In His Circle

The Healing Power of Gathering and Faithful Prayer | Ep 17

• Tiffany Windsor • Episode 17

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In this episode, host Tiffany Windsor and her guest Mary Koning share personal experiences and heartfelt stories about the beauty of women gathering together. From the warmth of kitchen conversations to overcoming challenges in difficult relationships, they discuss how these serene settings become sanctuaries of support and strength. 

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Announcer:

Welcome to In His Circle, from women for women. We're here to help you find peace in knowing you are in God's hands. Our goal is sharing the Word of God in simple conversations. We're here to help you thrive every day. And now, here is your host.

Tiffany Windsor:

Good morning. I'm Tiffany Windsor and I'm Mary Koning, and today, Mary, we want to talk about gathering. So, as always, I want to turn it over to you so that you can start us off in prayer.

Mary Koning:

I would love that. I was just thinking about how God loves us, and there isn't anything that we can do to separate ourselves from his love. It's not even the love of a parent for a child. It's so much more unmovable, unfathomable, unmeasurable. And He tells us this in Jeremiah 31, 3, - I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you. Full of faith, Lord, we accept that love and this joy that we're feeling today, which is an overwhelming presence of you and your love we want for every woman. So please communicate that through our voices to these very hearts that need it, in Jesus' precious name, amen.

Tiffany Windsor:

Amen, thank you. What brought us to today's topic is we, a few weeks ago, talked about in our You Are Powerful podcast. I said to Mary oh, I feel like we got off track a little bit. We talked about women's gathering. I shared my experience of being in Mary's kitchen when she was preparing jam for a recipe for our e-zine and how important that moment was to me and Mary. I want to create more of those moments. I want to gather more. There's so many different levels that we, as women, can gather. We talked recently about imposing perhaps on other people in their space and for me, I'm very open. I wish I had more bedrooms. I would welcome a lot more people of like mind into my space.

Mary Koning:

I'm going to turn this over to you and let you decide where you first want to talk about gathering and what it means to women during holidays to make the meals, and the points of discussion would have been you know what they were dealing with and issues they were struggling with, and it would have been this natural progression of sharing wisdom. My parents moved away from our extended family when we were fairly young, so I never got a chance to gather with wise women and hear their experience, their life experience and their shared advice and their love. I got to see my aunt, my mom's sister, a few years ago and it just felt so like she knew some things you know, and she would just lay them out there and drop them like little pearls and I was like, oh, oh, I miss this so much and how I didn't learn to do that. So I'm learning how to do that and how uncomfortable it feels and how do we make it comfortable.

Mary Koning:

And I wanted to just touch on what makes me feel uncomfortable was, you know, living with a very difficult spouse for years and years and not wanting to invite anyone into my home to share, to make meals, because he would come by and just drop ugliness into the middle of it. He would make a comment about the mess of the house, or you're too loud, or whatever else that was so. It wasn't safe. You know I lived in a not safe environment for over 20 years, so it never felt safe to invite precious souls into the home that I was trying totraumatic stress syndrome, but I'm getting healed from that too, the kind of healing that can only come from God. So I'm looking forward to these wise women gatherings around the kitchen table.

Tiffany Windsor:

Here's the question I have, because I did talk about a friend of ours who is going through a challenge right now and trying to make the decision of separation and divorce and such, and her not being honest with us, not saying that she has to do that but not reaching out to us that she's holding it all in. So let me reframe that I'm not saying this in any sort of sense of accusing her of anything. How do we set the model so that women will feel comfortable to reach out to the other women that they know that they can trust? How to make a safe?

Mary Koning:

space. I think there's rules around it. I like Brene Brown's vault. You know it goes in the vault and we don't share it with anyone else.

