How to Know When God Is Redirecting Your Life

I wanted people to get to know you, people to maybe there are people who are in the same position you once were. You were happy, you were content with your life, you were doing good work, and then suddenly you were pulled for more. Not intentionally. And it's been a process of surrender, a process of saying yes. So can you tell us a little bit about your story?

Well, so you want to go from the beginning, whatever you do. August 22nd, 1983. No, just kidding. So really, truly, my life, my faith life started. I was thinking about this earlier today, but my first Holy Communion, I think it's when a seed was planted in my heart to be a woman of service and a woman of faith. Even though I didn't know it yet. I just. I remember receiving one of the gifts that I received, or two in particular, were a little communion book that has the order of the Mass, and it has the prayers and then a little Precious Moments Bible. And in it there's parables of Jesus Christ and there's stories. And I always read the book. And when I was little, I would sit and do the Mass. I was the priest at home and I would do the Mass. And on top of that, my family faced a lot of adversity throughout my life. There was tragedy in my past. And my parents were young parents who were going through adversity one step at a time because we were so young. So everything was happening for them all at the same time. And I can remember vividly my father always coming home from work after a really hard day, sharing stories and sharing stories of his mother, who also went through lots of adversity and being a woman of faith and always going back to church. So that seed of service and that seed of faith was planted in me by the stories that he would tell, by the adversity I saw my parents go through, but by their immense faith and fast forward to getting married and having kids and being, you know, my career, being a teacher, it just flowed in organically and naturally. And I was a teacher in the classroom and in a Catholic school. And everything I saw my dad ever get involved in, everything that he ever did, I wanted to do. Because when I watched him serve and when I watched him be a part of the church and do all the things that he was doing, what I witnessed was intense joy. Even though there was so much chaos in his life, what brought him calm in every storm was his service. And so I might get a little bit emotional because it's that. That I test my faith to that, you know, no matter what you're going through. What you need is to center, to source, to God. And. And that's changed my life in an immense way. But at the beginning, I didn't know. You know, little by little, I've gone understanding that. And a lot of that has to do with you, Betsy. A lot of that has to do with seeing your. You go through your adversity and being able to be happy and doing all the things that you do and all that I've learned from you. And so, yeah, that's. That's me.

So you were a teacher, and you loved it, and you're really good at it. I've seen you in action, and there's something that I love about you tremendously, that I feel like our listeners should know, which is you have this, like, contagious energy and joy and Fun is your middle name. Whatever you do, you bring fun to it, and it's a very childlike fun. So. So you are. Your kids are attracted to you because you're one of them, just a little more mature and maybe, maybe kind of sort of. So if everything was great, why change it? My husband would say, you know, why fix what's not broken? So can you tell us a little bit about what happened in your life that led you to where you're at today? And just tell us a little bit about that story as well.

