Have you ever felt like you were stuck in a hard place and couldn't see your way out?
We're excited to share our recent conversation with author Ashley Jackson, a woman who's turned her faith journey into inspiration for others. Ashley vulnerably shares her personal struggles with postpartum depression and how she navigated through the pressure of finding purpose. Her testament to God's faithfulness is nothing short of inspiring as she reveals how obedience led her to places she never imagined.
We found that Ashley's wisdom rings true as she draws attention to the importance of being open with God with our most challenging thoughts and feelings. We delved into the practical ways to process these emotions with Him, and the role these open conversations play in managing anxiety and breaking away from detrimental thought patterns. We also discussed spiritual warfare—the subtle enemy tactics that threaten our fulfillment of God-given purposes—and how our honesty with God prepares us to stay firm in our faith.
Ashley encourages us to trust God through our trials, as our experiences can serve as a light for others in similar situations. Our stories can become a source of encouragement, serving as a reminder of God's unending faithfulness.
Brace yourself for an uplifting and empowering conversation with Ashley Jackson.
Episode Highlights:
Ashley shares about her background.
Opening up about postpartum depression & the healing process.
Breaking out of the cycle of frustration.
Asking God what He’s trying to reveal in each season.
Have you ever felt like you were stuck in a hard place and couldn't see your way out?
We're excited to share our recent conversation with author Ashley Jackson, a woman who's turned her faith journey into inspiration for others. Ashley vulnerably shares her personal struggles with postpartum depression and how she navigated through the pressure of finding purpose. Her testament to God's faithfulness is nothing short of inspiring as she reveals how obedience led her to places she never imagined.
We found that Ashley's wisdom rings true as she draws attention to the importance of being open with God with our most challenging thoughts and feelings. We delved into the practical ways to process these emotions with Him, and the role these open conversations play in managing anxiety and breaking away from detrimental thought patterns. We also discussed spiritual warfare—the subtle enemy tactics that threaten our fulfillment of God-given purposes—and how our honesty with God prepares us to stay firm in our faith.
Ashley encourages us to trust God through our trials, as our experiences can serve as a light for others in similar situations. Our stories can become a source of encouragement, serving as a reminder of God's unending faithfulness.
Brace yourself for an uplifting and empowering conversation with Ashley Jackson.
Episode Highlights:
Ashley shares about her background.
Opening up about postpartum depression & the healing process.
Breaking out of the cycle of frustration.
Asking God what He’s trying to reveal in each season.
We are at war and it's not against our neighbors, spouses, children, politicians or whatever else we feel like we're battling against.
Speaker 2:
So the questions are who's the fight against, and are we winning or losing? We're the Adkins, and we are a force to be reckoned with.
Speaker 1:
Are you ready to?
Speaker 2:
join the force. Alright, hi, everyone I am have been looking forward to today. I have Ashley Jackson here with me. She is an author and she is on social media. Her presence over the last couple years has just grown exponentially and she shares so much wisdom on there. She also works full-time for Proverbs 31 and I have had the privilege of just following along her journey just because we've been somewhat connected through compel and Proverbs 31, and so it's just been really fun to watch, and today she is on our show and sharing about her book that is launching tomorrow, and also we just get to hear some of her stories. So, ashley, welcome.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much for having me, bethany.
Speaker 2:
This was so fun, so excited so alright, first, the thing I always am most excited to ask Our podcast started, you know, several years ago because I wrestled with Purpose for a long time. There's a lot of pressure around that word and so I wanted to originally have people on who just really seem to be stepping into their God-given purpose and living that out, and I wanted to hear about their journeys, because it just felt like it was something I struggled with and so I figured other people struggled as well. So my first question is where you are today, author, social media expert working for Proverbs 31, and you have a book launching tomorrow. Is that where you always had plans to be?
Speaker 1:
I don't think so. I like to say that me and the Lord are on a need-to-know basis and apparently I don't need to know. It's very much like you just do the next thing in front of you. You know, I think like I knew I was called. Actually, when I was really young, I thought I was called to be a missionary, and so I for sure thought this was what was going to be the outcome, and the Lord was like, okay, we're gonna go this way. And he gave me a husband that had never been out of the country, you know, like all of these things, and so I never really knew what it was going to end. Not that we're at the end, because I'm sure we'll shift and flow further, but I think it was just a passion. Whatever I was passionate about, I just kept doing that thing in front of me, and then the Lord just kept going boop, boop, like opening doors as I did that, which is wild.
