When You Believe God Loves You, But Still Feel Like You Have to Earn It with Stasi Eldredge
Episode Notes
What happens when you believe God loves you, but deep down, you still feel like you have to earn it?
For many of us, the way we experienced love growing up shapes the way we relate to God. We may know the right things about his love, yet find ourselves striving to be good enough, serve enough, or do enough to deserve it.
In today's conversation, Dr. Alison is joined by beloved author and speaker Stasi Eldredge, whose new book, The Ladder of Love, explores the many ways Scripture invites us into a deeper, more intimate relationship with God.
We explore:
*How your childhood experiences shape the way you see God
*Why knowing you're loved and feeling loved can be so different
*7 surprising ways Scripture describes our relationship with God
*What it looks like to grow closer to God in everyday life
*What Stasi wishes she'd known about God's love years ago
Stasi shares her own remarkable journey—from encountering Jesus as a young woman, to struggling with depression and wounds from her childhood, to discovering a relationship with God as Father that transformed how she understood herself and his love.
About Stasi Eldredge:
Stasi Eldredge is an author and speaker passionate about helping women experience the goodness of God and the transforming love of Jesus. With a background in sociology and decades of ministry experience spanning youth, women, children, and crisis pregnancy support, she is dedicated to helping others grow deeper in their faith and discover the freedom found in Christ.
More Resources:
Get Stasi’s new book: Ladder of Love.
Learn more about Stasi Eldredge here.
Get exclusive access to the first 2 chapters of Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul.
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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Transcript
For me, love was earned. You looked a certain way, behaved a certain way,
performed a certain way, and then you had approval. And I thought, I'm not really interested in God
as my father. But then hearing their tones of voice, I really said, I want to know you. I want to
know you like this. So I actually had the opportunity to go away by myself with the intent purpose
to come to know him as my father. And I came back a changed woman. I told Jesus,
I still love you, but I've really got a thing for your dad. The wounds I've received, the pain I
have suffered has actually warped my perception of who God is. I want to learn you rightly.
He wants that as well. Nothing is out of his reach and he's for you. I know the work you do and
then hopefully the work I'm doing as well is to give people handrails on how to step forward,
to walk with God in... do the excavation? How have I learned him wrong? And then to restore us and
begin to reveal himself to us as he really is. That is a journey worth taking.
Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's deep dive episode of The Best of You. I'm so thrilled
you're here with me today for this conversation. It's with Stacey Eldridge,
and I found this conversation to just be incredibly warm and uplifting and hopeful.
And as I thought about this episode and this new book that we're going to talk about today, I
thought about how we often have these specific ways that we might imagine God in our lives,
and we might not even be aware of it. Sometimes we might see God,
or at least a part of us might see God primarily as someone to obey. A part of us might see God as
primarily the person we go to for help when we're in need, when we need comfort, when we need
reassurance, when we need wisdom. Other parts of us might see God as someone primarily out there,
someone to worship, someone who is more transcendent, someone to revere.
We might see God at times as a friend, as a close friend, as a confidant,
as someone we share all of our secrets with. We might see God as a savior, as a teacher,
as a shepherd. There are so many different ways that we see God. Sometimes we're aware of these
ways, sometimes we're not. And of course, all of these different ways of relating to God,
of imagining God, of being with God can be true and helpful and good. But sometimes I wonder if
part of spiritual maturity includes allowing our understanding of how we relate to God to become
bigger and even more layered over time. And part of it is recognizing that we can relate to God in
different ways at different times and that different parts of us might have different ways of
understanding God and that we can hold all of those things in truth and intention.
And it makes our relationship with God even more rich, even more layered,
even more robust. As I was thinking about all these different ways we have to understand this idea
of love, what love feels like, how we relate to love, I was thinking about all these different
relationships, especially as I was writing The Secure Soul and thinking about attachment as this
form of connectedness that's so important to the health of our souls. Again, when we think about
attachment, we think about a parent, right? And a good parent gives us a window into love.
but also transcends who that parent is. That window that a parent gives us into love points us to
capital L love, right? God, to divine love, to the God who is behind that relationship.
