Lauren Gaskill

Encouraging women to live in faith and joy

 

lauren gaskill

encouraging women to
go deeper in faith and live in joy

Purchase Lauren's New Book

Into the Deep
Diving Into a Life
of Courageous Faith

a note from lauren

Welcome, dear friend! Whether we’ve known each other for years or are just meeting today, I am so glad you are here. Here’s one thing you need to know about me: I have a heart and passion for encouraging women to fight for faith and keep the hope of Christ alive in their hearts. Together we can push back the dark and shine bright as we rely on the joy of the Lord to be our strength for every day He blesses us with.

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Waiting with Expectation

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I’ve been waiting for something for more than three years now. It’s something God has spoken over me countless times, through His Spirit and through people who don’t even know me. While I haven’t seen the fulfillment of everything yet, I know it’s coming and I’m learning more and more with each day how to wait and walk in a way that honors and brings glory to God.

About a month ago, I realized I hadn’t heard from God in awhile regarding this thing I’m waiting for. And so, with hands lifted during church one day, I asked Him: How long, Lord? How much longer do I have to wait for what I know is coming — what you’ve promised to me?

The words of His reply weren’t audible, but left a deep impression on my heart. Not yet, my daughter. But soon. Very soon, he said.

OK, Lord. OK. I’m going to stand in faith for soon. I don’t know what that looks like but I’m going to surrender, believe and wait with expectation. I replied.

Surrender, believe and wait with expectation. Of all of the things I’ve done while waiting on God the last several years, I think these three actions are the most essential — especially waiting with expectation. You see, this isn’t a passive kind of wait but a wait that stands in faith and worships and believes and calls things that are not as if they were. Because even when things look dark, we have a light shining on the inside that can expel darkness when we speak the truth in faith.

Beloved, we might not always know how God is working in our wait, but He is. And he hears every prayer and catches every tear.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.” -Jeremiah 29:11

If you’re in need of a fresh word from the Lord in the middle of your wait today, here’s what I want you to do. Listen to She Found Joy’s latest podcast series, “Waiting on God.” Draw near to God. Don’t stop praying. Praise Him always. Don’t speak to God about your problem — tell your mountain to MOVE! Stand on His Word and keeping singing until all the walls fall down and the waters calm to a still. He will do it, for the Lord changes not and He is the ever faithful, ever true God.

When You’re in the Middle of a Miracle

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To the woman who is waiting on a miracle: The below photo of me proclaiming God’s faithfulness was taken the day before my health took yet another nosedive this year. After seeing progress and healing in some areas of my life, things fell apart again and the enemy quickly swooped in to try and make me believe the lies he’s been whispering to me over the last 10 years.

lauren gaskill christian woman speaker

“God didn’t actually mean He was going to physically heal you when He asked you to believe He would. If He hasn’t healed you by now, He’s not going to. Your life has always been and will always be a fight. You’re never going to have your old life back. You are genetically messed up and there’s nothing you can do to fix that.” Day and night, I have been tormented by these evil messages and the temptation to give into them is great.

To make matters worse, the enemy has used people close to me to echo similar sentiments to me.

But I will not be shaken. Because I’m not who I once was, and I’m done settling with accepting the lies that threaten my destiny as a daughter of the risen King.

I’m done identifying myself by a name given to me by man (hEDS), because I serve a Savior who has been given the name above all names: Jesus.

Stepping back over the last week, all of these observations have made me stop and wonder: When did we (myself included at one point) stop believing that by His stripes we ARE healed? Not we will be healed. We ARE healed. Here on earth as it is in heaven. And not just spiritually, but physically and mentally? Body. Mind. Soul. For He already bore our sickness and sin, and the price for our freedom has already been paid. Yes, it is finished (See Isaiah 53:5 and John 19:30)!!

When did we decide that miracles were only reserved for 2,000 years ago? Have we forgotten that Jesus himself said “Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12).

Yes, we are promised suffering. Yes, we are promised trials. Yes, the Lord uses these trials and sufferings to grow us up in Christ Jesus. But life doesn’t — nor should it — stop there. Because BY FAITH, we have been given the victory and the power not just to endure, but to overcome!

I don’t know how the enemy is attacking your faith today, or what miracle he is trying to get you to give up on, but may I remind you that we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved (Hebrews 10:39).

So don’t you give up on a miracle. It’s time to speak to and believe for the impossible and show the world who Jesus was and still is and the grace that is available to us through faith in Him. He is Savior. He is Healer. He is Redeemer. He is the same yesterday, today and forevermore.

