E63 Holding God’s Hand in the Unknown and Unexpected: Choosing Faith Through Change

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Jen Cudmore (00:00)
Have you ever felt like your life was shifting beneath your feet and God just wasn’t giving you the full picture yet? Most people don’t mind change when they think they have a certain amount of control, but change is actually good for us. Some of the biggest growth seasons of our lives are actually those times when we have felt the most uncomfortable and out of control.

So join Rosalind and I today. We are gonna cover more about transition and the unknown. We wanted to dig a little bit deeper into this topic. So this is gonna be a continuation of our discussion from last week about change. So here we go.

Welcome everyone back to Into the Depths podcast. I’m Jennifer, your host, and I’ve also got Roslyn here with me today. So this is where we go below the surface. And what we’ve been talking about recently is change, transition, the unknown, like how life is always evolving and moving. And so we thought it would be fun to do a little bit more of like a reflection style conversation today.

Rosalynn Lasley (01:19)
Hi guys.

Thank

Thank you.

Jen Cudmore (01:36)
Like last week we really got kind of focused on like the specifics of, you know, what happens during change and why is it so hard and things of that nature. But we thought today we would do a little bit more like personal sharing and how we have grown and what God has taught us. And so hopefully this will inspire you to lean into change when it happens in your own life. I’m just going to ask a few questions and we’re just going to banter back and forth. So here’s our first question. I’ll let you go first Roslyn. The question is what transition season

stretched you the most spiritually.

Rosalynn Lasley (02:11)
I think I have two really. ⁓ I think one would be when we had lost the baby and then, you know, we had gotten pregnant again and had a pregnancy and, you know, raising a child after a loss. And then I would say ⁓ moving from Alaska to Virginia. I feel like we’re still kind of in a transitional season. Like it hasn’t fully come to an end yet.

Jen Cudmore (02:28)
Yeah.

Rosalynn Lasley (02:38)
and that was four years ago that we’ve moved now, ⁓ but we’re finally getting to the place of some permanence here.

Jen Cudmore (02:45)
Yeah, so tell me a little bit more about like what are those areas where you were stretched so much? What was what were the challenges?

Rosalynn Lasley (02:51)
So, yeah,

so when we lost the baby, ⁓ we had, or I had been praying for about two years ⁓ about whether or not to have another child. And my husband wasn’t on the same page initially. And so I kept asking him, like, are you praying about two? And he’d say no. And I was like, well, I am. And he’s going to answer one of our prayers. ⁓ And, but he still wasn’t on board. And so I started praying like, Lord, if it’s not your will, change my heart, because it is really making me sad that

you know, I want another baby and he doesn’t. And so then when he finally was on the same page and we agreed to have another baby and then I miscarried, ⁓ it really was like, I struggled to figure out my identity in Christ. I struggled to figure out my identity as a mom. You know, people will ask you how many kids do you have? And it’s a weird way, weird question to answer. Cause you’re like, do I tell them how many times I’ve been pregnant? Cause each of my babies mattered or do I tell them what makes them comfortable? Cause they can only see three of them.

Jen Cudmore (03:49)
Yeah.

Rosalynn Lasley (03:49)
⁓

And then we went through, or I went through a lot of anxiety, struggle with secondary infertility. So not only did we lose the baby that I’d been praying for for several years, then I couldn’t get pregnant again. And so it was just this huge, confusing, felt like everything was flipped upside down season of life where I didn’t know who I was or what God wanted from me or what I even wanted from God anymore. And it was just really…

I mean, it grew me more than any other time in my life. ⁓ And then, leaving behind everyone we ever known and loved in Alaska to move to Virginia has been a huge testing of faith too, because we’ve had to lean in and let God provide in ways that we weren’t figuring it out. He truly, fully was. at other times we’re like, ⁓ we trust in the Lord, but we still have a little bit of a hand in it.

Jen Cudmore (04:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rosalynn Lasley (04:41)
But

this time we’ve really had to lean in and just let him take it all because we haven’t been able to figure it out on our own.

