S4 Episode #1- Sandy Forbes
THE ONE WITH SANDY FORBES
Today we are so excited to welcome Sandy Forbes to the show! Sandy is the owner of Purposeful Life Renovators. Her focus is helping women live fully and with purpose even when walking through painful circumstances.
Sandy pulls from her firsthand experience of learning to embrace all of life, even when walking through the heartbreak of a child with addiction and eventual incarceration. She focuses on leaving her listeners with actionable items that can be put into practice immediately to help them identify purpose in the hard.
Sandy believes that mindset is key and loves helping others cultivate their best, most authentic life. She practices dreaming big and walking in what God created her to do. She enjoys traveling to new places, spending time with her 3 kids and 3 beautiful granddaughters and relaxing with a book at the beach.
LISTEN
READ
The whole walk of life is a process of continually being refined. All of us have times in our lives where something happens that is key to making a shift. These are usually times of pain and hardship.
Sandy shares about the hardships they have had with their oldest son. In this particular situation, the miracle she was praying for didn’t come. She had to wrestle with the tough questions about what she believed. Did she have it wrong the whole time? Did she pray wrong? Is God really good? Etc…
The pathways in our brain are linked to our mindset and there are things that we can do to teach our brains what to believe. She began to identify the goodness of God in the middle of the pain. The goodness of God no matter what. The goodness of God became a reality in her life. Even though the miracle didn’t come.
You are not alone. You are not disenfranchised from having a close, dynamic relationship with the Lord. You are seen. There is a purpose for the place that you are in.
Redefining Miracles
Old View: the situation will change to make things easier or better
New View: Miracles are the internal power shift that happens when you surrender to God to whatever He is doing and you trust HIM with the endgame.
If you are in the middle of a struggle, ask the Lord to redefine what the miracle would be in your current situation.
“Hardship is the privilege of non mediocrity, the honor of greatness.” - Ann Voskamp
Shifting our Mindset
We have anywhere from 12,000-80,000 thoughts each day.
Those are all subconscious. We must take the time to intentionally train our God-designed brain how to think.
80% of our thoughts default to a negative space and 95% of our thoughts are repetitive. In order to change our mindset, we need to start putting new thoughts in.
Tips for how to change your brain:
Please positive triggers all around you every day.
Set reminders on your phone that will “dig” and remind you about some truth that you are working to believe. This could be, “you are adored”, it could be a verse or any sort of message.
Vision Boards can be very powerful too! Set it in a place where you will see each day to help remind you of who you are and what your dreams are. This will also be a powerful tool to show you how you have grown and how God has been working in your story.
You have unique dreams that are placed in you from the Lord! You are uniquely qualified to walk those dreams out.
What things make you feel alive and hopeful?
As you surrender to what God is doing– the hard, the painful, the joy– God will expand your vision and allow you to dream even bigger than you could ever imagine.
When we start to notice God in the small things, we will begin to recognize that He is everywhere. He permeates everything! We may not fully know what God is up to in a situation, but we recognize that he is indeed in it.
The Big Thing
Sometimes the things we are doing might seem small and insignificant in the eyes of the world, but they are BIG in the eyes of God. They carry more eternal glory that you may realize in the moment.
Finding Your Purpose
Ask God
Meditate– the things we set our hearts and minds on are the things that we worship, so set your mind on the Word of God
Write out the things that you are fearful about, then write the opposite of that thing and say the opposite every single day
Place Scripture and the Truth of God all around you
Do something that might feel uncomfortable– don’t stay in the comfort zone where you are “safe”
Final Thoughts
God is good– ALL the time. Everything He does is for you. God’s goodness is so far beyond anything that we will ever be able to comprehend. It just keeps getting better and better all the time. It doesn’t matter what happens– you are loved!
In the Bible, each person walked through extremely difficult situations. Being in the middle of a hardship is not a reflection of how loved or valued you are.
Dig into the things that feel uncomfortable in your life. Those are the things where gold and purpose is hidden. You were put on this earth to grow– not to sit idle. You were created with great strength inside of you. You were created to be a piece of God’s dream for the earth. Lean into everything that is happening in life and allow God to work in the situation and in you!
WATCH
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The Collected Podcast is produced by Jes Biondo and edited by Jacob Early. Cover art designed by Ben Biondo.