Mary Koning:

And if we do share that, we keep that sweet soul anonymous. And who knows what we might learn by sharing a part of the story or something. And I do that. I keep friends anonymous if I know I'm in the presence of another wise woman just to see if we can share and come to some help for this one that needs it. Also, sharing my humiliation I've been humiliated. It's not a point that anyone can use against me any longer. I wouldn't share in the past because that would be a weapon to be used against me. But if you remember, my word of the year last year was warrior and I'm battle scarred and battle ready. So prayerfully I asked the Lord that I'm protected from all of that.

Mary Koning:

I have a funny story. My sister-in-law has a story she likes to bring up to me kind of every time I see her and I haven't seen her so it hasn't come up often, but she happens to be an ex-sister-in-law. But we all went to Las Vegas one time and I had just had LASIK surgery, so my eyes were not like 100% or what they would be in a normal day, and we had coffee after dessert at this beautiful restaurant. It was so fun I was using some dessert topping in my coffee instead of the cream, because they were all in the same kind of pots and it was just the best coffee ever.

Mary Koning:

Because of that accidental blessing mistake, and she would just always kind of make a joke of it, like bring it up almost every time and I was wondering why that bothered her so much. And I honestly think it was not another woman who had another woman's back and so she was just showing me with who she was to try and get me to wobble, get me to not stand firm on my feet, and I just kind of laugh it off as, oh, that doesn't work. But does that make her feel powerful? I don't know. She thinks it does. I think she thinks it does.

Mary Koning:

Right, but it doesn't, but it doesn't, and maybe the first time she brought it up she got the reaction she wanted. That brings me around a little to manipulation, and there's some intentional manipulation that I experienced in my marriage and there's some unintentional manipulation that some friends and family are showing us. And how much room do I give them to use the manipulation without feeling they're overstepping their boundaries? And so I'm finding the balance in that. I think all that to say that I've made friends with my humiliation, and it's a word the Lord uses in his Bible. It's called humbling us, and I don't know anybody that likes or wants to be humbled. But I am able to be humbled from a more teachable, loved spot when I know how loved I am and that's an area the Lord's working with me and that doesn't change His love for me and it makes it a safe place to be humbled.

Tiffany Windsor:

That's beautiful. While you were talking, I looked up the definition of humiliate because I know what the feeling is. It reads to cause someone to feel a loss of pride, dignity or self-respect. We're the ones that have to stand strong in our pride and our dignity and our self-respect, and it is total manipulation. If someone is trying to humiliate us, there's no purpose for it, because it only has to be for them trying to feel that they're superior to us in the most negative way, that the enemy would want to work, because there's nothing in that description that tells me there's no God to that.

Tiffany Windsor:

So if, when we recognize that in that moment and we were talking about that person trying to use that story over and over again, I love to turn things around and make fun of the story. It's like, oh, I use that all the time. It was the best mistake I ever made and I'm always sweetening my coffee with that now so that it helps to diffuse, it takes their power away from that moment. Or it's oh, I'm going to figure out a way to package that and sell it. That's where my mind goes is like, how can I diffuse the purpose that they're trying to use this against me to turn it into a really positive, powerful, fun way to hopefully keep them from ever saying that to me again.

Mary Koning:

Well, thank you, wise woman. So when wise women gather, this is what they would tell me. So I would go to them and you, thank you very much, and say, yeah, this weird thing happened and it would just happen as we're making the meal, and then I would be equipped for the next time and I love that diffusion. That's one tool I use, and one tool I'm trying to learn how to use is just to remember. It says more about them and where they are and what they're trying to control than it does about any part of the story or me. It's really all about them.

Mary Koning:

And I have another friend who said something like this example of the story with the coffee creamer doesn't fit. But this friend was saying, well, I'll own that part of it. I'll own that part of it. Like if someone's trying to humiliate me with something I did wrong and it's very possible I did something wrong and to just say, well, I'll own my part in it, or I'll own that one part in it that I maybe didn't handle well, but it, or I'll own that one part in it that I maybe didn't handle well, but it always takes two right, right.

