Ultimately, when I moved down here,
I struggled with
who I was, especially whenever I was outside the community.
When I was visiting old friends or was with my family, I was like,
what am I like?
How do I go?
Do I go as I used to be, just like, conservative Christian?
Or do I go being Mennonite?
You know, I'm not part of the church.
How do I dress?
a big turning point for me was actually when I was traveling
with my brother, and we were backpacking.
I knew I didn't have a lot of space, and I was like,
I can't take two different styles of clothing with me.
You know, I can't, you know, I don't have space for that.
I need to go in one way or the other.
And I just, I kind of battled with it for a while, and I was like,
God, you have to give me peace in whatever way I go.
Tirzah, thanks for coming on the podcast today.
For a little context,
we're filming this in Ireland, which is where you're originally from.
You were born here.
And today I want to get some of your story.
How you ended up here and the journey God has had you on over the years.
So let's just jump right into it.
Tell me a little about where you're from and where your family is from originally.
Sure. Yeah.
So, my dad is originally from Germany and my mom from Switzerland, and they,
were led to Ireland and got married here.
And raised.
I mean, we were all born and raised here in Ireland.
yeah, it's kind of an interesting mix of cultures
there with, just, you know, or
the different people that we've interacted with and been around.
Yeah. So, so you're in Ireland.
What kind of church then?
Like you're, you're raised Christian, I suppose.
And what kind of church group were you part of at the time?
Yeah.
So, we were raised Christian.
Our parents would have been first generation Christians, actually.
They would have been involved in a mission,
like an evangelical mission that started in India
and branched out into America as well and different countries.
So they would have been involved in that work.
And through that, we never actually ended up
joining a church in Ireland.
Thinking back to it, there were pros and cons to that.
I think one of the things that I appreciate about it
is that we were able to, we felt free to go around to different churches,
and not necessarily settle
with one or like feel the need to be connected to one.
But then on the flip side, it also kind of gave you that sense
of not really belonging to one certain place.
Also just with where we live, there
wasn't or there wasn't a lot of different options.
But yeah, we did go to different denominations
and didn't necessarily put ourselves in the box of one denomination, I'd say.
Describe some of those denominations.
I'm just kind of curious
what the church landscape would have been like where where you were growing up.
Sure.
So with where we lived, we tended to go to the north of Ireland.
There was a lot more options up there.
There was like independent Methodist, or Baptist,
a lot of brethren churches as well.
So there's quite a there's a bigger range up there
than there would be in the South.
And, you know, you just drive 45 minutes away
and there was a lot more options and where we lived.
So yeah, Yeah.
So it sounds like you all weren't members in. Okay.
We're part of this denomination.
This is where we go to church. There's a lot more,
yeah. Mobility, I guess.
Or moving about in between.
Between the options, I suppose. Yeah.
There were churches that we tended to attend pretty regularly,
but then there would go spells where we wouldn't attend that one as much.
You know, different things.
But then as we grew up,
I saw that as challenging because then you would have,
you know, some of the older siblings
would feel one way about it and or parents would feel the other way.
And then there was this
there could be some tension about where we would go or even just the stress of,
you know, our dad had to decide where would we go each Sunday.
So there there's definitely a lot of benefit with having a,
a steady place and a place that you're committed to.
So I'd say
pretty clearly you're not in that type of situation anymore.
And somewhere in this journey
you encountered Anabaptists or you know those teachings as values.
But I don't typically think of Ireland or really Europe as a whole,
as a, as a place that has a lot of Anabaptists
or that type of teaching those types of churches
and I guess you could say Europe as a whole feels very post-Christian.
You know, there's not near the amount of Christian influence
as it would have been in the past in this, in this part of the world.
So tell me that story.
Like how did you encounter Anabaptist teaching for the first time?
so there was a bookshop in our town
that we lived in a Christian bookshop, and
there was these little red Bibles that, like our dad would give each of us
these little red Bibles, like a little, children's Bible.
And I if I remember right, it was originally
it was a, like, choice books is what brought them up there.
So like, Dan and Barbara would have brought them up.
They go around to lots of different bookstores across Ireland
and bring Bibles and books to those bookshops.
And so, the man who ran the bookshop knew who had brought the Bibles
like he knew who it was.