So in my life, there were two big shifts, actually, and in one of them, I wasn't happy. In one of them, which was my first job, I experienced lots of joy and lots of happiness. And I grew there from a little girl to a woman. I had my babies there. I got involved in the church there. My faith grew there, but at some point, it just wasn't doing it anymore. And I was coming home upset, and I was coming home miserable, and I was bringing home a lot of negative energy. And it was trailing into my personal life, my marriage, my motherhood. And it wasn't until one day, with my precious moments Bible that I received in my first holy communion, that I used to play this game. It's Bible bingo. I'm sure a lot of people know about Bible bingo, but Bible bingo is basically, you put a question in your heart and you ask the question and open the Bible, and whatever the Bible says is God's answer to you. And I always tell the kids, because I do this till this day, nine times out of 10 or 10 times out of 10, there's an answer in there somewhere. And so this one day where I was not the best version of myself and Just miserable and tired. And over being this upset, I decided, okay, I'm going to ask the question, God, what do I do? And my fifth graders were sitting right in front of me and I opened that Bible. And it's precious moments. It's for like 7 to 10 year olds. So it's written in my language, my kid language, my little baby language. And it was the parable of Sarah and Lot. It was a story of Sarah and Lot who had to leave from one second to the other and never look back. But the way that it started was, what if God asked you to pick up everything that you own, leave everyone you know and go somewhere else and start your life new somewhere else? And it was like an explosion in my heart. Like, okay, that was the first day that I was like, all right, God, I'm gonna do this and I'm done not being happy. And I know that you can provide that joy. So within a few months, I took my kids out of the school who were there from when they were in pre K2 and registered them at another school and blindly left with no job in mind at all. And then I apply to charter schools because I was in a parochial school. And the job that I get my first interview day walking in is it's a charter school rented from an old Catholic school. So the church still exists. So when I'm walking in, it's a statue of the Virgin Mary. And I knew again in my heart that God was there guiding me in the direction that I needed to go. So it was almost like validation. Just trust me, Trust that I've got your back. So I worked there for that year, and that's the year Covid hit. And that's adversity. Covid was a huge hit to my career, most especially because the way that we're used to teaching was ripped away from us in an instant. So we had to reinvent the wheel. But even then, I was able to find excitement in doing it. I was able to connect with my kids and the parents were able to see how I connected with second grade Raiders, by the way. And it was no joke. And at the same time, we were remodeling a house. We were living in my in laws house. I love them very much. Pepito and Ludes, I love you. So. But we were there for 10 months and going through construction, which is also chaos. But through it all, I just felt held. I felt. I never felt desperation to go home. I never felt insecurity. I never felt. I just felt like God was guiding us in this Direction and giving us great opportunities. And then lo and behold, the school where my kids were at offered me a position to teach first grade. So again, it was like I didn't ask for it, I wasn't looking for it. It was God just saying, here, this is for you. You go ahead, you do this. And so I started my adventure in this new school with new people and very scary, not knowing what to expect, bringing all my old stuff into this new place and having to start fresh like my little precious moments Bible told me back in when I was in the other school. So I did that. And the first year I was on a cloud, I just was so happy. And all I did was enjoy my kids, enjoy my students, and then get to know all the teachers that are there that I adore, that I love. And the school was just another place where I felt held and loved. And I did two extra years there. And then you asked me, Betsy, you called me and I had been working with you and talking with you and buying everything that you were selling. I did your date nights, I helped you with the kids, with the teens group. And you called me one night and you asked me, I'm doing this coaching Academy, would you. And I didn't even let you finish the sentence. I said, yes, I want to. Because in my heart I also felt like there was like this fire, like there was just I want to make a bigger impact. I want to do more. I want to share the world, what I know about God and how to trust God and what he can do for you. Even though we're all going through adversity, us moms are going through adversity, us families are going through adversity. We have a past that some of us have never looked at to say, to accept or to be able to understand. So I wanted to to do that and you gave me the opportunity to do that. So in my full time job with my very, my new friend Nati, who I love and adore as well as my assistant, I was able to accomplish the faith based Coaching Academy. And that blew me away. Because the one most important thing that you taught me in the faith based Coaching Academy was about me. I got to know myself first and I got to accept myself and I got to see myself through your eyes, through your coaching and through our group. And I was able to be vulnerable and accepted and loved and held once again. So you showed me the face of Jesus. I say hands and feet, you always say the face. So I got that in the faith based Coaching Academy.

Real quick, can you Tell them why you said that. Because I had never heard that expression before until I heard it from you.

So I've always said that my desire in life is to be the hands and feet of Christ so that everything that I do in life is with Jesus's hands and feet, so that, you know, I'm always in alignment with him and always in center with him. I remember telling you that, and you'd be like, oh, I've never heard that, because you always say the face of Christ. But, yeah, that was that. So, yeah, Coaching Academy taught me first about myself, and. And I began to understand myself and understand that, you know, I was in poop for a while. I was sitting in poop. No, no, you have to explain why you're saying that.

It's out of context.

Yes, yes, yes. Well, you say that there's pain and suffering, and that pain is like fertilizer. And you can either sit in fertilizer and like it, and it's warm and it's delicious and it's yummy, and you can stay. Stay there because it's what you know, and you. You just don't know anything else, or you can choose to use your pain to fertilize you and grow and. And I learned that through you. I learned to take everything that I had gone through, accept it, love it, own it, and know that I grew there, like. So I used to look back at the place and be like, oh, I never want to go there again. Oh, I never want to see that place again. But now I look to that place and all the people.

Your old school.

My old school, and all the people that were a part of it, and I'm grateful. And not a lot of people can do that because there's, you know, things you hold on to. But I see that I needed that in order to be sitting here with you today.