Tiffany Windsor:

And I need to find when you talk about owning part of it. I'm not going to ever own the humiliation that somebody is trying to put on me because there has to be another word. It's like I'll own my error in that, I'll own my part in something, but you cannot say anything that's going to take away my dignity and self-respect, because that comes from the Lord and no one can take that away from me.

Mary Koning:

Amen, it's not an option. I didn't get that lesson. Growing up, I didn't know that was an option because of just how I was raised. Where I came from, was the people pleasing aspect of it was allowing my boundaries to be crossed all the time and had to give up myself to make the other person comfortable. And as I've learned to put my boundaries in place, knowing that I don't have to give up any of myself in order to be in relationship with people, we all have to behave without boundary busting and that is actually love without going over someone's boundaries. And the more we talk about it, the more we understand what that is and the more we can love each other better, because God never wanted to bust our boundaries. He came to give us free will and an open hand and an open heart, and it's up to us to take his extended hand and be in relationship with him, in healthy relationship, and I have just learned about that over these past few years.

Tiffany Windsor:

So, when we go back to talking about gathering, there's lots of different layers to this, and so it's very important for women to take time to gather just with other women and other women that are going to help you grow. Other ways to gather is in prayer and, mary, you and I have certainly experienced that over these few years that we've known each other the power of when two or more and we have a lot of just twos, just the two of us and offering prayer for each other and each other's lives and each other's families. I am seeing what the prayers of the faithful do and I have never experienced anything as powerful as that.

Mary Koning:

And I think it comes from Mark Batterson's draw the circle. So we're drawing the circle around the prayers and we're actually seeing results. I mean, how miraculous is it? We were just talking about the key to that is where two or more are gathered. But we're also praying for others. We're praying for ourselves. I noticed that I'm praying for myself and it's just kind of this circle that doesn't go anywhere. But God wants us to have our prayer life be a super highway for it to go somewhere. And so we're on this journey and I love Mark Batterson's Day 16 in Draw the Circle, where it's Lord Surprise Us. So the wind blows wherever it pleases. John 3, 8 is what he says, and he has a family member who says you can't never, always, sometimes tell. And that's what we've discovered from this blessed journey of 40 days of prayer and circling our prayers. We've seen miraculous things happen and I just think that's all part of the gathering, the women gathering. They would have seen it and that's what would have motivated them to keep doing it.

Mary Koning:

And our modern culture has kind of disintegrated that. If you think about it, enemy's pretty happy with that. He's disintegrated the family and the extended family and we move to where the job is. And what is the job? The money and the ever pursuit of money. Well, god doesn't need the money. He can provide for us what we need where we need it. And how do we get back to wise women gathering to create a prayer circle of unbroken praise? I love that song Circle of Unbroken Praise. It's a Christmas song. Circle of Unending Praise is how it goes. So, angels around God's throne. A circle of unending praise. But as we have answers to prayers and as we're waiting in the stillness, knowing God is coming with an answer that he has to because he's God, so what I'm hearing and what I'm learning as we talk about gathering is that one of the first commitments we need to make is to gather together.

Tiffany Windsor:

Honestly, as I look back over the past months, mary, it's when you invited me into the 730 prayer group in the morning that I really started seeing the shifts, because I wasn't just getting down on my knees for myself, just sitting back and waiting to go. Okay, lord, what are you going to do? Because this is what I think I need. It is so incredibly powerful to watch the healing in everyone else, and I know, if the Lord is moving in everyone else's life like that, that my prayers will be answered. And it's nothing that I have experienced before as I've come into my prayerfulness with the Lord. It's really shifted things for me. So, making the commitment if you don't have a prayer partner or prayer group that you can gather with every day, please reach out today to someone else that you know that you can start doing that with on a daily basis.

Mary Koning:

And join us. We pray 730 Pacific Time every morning and you're part of that. We're praying for you, circle Sister.

Tiffany Windsor:

I hope I'm not jumping around too much today, mary, but sometimes, as we do, we go down one track and it's like, oh wait, we want to talk about this or that. One of the sayings that you say to me that means so much is the prayers of the faithful. Can you explain that a bit more? Can you explain?

