Unrevealed: Wisdom from Everyday Women

I AM NOT

April 13, 2020 Courtney Haggard / Simi John Episode 3
I AM NOT
Unrevealed: Wisdom from Everyday Women
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Unrevealed: Wisdom from Everyday Women
I AM NOT
Apr 13, 2020 Episode 3
Courtney Haggard / Simi John

After being told time and time again what she could and couldn't do as a woman, Simi became tired of struggling with her identity and settling for a lesser version of herself, she was ready to stop listening to what culture taught her about women and find out for herself what God had to say. 

Check out her book - I AM NOT: Break Free From Stereotypes And Become The Woman God Made You To Be https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084T37Q3K/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_I8LAEbH6YXT9R 

Show Notes Transcript

After being told time and time again what she could and couldn't do as a woman, Simi became tired of struggling with her identity and settling for a lesser version of herself, she was ready to stop listening to what culture taught her about women and find out for herself what God had to say. 

Check out her book - I AM NOT: Break Free From Stereotypes And Become The Woman God Made You To Be https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084T37Q3K/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_I8LAEbH6YXT9R 

spk_0:   0:10
We believe all women have stories and wisdom to share, just like the many unnamed women we read about in the Bible. Here's what we realized about those unidentified women. They had names, they were real people and they had stories worth telling, but their names were un revealed. We created the UN revealed podcast to give power to the untold stories of everyday women. You may have heard that your story doesn't matter, but we believe God can use our testimonies as weapons against the enemy. When we use our story to connect with others, we get to glorify the goodness of God. Join us as we reveal these stories of heartache, hope and redemption. Each episode you'll hear featured women share one story from their life by answering three questions. What's your story? What did God show you in that season? And what is God showing you? Now I'm your host, Portney Haggard and remember, every story matters. Welcome to the UN revealed podcast. Today we're talking to see me John, co pastor of New Life Bible Church in Norman, Oklahoma and author of The Devotional I am Not Simi is vivacious, bold and not afraid to take up space. She's the best cheerleader to have in your corner and her love for the local churches contagious. Her story is one that I relate to personally. And I know many of you have experienced this too. Before we dive in, I want to let her tell you a little bit more about

