Welcome to the Storytellers Live podcast where everyday people share real and personal stories of encounters with God.

I'm Robin and I'm here with Katie and Lindy. And today we have Alana's story. And Atlanta, she's from Boise, Idaho, but as you will hear in her story, she's a military wife, and she's lived in Hawaii. To I caught her attention. But actually, no, Atlanta, just from the podcasting world, we've met in different areas, and you'll hear her talk a little bit about that. Her story's so relatable. I just think it is for so many people listening today, you're just going to be able to relate to it because a lot of it is about as women, we want to serve God. You know, we really strive to serve him. But if we're honest with ourselves, we want him to serve us in return, don't we? We want to have an easy, good life. And when life does not turn out easy and good, what do we do with that? She's very honest about what she does with it and how

God brought her to a place of saying, do I have your attention now? Right. And so here is Alana's story.

Before Atlanta's story today, we do want to give you a friendly reminder that Discover Your Story,

which is our Bible study, is on sale for $12. It's normally 15. So we are having a spring sale now through March 17th.

And as you know, Discover Your Story is an eight-week Bible study that has taken eight of our

podcast and tied them directly to scripture, small group discussion, and prayer prompts. And I was

talking to somebody the other day and they actually reminded me. They said, you know what, I did this all by myself and got as much out of it. So you don't have

to be in a small group. You can order it for yourself or for a friend. That's right. So if you're

interested in ordering, discover your story, you can go to our website, that's storytellerslive.org

forward slash shop. Or you can go to our Instagram account at Storytellers Live podcast

and there's a link in our bio there. You can look at our show notes. It is all over the place

so you'll be able to find it easily. So go ahead and order that today. Find a group or do it on

your own. Well, I am so delighted to be joining you all here today. My name is Alana Dawson. I'm a podcast editor and coach. I'm a mama of two girls and one very, very naughty French bulldog. He is locked away. So we should not hear him in this recording at all today. I'm also a military

spouse. My husband has been in the military for almost 20 years. We're about ready to retire,

which will be a big change in transition for our family, but we're very excited for the next

chapter in our life. And I'm so excited to share with you today. So like many of you probably listening, I was raised in a church with a very loving,

faith-filled family. I attended youth group. I had a heart for the Lord. I went to summer camp and, you know,

all the things that a quote unquote normal, a girl growing up in a church would do. But my view of God was very

much, I saw him as if I checked all of the boxes, then life would be really good, right? If I did the

right things, then just naturally my life would be easygoing and what I

wanted to. And then I grew up, right? We all do. Then I grew up. And a lot of things challenged

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