How to Make a Hard Decision When the Odds Are Against You | 63

What do you do when you have to make a decision and the odds are against you or they don't seem very promising? I am Dr. Betsy Guerra, and I have spent 26 years helping people discern what decision to make when so that they may live the life that God created them to be. And today, I'm gonna show you exactly how to do that. It was 2006, and I was in grad school talking to one of my professors who I adored. And I was telling him about how I'm getting married right after I defend my dissertation. And I was so excited about it. And he goes like, but why? Why are you getting married? I'm like, because I'm in love, and this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. And he's like— Betsy. If they told you that 2 out of 4 burgers in Burger King are contaminated, and if you eat them, you're gonna die, would you go to a Burger King? And I'm like, no. He's like, then why are you getting married? 50% of marriages end up in divorce. They die. Why are you gonna get married? And I'm like, because I have faith in that this is the burger. that is not contaminated. I trust with all my heart and all my soul that this burger is perfect for me. And I remember him smirking. He is in heaven now. May he rest in peace. And I trust that he's smiling as I speak to you today. And the reason I believe that is because last week or a couple weeks ago, it was my 20th anniversary, 20th wedding anniversary. It wasn't like 20 years of being married and, okay, we made it. It was 20 years of fulfillment, joy, overcoming adversities. It was like 20 wholesome, full, delicious years. I am obsessed with my husband today more than when I met him 22 years ago. And I, I'm the happiest woman on earth because I have him. I have defeated all odds because he's in my life. And that doesn't mean that he's perfect, and it doesn't mean that our marriage has been perfect, but it's been really close to perfection because even when we've gone through hardships, we've overcome them and come out stronger, better, and holier for it. So in my wedding anniversary, every 5 years we celebrate our anniversary and we invite a lot of people from Miami to Puerto Rico. That's where we got married. I'm from Puerto Rico. And this year was a big one, so we made it like super, super special, and we wrote our own vows. It's the first time we ever do that. So we wrote our own vows, and what kept coming for me that I included in my vows was that when I chose him 20 years ago, I chose him from a place of faith. Of hope. I hoped that we were one for each other, that we were going to live happily ever after. I trusted, I had faith, and I hoped that he would be my burger that was not contaminated and was going to allow me to remain healthy and alive. But that was hope. That was faith. There was no evidence that he was it. And now, 20 years later, I have all the evidence in the world that he is the person I choose to be with until— not until death do us apart, that's something else that I wrote there— until the rest of eternity. Because now I also know that love transcends death. I know that through my experience of my daughter. So my vow to him, my promise to him was, I am not gonna love you until death do us apart. I am going to love you for the rest of eternity. I remember at that moment thinking, like, it's so easy to choose him now that I have evidence that he's an amazing husband, the best dad in the world. He— I fall in love with him over and over and over again when I witness him as a dad. I don't want anybody else for me. I sometimes imagine the possibility of losing him, and I don't think anybody could ever possibly measure up to my husband. It's just— it's not possible. Too big of shoes to fill. And it's easy to choose him now that I have all this evidence that he's the person I want to be with forever and ever. Amen. That we've gone through so many hardships and we've overcome them, that we've been a team. It's easy to make decisions when you know what's going to happen 20 years down the line. But it's not that easy when all you hear is that 2 out of 4 burgers in Burger King are contaminated and will kill you if you eat them. It's not easy to choose to marry someone. It's not easy to plead not guilty when you don't know what the judge or the jury are going to decide ultimately. It's not easy to choose a treatment for your illness If you don't know that that's really like the trial treatment that's gonna support you or it's just not gonna do anything, it's not easy to choose a team or choose people to work for you when you don't know if they have bad habits or they can fail you or betray you. It's not easy to choose from hope and from faith and from the belief that That it may work out. And that's what happens in a lot of the decisions that we make in life. What school do we put our kids in? You know, what college do I go to? Like, who do I marry? It's hard. But there were 3 things that I did that led me to the decision of choosing my husband as the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. And those are the 3 Ps. The first P is prayer. When I broke up with my ex-boyfriend of 6 years, I would cry myself to sleep every night. And we broke up loving each other, but I just knew he wasn't the person I wanted to be with forever. Like, I feared divorce, and I thought, like, just, I cannot live with his flaws for the rest of my life. He was an amazing person, but the couple things that he didn't have in his favor, I couldn't live with forever. So I broke up, I think, with the wisdom. I was a psych— you know, I was studying psychology at the time, and I was going