Today on The Girl Define Show, we are talking about something that I never imagined in a million years would be words coming out of my mouth.

It's the fact that our sister, Alyssa, who was on this podcast not that long ago, living in America, very safe and kind of like this dream life, married her dream man, moved to Ukraine, and at 38 weeks pregnant, was in the car for five days trying to escape literally the invasion of Russia.

But bombs that she could hear outside of her house, and we are so grateful that she is in a safe place now, but her parent-in-laws, her husband, are back at the borders in Ukraine, fighting for their freedom, fighting for their lives, so many people they know and love, and I promise you so many Christians right now, and non-Christians are asking, is God good? God, are you even good? How could you allow this to happen? Whether it's something like that, or just something so personal going on in your life, a tragic loss,

and you love that you're like, how could this happen? God, why? What's going on? If you're in that place, or you've ever asked that question, we have good news for you, we have hope, and we have something incredible to share about the character of God.

This is the news that has really, biblical news that has given us hope in these hard times, given our sister hope, given our brother-in-law hope, even as they are literally fleeing for their lives, we want to bring this biblical truth to you today, right here, on The Girl Define Show.

Hey, sisterhood, it is Kristen and Bethany here, and we are so glad that you're joining us for this heavy, but much needed, and much hope-filled conversation.

If this is your first time ever tuning into The Girl Define Show, welcome Bethany and I, our sisters, and we are passionate about God's Word, and helping women understand the truth of God's Word, because God's Word has brought so much freedom to our lives, as we have taken it literally, and seriously, in our darkest and deepest valleys, in our mountain top moments of celebration,

praising the Lord and crying out to Him, going to Him, going to His Word for everything that we need, His Word truly is sufficient.

If you're joining us as a part of The Girl Define Book Club, going through not part of the plan, if that's what's bringing you here today, we're so glad you're here, and if you're like, wait, what? Book Club, we have a book called Not Part of the Plan, and talk about timing.

For this book, Not Part of the Plan, trusting God with the twists and turns of your story, we wrote this book in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of crazy stuff already going on in the world, and the little did we know, that right on the other side of this book being released that our own sister, like Bethany shared in the intro, would literally be fleeing Ukraine because of the Russian invasion fleeing for her life, and so we just feel like this book is even more relevant now, I mean it was relevant before, but even more so now, in light of the craziness that's going on in the world.

So if you are joining us for the book study, we are covering chapters four and five today, and if you're bringing new here, welcome, you can still join us, it's not too late, we're reading, not part of the plan with sisters from all around the world, just go to girldefine.com slash book club, it's free.

You can follow along, download our PDF guide that'll help you walk through chapter by chapter, help you kind of dig in, but we're reading it together, and then every week on the podcast for eight weeks, we are covering different chapters.

So right now we are on week three, and I just wanted to share something it was actually a message one of you sent me about our book, not part of the plan, and I thought it was just so incredible.

So if you are struggling right now, I just want to read to you what someone said when they read the book. So she says just to say I have started reading your book as I recently lost my job, and I'm now faced with crippling anxiety.

I'm only on chapter three, but each page has helped me reframe my thoughts and emotions. So thank you, still having a hard time, but your book is a blessing.

So know if you're going through something hard right now or have gone, don't do it on your own, and if you're like, I don't know where to turn in scripture, our book is not scripture, but we have scripture all throughout it, we have free study guide at the end, we have this free book study we're doing.

So I encourage you to grab a copy because just like this woman who message saying this book is giving me hope it's helping me to know how to deal with these emotions, how to deal with my anxiety, how to deal with my questions of God, are you even good?

This book, not part of the plan, trusting God with the twists and turns of your story will help you do that. I know that it will bring you so much hope because it has the word of God in it.

So I encourage you to go to girldefine.com slash book club, grab a copy and jump in and join us as we read through this book.

And if you, if you don't have the book and you're like, I'm hearing about this for the first time, stick with us today because you're going to find so much encouragement, because I know if I can sit across from you right now and have a conversation with you, and if I asked you, tell me about the hard things going on in your life right now, tell me about your struggles, tell me about your disappointments, tell me about prayers you've been praying that you feel are unanswered.

I guarantee, and you know this, there are things you would share. And so that is why we wrote this book because out of our own, each of our own journeys as sisters walking side by side for the last decade, each of us facing twists and turns, we never saw coming. Like we had no idea.

I had no idea I was going to go on a 10 plus year journey of infertility recurrent miscarriage, eventually down the path of international adoption in the middle of a pandemic, a year before a war breaks out.

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