Have you ever been folding laundry or sitting in the carpool line when, out of nowhere, you feel that little gut-punch moment of clarity— "Wait… when did I start measuring my worth by everything except what God says about me?" 🫠
You're not the only one. This week on Nourished to Bloom, we're diving into the powerful parable of the prodigal son—and reframing it as our story as women in middle motherhood.
So many of us "wander" in quiet, subtle ways… not by rejecting God, but by forgetting who we are in Him. We hand our worth, our dignity, and our identity over to the world—chasing body perfection, chasing hustle, chasing standards God never asked us to meet. And yet, just like the father in the parable, God is already running toward us with open arms, ready to restore what we've lost.
This episode was born out of a beautiful Holy Spirit moment with a client who leads an apostolate for praying for prodigals. Our conversation opened our eyes to the truth: Middle motherhood might be our prodigal moment—the moment we "come to our senses" and begin our homecoming back to God and to ourselves.
✨ Key Takeaways from Episode 94
- ✨ How the story of the prodigal son speaks directly into the exhaustion, restlessness, and identity fog of middle motherhood
- ✨ The real ways we "squander our inheritance" by giving our worth to the world—diet culture, body pressure, comparison, productivity
- ✨ The Holy Spirit insight that connected this parable to our relationship with food, our bodies, and our sense of self
- ✨ Why this season of life is often our invitation to return—without shame—into the Father's embrace
- ✨ Encouragement to rebuild our identity in God's truth instead of the world's expectations
- ✨ A reminder that our story isn't over… and God is already running to meet us
If you've been feeling a little lost, a little stretched thin, or like you've wandered away from who you truly are, this episode is a gentle, hope-filled homecoming.
📣 Want to go deeper? Watch the Mini Retreat Replay
We invite you to watch the replay of the Writing Your Next Chapter Mini Retreat. If today's episode stirred something in your heart, the retreat will help you:
- reconnect with your identity in Christ,
- clarify what God is inviting you into next, and
- begin rebuilding a foundation rooted in His truth, not the world's standards.
👉 Catch the replay using this link. This is your moment to pause, breathe, and come home to the woman God designed you to be.
Your identity isn't lost. Your mission isn't gone. You're simply being invited back—into the Father's arms, into clarity, into peace, and into the next chapter of your sacred story.
Let's journey home together. 💛✨
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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Have you ever had a moment where you suddenly realize,
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like, I'm not living who I really am?
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Like, maybe it hits you in the carpool line or while you're
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folding laundry, or in maybe one of those rare quiet
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moments when your kids are fully occupied. And it's this
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moment where you think, like, when did I start measuring my worth by
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everything else? Accept what God says about me.
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When did I start chasing all the chaos of the world
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instead of the Father who loves me? I
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totally had moments like that. And so today we're going to talk about a
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story that Jesus gives us for moments exactly like these.
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It's a story about someone who wanders away,
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someone who lost themselves and their journey to
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finding their way back home. And what's really
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wild is that this story has really everything
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to do with middle motherhood and the season you're standing in right now.
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And so today we're going to dive into the parable of the prodigal son
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and discover why this might be your prodigal
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moment too. Welcome to the Nourish to
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Bloom podcast where your faith meets your health. I'm your host,
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Kara Trochta, a registered dietitian and certified Catholic coach, and
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I'm here to help you cultivate a deeper, deeper connection with your body, your
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spirit, and the nourishment that sustains them both. In
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a world filled with noise and confusion about food,
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health and body image, this podcast offers truth and healing from
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a Christ centered perspective. Together, we'll untangle the deep
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roots of diet culture and discover what it means to truly
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care for ourselves through joyful nourishment of mind,
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body and soul. We're here to dive into the transformative power
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of intuitive eating coupled with the rich teachings of our Christian faith.
