The Adventure of Faith

God Hears Her Podcast

Episode 56 – The Adventure of Faith
Elisa Morgan and Eryn Eddy with Leslie Leyland Fields

Leslie: I determined when I was young that I didn’t want to live an ordinary life. And I didn’t know what that would mean, but I knew that I wanted…I wanted to be someone who was unafraid. I wanted to be someone who took risks and who was willing to step out and do new things and live in hard places and do hard things. And I have been so rewarded with both really hard things and yet God meeting me so amazingly in every one of them.

[music]

Intro: You’re listening to God Hears Her, a podcast for women where we explore the stunning truth that God hears you, He sees you, and He loves you because you are His. Find out how these realities free you today on God Hears Her.

Eryn: Welcome to God Hears Her. I’m Eryn Eddy.

Elisa: And I’m Elisa Morgan. And today we have a very unique interview with a fisherwoman from Alaska!

Eryn: Yeah we do! Her name is Leslie, and she’s so cool! She even warned us before the show that we may hear bush planes flying overhead during the interview. Anyway, she’s joining us to talk about how, through her experiences of growing up – not in Alaska, and then transitioning to Alaska – God has taught her how much He fully loves and values each and every single one of us.

Elisa: Eryn, Leslie is such a treasure! I actually met her in person at a little restaurant in Colorado Springs. And it was just like a deep dive into getting to know each other. I had the privilege of getting to work closely with her, so I’m really excited to have her on the show with us. This is God Hears Her. I’m going to start right at the jugular here. One of the …

Leslie: [laughing] Hm…

Elisa: …most fascinating things about you – and, Eryn, I’m not sure we will ever again have this moment – but Leslie is an Alaskan salmon fisherwoman.

Eryn: Okay…

Elisa: What?!!

Eryn: …I already thought she was a powerhouse, and now – What?

[Laughter]

Elisa: I mean what is that even?

Eryn: Tell us about that. How did that happen?

Leslie: Yeah, it’s weird. Right? It’s just weird…

[Everyone talking simultaneously]

Elisa: Yeah, it is kind of weird… 

Eryn: _______ It’s fas…it’s fascinating.

Leslie: Well, the actual… So the…the backstory behind that is, you know, it’s kind of a traditional story. Young, very young woman, goes off to college. Very young man goes off to college. Both of us far from home. We meet at college. We fall in love, and it just so happened this guy was from Alaska and was a commercial fisherman. But actually, the truth was that was part of his appeal to me. I loved far-away places, and I loved the raw beauty of nature. And he kind of represented all of that, so I think that’s part of what I fell in love with was not only the person of my husband, but the life that he had come from.

Elisa: Where did you grow up?

Leslie: I grew up in New Hampshire.

[Laughter]

Leslie: So . . . yeah, the other side of the country. I mean …eh… you know about as far apart as we could be.

Elisa: But, you know, there is something …

Eryn: Wow!

Elisa: …a little bit similar between New Hampshire and Alaska, and that’s C-O-L-D. [Laughing] . . . It’s cold!

Leslie: Yes, it’s true. I mean the, you know, climate is not that terribly different, especially where we live. We live on an island, on Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska. It’s a maritime climate, so it’s not…doesn’t get super hot. It doesn’t get super cold, but winters are long, like eight months long, you know, so ye…yes… 

Elisa: Dark.

Leslie: …and…and dark. So there… I mean there definitely were adjustments, but when I look back at how I grew up in New Hampshire, I see how God just really amazingly prepared me for my life in Alaska, in the…in the wilderness of Alaska. 

Eryn: Mm. That’s a really powerful thing what you just said, that the Lord prepared you for the wilderness of Alaska.

Elisa: Mm.

Eryn: Tell me more about that.

