We all have two voices that live inside of us - one of fear and one of faith. This is audio of a skit that was performed at one of our conferences that personifies those voices and inspires the listener to remember that God sees her through every season, including the painful ones.

No matter what hardships you are facing or you have faced, no matter what valleys you've traveled, no matter what losses you've experienced, that you would keep showing up to hope, as risky as it is, knowing and holding on to the idea that you are still the girl that your father loves.

Welcome to the Collide Podcast. We're a growing community of everyday chicks colliding with Jesus in our mess, our pain, our joy and our stories. We value showing up as we truly are.

So that's what you'll find here. Walls and masks being torn down so that we can allow Jesus to meet us where we truly are and hear about other women doing the same.

We can't wait to collide with you.

Welcome to the Collide Podcast. I'm Willow Weston, the founder and director of Collide and I am glad you joined us. I just have a small little ditty for you today as you hop on here.

We had an event for women this year called Personal and Powerful and we centered around mark chapter five, where the woman who'd been hemorrhaging for 12 years shows up in a crowd. And obviously she has been deeply affected by her condition physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually and even financially.

And she shows up and you have to imagine that this woman who'd been bleeding for so very long had prayed and longed and hoped and even sought out other cares for this, this thing that she had going that held back her life. And it could have been so easy for her to give up hoping.

And as a team and a staff, as we were preparing for this event, we wrote a two person scene called Two Voices. And in this scene we try to depict one woman's two voices, fear and faith. Because we all have, in a sense, two voices.

We have a voice of fear and we have a voice of faith. And they're both engaging each other and trying to one up each other. They're trying to. Trying to power play each other.

In a sense, fear is trying to hold back a woman and trying to get her to say no to things and trying to get her to be afraid and trying to get her to stop showing up to hope. And faith is sort of preaching at her and guiding her and telling her to keep hoping, keep believing, keep working, keep reaching out.

And so we wrote this scene and I'm going to play it for you guys today and I'm hoping that as you listen to it, you'll begin to think about how your two voices, the voice of fear in your life and the voice of faith in your life. How they interact with each other and how you let each one of them guide you and help you make decisions. And so here it goes. I'll play it for you.

I remember the days where everything ahead of me promised potential.

Nothing could go wrong.

I was 10, chubby, had a crush on Joe Frucci.

Wore a retainer. So I talked a little funny.

Old enough to ride my bike to school.

And I got picked to perform in the school musical.

But I was timid, nervous, not star enough.

I got the part. I caught a glimpse of what I hoped my story would look like.

Why didn't Kelly Brown get the part? She was way better than me.

But I got it. And my 10 year old self was like, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna be fearless.

Fearless.

Nailed it. I stepped out there and shined. Pirouettes. Perfection. CROWD APPLAUSE.

I even surprised myself. But I was freaked out, scared. I didn't think I had it in me.

Oh, but I had it in me. It felt like this was just the beginning. Like life was there for the taking. Like my dreams could and would come true. Like God was on my side.

When I looked ahead, there were no.

Speed bumps, no falling, no crashing.

Only big parts on a big stage.

Big purpose, big assumptions, big potential, big failure. Big promise, Big letdown. And then boom. Bobby Jones. A bump, a bruise, a sting. I was 12.

He said I looked like a hairy monkey.

You should shave your legs.

Oh, boys are always mean to girls they like.

Yeah, boys must really like me. One bump, I'd bounce back. But again and again, I wanted to.

Be the fearless girl I used to be.

My boyfriend said I wasn't worth it.

And you believed him.

And my roommate and my professor and my agent.

And you believed them.

Rejection. Kept saying the part isn't yours, but.

You got other parts. Friend, sister, wife, daughter.

But at every rejection, my dream stopped dancing. I didn't get the part I wanted to play most.

One day you will get that part.

But I didn't get the part.

Dreams don't always come how and when we expect them to.

But I prayed a million prayers. And just as soon as my baby came, I lost her.

I wanted to believe that God had good for me.

But clearly God doesn't have good for me.

And Now I'm not 10 and I am not 12. And I'm not 24.

And I am definitely not where I thought I'd be.

I wanted more. You're not enough. I expected bigger.

Your first mistake.

I had other plans.

Your plans never work.

I dreamed a different dream.

Wake up. To reality. This isn't the way I would have written my story.

My story is still being written.

This isn't the way I would have written.

My story is still being written.

Could faith get a reality check?

Could fear get a reality check? Nothing is impossible for God.

How can you say that? Don't you remember? I remember Bobby Jones. I remember not being worth it. I remember not landing the part, nor the dream. I remember all the prayers.

I remember rejections. I remember my baby.

I remember.

I remember.

I remember.

You don't know what it's like to walk in my shoes.

I walk in the very same shoes.

Why can't you see it? Why still hope?

Why give up?

I say quit.

I say hold on.

I need to be alone in this.

What good will that do?

I'm confused and it's not fair.

Are you counting on explanations or are you counting on promises?

I feel defeated.

