Welcome to the Storytellers Live podcast where everyday people share real and personal stories.

Some are profound and challenging, while others are more common and relatable shared with honesty and humor.

But all of these stories reveal what God can do in our lives when we trust him with the details.

Thanks for joining us.

Hi, everyone. This is your host, Kelly, from the Storytellers Live team. On each episode,

you'll hear a different woman share her story of God's transforming love. And these stories are recorded in a live setting at weekly local gatherings where we're aiming to build community

through sharing, connecting, and encouraging one another.

And most importantly, these stories reveal the faithfulness of God and how he can take

what's ordinary and broken and exchange it for extraordinary and redeemed.

Alita, today's storyteller, shares about her personal experience with chronic pain and depression.

Stories dealing with health are never intended to serve as official medical advice or a means of diagnosis

because we know, number one, we're not qualified, but number two, these ailments can manifest

differently from person to person.

But hearing the details of someone's personal journey allows us to gain insight

and to better understand the challenges they face. And as Alita talks about what chronic pain

and depression have looked like specifically in her life, it will not only resonate with many

women, but it's also a great reminder of God's sufficient grace that he gives us daily to face whatever

lies ahead, not with fear or with despair, but with hope. And while we may not always feel hopeful,

we can rest in the knowledge and the truth that God loves us, he is sovereign, he has us,

and he's never going to let us go. Here's Alita.

I'm so happy to be with y'all, and normally I've been told people sit on a stool, but I like to move my hands more. So we're going to use, but I just have to stay kind of close to the microphone. But I have been told not to walk around and ask y'all questions. So we're going to keep it like this. I'm going to open with a verse that I've just been, I don't know, God keeps bringing me back to you while I've been preparing for this. And then I think it'll be a good kind of set the stage. And I'll come back to it again at the end. But it's 2 Corinthians 4, 16 through 18. Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly, we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs

them all so we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen for what is seen is temporary

...