Leslie: Yes. So I had an unusual childhood. We…uh… my family …uh… we were very poor. …um… At times, many times, we were destitute. And my mother …um… kind of seized on a way for us to support ourselves as a family. There were six kids …um… And we lived out in the woods of New Hampshire. And she would buy an old colonial house that was falling down. We would move in, and then we would restore it back to its original form. And my mother and the six of us were the ones who did all the work. So that’s what we did. We moved around from town to town, and from house to house; and so I lived in houses where the well went dry over the whole summer. So we would carry buckets of water a long, long way across the field to a creek. In high school we… our house had no heat, except for one woodstove, and our house had no insulation. So whatever temperature it was outside, that’s what it was inside, except around the woodstove. And so we chopped wood. We spent, you know, so many waking hours, you know, chopping wood to feed the stove. So, you know, there were all these things. I was used to working really hard. I was used to not having a lot of comforts. And that’s exactly what awaited me … [laughing] … in Alaska. You know I carried water for fifteen years…

Elisa: Wow!

Leslie: …and washed clothes almost by hand. So it was amazing. And it wasn’t…it wasn’t hard to me, living on a remote island and…and doing all of this work.

Elisa: You know, Leslie, it…I just want to clarify. You’re not like 292 years old. [Laughing] … I mean…I mean we’re not talking about the 1800s here, you know, and Little House on the Prairie and the …

Leslie: [Laughing] Right.

Elisa: …pioneer women going in the Calistoga…

Leslie: Right.

Elisa: …wagons across the terrain. You know … [Laughter] … because what you’re describing kinda sounds like that. And ya… sorry, you’re like a little younger than me, which makes you super young … [clears throat and laughter] … Yeah, but this is like a modern-day pioneering, a… a…a more modern-day – even if I could use the word “poverty” – I’m struck by that. An…and I’m struck by how many of us grew up in some kind of impoverishment, you know. Maybe we never labeled it as such. Maybe we didn’t know how to read till older, or maybe we were, you know, in a situation where we didn’t have a lot of friends. Or maybe we were in a broken family. Or maybe there was a…a literal didn’t know where the next money was going to come from and the next meal come from. But that is a powerful story to share, that how even the impoverishment of your upbringing prepared you for a sparseness of life, in a beautiful place, but where all the comforts maybe weren’t there just provided at first.

Leslie: Yeah. And I bless… In my better moments, I can turn back and bless, you know, some of that hardship, because I see how God used it for…for good. And, you know, there’s another part to it, too. That impoverishment that you were talking about, there are all these, you know, ways that we can be impoverished. And my biggest impoverishment was not feeling a sense of love. And our family was so embattled. There just wasn’t a lot of positive emotion or support. And I had a sense that there was more to reality than I could see. I had a sense that there was another bigger world beyond the world that I could see. And I suspected that it was Someone named God, but I didn’t know who He was. And I didn’t know where He was. And so, even from an early age, I was looking for God. And I found Him. He found me, you know, when I was sometime between 13 and 15. It’s a little fuzzy. I’ve, you know, several times when I heard the gospel and I responded. But it’s like … [loud intake of breath] … There He is! There He is! That’s…that’s Who I’ve been looking for! So just that amazing moment when it really felt like the veil was torn, and now I could see beyond. And here was Someone who loved me. Here was Someone who gave His life for me. Here was a Father, the father that I did not have. And I was sold! I…I was like Yes, take me! I…I want to be Your daughter! I want to be Your child!

Elisa: Mm.

Eryn: Mm. That’s so beautiful.

Elisa: You ended up in a…in a college where you met your husband. And it was a Christian college, I think you shared with me. And …eh… then you, you know, get married, and you move across the world. And you said you were very attracted to the kind of man he was, the ruggedness and maybe the provision, you know, because I’m hearing that in contrast to the poverty, even the provision of his strength and his ruggedness and stuff. What was life like as you settled into it in Alaska with your husband? Was it what you expected? Was it what you dreamed of?

Leslie: …um… No. [Laughter] …

Eryn: That’s real!

