The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast

Kaley: Hi everyone. It's Kaley, and I want to thank Dwell for supporting the Proverbs 31 Ministries podcast. Visit dwellapp.io/proverbs to get a 20% discount and start using your ears to renew your mind. That's dwellapp.io/proverbs for 20% off an annual or lifetime subscription. Now, onto the show.

Well, hello friends and thanks for tuning into the Proverbs 31 Ministries podcast, where we share biblical Truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Kaley Olson, and I'm here with my friend and co-host, Meredith Brock.

Meredith: Well, hey, Kaley.

Kaley: Hi.

Meredith: It's fun to be back in our social-distancing style.

Kaley: Yes.

Meredith: Here in the studio today, because we wanted to record in person with a new friend who our podcast listeners have never met before, but she is no stranger to the ministry here at Proverbs 31. We've got our friend, Alexandra Hoover, in the house. [Crosstalk].

Alex: Hi friend. I'm so glad to be here.

Meredith: We are so excited to have you here today.

Alex: Thank you. I'm so glad to be here.

Kaley: So excited to have you. I want to get something cleared out first of all. Okay, I'm so excited.

On the podcast here. We've got your name written Alexandra, but Meredith has a long name. That's got like a lot of letters. My name isn't long, but you go by Mer.

Meredith: Yep.

Kaley: I go by [Kales] .

Meredith: Yep.

Kaley: So can we just call you Alex, so we're all on a nickname basis?

Alex: Just call me Alex. Yes, call me Alex.

Kaley: Sound good? That's a lot easier than Alexandra.

Alex: Yes.

Meredith: That's many syllables.

Alex: That's a lot of syllables, yes.

Kaley: That's a lot.

Meredith: Alex is great. Let's do that.

Kaley: Okay. So I'm going to tell our listeners what they need to know about Alex, but Meredith—

Alex: Perfect.

Kaley: — After that, I'm going to let you ask Alex any questions that you want [crosstalk] because you have the spiritual gift of questions.

Meredith: Yes, I love it, I'm ready.

Kaley: So Alex is a wife and mom, of not one or two but three kids who are all homeschooling right now.

Alex: Yes.

Meredith: Bless you.

Kaley: Because of the COVID.

Alex: Because of the COVID.

Kaley: She's an amazing Bible teacher and writer. She shares a lot of great content over at her Instagram @AlexandratheHoover, don't forget the V. And she's on staff locally at Transformation Church, and for Proverbs 31, she writes for our Encouragement for Today daily devotions.

And you've been a part of the ministry for what, three years now?

Alex: Yes. Which is wild.

Meredith: Wow, that's awesome.

Alex: Three years.

Kaley: So crazy.

Alex: I know.

Kaley: But I'll never forget my first memory of you. We were at She Speaks. It was 2018 maybe. And I think you noticed that I hadn't eaten in a long time, and you brought me a sandwich.

Alex: I did.

Kaley: And I will never forget.

Meredith: That's a good friend.

Kaley: I know, and so since then, I've been like, “I can count on her.”

Alex: I like her; she's so loyal.

Kaley: Thank you. Eights are so ... both —

Meredith: Alex and I are Enneagram Eights.

Alex: We are.

Meredith: We are so loyal; we take care of our people.

Alex: We do.

Meredith: We can't help ourselves.

Alex: My [crosstalk] was hungry, I brought her a sandwich.

Meredith: It's random question.

Alex: I'm ready.

Meredith: We've already told our listeners, you and I are both Enneagram eight.

Alex: Yes.

Meredith: Which means watch out — we're here to fight, folks.

Alex: We are.

Kaley: I'm fine, I'm fine, everyone.

Alex: In Jesus' name

Meredith: [Crosstalk] Pray for Kaley. But, Alex.

Alex: Yeah.

Meredith: We have something in common. We are both from an obscure place. Where are you from?

Alex: I am actually from Anchorage, Alaska.

Meredith: Alaska.

Kaley: I don't think I knew this.

