Welcome to the careers of brass podcast. I'm your host, Ashtra Tchoo, and it's time for our weekly bonus interview.

And to be honest, there's no easy way to say this. This is probably the most difficult conversation I've reported for this podcast, or really any podcast that I've been on.

I invited my dear friend Ruth Joe Simons to talk about how to pray through temptation.

But before we even hit record, I realized that we had this conversation, we had to take it

in a whole other direction.

And what came out of our time together is raw, it's personal, and to be totally transparent,

it really made me wonder if you'll think less of me after this.

But this conversation is also a story of God's beautiful redemption through loving confrontation.

And if you've been struggling with feeling offended in a relationship, or if you're wondering how to respond when someone offends you

or even when someone confronts you about being offended or being hurt by something you've done,

I really hope that this episode gives you hope that God uses the hard things to do good things in our lives.

My guest today, as I said, is Ruth Joe Simons.

She's the founder of GraceLace.com and a bestselling and award-winning author of multiple books,

including her newest book and Bible study when striving cease.

I'll share more about that resource at the end of our episode, but for now, let's jump

right in.

Well, Ruth, before I hit record, one of the very first things I said was that I was thinking

of you last night because

in our small group we were talking about just a hard season that our local church has been going

through and how we've been learning lessons from the pit from the hard places that God wants us

to walk in humility and integrity and also in repentance.

And so I opened by sharing that you were on my mind because of an interaction that we had

...