Leslie: …No, it wasn’t …uh… because … So here is the thing. Here’s the complicating factor. And this is how we opened saying that I was a… a fisherwoman. So my husband and I had this ideal. You know this is in the 70s. Do you remember the unisex 70s when, you know, men and women wore matching clothes?

Elisa: Eryn doesn’t remember it, but I think I do. [Laughing] I love that!

Leslie: You know we had this idea that we were going to work together. We were going to share all the work. He was going to share in the housework, you know, sort of domestic work inside the house. I was going to share with the work out in the boat on the water with the nets and the fish. So, you know, that was our…that was our goal. As it turned out, it wasn’t quite reciprocal that way. …um… [Laughter] … My husband was not … really not into dishes and really not into housework. And …uh… but I was out there in the skiff, so…

Elisa: Mmm.

Leslie: …for the thirs…first three summers we fished out on the open ocean, not protected waters. Very stormy waters, and we’re in small, open boats. And we all worked. There were just five or six of us, and I was the only woman. It was …um… the three brothers and my father-in-law. And, I mean, we worked, you know, beyond what I thought any human being could do. And that’s what we were doing every day. We were working twelve to sixteen hours every day, and intensely physical labor. The kind of fishing that we do is…is the way they fished two thousand years ago! It’s all just human-body labor. And it was…it was difficult. My body – as strong as I was – I was very strong, and I had a lot of stamina. But I, you know, my body’s breaking down, and our marriage is… we’re really having a hard time, because my husband is the skipper of the boat, and I am the crew. So suddenly kind of that equality that we’d experienced on shore, the minute we step into the boat and we’re out on that water all those hours a day, I’m no longer a wife. I am now crew. And, you know, we…we laugh about that now … [Laughing]…

Elisa: Swabbin’ the decks, huh?

Leslie: Yes! Yes! And I would just, you know, every order, you know, he was constant orders. And I’d just move, you know, at the skipper’s bidding. And my…my husband is…vv…super strong and just very goal-oriented, so we had a lot of conflict. We had a lot of conflict in the skiff and then afterwards when we stepped out of the boat. And my husband, you know, we’re walking up the beach. And he’ll throw his arm around me and like Oh, honey, wasn’t, you know, wasn’t that a great day? And I’m like Don’t touch me! Get away from me, you know? You’ve just yelled at me, you know, ten times today! [Laughter] … I am… Do you think I… just cause we’re out of the boat, like, I’m suddenly your wife again? [Laughter]…

Elisa: Oh wow! That is so powerful! I mean that’s so hard. I mean I have the hardest time just like sharing the remote control. You know you… [laughing]…you’re talking about the real life of… And, you know, Leslie, you’re talking about the physicality of it all. You’re a small human. You’re not like a… 

Leslie: No.

Elisa: …giant person, you know, who can, you know, do whatever like a Viking woman. You’re a small person.

Leslie: Yeah, and that’s… And I learned something about equality. You know we had this idea going into that, you know, gender equality. And I realized that, you know, it’s not equality when someone who weighs half what you weigh is still required to do the same work. So …

Elisa: [whistles]

Leslie: …I had a, you know, I had a…

Eryn: Oh!

Leslie: …a deeper understanding…

Eryn: …That’s good.

Leslie: …of…of what equality really meant.

Eryn: Oooh! Would you unpack that more? What…uh… did you think it meant? And what do you see it meaning now?

