Going Through Trials with God: Recent Episodes
Sierra Cooke
The Bible tells us that God will comfort those who grieve, as "the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." (Psalm 34:18)
4 things to do when you feel ready to move forward after the loss of a child.
You can find more about my personal story of walking through shaken baby syndrome and the loss of my 3 year old in my book Going Through Trials with God on Amazon or Audible.
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A question for you to ask yourself daily: What is the kindest thing you’ve said to your child or spouse today?
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Taking care of your skin and joint health is important, and taking Liquid Biocell Collagen daily this week will help you do just that. Here is a link with $10 off: https://modere.io/qxavlV
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You can increase your productivity this week by taking a moment every night before bed to write down the top 3-5 most important things you need to accomplish the next day.
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Some encouragement for your week. Hebrews 12:11 says “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” When you go through times of difficulty, remember that you can take it as an opportunity for growth. Having discipline in your life this week may not feel pleasant, but you can have peace knowing it will produce fruit.
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Sometimes a shift in mindset is necessary to move forward in life. Don't stay stuck. Surrender it to God. Let Him take it and make something beautiful.
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Let’s talk about passive income, and how it can be so powerful when going through a loss.
By passive income, I mean any income that still comes in, even when your hands are off of it.
I’ll give you some examples towards the end of this video.
So I lost my 3 year old daughter 2 years ago, after she suffered complications from shaken baby syndrome.
At that time, I had no passive income coming in on a consistent basis.
After Christa passed away, my older daughter and I struggled with my husband being away at work for 12 hours at a time. He worked in health care and had no other option but 12 hour shifts where he worked.
We couldn’t wait though. We Needed him home with us as we went through such a traumatic season.
So he had to quit his job.
We had almost no income coming in. We struggled financially.
All we had was a $5,000 life insurance policy on my daughter.
We were trying to live off that and didn’t know what to do.
Eventually it led to us having to move in with a family member in a house too small for all of us.
I knew what passive income was at that time, and I found myself regretting not having it. I don’t want a situation like this to happen to you, which is why I’m speaking up about it and sharing my own story.
I had to move past my regrets and kicking myself for not working to create that income.
I made the decision to start building passive income. I had no idea how, and maybe you’re in that same boat.
I made the decision, and it’s something youll have to do as well, that no matter how hard I had to try and no matter what anyone thought, I was going to start building.
The first thing I tried was building a massage therapy business since I was a LMT.
I quickly found that even after hiring someone to take clients for me so that I didn’t have to be hands on, I still worked very hard to run the business side of things. Dealing with getting clients into the dorr, scheduling and complaints, stuff like that.
It wasn’t truly the passive income that I desired.
I decided to give that business to my employee, and find another way.
I found something called social retail through someone I consider to be a very trusted, wise, mentor.
In short, social retail is selling products online and getting paid for it. It becomes passive income when your customers put in orders for those products. It can also give you passive income when you help others do the same.
It’s very exciting when you make a simple post to social media with a product link, and your phone receives a text that says “this person placed an order through your link”.
Boom, passive income.
Another way my family makes passive income is through 2 books I self published to Amazon and Audible and my husband sells life insurance.
Does it take work to build passive income, yes.
Is it worth it? YES.
All of these things are in alignment with our Christian values because they all help people in honest ways.
Another thing I want to mention is neither of us have college degrees. You don’t have to have a business degree to create passive income for your family.
So my questions for you are:
Do you have passive income streams?
If not, why not?
What’s holding you back?
What would happen if you or your spouse lost your job?
Is there something God is calling you to, but you’re making excuses for why you can’t do it?
If you’re considering starting another income stream, who can help hold you accountable so you don’t quit when it gets hard?
Where can you go online to get training or to learn more about the income stream you want to start?
If you’re interested in any of the 3 income streams that I mentioned, comment “streams” or send a text to 865-456-1501.
I’m here to help you and so is my husband.
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In this episode, I’m going to talk about one of the worst days of my life, my first wedding anniversary. It also happened to be the same day my daughter Christa was placed on hospice care, and the night my husband deeply betrayed me by viewing pornography. I’m going to give you 3 things that helped me heal from it, in case you are going through this as well, or maybe someone you know is.
First, I want to mention a statistic. According to restoring hearts counseling, 77% of Christian men between 18-30 years old look at pornography at least monthly. 36% of those men view it on a daily basis.
Reading that hurts my heart. If you’re going through an issue with your spouse involving pornography, I hope that helps you see it’s not just your spouse. Don’t take his viewing pornography personally. It’s not your fault.
It doesn’t make it right, but our culture has normalized viewing pornography, and most men started viewing it at a young age. The problem with pornography being normalized is by the time someone wakes up to the fact that it’s wrong, they’ve already become addicted.
Most likely, your spouse won’t be able to quit and change overnight. After years of viewing that stuff, the neural pathways in his brain have been changed. The good news is, that they CAN be changed, so there is hope for overcoming the addiction.
