Hey, friends. Welcome to the Ruth Joe Simon's podcast. It's so surreal to say it out loud,

but here we are. It's a brand new year and this podcast

has a new name, but I'm here because I am so grateful to be serving you with this podcast,

with conversations that are real and honest and are all about applying the gospel to our everyday lives.

You might have remembered why I shared a little bit about why it is now called the Ruth

Joe Simon's podcast, mainly because I'm just coming to you a little bit more intimately,

a little bit more personally, and you can expect conversations with others, but sometimes,

and most of the time, it'll be conversations between me and you.

So grab a cup of coffee, whatever it is.

I've got my Americana with me today.

And, you know, when I was asked by Anna here at the office, she said, what's the purpose? What's the goal of this podcast? Share that. And I said, you know, the goal of it is for anyone who's listening or watching to know that they're not alone to feel like we're having coffee together where we get to just be real, a little more real than we get to be on social

media when we are at an event or through books and the pages of really beautiful and

wonderful books. But sometimes we just have to have that sister-to-sister personal conversation

between friends. And so here we are. It's a brand new year. And as I did a little

reflecting on 2024, one thing that really stood out was that it was a really intense year.

And for better or for worse, I had a lot more capacity than I even expected of myself.

Do you ever feel that way?

Do you ever get to the end of something and go, I am more capable than I thought possible?

I have more capacity.

I had more bandwidth.

I could think and work harder. And I was a survivor. I pushed through.

So I could say I'm really proud of that. But on the other side of it, I can also say, wow, I ran really

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