to my own psychoanalyst. So I had been doing my work, and I broke up loving him, but knowing that it was the right thing to do. One of those nights that I would cry myself to sleep, I remember praying and being like, okay, God, I know this is the right thing. I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna share with you, I'm gonna open my heart and tell you everything that I want in my dream man, right? Like, he wants us to talk to him, so I figure, like, okay. And he wants us to be specific and pray and invite him in. And of course he knows my heart and he knows everything that I want and need, but the exercise was probably more for me than it was for God. You know, who am I to tell God what to do? Although I tried many times. But, you know, it was an exercise. So I remember writing down a list of everything I wanted in my man, everything I wanted and everything I did not want and everything that was negotiable. Like, that was a very, very, very specific list. So specific that I remember getting to 130 items on my list. And every time I would meet someone or witness a boyfriend of a friend or see my dad do something or see my brothers, every time I would see someone I was exposed to be or do something I loved, I would add it to the list. Every time I would see something I didn't like, I would add it to the list and be like, I don't want this. As I prayed, I visualized and I imagined my person because now I'm getting clarity. God already knows, but I'm getting clarity of what I want based on everything that I've learned from my life experiences that at the time were just 20-something years worth of that, which is not too, too much, but it's also not too little. As time went by and I continued to ponder on this prayer, and I continued to come back to the list to add and remove and edit, I just imagined my person. And I would practice visualization. We've talked about that in previous episodes. And I would just like imagine myself with my person and how he would treat me and how I would treat him and how he would get along with my family. and how I would get along with his, because family values are a big, big value in my life. And I just loved him already. I hadn't met him, but I loved the guy. And that prayer, that request that I was making to God, and that became a thanksgiving prayer. So I went from asking to thanking. my prayers sounded more like, thank you so much for my person, Lord. I love him so much. He's so amazing. Like, and I would read the list and I would imagine what that would look like in real life. And I was just so happy. I'm like, oh my goodness, God put like all the qualities that I love in a blender and like created this incredible man for me. And I started like buying into the belief that he existed, that God had him for me, just for me. And that I was gonna find Him whenever I was ready, 'cause that's what I asked in the prayer list. I asked like, send Him to me when I'm ready to receive Him. Because I also recognize that many times we— He's right in front of us, or the thing that you desire, the abundance, the freedom, the joy, the forgiveness, the peace, the health, everything that you desire is like right there in front of you. but you are not able to receive it. You don't know how to receive. You don't know how to recognize it. You're not taking the steps that are gonna allow you to meet face to face with it. Many times, God's giving us the gift and the grace, but we don't get it. We don't receive it. So I specifically asked God to give him to me, to send him to me when I had become ready to receive him with open arms. So in the meantime, I was doing my personal work. I was going to my therapist. I was working on my spirituality. I was enforcing the belief, building the belief that he already existed. I figured at the very least he was already born because I was 24 years old at the time. So I'm like, he was born already. Like, for sure he was born. So I was just trusting, building my faith and my belief. and my thanksgiving for He who I didn't know yet, but I knew He existed by faith, by hope, by trust. So I built that up. That was the first P of the 3 Ps, the prayer part. So it's not just pray and ask God. It's like pray, be specific, visualize, thank Him for what you know is coming but haven't yet seen with your eyes. Surrender, trust Him, and just indulge in that which is already true, even though you haven't witnessed it with your senses. So that's prayer. Prayer encompasses a lot more than just, you know, rezar a lo papagayo, you know, like, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Like, no, no, no. We are like really living that prayer. So that's the first P. The second P is peace. God speaks through peace. So whenever you find that calmness within you, like, I was really sad about my loss of my ex-boyfriend, but I had peace in my heart. I knew it was the right decision. I had that sense of knowing, that sense of calmness, that sense of trusting That just because I didn't feel good at the moment, I didn't need to run back, but rather, like, push through and trust that something was going to meet me on the other side. And it was exactly what I had been waiting for. So when you pray with such intention as the one that I was praying for my future husband, you just be still. and wait for peace. You don't do anything until you feel complete peace. So I met people in between the list and my husband, and every time I would meet someone and, you know, they would show a quality that was a no-no on my list, I'd be like, I would scratch him. Or they would, I don't know, they would reveal something that was against what I put in the