Jen Cudmore (04:46)
I actually had kind of two that came to mind as well for this question. The first being, you know, when I was promoted into management, ⁓ I…

had to really stretch myself. Not only did it change my family’s lifestyle because I was at that point, up to that point, I had been working part time because it was important to Tim and I that there was always an adult home with the kids. And so ⁓ he had shifted his hours at work and then with me moving into a full-time position.

We had to sort of like resplit all the chores, like the duties at home, who’s gonna do what. And so we really had to think outside the box of what we had known for years and years. And that was a bit of a struggle, because we were so used to doing it a certain way that at first we couldn’t see a different way to do it. Yeah. So ⁓ we really had to lean into changes at home and a different lifestyle at home, but then adjusting to the pressures, additional pressures at work and…

Rosalynn Lasley (05:36)
Yeah. So.

Jen Cudmore (05:49)
taking on that bigger workload, more responsibility. It just felt really heavy. And so learning to manage that or carry that well, it really took me a while. And there were some things I didn’t do well. And so I did hit a place of burnout at some point. But I really had to do a lot of renewing of my mind in so many different ways because I was so used to looking at life a certain way that I didn’t know that I was stuck in

Rosalynn Lasley (06:13)
Right.

Jen Cudmore (06:19)
scarcity mindset. I didn’t realize that, you know, I was super negative. Well, I did a little bit, but like in different ways, I should say a different ways that I was negative. And so there was so much to that, like reframing how I think about tons of different things in my life. And that was that was quite a challenge. Renewing your mind can be can be a lot of work.

Rosalynn Lasley (06:27)
Right.

Yeah.

I struggle with similar, ⁓ you know, being pregnant after a loss and then parenting after loss because I was terrified of losing another baby. And I had to be very like matter of fact with myself that if my worst case scenario comes true again, God is going to carry me through it again. ⁓ But man, was that hard to really fully say that and believe it and hope that it didn’t come true.

Jen Cudmore (06:50)
Yes.

yeah.

yeah.

Rosalynn Lasley (07:08)
You know, I would get so upset and cry every single time that she would get sick for probably the first five years of her life, because I was terrified of losing her. But I just had to trust that ⁓ he, whatever this journey of parenthood looked like with our last child, he was going to walk through it with me ⁓ in spite of what my ideas of what it should look like.

Jen Cudmore (07:31)
Yeah, trusting the Lord on a totally different level, especially with something so big that feels so scary. mean, that trust takes practice, as we talked about before, but man, I could totally see how that would be a tough one for you and why that was such a stretch and a lot of challenge for you. think another big one for me was also moving. ⁓ And it’s not the…

Rosalynn Lasley (07:43)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (07:52)
moving part. was the going so far. And I know we’ve done a podcast on that already, like South Carolina is very different from Alaska.

You know, we spent 20 years living in Alaska. We raised our babies up there. And so, you know, the cold, the snow, the dry air, you know, shifting down here to a different culture in a lot of different ways. I know we talked about even shopping is so different because there’s totally different brands of food. And so you’ve got to relearn like, what do you like? And you can’t find some of your favorite foods because they don’t sell it on the East Coast like they do on the West Coast and just so many different things that you have to adjust to. So that was really stretching.

Rosalynn Lasley (08:14)
Thank

Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (08:32)
for us because it was so much change. Like, you know, when you think of a promotion at work, know, change usually just happens at work, right? so when you’re transitioning to different things, ⁓ moving across the country is huge. And just as there’s so many little facets of all the things that add up to making it feel super, super big. So.

Rosalynn Lasley (08:54)
Yeah, it’s absolutely everything. I mean, even our vehicles, our vehicles changed because we sold the ones that we had and we bought a different one when we moved in order to tow the few belongings we kept. We got rid of almost everything. So our furniture changed, our dishes changed, ⁓ our sleep schedules changed because we were on a totally different time zone. And, you know, that changed each day as we were traveling across the country. ⁓ Communication with our loved ones changed because we’re four hours ahead of them.

