chunk by chunk because -- Mhmm. -- how do we how do we cope with it and and deal with it. So, you know, you've left your your job, you've started all of this, and you also you started to write a book.

0:18:12
Tell us a little bit about that book and what is it that inspired you to write a book? Well, the first thing I started doing was blogging. So I that's how I kind of learned to write because, like I said, you know, I didn't go to school to be a a writer or anything like thought. And I wanted to share I guess I want to share with women that all of us are living in a freak show. Like, nobody's life is perfect. What? My life isn't perfect except for roof. What? Nobody else is wrong. Perfect.

0:18:46
But I think that, like, years ago when I was a young mom, long time ago though, I would go to my friend's house Right? I saw her dishes in the sink. I heard her kids yelling on the phone, you know, when she's on the phone with me. And I saw her life was not perfect just like mine. But now I think that a lot of young people, my daughter-in-law, that generation, they communicate a lot on social media. And by the way, social media is a big lie. So when you are if you're looking at this house, I say this all the time. If you are looking at that beautiful house on Instagram, right, with the pumpkin on the porch and the wreath on the door and you think that woman has a perfect life. She's got it all together. If you showed up at her house unexpectedly and walked in, there is laundry on her couch just like your house. There is because that's not real.

0:19:39
So women need to know and be reminded, nobody's life is perfect. So that when their life isn't, when things don't reach the expectations that they have, they know how to deal with it. Right? We have to be real. We have to be vulnerable. We have to say, yep, yesterday was not the best day, but today's a better day or whatever.

0:20:02
You know, like, yep, there was a time that my husband walked out on me. And you know what? It sucked. And I hated it. And I was down. And I had my face in the green carpet in my bedroom for weeks. And here I am today because God brought me through it and he'll bring you through it too.

0:20:17
So mentoring to me is a is a huge part of this. Like mentoring young women that are going through things that maybe I went through and being real about it and not just fluffing it off like, oh, well, Jesus loves you. Like, no pad answers here. Like, let's be real about this. Yes. Like, the carpet in that bedroom probably shrunk because there was a lot of tears. There was a lot of tears. And I just wanna be real about it.

0:20:43
So that was part of sharing the stories. And because my personality is always like, you know, funny. Like, that's just how I deal with everything. And so it's easy for people to read stories that are funny. And then unexpectedly, I'm gonna bang them with truth in the end of it. So I always think I tricked them into reading it because they think it's gonna be funny. And then at the end of the story is the truth of what God taught me.

0:21:08
So maybe the story is about something like like the time that I told my my two youngest, they were little. You know, run along and go pee because it's bedtime after I read them a story. And they're like, we don't have to, you know. And I found out through, like, a longer story obviously, but I found it that they had been peeing in the LEGO bin. Like, I don't know for how long because I had no idea, but when I lifted that lid, wow. It was a while. And so the ones that were upside down were full of urine. And it was a sad it was a really sad time. And they thought they were doing a great thing because, you know, they were saving time. So these kinds of things happen. This is real life. And whatever it is. Like, there's lots of stories. There's, like, almost a hundred stories in that book.

0:21:52
And then what God taught me through that time And and maybe not that day. By the way, I don't think he taught me much that night. I was not having a good time. You wanna throw out that LEGO. That was a big it was it was big rubber made bends. Oh, big bends. It was a big bend. It was twenty years of LEGO. But anyway yeah. He teaches us things, not necessarily at that time, but people can relate. Yeah. People can relate because we all have a freak show life. So Yeah.

0:22:20
It it's interesting how especially as you said, in today's generation, there is this plastic life. You know, this this mask in front of our lives or, you know, like like, play, you know, where the scenery goes back and forth to the sides, that's what we are living. We we're not truthful first to ourselves. And then secondly, to others around us and I'm just as guilty and I'm not of that generation, but my generation, I too am in my fifties. And as you said, I too am counting the years, and I'm halfway through my life.

0:23:01
But you know, we're of the generation and we needed to make sure that people thought that we were perfect. I had a job I had a family. Oh, I was a single mother, but I had it all under control. You know, I never wanted people to point and say, look, proof got divorced. She can't deal with her chill. I I never wanted that, you know.