Leslie: Yeah. I, you know, thought: Yes, equality is, you know, we were equal in value. We are equal in abilities. And I was someone who grew up . . . I was a bit obsessed with being strong, even though I…I am small. I’m like 5’2, and I weigh about 115 or 118. I’m small, but I don’t know. It was part of my thing growing up, I think. It was a way to fight back against all the things I didn’t have control over, was to be physically strong. So that was a big part of my childhood. And now here I am in an environment where I must be physically strong. And I’m used to being successful. I’m used to, you know, that my strength has carried me through a lot of things. And suddenly it’s not enough. You know? My…my physical strength is not enough for this work. And so I had this vision – we both did – that my husband and I could, you know, work together doing the same work the same hours. And it proved not to be the case. You know when it’s… it’s eleven o’clock at night, I’ve already been working for 14 hours, and my arm’s not working anymore. My hands aren’t working anymore. And my husband would… he…he became …heh … He grew into being very sweet and very understanding. And he would let me off early. He would find ways to release me, you know, from some of the work, which I so appreciated. And I realized that all of us, w…we do what we can. We do as we can. And our value as a human being is not based on our physical capabilities or our mental capabilities. Our value is based on simply who we are. We are beloved of God. And…and that was something that I think my husband had to learn as well, is to love me for who I am, even though I can’t perform, you know, as well as he can in those circumstances.

Elisa: I’m struck by how you’re describing some defenses that served you so well, some survival mechanisms that served you so well growing up in a impoverished situation where strength was so important to surviving. And … and then how you discovered – as many of us do – that those very survival mechanisms cease to serve us later in life, you know. And we have to make some conscious decisions to tweak them…eh… to release them, to reinterpret them. And, you know, a lot of it is things like …eh… you know I…I need to defend myself so that I’m not hurt, into I need to yield myself so that I can receive love. You know the…

Eryn: Yeah.

Elisa: …these basic lessons that they’re so difficult to hammer into us. But I love what you’re sharing there, Leslie, and I think every single one of us identifies …

Eryn: Yeah.

Elisa: …with that.

Eryn: Yeah. And something that you said earlier, in regards to being in poverty by …uh… believing you weren’t loved. And then, you know, fast forward and you find that your physical performance is not strong enough, and you’re not…you’re not enough. And so that I hear this like common thread of feeling unloved and not enough within your story, and I’m curious what… And I know there is so many circumstances …uh… that brought you to the point of continuing to learn that you are loved and you are enough. But was there one specific one that sticks out in your mind? Like a moment, a memory where you were like it was like almost clicked for you? Or do you feel like it was a…a continual evolution of learning that the Lord does love you and sees you as enough?

Leslie: …eh… Both. I think it’s both, Eryn, because…

Eryn: Yeah.

Leslie: …you know there are these incredible, dramatic moments where God shows up. And then there’s also just the daily presence of the Holy Spirit and the presence of Jesus through tiny things. Can I ga… Let me give you a dramatic moment. Okay?

Eryn: Yeah.

Elisa: Yes, please!

Leslie: …[laughing] because…

Elisa: There’ve got to be some in Alaska, for heaven’s sake!

Leslie: Yeah. Yeah. There…

Eryn: Give us some meat.

Leslie: There…there really are. …um… So this is a moment when …um… my son, who was 13 at the time… We had just gotten to fish camp, to our island, and he had a terrible ATV accident. And he…and he wasn’t wearing his helmet. He broke our rule, and he was going really fast, and he crashed into a tree. And so he’s lying there on the ground. His face is smashed and bleeding. It looks like his leg is broken. And we were in the middle of a … three days of a complete whiteout. So fog down to the ground. No planes have been flying. No… nothing could move. It was just an absolute smothering fog. And which meant that the Coast Guard couldn’t come to Medevac him. And so I’m kneeling there beside my son on the ground, not knowing what his injuries are, and I know that nobody can come. And so there’s this moment of just sort of anger …um… And where do we … us long-married women, we tend to focus our anger on our husbands. So I’m angry at Duncan, like Why did you bring me here? You know why are we in this place where our kids can’t be safe? You know that, and then I’m angry at God…

Eryn: It’s your fault…

Leslie: Yes, that’s right…

Eryn: …it’s your fault! [Laughter]

Leslie: It’s your fault…Right.

Eryn: It’s your fault he’s doing this! [Laughter]

Leslie: Right.