Meredith: It's wild.

Kaley: I learned something.

Meredith: Alaskans are raised as eights maybe. [Crosstalk] It’s like “survival of the fittest” out there.

Alex: Yes. Very real.

Meredith: Tell our listeners a little bit about your background, because I think it's important for them to know a little bit where you came from. So that's my second question, is tell them a little bit about yourself, what life was like in Anchorage, Alaska.

Alex: Gosh. Okay. In Cliff Notes version. We'll say that.

Meredith: Yeah. That's good.

Alex: So I grew up from the age of about 10 in Alaska. And a lot of what Anchorage and Alaska is, it's beautiful. And most of us know it for glaciers and snow.

Meredith: Whales.

Alex: Whales, right? The dolphin [Crosstalk].

Meredith: Moose.

Alex: Moose. It's super exciting. What a lot of people don't know is that Alaska has one of the highest rates of drug abuse, drug use, addiction, suicide, depression, anxiety, any type of mental illness. It's the top ranking in the United States. And so as a child, I encountered a lot of that there and our family did. And so that is kind of what my life looked like growing up there. Apart from just trauma from my childhood in general, Alaska was that for me. So oftentimes my friends will joke and say, one day, I'll go back up to Alaska, and do a teaching, and that'll be like my redemption for like my whole life. ‘Cause every time I think about it, I'm like, "Oh, I'm not ready yet. I don't actually want to go back. I actually don't." But it's what God used to really sharpen me and —

Meredith: To form you.

Alex: — to form me. And it informs so much of who I am, and my convictions and my passions. And I saw the fire do a lot in me while I was there.

Meredith: It's good. It's good, man. Nothing like a literal wilderness.

Kaley: Actual wilderness.

Meredith: Like literal actual wilderness.

Kaley: Actual wilderness.

Meredith: To form your character, and for God to use, to draw out in you the things that He wants to surface. That's so good. So, so, good.

Alex: Thanks.

Kaley: Well I think, whenever you said Meredith, seeing how God can use a season to draw things out of you. I feel I've seen God use Alex on Instagram so much lately. She's like a fireball on the Instagram stories. And that's actually why we asked her to be on the podcast today, is because I was watching her on Instagram, and I texted you about it. And I was like, “I think that this would be a good topic for the podcast.” And the topic is about leaning into our discomfort. And so, I don't really know what I was thinking, when I said, "Let's do a teaching on this because this is going to open up a can of worms." But I feel like we need to hear what the Lord has shown Alex about this topic.

And I feel like we need to talk about it. And so Alex, the floor is yours now, and so you are free to go into your teaching. And we'll be here taking notes.

Alex: I'm excited. So funny, right? God is so intentional with our time and our seasons, and our words in life. So this morning actually, and I'm probably going to go ahead and cry. Surprise, surprise.

Meredith: That's okay.

Alex: This morning... So my kids are in e-school, or e-learning we should call it. And my son [Kingston] is also a fireball and carries very deep convictions. He's me, just male. I could feel the tensions and his discomfort level rising. He's really overwhelmed; he's tired. And he started acting out of character, and this morning ... And the Lord connected it for me on my way here. I told Kingston something in the kitchen, I said, "Honey, whenever your discomfort level rises, you cannot begin to act out. And I need you to focus on who you are in Christ in you." And that, for me, connected so much of the season that we're in as the local church as the people of God.

Man, what happens when we're pressed, when our discomfort rises, when the levels begin to overwhelm us, we begin to act out, put very simply, as humans.

Meredith: Oh my goodness.

Alex: And my son, who’s seven, he was doing it. And I'm like, "Man, that's me." I'm overwhelmed. I'm stressed. I'm acting out of pocket from my image-bearing identity, and who I am in Christ. And God began to speak to me on the way here, and He reminded me of the teaching of today and said, "Alex, when you're talking about discomfort and you're talking about who I am, and you're talking about abiding in Me, it's a telltale sign that you've taken your gaze off of who I am and onto the chaos around you. And you're not allowing the discomfort to really draw you near to Me when you're drawn to yourself."

