Have you ever found yourself overwhelmed by decision fatigue — whether it's what to make for dinner, how to respond to a child's meltdown, or discerning your bigger purpose in this season? You're not alone!
In this week's episode, we're diving deep into how the Holy Spirit's gift of counsel can help us choose wisely, align our desires with God's will, and find spiritual freedom and peace in our everyday lives.
Here's a Glimpse of What You'll Discover: 🎁What the Gift of Counsel Really Is: Not just good advice or strong opinions, but allowing the Holy Spirit to guide our conscience and help us make holy, peace-filled decisions.
🤔Discernment Made Simpler: Practical ways to pause and ask, "Does this choice draw me closer to God, or farther away?" — even in the small moments of your day.
⚖️ Motherhood & Right Judgment: How scripture (hello, Matthew 7:1-5!) and self-reflection can help us model patience, humility, and truth for our families.
💪🏻Infusing Wellness with Wisdom: Rejecting noisy, worldly standards about our self-worth, and instead stewarding our health as a reflection of our God-given dignity.
✅Simple, Actionable Steps: Kara breaks down how to invite the Holy Spirit into your daily choices — from quick prayers ("Come, Holy Spirit, guide my choices today!") to examining your conscience, and seeking wisdom from spiritually mature mentors.
The bottom line? The Holy Spirit wants to help you choose well. Let's be women who don't follow the world's way of decision-making, but who seek right judgment, rooted in truth and love.
Join The Nourished to Bloom Community: www.community.karatrochta.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/karatrochta
The Nourished to Bloom Podcast Show Notes: www.podcast.karatrochta.com/shownotes
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You can sometimes feel like discernment trying
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to figure out what exactly it is that the Lord is calling us to
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do. Just making those decisions can just feel
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so overwhelming. I mean, the options
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are endless, the decisions we could make are endless.
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And so it just makes sense that it can feel overwhelming.
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But in today's episode of the Nourish to Bloom podcast, we're going to
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explore exactly how the Holy Spirit's gift of counsel
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can can equip us to choose what's right and help
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us navigate womanhood and motherhood with
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peace and really help us align all of our
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decisions, including our purpose and our passion,
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our motherhood decisions, our relationship choices, as well as our
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wellness choices choices with God's will. And we're going to do
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it in a scripture based way and really incorporating
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some practical, everyday ways for you to invite the Holy
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Spirit to infuse you with with that gift of
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counsel to help you in your decision making so you can
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really experience more clarity and spiritual freedom in
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your everyday life. I can't wait to have you join me.
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Welcome to the Nourish to Bloom podcast where your faith meets
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your health. I'm your host, Kara Trachta, a registered dietitian and
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certified Catholic coach, and I'm here to help you cultivate a deeper connection
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with your body, your spirit and the nourishment that sustains them
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both. In a world filled with noise and
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confusion about food, health and body image, this podcast
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offers truth and healing from a Christ centered perspective.
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Together, we'll untangle the deep roots of diet culture and discover
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what it means to truly care for ourselves through joyful
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nourishment of mind, body and soul. We're here to dive into
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the transformative power of intuitive eating coupled with the rich teachings of our
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Christian faith. With every episode, I'll be cheering you on,
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offering insights, inspiration and practical tools to help
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you heal your relationship with food and embrace the beauty
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of your body as a temple of the Holy Spirit with
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confidence and courage that can only be found in Christ.
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Join me as we journey together towards a more holistic approach to wellness,
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one that honors the wisdom of your body as God's creation,
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the teachings of our faith, and the unique purpose you're called to fulfill.
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You were made to bloom, to come into
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full beauty and health in order to bear good fruit for the Lord with
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your life. So if you're ready to nourish your body, feed your soul
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and bloom into the best version of yourself, then you're. In the right place.
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And I'm so happy you're here. Welcome to Nourish
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to Bloom, where every day is a sacred invitation to
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thrive. Back to the Nourish to Bloom podcast. So happy to be
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spending some time with you this week. I hope you are
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off to a beautiful and blessed week. I will
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have to say that my kids are actually spending a
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week with my mom. They're having, I guess, kind of like a mini camp cousin.