Elisa: Exactly. 

Leslie: And then…and then I’m calling out to God like I am so … Lord, there is nothing that any human being can do right now. Only…only God. And so I’m…I’m calling out to God in my heart. My voice, I’m soothing my son, and I’m …um… singing to him and praying to him and stroking his hand. And my heart is just crying out wildly for God. But something happened. Somebody heard our Mayday over the radio, a friend who had a bush plane. He put that plane, and he risked his life when no one else would risk their lives. And he flew an hour and a half in very, very dangerous circumstances to …um… to pick Noah up and me and also my in…my infant son. We…um… So I have six children, and my youngest was a baby, so I had him in an infant carrier. And we got into the plane, and we’re taking off. And we’re on…we’re on the plane. We’re flying blind, flying in this . . . I can’t see anything out the window except for white. And there’s this moment where the plane just goes straight up, straight up, the way a plane is not meant to go. A rocket, yes; a plane, no…

Elisa: No.

Leslie: …We’re just going straight up, and I know what’s about to happen. I know we’re about to hit a mountain, because Kodiak Island is all mountains. So I know that the pilot … we… we’re… we’re going to hit a mountain. So in those moments, I…um… I feel like a failure. I feel like I have failed my children because we’re about to die. I’m supposed to keep them safe. And I… um… Now I…I should be angry at God, but you know what? I’m not at this point. At this point, this is the most amazing thing that happened. My heart was not beating wild, like my heart went calm. My body went calm. I just let go. I’m…one hand on my…my baby, one hand on Noah. And I experienced this most profound peace. And it’s the presence of Jesus. And I know … I know that He is with us. [getting emotional] … He is with us in that plane. And I know that, even if we hit that mountain, it’s okay because Jesus is with us. And that moment, it happened years ago, but God has just made it so clear that He is always with us. And it doesn’t matter if I’m out in a storm, or I’m sitting in my office feeling unloved. I know that Jesus is with us. I know that promise is true: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” And so in these moments when we come face to face with death, Jesus is there. I will…I will take that with me everywhere I go and no matter what happens.

[Music]

Eryn: And when we return, we will continue to hear about Leslie’s adventurous life and how her trust in the Lord has led her into some new passions. That’s all coming up next on God Hears Her.

Elisa: Thanks for listening to this God Hears Her podcast. If today’s topic helped or inspired you, please consider supporting the podcast so that other women can be inspired too. Simply go to godhearsher.org/impact. That’s godhearsher.org/impact, and see how you can help more women know that God hears them, He sees them, and He loves them because they are His.

Eryn: Now back to the show.

Leslie: I determined when I was young that I didn’t want to live an ordinary life…

Elisa: Mm. There you go.

Leslie: … And I didn’t know what that would mean, but I knew that I wanted…I wanted to be someone who was unafraid. I wanted to be someone who took risks and who was willing to step out and do new things and live in hard places and do hard things. And I have been so rewarded with both really hard things and yet God meeting me so amazingly in every one of them. And so God is real. God is real. His presence is real to me because I need Him. And I think that’s the bottom line. We don’t deliberately go out and put ourselves in risk or in danger or in places of deep need. But I think that we have to break free of a mentality – it’s a very American mentality – that we always have to be safe. That the most important thing in our lives is safety, and even for our children, that the most important thing is to keep our children safe. I think God calls us to something so much bigger and so much more than that. And it is in those hard places – where we don’t have control over the environment, over storms, over fog, over … – where we meet God, I think, sometimes the most.

Elisa: Many people listening may not be able to relate to a fisherwoman in Alaska and they thing Well, [makes raspberry noise] … I’m never gonna …But, Leslie, you’re also a mother of six. And many women can relate to that. An…and I’m just going to say, too, you’re a…an award-winning author. Y’all check out her books. Amazing! You’re a world traveler where you have yielded to serve on mission fields in all kinds of places in third-world countries internationally. But…but can you speak to this concept of safety versus risk in our walk with God in a context of the Planet Mom? You know how…how have you been…how have you been stretched on that planet?