And that kind of was just such a great story I feel like to kick us off and to have the listener really pause right now and look at, "What discomforts are happening in my life and how am I..." To put it simply as an elementary school kiddo, "How am I acting out?" It's so much simpler, I think, than we make it to be. And so I am going to kick us off.

Today, we're going to be talking about discomfort, and leaning into our discomfort in what God says. And so listeners, if you have your Bible, open it up to the book of James. I don't move without my Bible; it's here with me always. It's my sword. So oftentimes as believers, we stay away from discomfort because it's challenging for us. And as a child, I remember ... I have a really strong Enneagram Seven-wing. So if you know anything about that, you'll know that Enneagram Sevens do not like pain. And so in my desire to kind of protect myself, I would stay away from anything that would present discomfort to me, or challenges to me. Now, any human that's listening, any person, because of our human bend and our tendency, we're going to do that. We're going to try stay away from discomfort, no matter what.

And I think we need to stop and look at why God allows discomfort in our lives. And when we're talking about discomfort and we're talking about growth and spiritual growth, because if the prize is being made more like Jesus, then He's going to use whatever it takes to make us more like Him. And we see Paul, in the book of James, begin to really unpack this for us. And we see him walk us through what it looks like to use our discomforts, to lean into our faith and our spiritual growth. And as a believer, I spent a lot of my life wrestling with the tensions of God, "Why does my faith have to have so much discomfort? Why is there no other way to actually growing in my faith without being put to the fire?" Well, it's because our human tendency is to want to not have discomfort.

But unfortunately when we look back to the garden, it's the only way that we learn. When we're put to the fire and were put to our testing of, really it's a dependency issue. Are we trusting? Are we depending on the Father to grow us and to make us more like Him? So one of the points that I'd written out is we are not called to avoid, but to present at difficult things. And to put it plainly, as we're reading through the book of James and we're looking at why God allows trials, it really is for the formation of our spiritual growth. And no one wants to hear that cause it's not fun, and it's not even tidy. It doesn't sound pretty. When you think about things like distress or marital disputes or trauma, and you equate that to discomfort, you almost begin to question the goodness of God in the midst of that.

And you forget that God is not the orchestrator of discomfort; He's actually here to save us and walk with us through that discomfort. However, He allows it because we live in a fallen and broken world. And so what He'll do is He'll use that discomfort to display His love. It's almost a reminder of our need, and our dependency, and who we really get to rely on in the midst of that discomfort.

So listener, if you're wondering, "Man, why does God allow so much discomfort? And what is it for?" I would ask that you, right now, look at the completed work of the cross and really look at His love for you to remind yourself that He's actually a good Father, who did not mean for you to have discomfort. However, meanwhile, once you'll learn from it, just like my son, Kingston, we begin to act out under pressure, what can we learn in the midst of those times?

So one other thing I wanted to really talk through is … so part of our humanity and our discomfort. We'll talk about, let's dive right into the racial tensions. That we are seeing in our local church and our country, and a lot of what I have seen happen even just recently and last night, it was hard for me to even find the words for this. The church has been commissioned to be one body. The universal Church has been given one Bible, has been given the Word, and when we take time to read through Scripture and we see God using Scripture to unify the body when we're in the midst of discomfort, and we're learning to lean into compassion and into love. Then it is our job as the hands and feet of Jesus to take a step and say, "Even though this may be uncomfortable, even though this may bring discomfort, how do I play a role in this?"

And when as believers, we don't do that, we almost miss an opportunity — number one, for growth, and number two, for compassion and humility. And that's uncomfortable if we are being challenged with our preferences, with our biases; if the way that we think is being challenged, that applies to anything though. That applies to any relationship, that applies to any circumstance, when we are brought up against something that we may not agree with, it creates discomfort in general.

Kaley: Of course.