Mary Koning:

that a bit more. When I don't have the words, when I'm trying to grasp onto a lifeline or a rescue ring, and I just go to my prayer warriors, friends I know that will pray for me, that even if God isn't answering those prayers which I know he hears them and you know the saying it's either yes or no or not yet. And so knowing God hears these faithful friends helps me lay it down for a second or a minute or an hour or a day. So knowing you have some prayer warriors, the prayers of the faithful, those full of faith that know God hears them and is answering in his timing, is so powerful for me. Because I don't have words. There's the groanings of the spirit that we read about in the Bible, so I don't even know what to pray. So I ask for prayer.

Mary Koning:

And maybe that's you, dear one, where you don't know what to pray, but you have so much on your heart and in your life that's going on right now, or a sick child or an unhealthy spouse, that we don't need to put words to it. The Lord knows what's happening, but we just can't sit in it alone. And that's the whole point of what we're doing here is we're not supposed to sit in it alone, that we need each other, and that's what's been missing. So we need to create these faithful prayer groups of two or more, wherever we are, and to not be afraid to say what's on our heart and to know that we've created a safe space, that it's not going to go anywhere to gather, to discuss and to pray with each other and wait for a response.

Mary Koning:

You know, in draw the circle, day 16 is about surprise me. So we want to be surprised, lord, with your answers to prayer, and how it starts is be brave enough to say it, just be brave enough to ask for those prayers. The next step is then pray 730. In the morning we'll be praying, and then the third step is to watch for those miracles and to know that the Lord has to do it because he's the one who has all the power. It's not up to me, it's not up to my prayers.

Tiffany Windsor:

That's just a part of the process just a couple days ago I was at a local business where I buy wonderfully made organic soups and the owner was there and I've known him for many years and I actually first met him when I was invited into a men's prayer group to join them at a business that I worked for. It wasn't this exclusive club, it just no woman had ever asked to join. So this gentleman owns this business and I was in buying and we were talking about he's bought a piece of property out of state and how the Lord answered way beyond his prayers, of what unfolded in trading some property. And I had so much soup that I couldn't carry it all. So he said let me help you out to your car. And when we got to the car and we loaded this into my car, he said may I pray for you?

Tiffany Windsor:

We stood there in this parking lot, it was raining, he was holding my hands and he was praying for me because I'm looking forward to making a move. You never know when this is going to happen, so keep your heart open. I had no thought of what people who are driving by may have thought in this moment of our prayer until afterwards, when it was all done. It's like oh, my goodness, what just happened. So please be open to these beautiful moments of praise and prayer coming and don't be afraid when this happens. And, mary, this is one of my favorite sayings from you is buckle up, buttercup, because your life is going to change.

Mary Koning:

I love that story so much because the time to pray is now and the time to accept prayer is always, and that he extended it to you.

Mary Koning:

And how brave you are, going into a men's group, you know, and just saying, oh, here I am, busting boundaries in the best way possible and, um, as you were telling the story, I just kept hearing hope, hope, the hope of the Lord. The hope of the Lord isn't dependent on our circumstances, it's not dependent on my divorce status, it's not dependent on my age, or whether my kids come to see me or not, or how lonely I am or not. It's the hope of the Lord. So I'm going to end us with back in the book of Jeremiah and this verse I wrote this every day for years on end. So I pray this over all of us, for I know the plans I have for you, declares Yahweh, plans for welfare and not for evil, plans to give you hope and a future. And that hope isn't circumstantial and it's not dependent on me or you. It's just there. So I pray hope over you, sweet sister, in Jesus name, amen.

Announcer:

Amen. Thank you for joining us for today's podcast. For more information, go to InHisCirclecom. Sign up for our newsletter and social media. We love your feedback. Please leave reviews, comments and subscribe to this podcast to help us get the word out about In His Circle. Thank you and, dear friends, have a blessed day.

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Tiffany Windsor

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