spk_1:   1:42
herself. Courtney, I am so glad to be here. Thank you so much. I am so honored to share in this community in this space. Um, I want to start off just, ah, about a little bit about who I am. So, like you said, my name is Sue me, John, and I'm a mom. I have two Littles. I have a six year old daughter and at three year old son. So it's pretty busy, Wonderful life. I am a pastor's wife and we've been a ministry for almost 10 years. I can't believe that will be married for 10 years. This May, so it's super exciting, and I'm a full time working mom. I'm a physical therapist locally here, and I love doing that as well. So life has been kind of busy, but I love empowering an encouraging woman, and that's a recent passion that God has given me. Put in my heart, I would say, probably 5 to 6 years ago, I didn't always have a lot of girlfriends. I never really wanted to have a lot of girlfriends because of just petty high school drama and stuff that happened in college. That made me just feel like That's not for me because of hurt on bitterness and all the things that go along with that I just said, That's not for me. And then I went to grad school and I had a roommate who had flourishing healthy female friendships. And that's when God started putting that love for women in my heart to really, you know, understand why they act the way they do sometimes and pray for them and want to be close to them, you know, and be open with them. And so after I moved to Oklahoma, I started buying two different ministries along the past 10 years to kind of do that, empower them, which is fun. And in this stage as a pastor, the pastor's wife. I've just had a lot of women's events and things like that. I'm some a speaker. I'm not a writer. And so recently I wrote a book about stereotypes that women I have faced and women that I know you know, have faced and really struggle with and our challenge by daily. And the reason I wrote the book is honestly because as a pastor's wife, I saw so many women weeping and worshipping and crying out. You know those songs about our identity. I am no longer a slave. I'm a child of God. I am who you say I am. But by Monday they're struggling and they're settling, and it just broke my heart. And so I wrote this book to set them free and help them walk in their God given identity, and so that that's definitely my passion to help people step into the abundant life of Jesus has for them. For me, I was born in a home where I didn't have joy or peace. My dad was an alcoholic. He was an abusive alcoholic who, you know, was beating my mom, where I would have to pull him off my mom at the age of eight. And that was my life. And so for me, it took my dad finding Jesus when I was 13 and seeing how God miraculously changed my dad's heart, his life from an abusive alcoholic to an evangelist who would go to various countries, baptized people his such a man of faith. He's the first person I call when I go through something cause he's Ah, prayer warrior. And to see that miracle happened right before my eyes. I remember it like yesterday. My dad had a restaurant, and I remember this pastor came and he said, Do you want to stop drinking? And my brother and I were young kids were standing far and we were just watching this happen, and we were standing there, and my mom brought her last of water and Pastor said, Okay, I'm gonna pray over this glass of water, and I watched my dad drink that entire glass of water and never touch alcohol again. Wow. And it was an amazing miracle for me to witness. And I think that's what honestly changed everything for me, because for me, this Christianity thing, this Jesus thing was real. You know, the Bible was like this thing that I couldn't get enough off because I wanted to know this Jesus, that set my dad free, who worked miracles? I didn't go to church because someone told me to go to church. I wasn't doing Christian things because it was good. I did it because this was really This is more real to me than anything else. And I knew that God had a purpose for me in that moment and from then on So I've lived my life it intentionally in every single way from that day on. And I remember when I was around 18 because, I mean, I was a church, Courtney. Gosh, Like Wednesday night, uh, Saturday warning Saturday night. Sunday. I was there all the time because I couldn't get enough of God. And I was one of those kids. Like I remember we would come home from church and literally my dad would park the car in the garage. I would run out, turn on Christian television to get Maur sermons inside of me. I was that hungry. At that time, I was like a Christian door, like Jesus freak. Everything was about, you know, church and church life. And I just felt like whenever I would read the word of God, the Holy Spirit would just reveal things to me and to me. At first I thought this was normal. Like I was like, Okay, um but I've Sue. I realize that it was it was a spirit of wisdom and a spirit of discernment that God was showing me these things. Things were popping out of the pages that I was reading. I was getting this revelation knowledge, and I wanted to share it with people. And I remember being just feeling call to speak, and I went to my church leaders and I told them I feel called to speak and immediately being told. No, no, no. You can teach Sunday school. You can teach the little kids, but you're a girl. You can't speak on stage. You can hold a microphone. You can't speak to the whole church. That's not okay cause you're a girl. And I remember being really angry. I remember being angry at God because God put this passion in me, this calling this gift that he had given me. Yet he put me in a culture being in an Indian church on DDE in a church where it wasn't okay for me to speak, and I didn't understand it. So I was mad at the church. I was mad at men. I was mad at God. I was mad at my gender. I was mad at everything because I felt so constricted. And I remember going to Texas Women's University. That's where I went for undergrad, and everyone that goes to that school has to take an elective called Women's Studies, and you just study the role of women in history. Basically, we would read a chapter and we'd have to write a paper whether we agree with it or disagree with it. And we got to the chapter on women and religion, and I talked about how religion, specifically Christianity, had oppressed woman and made them second class citizens. I remember thinking, Oh my God, yes, this this is my life. You know, I am so excited to write about this because yes, I totally agree. And I remember going back to the dorm room, getting ready to write the paper, and the Holy Spirit quickly was like, Nope, you're not gonna write about what I think until you read my word because you know everybody's opinion. You know what the world said. You know what you experienced but you don't know what I said. And I remember spending weeks just studying different women in the Bible and just being set free because I saw how much God loved women, chose women, used women, made women brave and bold. And it just made me, in that moment release that feeling of being weak. You know, being just the second class citizen or having it like this limitation on my dreams, because I was a girl,

spk_0:   9:42
you know, and I have experienced this throughout my life. I was in the military as a woman for many years, and I was young, and I didn't understand exactly how to fill that role and being in ministry. Even oftentimes, it's more considered a man's world. And again, it's not about comparing. Genders are pitting genders against each other. But there's a reality to the fact that as women more often than not, we're outnumbered when it comes to these kinds of, um, occupations, right? And so I think that there are women out there that are outnumbered in their occupation, and it's a struggle to find out how you fit there and how much space you should take up and what's appropriate and what's expected of you. I actually did my graduate research on women and leadership and how we train women in leadership, because oftentimes we need to train them differently. Because what works for a man doesn't always work for a woman writer different. We're different and where to honor those differences. But that doesn't mean we're there, too. Silence one or over the other,