0:23:26
And so there was always this persona of being perfect, a double life. That's what I call. That's what I say about my journey. I was a I'm a great actress. I showed everyone that I was happy as you do. I'm I have very self deprecating humor and I use it to protect myself -- Yeah. -- and yet I was doing a disservice not to me but to my children and to those around me who thought I had a great life.

0:23:56
And then when I came through the journey, once again, I was caught in this trap that Okay. Now I've recovered. Everything is honky dory. I've got a great worship life. I have a quick no. And I'm only learning, you know, every day is a learning process. Right? Mhmm. I too am learning that we need to be honest and tell her testimony and talk to people and say, look, this is the messed up life that I had. From a mess to a message. Have I come through? And we need to do that. You know, for the women in our churches, for the women in our lives, God doesn't expect everything to be perfectly aligned. That's right. And it and it's biblical. I mean, in Titus, we're told that -- Right. -- that the older women should mentor the older women.

0:24:53
And and I saw in your hundred day prayer journal -- Mhmm. -- that you were talking about your grandmother praying for you. And it made me remember, like, my grandmother, I had a grandmother who was very godly woman, and I spent so much time there as a kid, like my favorite place where I was safe and just so loved there. And I know she prayed for us, like, every day. Every day. And now I pray for my grandkids, you know, and how important that is. To have praying people in your family with generations, probably my great grandfather. Praise for us.

0:25:29
My grandmother would tell me a story, but she remembered when her dad got saved. And he went up and down. He was a farmer, and he went up and down the road telling all the neighbors about Jesus. Because he didn't care what they said, he could not stand the thought of any of them going to hell. And I said to her, well, what did the neighbor say? And she said, the neighbor said, that Bob Jared, he's gone out of his mind. But she didn't care. He didn't care. Yeah. Yeah. He didn't care.

0:25:58
So that's, like, a legacy like, a like, this godly legacy in our in, you know, previous generations. And sometimes it skips, you know, my my parents weren't Christians, but my grandparents took us to church. Mhmm. And you know so we and I pray for my kids. And my grandkids -- Right. -- and my grandkids who aren't born yet. And -- That's right. -- and that's and it's so important to generational prayer is -- Yeah. -- you know, it's yeah.

0:26:25
As you said, you know, my my history comes from that. You know, generational prayer. And I have an example of praying that my grandfather used to pray for family members that he had never met. And they were cousins of his and, you know, relatives of his, but he corresponded with them, you know, through snail mail, Yo. Emails. Okay? Snail, mail, and he would correspond with them regularly. And my grandparents would pray over these families for years and years and you know, send them tracks and send them all kinds of things. Well, my grandparents died without ever seeing the fruits that they had planted the seeds for. Many years later and decades later, My dad and I went to Armenia on his first missionary trip to Armenia. I was blessed to see these families kneel in front of god and take make a decision. And we baptized. And was it my dad, was it me? Well, we were there at the moment that they made those commitments, but it truly came from my grandparents praying for them. So we never know what it is.

0:27:54
You know, your words, when you go out to speak to women and to groups, you don't know what seeds you're planting or your blog. And Yeah. I too am not a writer. I too am a high school graduate. You know? So for me too, it's been becoming vulnerable. Right? And and I say one person touched is all I'm asking for. You know, Lord used me to do that. So, yeah, prayer for me is the cornerstone of of my faith. It's very, very important. Yeah.

0:28:32
I think that knowing that I can't do this, like, I think it's a it's a blessing in a way because maybe if I had this big huge education, and I was some kind of a world winning journalist, I don't know. Whatever. I'm trying to imagine. Imagine something. Then maybe I would be tempted to think it was all me. Yeah. Maybe I would be tempted to think, like, I'm standing on this stage of my own of my own power, but because I am so the opposite of that, I never and please Lord never make it happen, but I never think it's about me. I I know only God can do this. Because who would listen to me? Like I said, right? So I I'm continually just relying on god. From, like -- Yeah. -- for every single thing. And that's a good place to be. And why would they listen to us? Look at our you know, like, look where we came from. Look at all the mistakes I made. Let me speak for myself. Right? Why would they listen to Ruth? Hey, her life is was a mess. And and, yes, I I agree with you. God is -- Yeah. -- you gonna can use anything or anyone to to put his message out there. Yeah. Just have to be ready for it as you said. Yeah. And he knows who's there, and he knows what -- Yeah. -- here.