Do you see yourself as who you're made to be?

I feel stuck.

And what are you doing to move?

Moving is too risky.

The life we hope for is on the other side of risk.

But I'm me. And fear doesn't take risks.

What good are you doing for yourself?

My anxiety and worry, my warnings and threats, they ground me.

They ground you?

They prevent me from disappointment and getting hurt even more.

Are you sure it's working?

So what good are you doing for yourself?

My belief in trust. My confidence and hope. They ground me.

They ground you all right. Making you look foolishly hopeful.

They prevent me from disappointment and getting hurt even more.

You're out of date with reality. It's like you're 10 again.

Yes, let's go back to being 10.

Timid, unsure, full of silly hope and buck teeth.

Wide eyed. Learning, hopeful and writing dreams.

Tying the laces on my shoes.

Straightening my skirt.

Peering out from behind the stage at all the people. Fearless.

Yeah, fearless. You could have no showed. You could have run from the stage. You could have given up. But you didn't.

You made a choice.

Even then, standing backstage in the midst of your taunting and lies. I chose bravery. I chose risk. I chose moving. And I chose all that before I knew how the story would unfold.

But that was then.

You're still the same girl God made. And you still have it in you to be fearless.

Who would I be if I was fearless?

You're still the girl God has plans for. You're still the girl God gave gifts to. And you're still the girl God has a purpose for.

I'm afraid I am not that girl.

You're still the girl God calls daughter.

I lost my daughter. And when I lost her, he lost me.

Stop. Just stop. You stop showing up to practice. You stop dancing. You stop hoping. You stop risking.

What good is your fretting and your doubt, your anxiety and your pessimism? What good is giving up? You took off the toe shoes and put them in your closet. You started believing you were unworthy.

You gave up auditioning for life. You stopped showing up to hope.

You're right.

Because I gave in to myself.

You're still the girl with the choice.

I'm still the girl.

You're still the girl who can reach and grab hold of what you hope for even before you see it.

I'm still the girl.

You're still the girl who can dance over fear.

I'm still the girl.

You're still the girl that has the ability to do what you think impossible.

I'm still the girl.

You're still the girl who can fight the lies and come out strong.

I'm still the girl.

You're still the girl who is made for greatness.

I'm still the girl.

You're still the girl with the stage just waiting for you to show up on.

I'm still the girl.

You're still the girl God's got. He hasn't lost you even when you felt like you lost him.

I'm still his girl.

So that's the two person scene that we actually carried out live. And it had a dancer and all sorts of stuff. So you, you'd have to be at an event, see what happens.

So there's your motivation to sign up for our next conference for women. But in this two person scene, fear says one bump. I'd bounce back. But again and again.

And I think we can so often resonate that because it's so easy to stop showing up to hope when we've faced disappointment after disappointment after disappointment. When we continue to collide with hurtful things in our life, it's so easy to just stop. Stop hoping that they'll get better.

Whether it's infertility or miscarriage or divorce or job loss or being wounded by the church or rejection or the loss of a dream. You hear this woman and you see her life story and you see how when she was a little girl, she experienced a few bumps, a few bruises.

But then it started to turn into this sort of like, theme throughout her life of rejection from a boyfriend, from an agent, in her acting career, from. From a professor.

And you see how she longed to do this thing ever since she was a little girl, but she didn't get the part over and over and over again, and she didn't get the career and she didn't get the calling. So she experiences this loss of a dream, and then she has this dream that she'll have a baby, and she ends up losing her baby.

And that's when she finally says in the scene, that's when I lost God. And I think hoping again after multiple collisions with disappointment is a radical move on our part.

But when you look In Mark, chapter five, this girl who'd been bleeding for 12 years, I mean, imagine that, 11 years and 364 days, she must have wished for a different circumstance. And yet here on the 12th year, she reaches out in the middle of this crowd and she touches Jesus hem. Why does she do that?

She does that and she risks having faith that Jesus can give her a different outcome than she has yet to experience. And I think that's a powerful idea.

I think sometimes we get so stuck believing that a different outcome is not possible for us, and so we stop hoping, we stop risking, we stop having faith.

And so my hope today, in the course of just these few minutes, is that no matter what hardships you are facing or you have faced, no matter what valleys you've traveled, no matter what losses you've experienced, that you would keep showing up to hope, as risky as it is, knowing and holding onto the idea that you are still the girl that your father loves, that God loves you, and that you would keep hoping and reaching and that you'd keep dreaming and risking because you're still the girl and God still has big plans for you.

It was, after all, when this bleeding woman, who'd been bleeding for 12 years, showed up to Hope, risked believing a different outcome in her life, and placed her trust in Jesus and reached out and touched his hem. The power went out from him and he healed what had been hurting her for 12 long years. So that's my hope for you today.

And if you want to check out more about Collide, about our events, about our Bible studies, in fact, the personal and powerful event will turn into our next printed Bible study that we put out. You can check all that out on our website on wecollide.net I'm super glad you joined us for a few minutes this week and we'll catch you next week.