Can you introduce yourself to our friends listening and tell them a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Absolutely.

First of all, thank you so much, Tara, for having me on, and just wanna say you've been such an encouragement and support to me through this process of, like you said, putting a book baby into the world for the, the first time, and I'm really grateful for you and just your ministry.

Um, but yeah, a little bit about me.

Like you said, my name is Casey.

I am a wife, a mama, and I create Christian content online.

I've been doing that for a little over 10 years now, and that really was born back in 2013 actually.

Mm.

Get your copy or gift this beautiful Bible to your friend, sister, mom, or church leader at the link in the show notes.

I remember sharing one time a post about comparison on Instagram and I had a friend of mine from church who, you know, at the time when I wrote this post, I was single and longing for marriage, longing to become a mom.

And this friend was, I believe, married with two or three kids.

And she messaged me and she was like, it was so crazy reading about the things that you compare yourself to because I look at you and compare myself to you.

And it was just such this reminder to me that we don't know anybody's path, right? Like we can look and feel like, okay, this person had the thing that we wanted, but maybe for them that was a different plan than what they had expected or what they had imagined for their life to go.

And we don't want to miss what God has for us.

had a dream one time in this waiting season that I was out to dinner with friends and we had all ordered our food and all of my friends' food started to come and they were eating and I was looking around and I was kind of hoping the waiter would come by and be like, yours will be right out, but he didn't.

How do we discern whether a desire is something we're supposed to keep praying for or whether God is actually asking us to surrender it?

Will you share a little bit about your heart behind this book and what it's meant and the journey that God's taken you on through it?

Yeah, absolutely.

First of all, I just have to say, Faith, thank you so much for having me on.

I agree with everything you said.

It's just been such a blessing to grow alongside of you.

You have truly been such an encouragement to me in this process of getting ready to put a book into the world for the first time.

And I'm just grateful for you and your ministry and excited to chat.

As you carry the very fulfillment of some of your past prayers, how have you experienced the enemy kind of tempt you into those same faith doubts? Because I really think my faith doubts or my doubts are almost like addictive sometimes like it's more comfortable to worry and i feel like you kind of touch on that throughout the book but i wanted to pick your brain about it

What were some of the things internally that you started being revealed about yourself? How did Holy Spirit start revealing places for him to touch in your own heart, in your own life during the waiting process?

Absolutely.

I think that's such a good question because one of the things we, one of the Christian cliches we tend to hear that's so true, but sometimes it's, okay, what does that mean is God works in our waiting? And that's encouraging to hear when you're waiting, but you're like, okay, what does he do practically? Give me some tangible things.

examples of what that can look like.

And so I actually have a companion Bible study to the book and we unpack six key ways that God works in the waiting.

And one of those ways is healing.

I think that exactly like you said, oftentimes God uses the waiting when we're not seeing the external movement in our circumstances to bring about change in us, to change us into his image.

So when you think about waiting, what does waiting well look like to you?

Why was that distinction so important for you?

Yeah.

'Cause I think that oftentimes when we are waiting for something, especially if you've been waiting for something for a really long time, and you just are not seeing God move in that area of your life, especially if you're watching people around you maybe get the thing that you're asking God for, get the thing that you're waiting for, and that's not happening in your life, it can be really easy to start to wrestle with the question of, "Okay, God, do you see me? Do you care? And I know, God, that you're good, but I see your goodness on display in the lives of other people and not in mine in the way that I'm hoping to see it." And so we can really start to believe the lie that God doesn't care about us, that He doesn't, you know, have good plans for us, that maybe even He has his favorites.

Even if we know in our heads that those things aren't true, we can start to live as if we believe those things.

And so for me, walking through what I share in the book, is a 10-year waiting story of really just bringing the same desire before God, and for so long not seeing movement in that area of my life.

One of the most powerful things for me to realize was that it wasn't just about getting the thing that I was wanting, but about all the deeper ways that God was working in that waiting process.

Because if we see, you know, whether or not God is answering our prayer as the measure of His care for us, then whenever we're without the thing that we're wanting, we're just gonna believe that He doesn't care for us, that He doesn't love us, that He doesn't have good for us.

... about the words so much better?