3 Life Lessons from a 69-Year-Old Woman of God

"There's no room for shame and guilt when you have Jesus."

Below is a snippet of a conversation with Marian Newell, a 69-year-old woman of God. Marian has an incredibly powerful testimony, having endured unimaginable loss. She lost her 14-year-old son to cancer 40 days after the unexpected death of her father. A year later, her husband of 26 years left her and her mother was battling lung cancer.

Below are several nuggets of wisdom that I extracted from our conversation on the podcast. If you prefer listening, you can listen to the full conversation on Apple, Spotify, or watch on YouTube.

What’s the most important lesson(s) the Lord has taught you over the years?

1. How Much He Loves Us

First of all, so much that He loves us and that you could really experience that love when you get into a relationship with Him. Then, the Word tells us, the Word is so important, there's so much in the Word, that there's no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And that, I think, is a big part, no matter what religion you grew up with, of just feeling like, I'm not worthy or I did this and I did that, [but] there's nothing, nothing that we have ever done in our life that He can't forgive us for and won't forgive us for.

And I think when you get rid of that and you stop caring about what people think, that's crucial because, I think, something in us always worries about that and that's pride. We have to kill pride and become humble like Jesus was. And when you don't worry about what people think, you don't worry about what you have, because that's all gonna be gone one day.

You know, when you age like this…I look in the mirror and I'm like ‘what the heck, when did this happen?’ But that doesn't matter because when I'm in heaven, I'm gonna have a new body, I'm not gonna have these aches and pains and you realize you have to stop thinking like the world thinks and comparing. You have to be eternally minded and know that our true home is heaven. This is just the blink of an eye…it just zooms by and so I think an important lesson also is that you learn to make every moment of every day matter.

I say, Lord, this is my prayer, every day, Lord, empty me of all the things that are junk and not of you, and let me be a vessel and help everybody. I mean, yes, did I have terrible things happen to me? Yes, but so has everyone. Everyone has a story, a sad story, because we're here, we live on earth with sin, but if you, like I said, look upward toward heaven and think about the treasures that you’re hoarding here that are not going to be with you in heaven, you’ll say, ‘oh, what a waste of time.’

I want to make a difference, if I can smile at somebody and say hello, you never know if that’s the person that was going to go home and commit suicide that day, and you made a difference in their life. So, it’s the renewing of your mind to want to glorify God in everything that you do because it matters for eternity. And when you think about it that way, that’s where everybody has purpose.

So I said, yeah, God gave me a purpose to be the director of this foundation [Jesse’s Wish Foundation]. My daughter, Sam, is the president. And yes, we're doing good things for people, but none of that matters if that person’s heart isn't changed through the way I live my life, what I say, what I do, and my testimony to show them that you're not going to be able to get through this without the Lord.

And I don't change anybody's heart. I can't bring anybody's salvation, only God does that. But they do look at your life and how you live and if you're the same person on Sunday that you are the rest of the week and that's important. But God is victorious in everything and He shows His faithfulness and He continues to do that to this day. And so how could I not want to tell people about that? I mean, we're told in His word that we're to spread the good news. And we can do that by our lives.

2. Believing and Standing on Your Identity in Christ

So, I have to say that one of the most important things is your identity in Christ. And that is believing what He says about you. You only get that from reading the Word. And when you stand on believing that, it makes it a lot easier to walk out your life in victory, even when you sin.

And when I don't feel that way, and again, it's feelings which are not real, it's the facts and your faith that are real. But we have feelings, we have emotions. And when I don't feel that way, I have to just declare it out loud. I take those scriptures that tell me who I am and what God says about me. I'm the daughter of a king, you know.

And I, like David in the Psalms, his child was dead too. And he praised God and he said, ‘Lord, my soul,’ you have to declare things out loud, I believe, because they're more powerful that way. And not that God can't hear you if you whisper them to yourself, but when you declare out loud things like ‘I'm righteous because Christ is righteous,’ everything He tells us, if we declare it, the enemy has to flee. He has to flee at the name of Jesus. So if [the enemy’s] trying to say to me, ‘Marian, you're no different today than you were 20 years ago’, I say, ‘Yeah, wrong! Jesus says that I am.’

I'm a work in progress. We're all going through what they call sanctification. We're not gonna be like Jesus until we're face to face with Him. But that's okay because He understands that we're still in our flesh and we're still gonna disappoint Him and disappoint ourselves. But there's no room for shame and guilt when you have Jesus. There's no room.

3. Having a Heart of Gratitude

I think another important piece, and I remember from reading a book about it, I'm not going to remember the name of the book right now, but having a heart of gratitude. Because if we live our lives looking at what we're grateful for, instead of looking at what we don't have, it is a complete transformation.

And in this book, it was talking about the littlest thing, just the littlest thing. The author was saying, I'm washing dishes and the sun is coming in and reflecting on the bubbles in the sink. And you just start thinking about how God is in everything, even the little things in our daily chores and anything we do. And if we're grateful for that and we have a heart that has that gratitude, He knows that, He loves that. […]

My pastor said to me once, and this I hold on as such a gem and such a treasure, and I tell everyone this, that it's the perspective of instead of saying, I only had Jesse for 14 years, you say, I had Jesse for 14 years. That was a gift that God gave me that I may not have had. So you just have to look at through a lens of gratitude.

And then another thing he said, and I just want to quote him on this because my heart felt so broken. I was like, how am I ever going to be whole again? How am I going to ever have joy? How am going to ever laugh? And he said, you know, ‘Sometimes it's the broken places in your heart that are there for more room for God's love to come in.’ I just thought that was like, wow.

A Word on Hope:

“There's always hope. There's always hope because God can change anything in a moment and that's what we have to remember. He's just so faithful, His promises are always yes and amen in the Word. And when you believe, if you believe, as I do, that every word in His Word is breathed by Him, it's God breathed, it's alive, it's active, it's happening, God the Father is always at work. And whatever Jesus is doing, it's only by what the Father is telling Him to do. And that's a channel, like that's a direct line. You can't get any better than that.”

Other Wise Words Worth Echoing:

“I truly believe that whatever God allows in our life, it's so that then we could help others who are going through the same thing.”

“There's nothing that we could go through that Jesus didn't already experience, so that we would know how to experience it.”

“The path the Lord has for us is only clear when we stop, sit, and listen to Him. And it could be from watching a movie, from hearing a song, from talking to a person, dreams, but mostly of course listening to his Word.”

Listen to the full conversation on Apple, Spotify, or watch on YouTube.

Thank you for being here,

Katharine

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P.s. If you have the financial means to support this ministry, I’d be so grateful, as it will allow me to continue these conversations to pass on wisdom and faith to future generations. I thank you truly, kindly and sincerely.

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