Or a trusted friend, someone who comes in and really earns our trust, who's been with us through
thick and thin, gives us another understanding of love, another embodied glimpse of what love feels
like. This is what it feels like when I feel safe, when I can trust. someone, when I know someone
has my back, this person, this friend has given me that sense of what love is like. And that tells
me something about God or a wise mentor or counselor gives us something even a little bit
different, right? Maybe they're not in our immediate sphere, but they give us wisdom because they
can see us with objectivity. They have some perspective that we don't have and they impart that
wisdom to us and it can feel so good within our soul and so helpful within our. soul to have that
trusted advisor who can see the bigger picture a little beyond what we can see.
And that, again, gives us another glimpse of capital L love, of God's love, of what God's love is
like. And then sometimes I even think about another category, a healthy leader, maybe even a boss,
maybe a professional mentor, maybe somebody who enters into our vocational lives and maybe guides
us with wisdom. I recently was at a conference. retreat where I met these amazing leaders who are
trying to figure out how to bring their faith into the workplace, not necessarily speaking out the
gospel with words, but trying to show up as just a healthy example of what a leader is like.
Someone who cares for the people that he or she employs and someone who sees the people who work
for him or who work for her, not just as transactions, right? But as real people and someone who's
trying to create a world. that is healthy and inspires development and inspires care and inspires
stewardship and is good not only for the person who's working there, but good for the whole culture
or community. And I was just amazed by these leaders. I don't think some of us have tasted even
just a healthy boss like that, right? Someone who really cares about the whole person, even as that
boss is trying to create a healthy culture that produces good work. And again,
even that kind of relationship. can give us a glimpse into what God is like,
right? What God's love is like. God wants us to be healthy in every sphere of our life.
And God cares about our lives and our souls on so many different levels. And then I think about
that most intimate relationship that we might have with a spouse or a partner or a significant
other, where we experience love in its most intimate form, where there's that dance of togetherness
and apartness, right? Where we're aligned, we're partnered together in an intimate way,
but we also retain some of our own individual identity. And I think of that as a powerful example
of this capital L love of God's. And then I think about how these categories,
these different types of relationships, like parent, like friend, like beloved, like a boss even,
or a leader, how these words carry a history for us. They carry types of relationships we've
actually lived. And some of these relationships have been safe. They've shaped us in a healthy way.
They've allowed us to glimpse God's love as how God's love actually is, but how others haven't been
so safe. created a situation in which it's hard for us to trust a particular type of relationship.
And it's exactly this picture that intrigued me about Stacey's newest book.
It's called The Ladder of Love, and it's an invitation to explore the many ways scripture describes
closeness with God. And Stacey isn't talking about this ladder as an achievement system,
right, as a way to get closer to God, but more as this metaphor for an ever-deepening
relationship. Stacey Eldridge is a best-selling author, a speaker, and co-founder of Wild at
Heart with her husband, John Eldridge. Her books include Captivating, Becoming Myself,
and Defiant Joy, and her newest book, that we're going to discuss today is called The Ladder of
Love, A Pathway to Emotional Healing and Spiritual Intimacy with Jesus.
I just found Stacey to be so refreshing and honest and real, and I really loved this idea of
thinking about the different ways that we relate to God, some that we may have closed off,
some that we may want to draw in as a tool for us to think about what it means to stay close to
Jesus. Please enjoy my conversation with Stacey.
You
know, you've just had such an incredible impact on so many people.
And I would love, before we kind of dive into this new book, just to hear who was Jesus to you when
you first began to follow him? And how is that different from who he is to you now?
Oh, that's such a good question. So I became a full-on follower of Christ when I was 21 years old
at back college. And he saved me.
That was one of those ones where you can picture the person in the ocean at the bottom and he
reaches down and saves you. I was really at the end of my rope with the person I had become,
the things I was doing, the things I had done.
Really lost, really involved in the drug culture, had been in that for a very long time. And then
what happened was John, my husband, and I were friends all through high school.
And I had gotten together with him and he had become a Christian, which was shocking, which was
like, what? So this was not who he was in high school either. Oh, heavens no.
Neither of you. Oh, no, no, no, no. You were not voted the most likely to become ministers of the
gospel in your high school yearbook. Quite the opposite. He was kind of an evangelist to get people
to not believe in God. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. He had no faith upbringing at all. There was
nothing. But as he got older, he began to seek. And he began seeking in all the wrong places.
And Jesus came. And revealed himself to him. So we were both kind of seeking at the same time.
But we lived in different cities about two and a half hours from each other. And he had become a
Christian. And I was like, tell me everything. So you were friends.
You weren't dating? No, we weren't dating. We were friends. We'd been friends for like, I met him
when I was 16. He was 15. Yeah, so I'd known him for about six years. But we weren't dating.