I can't remember quite how that connection was with the Anabaptist, but,
my mom said that we had contacted them to, you know, to get in touch.
There was some things that they were struggling with with,
some of the older siblings, and they were just like, you know, they needed help.
And so they turned to the Anabaptist or to, you know,
they turned to the church down here to to look for some help.
Somewhere in there as well.
I have an aunt that lives in the States, and she has had a connection
with Mennonites.
And so she had she knew about choice books as well.
And I believe that at some point she told my dad that there was a community
in Ireland.
So there was, you know, those two different connections.
I can't remember quite how long ago it was,
but it was probably in 2007 or so was 5 or 7.
It's it was a quite a while back.
And so at some point
my parents got in touch with Dan and Barbara and they came up and visited.
So that was our first connection with them.
And then over the years, we would come down and visit,
we would come for church some years we would,
we would just come down on a Sunday morning and head back in the evening.
Whoa. Okay.
And so for context, you're living
in the north of the country like it's it's a good
a decent drive from here because we're all the way in the southern part of Ireland.
Now, where the church is here?
Wow. So, okay, that's that's the back and forth there.
That must have taken a lot of effort, you know, and intentionality.
How far away was it for you?
It took anywhere from 4 to 6 hours,
depending on, you know, there was different things that played into that.
But we could do it in four hours.
And yeah, it it did.
It took a toll, especially on our parents, I'd say, because we would want to go.
We would always want to go.
But when we came home in the evening, it probably wasn't such a good idea.
So I think it made it harder every time to to keep doing it.
We didn't do it regularly.
Some years we just came down once or twice.
But no, there was always something special about coming down.
We always wanted to,
and so that's really your I guess the word that comes to
mind is like gateway or entry point into this.
Again on this podcast, we say,
anabaptism as a worldview, not necessarily this, this fixed denomination.
It's more here's how you view Scripture and the teachings of Jesus and so forth.
So these connection points with the church and,
and anabaptist community here in the south of Ireland.
That would have been an entry point
in a lot of ways into this thread of teaching, I guess.
Is that a fair way of saying it. Yeah.
And then the church
here started, a family conference.
And they have been doing that every year for a couple of years.
And so that was always a highlight for our family.
We always made it a point to come down.
And so far I've been able to attend every single one that they've had.
And it's just been like over the years, just such a special
time of coming together.
And yeah, our family really enjoyed those times.
So somewhere in this story
there's a turning point or
maybe turning
point is not quite the right word, but ultimately you now live down here.
So you moved to this area
and I'm sure made some changes and, and became a part of this community.
Tell me about that.
Like what what was that turning point? When did that happen?
What was happening in your life to say I think I'm going to consider
coming down here.
You're getting more involved in this community.
What did that look like for you? Sure. So
my I used to work with my
dad, like me and my mom did, and over Covid,
a lot of things changed, obviously with restrictions and things like that.
And also that same year my my dad became unwell
and, near the end of that year, he passed away.
So there was just a lot of changes
in our family's lives over that time.
I basically didn't have a job anymore.
And, over Covid, God led me to to start working as a home care assistant.
So I had something to do.
But at the same time,
our church situation had changed a lot
because of Covid and because we were,
you know, churches were being shut down and everything was just online
and it was around that time,
the beginning of, 2021,
I believe, that Anthony messaged my mom and was like, hey, you know,
Would your daughter be able to come and help us out here?
Because
because they were trying to,
or because of Covid, the, The visas that the volunteers were needing
were taking a lot longer to be processed. And,
the turnout with the volunteers, like one was going to be leaving soon
and they needed someone to cover for that, that period of time,
because they didn't know how long it would take for the replacement to come.
So they needed someone to come for the summer, basically.
And at that time, I kind of had a lot going
on, and I, I didn't feel like I wanted to make that move.
leaving our family at that time just felt like a lot.
And, I decided that I would think and pray about it.
And over the course of a couple weeks,
I felt that the Lord was guiding me to make that move.
I think one of the biggest reasons I made the move was for myself personally
and just with where my spiritual life was going at that point,
after experiencing
my dad's passing and just how how much that changed my life.
I realized that I needed something steadier.
I needed people around me, I needed Christians in a church.
And so for my spiritual wellbeing, I felt that I should move.