spk_1:   10:50
right? We're better together, we truly are. And that's the way God created us, right? God made Adam that he made. Even he put them in the garden and said, Hey, I'm gonna give you influence, create culture and subdue the Earth That was God's plan. But because of Brokenness, there is that comparison, right? And there's this feeling of, um, feeling inferior to the other sex. And just because I feel like you know more recently that women have stepped into careers and even in the church world into ministry roles in leadership. And so there there is a learning curve. Yeah, and I think there's also like training that has to take place where we have to kind of talk more about women in the Scripture, right? There's something that my husband I just talked about. My daughter's six were, you know, we're both posture, So she has been going to trust. And she was a fetus, right? But if you ask her to tell her, tell you her favorite Bible stories to tell you about David and Goliath Daniel in The lion's Stand, she'll tell you about Peter in the boat. She'll tell you all those stories, but she probably will not be able to recall the story of Ruth of Esther of Ray, Have you know? And that is not okay because women were brave. Woman are brave and for her she needs to know those stories that when she is in the world, she knows. Hey, women can do heart. Thanks. God does use women to do hard things.

spk_0:   12:25
So before we move on to the second part of this, I told you guys, Simi is like big. She will take up space. She doesn't care. She's ready to fight. She's ready to tell you how it is. She's incredible, but obviously you've been told. No. And you had to experience that. You had to walk through that. And yet you had all of this inside of you. You had all these passions and desires and dreams and God was giving you things to share. And you have been told No. What does that do to you as a person? Is your identity like how do you walk that out?

spk_1:   12:56
Yeah, So I think, you know, for me being brought up in the Indian culture, in the Asian culture in a woman are just told that they're weak. They're less than they're not as important. They don't do hard things. So I already believe that lie that stereotype from a very young age. Um And then even in the South, where I grew up in Dallas, Texas, you know, it wasn't much different in a lot of places are still very conservative and traditional, and so that stereotype never went away. So I just felt like I just can do hard things. I'm just weak. And so whenever things would get hard, I would either give up. And I still struggle with that because I have always believed that I'm not supposed to hard things. And so for me, it was just that all of that being told, No, it's just reinforcing its because that's an important job and you're not important. Your voice is not important and you're weak. And so I remember being pregnant on being sick the entire time I was pregnant and I remember they were like, Oh, it's just the first, you know, trimester and you'll get over it. And I was like, Yeah, so excited, because I remember waking up that 12th week, and I was like, Yes, today's the day it's gonna be over and then throwing up again I was like, That was a lot of you have made it. I know it's so mad. But I threw out the entire time and I'm a full time physical therapist and I worked until the day I had her. I would literally be treating patients, run to the bathroom, throw up and come back and finish treating

spk_0:   14:25
them, and

spk_1:   14:26
I pushed that little girl out of me. I got epidural because I'm not crazy. So had up a dural to help me, but I pushed the little girl out into the world and remember, my husband leaned over and looked and he said something. I didn't realize how strong you were. And that was the first moment that that word strong had ever been used to describe me. I have never No one had ever said that to me before. So in that moment is when I claim that word as my own. And I said, You know what? I am strong. I did do something hard. I can't do hard things. I can press through tough situations and I can do hard things. I could do important things. And so for me in that moment, it changed how I had seen myself, you know, because it was so different than when I was told. No, because when I was told No, I believed it in that moment. But when someone like my husband who valued me who saw me going through those hard season, day in and day out and verbalize that word, you are strong. That changed me. That changed how I saw myself. That was my true identity. And I claimed it that day.

spk_0:   15:41
So what happened after that? Obviously you've been told no before, but now you're kind of getting a vision into possibilities. Yeah. What? What's next?

spk_1:   15:51
So, for me, speaking was like I said, one of those things that was always, you know, felt called to Dio and I love speaking in especially into woman. But I I'm a pastor's wife and so sometimes to speak at my church and in Oklahoma. It's kind of still some churches air still very traditional. And Jason, I pass for a small church in Norman. And so I remember speaking. And that Sunday, right before I went up on stage, you know, we had a meeting, greed or whatever. So shook these people's hands. They were new, and we're excited to see them. And Jason went up on stage and introduced me as the speaker and he said, Okay, let's pray for Sid, man. By the time I was on stage, I opened my eyes. I saw them walking out, and it just broke my heart because I knew it was because I was speaking. I will tell you, it's It's one of those things that college you know, day when God showed me through Scripture that I was more than just a girl to him that got used. Woman got Saul women as precious and as daughters as conquerors. That was the first time that that lie that stereotype was broken, but it was not a one time thing, those messages have been repeated to me over and over again, and throughout my life and almost every single time I speak to a mixed congregation, which is like, you know, aa Sunday morning service. Every Saturday night I struggle with that voice coming up and saying, Hey, you're just a girl. Your voice doesn't matter. You're gonna offend somewhat. No one's listening to you and it's something that I have to pray through. Ah, lot of times I have to pick up my phone, text my friends and say, I need you to pray for me because that voice is overwhelming me right now. And so it's taking that thought captive and breaking it in Jesus name. But it's not a one time thing, and sometimes you can do about yourself. But that Sunday, when I was on stage, I couldn't pick up the phone and text my friends right before heights folk, right? And so I literally that moment that Sunday I was like, Okay, we're gonna just start with prayer guys and I pray God, this is your work. These are your people. Use me and that's that's what I had to do to get through that moment of feeling like your voice doesn't matter. You're just a girl. You're offending them, See they don't care And that you know the enemy's voice trying to silence me and stopped me from one gun God had called me to d'oh.

