Hey friends and welcome to the happy hour with Jamie Ivy podcast. I'm your host Jamie and I'm so glad you're here.

Each week on this show, I invite a friend to join me and we chat about the big things in life, the little things in life, and everything in between.

My guess today is Alina Pits. Alina and the entire Pits family are so near and dear to my heart and I'm so grateful that I was able to sit down with her and hear more about what God is doing in her life.

In our conversation, Alina shares about the pressure of success as a Gen Z teenager and reminding herself that what she does is not who she is.

On top of some of the challenges of simply being a teenager, Alina tells us what it was like to walk through her biggest challenge, which was unexpectedly losing her mom winter.

She dives into processing all the different levels of grief and how it became bearable solely because of Jesus.

As a fellow in EG 6 Alina and I share that, I definitely relate to Alina in a lot of ways, especially worst case scenarios.

But I love so much when Alina says, and I don't want you to miss it, so I'm going to tell it to you now. Listen up, when Alina says this, she said,

What I had imagined as the worst case scenario was the worst case scenario at one point in my life and I survived.

I'm consistently impressed by Alina's wisdom and strength at such a young age and I want to be such a cheerleader for her.

She and my son, Caden, they're my favorite 16-year-olds on the planet.

We were able to travel to Rwanda together this year. I get to spend time with her there.

And then she was also a guest on my quarantine videos on YouTube. We'll link to those in the show notes as well.

Also, if you've had an opportunity to read my new book, UBU, you might recognize her and her mom from chapter 10, which is called Faithful to the End.

The whole last chapter was birth from her mom winter and her unexpected passing.

In fact, I want to read a page to you from the book in the very last chapter. It says this.

Winter at 38 had been alive on earth for around 14,000 days.

And when I sum up her life, here's the phrase that comes to mind. She used her days well.

Everyone who knew her would give you the same impression. It's the same story I hear from Jonathan, from her girls, from her cousins.

It's what all of us say when we talk about winter. And it's the same thought that has stuck with me ever since her passing.

I pray it never leaves me. I want to use my days well. When I go to be with Jesus,

I want people to be able to say of me. Jamie was alive for whatever a number of days.

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