list, I would immediately like— Cross them off. X them out. I'm like, okay, this is not it. But then there were times in which I didn't know because, you know, everything was going well so far. But if I didn't have peace with going out with that person or believing that that was a possibility, then I wouldn't even give it the time of day. I needed to feel peace, and peace shows up in the form of Inner deep knowing in the form of calmness, in the form of ease. The opposite of peace is not sleeping at night and ruminating and thinking too much about it and not knowing what to do, XYZ. When that happens, be still. Be still and know that I am God. Just, just take a moment. Don't make any decisions. Be still. So The second P is waiting for peace. And for that, you need to surrender, you need to relinquish control, you need to trust God, which comes with the first P, which is prayer. And then the last P is perseverance. And that's when you continue to build the belief, you continue to trust, you continue to move forward. My life didn't stop. In fact, Because my life didn't stop, I ended up going on a trip to Brazil to meet up with a dear friend who's from there. And after being in Brazil, I had to do a layover in Miami to get to Puerto Rico of 2 days. And I was going to miss school. And I tried to change that flight, and I couldn't. For months, I was calling every day. Do you have any openings? Do you have any openings? And no openings. And I just— I pushed through and I went on my trip and I came back and I had to spend 2 days in Miami. And it was in that layover that I did not meet my husband, but rather recognized him. When I saw my husband in the bowling alley where my cousin invited me to, and, you know, he was there with her, when I saw him, I swear that it was like, like I saw him in slow motion. It was like, there you are. I hadn't even exchanged a word with him. I didn't know. I hadn't met him. I didn't know his name. It was a little dark, so I could barely really see his face in detail. But I knew as soon as I saw him. It was like, there you are. I know. I swear I didn't meet him. I recognized him. When you pray with such intention, it is already true in your heart before you see it with your eyes. So then when you see it with your eyes, something inside you has that feeling of, there you are. And the same thing is true with opportunities. That's the opportunity I need to say yes That is the college I need to apply for. That is the school that I'm gonna put my kids in. That actually, that happened with my school too, my kids' school. I was thinking about doing a charter school because it was free and it was good. And I was led to an open house of this Catholic school. And I was like, okay, I'll go for the flies. That's a direct translation of por si la mosca, which really means like, I'll go just in case. So I went to the open house, and as soon as I opened the door to the pre-K-4 classroom, it was like, I'm home, I've arrived, this is it. And I was super sold on the other school, but it was that peace that surpasses understanding, that has no explanation. It was the perseverance of of taking the steps that God guided me to take, including going to an open house of a school I wasn't interested in. And you know why He wanted me there? Because months later, I was going to lose Fofi. And this community of faith of my school was gonna be the one to hold us, to hold our children, to love on us, to bring us closer to God. To guide us towards a path of healing and joy and peace rather than grief and suffering. God knew. So it is important that you pray with intention, that you search for peace, and that you persevere in taking actions and steps towards whatever you're guided to. by the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit becomes— you give power to the Holy Spirit, the indwelling God, when you open up to Him through prayer. So I had already done that. So when I went to the bowling alley and saw my man, I was like, where have you been my entire life? There you are. And I knew I would have married the guy that Mind you, I spent 6 years with my ex-boyfriend. I would have married my husband the day I met him. I just knew. I knew. So much so that when I got home after my flight, I told my dad, who's a super die-hard Catholic, I'm like, Papi, I met the man I'm gonna marry. And he laughed at me. He's like, I've heard that before. Hahaha. I'm like, no, no, no, you don't understand. I met the man I'm gonna marry. Papi, if I don't marry this guy, I promise you— and I'm a woman of my word, so I really meant my promise. And I, you know, I love God with all my heart, so I was— I really meant this. I told him, I promise you I will become a nun. So my husband says I married him to not become a nun, but I promise it was a lot more than that. So That's the difference between hope and certainty. Making a decision with faith doesn't come in easy unless you include the 3 Ps. And then those 3 Ps— prayer, peace, and perseverance— just show you the way to certainty when certainty isn't physically here yet. That's the, that's, that's the key. But if you marry without, if you make the decision of sending your kids to this school with fear, if you decide to plead not guilty, you know, with hesitation instead of peace, then who's that coming from? Is it coming from your mind? Is it coming from an outside force? Or is it coming from God. And if you want to learn more about how to discern the voice of your mind from the voice of God, you can go to the episode on the screen, which I'll also put on this— on the notes, on the show notes. So I made a decision with faith to marry my husband that