Alex: And as soon as that discomfort happens, we've got two choices. Either we lean in or we don't. And what I love about the book of James and what it reads here is that it actually tells us that He's using these things for our spiritual growth. That He's using it to sharpen us, that He's using these things, and that in the midst of it, God is really wanting to see something come out of you, and it is compassionate and mercy and wisdom. And what is hard, often as people and as believers, is that we will hang on the words that we believe from ourselves and not on the words of the Father. And in discomfort, our humanness bends to rely on ourselves and sit on the Word.

So, gosh, I often think about two personal growths for me in the midst of challenges. And when I say personal growth, I don't want you to hear self-care; I want you to hear as God conforms me into the image of Jesus, what does this look like? And one of the things that I've learned to remember is that it's really a transformation that's happening from the inside out. The more that I'm being made more into the image of Jesus — the more patient, the more loving, the more kind, the more compassionate — the less I react to discomfort, the more I rely on Him in it. And I begin to really give space for the Holy Spirit to move.

Conviction will happen in the midst of discomfort. If it doesn't, then we're not growing. And the more that there is conviction, the more that there is growth. And the more that there is growth, the better we become at being image bearers for the Father. It's not striving; it's an abiding, it's an overflow of Him in us. And so again, we go back to the book of James, and we read through Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, and we're looking at the verses that remind us of why the trials are here. Two things are important: remembering the character of God and His goodness, and why He allows them. Remembering the purpose behind them, but then also remembering what's God inviting us into in the midst of them. And why is it that I'm so bent to almost pull away from it, and pausing to press into it?

Because we are called to that as the hands and feet. Can you imagine Jesus pulling away from the discomforts that were arising around Him? I mean, I always go back to the life of Jesus and the way that He dismantled the patriarchy and the way that He dismantled racial tensions in the cities that He would walk through. You talk about the Samaritan woman, the longest conversation in the Bible, with anyone between Jesus and a person. And He, in that conversation, is dismantling umpteenth of things. Umpteenth of things, you're looking at a Samaritan woman, who's a gentile. You're talking about racial tensions and oppression and systematic racism. Look at that. And so when we, as the church, avoid talking about those things because we're in discomfort, when they're brought up, we miss the story. We miss the rescue mission. We miss the story. We missed the heart of the gospel, because we only take pieces that apply to our seasons in our life and our background.

Meredith: That's good.

Kaley: That is so good.

Meredith: Wow. So good. I don't know that you knew this, cause you've never been to my house, but I have a giant ... Kaley and I were talking about this last night.

Alex: I'm so excited tell me.

Meredith: I have a giant banner that when you walk in my front door, this'll tell you how naturally intense I am.

Alex: I'm so ready. I'm like, "Let me come over."

Meredith: It says, "Comfort is a slow death."

Alex: Yeah, man.

Meredith: But it's true.

Alex: It’s so real.

Meredith: And I feel so, especially as Americans ... Comfort is everything to us, y'all. We buy comfortable everything. Like, it's all about keeping ourselves comfortable. And what that will do is lull you right to sleep.

Alex: It does.

Meredith: And you will sleep right through your life. And so leaning into the uncomfortable times, it's such a pattern in Scripture, like early in the quarantine season.

Alex: Oh God. The quarantine.

Kaley: The quarantine.

Alex: The COVID. Jesus help us.

Meredith: I started a study on the word “wilderness” in the Bible.

Alex: Oh, of course you would. Of course we would. Give me the suffering, let me study. [Crosstalk].

Meredith: Right, right, right. And one of the definitions of the word “wilderness,” in Hebrew, is “isolation.” And I was like, "Wow, if that's not what we're right in the middle of." And so then I started looking for different episodes, I guess you would say “stories,” of wilderness in the Bible. And it is everywhere. Y'all, Israelites went right out into the wilderness, and they stayed there for so long. And then if you look at Hagar — Hagar went out into the wilderness, and that's where God met her. Jesus Himself went out into the wilderness and what happened, there is a whole new level of intimacy, and dependency that they would have never experienced had they not gone out and been uncomfortable. So good, Alex, I just think this is so spot-on for the season that we are in as the American church, as the global church; we're very uncomfortable right now.

