Ask Me Anything: My Spiritual Journey Pt.1
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If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know I heavily rely on faith and it’s a huge priority in my life. Lately, I’ve been talking and sharing about it more than I ever have, which has brought a couple of questions to consistently show up in my DM’s.
From questions about the Bible study I am posting to Instagram, to whether or not I consider myself to be religious, I talk ALL about it in this episode.
And if you want to check out my journaling from my Bible 365, I have a highlight on my Instagram, so you can easily go check it out and follow along with me! I would love, love, love, for you to join me on this journey.
If you loved this episode, you’ll also love…
Episode 97: 3 Reminders About Changing Your Body and Episode 29: 10 Things I Wish I Knew Sooner.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace a real. Let's get it, let's go.
Hello and welcome back to another bonus episode of the Embrace Your Real podcast. I am so grateful that you are here spending a few minutes with me today. I'm really excited about today's episode. If you've been following me on the Gram, you know that faith is a huge priority in my life and recently I've just felt this tug, especially in 2021, to just be more open and transparent about sharing God's truth and sharing kind of what God is revealing to me through His word and scripture. That has allowed me to have some really amazing conversations in my DM box and I have had a lot of frequently asked questions. So I thought I would take some time today to answer two of the top frequently asked questions regarding my spiritual journey.
But before I do, I have to share this super sweet review. It comes from CharityANicole1981. She says, "Love, love, love. I recently discovered this podcast thanks to a friend's recommendation and I already can't get enough and I've listened to several episodes. So much truth, caring, and wisdom." Thank you so much for the review. If you have an Apple Podcast, if you just take out the Apple Podcast, type in "Apple Podcast app," and then you'll be able to type in Embrace Your Real. It's a completely free app, make sure you hit subscribe. You can also rate and review, that really does help us out so, so much. All you got to do is scroll all the way down to the bottom when you're on the Embrace Your Read podcast, you'll scroll through all the episodes, you'll see the rate and review, and that really does help us out so, so much, thank you in advance if you do that.
Okay. So let's dive in. The first question that I have been asked a lot recently about my faith is, "Have you always been religious and what is your religion?"
I wouldn't consider myself religious, but I am a Christian and I have a relationship with Jesus Christ and believe him to be my Lord and savior. With that being said, I did grow up in a Christian household and I grew up going to a non-denominational Christian church and then was very much involved in Young Life, which is a ministry for kids. They primarily focus on middle and high school students and so in high school, I lived with my mom starting my junior year of high school. It was just me and my mom in the house, my sister had gone to college, my parents had already been divorced, and so we really turned that house into a girl's house. It was so cool. It was in the center of town. For those of you who didn't know, I grew up in a very small town here in Colorado. There was only one high school, one middle school, and three elementary schools. It just allowed our house to really be the place for my friends to come.
We got really heavily involved in young life. They have what was called Grilled Cheese Wednesdays, so on Wednesdays, we would host kids during lunchtime, so during both lunch periods, we would do unlimited grilled cheeses. Anybody from our high school could come and get a free grilled cheese. It was just a time to hang. Then there was also Young Life nights during the weeks. Once a week, we would have kids come over to our house and just a time to play games, to worship, to hear a word, and just be in community with one another. Very heavily involved in Young Life.
Then once I graduated high school, I actually went for a month and I served at a Young Life camp. There's camps of Young Life all across the country and this specific one was in Buena Vista, Colorado, and it's called Frontier Ranch. It holds a special place in my heart, but I went up there for a month right after I graduated, like a week after, and served in the dining hall. It was really, really fun. Throughout those four weeks, we had four different sets of campers come and I myself was a camper, so I knew the experience before I actually served at the camp. Super fun.
Yes, I did grow up in a Christian household, grew up going to Bible study. I really truly believe that that's why I was so intentional about remaining pure until marriage. I feel like even though I had so many ups and so many downs before I met Joshua, my now husband, I feel like because of my faith, that's really why I am where I am today. I mean, even in my eating and body image disorder, God led me every step of the way and every time that I was struggling, I knew and felt comfort in God and His word specifically.
Then also in college, I was very much connected to a church in my college town. I went to CSU, Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and so I was very much involved in churches up there. I always had roommates that were in Campus Crusade and Navigators, but that doesn't mean to say I very much struggled in college, especially with my eating and body image disorder and just finding my identity and talking to men and dating men and that's a huge part of my testimony. I really believe that the Lord kind of woke me up.
I've talked about this on my Instagram before, but the end of my junior year there of college, I had gone previously about a year before gone through a very, very intense breakup. I was with that man and for the longest time that I had been dating anybody in my life. I thought I was going to marry him and it really just broke my heart, but I really believe that that was so pivotal in my journey of finding my real husband, Joshua. During that time, I just felt like the Lord really wanted me to quiet my heart and commit myself to a year of singleness. I talked about this more on my Instagram and I could actually probably do a whole podcast episode on this, if you're interested, let me know, send me a DM, send me a comment, something to let me know. But I feel like during that year, my senior year of college, I really came to know the Lord a lot more closely and just felt secure in His presence and knowing that He was preparing a man beyond my comprehension, that was everything that I didn't know I needed. That's exactly what happened. It was longer than a year.