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With every episode, I'll be cheering you on, offering insights,
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inspiration and practical tools to help you heal your
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relationship with food and embrace the beauty of your body
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as a temple of the Holy Spirit with confidence and
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courage that can only be found in Christ. Join
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me as we journey together towards a more holistic approach to wellness, one
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that honors the wisdom of your body as God's creation, the
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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. Hey there. Welcome back to the Nourish to
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Bloom podcast. So happy to be spending some time here with you this
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week. Full disclosure, I am recovering
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from a cold or something like that, so my voice sounds a
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little funny. I'm super congested. And like, of course, it hits
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the week before all the kids get out of school for Christmas,
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and there's just a million things to do. But
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I'm taking it as the signal of the Lord telling me, like, Kara,
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make sure that you're focused on what is your priority and
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making sure that I'm getting good rest so I can actually enjoy Christmas.
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So many of the other things, the extras that
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were on the docket can 100% fall by the
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wayside. And we are taking it day by day. And,
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I mean, it's funny when you get to these moments and, like, you just really
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start to remember what is most important.
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And we finally got our Christmas tree. We went to our local Christmas
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tree farm and cut it down. And y', all, the Christmas trees in Texas are
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very different. Our quote unquote native Christmas trees are
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Afghan pines or Arizona cypresses. So they're not
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like the pine trees that you find in other parts of the country. But
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we have a lot of fun with that tradition of cutting
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down our Christmas tree. And so we finally got it, and it sat in
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the garage over the weekend. And then I got sick sat Saturday night, and
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yesterday I was just kind of completely worthless. And so I
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asked my husband to put the lights on the tree. And full disclosure,
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he does not do it exactly the way that I want it to be done.
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But, y', all, it is done, and I didn't have to do it, and I
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am so grateful for that. So, anyway, this
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is the season that we are in, and I'm really excited to talk
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to you about this
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moment that I had with the parable of the prodigal son.
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And I've told y' all and I've shared before that, you know, I have these
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moments where the Lord really puts something in my heart and on my mind and
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something to share. And this is another
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example of that. And it's kind of one of those. Those
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moments, those Holy Spirit moments, or when I look back on it, it, like, it
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can give me chills because it's literally something I had
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never thought about before. To kind of lay the context, I was
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in a session with a client, and we were discussing some stuff, and
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I'll kind of get into it, but Literally, I'd never
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made this comparison of the prodigal son and
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with what we do as women. And
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the Holy Spirit literally just put it in my lap to share with her. And,
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like I said, never thought about it that way, but it was one of those,
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like, aha moments, those clarity moments of, like, oh, my
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goodness, how many times am I, the prodigal son, and I
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wander away from the Lord to pursue some other worldly
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desire? And I think this is important because
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really, leaning into the story of the prodigal son can help reframe
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the way that we see the season that we're in, that season of middle
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motherhood. And honestly, it might help reframe
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how you see the way that you are living your entire
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life. And, you know, are you focused on. On
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God? Are you focused on preparing for eternity, or
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are you focused on the worldly desires?
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And so, to get into a little bit more about the story with
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this recent client session, and she has an apostolate
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called Praying for the Prodigals. And it's a ministry that's
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rooted in interceding and praying for children and
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loved ones who have wandered away from Catholic faith.
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And so, as you can imagine, the parable of the prodigal son is
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really close to her heart. It's not just, you know, a piece of
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scripture, but it's really personal. And it. I think
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it really symbolizes the ache and the hope and.
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And the prayer that she carried as she
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prayed for her children to return to the church, and the one that she
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prays and walks with others who are praying for their children
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return to the faith. And so, as she and I were in this session,
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we were talking through some of the struggles that she had been face facing.
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Some around her relationship with food and her body, some around,
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you know, trying to grow the apostolate of what the Lord is calling her to
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do with it. And like I said, the Holy Spirit really
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just dropped something in that session that I think, you
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know, neither one of us really expected. And it was kind of
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this realization that so many of us are living our own version of
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the prodigal story every day. And
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maybe it's not by leaving the church and, you know, not by running
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from God in kind of those dramatic, obvious ways, but
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kind of in that subtle, quiet, daily way that we forget who we
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are. And in the parable, the son takes his
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inheritance, his identity, his belongings,
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his dignity, and he just walks straight out the door, and then he
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squanders it on the world. And, y', all, if we take A moment. And
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we reflect on this. I think this is what so many of us do,
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especially kind of early on in our adult life, you know,
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our 20s and into our 30s, we.