Kaley: Hey guys, it's Kaley popping in here for a minute because when
Meredith mentioned the words “wilderness” and “isolation,” I thought it would be perfect opportunity to mention Dwell, an audio Bible app we've recently found and loved to use. Dwell has listening plans you can use that will help you build a habit of staying in God's Word, and topical Scripture playlist created to help you be comforted and encouraged by the Word of God when you need it most. You can make Dwell your own by using the search feature to go to a verse, or collection of verses. So let's say you want to listen to more wilderness scriptures in the Bible. You can do that with Dwell.

Visit dwellapp.io/proverbs to get a 20% discount and start using your ears to renew your mind. That's dwellapp.io/proverbs for 20% off an annual or lifetime subscription. Now back to the show.

Alex: One of the things that I thought of when you were just talking is there's two words, there's ... People are consumers in general. When you are a consumer and not somebody who is a partner in the gospel, you become complacent. And we have to fight against our consumer mentality, in general. And when discomfort is ... Comes up against consumerism, we don't know what to do, because we are comfortable, and it's tidy, and we're complacent in our faith. But like you said, I think two things that I want to circle back to. So, it's important that we remember as believers that the wilderness was not a punishment. It was an invitation.

Kaley: That's right.

Alex: And that the Israelites had seen the faithfulness of God. So any time in Scripture, when you're looking at a wilderness moment, He has presented Himself faithful and good.

Kaley: Amen.

Alex: ... to the person or the people before there is an invitation to the wilderness. And it is the forgetfulness of the people or the person that presses their mentality into mentality of wilderness. And so even though He's there and they're there together in the wilderness for intimacy, for dependency, for spiritual growth, we often forget that in our discomfort, we're still met by faithfulness. And if we forget that He's faithful in our discomfort, we will attach our discomfort to His goodness. And that is not fair, ‘cause He's good even in the midst of her discomfort.

Kaley: That's right.

Alex: And as believers, we talk about the remembering, and there's so much language about remembrance in Scripture. The whole Bible tells you, "Just remember, please just remember, just remember who I am. Remember that I'm good." It's because, in trials, we forget that He's good. So simple. We forget, we forget His character. We forget that He's good until we begin to blame Him for our circumstances. And when things become uncomfortable, we say, "Well, He must not be good, or He must not be here." But He is very present, and He's working things out for our good and His glory. And so if we have that mentality, then how is He using these things around us right now to form us into Him, into His image. If that's the prize, then nothing else matters.

Meredith: Yeah. It's good.

Kaley: Yeah. Something that you were just saying reminded me of Romans 12:2 that says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve of God's will, as his good pleasing and perfect will." And I think I was thinking about being thrown into discomfort. There are things that God allows us to go through, like you said earlier. And I think that there's a discomfort that we can lean into and choose. Take some of the racial tension conversations you're having, or maybe something in your family that you're going through that's something that you can choose to lean in. Or maybe you're like me, and you've just been through a really hard season of discomfort that I didn't choose, but I had to go into it.

And Meredith, I think you're going to like this, because y'all, Meredith has a counseling background, and so I'm about to bring up the triangle.

Alex: She just told me —

Meredith: The triangulation.

Kaley: Yes, there you go.

Meredith: Oh, dear God, when you go to counseling, I'm like, "I know about a triangulation,"

Kaley: But this has been so helpful for me because I'm just ... I'm going to be honest right now. Discomfort that God allows in our life can make, it almost makes you want to wear that and wear it as an excuse, to have an emotion or act on an emotion. Right? So, I recently went through a season of having a miscarriage. That's a really big deal. And I think as a woman, to go through that, it's like, “Oh, I have all of these emotions.”