And, I had a sister living down here as well
at that time. And,
so there was a lot of,
you know, a lot of transitions that happened over that period.
I was not expecting to stay longer than the summer. And,
the Lord just worked on my heart, like, just slow.
It was bit by bit. I didn't really think about it.
I didn't really realize what was happening, and it just felt like
God was using the little things to just guide me to, to stay longer.
And, yeah, there was just different things
that I was always like, you know, this is a great life.
I love it here, but it's so different.
And, you know,
I felt like we could be Christians
without having to be that different.
And I'm not saying now that you can't,
but there's there is a blessing in being different.
And I felt that over the course of those months that I was here,
I felt like God was just showing me that he delights in his people being different.
And, and standing out in, in ways
that the world doesn't always understand.
And it's not that it's easy.
It's not meant to be easy.
But I think that there's a blessing in being willing to do that.
It seems that a theme
in this part of the story is
the isolation or searching for a place
or something to plug in, to be a part of.
And we have incredible amounts of data on this now because of Covid.
Right.
And yesterday when we were chatting about this interview,
you know, just before beforehand, before filming,
you'd said something like, you know, when all the churches were
shut down, everybody's isolating during Covid
and, you know, so online services, everything goes to zoom.
And it made a comment like, well, we could have just watched sermons online.
I mean, like, why did why do we have to go to church on zoom?
That's not the same thing. And
I think that's a that's a really profound piece.
And I think people now in a post-Covid world are realizing,
wow, isolation is not good for us, you know,
just on so many levels emotionally, spiritually, mentally and so forth.
And it sounds like that's a pretty significant part of your story as well.
Am I tracking in the right direction? Yeah.
yeah, I think that our family was very isolated over the years.
I mean, I know we were, but the thing is, sometimes you can be part of a church,
sometimes you can attend churches and still feel isolated.
Because there isn't that that connection
beyond church, there's often just, oh, it's nice to see you.
How are you and all of that, but not the real care that comes.
Through living in more of a community
setting and living amongst believers in this way.
So that that would have been
probably one of the bigger adjustments then for you coming down here.
Community life would have been quite different
than what you would have had previously.
Is that is that a fair assessment? Definitely. Yeah.
There is a lot of challenges that came with it.
It wasn't all easy.
And there are times that,
I have to remind myself, like, I'm not used to this, and that's okay.
And I have to give myself grace for that.
There's so many blessings that have come with it.
But at the same time, it's it can be challenging,
you know, not growing up in that,
that setting where so many people know each other and just are always there.
It can be overwhelming and intimidating sometimes.
that's a really good you know, that's a really good point.
And I think that's a I'm really glad you said that.
I think that's an important piece for people listening who
they've been going to this church, you know, their whole lives
and this is their stable environment.
And then someone new tries to enter that environment.
We take so many things for granted of like, oh, this is
this is how we do things and this is the way things are.
And you can so quickly miss and maybe a new person entering that environment who is
struggling with,
whoa, this is a lot of changes, it's difficult, etc., whatever it might be.
What you said there, I think is very important.
Hopefully it raises an awareness for listeners to say, oh yeah,
we should pay more attention when new people enter these environments.
It's a it's challenging and we need to be gracious and etc..
And it's a, it's a one of the pieces I want to grab with this.
So it's easy to be isolated in life.
It's not
too difficult to just kind of do your own thing and, and so forth.
And you mentioned some of the adjustments and who's had some difficulties.
And, you know, it's it's some change.
But then what have you found that you value about community life.
Like, name some of the
benefits that you've gained from this change?
Yeah, I think one of the biggest things that I have come to
really appreciate is accountability.
Just that connection that you have,
like more than just loving and caring for each other beyond church life.
But just the
holding us accountable to things that God values
and the things that he wants to see from us,
like we're not made to be a church by ourselves.
We're not made to be a Christian on our own.
Like we need community.
We need people around us to, yeah, keep
encouraging us in the way of the Lord.
The church is supposed to be there as a body, and it's not
the building that we go to on a Sunday and then leave for the rest of the week
and hope, you know, we'll survive the rest of the week.
It's more than that. It's in our everyday life. It's
yeah, it's
in the hard times and the good times.
That's that's a challenge though
because accountability can be kind of scary right.
Yeah.
