Focus on What You Reach For : Episode 7

This podcast began because helping humans live their best life and become the best version of themselves is what Desireé’s life is all about. Join Desireé as she uses her trips around the sun to throw encouragement around like confetti!

In Episode #7, we join Desireé as she talks through where your focus is and what you have been reaching out to lately. Her message is timely for the Holiday season – a hope for our sometimes weary hearts.

Topics include:

• Where is our current focus (1:43)
• A compelling question – Asking for a friend (4:22)
• Going from despair to healing (7:47)

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Transcript

Desire Melfi Bozzo: 0:06

Ciao and welcome to Life out loud. I am your host Desire Melfi Bozzo. We are going to use this space to share experiences and help you find lasting, unshakable, unwavering, unmessable-with joy and gratitude. We're going to be throwing around encouragement, a little bit like confetti and giving you support to live your very best life. Ciao and thank you for tuning-in to another episode of Life Out Loud. If we don't know each other yet. I am your host Desire Melfi Bozzo. If you're listening to this live and stateside, we are coming in hot, fresh of a Thanksgiving weekend. It is my deepest hope that yours was filled with love and gratitude. I hope you were able to get really present to the peace that the practice of gratitude brings. Some of us may, just may have endured the Mondayest Monday to ever Monday yesterday. But alas, here we are. You guys, we made it. Congratulations. I am currently throwing you a high five over the airwaves. So I'm going to say that we're officially galavanting into the holiday season. Would you agree with me on that one? I want to talk to you about where your focus is and what you've been reaching out to lately. That might seem a little forward. But nobody's surprised about that, are we? No. Okay, here we go. So, friends, we all reach out for something in this world, right? Our mindset determines where we go. So I really believe we need to be intentional about what we're thinking. Where our focus is. We spend our days our weeks our months our years reaching for something. And I want to talk to you about what it is that you're reaching for. For this episode. I'm pulling some of my context from the Bible. And as I've said before, we all pull our inspiration from somewhere. This is where some of mine sometimes is pulled from. So you don't have to believe the same things I believe. I'm just asking that you listen with a really open mind and definitely an even more open heart. Okay? Can we make that agreement? Let's go. In the Bible, there is a woman that is talked about in the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Some references call her the bleeding woman. Some call her the woman with an issue of blood. As I read these stories over and over, you know, comparing them contrasting them, digging into each gospel account. They're all a little bit different, but they're a little bit the same. I of course, see her as the woman with the issue of blood because that's how the world has identified her right? But I found something bigger than that. I see her as a human, and she is broken, and she's hurting. She is yearning for a healing that hasn't come. But she is steadfast and she is unwavering. Like unmessable-with unwavering. She's faithful in her belief of who holds her cure. Perhaps that is where this finds you today. Hurting, yearning for healing, an answer, something that has yet to come. Maybe you are steadfast and unwavering, like maybe you got your focus on lock, or maybe, friends, maybe you're weary. I don't know where this finds you. But wherever it is. I hope today this episode is fruitful for your heart. So we first encountered the woman in Matthew 9:20-21. It's just too short versus the shortest of all the accounts. A woman who had been subjected to bleeding for 12 years, we read that she came up behind Jesus and thought to herself, if only I can touch his cloak, I can be healed. Can I ask you a question? This might be weird, but have you ever thought that - asking for a friend? Have you ever thought that Jesus can heal anything? And if only he were here like in the flesh, then surely he would heal what needs healing? Can I be transparent in this safe space and tell you that I have thought that very thing more times than I really want to admit but like here I am admitting it. I've prayed the words sweet Jesus, if I could just touch even the hem of your cloak, surely you would fix the thing that so desperately needs you in this moment. I imagine Jesus turning to me just as he turns to the woman in verse 22. And I imagine him saying, Take heart, Daughter, your faith has healed you. Maybe that's super silly. And maybe you're just thinking, I'm completely weird right now. But maybe it's not silly, I don't know. In my deepest wounds, that's where I focus goes. My focus goes to the cure - the only one I know. The woman, so the woman's repeated, in Mark 5: 25-34. Here we learn that she suffered a great deal under the care of, now we know many doctors, we have more information. We know now that she spent all she had, and she never got better. Instead, she got worse. She had heard about Jesus because news of his healing power was spreading across the land. With unwavering faith and relentless hope. She resiliently fought her way through the crowd of presumably men, determined to get her healing. The woman got to Jesus and she touched his cloak and believing he would heal her. Verse 29, tells us and this is amazing that immediately, immediately, like, immediately, her bleeding stopped. And she felt that her body was free from the suffering. Can you imagine? How many times do we find ourselves in this same place, relentlessly going after the thing that we think is going to bring the healing the only thing that we know that can bring the healing and determined to free ourselves from what ails us unwavering in our quest, to free ourselves from suffering? This woman and her relentless, fierce faith, friends, it leaves me in awe. The healing that she received in an instant leaves me completely inspired. The final time we see her is in Luke 8:43-48. So this account tells us that there's no one that could heal her. We already know the doctors tried, and she spent all she had. This one is saying like, there is no one, no one that could heal her. It tells us she touched just the edge of his cloak, and she was healed. You guys what I love about, I love about Luke is it this account takes us from the despair of the reality that there's no one on earth that could heal her to the miraculous truth. That she had just touched the edge of his cloak and was healed instantly. We learned from these accounts that she had exhausted all earthly options and resources. She saw the best of the best doctors. She spent every penny she had. And she kept getting worse. Until Jesus. Perhaps there's something in your life that needs healing. Maybe it's your physical body. Maybe it's a relationship that's broken, seemingly beyond repair. Maybe it's a fractured or flawed way of thinking that you can't seem to shake. Maybe it's depression, maybe it's anxieties. Maybe it's a behavior in your life that has now become a habit that seems to hold you captive. My friends this season, we will all be reaching out for something. Something to fill us. Something to heal us. Something to comfort us. Friends, I encourage you to call to mind the woman in the Gospels. The one who was broken and hurting the one who is yearning for healing. The one with the steadfast and unwavering faith. Sweet listeners. I believe that we serve a God that is here to prove his goodness. He's proved it for 1000s of generations since the beginning of time. From Noah, to Abraham, to Sarah to Rebecca, Joseph and Moses, David. And there's Esther and Hannah, and of course, the woman of the Gospels. Friends, I believe our God continues to prove his goodness to you and to me, to the people we love to our friends to our families. As you reach out for something this season, I encourage you, with all my heart to reach out and touch the Savior. Sweet listeners, I hope that this was a fruitful message for you. I hope it offered encouragement during a season that we all know isn't always easy. Sometimes the holidays seem to poke at the places that hurt the most. So I hope this was helpful. I hope it offered some light. I'm sending all my love. Sweet friends, leave a note in the comments. I always love hearing from you. Come back next time, we're going to throw more encouragement around like confetti, but be careful. If you get too close. You just might get some on you. Until we meet again remember, there is always always always something to be thankful for. Ciao! Thank you for joining me Desire Melfi Bozzo for this episode of Life out loud. I would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment. Tell me what topics you want to talk about and how you take your coffee. If you enjoyed what you heard, text a friend the link share it on social media. Or if you're interested in becoming a supporter, be-bop over to my webpage lifeoutloud.me and sponsor a cup of coffee that keeps this podcast fueled. Until next time sweet listeners