Let’s give a shout of praise to our King today and tell Him what we’re thankful for!

I’ll go first, then you can share what you’re thankful for in the comments: I’m thankful for God answering my prayer to take my faith deeper than my feet could ever wander. When I wrote Into the Deep: Diving into a Life of Courageous Faith, I knew God still had so much He wanted to show and teach me about faith (this is coming in book #2!!). The answer to this prayer may have included some trials and heartache, but it is producing something beautiful in me and I’m so excited to see how God will continue to redeem the ashes of my old, broken life and bring healing to things I once thought were impossible to be healed. This is the Good News of the Cross and Blood of Christ. We are not without hope and miracles still abound today — all for His glory, name, honor and fame.

Joy Follows Knowing Jesus

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Please join me in welcoming Amanda Davison to the blog, as she guest posts about finding joy in following after Jesus and cultivating joy in marriage.

I stood hunched over in the middle of our mudroom, helping our toddler get her boots on. Just as I reached my arm out to grab her gloves on top of the washer, my husband walked by, on his way to grab another child’s coat. As he scurried behind me, my hand brushed against his. The touch surprised me, so I looked up and caught a glimpse of his face. It showed a spark of happiness and surprise, and I realized he thought I was reaching out for him, wanting to connect. My heart sank.

In that moment, I felt sad. In part, my sadness was due to my husband’s excitement over such a small gesture. I wondered, is this really the only kindness I’m showing him? Misintended acts of love? What a wife I am! And partly, I felt sad because I didn’t really want him to think I was reaching out for him. I knew it wasn’t right, but it’s how I felt. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking I was reaching out for him because I felt he hadn’t earned it. I’m not reaching out for you when you haven’t reached out for me, I thought.

This encounter caused me to stare straight into my reality–I was not happy. And I hadn’t been for some time. My soul felt stale, and my marriage mundane. I so badly wanted to feel fulfilled in my marriage, but I was too busy being angry at my husband to look for signs of life in other places.

I Had it All Wrong

By this time in our marriage, I knew Jesus. I had a relationship with Him. And the mere fact that I was walking with God made me even more frustrated to not be experiencing joy in my marriage. Wasn’t He supposed to give me joy? I sure didn’t feel it.

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Moving Beyond Brokenness to Experience Breakthrough

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Jennifer Renee Watson joins me today for the first episode in our “Breakthrough” She Found Joy podcast series! Jennifer is an author, mother of two miracle babies and out-of-box minister’s wife. Her passion is to see women experience a real breakthrough and break up with their emotional baggage. Her debut book, Freedom! The Gutsy Pursuit of Breakthrough and the Life Beyond It comes out Feb. 19. You can enter to win a copy by heading over to the She Found Joy Instagram page.

In this episode of the She Found Joy Podcast, Jennifer and I chat about:

  • What true breakthrough is and why we should adapt a breakthrough (not stuck) mindset.
  • Why the Holy Spirit will always be stronger than what tries to break us.
  • How to move beyond our brokenness to move forward in our faith journey.
  • How even in the seasons when we feel like there is no fight left in us, we have someone fighting on our behalf.

P.S. If you’ve been blessed by the She Found Joy Podcast, or if this episode blesses you, it would mean the world to me if you left a review on iTunes. This will help more people find the show and learn more about the joy of Jesus.

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His Love Is Deep

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My husband and I walked hand in hand, away from the shoreline and down Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head, North Carolina, my eyes growing wider with every step we took. The meteorologist on the morning news had warned us that Hurricane Michael was quickly approaching the Outer Banks islands, and the winds had picked up to at least 30 miles per hour.

I squeezed my man’s hand and leaned in close as the pier’s wind turbines whipped and squeaked at rapid intervals above our heads. To my left and right, the waves raged and swirled whitecaps at every angle, creating along with the wind a symphony of chaos and sound. Come midnight, Michael would hit the pier with all of its force and fury, about a month after Florence had threatened to take the islands out.

We reached the end of the pier and I stopped and stared out into the distance, marveling at the magnitude and beauty of the Atlantic stretched out before me.

How wide, how long, how high, and how deep my love is for you, daughter.

The wind and waves should have drowned out any other sound from making its way into my brain, but these words echoed crisply in my mind.

Yes, His love is stronger, wider, longer, higher and deeper than any pier, ocean or hurricane.