spk_0:   18:21
I literally cannot imagine standing there and just watching people turn their back on you and walk away because it's not like I mean, it was that they were making a statement. Right? And you're right. You can't just cripple on the stage, right? You're there. People are relying on you to deliver God's word. And it's so true. It's God's word. Yes, you're the vessel, and God uses his people in all kinds of ways. So and really, it's so funny because I've met you after all of this. And so it's hard for me to imagine someone like you so bold and courageous and big, and you have no problem. You're always sharing. I mean, it's like from the minute I'd start talking to you, you're sharing the gospel. You're already on it. You are You really feel like this episode is ah 100% authentically you. This is how you are all the time. So It's hard for me to imagine somebody who was accepting the lie, but I can see how it's possible because I've been there. I've been there and been told I wasn't qualified or who do I think I am? A man could do this job better than you can or I stepped into the role and I become too abrasive. I need to soften. I need to be more feminine. I'm too rough around the edges. I'm too demanding. Those are the kinds of terms that get used on women. I think when they're trying to fill the role as a man and I don't think that's what God's called us to do. He's called us to fill the role, especially leadership in things like that, but in a unique way. That's kind of why I wanted to do the research that I did because how do we equip women? Two totally embody the calling that God has given them in a way that reflects their gender specifically because it's different, right? It is different and I don't think that I know I wasn't equipped well and it really is just walking it out with God and learning what that looks like for me individually. And so that's kind of what you were wanting to do, which this kind of leads us right into question number two. What was God showing you in that season? What did it look like as you were walking that out? And just what did cause show you?

spk_1:   20:26
I think one of the first things that God showed me was that he loves me. That it wasn't about what I can do for God's kingdom, that I was his daughter. Regardless, Even before I spoke, even before I did the things I was like, I love you right now, just as you are. And that was big for me because, um, I'm a do, er a type A personality. And also because I come from a culture of doing performance driven culture on DSO. Everything is about what you do, what you achieve. And so for me, it was really hard for me to understand Grace for the longest time, because I was a very legalistic person. And it's something that I still honestly struggle with, You know, even with my kids, I have to show them Grace and I have toe take a step back and do that because for me, I'm very like justice oriented and legalistic if I don't really focus on that. And so for me to know that I'm just loved Period is hard, you know, like, why why you

spk_0:   21:34
follow the India Graham? I'm a three, so I very much know what that's like. It's all about what I can prove that I've done.