I went back to college in San Diego, and I brought a family Bible with me.
And then one night at the end of my rope, I opened it.
And I opened it to Matthew 11, 28. That's what my eyes fell on. Come to me,
all you who are weary, and I will give you rest. And I literally fell on the ground,
Allison, and said, I'm weary. That was my salvation prayer. That's amazing.
I was in. I was in. He rescued me immediately from a couple of addictions.
Not everything, as we know. We have to walk out our story. But I was committed.
I wanted this God. And so I joined a church. I got in a discipleship group.
I learned Bible studies. I was 100% in. Serious about it.
And that was it. I lost all of my friends. And I just dove in. And he was first center behind last
in between. He was he was everything to me. I started in ministry really quickly,
as people do when they're young and started going to a great church.
Yep. I want to serve him. I want to go. So what happened to me?
was I kind of shifted from just being in awe and gratitude and love with him to thinking I had to
earn it. And I shifted over to, and I think I was taught this,
I think a lot of people are taught this, that what God really wanted was my duty and my obedience.
So it was obligation. And I went, okay. If that's what he wants and that's what I'm going to do.
And there would be women that would speak at the church or come and tell their testimony. And I
literally called it the parade of the perfect later. Because what they presented, right?
It was, I have my life together. Be like me and you too can have your life together.
Well, I couldn't. I knew my inner story. And also I'm about 15 years into my walk with Christ now.
I have not addressed at that point any of my childhood wounds or my teenage wounds or my young.
I hadn't gone there, but they were starting to surface and make themselves know. Yeah.
So the Christianity that I was living, it wasn't enough. It wasn't.
Did you hit a breaking point?
Absolutely. I did. I did. And I also thought if I start to cry,
I will never stop. So I was terrified of starting to cry.
I was terrified of pain. But it propelled me into counseling,
seeking a good Christian counselor. And the power of that, having somebody else.
validate my pain my story of my life hold it hold it up to someone else's live eyes to go that oh
that actually isn't good that wasn't or it wasn't supposed to be like that or what did you come to
believe about yourself as a result of that because our marriage was really in a crisis point we had
three young children and it was hard heart and i was not i Clearly,
I wasn't the mom I wanted to be. I didn't have the resources or the stamina. And I was really
struggling with depression. And I did need help. And God brought this incredible woman into my life
to help walk me through and begin me on a healing journey that continues. Yeah.
Did you? Was there a moment, Stacey? Because, again, I want to. this, the ladder of love,
you know, there's such a beautiful way that you are inviting us, even just with what you said.
That's why I want to get to your story a little bit out of that carrot holding God that we might
even know theologically isn't correct, but it's what some, how we've internalized to this,
this, this God of love who just wants to know us more deeply and deeply.
Was there a moment or a,
When you realized, right, what I know or believe about God's love is not what I'm experiencing it.
When that became conscious, did that kind of happen through therapy bit by bit? Or was there kind
of a realization moment? What was that like for you? I think what it was for me was listening to my
friends pray. When I prayed, I prayed to Jesus, Jesus, and in Jesus' name,
Jesus. When they prayed, they prayed to Father. Father,
da-da-da-da-da. Some of them prayed to Papa or Abba. And I'm going, what is that?
And why are they doing that? Why aren't they praying to Jesus? And what happened was I realized I
don't know God as my Father. The way they're talking, the tone of voice they're using.
I don't know him like that. And I wanted to. And that's really when I realized that it was true,
that what you learn about what a father is, you do learn from your earthly father. You really do.
And we all need to do some excavating. Where have we learned him wrong? And what were some of the
messages that came with the wounds that we all received? Nobody gets out of this thing unscathed.
And to hold them up to the love of God. So for me, Love was earned.
You looked a certain way, behaved a certain way, performed a certain way, and then you had
approval. Yeah. And my father was also very capricious. He had rage issues and he suffered without
medication and with bipolar disorder for many years. So you just never knew what was going to go
on. And I thought, I'm not really interested in God as my father. Right.
But then hearing their tones of voice, I really said, I want to know you. I want to know you like
this. So I actually had the opportunity to go away by myself for two weeks with the intent purpose
to come to know him as my father. And I came back a changed woman,
completely changed. I told Jesus, I still love you, but I've really got a thing for your dad.