God’s Love Will Carry Us

I’ve spent a great deal of my life caught in what I like to call the undertow of doubt, fear and despair. When the waves of chronic pain, depression and anxiety came crashing over my head, I didn’t know how to overcome them, and so I closed myself off from receiving God’s love and believing things would get better. I heard people say His love was strong enough to save me, but after years of battling the same issues and seeing little to no progress, I had hardened my heart to the truth.

I can’t pinpoint the moment when God’s love finally broke through my incomprehension. It’s not as if I woke up one morning and instantly felt God’s love. Instead, much like my unraveling, recognizing and accepting God’s love was a process.

The more I prayed for God to reveal and help me feel His love, the more He showed up in the most amazing ways to woo me back to Him.

There’s not enough space here for me to tell you the many ways God’s love has carried me through the high sea battles I’ve faced over the years, but I will tell you this: the depths of His great love saved and continue to save me from sinking into the undertow of doubt, fear and despair every single day.

I don’t know what high sea battles you are facing today, but I do know that His love can and will carry you too. All it takes is a little courage and a tiny seed of faith that’s willing to say, “OK, God, I can’t face this storm alone, but I’m trusting You and Your love to carry me through to the other side.”

May we all have the power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ today and every day (Ephesians 3:18). And may we declare, right here and now, that the only thing we are going to drown in in this life is God’s deep love — not the deep waters that surround us.

Say it with me: Jesus, I need your love. 

Want to learn more about God’s deep love and go deeper in your faith? Read my new book, Into the Deep: Diving into a Life of Courageous Faith.

Why I Wrote a Book

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into the deep lauren gaskill

“Did you hear about Jessica?” I overheard them whisper.

“She nearly overdosed at a party last weekend and now she’s in a treatment facility,” another added. “Poor thing. How sad.”

Poor thing. How sad.

While I didn’t know the Jessica whom they spoke of, I was pretty familiar with the words they used to describe her. Because every time I looked in the mirror that’s exactly what I said about myself.

I picked up my backpack, not wanting to hear more of their conversation, and beelined it for the library exit. But before my feet could take me down the ramp, I found myself headed for the Christian nonfiction department instead.

At this point in my faith journey and experience with chronic pain, anxiety and depression, I really struggled to read the Bible. In my pain, none of it felt real to me. The stories seemed like a distant fairy tale — something only for people who had it all together and not for someone as messed up as me. Maybe you can relate to feeling this way.

Though I didn’t find what I was looking for that day, later that night I came across an advertisement for Francis Chan’s Crazy Love. After years of praying and pleading for God to take my suffering away, the title of the first chapter stopped me in my tracks: Stop Praying.

Francis writes, “What if I said, Stop praying?” What if I told you to stop talking at God for awhile, but instead to take a long, hard look at Him before you speak another word?”

Now, this might not seem revolutionary to you, but for my 18-year-old self, it’s what God used to begin the healing process in my heart. Let me be clear: I didn’t wake up the next morning and feel completely set free from all of my pain. In fact, life got much worse before it got better about four years after reading the book … but while Crazy Love did not make my life better overnight, the book certainly ministered to me in one of the deepest valleys of my life. And for that, I am forever grateful.

Books are powerful, and it is through this experience that I 1) learned about their potential to change lives and 2) vowed to do the same for someone else by writing a book if it was God’s will someday.

Shortly after reading Crazy Love, I started blogging and finally picked up the Bible in an attempt to revive and go deeper in my faith. And you know what happened? As I dove deeper into my relationship with God, He pulled me up out of the undertow of doubt, darkness and despair, and into a place of joy, hope, peace, freedom and courageous faith as I learned to swim through life with Him.

And He can and will do the same for you if you reach out for Him!

My first book, Into the Deep: Diving Into a Life of Courageous Faith, is the story of God helped me rediscover and go deeper in faith, but it is also a love letter to you. All 201 pages are full of love and encouragement to help you go deeper in your faith journey — whatever you may be going through.

This book is a lifelong book because faith is a lifelong journey. 

This one is for the fighters.
The overcomers.
The ones who want to rise above.
This one is for the one’s who are tired of trying to swim through life’s deep waters on their own.
For the overwhelmed.
For the one who wonders … is there more to life?
For the one who wants to step out of fear and into courage and faith.

Order your copy today, and get ready to exchange fear and frustration for the boldness, courage, and holy confidence that lead to a life of deep faith and joy!

And remember: The waves of life are no match for those who are courageous enough to live by faith.

All my love,
Lauren