Speaker 2:
That is so awesome and that has always seemed to be the underlying theme. Some people say, absolutely not, it's nothing. I thought I was gonna be a doctor and here I am doing this completely different thing. But the underlying theme that everyone shares is that it's just one act of obedience after the other and I love that you're on a. You say don't need to know basis.
Speaker 1:
I need to know basis and. I don't need to know.
Speaker 2:
Okay, so fast forward to today. Your book releases tomorrow and on your book summary, it says God is good at redeeming heartache. When we reach that place where the only choice is to run to God or run from him, we can hold tight because the transformation and blessings will come. So can you just dive in a little bit onto your story and the heart behind the book and your struggles, and, yeah, we'll go from there.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so for me, I just really I grew up a good girl quote, unquote right, I grew up in the church and was super involved, and I think what I didn't realize was that I had a lot of my identity wrapped up in what I did for God. And then I got married, not long after that, got pregnant and I, after I had my son it was like I had my son I quit my job, which was at a church, and I was just a stay at home mom and I ended up having postpartum depression and so I felt like I wasn't needed anymore in the places where I had previously looked for validation and, of course, like I went to a Christian school. Growing up, I was a missionary for a while. I was like this go to Christian girl or whatever, and now I felt like I had nothing to offer the Lord. I was broken.
Speaker 1:
I felt rejected to my core and I know all the verses, I know all the right things to do, and yet I felt just as desperate, no matter how much I tried to help myself get out of that place. I almost started to resent people like throwing Bible verses at me or like I already know, like that's not helping me, and it just made me feel ashamed because I felt like I didn't have faith, one in what that verse said, and two, it made me feel ashamed that it wasn't working for me, like I was doing something wrong and I was a bad Christian. And so that is where my tired of trying really came from, and my season was really a long five years of this wrestling with God, and I always like think of the idea that I want to know what the lesson is so we can learn it and move on. What is the lesson?
Speaker 2:
And so relate to that. Yes.
Speaker 1:
And so I kept telling the Lord or I would have this like perception, like I think I learned it, lord right, like we're moving out of this season now, and he was like not quite. And what I think I didn't realize was that it was the process that I needed. It wasn't the lesson necessarily. There were lessons throughout it and I'm thankful for all of those, but there was something that needed to be broken in me or replaced roots that needed to be replaced, that were lies, and so that process took a lot longer than I ever expected.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, oh, I can relate to so much of that and I think that so many people can, but it's just something that often isn't talked about. That, but I can't even explain the season that you're talking about. It's not numbness, but it's just. It's like you just have to be obedient in that season where you feel nothing.
Speaker 1:
Yes, yes, and it's so hard yeah.
Speaker 2:
Oh my gosh, it's so hard. It's almost harder than feeling complete like unbelief or anger, because it's just like, yeah, it's so hard, yes, yes, so okay. So you talk about breaking out of the cycle of frustration by saying yes to kind of wrestling through what we're talking about. And as Christians, I do feel like sometimes we believe this lie that we can't wrestle. So in this season, like you said, you feel guilty, like you don't have faith and or sometimes this is where people just walk away completely and so we just feel like we can't wrestle through this.
Speaker 2:
But I have learned personally and so much in the last even few years, that I grow so much in that wrestling, when I choose to wrestle and when I choose to lean into it. So I'm wondering if you can elaborate more on this, what you mean by that and how listeners. So maybe there's somebody out there who's like, yes, I felt like this for years. You know I'm getting up, I'm in the word, but I, just I I'm not feeling this Right. What would you say to that person? Like how do they begin with this wrestling?
Speaker 1:
Like one way and I it took me a process to get to this but really asking the Lord, what is it you're trying to reveal to me during the season? What is it is there? Are there lies that I'm believing is? Show me the patterns in my life, because I think sometimes we live out the same patterns because of lies that we believe.
Speaker 1:
I always use my own example that I have like a deep fear, core fear and belief that I still struggle with this day that I am going to be rejected and I'm rejectable, and so I will go into situations almost expecting to be rejected because that's what I believe about myself. And so a lot of times I wrote a post about this yesterday it's like we kind of give off closed body language, a little bit of fear, a little bit of feeling back, and so the body language response to that is like oh she, like doesn't want to be approached. And then I go home from that circumstance like see will do. I was rejected and rejected and rejectable, and so, like during that time, I feel like the Lord started and so it showed me I need to deal with the roots of what are at this, your core, because I was trying to whack away at the weeds and they would just come back up because I wasn't addressing what was at the root of them. And sometimes I think we because life is busy and whatever is like we don't have time to look at the roots why do I keep finding myself in the same painful situation?
Speaker 1:
Or sometimes it could be like apathy or even depression. Sometimes it's like is there something I refuse, I'm refusing to look at? Is there something that, like I'm disappointed that God hasn't done? Do I feel like I'm not connecting with him because nothing ever happens? I'm frustrated because there's no outcomes. And is there something that I need to actually be more honest with him about? Like I'm kind of frustrated with you, lord, that everybody else is getting what I'm praying for and that hurts my feelings. Now we know God doesn't purposely hurt us because he's perfect, and I think that's where we get like don't be self religious, don't be bad Christian. But we already feel like that anyways. So just to take it to him and say this is gross and it's in my heart, can you please help me work through this and process this with you, rather than me trying to figure it out Like how can I clean myself up without you and then be okay with you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yes, that makes so much sense and that is so good. So when you're talking about this transformation, I'm just and through this wrestling I mean you can say that transformation and blessing will come if we hold on to God through these seasons. So you're talking about, you know, being honest with God, and I think that that is such an important thing. It's something even in my life, right now, that I'm journaling through, and it's stuff that you, like you, wouldn't even say out loud to anybody.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so you feel like I can't bring this to God, but he already knows our thoughts and he knows our heart, and so I think that there is that he wants us to bring those ugly thoughts to him and he wants us to be honest, because when we get those out, the best person and he's not even a person, but the one that we should be giving those two, those thoughts to, isn't our friend, isn't our husband or, you know, our parent, it is God, because he will, he will make every wrong right and it might not be the answers that we want, but practically, when you talk about this like I said, for me it's often journaling what are so like, what are practical ways that you got these thoughts out and walked through this wrestling.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's good, I think.
Speaker 1:
Well, I realized it did take quite a long process to even figure out like that this is something I need to be Practical about.
Speaker 1:
You know, I feel like sometimes Christianity is like all Ideas or you know, like we're supposed to feel a certain way, and even I was driving the other day and I was like maybe miracles feel Regular to Lord, like just every day, like some, like we, I think we expected to be like, oh, this Feeling, you know, because I let my feelings lead a lot, but I think it was starting to think about what I was thinking about, and so I Realized that he needed to teach me how to fight back from the enemy's lies by helping me learn to take my thoughts captive, one thought at a time, and Realizing that actually every time I was mean toward somebody else in my mind, that that was actually First of all come obviously coming from my heart, but that was really a reflection of how I felt about myself and that I needed to work on take taking those thoughts captive, and that's not a passive thing to do, it's.
Speaker 1:
I still have this weird I don't know if, what do you want to call it, but it's like this thing that when I'm thinking anxious thoughts, I'll say out loud love you and my kids and my husband just go love you too, because I'm not really saying it to anyone necessarily.
Speaker 1:
It was a thought pattern breaker yeah and During my heart of seasons, I took it as the Lord saying I love you to me, when I was struggling with my anxious thoughts and and so I needed to get out of that rumination where you can kind of get stuck in a cycle, you know, and then we just escalate and it just gets crazier and crazier. And that was like one of the practical things that I started to do is really like I I've got to quit doing this. I have to refocus my thoughts and it with. The biggest thing that I learned is that it's a practice. You don't do it once and then. It's like building muscle at the gym or whatever you. Sometimes you have to tear it down for it to get stronger, but you have to keep showing up over and over and even if you don't see the change, like you were saying, that's the, the wrestling season is showing up and doing the Mundane hard work that no one ever sees.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yes, so tying all of everything that we talked about into a force to be reckoned with, which is the name of our podcast, and the big theme of our podcast is spiritual warfare. You posted a carousel, I don't know, it was a couple of weeks ago and it was like the final push that I was like, all right, I'm going to reach out because this is just too good to not. I'm going to read the carousel, but, yeah, before I do, the theme of a force to be reckoned with is to recognize that we have a real enemy. And there is. He is the enemy that wants to do everything in his power to keep us from living out our God given purpose. He wants to steal, kill and destroy, and I feel that often he does that in the most subtle way. So in seasons of feeling nothing, in seasons of wrestling and seasons of discouragement, it's not it's often not this like big explosion that happens. It's so subtle and that's how he does. He does it because he's tricky and he's conniving, and so I have no doubt that everything that we talked about today has to do with spiritual warfare and has to do with the enemy trying to keep you from the call on your life and he uses the same tactic on others. And so I'm just going to read this carousel and, after I'm done, if you just want to close out with any encouragement or reminders for somebody who might be growing bitter in this season and needs reminded that, yes, this is hard, but you're at war and keep it, don't give up. We can't let the enemy win. So here I go with the carousel.
Speaker 2:
It's the one where it says when the hard season is long and I just want to say like I feel that so many believers right now are facing this hard, long season for many different reasons, but it just feels heavier than it's been. So you said, god has never ceased to be faithful and you aren't the one person he's going to let slip through the cracks. Holding on to God will always be worth it, no matter how long it takes. Don't let your struggle become your identity. Don't define yourself as the one with the hard and disappointing life. Guard yourself from becoming resentful about how long this is taking and refusing to remember all the years that God has been faithful to you.
Speaker 2:
And this is where it gets really good. The enemy will tempt you by reminding you how tired of trying you are how nice it might feel to let bitter roots grow up around your heart. This bitterness may feel like a wall of protection, but they are really there to choke the life out of you and turn your heart away from God. In these seasons, be honest with God. Tell him you need his strength, tell him the lies, feel true and ask him to intervene. There's more happening in this season than you realize. Every day, make the small choice to hold on to God and remember his goodness.
Speaker 1:
So good, so good. I'm like that was the Holy Spirit, because it was ministering to me.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean if you could just share encouragement. I'm just thinking of the mom, or even the dad out there, or the friend who is there. There are bitter roots growing and they do want to give up, and the season has been. They're tired down to their bones. They just need reminded that this is a bigger battle. Get back up and keep fighting.
Speaker 1:
So good. Well, first of all, I love your heart about that, because we need people who are willing to fight. We need to be those people who are called by God and know who we are, we know our rights in him and we stand up and we do the thing. I'm immediately reminded I think it's in Luke 22, and this was a huge part of the reminder that God had in my heart during this whole season for me, and that is where Jesus is talking to Peter and says to him Simon, simon, satan has asked to sift you, like we, but I have prayed for you, simon, that when that your faith will not fail and that when you return, you will strengthen your brothers, and that there was a permission given to be shaken in it. Basically, like this sifting is violently shaken, but the sifting happened in order that the things that can't, that are impure, that shouldn't be there, fall out and the thing that remains is the things that are pure and things that should be there and the things that God wants to use. Moving forward, and the beautiful part about Jesus saying, like I will pray for you that your faith will not fail.
Speaker 1:
Maybe sometimes you feel like you are failing, but that you can that and I say that in the book and I think this is true like there's a difference between being tired or trying and being done, and you're not done because you're still trying and the Lord you know.
Speaker 1:
Like there's a thing when you know the Lord and you've walked with him and he's been good to you, like you're ruined for life. You know, you just know this is real hard, but the Lord's gonna get me through. And then he says and when? When? Not if? When you return, strengthen your brothers and nothing gives you authority in other people's lives to minister to them. Like walking through something that you didn't think you're gonna get through, but God was faithful, right, and then you turn back to that person who's about to walk into those treacherous waters and you're able to shout out trust him, he's faithful, he's good, and those stories matter. People need that and that this is not our kingdom, this is his kingdom and he's using every little thing in order to keep bringing people along and it matters. It matters.
Speaker 2:
That is so, so good, and it also reminds me of Romans five versus three through five, where it says not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance, character and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. I mean, if there's no other reason to walk through your trials than to let them before something and use those lessons and those hardships to help someone who's you know 10 to 15 steps behind you, let it be that, because he can use your heart for good. So, oh, it's so good. I am so excited for your book to come out. I think everything from the cover to the description, to just the heart behind it is incredible, and I can't wait for people to get their hands on it, and I'm so excited for you. Anything you wanna leave listeners with, we'll link your social media and all that in the show notes, but, yeah, just, or where they can get the book, or anything like that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so if they, it will all be on my website, which is ashleymorganjexsoncom. It's available in most places where books are sold. But yeah, I just if you are in that season. I just want to remind you that God has a good story for you and this, just because this part hurts, doesn't mean it's not so good. So keep trusting him in that.