spk_1:   21:41
Yes, exactly. And that's hard, I think, especially when you're young, because you just want to show people. Look, I can do this. This is what I'm called to Dio. And in our instagram culture, it's very easy to get lost in that and that become your identity instead of Christ being your identity. So first of all, that's what God told me that I am his. I'm loved by him. Andi. Next thing was to wait on God. I had a lot of opportunities to speak a different things, but it was always got opening doors. It wasn't me pushing the door open and so showing me toe just wait on him to open the doors, bring the right people and he would just cause me to have conversations with people who wouldn't open doors for me, for different things. And it didn't always come from people that I expected to be my support. And that's so important for us to hear, because I think we have sometimes unhealthy expectations of people. And we think, well, you know, why are you not opening the door for me? You know I'm good at this. Why're you not giving me the mic? Why're you not letting me lead in this area? It would be so easy for you to promote me. And so we're constantly trying to be at the right time in the right place, type of thing, trying to push that door down because we feel this is my calling. But waiting on God is so important because for me, waiting on God and having him open doors was always just a confirmation saying I am with you. I got this because if I got myself there, I gotta keep myself there. But if God opened the door, he's gonna provide, and he's gonna show off. And that's what it's all about. And so for me, that was so important because like I said, I'm a do. Er I don't like to wait so that was definitely very, very hard for me. The next thing was probably like, I don't have to settle for what the world says that I should be. And that was really hard because like I said, being Indian being Asian, you are constantly trying to live out what your parents dream of you to be right, like most Indian people are like in business or pharmacy. Our, you know, our doctors. And so they were already told that like if you asked like 1/5 grade Indian kid, what they want to be, they'll say Pharmacist, optometrist, lawyer. I mean, that's how they are and your physical therapy. But if you asked, like any other kid, they're like, Oh, I want an astronaut. I wanna be a firefighter, you know? And so it's just drilled in your head that this is what you're going to be. And so there's all this pressure, all this expectation on you. And so then the world has all these messages saying, Well, you're a girl. That means you can do this. You're Indian girl. That means you can be like this. Oh, you live in Oklahoma. That means you're this or your Christian then you know you're this. So there's all these expectations and identities that are put on you, and it's important for us to know. And this is something that my dad told me when I was in high school, because I really struggle with my identity. This is probably the next thing I'll write about if I write again. Is this identity crisis that a lot of immigrant kids have? Because I remember I thinking, I'm so Indian because I'm Indian at home, an Indian at my Indian church. But I'm so American when I step out of my house and I had this constant struggle of who am I will when I have to make a big decision in life, Who am I? Am I American? Do I choose what the Americans semi would choose or the Indian Simi would choose? That was really tough for me in high school, and I remember sitting down with my dad and, you know, just telling him that he said, See me, you're not immune or you're on. You're not American. You are a child of God. You are a citizen of heaven. You need to live kingdom minded. And that changed everything for me, and I think we need to know that. And that's kind of what I write about in the book, because we don't need to settle for the world's expectation of what they say. Women are like. We can know that we are made to be in the image of God, and we are being transformed daily into the image off Jesus. And so we are being moved from one degree of glory to the next. We are becoming something more every single day. And so I think it's important for us to really just break free from those expectations, even if it's from your family. If it's from your spouse, if it's from a church, if it's from your past, wherever it is that you're getting those expectations from to know that at the end of the day you're a child of God and your job, your duty, your worship to God, like Romans, Chapter 12 cells, as is to live and present our bodies as a living sacrifice to live for him to give him our all, and when you do that, you will experience abundant life. You will have a life of fulfillment of joy off peas that the world cannot take away.

spk_0:   27:00
That's so funny, because suddenly a couple of weeks ago it occurred to me and I thought about this before, but it occurred to me how worthless other people's opinions really are. Um, somebody had shared something with me, an opinion they had, and I just thought it was kind of funny. Didn't think much of it. But later on, I thought, Man, that person has a fully formed opinion about somebody else based on a snapshot of their life. They're not with them 24 hours a day. They only see what they see on social media or what they see in the few hours of interaction per month they have with this person. And it wasn't a bad opinion, but still it was an opinion based on on Lee. The small amount of interaction they have with this other person really just showed a light on how incomplete other people's opinions of us really are. And it really drove home to me. One of my really good friends and our pastors, they say on my opinion, is God's word. Whatever God's word says. That's my opinion, and the more I think about that, and the more I ruminate on that, it's so true because God's the only one that gets to see the whole picture, right? So it's really only his opinion that matters. And I'm guilty, too, of forming opinions of people of things of situations, and I don't have the full picture. I'm trying to be better about either trying to get the full picture, which I'll never get, or understanding that my opinion has bias and doesn't really hold a lot of merit. But yet we let other people's opinions affect us so much. And then the other side of that is we let opinions of ourselves affect us so much. You were talking about the pressures and the expectations of everyone else, But I think there's people out there who have expectations of themselves that they're not living up to on. That's just it's dangerous, Yes, but how do we define those expectations for ourselves generally based off the opinions of others, Right? 1/5 grader in Indian fifth grader is not creating his own expectations to become a pharmacist. He's hurt this somewhere exactly. So we really do develop expectations for ourselves based on other people's opinions of how life should be lived and what it should look like. So I think this is such an important topic to be talking about and which is why I was so excited to have you on the podcast, because you really have embodied this whole idea of. It's not about what I think. It's not about what you think it's about, what God says about me, and you need to know that. And I need to know that s every day, every single debt. Yeah, so let's move into the last question and that's what's got shown you. Now this doesn't necessarily have to relate to the book or anything. This could be just something God showed you in your quiet time recently. So what has God been showing you lately?