Jen Cudmore (08:59)
You

Yeah.

Right.

Right?

Rosalynn Lasley (09:21)
the climate changed, our relationships changed because we only had each other. We didn’t have any friends here. And we still have very few. Living with my dad, stepmom and my siblings, that was a big change for them and for us because I hadn’t lived with my dad a whole lot as a kid. My mom was primarily the one that raised us. And so living with him as an adult with two completely separate families raising kids around the same age and different styles.

That’s a huge, huge learning curve. know, we’re not correcting our kids, you’re not correcting our kids. We do things all differently. We eat different things. ⁓ We eat at different times. Like it’s just absolutely everything we have ever known is different. And that can be daunting. Sometimes it’s kind of sad and sometimes it’s kind of exciting. Like absolutely everything is different, but that was kind of the point.

Jen Cudmore (09:55)
Yeah.

Rosalynn Lasley (10:14)
⁓ We didn’t have medical providers. We hadn’t picked a church. Our clothes changed. The clothes that we wear every day changed. Absolutely every part of our lives had changed. ⁓ But in many ways that was very freeing.

Jen Cudmore (10:28)
I agree. And I think also like there’s so much to learn. Like you’re learning different state laws. You’re learning different locations where you’re driving to, you know, the map of where things are located. There was, there’s just a lot to learn. And when people would use, ⁓

Rosalynn Lasley (10:36)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jen Cudmore (10:47)
certain words or phrases and you don’t always know what that means. I remember when people kept talking about the low country versus the upstate. I mean, I swear it was like a year before I knew what the heck they were talking about. What is the low country and what is the upstate, right? So it’s, you know, learning different language. There’s just so much to it. So ⁓ moving, especially across country is pretty, pretty huge. It really stretches you. ⁓

Rosalynn Lasley (10:49)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, well, and like for us,

⁓ where my parents live, or my dad and stepmom live, it’s kind of out in the country. And so I had to use the GPS to get out of their neighborhood. And I remember like I had ordered a couple packages of different clothes because everything changed and it’s more like 100 degrees versus 20 degrees. So I ordered some tank tops and stuff with money that I had gotten for my birthday. And I was like, well, I’ll just walk up the street and get the mail from the mailbox because Dustin had the car.

Jen Cudmore (11:30)
Yes.

Rosalynn Lasley (11:42)
And then I mapped it and it was a 45 minute walk to their mailbox. And I was like, and that was just to get there. was like, I don’t need whatever’s in there that bad. But you know, like I was used to having the mail at the end of the street and I had to drive to get the mail because it was so far up the street. everything is so different. on Anchorage, most people refer to directions by

street name here it’s all route numbers so they’re like well you go to the 221 and then you hop on the 305 and you’re like what are you talking about you know and there’s there’s still street names but nobody uses them so then you’re looking for the little tiny sign that says what route number it is and like everything is so different

Jen Cudmore (12:18)
Exactly.

Yeah, definitely a challenge. All right, let’s move on to the next question. Have you ever outgrown a season but struggled to let it go? I think everyone could say yes. ⁓ Why don’t you share a story Roslyn about a time where you had trouble letting go of an old season?

Rosalynn Lasley (12:24)
Mm-hmm.

I think, know, letting go of, know, no longer living in my hometown. When I had gone back to visit for the first time after I moved, I cried probably every day that I was there and I just wanted to go home, but home wasn’t a home and my house belonged to somebody else. So I couldn’t go home.

Jen Cudmore (12:55)
Yeah.

Rosalynn Lasley (12:59)
⁓ life had continued without us there. And so everybody was at a little bit different place in life. my home was here, but it didn’t feel like home because we had just moved into the house that we’re in currently. Like I must say the week before the week that I flew back up to Alaska. And so I struggled because it’s like, I couldn’t fully let go of Alaska as my hometown because it was my hometown. ⁓

but it wasn’t anymore. so I just felt very lost. Like I didn’t feel like I belonged in either place. And it was a very, very confusing.