I'm going to the other part of the Trinity now. That's right. That's right. We're good. I hope you
don't mind. And of course he didn't mind. He's like, yeah, I was wanting you to know him, you know,
and he's just like me as a matter of fact. So just, just having this shift and it was a subtle,
slow realization as well that when the things that I was doing. Out of,
I thought, a good heart in serving him and in volunteering and doing the things I was doing, I
realized I was doing those things because I thought he would like me better. And then I was trying
to earn something versus just responding out of love for what I already possessed.
I couldn't make him love me any more than he already did. And because I was so loved,
that being what propelled me to want to love him back. Yeah. So how did you,
so you said you went away for two weeks. I did. I talk about this too. You know, you want to, you
are beloved. So you work from that place, not for that. Yes. Which is a huge distinction,
but get it. And it makes sense logically, but getting from point A to point B, you know,
it sounds like you, you became aware. Oh, the idea of God, father, God is,
that is a problem. Yeah, I need to address that. So then what did you do? How did you go into that?
Could you share a little bit of what that was like for you? For me, I ended up going to the coast
of Oregon to a little Airbnb. I'd never been there before, but it was May and there was ocean and
that was alluring. I brought with me Cynthia Gunther's book, Safe in the Father's Heart.
And I slowly, slowly read through it.
I use the pronoun we because we did things. We went on an adventure every other day.
One day we'd stay home. And we being you and God the Father.
Yep. How interesting. Yeah. And I had brought worship sets with me.
I was free to be tired. I remember taking my first nap before I'd even gotten out of bed.
I was so happy to have a break from my life and just have the rest and the time to go,
show me who you are, really. And what he ended up doing was showing me how loved I am that blew me
away. One of the things he did, God gives me heart rocks. Often,
like little shapes of hearts in a rock or in a cloud or a little torn piece of paper. And it's just
a little, I love you. I see you in this moment. And I'll have times when I don't see one for
months. And I'll have times when I see one at every step. Well, on this trip to the Oregon coast,
they were having this weird phenomenon. They called them blue sailors. things,
these creatures that are out at the sea, but there was some strong wind and some surf, some tides
that brought them all in. These blue little round oval things. They were pretty. You couldn't touch
them. They felt like jellyfish. But there was also white little speckled things around because when
they dried, they turned white. And I think it was about my second to last day walking on the beach
that I noticed the millions of white things I was surrounded with were all in the shape of a heart.
All of them. Yeah. And I just, I mean, what?
Burst out laughing? Like I knew it was from him and that he wanted me to know, I don't just love
you. I love you. Then I went for this continuing on this walk and I rounded a bend and there was,
the Oregon coast has these huge stones in the water. Come around the bend, there's a huge stone
with a perfect heart in the middle of it. It was amazing. And it was in that place of choosing.
to believe you do love me and having that settle something in my heart that he also invited me to
pray. And I knew, I knew that whatever I prayed for was a yes.
So I just dove in to his heart and just like, what, what do you want me to pray?
That was so great. It was so great. And I came back and I remember being with my daughter-in-law
and her saying, I've never seen you like this before. You're just you're just like in a new way lit
up. I am. I am. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's powerful.
I want to it's kind of bringing us to the progression in the book.
Right. Because I'm also guessing there was a timeliness, a fullness of time to those two weeks
where you'd even just in the little bit of little. overview of your story you've given us there,
you may not have been able to experience God in that way earlier. Not until then.
Right. Right. And, and, and this is what you kind of talk about. There's a progression, this ladder
that isn't about climbing. It's just sort of a,
and you give us these, these, these different kind of the clay, the sheep. the servant,
the child, the sibling, the friend, the bride, right? So you're kind of giving us a taste of the
child. You know, you're kind of giving us a taste of, but when you look back over your own life,
how do you kind of see like how, even when you were saying like, I had to start therapy and that
was, that was, I imagine kind of learning, oh, this is what my dad was like.
This is this is how I was formed. These are some of the wounds that I have laying some of that
groundwork. So then suddenly it's time for you to go away for two weeks and really confront.
Oh, this is a different kind of father. Your soul was ready. Yeah. So using your own kind of some
of your own, you know, these these metaphors that you give us in the book, these these these.
How does that kind of map on to some of the seasons of your own life?
This has been my journey for the last 30 years. Yeah. And so I love that you said this isn't about
striving. This isn't about reaching the next rung and pulling yourself up.
This is about coming to know more fully who you already are and resting in that.