I kind of shared this on my Instagram that I, after 12 months was like, "All right, Lord, I am ready to meet my man. I have committed myself to a year of singleness," and I didn't actually end up meeting Josh until about, I want to say it was 14 to 16 months. There was a four- to six-month waiting period after that year that I felt like I was doomed you guys. I was like, "I'm never going to meet him." Anyways, it's pretty incredible how the Lord allowed us to meet and just my story with my husband, he's 100% deaf. I had never met a deaf person in my life. Again, whole nother episode I could talk about, but with that being said, yes, I did grow up in a non-denominational Christian household. But of course I struggled just like anybody struggled. I had so many ups, so many downs, so many times that I turned to my sinful nature and I'm just so, so grateful that God's grace is enough.
The second question that I've been getting a lot is, "What is the Bible study that I'm doing and posting on my Instagram?" I'm actually reading the Bible in a year and I've never actually read the Bible in its entirety in a full year in and of itself. I've always tried it and I gave up one or two, or honestly, I think the longest I got was maybe three weeks. I was like, "There's just no way," and I just feel like it all comes with maturity too and recognizing what priorities I have in my life. My spiritual walk with the Lord is my number one priority above everything else. Above my fitness, above even my husband. People, they always wonder, "How can you prioritize your relationship with God above your husband, the one that you're supposed to love the most in this life?"
I feel like once you really start growing in your relationship with the Lord, you realize that when you are closest to God, you're able to be closest to your husband because marriage is such a spiritual union. I believe that the closer I get to God, the closer I am to Joshua, and it's an amazing thing what can happen.
But anyways, I am reading the Bible in 365 days and I can single handedly tell you it has transformed me even in the last 49 days, I'm on day 49, we started, I believe on January 6th. It has transformed my perspective in so many ways. I actually just finished reading the entire book of Genesis. Anyone who tells you, and this is me, you guys, I used to think the Old Testament was outdated, it didn't have any relevance, and that was just me being naive because there are so many incredible stories of God's faithfulness and character throughout many different people in the Bible. It is just amazing what God has done and just the story of Jesus and the story of so many different people. I'm now in Exodus and just reading Moses's journey of leading the Israelites through the Red Sea and now getting the 10 Commandments, it is such a beautiful story.
For me, what I actually have found to be super helpful with this Bible in 365, basically every morning I get a text and it just says like, "Hey, these are your daily readings," and I'm not going to lie. It takes me probably 45 minutes to an hour, but like I always say, if you want to prioritize something in your life, you have to carve out time for it and it might not always look pretty and it might require you getting up 15, 30, or 45 minutes earlier just to get it done but it's so important that you stick with it because I believe that when you're faithful in spending time in God's word and praying and journaling, He will reveal things to you that you wouldn't be able to see otherwise simply because you're being intentional.
It all goes back to things that I've talked about before. Gratitude, really spending time, just processing what is happening in your life and taking time out of your day to be grateful for all the things that you do have instead of focusing on all the things that you don't have or want to have. For this Bible reading, I have found having the NIV Life Application Bible, I can actually link it below, but the New International Version Life Application Bible is the Bible that I personally read and I have found it so, so helpful because prior to getting this Bible, I personally had just felt very disconnected with what the Bible was actually trying to say, what the narrative was in the context, but having this Life Application Bible, it really breaks down scriptures in a very applicable way, so sharing the context of what the scripture is talking about, and then also application that you can apply on a daily basis.
I can't tell you how many times I was highlighting stuff in Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus, and I'm like, "Wait, what? I never thought that these books were as relevant as they are to our everyday life." That is what I use on a daily basis for the Bible reading. It's so incredible. Again, I will link it below, but it just gives you a fuller picture of what's actually trying to be taught in the context of God's word.
Those are the two most frequently asked questions. I hope that this maybe inspired you or encouraged you. I know for me, I remember hearing so many other people going through the Bible in a year and just feeling very overwhelmed. If you're feeling overwhelmed, or if you want to maybe have a book to start with, I will also link this below. It's called the Halley's Bible Handbook. Inside this Halley's Bible Handbook, it will allow you to just learn a lot more about the Bible and its context. There's maps and photographs and illustrations and all of those things. You can get it on Amazon, I think you can get it pretty much any bookstore, but I will go ahead and link that and the Bible that I use daily, as well as the Bible reading plan. I know that we are, as I'm recording this towards the end of February of 2021. You can totally sign up at any time and start reading the Bible. I truly, truly encourage you to do so. It has single-handedly transformed the way that I approach life in every sense that I can say. It has just been incredible to just allow myself to read God's word.
Previous to this year, I would always read a devotional and I have nothing against devotionals, but I just found that I was just relying on the devotion itself and not diving into God's word and I feel like God can really speak to you on such a personal level when you yourself are intentional about diving into His word, because there is endless promises in there and wisdom for you to attain as you read His word.
Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope that you found this helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to DM me, JulieALeadbetter on Instagram. I am always happy to help, happy to be here, answering any questions that you have. I love you so so much, and I will talk to you guys in the next episode.
All right, sister, that's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you're not already following me on the Gram, be sure to do so, JulieALedbetter. Yes, it's with an A in the middle, for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world and I'm going to leave you with one last