Jen Cudmore (13:33)
So for me, I think of like when my kids left home, that was a pretty difficult thing to let go of because I so love being a mom and I feel like ⁓ I did a decent job, right? And so it was like something I was proud of and that I felt like I had really succeeded at. And, you know, I loved having a cohesive.

healthy happy family and feeling like ⁓ I had made the Lord proud, know, trying to help my kids become who they were meant to be. And so there was a lot wrapped up in that. And one of the things I realized later is that there were some wounds that needed to be healed around the idea of having a happy, healthy family. And so it did force me to work on that. But another another tough one for me was when I left the

Rosalynn Lasley (14:01)
Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (14:22)
⁓ Alaska Christian Women’s Ministry, that was a super tough decision and I knew 100 % God said it’s time to go. Your time here is done. But the problem for me is that…

Like we had built this really beautiful tribe of women who loved Jesus and were trying so hard to help other women, you know grow in their faith and so it was it was about the the tribe that we had built but also like My identity as a blogger, know, I felt like I’m making a difference I’m helping people and so if I’m not blogging anymore, who am I? And so really for me the struggle of letting go in both of these situations was around the idea of identity and like I’m not

Rosalynn Lasley (14:35)
Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (15:01)
Like I found my value in calling myself a mom and calling myself a blogger and calling myself a prayer leader, right? And so

Rosalynn Lasley (15:09)
Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (15:10)
if I’m not doing those things anymore, then who am I? And where is my value? And so for me, that was the struggle of…

was kind of like, didn’t know who I was. And we talked about that on the last episode of like, bring, you know, pushes us to full round out our identity and become a better or it’s really an invitation to be a better.

Rosalynn Lasley (15:20)
Right. Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (15:32)
person and be the person God designed us to be. don’t always accept the invitation and move into it, but that’s what God wants

Rosalynn Lasley (15:37)
Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (15:38)
from us, right? The challenges, the changes, the transition, it’s all about there’s more for you and I want you to become this better version of yourself. And so I really had to learn to let go of the old and make room for the new. Like, okay, Lord, you’re going to have to show me who am I aside from being a mom and a blogger and a prayer leader. Like my identity is so much more than that.

Rosalynn Lasley (16:00)
Right.

Jen Cudmore (16:02)
So.

Rosalynn Lasley (16:03)
Right. I think there’s some of that wrapped up in with how I felt about moving and going back the first time because I felt like ⁓ I didn’t have a place where I belonged.

And so then I felt very much like, who am I? Where do I belong? What is home? You know, I felt like just, yeah, just lost.

Jen Cudmore (16:14)
Yeah.

lost is a great word when when you’re in transition You do feel lost a lot when it comes to like who am I and and you know, what is my purpose? So I think that’s valid. I think that’s ⁓ Normal is what I’m trying to say and so

Rosalynn Lasley (16:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And it was weird because I didn’t

necessarily want to go back. Like I didn’t visit and think I miss it and I want to move back. ⁓ And so it was just really confusing the way that I felt because I knew that I was meant, I was where I was meant to be. I was no longer meant to be there. It wasn’t home anymore, but it felt very challenging to fully sever those ties in my mind. when I went back just like two, three weeks ago, ⁓

Jen Cudmore (16:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

right.

Rosalynn Lasley (17:04)
And I think this is like the third or fourth time I’ve been back since we’ve moved. It did not feel like home anymore, but not in a bad way. was like that ⁓ door finally felt closed to me. Like I was coming back to visit, but this wasn’t home. And I didn’t miss it in that regard anymore. It did feel like I was just visiting. ⁓ And so was nice to finally have that piece where it didn’t feel like I was trying to make something fit that didn’t belong anymore.