So this is my excuse to maybe act out a little bit or to be in a bad mood, and I know that this is totally different than talking about racial tensions, but this is still something that we can learn [crosstalk] from discomfort. But it's that pivot point where it's almost like, if you've got the triangle, you're balancing, and it can go bad, or I can let it shape me. And I feel it all goes back to those thoughts, ‘cause isn't the triangle: thought, emotion, behavior?

Meredith: Yeah.

Kaley: Is that it? There you go! Look at me. Okay. But it all starts with that thought. So, am I going to catch that thought that I have? Am I going to let it spiral me down into being further away from God and more like my human self? Am I going to wear this label?

Am I going to be transformed into a person that I don't want to be? Or am I going to stop it, and remind myself that God is good. And remind myself that God is still with me and remind myself that He still has a plan, or that whatever I'm feeling right now is a human emotion. And I think about something that's higher, but whatever that emotion is, will shape how I behave. And I can behave like Christ, like you were talking about, and leaning into that discomfort, and it's shaping me into more a person like Him.

Or I can let it shape me into a person who I don't want to be like. If you're going through something like that, this is a great teaching for that, but also a great teaching for those things that are ingrained in us, like conversations that you have with your family that are really hard, or things that you were taught growing up that might not reflect God's Word. It's all about that thought but do we want to challenge that thought?

Meredith: And it takes so —

Kaley: — Or do we want to stay comfortable?

Meredith: Right. And it takes real self-discipline. It's what the Word says about taking every thought captive, and setting our minds on what is good, and what is pure and what is noble and what is Holy and all of those things. That, just a little counseling background.

Alex: I'm here for it.

Meredith: Here we are. That's an actual counseling theory. It's called the Adlerian counseling theory that, that teaches you, and cognitive behavioral therapy where you're teaching yourself to take hold, which, isn't that so interesting? Can we just pause and say, this whole world of psychology is really finding their tools in the Word of God. [Crosstalk] They're not calling it that. Where they've been teaching us this for hundreds of years, that take captive your thoughts because they have such control over both your emotions and your behaviors. But it does take discipline to do that. I went through a season of my life in college where I would just having very toxic thoughts about myself and just would consistently have feelings of “I'm such a loser. I'm so stupid. I have … nobody who cares for me.” And I knew if I let those thoughts keep going, I would be, I would not ... One, I wasn't believing what God said about me.

So that's a sin. And two, I knew it would take me down a road of self-defeat. And so I started, and I'm sure people thought I was such a weirdo, but I used to write on my wrist Scripture because I would wash my hands, and it would wash off. So I'd write it on my wrist instead. I would write it on my ankle, because I crossed my legs all the time, so that I would, anytime I had those thoughts, I would say, “no, no, no.”

Kaley: You'd remember.

Meredith: That's not true. The truth is, and I would remember who God is according to His Word. And so leaning into, and now I look back on that, and I'm so grateful that I had that time. Cause I was ... It's like working out. I was building muscle.

Alex: Yeah. That's exactly right.

Meredith: To prepare myself for the wildernesses that would come, and I would have the strength to endure what was ahead of me because I'd built my muscle during that season.

Alex: Good stuff. So good. One of the things that came to mind is this reframing the framework for discomfort, reframing how we see it. And I'm just going to read something from James, and I know I said Paul earlier, it's the homie James who wrote this stuff. I'm going to read this to us. It's first James, I'm going to start, we're going to start at verse one.

“James, a servant of God and of the Lord, Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes, dispersed abroad, greetings. Consider it a great joy, a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials.”

Meredith: What?

Alex: Yeah. No, thanks. A joy, right? But when we're looking at the word “joy,” we're really looking at a ... The word joy is actually found in the Word, almost like a piece like a rest, consider it great faith, consider it great blessing, consider it great dependency on me, and I'm going to keep reading.

“Consider it great joy whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” And so when you're talking about the walk and the journey of our faith, endurance here means a resolve to remember the goodness of God in the midst of our discomfort. It's a choosing; it's a believing, remembering who He was and who He is. Let's keep reading.

