What’s Your Story?
Who’s writing the next chapter of your story? You could turn and run from God, but let’s be honest, we know how that story ends.
In this episode, I give you practical ways for you to learn how to lean into God and have Him write the next chapter of your story.
Listen to this powerful episode and make sure you get the episode guide to process the questions you may have after the episode.
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Episode 3 Transcript
Who's writing the next chapter of your pregnancy, infant loss, miscarriage, or stillbirth story? Is it you? Or are you spending time with God so he can help you figure out your story and what comes next?
Hey, what's going on? It's Ryan. And this is the Foreknown Men Podcast where we talk about infant loss, stillbirth, miscarriage, and all those different things, and how to be a better husband, a better father, a better believer, and actually grow in your faith after going through a hard time. On this episode, I want to spend a little time talking to you about your story, who you are, and who's writing the next chapter of your story. I think it's a really important topic for you to consider. And so without further ado, here is episode three, your story.
So here's a question. Am I partnering with God as he writes the next chapter of my story? You know, you're not done here, you're in a valley and you'll, you'll get out of it. If you're willing to work on the climb together with him, you can have him be the author of the next chapter of your life. And your next chapter can be filled with hope and connection with your spouse, and healing enjoy yet again. Or your next chapter could be a season of heartache, of pain, of widening the gap between you and your spouse of distance of communication, things like that. You can even walk away from God. These are all choices you get to make, how this next chapter ends for you, is actually up to you. You see, we need to get beyond the concept of Jesus in this time, now's actually the time to put our faith in him, it's time to do the work. So in the middle of First Corinthians 13, you know, that love chapter, we have this beautiful section, it says :
"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now, we see only a reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see it face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall fully know, even as I am fully known."
That's First Corinthians 13:12 and 13. Bro, I'm asking you right now, to be a man to step up to provide for your family to learn to be open about your emotions to care for others. Notice I didn't say anything about macho ism and stuff like that. That's a whole different podcast about how I really can't stand macho stuff, I want it to be a challenge for you, as a guy, to be a man to figure out these different things to be fully known to not be childish in our ways. But to really move past the insecurities of what being a guy kind of sometimes means. It means being open, being vulnerable, and having conversations with your wife about what you're feeling. And it might actually mean, you have to do the work to figure out what that looks like. There's a difference to me on what the world says men are in what Jesus says, Jesus fully knows you and what you need and how to help you through this journey. I want you to actually let him now you might be sitting as I do. Great, that's all fine and good. But how do I actually spend time with God? Like, how does this actually come together? How does this work? Okay, well, so let me let me be very practical with you.
Okay, I'm gonna break down to three very simple steps. And they're, they're kind of like taking it back to basics. The first one is prayer. But here's what I want you to do. I want you to redo your calendar for the next 21 days. And I just want you to pray for 10 minutes at the start of each day alone, all by yourself, just pray for 10 minutes. And if you're if you run out of things to pray about, just start talking to God, just start talking to him about the things that you feel like you're insecure about or things you might need answers on. Then here's the challenge. This is one's going to be a little weird. I want to actually pray for your spouse, with your spouse for five minutes together. I know all about just stick with me, right? Some people just really don't do this. Well, I was one of those people like it really was a challenge for me to sit there and pray with my spouse because I was so insecure about what to say. She came to know Jesus before I did. She's you know, like, there's all this garbage that fills your head, but I guarantee you, she will love it. If you just grab her hand and say, babe, I want to pray for you. I want to pray over you and your day. You'll probably feel really weird at first. But over time, I guarantee it's going to unlock some awesome stuff.
All right, so that's number one, two, I want you to turn to Scripture. Like I'm talking like real scripture is like d book scripture. Like read the Bible. But joking aside, like we actually live in an awesome time, you can Google What's your feeling, followed by the Scripture behind it, and there's a 15,000 options, what I want you to do is I want you to actually start looking in the Word of God for the truth of things like your emotions, what you're feeling, what you're experiencing, but I want you to be really in tune with what you're experiencing, you're seeing if your emotions you feel like are leading you kind of Ri, run that through the barometer of Scripture.
And finally, the last one here is community, connect with people who love Jesus, and can lead you through this time, obviously, I'd be happy to help we have a monthly digital support group where that's a great place for you to start, it's free, it's every month, you can also text. And I'm actually going to read those text messages. And I want to help you, we also do one on one coaching for you and your spouse. And listen, I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm just wanting to show you that there's options out there for guys like you who need to get some support that need to get some help in what you're going through. Because really what we're boiling down to is what's your story going to look like? Who's going to author it? Are you going to turn to Jesus and spend some time with him? Asking him what's going on? Or are you going to flee? You're gonna run the other way. Are you gonna let darkness pitch a tent, stick around, dare I say hurts your marriage, stuff like that? You know, Jesus didn't cause that. He doesn't cause this pain. He also didn't leave you in it either. He wants to be with you in this season. So I asked you, what's your next chapter going to actually look like? Now with each episode, I want to give you a guide, right? And so this guide is just basically an opportunity for you to sit down and talk about the stuff that we talked about in these episodes. There's always three questions and the so the questions with this particular episode are,
1. Who are you letting write your story?
2. How are you going to start allowing Jesus to help you write your story? What steps are you going to take?
3. And who can you share your story with, to help you grow in your faith?
Again, that's got to be a really choosy thing, who you share your story with that requires some trust and honesty and opportunity for you to grow with a potentially another person, preferably your spouse. Now remember, you're not alone. Your wife wants to know where you are. Spend time with her, talk to her. If you don't know how to talk to her awesome say, babe, I don't know how to talk to you about this and what I'm feeling, see what happens. It might actually be a really helpful thing. And maybe we'll do a whole episode on on how to actually talk to your spouse. Until then I want you to keep praying, text me if you need anything, I'll put the number in the show notes for you. Listen, losing a child is really hard. And I know I've been there multiple times myself, but Jesus is absolutely the best way through us those connection points that I mentioned earlier scripture, prayer and community and spend time with Jesus. He's ready. He wants to. Nobody seems to have the right answers anyway after losing a child. So you must work with Jesus, right? He's the guy that can actually help you with this situation. I found that when you spend time with Jesus, He gives you way more than the answer that you're looking for. He guides you if you actually let him. So let him be the author of the next chapter of your life. It's going to be an amazing read. God bless.
You've been listening to the Foreknown Men podcast. When you go through a pregnancy loss, the pain can be overwhelming, and you may not know where to turn for support at foreknown ministries we guide men and women to process grief through encouragement, community, and ultimately the hope that Jesus has for their future. If that's you message us through @foreknownmen on Instagram or text "4Men" that's the number 4 and men to 719-626-8486. You can also go to foreknown ministries.org to get help now. And if you've enjoyed this episode and think it would help someone out please share it. When you subscribe to The foreknown men podcast we will send you more episodes as we release them. As with all podcasts when you rate us or send us a review, it helps us get better and connect with more people that need to hear about the love of Jesus and pregnancy loss. Thank you for listening. We know Jesus wants to meet with you and your pain. Turn to Him and we promise you'll find everlasting hope.
God bless