Jen Cudmore (17:09)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

That’s such a great way to say it. When you’re letting go, then you stop trying to make it fit. I love that wording. And I feel similar. When I finally came to the place of full release with my kids, they’re doing what they’re meant to be. They’re right where the Lord has called them to be. They’re in His will. So it’s OK that they’re not home with me anymore. I can be happy. I can be content with that. OK, so maybe I’m not.

blogging anymore, but you know, I’m doing these other things for the Lord. I’m in a ministry in different ways. And so, yeah, the old doesn’t fit anymore and being okay with that and shifting into the new ⁓ and trying it on and growing into it because it in transition, the old and the familiar felt like it fit, but it no longer fits.

Rosalynn Lasley (18:10)
Yeah.

Right.

Jen Cudmore (18:21)
The new, the unfamiliar doesn’t fit yet either because you’re still shifting and growing into it. So yeah.

Rosalynn Lasley (18:25)
Right. Yeah. It’s

like, you know, kids that when they hit those growth spurts, they trip over their own feet because they’re not used to their center of gravity anymore. It’s very much felt like that. Like, this doesn’t fit me anymore, but I don’t know what does.

Jen Cudmore (18:32)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so good. Great language. Thank you for saying it like that. All right, so ⁓ I’ve been pondering this one and I don’t know that I have a good answer, but what are your thoughts around this question? Why do humans crave certainty so much?

Rosalynn Lasley (18:45)
Yeah.

I think it’s safe.

For me, it’s like you’re afraid of being hurt, of like emotionally, maybe some people even physically. But if we know what to expect, we can predict the outcome and it gives us that sense of safety and security that we just crave. I think that’s just in our nature, but we apply it to an earthly security and it’s meant to be like a heavenly security.

Jen Cudmore (19:24)
That’s great. think faith feels risky, right? Because if we don’t see it, how do we know it’s coming?

Rosalynn Lasley (19:28)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Cudmore (19:30)
how do we know we’re going to get what we want or like maybe we’re not going to get what we think we deserve and so we don’t trust that we’re safe because we can’t see it, we can’t feel it, it’s not tangible and so faith is risky like we’re afraid to believe in something that’s intangible but that’s what faith is right it’s it’s hoping and trusting in in what we can’t see what we don’t know just yet ⁓ and so you know i think also there’s this

Rosalynn Lasley (19:42)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Jen Cudmore (20:00)
prevalent lie in our culture that talks about, if God loved me, then he wouldn’t let these bad things happen to me. And that’s not how life works, right? It’s ⁓ like humans have free will. And then also there’s the idea of sometimes we have to suffer to become a better version of ourselves. That’s just how the world works, whether we like it or not. ⁓ And so

Rosalynn Lasley (20:10)
Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (20:24)
That’s not to say that he wants bad things to happen to us. It’s a matter of his perspective is very different from ours. ⁓ so yeah, faith feels risky. We’re not always going to get what we want. Change is hard because we can’t guarantee that the things that we want or that we hope for. But so yeah, so that’s why we crave certainty. That’s kind of my thoughts around it.

Rosalynn Lasley (20:36)
Yeah.

And I

think really the fear may also be dependent on somebody’s background. So for somebody that’s been through traumatic life where they’ve had more significant, seasons of difficulty, whether it’s physical health or having their needs met or, you know, going to bed with a full stomach every day, there may be a lot more fear in ⁓ trusting and having faith as needed versus somebody whose needs are always met because

It hasn’t been as risky, you know that there isn’t a whole lot to lose on the other end. You have the ability to stand on your own feet. And so, I don’t know, I feel like it’s really depends on the person too and what your history is.

Jen Cudmore (21:30)
Absolutely. Because we all have weaknesses in different ways and we’ve all experienced different bad things. there’s a plethora of all the bad things we’ve had to go through. So our experiences are very different.

Rosalynn Lasley (21:37)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (21:42)
So it goes back to the whole idea that because it feels out of control, we try to control it, right? Because that control makes us feel safe and secure. And faith is the opposite of trying to control things. It’s letting go, which I for most of us is not an easy thing to do. All right, another question. How do you know when God is calling you into something new?