And then it's having God. reveal himself to you in more ways as that. So the metaphors do increase
through the scriptures. We start out as clay and we are formed from his hands.
And clay needs to actually can't fight the potter, yield to it. And we are formed with intention
and specificity for the unique purpose that we have. And we are formed with delight and with love.
He blesses who we are. He loves who we are. And he invites us to do the same thing. There's so much
about being the clay and him being the potter that it's so worth unpacking for a long time.
And so I get a chance to do that. But we as clay is the metaphor. We're an inanimate object.
We can rise up and the next rung would be sheep where we are alive.
We have breath now. And we get to learn him as our good shepherd, as the one who is guiding us,
protecting us, providing for us, leading us. Some chapters call it,
translations say, the Lord is my best friend. And I lack nothing. And coming to know the provision
of God will be enough. One of the things that I love about him being our good shepherd is that he
is also a lamb himself. So he is the Lamb of God and he knows,
he identifies with us. He knows and understands what we're facing and what it's like to be a sheep
in an often dangerous world. So it's really incredible to get to pull back that curtain of how are
you, my shepherd? What does that even mean?
Well, I want to pause here because I love this ascension. And again, not as sort of the five steps
to, but just this is the journey, the deepening journey. I want to quote you here.
I really want the listener to hear this because I think it relates to how we sometimes perceive
ourselves, especially kind of as the clay or especially at the beginning. You say... I just thought
this was so good. You said many of us have heard the same message that we are not worthy to
approach our holy God. We sing songs that name us wretches. We hear sermons reminding of us,
you know, right. Kind of that almost like that. That's sometimes how I think of when I think of
that clay or the sheep, sheep are stupid. You know, we hear that sheep are, you know, and it's, I
mean, they are kind of, but, but also we can take that in a self-diminishing way. And you say, you
know, we are sometimes diminished as women, you know. Instead of being encouraged by lavish grace
and the boundless love of God, we are sometimes shamed by our fallen humanity. And I love how even
how you're saying this, none of this is to diminish. This is just kind of the natural progression
of a spiritual life, of coming alive in Christ. I just kind of wanted to pause there because you
start the book right off with that. And I thought, oh, we need to hear that. Yeah. This isn't a
hierarchy of, yeah, just maybe say a few words about that. Well,
you know, a ladder, you ascend it and you never lose a rung. Like we're always clay.
But I think in the spiritual ladder, we kind of hop around, you know? And we never,
I'm always a child, but I am the bride, but I am a sheep, but I'm clay. I am all of these things
and they are all essential. To my identity in Christ. In fact, the latter could be a ladder of
identity. Our own or the identity of God as he has revealed himself in the scriptures.
Something that I write earlier in the book. And it's always loving. Yeah. Oh my goodness. He just
gets better because there's always that we've learned him wrong. We have all known pain and sorrow.
Yeah. Everybody knows that. But to turn those merciful eyes on ourself can be a challenge.
And then also to recognize that the wounds I've received, the pain I have suffered, has actually
warped my perception of who God is. And to go,
okay, I want to learn you rightly. I really do. Yeah.
He wants that as well. But it's actually a choice too. Because I write that love and mercy,
they're unconditional. But intimacy with Jesus isn't.
You actually have to pursue it. You have to want it.
You have to risk hoping again. You have to respond to a hunger that's so deep you say,
I long for you. I want to know you. And it propels you to move. Yeah,
that's interesting. It reminds me that when you have the bride in there, it reminds me of any
relationship. You have to pursue it. You have to pursue that intimacy.
So what comes, so we have, I love that. We have clay and sheep and then what else?
Keep going with those. Next comes for mine that I wrote is servant. which I actually loved to
reframe as devoted one because there's just something in me that diminishes the role of servant.
I don't want to just be a servant, but a devoted one, one who is responding out of love to the
kindness and goodness of the master who's choosing to serve because they're so marvelous.
That's it. And that's where we learn that everything we do, everything, whether it's our work,
our ministry, our... making a meal from someone in need,
letting somebody go in front of us in the grocery store. It's actually worship.
It's offering back the love that we've received. But in the natural world,
a servant comes in the back door and wipes their feet before they enter the house.
You're a human being now. You're not an inanimate object. You're not an animal. You're a human
being. But you're relegated to a certain level of relationship. So the next rung is child.
A child barges in the front door. They don't care if their feet are dirty or what,
and they can leap onto their father's lap. They know that they are delighted in,
or they're meant to know this, simply because they exist, just because they are.