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My sister's kids are there, too, so I kind of have
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a week of freedom, which is interesting because
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it's so hard sometimes to choose what, what exactly I should be
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doing with this week. I don't know if you ever struggle with that, if you
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ever have the opportunity to have, you know, a day or an
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afternoon or even the beauty of a week without
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your kids, you're not having to run them all over the place, entertain
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them, feed them all the things. Now, I will for
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sure definitely miss them. But it's just that
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kind of like. Okay, I can tackle all of these. Things on my to do
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list, or should I use this time to just really, like, rest
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and recover and recuperate? And so sometimes it's just a matter of
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what we're going to talk about today, calling on that gift of counsel to
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help me make this decision. But
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anyway, I'm so glad to be spending some time here with you. And we're
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continuing our Summer with the Holy Spirit series. And
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we're really, you know, this whole series is about some really
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practical ways that we can call upon the Holy Spirit
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to help us in our everyday life, to live our life more
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faithfully, more intentionally, and help
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us grow in holiness and virtue. And like I said,
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today we're exploring that gift of counsel which is
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sometimes called right judgment. So if you've ever
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wrestled with the decision and thought, I just knew what the right thing
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to do was, this episode is for
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you, right? We, I think we do this a lot. Gosh, if I just
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knew what I was supposed to do, I would do it right? So
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that's what the gift of counsel can really help us with. It. It's this ability
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to help us make holy decisions, meaning
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their decisions that we're making. The choices that we are making lead
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us closer to God. And it's not just about getting
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or giving good advice or, you know, having strong opinions.
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It's really about allowing yourself to be guided by the Holy Spirit
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that's dwelling in you. And this having
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this desire to be open to the Holy Spirit,
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helping you see clearly, even in some
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of the confusion and maybe murky parts of
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our Lives. And so let's just kind of talk a little bit about
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what the gift of counsel is. Like I told you I'd been
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listening to this meditation series from Father Dave Pavanka, and
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he puts this beautifully, is that counsel is not about
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our ability to figure things out, but it's about allowing the
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Holy Spirit to move in our conscience and help us
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form our decision. So it really helps us know what is right
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and wrong. It helps us to live out the teachings of Jesus,
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and it helps us to choose what is holy, even when it's
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hard. And so you might know what I mean here, right? Like, have
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you ever made a choice and it just. You had that
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really unsettled, kind of ick feeling afterward, right?
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Maybe it was you snapped at your kids, or
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you chose to eat this food out of guilt, or you said
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yes to something that you knew God was really gently asking you
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to say no to, right? You just kind of get that. That
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ick feeling afterward. Maybe it's you, you know, gossiped about
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somebody behind their back and you're just like, have this kind of unsettled
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feeling in your body, right? And that's really that inner check
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that. That's your. Your conscience being that inner check system
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that you have. And when we surrender this to the Holy Spirit,
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it helps us to grow in that awareness, to not
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choose that again and to choose something else. And as we
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start to allow counsel to really shape and form these decisions,
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we're not only growing in awareness, but we're able to grow in freedom.
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And so I really want to look at this
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idea of counsel in just kind of three areas of life. In
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discernment, in motherhood, and in wellness. Because we
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make dozens, if not hundreds
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of decisions each day, especially as women, from how we respond
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to temper tantrums, to what we feed our families, from how we schedule our
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days, to how we care for our bodies. And it can be just so
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beneficial. It can really be like that easy button
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that we all need to invite the Holy Spirit into all of this.
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So first, let's look at this in terms of discernment, right?
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So I love this because counsel helps us discern between what
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feels good and what is good. And
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I love that because there's such a difference, right? Sometimes we're
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choosing something simply because it just feels good. It
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will make us feel good, even though if it. It might not be exactly what
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is good or what we know the Lord is asking us to choose.
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Because not every opportunity we have is. Is from God. And
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not every yes is holy so we can really stop and
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pause and ask ourselves, does this decision, if I
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choose this, does it move me closer to God, or does it move me away
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from him? Why am I saying yes to this? Is it because of a
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selfish desire I have? Is it because it would make me happy?