Rosalynn Lasley (21:54)
Yeah. Yeah.

No.

For me, that typically comes from a place of discomfort, which seems kind of ironic because the new season itself is uncomfortable. But because I crave familiar and safety and I struggle a lot with being anxious, the only way that I will make a move is if I am forced because I’m uncomfortable. So a current example of that would be… ⁓

back in September and then again at Christmas time, I had filled out these prayer request cards at church and then the prayer team committed to pray over it for a year that the Lord would allow us to buy a home in 2026 and provide roots and a foundation for our family because the home that we’re in, we’ve been in a while, but it’s a rental and so it still feels very temporary and transitional. But it was a big prayer because in our own doing, there’s absolutely no way that we could afford to buy a house.

I didn’t think my credit score was even good enough to get approved for a house and yada yada yada. So then in the peak of the busy season at work, ⁓ our property manager reached out and said, hey, the homeowners want to sell the house is going to go on the market April 15th. So it’s like, okay, I work for a tax firm. This is the worst possible time to have to move. ⁓ Where are we going? What are we doing? Can we even get a house? Do we have enough money for a security deposit if we can’t buy a house?

But had God not forced that, we wouldn’t have pursued being able to purchase a home because we would have just stayed here. We would have renewed our lease. We would have just stayed with what was comfortable and familiar. And we would have missed the blessing in him answering that prayer that I had been praying and I had asked the prayer team to pray had we not been forced to move. Because I wouldn’t have looked to see if we could buy.

This season, of course, is uncomfortable. Nobody wants to have to pack and move and switch schools for kids and all of that stuff. But in the end, we desire to be able to set down roots and a foundation for our family that isn’t temporary after four years of being here. But in order for us to do that, God has made us uncomfortable first. He’s like, okay, you gotta get out of the place that you are, or I’m never gonna be able to answer your prayer.

Jen Cudmore (24:19)
Yeah, that’s good. I think for me, a lot of times like God will actually say, hey, this is what I want. But we don’t always listen. Like specifically I’m thinking of when I knew he wanted me to move into management, ⁓ it was really easy to brush it off. Like there’s no position open, I’m not ready and all the things. so he would…

Rosalynn Lasley (24:30)
Hmm.

Jen Cudmore (24:45)
he would, he said it to me directly, but then also like he would say it through other people like my husband and one of my friends. They’re both like, why aren’t you pursuing leadership at work? And I was like, no, no, no, no. And so when the position became available and I had to have my, application, my resume in within, I think I had like five days to decide if I wanted to apply. And I was like, my gosh, this is happening fast.

Rosalynn Lasley (25:04)
Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (25:07)
But he had already been preparing me for like six months, like, you need to get ready for leadership. I want you to move into upper management. you know, so he does make it clear. He does say it to us. We’re just not always good at listening, I think. ⁓ But then also, sometimes he makes things fall apart on us, right? He makes things not work any longer. You mentioned something about the discomfort of being where where you were. ⁓

Rosalynn Lasley (25:21)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (25:35)
Wasn’t bad enough to make you actually take the step and so God sometimes will have to stir it up and make it harder on you make it more painful

Rosalynn Lasley (25:42)
Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (25:43)
because pain moves us a lot of times and so But I think for me in general most of the time when it comes to the concept of is God telling me to move or make a change I really like I just kind of feel like this restless stirring inside of me. It’s alright. I guess it’s not so much in my chest It’s more kind of in my belly. I don’t know. I just kind of feel like ⁓

Rosalynn Lasley (25:45)
Right.

you

Yeah, me too.