They are the apple of their father's eye. I'm sure you're familiar with Timothy Keller's quote.
I'm going to misquote it, but it's something. Like the only person who can wake a king at three in
the morning for a glass of water is a child. And we have that kind of access.
Like the proximity that we hold to our father's heart has come boldly before me.
Like, come on, come on in. Don't wait till you get yourself cleaned up. I'm not waiting. I want you
right now. I want you in totality, the good, the bad, the ugly. The soaring, the suffering,
come to me. That's the invitation throughout scripture is him saying come. Come to me and come
closer. So that's father. But we don't stop there. Should I keep going?
Okay. So the next one I write about is sibling. Jesus is our brother.
He's our brother. And in the natural realm of brother. That's so interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
A sibling knows the inside scoop. And the parents might not know that the sibling does.
I can say a phrase in front of my sisters and my brother. They will know exactly where I'm going.
Yes. They will know exactly. Or just one word and they might start. It's a different kind of
intimacy. It's different. my body when you say like father there's sort of a kind of intimacy it is
it's all sibling is a different kind of intimacy it's all different kinds of intimacy it's really
true yeah and we have the same father we are yeah he is our brother yeah he's our elder brother
he's our advocate and again our protector because you think about the brother on the playground
that protects their younger sibling from the bully like you you're gonna have to come through me to
get to them And that's what Jesus did for us. Or the parents. I had times when my siblings went,
no, it wasn't her that did it. It was me. Just like Jesus did for us. Don't punish her.
I'll take it. And there's a way of knowing him that increases.
And I'll tell you, this is probably the way before I knew him the least. I didn't really know him
as that. So it's been really fun. As a sibling. To dive in. Yeah. Interesting.
Yeah. We don't stop there. We keep going up. Yeah, that's good. And now we go to friend.
Friend. There's an equality in friendship. There's a reciprocity. Jesus not only says that he is
our friend, but he says, I want you to be my friend. And you think of a father does not confide in
their child. He's not going to put the weight. Yeah. But a friend confides in a friend.
Yeah. Jesus says he'll tell us the secrets of his heart. There's a verse that says the Lord
confides in those who fear him. And we see it in the scriptures. There's several,
several stories where people are called the friend of God and he tells them his heart.
He tells them what he's doing. So, I mean, the incredible honor of this, that not only is he our
friend, but we get to be his. What does that even mean? What does it mean that I get to be? His
friend, you know, this God who we think he doesn't need anything. He doesn't need it, but he wants
it. He wants us. He wants our love. He wants this mutual relationship.
So that's Fred, which is camp out there for a long time. But then we go even higher and we go to
bride. And this bride, the corporate church is the bride of Christ. And this isn't about a white.
lace, wedding gown, or flowers in our hair because men and women are the bride of Christ.
We are all sons. We are all the bride. This is about the proximity to his heart.
We are his counterpart. We are the one who partners with him.
A partner. A partner. That's right. Yeah, and bringing his kingdom. And then I love the Shulamite
in Song of Songs. Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved?
She has become a mature bride. She's been in the wilderness. There's been the honing, the person,
all that's been going on there. And she has come to know her beloved in ways that she didn't
before. And she comes up resting on him. And that's why a mature bride is a bride who is leaning.
She is at rest. She's not striving to become. She's resting in who she is.
And you go through all of this in the book. And like you said, you could meditate on each one for
several weeks. Let me ask you this. And you kind of already answered it. But I wanted to ask you,
which rung has been hardest for you to receive? You said the sibling one was the most kind of like
foreign. I think for me, in my story of my life, would have been and is leaving servant.
Not saying I don't want to serve you. I don't want to love you. I want to worship you with my life.
But I realized that the things that I was doing, I was volunteering at church.
I was volunteering at Crisis Pregnant Center. I was teaching Sunday school.
And I kind of thought it was making God like me better and that I needed to be doing those things
in order to have this approval. Yeah, which goes back to those wounds you were talking about.
It goes back to it. That one maybe got the most conflated with how you had experienced your earthly
father. And I think a lot of people actually get stuck there because they can get told you are
worth what you do.
Your value lies in what you produce and what you offer. And so you are welcome here if you serve.