Like was was that part of the part
of the changes that you had to go through and process through that change?
The accountability side of things because I'm, I'm from
what's called the Bible Belt, I guess you could say or whatever in America.
And it seems to me a lot of the people in my local area,
they go to church on Sunday and then they kind of
do whatever they do during the week.
And that's kind of that,
and accountability seems to me
that that turns a lot of people off, like, oh, hey, I no, leave me alone.
I want to do my own thing, thank you very much.
Don't tell me what to do. That kind of attitude.
Was that difficult for you to come around to that, or was or did you feel.
Oh, no, I really need this for the good of my spiritual life.
Or I'm not even sure quite how to ask the question,
but I know accountability is a sticking point for a lot of people?
Because it's not easy. A lot of times,
Yeah.
Oh, I think personally, for me, I really appreciated it.
I have yeah.
I've just always found it to be really good.
Like, yes, it's challenging at times and sometimes you,
you don't really want to hear what you're about to hear,
but if you're willing to take it at face value,
if you're willing to accept that it's for your benefit and that you know
God uses other people to speak into our lives as well, it just
he can use it for so much more.
I like I started out with just, you know,
one on one mentoring and that really helped me,
going into an accountability setting where there were more
than, you know, one person was challenging.
But even in that, there's blessing in being able to share
what's going on in our life in an open way, in a safe way,
and not being judged for what's going on.
You know, there's there's, there's grace and understanding
and there's there's help that we receive through that as well.
It might
be one of those things that it's spiritually good for us,
but that doesn't mean it's always easy.
I think about that for my own self when it comes to accountability
and many of the other things that go with with church life.
Wow. You know,
some days it just be really easy to just I just want to do my own thing.
Okay? Just kind of leave me alone.
But in the end, taken on the whole,
would that be the proper spiritual formation that I actually need?
You know, probably not. You know, like.
And I have to bring myself back to that.
I'm really glad you mentioned that, though, because that's
that is a sticking point.
You know, it's one of the big difficulties for, for many of us, myself included.
Yeah.
It's just pretty easy to say, I just want to do my own thing just leave me alone.
Okay.
You know, I mean, it's still a learning curve, like, I, I still have to, like,
you know, there's times that I don't want it.
And so I have to remind myself that this is what I actually need.
So it's not all roses. Okay? Okay.
Yep, yep.
It's, church is difficult in that, you know, humans are involved and
humans are complicated.
And we can be selfish
or sometimes not very nice to each other and all of those things.
Yeah.
So with with all this in mind,
I'm sure there are people listening to this
because we hear from them pretty, pretty often.
And they're searching.
They're searching for I want a place to belong.
I'm trying to find a community to join, etc..
And we get this from from around the world.
What would you say to those people that are on that journey?
You know, they're they're looking for
they're looking for a church or a community to be a part of.
Is there words of encouragement that you would want to offer them?
Yeah.
It's challenging when you come to that place that you realize
you need community, and you're maybe in a setting where you
where it's not readily available.
But I think what's most important is that
we're willing to lay aside our own will and that we give it up to the Lord.
I feel like he
ultimately will guide in whatever way is right for that person.
My journey led me here, but not everybody's journey does.
And I think it's just important
to seek the Lord and just leave it up to him, whatever happens.
When I was making my ultimate decision
to join the church or not, I had to admit that, you know,
giving up to the Lord didn't mean that he was going to tell me. Yes.
What if he told me no?
What if he told me I was to move somewhere else, and I had to just
lay that all down and just accept that in giving it to the Lord,
I was allowing him to ultimately make the decision.
And I had to be okay with whatever it was, even though it was scary.
It was hard, but it did.
It did end up with me joining the church and yeah,
that in itself was it was a special, very special story for me.
But I think that, you know, we just
sometimes God allows us to build community in a different way.
And, you know, it doesn't always mean joining the Anabaptist.
I think that there's so much blessing in doing that.
But it's not the only way to be a Christian as well.
And so
someone searching, they need to really seek out
what God is wanting off of them, and just be willing to lay aside
whatever their own desires are, and to let God lead.
And I think an important piece that I keep hearing,
kind of in the undercurrent of this story, is that it was a journey and a process.
It wasn't like,
boom, you woke up one day.
This is where I'm supposed to be.