Link for book: https://www.audible.com/pd/Going-Through-Trials-with-God-Audiobook/B0B4V1G933?qid=1661392586&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=1W8W3NZ077AFWT5E77EV
Link for Instagram, Other Books, Products I Recommend: https://linktr.ee/sierracooke
In this episode, I’m going to talk about my personal story of going through court to take rights away from my children’s biological father, and give them to my current husband, their step-father.
I believe this will help encourage and inspire you to ask God for a miracle and ask God to make a way for something you desire, even if you have to pray about it for a long time.
I’m going to tell you a quick story about a time I was feeling sorry for myself in the surgery waiting room waiting for my daughter Christa who was having work done on her GI tract.
In this story, I was feeling sorry for myself, and complaining about it to God. He was trying to use that man as an answer to my prayer, and I was almost blinded by my feelings. I almost turned God’s answer away. I can’t help but wonder what I would’ve felt if I had stayed in that negative mindset. God sent me a volunteer at the hospital to help me turn my mood around and to uplift my spirit. I had to be open to receive God’s blessing though.
Can you think of any stories in your life like this? Where you were feeling down and out and in those moments someone helped you get out of the funk you felt stuck in? If you find yourself feeling down and out, ask God to send someone or something to help you. And after you ask, you have to be open to His way of answering that prayer. In the story I shared, I didn’t Feel like talking to anyone, but it’s how God wanted to fill the void I felt. It was my Choice to accept it or not. God can use someone you least expect to brighten your day or to supply a need you have. Don’t put God in a box and don’t close yourself off to His way of doing things to help you.
A big cause of self-pity is when we focus so much on what is not there, that we can’t see what IS there. Feeling sorry for yourself can produce harmful results. Here are a few ways you can help yourself defeat self-pity: -You have to become aware of it. Evaluate your thoughts. When you start feeling down, notice when your thoughts start to negatively spiral downward. Catch yourself before you go so far that you get stuck in a cycle of self-pity. -Remind yourself of who you are in Christ. Stop focusing so much on yourself and other people, and pivot your focus to be on God. Self pity is very tempting, but you Can overcome it through Jesus’ power. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
-If you’re going through a trial and feel like you need encouragement & strategies to help you get through it, my book Going Through Trials with God : 7 Lessons Learned Through SBS will give you just that. You can find it on Amazon and Audible.
1st Samuel talks a lot about how Samuel was a man who lived by his convictions.
If we allow Him to, God can use our circumstances to get our attention, and He will convict us when we need to make a change. Being open to this can transform our lives.
I want to encourage you to be someone who lives by their convictions.
My husband Canyon helped me tell the story of Hannah, and how God used her circumstances for so much good.
You can find us on Instagram at sierra.marie.cooke where I post about faith and mindset daily.
Enough time has passed in dwelling or survival mode. Shift your focus to learning how to break free from the chains and get into winning mode.
What you’ve been through, you can leverage. You can’t go back and change it, but you Can use it to motivate you.
Use the pain, anger, and hurt from your past and maybe even your present, for good.
Think about how many others are feeling what you have felt. Think about how many people need you to step up and allow God to break your chains, so they can see it’s possible and rise up to do the same in their lives.
Speaking positive affirmations help you reprogram your subconscious mind.
They can also help you stay focused, change negative thought patterns into positive ones, they help release fear & worry, and they can help raise your belief in yourself.
You may have heard this quote before, “don’t despise the day of small beginnings”.
When you are first starting out in something, for you this may be you just got your 1st 1 bedroom apartment, you just started a business that is serving only 1 or 2 people, you just got married & are living paycheck to paycheck, you just started paying off debt and are only able to pay off a very small amount each month, or maybe you just started a relationship with God and are feeling like you know very little about living a Godly life, when you first start out, it can be easy to feel down about the small beginning.
I want to give you some encouragement to help you get through this season.
Think of a defining moment in your life. One where you knew, in that moment, your life would never be the same. These moments do one of two things. They push us closer to God or turn us away from Him.
I want to encourage you to allow these moments to draw you closer to God.
H**ow many times has God brought or used the clouds in your life to show His love?
Great conflict cultivates great character, and when we allow it, our storm can transform our lives for the better.**
When you're in a waiting season, and you're wanting things in your life to change, it can be hard to trust God and wait patiently.
This episode is about my story and why I am so passionate about encouraging women who have been through trauma.
My goal is to help 700 women go from trauma to thriving through sharing God's word and words of encouragement here on this podcast, through teaching women how to run a profitable online business, and through my book which will be released some time in the near future.
This podcast is for you if you've been through trauma, and are seeking to hear words of encouragement through experiences and God's word.
Follow me for daily faith + Encouragement on Instagram at www.instagram.com/sierra.m.cooke
Have you ever compared your situation or pain to someone else's?
The best way to stop comparing, is to fix our eyes on Jesus.
Follow me on Instagram for daily faith + encouragement
@sierra.m.cooke