0:29:54
And I was on the event last year and speaking, you know, speaking about, you know, my free show life and I think that I was speaking that day about finding community and the importance of sharing our life with a small group of people but being one hundred percent honest. Because then that girl knows, like, she's gonna hold me accountable. Right? She knows what my struggles are. She knows what my temptations are. And she's gonna hold me to it and say, really like your husband's out of town. And what are you doing? You know, or whatever it is. Like, I don't know. Yeah. We all have different things. And, anyway, so I was speaking at this event and I was, like, I always am, like, honest.

0:30:36
And a woman came up to me after she was probably my age and which is in my fifties. And she said to me, I had an affair twenty years ago. And I've been living under the shame and guilt of that for twenty years and never have I heard anyone speak about Christian women who fall And she Yeah. And I bowed my head off, like, and prayed with her. We prayed together.

0:31:06
And because whatever we've done God says, when we come to him, we're forgiven. And there is no sin too big, but the enemy wants to hold that over us. And he wants to keep us just bound up and nodded up and thinking that we can never do anything for him because of that shame, but that shame's gone. Right? When God pays when Jesus paid the price for that sin, like, he didn't even think of it anymore. He puts it behind him. Like, I have to look around him to see my sin. I have to look around him. It says thatlightsen is behind him. Why would I look around him? Yeah. That's a great image to to have Yeah. That we we I know.

0:31:44
I I think I think it's we struggle with that so much, right, that -- Yes. -- you know, I I did this. I've done that. And I think the closer you get to the Lord, Satan hates that. Yes. And and those memories. And sometimes, you know, I'll be praying about someone or some situation and this this my inner voice, Satan says, why are you praying for that person and that event thing? What look at what you did in your life. How can you and I have to then you know, focus back, Lord, please, to silence the voices because it's there. Right? We can't just we unfortunately, we can't erase it. It's there's always a permanent memory of what has happened.

0:32:42
But I find that there's the biblical foundation that I was blessed to have. Now, I don't know about your, you know, you said your parents were not believers, but your grandparents were I was raised in a in a Christian home. So I have a lot of, you know, like, that that biblical foundation, and I'm doing air quotes because you have it. But if you don't use it, you know, but I I had, you know, memorized versus, I knew HIMSS, and I knew the Bible. So that foundation helped me. Recover. It it was solid there for me to go back and say, oh, I gotta go back to my roots.

0:33:27
How does the how do you believe that biblical foundation helps us? You know, how does that come into play with especially if we have children. Mhmm. Yeah. Foundation is a good word. Right. The foundation isn't going anywhere. Right? A foundation is it's always there. Sometimes things grow up around it, but I think that it's always still there. I think even well, I know that even the times of my life that I walked away from the Lord and you know, did terrible things that are now forgiven. Thank you, Lord. I still knew I still had that foundation of knowing Right? And even now even now I think I'm learning and like I I said earlier, like a sliver a day, a sliver. I'm understanding, oh, you know, because of the way I saw myself, because of because of what I thought my identity was that really shaped decisions and really shaped the way my life went through these relentless cycles of shocking sin. And now I'm understanding a little bit more how that -- Mhmm. -- how that happened.

0:34:42
But I always had that belief. Like, I never didn't believe in God. You know, I always knew who God was. I knew we could do what he said he could do. You know, I leaved in Jesus and but I just chose to walk the other way for whatever amount of time. So I think it you still have a starting point to come back to. Yeah. I it was never I'm I'm an atheist. I don't believe God exists. It was more like I was just wandering away, you know. But I always had that foundation to come back to, like, because it's permanent. It was permanent for me. Yeah. Mhmm. And what is God teaching you these days, Tess? Mhmm. Yeah. Well, like I just like I just said, God is really teaching me that Like, he was always there. And things happened, I couldn't have known why at the time. Later. Right? Later. He's letting me in on it. Like, hey, you know, by the way, this is why this happened. And some things we'll never know why until we're with him. And that's okay. And some things we know a little bit at a time.