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We kind of. We go to the Lord and. And we know that we're these
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beloved daughters and we know who we are and that we're made in his image.
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And then the very next moment, we take that inheritance.
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We take our worth and we take our identity and
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we run. And we spend it all on the ways of the
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world. We chase a number on the scale. We
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chase productivity to prove our worth. We chase
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body perfection to feel seen. We chase the
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expectations that society hands us, the shoulds. We
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chase being the good mom, the thin mom, the put together mom.
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We chase our value everywhere except for
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the Lord's embrace. And so just like that, prodigal,
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we take our inheritance, our dignity, our belovedness, and we
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hand it over to the world. And we squander it.
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We're squandering it on comparison. We're squandering it on pressure.
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We're squandering it on doing and performing and
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hustling and improving. But this
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is your moment, y'. All. This is the moment when we can all come
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to our senses. Just like the scripture says, he came to his
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senses. It's describing the moment that the prodigal
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son finally sees clearly that
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what he is doing, that that isn't who he is, that it
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isn't where he belongs, and that he is living
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really beneath his identity, his belovedness.
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And like this is that thread that the Holy Spirit really
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wove so clearly during that session is that
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this moment, this middle motherhood moment, is our own prodigal
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moment. It's a moment in our life where things
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have shifted. You know, our kids are growing,
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the dynamics in our house are changing, the noise is
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quieting, at least sometimes. And suddenly it's like this
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moment where you have that realization of you're hearing your own
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heart again. The Lord is putting something in your heart.
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And it's a moment where you can realize, like,
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I've been handing my worth to the world, to all the
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shoulds, to the societal pressures. I've been measuring
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myself by things that God never asked me to measure. And
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I've been living as if I'm farther from the Father than I
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truly am. And so this is that moment where you
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can come to your senses and say, I want to come home
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without shame, without guilt, and without self
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punishment, but with the same confidence
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that Jesus builds into that story that he
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is going to be that father running towards us, that he's going to gather us
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into our arms and rejoice,
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for we have come home and he is
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going to restore our identity.
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In this moment right now, whatever season, whatever struggle, whatever
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chaos you're in, this is your prodigal moment.
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This is the moment where you have the opportunity to say, lord, I'm sorry
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that I've been giving the world what belonged to you, my worth
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and my identity, my heart, my mission,
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and ask him to show you who you are again, to
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show you, you know, what he's calling you to,
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the mission that you have in this middle motherhood season.
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And y', all, he will. He's going to. He already
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is. And he, like, I want you to stop and imagine that he is
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just running to you right now with open arms,
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ready to greet you, rejoicing that you
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have come to your senses and that you are.
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Are ready to come home and be embraced by him and
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live in his love and his guidance.
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And so if this episode resonates with you, like, if you're like, all
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right, like, I can see that this is my prodigal moment. This is the
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moment that I want to
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be fully restored to the Lord. I invite you to take a.
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Take some time and go back and watch the replay of the writing, your
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next chapter mini retreat. Because it's really
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beautiful to be able to walk through kind of this exact
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moment of coming home, to really
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have some clarity, to understand a little bit more about your
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calling, to be able to start
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rebuilding the foundation of your identity all
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within the Father's heart. And so if today's episode
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stirred something in you, if you have felt that Holy Spirit,
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you know, weaving that thread for you, and you're realizing that you've been
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living far from your own belovedness like so many of us have.
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Let the Lord show you who you are and what he's inviting you to
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into this next chapter of your life. You can catch that
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replay by clicking the link in the show description. Y',
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all, this is your homecoming moment. Your story is not
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lost. Your mission is not gone. Your
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identity is not misplaced. You're just simply being invited
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back to the Father, to yourself, and to the
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woman that God created you to be. Thank you so much
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for spending this time here with me. I feel so blessed to be able
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to share this story with you, and I pray that it moves
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something in your heart. And I hope you have a beautiful and blessed
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week. Week. And I will see you next week. Talk soon. Bye.