now I get to make over and over and over again with certainty. But the idea is that we never have to make a decision without that feeling of certainty and knowing that comes from true unwavering faith. And you can do that right now. If you're going to make a decision, if you're going to discern a decision that's going to impact the rest of your life or your family life, then include the 3 Ps to make sure that you are guided to it by the source that knows what's going to happen in 20 years, by the source that understands exactly how this is going to impact you. And then you trust blindly, wholeheartedly that your burger is the good burger, not the one that's contaminated. So I ask you, my friend, what decision are you the discerning these days? What options do you have that you feel are like a catch-22, or you don't know which one's going to be the right one? What are you wanting to choose or decide these days that you have no clarity on? And take a moment to pray about it. Prayer brings clarity. In the measure that you share with God what it is that you want, In the measure that you force yourself to create a vision so that then you can share it with God, you have the space to really like fill in the blanks and gain clarity and get ideas. And maybe you process it with God or a journal or someone else. One of my coaches from the Faith-Based Coaching Academy can support you through that. In the measure that you open it up to prayer, open it up to God for God to come in, Then in that measure, you connect to divine wisdom and infinite power, the one that lives within, the Holy Spirit. And by doing that, then you gain access to the peace that surpasses understanding, which is the one that lets you know you're down the right path. When you have peace, you keep on moving forward, you keep on persevering, you keep on taking steps, you trust. One step after the other. If you don't have peace, you know, it's recalculating, make a U-turn, that's not the route. So then, you know, if you made a decision or, you know, or took a step that isn't— doesn't feel right, you come back. And please understand that peace is not to be confused with happy. You can be sad, you can be nostalgic, you can be scared, a little scared, And still be peaceful. Because peace is that sense of knowing, the sense of calm, the sense of like, I am going down the right path, even if it hurts. There's a fear that feels more like anxiety and stress and rumination, and I can't sleep, and it's robbing me of my sleep at night, and I can't. You pay attention to that. That's lack of peace. So don't confuse the 2 fears that may exist. There's one that can exist at the same time as peace, and that's the fear of the unknown, which is normal, natural. But it, it allows you to sleep at night. There's still that deep sense of knowing. And then there's the anxiety, stress. I can't sleep. You know, you know, it just robs you of your peace. It's clear. And I usually tell my students or my clients, listen to your body. Your emotions are the compass God uses to guide you. So tune in and see, like, when you think about this decision, decision A, do you feel your body expand and be excited about the possibilities or lean into that? Like, do you open up or do you feel your body contract and your face deform? Like, I don't know about that, right? Like, when you— you know, you know. I know this is hard if you've never really gone through this process with intention because you may think like, but how do I know that I know? And I'm not sure. I don't know that I know. And, you know, if you've never really been intentional about this process, you may think you won't know. And I remember thinking that way about finding my man because I remember people telling me, you know. I'm like, what do you mean? I've known a few times and it didn't work out. I didn't. When you find that experience, when you feel that there you are, when you recognize the person, the opportunity, the possibility, it feels so real and different and unquestionable that then you realize that you knew all along that nothing ever felt that way. So if there's doubt, then that's not it. When it's the one, you just have this conviction in your heart that you know. So if you're not sure, my friend, that's not it. Be still. Maybe the option that is the right option for you or your family member or your loved one is not yet available, and that's why you haven't seen it. Do not rush into a decision that does not bring you peace. Prayer allows you to surrender, to open up to God's wisdom, And infinite power within. Peace is the guidance, the yes, no, go that route or recalculate and make a U-turn. And perseverance is the steps that you take one at a time that allow you to get to that place where you'll feel the peace when you recognize the opportunity. But you get to take action. Know that stillness is not about like sitting back and let God do His thing. My friend, God's doing His thing, but He's doing it through you. So you get to take one step at a time in a guided way by listening to His peace. So pray, peace, and persevere so that you may discern and make decisions with certainty, even when they're really coming from a place of Faith. That's it for today's episode. I loved, loved, loved spending this time with you, so thank you for joining me. If somebody came to mind while you were listening, bless them with this episode. Send it to them. And if you may, please subscribe and leave a review. Those are really helpful to help us spread the message. And if you want to grow in faith and wisdom, join me at faithandgrowth.com. Thank you for spending this time with me. Love you. Bye. Bye.