spk_1:   29:43
I think one of the things that God has shown me, Um, and it's probably because of the book and me just kind of really thinking about this topic of identity and being free. But one of the things that you know, I was speaking at a church last weekend for my book launch, and they sang the song Living Hope and there's that whole thing about, you know, Jesus walking out of the grave and God just spoke to me and he said, Jesus walked out of the grave so we can walk out of the grave. But a lot of us are sitting in the graves still, with those grave close wrapped around us, still thinking about the rejection, the abandonment, the isolation, what they did, what he said. And we're sitting there in that tomb and Jesus walked out of the grave, right? He's not sitting there thinking about the rejection, the isolation, the betrayal. None of that. He walked out of the grave for us to experience victory and up under live. And it's time that the church does the same. It's time for us to walk in victory and experience abundant life, not just so that we can have a good life, but because there's so many people that need to know about the cross. There's so many people that need to know about Jesus and know his love, and if we don't walk in our identity, then we cannot live out our purpose. Our identity and our purpose are linked together. As long as you don't know your identity, you're not gonna be ableto live at your purpose. And until you walk out of that crave victoriously living your abundant life, you are not winning anyone to Christ,

spk_0:   31:28
right? Because it's real hard toe live in victory and set the example for someone when you're so busy still trying to get out of the pit that you're in. Yeah, that's so good. Okay, so before we wrap up, I do want to talk a little bit about your book. We've mentioned it quite a few times, so I want to turn it over to you and just tell us what's the book about and where we can find it, where our listeners can get it.

spk_1:   31:52
So the book is called I Am Not Break Free from Stereotypes and become the woman God has made you to be, Um, and I wrote the book, I said, because I saw so many women in the church Christian woman struggling with their identity and just kind of labeling themselves with the expectations and the stereotypes. The messages at the world and culture had been teaching them, and they've become almost normal. It's the status quo, you know. And so I wanted us to know there is so much more, and I talk about a common once that we all face, regardless of culture, and I specifically picked once that I struggled with and I have struggled with. And ah, lot of these stereotypes are what limited me from running my purpose running on mission and also stop me from engaging in healthy relationships with females. I think there's power when women come together, and I think the double knows that, and he's scared. And so he's constantly trying to divide us and distort our view of ourselves and each other. So it's a book that I hope will help us to break out of this constant feeling of discounting our cells and discounting other woman and rising up in the identity that God has. And that's not just by, you know, changing your mind set. It's not just affirmations. It's living differently. It's responding differently differently, so I'd have to talk about the stereotype that women are gossips. That's something that you know I faced in my life. And, you know, we see that throughout media like women are depicted as gossips. And so for me, I was like, Why would I want to be friends with women who are sitting there just creating drama and gossiping, you know? And I remember just putting up walls, you know, and not wanting to get close to women because I couldn't trust them. And if you can trust someone, you can love them. And so I write about that. But then I also, you know, share ways. You can practically overcome that. I talk about nine women in the Bible who faced thes same struggles, and I picked specifically woman who are mentioned by name because I want us to know you can struggle and still be loved by God. They they fail. They struggled. They were under the same challenge. But God counted them important enough to mention them by name. That's huge, so you don't need to discount yourself. You don't need to discount other woman. We can tear down the walls and we can come together, and that's exactly my goal with this book, and I hope I hope that it helps people change the narrative. I want that for my daughter. I want my daughter when she grows up, you know, to be a woman who might see people gossiping and say I'm not. That's not me. And that's the whole point of the book.

spk_0:   34:58
So what are the eight things you cover? If you could cover him real quick? What did the

spk_1:   35:01
Yes. So the eight stereotypes are Women are manipulative or controlling. Women are gossips. Women are cliquey too emotional, always comparing themselves to each other. Women are naive. Women are weak and women are overwhelmed.

spk_0:   35:19
Wow, that is a list. And you cover all of those things in the devotional. Yeah. So where can the listeners find the book?

spk_1:   35:28
So they can get it on Amazon now?

spk_0:   35:30
And it's a good price.

spk_1:   35:31
Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited about it. Thank you so much for having me. You're so been so fun. Such a pleasure.

spk_0:   35:38
You really are. You're such a dynamic woman. So I love getting a chance to share your story. And it's so different from what we've done so far. So thank you so much for coming. And you're with us. Thank you. Thanks for listening to today's episode. I'm your host, Courtney Haggard. If you like the show and you want to know more, check us out on Facebook or Instagram. I love hearing from our listeners and hearing how these stories have impacted you or someone you know and real quick. If you please take a few minutes to leave a review in a five star rating on Apple podcasts, it would help us to get recommended to other listeners like you until next time remember your story matters.