Hey friends, I'm Jess Connolly. I'm an author, a coach, a Bible teacher, and a local church leader,

and I love talking to real people who know what it means to have full lives, but also want to walk in abundance.

This podcast is for you. It's not my podcast. It's ours. It's for people who crave lighthearted conversations and deeply

spiritual truth. It's for people who are busy, tired, waiting, growing, dreaming, working,

or praying about what's next. Wherever you're listening from, if it's quiet, mundane, or busy,

I am praying for you and I'm so glad you're here. Let's go. Well, friends, welcome back to the podcast. Today, we're

talking about something that stirs up questions and arguments every single year. Halloween. What does it mean for followers of Jesus

to walk wisely, joyfully, and courageously in a world where darkness is real, but also

defeated? Then we're going to spend some time in this episode unpacking what scripture

actually says about spiritual warfare, how to stand

firm, fight from victory, and bring light into the dark. Let's dive in.

All right, let's talk about it. I don't mind telling you that I often feel like the middle

child of the internet, okay? First of all, I am a literal middle

child and I show up like a middle child. I want everybody to be at peace. I want everybody to get

along. I don't want everybody to fight. So a lot of times when there are things that are hotly contested,

specifically by Christians, I find that I want to like bury my head in the sand or I

want to fix it. When Halloween comes around, I often get a pit in my stomach, not just about the fact

that Halloween decorations have gotten absolutely disgusting. And I'm going to talk about that

a second. But also about the fact that all of my friends,

so many Christians, are fighting. And they're seemingly like throwing shade at one another

and taking teams and dividing sides. And the whole of it just makes me so wildly uncomfortable.

So can we talk about it today? Can we talk about like how do we handle this?

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