0:35:51
I love I'm a journalist, you know, I love writing, something every day. I have, like, a five year journal. So I just write a couple sentences, but then I look at what I wrote last year on this day and what I looked wrote the year before on this day. And I'm like, wow. Last year, I was so worried about my husband losing his job, and he didn't. And God brought us through that. And so he's gonna bring us through whatever is the next thing that's gonna pop up. And that is so important.

0:36:18
Like, I remember remember when Moses is going through the desert children of Israel and and god's doing all these miracles and all these things and like, you know, water from a rock and bread from the sky and all this stuff. And they go through I think it was maybe Jericho. I don't know. It was a river. Anyways, it was a water source. I'm not real I don't know all the right words. And, anyway, and on the other side, he wants them to build this big monument. And he sends, you know, take these stones out of the riverbed. Jordan. That's it. It was a j word. I knew it, Jordan. And take these stones out of the riverbed and build this big monument so that you will remember what God has done. But I think, like, really, they got water from a rock. They got, you know, all these things. They got bread from the sky, and they're gonna forget.

0:37:06
And then I think, tests. Like, look what God has done in your life and you still forget. Right? So we all need to be reminded And so I tell women to journal because that and they always look at me and scoff, like -- Yeah. -- then I say, or build a monument in your backyard. Like, whatever you're You do you. But it's so important to remember so that we know this is what God has done. God doesn't change. God was, is, always is the same. He will always be faithful. He can't help it. So if we know what he did in the past, we know he's gonna come through with us. For us in the future. Yeah. It's amen to that. It's we need that reminder, and mine has become my my prayer journal or my prayer list to to see what I was praying for last year, what I'm praying for today. And you know, the the prayer results that have come through that. But, yeah, we need a daily reminder because our our life is just so busy and so noisy that we forget about those amazing things that God has brought us through and Yeah. We just need to keep that in in mind.

0:38:21
What is one piece of advice? As a takeaway that you can share with us today. Fill your head with truth. Fill your head with truth. That's it. That's the line. Because there's gonna be stuff in there. Right? Your your heads full of stuff. And you get to decide what goes in there. Right? Or what stays in there at least. So knowing what's true. The only thing. The only thing. Twenty twenty three. The only thing I know that I know that I know to be true is God's word. That's it. Amen? So spending that quiet time filling our heads with God's word.

0:38:59
Because if we can recognize truth, Ruth, then we can recognize the lies and get rid of them. And as soon as you hear yourself say something, like, especially if we're thinking about, like, our identity. Right? As soon as you hear yourself say something that is not true because now I can recognize truth, like drop it like it's hot and then immediately replace it with what is true and hold your friends to that and hold your daughters to that. You know, what does God say you are? Who does God say? Is that true? Like, don't put them away with it. Fill your head with truth. Amen. I I that's wonderful.

0:39:36
Would you like to share with us a little giveaway that you have? Oh, yeah. Well, I I often like I say all the time that my life was a freak show, still is every day, but and we're all in a freak show. So if you're wondering if your life is a freak show, I have this little giveaway, ten signs that your life is a freak show. So you can Ruth will put that in -- Yeah. -- row notes and you can just send that.

0:40:02
And you can go to my website and see what's going on with listen sister. I'm doing some speaking god's opening doors and check out my book and, yeah, be encouraged. I hope everybody is all the women are encouraged. Well, thank you so much, Tess, for being on today and sharing your story and your wisdom with us. And friends check out the show notes on connecting with Tess Scott and her giveaway that she has and and about her book. Thank you so much, Tess. Thanks, Ruth. Thank you for joining me. To stay connected, follow me on Instagram and Facebook. If you like this podcast, can you help me find new listeners by leaving a rating and review? This small app takes only a moment, but really helps grow the listening audience. So let me thank you in advance. I hope you have a wonderful day and until next time. Let's continue on our journey as followers of Jesus Christ. I am Ruth Hovsepian.