Jen Cudmore (26:06)
Restlessness. And that’s one of the ways that I had a mentor explain it to me like 10 years ago. She’s like, know, God’s calling you to transition or to level up when you when you start feeling this anticipation or this kind of restlessness inside of you. And you’re like, something’s going on in the atmosphere. Something’s going on in the supernatural. I just can’t tangibly make sense of it yet. So. Yeah,

Rosalynn Lasley (26:16)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Right. I experienced that same thing. Yeah,

for sure. You’re like, it’s that, you know, people say you can trust your gut, but it really, that’s for a reason. Like you feel that internal stirring that is like, there is an unease here. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something has to give something is just different. And then it gives us that sense of curiosity that opens us up to being willing for the.

Jen Cudmore (26:40)
Yes.

Rosalynn Lasley (26:53)
to pursue the change because we’re curious about like, why do I feel this way? What’s going on here?

Jen Cudmore (26:57)
Yes, exactly. You explained that so good. All right, so one more question. What has transition taught you about God’s character? I love this question.

Rosalynn Lasley (27:10)
I think for me, it’s been that life is ever-changing and the Lord is not. ⁓ He is constant and predictable and faithful and just and good and comforting and every positive attribute that you can think of. He is those things and those things don’t change even when our circumstances do. He wants so much more for us than we can ever even fathom or ask ourselves.

Jen Cudmore (27:28)
Yeah.

Rosalynn Lasley (27:37)
Like, I think of how good he has been to me and, you know, what led to us moving really was praying for healing for me and I didn’t even know what that meant at the time. I just knew that I couldn’t continue the way that I was. ⁓ But he has given so much more than I could have ever dreamed in praying for healing. It has been beyond more than I could ever think or ask. And he’s always good like that. ⁓ Even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time, he…

Jen Cudmore (28:02)
Yep.

Rosalynn Lasley (28:06)
I don’t know, it’s just, I find myself at a loss for words trying to explain the goodness of God. He’s never let me down, even when it seemed like it for a brief moment.

Jen Cudmore (28:17)
And that’s it for me. The biggest takeaway that I have learned, I would say, is that God is dependable. He is absolutely dependable and faithful, and we can trust him because he is good. His plans for us, his purpose for us is meant to give us hope, to give us a good future, right? So all the change that we’ve gone through,

Rosalynn Lasley (28:27)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Cudmore (28:39)
He takes care of us. He watches over us like in so many ways and if we would stop trying to control everything, I mean, I think like the whole reason I started the podcast is because God

Rosalynn Lasley (28:47)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Cudmore (28:52)
took me from this place, this really tiny, small life where I had settled because it felt safe. He began to push back on that and be like, Jen, there’s more, right? There’s more. If you will let go, if you will stop trying to have control of everything, if you will step back and let me do some things in your life, then you are going to experience so much more and your life is gonna be so much more fulfilling. ⁓ it was true when I let him start,

Rosalynn Lasley (28:59)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Jen Cudmore (29:22)
bringing change and transition and I started taking risks and I started like making myself trust no matter how hard it was. and he likes when we depend on him.

Like he likes helping us. So for us

Rosalynn Lasley (29:33)
Right. Right.

Jen Cudmore (29:35)
to try to control everything and do everything ourself is so silly. Like we’re taking that away from him. He wants to take care of us. He wants to bless us. And so that’s the biggest takeaway for me, I think, is that he is absolutely faithful and dependable. And I think the other thing too, and you touched on this already, is just we’re never alone. Like it doesn’t even matter.

Rosalynn Lasley (29:55)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Cudmore (29:57)
how difficult it is or how awful or how like painful and sad every change that we encounter he goes through that with us he is holding our hand half the time he’s he’s holding us like carrying us you know like that old saying of the footprints in the sands like his presence if we will if we will let him and we will lean in to it his presence his help is so tangible and like we can literally sense him

Rosalynn Lasley (30:09)
Right.

Yeah.

Jen Cudmore (30:26)
every step of the way in every every aspect. So it’s just beautiful.

Rosalynn Lasley (30:30)
Yeah.

As you’re talking, I was just thinking of like a small child in a big crowd or a parking lot where they’re holding tightly to their parents hand or an adult’s hand. The world can be zooming by crazy fast and unpredictable and reckless and chaotic, but we find safety holding on to the one that’s stable and provides and protects. And if we know that if we’re holding tightly to their hand, we’re okay, regardless of what’s happening all around us.