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Even though we know that maybe it's not really our greatest
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good, right? So we can really allow and invite counsel into that
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discernment, that decision making process on little
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things as well as big, big things and.
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Okay, now here's how I love how counsel can show up in motherhood.
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If you were to ask my children what
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scripture I probably quote the most to them, they
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would tell you It's Matthew 7, verse 1 through 5.
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First remove the wooden beam from your own eye, then you will see clearly
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to remove the splinter from your brother's eye. I think I
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quote this all the time to my children as they are bickering and
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saying, well, so and so did that and so and so did this,
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and my goodness, if this is just not a
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extremely valuable piece of scripture, not only in parenting
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children, but also for us, right? How
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often do we want to call out somebody else's faults,
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to pass judgment on somebody else without
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first examining our own selves, our own conscience, right?
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So counsel invites us to see our own faults, to become
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aware of our struggles, our sins, our
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weaknesses. And when we can do this, we can invite counsel in.
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We see those wooden beams in our own eyes
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and we can work to become more patient, more intentional,
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more attuned to our kids needs, our family's needs, our
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community, our relationship needs other than like, rather than
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reacting from emotion or fear. And when we use this
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gift of counsel, and we are really living that
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ourselves, right? We are examining our own faults,
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our own limitations and shortcomings. It can be a beautiful guide
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in raising our children in truth and
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faith with gentleness and wisdom, not just
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correction. So take this and run with
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it. If you would need a piece of scripture to help with having
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your children, just really remember that it's not all about them,
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right? That they also have their own limitations, their own shortcomings,
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and that it is not the Lord is not calling
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them to judge other people, to call out their own faults, that
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they first have to, you know, implore this gift of counsel
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to right themselves, right? To
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really have this transformation, to allow
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this council is really a
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practical way for us to really like
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grow in our conscience of heart, right? To better be able
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to inform our free will and make better
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decisions. And I think this is something that's really important for our
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kids to grasp onto, especially in. In today's society where
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they are presented with so much peer pressure and so much confusing and
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conflicting messages. And so lastly, I want to talk
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about how council can show up when we're talking about our wellness. Because when
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it comes to our health, our wellness, our self
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image, our body image, what council really helps us to do is
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to reject that noisy, worldly message that says our worth is
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tied to a number on a scale or our appearance
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or our productivity. Right. Instead, council
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points at back to dignity. It points us back to
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stewardship, to what the Lord,
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the ways that the Lord is calling us to care for our mind,
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body, and our soul. It's not out of shame, but it's really
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out of reverence and respect for the
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one who created us. So if you're like, okay,
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I'm on board with this, this sounds good. But you're like, how do I actually
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do this? Here are just a few practical steps.
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It all starts with prayer. Invite the Holy Spirit into your
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decisions, big or small, right? It's. It's as simple as
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saying, come, Holy Spirit, guide my choices
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today. If you are in the midst of
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summer like we are, and
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yesterday my kids could not
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kindly pick up the playroom. They were really just
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fighting with each other the whole time and saying, well, he's doing this and she's
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not doing that, and so on and so forth. Just inviting the Holy
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Spirit, please help me. How do I navigate this?
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How do I help my children navigate
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this without me losing my temper, without it leading to me yelling because
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y' all. That's a struggle for. For sure in my household.
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So just inviting the Holy Spirit to impart that counsel of how to
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handle just really any situation you may find
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yourself in that you know that if you kind
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of rely on your default, you kind of get that ick factor,
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right? You know, that's not how you really want to handle that, but you really
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need a way out. You need a new solution. And that's where the Holy Spirit
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can really come through for you. Okay, Number two,
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checking your conscience, right? Paying attention
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to those gut level nudge nudges. Maybe the
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peace or that comes or the unrest that comes, the clarity
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or confusion that comes with certain decisions that you make, right? We talk
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about how every, every emotion has a physical
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manifestation in our body. And so if we're paying attention
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to what it is that we're feeling in our body, those are clues
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for us that. Clues that we can go back and we can use them to
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help Analyze the situation. Well, what was I thinking, right?