And we want to do that, but not out of, again, not to earn something, but because we've already
received something. And when I realized that, that I actually am the beloved of God right now,
in the middle of my imperfection and my messy, I am loved unchangeably,
endlessly, immeasurably. It didn't make me not want to do those things anymore,
but it sure changed my motive for it. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. What would you say to a woman who's listening who either,
I guess I'm going to ask this question in two ways. Let me start with the wounding where there's
been some wounds within one of those relationships.
And so that rung feels either. out of reach or almost painful?
What would you encourage her to do next? Would you encourage her to focus on a different rung?
How would you encourage someone who one of those relationships has gotten very marred in real life?
And so it's hard to reach that. So there's no desire probably even to know God in that way.
It's too messy. I would just want to offer her mercy. There's a timing.
There's a timing. And you have a God who came to heal the brokenhearted and set the captive free.
That's what Jesus said his whole mission is about. Not to scrap you, but to restore you and heal
you. And he's very intentional about it. So to know that no matter what we've suffered,
what trauma we've endured, what it's been like, nothing is out of his reach. And he's for you.
So I know the work you do and then hopefully the work I'm doing as well is to give people handrails
on how to step forward and to receive the emotional healing that they need.
To walk with God and do the excavation. How have I learned him wrong?
And then have him come and tend to those places, which he can do. He is the God out of time.
He heals us all throughout our own lives and journey at whatever age. And then to restore us and
begin to reveal himself to us as he really is. And that is a journey worth taking.
You tell stories about this in the book. I love the story you tell about your prayer closet,
literally. It's so beautiful how you describe it.
pursues this intimacy with God. What does it look like? What does that pursuit look like on a
normal day when you're not, you know, yeah. How do you notice and kind of stay close to God just in
the normal daily rhythms of your life? That's good. That's good. So I believe that Christianity not
only is about restoration, but that the goal is union. He wants oneness with us.
He wants conversational intimacy. He's interested in the details. In the day-to-day,
in the moment-by-moment. And so cultivating that relationship is a worthy endeavor.
That takes a lifetime to increasingly grow in. And that's what he wants.
It's what we want. So it's worth it. So for me, when my children were young,
it might have looked like three minutes in the bathroom. That was my quiet time.
And there's grace for that. There's mercy for that. Or for me too. Was it the stoplight? If I had a
red light, I had a little devotional with me. Just give me a scripture. Give me something to hang
on to. But then probably when they were a little older,
like 6, 8, 10, I could have an hour. And I created a little space in our house that was in our...
The room has like your heater and stuff in it. It wasn't like a pretty room, but I tried to
sequester a little place and just get in there only to be with God and not really to pray,
not to ask him for stuff, but just to fix the gaze of my heart,
turn my attention onto who he is and ask for to see his beauty. And then I would just tell him how
much I loved him. I love you. And to worship him. So worshiping him for what he could do or what I
could get is really a central theme in my life. And that's like my little area that I meet with him
now. It's a worship room. That's what I call it. And so what it looks like for me is getting still
and getting quiet and turning my phone on airplane mode and turning it upside down so I don't see
it. I like to put on soft instrumental music in the background, and then I literally will imagine
myself sinking into my heart, dropping down to where Christ dwells,
and ask Holy Spirit for help to become attuned to his presence, that I might see him,
that I might hear him. And then when the distracting thoughts come, and they do, Just let them flip
by or sometimes I write them down. If it's going to haunt me, I have to come back to that later.
But that's just normal. And then it's something that we just get better at over time as we practice
like anything else. Just to sink in, settle in, tell him I love him.
Be quiet. Ask if there's anything he wants to say to me. It might involve reaching for the word and
meditating on scriptures. I might have a book in there of something that I'm going through and
studying. But it primarily is being quiet with him and just telling him how marvelous he is.
I'm very intrigued by this idea of. Trying on the different roles.
Sometimes with my husband, we'll say to each other, which role are you asking me to play here?
Right. You know, it's like, I just want to gossip with a friend. Okay. You know, I'm not, I'm not
asking you to solve this, you know, or, um, I, I'm actually coming to you as a consultant,
you know, I'd like for your, you to put your problem solving eyeballs on this, you know, or, right.
So I'll say, you know, we kind of will name what, which, which person do you wish, you know, for
me, I'm a therapist, you know, do you want the therapist me or no, you know, cause it's just
helpful to name that. Right. And I'm kind of. toying with this new book of yours and the way you've
kind of, I really like, I'm kind of toying with like, if I'm taking a walk, like I have the time
where I'm quiet with God, but like, I'm kind of toying with, could you just be my friend right now?