Leslie: Yes, I have indeed. So here my children are growing up, you know, as commercial fishermen. And they started from a very young age. Five years old, they start. They don’t get paid yet. They don’t get paid till they’re six … um… but … [Laughter] …

Eryn: I love that!

[Laughter]

Leslie: We had…we had a sliding scale chart. You know when you’re six, you get paid this, you know, fifty cents a pick when you’re… You know, and it goes up, up, up, up, until they’re… My kids are able to earn most of their money to put themselves through college. So it’s been really cool that way…

Eryn: Wow!

Leslie: … But, yeah, there’s been a lot of growth in that. You know my…my kids learned how to…how to work in the skiff. My husband trained them mostly. I did a little bit, but he did mostly. And to send your, let’s say, your eight- and ten-year-old, or your nine- and eleven-year-old out into a storm, literally, a big storm on the ocean. And there go your kids into the heart of the storm. It took a lot of …um… prayer for me. It took a lot of releasing my children to the care of my husband and to the care of the Lord. And it was a ka… you know, that’s not and one-and-done thing, like Okay, God, I got this. I’m no longer, you know, I’m no longer worried for my kids’ safety. It da…it doesn’t work like that. Right? Every time there’s a storm, and they’re going out into it: Lord, I know that You’re going to be with them. Keep them safe, keep them awake, keep their eyes open to the waves. You know, help them come back home tonight. So I…I got a lot of practice in that. And I did see the ways that God protected them. They were scared. …um… Sometimes they’ve come back, and they’ll say “Yeah, I was really scared.” But… but it was okay. And…and here I…I can attest to the end of the story. All my kids … I have just one left. The last one is still at home. But my kids grew up in that environment working really hard, working like men. And they experienced danger. They experienced storms. And they experienced risk. And God used it to make them strong and resilient. He built their faith through those events. And I look now at who they are, and that hard work in that hard place has so shaped my children and who they are now as adults. And I would just encourage parents of children …um… Yes, of course, it’s our job to keep them safe. That…that is our job, but we’re called to more than that. And do hard things. Do hard things with your kids, you know. Do hard things, outdoor adventures together, and do hard things with interior adventures, like forgiving people. Like you…you don’t have to live on an ocean in Alaska to live this wild adventurous life with Jesus. You can live in the suburbs. You can live on the twentieth floor of an apartment building in downtown city. You can still live this wild adventure with your kids and with Jesus.

Elisa: Wow!

Eryn: Mm.

Elisa: Leslie, in…in your everyday now, what are your passions today? You know as you look at . . . You’ve launched your kids mostly. You’re entering into the next season of mothering-slash- grandmothering. You know wha…what is your passion, especially for women today? …eh… If you still don’t want to live an ordinary life, you know, wh…what does your unordinary life maybe look like now? 

Leslie: Yeah. And I’m … I’m about to be an empty nester. And, of course, I’ll miss my last son, but he is so together. He is such a great young man. You know I can wave him off to college with joy …uh… for all that he’s about to experience. And now I feel like in this next chapter of my life, I feel like a kid. I just feel like Wow! I now have a new life ahead of me. And, Lord, what shall we do together? And…and…and God has answered that. So Elisa has been a part of this. So I really have a heart for women in this chapter of our lives. I call it “The Wonder Years” of women over 40, women over 50, over 60, 70, all the way up – this new chapter of our lives. And I think that God has an incredible plan for women who are in this chapter of their lives. Here we’ve had all this life experience, and God wants to use it. He doesn’t want us to retire it. He doesn’t want us to just close those doors and say Okay, that’s done. Now it’s all about me. No, it’s still all about Jesus. It’s still all about Him. And He has adventures ahead for us. And I am so passionate to get that message out to women, like: God has new things for you in this new chapter of your life! Don’t miss it! Don’t waste it!