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What was really the information that I was, I was using to make
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this decision? And is it truthful information? Is it
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God's information or is it from somebody, you know, some
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worldly influence that you made this decision
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out of, right? So those, those emotions and the way they're
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presenting in your body can really help you
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build that self awareness and really help you start to make those
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better decisions to allow your conscience to
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transformed and formed according to the way that the Lord is calling
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us to live. Because we have to remember the Holy Spirit dwells within
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us, that these emotions
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and, and the way that we are feeling is, is a way that it, that
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the Holy Spirit may be speaking to us to help us
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really strengthen that inner sense of truth and
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that inner sense of how God is calling us to live. And
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I think this is also important to couple it with
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examinations of conscience, right? Just kind of looking even daily
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reflecting back on your day and saying, okay, in this situation, I didn't
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handle that very well, or I didn't, I didn't make the best
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decision in this situation and how could I do it differently?
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That's where you can reflect and invite the Holy Spirit to shed light on
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past experiences and help you see a new perspective forward.
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And number three is reading Scripture, right?
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God does not leave us to guess how he wants us to live
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the things that he wants us to do. He has already given us these moral
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guidelines through things like the Ten Commandments,
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reading Jesus's teachings while he was on earth, through, through
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the parables, through the maxims,
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through the Beatitudes, right through his teaching of
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the two greatest commandments. Those all
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point us in that moral direction and help us
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with that grace of the gift of counsel
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to transform and shape
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our conscience to be aligned with God's teachings.
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And then simply just asking yourself, you know, Holy
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Spirit, what leads me towards holiness? Right?
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Because sometimes the right choice is uncomfortable. We talked about this,
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right? It's choosing what is good, not necessarily what feels good.
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And so when we're making these big decisions, a lot of
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times when the Lord is asking us to step out in holy boldness, it can
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seem very uncomfortable and overwhelming.
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This is where he asks us to invite him
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in. Because doing the right thing may be uncomfortable,
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it may require patience, sacrifice or courage,
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but ultimately it's always going to lead you to a place of freedom and
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peace. And then lastly, speak with someone
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spiritually mature, right? We know that God can work
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through other people and that gift of counsel
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can help us discern whether the advice that you're getting aligns
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with his truth, right? If we are
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seeking counsel through other people, making sure that it's
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the right person for. For the advice that you're seeking,
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right? Sometimes when we are making big decisions about,
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you know, our purpose or calling or just kind of
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big life decisions, we can go to our friends, but our friends aren't
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always going to give us that best advice. They're not always
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going to be the person with that gift of counsel
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that we need to hear. It may be needing
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to seek spiritual direction, talking to your pastor,
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a spiritual director, maybe getting some
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coaching or some counseling, someone that can help you
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incorporate and seek that gift of counsel to help you
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discern whatever decision it is that you're
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trying to make. So
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we are always at a crossroads in life daily, right?
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With overwhelmed, overwhelming
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amount of decisions to be made. And we might find ourselves
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in, in these situations quite often, right? We're just
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unsure of how to respond to our kid or unsure how to respond
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to our cravings or whatever it is on our calendar.
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Just pause and breathe and invite the Holy Spirit
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in. Come, Holy Spirit. Because
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when we receive that gift of counsel, we're not just choosing. Well,
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it's really, we're choosing God. We are
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being open to letting us lead, letting him lead us.
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We're participating in a conversation of
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our own hearts and we're allowing him to lead us
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gently but clearly into that
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life that he's calling us to. A life that's more intentional, one
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that has more freedom and peace. So
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again, the Holy Spirit allows us and fuels us
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and equips us to be women who don't follow the
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world's way of decision making, but who seek right
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judgment rooted in truth and love from
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God himself through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
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So I thank you so much for being here with me this week.
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I hope that whatever it is you're struggling with, you can
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invoke that gift of the Holy Spirit of counsel and
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allow you to really infuse that
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grace that you need to make whatever decision it is that you need.
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And know that when that decision is made, that you have called upon the Lord
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to help you make that decision. Thanks again for joining me this week.
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I hope you continue to have a beautiful and blessed week.
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Remember, beauty held is a seed, Beauty shared is the flower is
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your time to bloom. Take care and I will see you
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next week. Bye.