I want to just tell you, you know, kind of trying out the different, um, or I really need,
you know, kind of trying out some of those different, or, or I need to be a shepherd. I, I need to
hear your voice. I need you to be a shepherd, right? I need to be a sheep. I need to hear your
voice right now. It kind of strikes me that it's kind of beautiful that we can...
Kind of, you know, Matt, because because that that has grown out of intimacy with my husband,
right, where we know each other well enough that when we're saying, you know, don't be the
therapist. I don't take it personally. I'm like, yeah, totally. I get it. Kind of like what you're
saying. I want father now, not you, Jesus. You know, it's I think that's really kind of cool.
I'm going to I'm going to test that out, you know, as I'm spending time with God. Yeah, that's the
best. That's the best because it's actually true. I love the way you said that you can do, you
know, with your husband because of your intimacy. Because of how you know him. And that is the
beautiful thing about God is that he wants us to know him like that. To know the word he's going to
use. Like you might know with a spouse. You know what he's going to say. Or the sound of his
footsteps or what a look conveys. Like he wants us to know him like that. That yada is the Hebrew
word, gnosis in Greek. And Jesus says that this is eternal life.
That you know the Lord. And that's the knowing. It's not the facts.
It's not knowing about. It's the internal, actually,
I really know you. I'm at rest there. And the more we know him,
it's true, the more we love him. And the more we are not identified by our pain or our past,
but by our present and our future, we know who we are because we know we're his.
Yeah. That's so good. That different kind of knowing. Yeah. I guess I'm curious as we're kind of
winding down, you've walked with Jesus for a long time. You gave us a glimpse of what it was like
at the beginning. Is there anything, everything you've kind of understood, what would you want your
younger Stacey to know about God that you know now?
What would you want her to know?
and this changed everything for me when she did come to know it, was that you are delighted in
right now. It's not for what you do. It's because you exist.
You are delighted in. You are actually the beloved of God. You are the one that is chosen and holy
and dearly loved. And these words that we hear in church or in the scriptures actually have a
meaning to them that we don't need to just gloss over. So I like that you are delighted in.
He likes me. He likes you, little one. He made you on purpose. Your sense of humor and your taste
and what you think is funny and what offends you. He likes you.
And it's not because of what you do. I think about when I'm a grandmother.
Eight grandchildren and one on the way. And you hold that baby and I'm undone.
I love them. They can't do anything. They're just lying there.
And it's like that. It's like that. You are loved because you exist as you.
As you. And who you are brings something to the heart of God that no one else does.
Yeah, that's beautiful. There is just something about... I think Stacey,
there's such an infectiousness to how you embody your love of,
of God. And I think it, so that's, that's why so many of us,
you know, there's a realness to it that just, you can feel and it, it kind of creates that, you
know, we talk a lot about how, and you've touched on this, how we can kind of learn in our bodies,
faulty messages, even when we know with our minds. Yes. And you're someone,
you know, just through your own story and the way you talk about it, you can feel in your body that
love. It's infectious. And I'm just so grateful that for you and for this new book,
I think. It's just a really beautiful way to think about all these different ways we can know God.
It's really beautiful. Thank you. It's a worthy endeavor. Yeah. Yes, it's a worthy endeavor.
Tell my listeners where they can find you in the book and what other kinds of things you're doing
right now around the book launch and just where they can connect with you.
That's great. So The Ladder of Love is available wherever you buy books. And there's also a study
guide, a six-week series that's going along with it where I do teaching and then guided prayers in
it. What I really like is I've done study guides before, but I've just kind of taken stuff from the
book and plopped it in, whereas this one, it's new material. I'm coming at the same message.
But just some new ways. So I'm excited about that. So the Ladder of Love and wildatheart.org.
That's the website for our ministry. And we've just got all kinds of resources there. Discipleship
and ways to encounter God and teaching and videos. And we do events and retreats. That's just a
really great place to learn more.
I learned because I'm up here in Wyoming. You guys are down in Colorado. We share an overlapping.
The woman who edits my podcast was telling me, she said, I'm here in this room and this woman is
teaching from the same scripture that I just edited. And it was you. And so I learned that we have
that convergence. But I didn't realize how much you guys were doing to minister to people through
Wild at Heart. So please do check out those. resources and shout out to Kelly but I just it's just
really incredible what you guys are doing and we're so grateful thank you thanks for having me what
a joy to be with you you too Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You.
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