Jen Cudmore (30:40)
Yeah.

Rosalynn Lasley (30:59)
How many times have we done that in life where we’ve either held somebody else’s hand or our child’s hand? You’re not gonna get lost if you hold my hand. You’re not gonna get by a car if you hold my hand. You’re not gonna disappear or end up with the wrong person if you hold my hand. But you have to keep holding my hand.

Jen Cudmore (31:14)
Yeah.

I love that picture, thank you for that. I think it reminds me of how many times has God said to me, keep your eyes on me, keep your eyes on me, focus on Jesus. And I mean, I’m sure I’ve written that in my journal a hundred times, hundreds of times. And just the importance of not letting all this out here ⁓ get me all off guard, but to really keep… ⁓

Rosalynn Lasley (31:24)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Cudmore (31:41)
Like you use the word stable, God is stable. And if we will hold on to that, he can be that firm foundation when life feels chaotic and life feels, you know, scary and difficult and we’re feeling vulnerable and just all the things. yeah, definitely God is pretty amazing. There are no words like you said.

Rosalynn Lasley (32:01)
Yeah, yeah, I find

myself looking back on, we’re almost to that chapter of permanence, you know, we’re getting ready to buy a house, we’ll move in like two weeks ish.

Jen Cudmore (32:08)
Yeah.

So

exciting.

Rosalynn Lasley (32:13)
But that’s finally at the end of this, what has felt like a long, gradual transitional stage in life. ⁓ But if you would have told me four years ago, for one, how long it was gonna take, like four years before I really felt stable, that’s crazy. I don’t know if I wanna do that. But if you would have told me how good it would be and how healing it would be and how much growing I would have done and how much tighter our family unit would be and.

all of the different ways that we’ve been blessed in this season, I never would have believed you, because it feels like so much more than I could have ever asked for. And so when it feels heavy and uncertain and completely changing, and absolutely everything you’ve ever known is different, and you can look back and say thank you, that just shows you how much the Lord loves you and wants the best for your life.

Jen Cudmore (33:07)
That Bible verse, Ephesians 3.20 is so true. Just the idea that God can do immeasurably, immeasurably, we can’t measure it than what we could ever ask him or even imagine him capable of. And he does that when we choose to lean into change and let him take control and let him have his way in our lives. He does amazing things for us that we wouldn’t have even thought up.

Rosalynn Lasley (33:34)
Yeah. And it just leaves me speechless. And this is just one little small season in a big grand scheme thing of life. this four years is a drop in the bucket compared to the, you know, if I lived to my eighties or nineties, that’s just a little tiny piece of that whole big life. ⁓ And so if he has blown my mind in this small season that has felt big and heavy at times.

Jen Cudmore (33:46)
right.

That’s right.

Rosalynn Lasley (33:58)
I can only imagine looking back over the course of my life and seeing multiple times that he has done those things where he’s blown my mind because I chose to trust him.

Jen Cudmore (34:08)
I agree. All right, any final thoughts on the idea of change, transition, moving into the unknown before we wrap up our two-part series on change?

Rosalynn Lasley (34:19)
I just say,

mean, you can trust a certain stable God, even if you can’t trust anything else in your life.

Jen Cudmore (34:27)
Yep, that’s right. so as you go about this week, let’s explore the depths of this final thought.

How do you handle change normally? And what are the things that you’ve learned in going through seasons of transition? How have you grown? And in this current situation that you’re going through right now, are you resisting?

Or are you partnering with the Lord and letting it happen? Are you letting go of the old and embracing the new? How can you lean in in this season, in the areas where God is asking you to change? What can you learn? And especially, how can this deepen your relationship with God? Bless you, friend. I hope you have an amazing week. We’ll see you next time.

Rosalynn Lasley (35:08)
Bye.