Eryn: Oh, I love that, Leslie…

Elisa: [whispers] Yeah.

Eryn: …Letting go is letting go of what we think we should do next…

Leslie: Right.

Eryn: …and living in that wonder.

Leslie: Mm-hmm. They’re living in that wonder…

Eryn: I love that.

Leslie: …And that’s why I called it “The Wonder Years,” like, because the flesh…the flesh has a plan – not a very good plan. The plan is that we get … we _______ that our lives shrink as we get older, or we get cynical because we’ve seen and experienced so many hard things. And the heart can shut down. We can close off. And we’ve all…we’ve all seen this happen to many people. But God has a different plan, and He intends our eyes to be opened wider as we get older and to lead us truly into the wonder of who He is and how He wants to partner with us into this next chapter of our lives.

Eryn: So I’m not in the “wonder years” yet, and life has already hit me upside the head so much. And I’ve had to fight cynicism, pessimism, all the “isms” … [Laughter] … I… I have fought really hard to continue to have joy. And…uh… it’s just been… it’s been a challenge. And I’m 34. What advice would you give to women my age and younger that aren’t in the “wonder years” yet? How to fight, maybe, jadedness?  

Leslie: Okay, so this is not a crazy, dramatic answer to that, but I’m going to tell this is the truth. This is the truth of my life. What has kept me still alive, and there’s so many things that … really hard, some really bad things that’ve happened to me, as probably have happened to you. All of us. Right? We experience that, so what do we do? How do we keep going? How do we keep having a heart that’s open and eyes that are open? How do we continue to…to risk being vulnerable and to…and to do risky things? And I honestly have to say: It is the Word of God that has kept me alive. It is time in the Word of God, filling my mind and my heart with pure truth, the truth of Who God is, the reality of His presence. And without that Word, I … When I go without reading that Word – and sometimes I am a very bad girl, and I go for days without reading God’s Word – and I notice immediately what happens. I just sink further and further into despond. I get cynical. I get … right? That’s that…that’s the flesh. That’s where the flesh takes us every time. And I open the Word of God, and it renews me. It refreshes me. It reminds me who I am, Who God is, and it’s just like… It’s like taking a bath every time. I just feel like I’m being bathed, and all that dirt and all the grime of who I am and…and what, you know, my flesh… where my flesh wants to take me – that all gets washed away. And I get renewed. I get renewed like a child again. And that dependence on the Word of God, of course, it doesn’t go away. And I’m…I’m thankful for that. It’s…again, it’s not like a one-and-done thing. It’s… it has to be constant, to be bathed and renewed and made young again by God’s Word; cause He is a God of resurrection. And when my love…my love has died over… my love has been killed over and over; and yet God keeps resurrecting it. Resurrection. Resurrection every day.

[Music]

Eryn: I love that reminder that spending time in the Word of God is what renews us in our daily lives. We can find joy just by opening up our Bibles and taking intentional quiet time with God.

Elisa: Yes, Eryn! God’s Word carries us and helps us to live out our adventure with Him. And the truth is that we can all live an adventurous life – even if we’re not in the middle of Alaska.

Eryn: That’s so good. Well, before we end this episode, just a quick reminder that all of the talking points from today’s episode can be found in the show notes included in the podcast description. In the description you’ll also find a link to connect with Elisa and me on social. And we’d love to hear how this show has impacted you.

Elisa: Thanks for listening. And don’t forget: God hears you, He sees you, and He loves you because you are His.

[music]

Eryn: Today’s episode was engineered by Anne Stevens and produced by Mary Jo Clark, Daniel Ryan Day, and Jay Gustafson. And today we’d also like to thank Curtis and Jen for their help in creating the God Hears Her podcast. Thanks, friends.

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Elisa: God Hears Her is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries.