Heather Khym Interview | Red Dirt Catholics LIVE — 2025 Discipleship Conference

In this episode, Jayce and James sat down with Heather Khym to explore real encounter with Jesus, redeemed memory, and the hope that comes from Christ living in us. Heather shares how friendships, habits, and Scripture reshape our image of God and sustain a life of mission.

• moving from Vancouver to Steubenville and joining campus life
• founding Life Restoration Ministries and healing accompaniment
• origin of Abiding Together podcast and long-distance friendship
• meeting Jesus again beyond routine and familiarity
• Peter’s restoration and redeeming the charcoal fire
• soaking memory in Scripture to correct false God images
• Christ in us as hope when accompanying suffering
• the well of the heart and steady interior work
• household liturgies that form unconditional love
• practical daily prayer as conversational friendship
• invitation to a personal relationship with Jesus

Heather Khym is co-host of the internationally popular Abiding Together podcast and assistant director of evangelization at Franciscan University. She and her husband, Jake, co-founded Life Restoration Ministries, where she serves as director of vision and ministry for the British Columbia–based apostolate. She also serves as director of the Celtic Cross Foundation. Khym has more than twenty-five years of experience as a speaker and retreat leader, presenting workshops and conferences throughout the United States and Canada. She studied theology and catechetics at Franciscan University of Steubenville. She lives in Steubenville, Ohio, with her husband and three adult children.

You can find her "Abiding Together" Podcast here: https://www.abidingtogetherpodcast.com/episodes 

************

Learn more about the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City online at archokc.org, and follow us on social media by searching "Archdiocese of Oklahoma City."

Chapters

• 0:00 Live From The Conference
• 0:28 Meet Heather Khim
• 1:03 Moving To Steubenville
• 1:40 Life Restoration Ministries
• 2:06 The Abiding Together Origin
• 5:57 Fighting For Long-Distance Friendship
• 6:57 Talk One: Meeting Jesus Again
• 8:23 Peter’s Restoration By The Fire
• 11:13 Memory, Triggers, And Redemption
• 12:17 Soaking Memory In Scripture
• 13:36 Distorted Images Of God
• 16:00 Bearing God’s Image In Suffering
• 18:57 The Well Of The Heart
• 21:01 Household Liturgies That Form Love
• 22:50 Choosing God’s Voice Daily
• 23:32 Conversational Prayer In Real Life
• 25:45 Why A Personal Relationship With Jesus
• 27:30 Invitation To Encounter And Resources
• 27:52 Closing And Where To Find Heather

Transcript

Live From The Conference

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Hey, thanks for listening to Red Dear Catholics. If you were not at the 2025 Establishment Conference, you're in for another treat, and we've got another one of our guests and attendees on the lineup here. Hope you enjoyed the listen, and it's as fruitful for you as it was for us.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

And we are back for the very last leg of Red Dirt Catholics live here from the Discipleship Conference, and we have a heavy hitter. We have Heather Kim joining us. Thank you so much for being here with us.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

So glad to be here. Last leg, bringing it home. Bringing it home.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Last part of it, passing the paton off, and it's back-to-back Steubenville, which is also cool. Big Steven. We had Father Dave Pavanka just before, and now we have Heather. Um, what's going on in your life right now, Heather?

Moving To Steubenville

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, so actually a lot. This is like a huge time of transition for me and my family. So I'm from Vancouver, British Columbia. That's where I've been living for the last well, I mean, I grew up there, lived in the States for 10 years, but I've been back there for like 23 years, and then now have just moved to Steubenville, Ohio of all the places. God must be real.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

And and you're a graduate of Steubenville, right?

Life Restoration Ministries

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Yes. So I met my husband there, went there. Yeah. So I've known Father Dave for a long time and good friends. He married us. So it's it's really actually very profound what the Holy Spirit is doing right now in our lives to even get us there. Um, but obviously he's doing something wonderful on that campus and has been for many years. So I feel really privileged to be a part of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

So you're going to be working there at Studentville, but you mentioned before that you already had two jobs. What's your what's your other job?

The Abiding Together Origin

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Yeah, so I I run a ministry with my husband called Life Restoration Ministries, which is kind of the umbrella which has held a lot of the things that we do. So I travel and speak at various conferences, I do accompaniment with leaders. Um, we do a lot of healing things. So my husband does a lot of intense healing retreats for priests and bishops, along with JP2 Healing Institute with Dr. Pop Schutz. Uh, he has a podcast, and I have a podcast called Abiding Together with my two best friends, Sister Miriam James Highland and Michelle Bensinger. How did the three of you meet? Yeah, that's a it's a funny story. So Michelle and I met at Franciscan. So we're both students there at the same time. We're wildly different, so it was the Lord that brought us together. Like we just had burning hearts in a very similar way. And so we started praying together at that point, and that just never stopped. So over the years, that was the only time we've lived in the same place. She lived in Florida, I was living in Vancouver. And then um, yeah, about 15 years ago, uh, sister Miriam was living in Seattle, which is just two and a half hours from Vancouver. And she she this is before she was like the sister Miriam, you know. So she was actually embarking on her own healing journey, and Dr. Bob Schutz knew my husband Jake. And so he said, Hey, if you want to do an intensive, like with a great counselor, you should go up to Vancouver and meet with Jake. So she came into town and uh he said, Yeah, I have a religious sister in town this week. She's just staying at a hotel. I was like, That's sad. Does she want to come over for lunch? Like, how late, you know, and I mean, I was like, if she's comfortable with that. So she came over, and about 15 minutes into our soup, we were just sharing our hearts as friends. I was like, sometimes the Lord just does that, you know. And um, Michelle was hosting a women's retreat that I was going down to annually in that year. She was like, I really want a religious sister to come. And I was like, I got her, I got this girl, she's amazing. And so that was the beginning of this Miriam.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Like, lot God has let her be a textbook of what a testimony looks like.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

You know, and what I mean by that is like long form you listen to her talk, and it's beautifully interwoven into the talk. But there might just be like a 15-second to three minute little notion of like God's mercy.

SPEAKER_03 3:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

And if you've heard the whole thing, you kind of know it, but it's just like, oh, she just did a little nugget. Like she didn't go into the all the details, but she she's describing how loved she was by the Lord and how merciful he was. And uh yeah, she does a great job.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Yeah, yeah, she does. And it it really has been a privilege for the three of us because when you're friends with someone and the three of us have been friends for so long, you see the journey, you know, it's not just moments, but you're really getting a sense of like someone's heart, you know. And I'm like both of them, all three of us have just been deeply committed to our journey with each other and our journey with God, and so to see the growth in each other, the fruit through the good and the bad and the ugly, it's it's man, following the Lord is the best. It's just the sense the best.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

You know, the the saints you often see them in like clusters, right? You know, it's just kind of fun to see in y'all's life a little bit, like these little interwoven sets of friendships. Yeah. Um has it been hard to keep those across your life? Like have you had to fight for that, or has it been kind of a natural product of it?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah, you know, it's it's funny because I live so I mean in Vancouver, that's like the corner of another country. You know, it seems so far away from everyone that I have been in deep relationship with. So yes, fight for it, yes. You got to prioritize it in a unique way, you know, because you're not seeing each other in the day-to-day. Like Sister Miriam and Michelle, other than Michelle and I's time at Franciscan, have never been in each other's day-to-day except for long voice memos, you know, like we're trying so hard to bridge those gaps.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Is so good at long voice memos. So good that you might not want to listen to them. So good, so good that I have intentionally been like, I'm not listening to that. Send it, send it to our one.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Yeah. So yeah, I mean, just being intentional about it, but also being okay with space sometimes. Like when you're friends with people for that long and life happens, you know, there can be seasons of we're talking regularly and seasons where there's more space and just trusting, like just being very open-handed about it, has kind of been our approach.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

So that's a blessing. Yeah. So what were what were you talking about today at the discipleship conference?

Talk One: Meeting Jesus Again

Peter’s Restoration By The Fire

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah, so I had two breakout sessions, and uh some of my favorite things to talk about, forget to talk about Jesus. But primarily my first talk was about meeting him face to face and just the difficulty that that poses sometimes, even for the Christian, uh that that is showing up at mass and going and doing all the things and even praying, that sometimes in our familiarity we can lose sight of him and and not actually be meeting him. Or we're meeting a distorted version of him because the enemy is subtly wearing away at our image of God, which he does. And he's very subtle about it, very conniving. And it can happen without us realizing, oh, it's just sort of shifting a little bit, I'm I'm distancing a little bit, I'm not trusting as much, or I don't I don't know how to need him because he seems to not come through for me, you know. Um, so basically I was just trying to re-engage people in gospel stories about Jesus and his real personality and open the door again for another encounter and just encouraging people, you know, the encounter shouldn't just be one moment, but it's one of those one of those gospel stories. Yeah. Uh one of the ones I love the most is Saint Peter and the restoration of Peter. I love Peter. I just I just love he's so relatable, you know, for for I think many people. And so I was just sharing about how when he goes back and Jesus has died and he goes back to what he always knows, which is fishing and he's in the boat and the voice comes. If you caught anything, you know, and just how we can put a tone to scripture sometimes and not even realize it, like maybe it sounds like Jesus is sort of mocking or something. But if we get into scripture and start using our imagination and like giving more context, like he's just risen from the dead. He's probably in an amazing mood, and he's there for one reason. You know, he's there for one reason, and that's to restore Peter's art. And he's probably thinking, Oh, Peter, you have no idea what's about to happen. Like he he was probably excited. So I think there's a playful side of Jesus that we even hear in that, hey, have you caught anything yet? Like, because he's he's like reminding Peter of a previous, previous moments like that have happened before. Hey, how about you cast that net onto the other side? It's like Peter must have been like, I've heard this before, but it can't be. It can't be him, right? You know, and then finally the big catch comes in and he's like, It's the Lord, and then jumps into the water. And I I love this part where he's like, it says that Peter put his clothes on and then jumped in the water. And that always reminded me of like Eden, you know, where it's like naked without shame. And when they realized through their sin what they had done, they cover themselves up. And I was like, Oh, that's just such a relatable experience. Like Peter must have felt so much shame, like because he had just denied the Lord, that was the last time he saw him, and he's gonna go back and see him again. So he covers up as if the Lord doesn't know the heart, right? There's just all these beautiful moments.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Not only had he just denied the Lord, but he also denied his own covenant to the Lord. Like No, I would never.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah, I would never. He just can't even fathom that he would do it, and then there he is at his weakest.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

And then, you know, this beautiful moment where Jesus has has built this charcoal fire, and the only other charcoal fire is the one that Peter denied him at. So he's like recreating a scene for restoration, even the smell, the everything, and he's made him, he's made him breakfast, knowing that Peter hadn't caught anything. I'm like, he's just so kind. Like he just wants to take care of Peter in every way before he has this conversation with him, which I just think is like the beautiful heart of Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

It's kind of crazy how deeply like human Jesus is there.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Right? Because like the turquoise I I'd never observed the detail or thought put that connection together till you just said it.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

Me neither.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

But like if you think of any traumatic time in your life, some of those familiar details of the traumatic time like are what draw you into the memory. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

And so and and spark the healing.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Yeah, but in this case, like Jesus like brought up that detail and like is to your point on this restoration, like he's like redeeming even the details.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

In a way, exactly. Like so no longer can a charcoal fire be a trigger of my denial because Jesus redeemed the charcoal fire. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

I I mean it's so he's so kind to think of all that. Because if he hadn't done it at the fire, you could imagine if Peter was around another charcoal fire, those old memories would come back to him again, you know. And I'm like, Jesus wants it all. He wants to get into every part of our memory and our story and restore. Yeah. Wow. He's so good.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Thanks for sharing that. I was recently um with some friends talking about like the importance of memory. And someone was emphasizing that how important it is with scripture, with the liturgy, that we soak our memory with the truth.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah, I am so passionate about this subject. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Because we we ha we actually have a bunch of a bunch of false memories, and then we have real memories from our fractured life that are populating things or real moments right now.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

That are like especially accusatory.

Memory, Triggers, And Redemption

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Yeah, and that are like frankly way less true than than these memories. Yes. And um, I don't know, I love how you're t retelling this story for us, and kind of gives me more conviction. You know, I'm not just praying because I'm a good Christian because I can should pray. Yeah, but I'm also like yoking into the truth. Yes, I'm I'm soaking in and like letting my mind, my soul like remember correctly. And even that word's interesting. Remember and remember.

Soaking Memory In Scripture

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yes, yes, like to be put back together. Yes, exactly, yes. And I think that's one of the reasons why I love scripture so much, and this has been growing, you know, this love for scripture throughout my Christian journey and being a disciple, because we can't just remember our own story, like what you're saying. Sometimes there's distorted views of God, and sometimes when we remember things, it's actually a false image of who he is and can cause more separation with him. So we have to go into scripture to remember the bigger story. You know, that has actually been one of the most powerful and restorative things in my own life is engaging with the story. I'm like, I hold that story, the story of salvation, what God has done, what happened in the garden, how that mirrors the garden of my heart, what the enemy is doing, how God wants to restore, and we were never meant to experience this fracturing. That was never his intention. And I think for some of us, like we have to remember that. Like, we were never meant to experience suffering like this. No, he never wanted it. And his goal is to bring it back to where it was, where it should have been the whole time, which is deep union and no more tears and no more crying anymore.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

You've mentioned God images a couple times. The first time I heard that was from Dr. Peter Malnowsky. And he's quoting a prior work, I think, but he spends a lot of time talking about it through a Catholic Christian lens. Um are you familiar with like that as a theory or a topic, God images? Or is it uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Go for it. I mean, I might have just stumbled along it.

Distorted Images Of God

SPEAKER_02 13:01

I'm not an expert by any means, but it was just I am married to a counselor, so you know I could. I was figuring that maybe Dr. Bob Schutz and your husband had had spent some time in this space, but it just kind of blew my mind to actually think about that. Like, okay, depending on where I am healthily in my emotional health, or across an experience of today, I might draw on an incorrect image of God. Yes. And I might have like a distant rule maker God, or I might have an authoritarian God in my mind. So I might have this isn't the God that I profess to believe and that know who have encountered and been like converted by, but just when I'm fractured and I'm in a place of trauma or in a place of hurt or in a place of pain or in a place of woundedness, I might actually be triggered to view God improperly. Yes. So people have like studied what these themes are, and there's probably for every way I could be hurt, there's some, you know, related wrong image of God, right? Yeah. Um but what he said that what I thought was it was jarring to me and it made me really think deeply about these things, was he said that what what kind of worship is an improper vision of God worthy of? And he said, well, none.

unknown 14:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Because like an like God is all loving, all knowing, all merciful, right? And so like these fractured images of God, like if we don't remind ourselves of who he really is and spend a lot of time in his presence, that he's the most real thing and that he can not that monsters aren't real, not that the world's not a problem, but that he can conquer them.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

That by his name they're driven out. So not that the evil's not real or hurt isn't there, but that he's the most real and he's in charge and he's in it, he's in the authority seat and he loves me.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, and the catechism talks about this actually, I think it's like two three nine or something is the number, it's right around there, anyways. Um, that he that parents are the first image of God for man, and then it talks about how, but often through our sin and our our weakness that we disfigure the face of God. And then it goes on to say, but there is no father like God is father. And I'm like, yes, like this is where it's at. Like, because all of us to some degree, I mean, I I have three kids, I love them desperately, but I know that in my weakness, I don't get it right. Sometimes I'm short with them, sometimes I miss their heart. And if I'm the first representation of God for them, I I have even inadvertently disfigured the face of God for them, and God wants to restore all of it. And you're so right. Like, if we aren't worshiping the real God, we will worship something else because we won't be encountering the greatest love that we're searching for.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Or we'll stop worshiping. Yes, yeah, yes. Well, I love where you went. That was where my next place went, a place of gravity was like, wait, I'm supposed to be an image bearer.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

Yeah. And and there's this conviction that, like, wow, yeah, is how I'm loving, reflecting the image of God. Right.

Bearing God’s Image In Suffering

SPEAKER_00 15:58

And uh it's a beautiful thing. Like, actually, my second talk uh that I gave today was about um Christ in us, which is the hope of glory, and how when we encounter people in suffering, how do we accompany people in suffering? And it's really to let that image of Christ, Christ who is alive in us, be able to come out. And so the only way to do that is to one begin to to acknowledge that truth in reality, because often we don't, you know, we don't know that Christ is right here in us, and to engage with him there and to meet him there, and often we're just trying to avoid, we're busy, we're bombarded by so many things.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

So yeah, it makes me think of everything that you guys are talking about, like and understanding the distortions that happen to us and like wounds and all these different things. Like it brings me back to like the on the the image on my iPhone watch that I'll that I'll leave there that I have as my wallpaper screen, and I'm and I'm working on trying to find like a picture that I that I like enough and like resonate with. But there's a I have this image in my head that came from doing a retreat with Father Jacques Philippe, which was amazing, where he talked about, and maybe he stole this from somewhere else, where he talked about the spiritual life being like this abandoned well on a property, and that this well is full of rocks and mud and dirt and seaweed, and maybe there's dead animals in there, and that like kind of rep that well represents our heart and what prayer it tends to be is like going into there, into that place and like being guided by the spirit of like I'm gonna take this rock out and throw it out and coming back in every now and then, but at the bottom of this well is this like infinite happiness of water that's just gonna like change everything about you, and every now and every now and then you get big splashes of that and consolation and everything. Um but the more that we take out of there and the more that the Lord guides us and like kind of does surgery on on those distortions. Um like there's just huge moments where a bunch of the rocks shift or like the the nasty smell is gone or whatever it is that it changes you. Um and that's what prayer is ultimately is like returning to that and being healed in that way. Um that's also in a similar way in like how we were formed as humans and like how therapy works in a way as well. But that's just like what it made that it that's the image that you guys's conversations make me think of of just like constantly returning. You talked about when we were talking about art with Leah, how it's kind of like iterative and in a similar way, that's what prayer and healing and understanding like with my when she's talking about distorting our children's distorting our children's view of God view of God. I think about like my six-year-old son, I'm like, man, I've blown it, but the reality is like the beautiful part about it is that I have the opportunity to point my son to like where it's not gonna be distorted. Where it's not gonna be distorted. And if I'm pointing in that direction, I'm doing something right. Um and believing in that. So I had powerful.

The Well Of The Heart

SPEAKER_02 18:54

I had this. We were talking a little bit about liturgy when we were you know earlier, and I I had this experience. A Protestant, a couple different Protestants recommend the same book to me, uh Habits of the Household. It's written by an Anglican businessman. And um he argues that our habits in life are like little L liturgies. Um, but he spends quite some time talking about how the liturgy forms us, or like our regular, our rule of life forms us. And what's been I don't know why I feel compelled to share this, but what was he kind of he does a great job of empowering you to like look at your own life and write like little liturgies, but he does give some examples, and the one he has for bedtime for the children has just continued to form my heart. And it goes something like this son, do you know how much I love you? And usually sometimes that's playful their answer, but it's usually a lot, you know. It's like that's right, that's a lot. Do I love you any more when you do good things? And they usually say yes, at least when you're first teaching it to them. Like, no, no, I don't. How do I love you? The same and always a lot, that's right. Um and do I love you any less when you do bad things? Most of us are tempted to say yes, for sure. And the answer is no. How do I love you? Always the same and always a lot. That's right. And who else loves you this way? The father.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Yeah.

Household Liturgies That Form Love

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Rest in that love. And like what's interesting, it's like that little liturgy, like when I first like finally heard it for myself after trying it on precise. Um it's like reforming me and reforming my children. And so I'm just like trying to I'm looking at my own life and saying, to your point, like all the noise, all the things, like what do I what's on repeat in my life that can be patterning me into being yoked to Jesus, or be pulling me out of a pattern of a life of Jesus?

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Yeah, that's so that's so good. And I think just like we were talking about at the beginning about how intentional we need to be with friendship, you know, like especially when there's all kinds of distractions and things in between. I would say being intentional about listening to God's voice, about reading his word, about staying in prayer, because often I do think we are hanging on every word the enemy is saying and we don't even know it, you know? I want to hang on every word that God wants to say and that he has said. And the ultimate word he has said is Jesus himself. And so I'm like, Lord, please just come and speak. Speak here to me. I want to be hanging on your words, and I want them to change everything for me.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

What's that look like in a daily life for you, Heather?

Choosing God’s Voice Daily

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Yeah, I mean, honestly, it it's been a learning of a conversational relationship with God all throughout my day. Like, yes, I try to set time aside. To pray and I try to go to daily mass, you know, reception of the sacraments, all of that stuff. But I it's really important for me to be communing with God all throughout the day, to realize that Christ lives in me. I'm like, I can run away to this little secret place in my heart with him at any moment. And I need him a lot. You know, I need his wisdom a lot. I want to hear his word a lot. I need his comfort. I need so many things from him. I need to bring the places that are like crying out for attention or love or whatever, and I might be tempted to look somewhere else for it. And I'm just keep going, Jesus, do you see this place that is in so much desperate need and I'm looking for it somewhere else? I want to come to you right now with this place. Like, will you come and love me here? That's what it's looking like right now. I mean, and obviously it's grown a lot over the years. I'm trusting him more. The more I've come to him over the years, the more I trust him, the more I believe him, the more I'm unsatisfied with the other things.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Would it be fair to say that all of us could have daily encounters like the one you opened with with Peter and Jesus? Oh you can't anything yet, like where the Lord might be just reaching out and playful in a little bit of dialogue.

Conversational Prayer In Real Life

SPEAKER_00 23:13

I just I just can't stress enough. He's the best. He is the best. Like growing in a relationship with God, you can't come to the end of how amazing he is. There's so many times I like just throw my head back and laugh at what he's up to. I'm like, this is when you have the eyes to see, and it's like it's that's the transformation that's occurring. It's not like I could see clearly all the time. For sure not. For sure there's still sin, for sure, all of those things in my life, but it's a growing, you know, it's that ongoing conversion that St. Francis of Assisi was all about of being transformed to be able to see. Like all of a sudden, you're like, oh my goodness, Lord, there you are. There's your playfulness, like there's your, oh, there's your hand that is like pruning something in my life. Like it just makes you more receptive because you trust him more. You know, the more you encounter him, the more you will love him. Because he's just so good.

Why A Personal Relationship With Jesus

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah. When you want to communicate that to somebody, like I was I was having lunch with uh with a friend that I've met. He's going through he's going through OCIA for the second time. And at the cathedral where I where I work, we just took we just took them all through or or I just led a a summer discipleship series where we're going through like how to make your testimony, like the big vision of what discipleship looks like in a parish, like all this stuff, kind of the high-level stuff. I mostly did it to find people who had lights on and uh discipleship stuff and wanted to be evangelizers and weren't just you know there for whatever reason. And my friend Mark was going through that, and I went to lunch with him recently, and after we boiled through the whole thing, one of the things that he mentioned that he's like, Hey, I felt like I felt like you kind of blew through this part of it of like and assumed that I had a relationship with Jesus. And it's his second year coming from the Methodist Church, going through CIA, and he says, What actually is that? What actually is that? And you know, you and you say something, you're like, it's just it's the best. You just you just go in through him and you have a conversation and you share with him and all of that stuff, and it can when you're talking to somebody who's never really experienced it before, it can kind of sound you know, frou-frou or whatever he was, like Mike's like a or Mark's like a uh um he's a really successful business guy, but like to to end it off, like what's like when someone asks you, like, dude, why Jesus? Like I like why a relationship with Jesus, why a personal one? Like, what's your go-to to like talk about within that?

SPEAKER_00 25:45

I mean, you know, in some ways I can only speak from my own experience. I've tried so many other things. Even things that were fun, you know, things that were bad, things that are sinful, things that were like satisfying in a moment, you know. But I'm like, there is nothing like him. There is no one like him. Everything else will fail, you know, even your spouse who you love, and they're amazing. You know, no one can hold the weight of what your heart needs like him. And yeah, I just share personal encounters that I've had and invite them to do the same because it it, I mean, I've heard priests who have said I didn't know Jesus, my whole priesthood, until just recently. Like, I mean, there's so many people, you don't have to feel ashamed about it. It's like, hey, if there's a desire in your heart, he already wants you, he's already waiting for you. Like, I'm like, when you're sharing the story with this guy, I'm like, yes, these are the most exciting moments. And then even for me, you know, journey with God, there's still parts of me that haven't met him yet. Yeah, there's little parts of me that are afraid, that have been abandoned, that don't know him yet. I'm like, this is so exciting because they're gonna get to meet him too. And so, just as an encouragement for people who are listening, no matter where you find yourself right now, Jesus is waiting right there to meet you. There's always an encounter with him. That is why his name is Emmanuel, because he's with us and he's made himself accessible through Jesus at all moments.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Amen. Amen. Heather, that was awesome. Thanks for joining us for a little bit. Glad you're here in Oklahoma. When do you when do you head out?

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Tomorrow morning, flying out. It's been a blessing to be here. Yeah, super cool.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

Remind our listeners again how they can.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

How can they stay in contact with you, find your stuff, buy the merch, all that stuff.

Invitation To Encounter And Resources

SPEAKER_00 27:28

I have a couple books out. Abide. It's a healing journey. You can get an Avi Maria Press or Amazon or whatever. I also have an advent devotional called Encountering a Manual. So all these themes that I'm talking about today. Um, but I have a podcast called Abiding Together with Sister Miriam and Michelle, my two friends I talked about, and they can find me there.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Awesome. Thank you so much. We'll see you and we'll see you next time you're in Oklahoma, hopefully.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

All right, God bless you.