“And let endurance have its full effect.” What is full effect? And go back to the fruit of the Spirit. What does endurance look like in its full effect? Looks like compassion, mercy, faith, resolve, love. “Now let endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. Now, if you lack of any wisdom he should ask God who gives all of this generously and ungrudging, and it will be given to him, but let him ask in faith without doubting, for the doubter is like the surging sea driven and tossed by the wind.”

So there is this ... Really, the language in layman terms, is, “I need you to believe that I'm good. I need you to believe it in the midst of discomfort, I need you to know that I'm creating a faith in you that is solid and, based and rooted in who I am. And that your joy is actually found in Me because I am joy. That as you choose, joy you're really choosing Me. And you're choosing Me working in and through you.” And that is the work of the Spirit in the midst of discomfort. And that is hard and Holy work. That is a result of the Spirit to say, “Man, I believe, and I'm going to remember the character of God.” But if we don't know who He really is, it's hard to really believe that He's good in the midst of trials. Right?

Meredith: That's right.

Kaley: Yep. Yep. So good, Alex, that ... To wrap us up here, this reminds me of our tagline at Proverbs 31.

Alex: That's right.

Kaley: “Know the Truth, then live the Truth.” And then it changes everything. And what you just said about knowing who God is, knowing His character, and your whole teaching today, just remembering that He is good through all of our discomfort. When we know that Truth, we can live out that Truth in the midst of our discomfort. And then that Truth changes everything about how we live. So it's so good. Thank you so much for coming on today. I know that this was meaningful for Meredith and me, and I know that whoever's listening today, wherever you are, maybe you are going through a really hard season. Maybe you're feeling the nudge of the Holy Spirit to lean into a difficult conversation or to change a thought, like Alex was talking about today, whatever that is just lean into it.

And we want to get you connected to a couple of resources today. So I'm going to tell you about the first one first. First, our Encouragement for Today daily devotions. I know we mentioned those earlier that Alex writes for. We've got a great group of writers who write devotions every weekday on things like motherhood or parenting, which is the same thing as motherhood or trials or whatever. It's all the different kinds of topics that you could need information on, but maybe that's a great way to get you started in your day. They're free. They're delivered to your inbox every weekday. If you want to subscribe, you can just go to proverbs31.org, and enter your email address, press submit, and then you'll start receiving devotions.

Meredith: That's right. And we also have a really incredible resource library on our website that is full of content for all kinds of different situations that you might be facing.

Maybe you just need to dig into some basic spiritual foundations. We've got all kinds of free downloads for you there. Or maybe you're in an uncertain time, like most everyone right now. And you could use some hope, we've got a whole category for that and for trials. So, if you visit Proverbs31.org/read, you will find all kinds of free resources for you there.

Alex: So good.

Kaley: Yes, absolutely. Okay. Alex?

Alex: Yes.

Kaley: Let's not forget about how they can connect with you. So we talked about the Instagram earlier. Remind us of your handle there.

Alex: Yes. It's Alexandra V Hoover. I'm actually launching a website, kind of a refresh [crosstalk] tomorrow. I'm very excited. So when this goes out into the world, it'll be live and ready. And so my website is my name, Alexandravhoover.com. [Crosstalk] So simple, so yes. Twitter is Alex V. Hoover. I like to always share my Twitter bio because I think it's funny and appropriate. My Twitter bio says something like “most likely,” or no, “checking twice before any sassy tweets, most likely reading a book or listening to loud music.” I just think it's so accurate of who I am. I feel like I should have a T-shirt with that. It's me.

Meredith: Checking twice before. [Crosstalk] That would be my husband's tagline for me.

Alex: Yes!

Meredith: Let me read that again before you put that out into the world.

Alex: Checking twice before any sassy anything.

Meredith: I love it. I love it so much.

Alex: So, yeah. Y'all can find me there, and I can't wait to meet you.

Meredith: Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us, Alex, and thanks so much to our listeners for tuning in today. Remember here at Proverbs 31, we believe that when you know the Truth of God's Word and you live that Truth out, it really will change everything.

Alex: Come on. So good.