And you make the decision and everything's all good.
This is a long process, right?
I mean, years in, you know, for at least some parts of this story.
Yeah, definitely.
It was it definitely took a while and it
it wasn't something that I was actively seeking.
I was not.
I didn't come down here and be like, okay, God, what do you want of me?
I was not expecting any of this.
And it was just over time that God used so many little things
to change my heart and just,
you know, show me the importance of having a church,
even even of baptism and, you know, things like that, things
that my childhood had affected my view on.
And like I,
I had to admit that there was a point I was not interested in communion.
Like I watched communion in other churches.
And it just felt like there was so much lacking there.
And I remember the first time that I sat in on a communion here,
I was just like, God just did something in my heart.
I was like, I actually want to be part of a church.
I actually
see the value in being a part of church and in being baptized and all of that.
I was just, you know, before that there was no desire for it.
But God just used so many little things to work in my heart.
Even the
thing of being different, like, I struggled with that for a while
and just coming to realize,
like, you know, there's there's more to this.
Like, this is actually something that God delights in.
He doesn't want us to blend in with the crowd.
He wants us to be different.
And I just found that very powerful as I was searching or sometimes
not even searching, just kind of like, you know, noticing and just.
Yeah. Yeah.
I didn't realize what was happening necessarily, but.
Yeah, But it seems in those
things you were just describing there is an openness there.
Right.
I mean it feels like that
could have been pretty easy to ignore and be like oh I don't just don't want to,
I don't really want to think about that.
So would you say a
spirit of openness or, of of looking for answers?
Was that a part of this picture for you?
Yeah.
I feel like I have always tried to be willing to let God
guide me in whatever way he wanted.
Ultimately, when I moved down here,
I struggled with
who I was, especially whenever I was outside the community.
When I was visiting old friends or was with my family, I was like,
what am I like?
How do I go?
Do I go as I used to be, just like, you know, conservative Christian?
Or do I go being Mennonite?
You know, I'm not part of the church.
How do I dress? Yeah.
And it was this battle, and a big turning point for me was actually
when I was traveling with my brother,
and I was we were backpacking.
I knew I didn't have a lot of space, and I was like,
I can't take two different styles of clothing with me.
You know, I can't, you know, I don't have space for that.
I need to go in one way or the other.
And I just, I kind of battled with it for a while, and I was like,
God, you have to give me peace in whatever way I go.
Because I was going to see my grandma and there was like
all these different things, and I was like, how do I want to be?
How do I want to present myself?
And I just felt that the that the Lord really guided me
to, to go dressed as a Mennonite.
And that was kind of a big turning point for me, just being willing
to travel and be seen in the world as different.
And our family was already different.
We dressed conservatively already, you know,
we would go out and town and be noticed.
And so I had been used to that and didn't particularly enjoy that.
Growing up and so to be that different just felt like why is this necessary?
You know, but I feel like the Lord really blessed me in that.
And just I had so much peace.
I just felt so confident and never bothered me.
You know, I was just like, wow, this is definitely of the Lord.
So it felt like there was a big turning point there.
And when I returned home, from that trip, all of a sudden
the Lord put it on my heart that I, you know, why am I
why am I still not committed?
I was very involved in the church at that time.
I think one of the biggest things for me was that I was covering my head,
but I was not wearing the veil that the church wore here.
I was not wearing a white veil.
And that's a decision I had made from the beginning.
I was like, I'm not going to wear a white veil
when I moved down here, because I didn't want to pretend to be something
that I wasn't And I felt that that was right for me at that time.
But then I was like, I'm so involved in the church,
and yet why am I not committing to more?
What am I portraying by not,
you know, by wearing something different than what the church standards were?
And I was just like,
God, you just, like, helped me travel or,
you know, dressed differently. Why?
Why all of a sudden
do I have to deal with this thing of, like, what head covering I wear?
Like, what's the big deal there?
And I just, you know, kind of battled with it for a while.
I think the thing that made me struggle with it was
I wanted to know what God's will was, and I didn't want to be just changing.
So that I would fit in.
Yeah, because that would be the easy choice, right?
I just kind of fit in there.
Yeah, yeah, I see that.
And I told my family, I'm like, if I change my head covering,
you do realize that
I'm, I'm committing to more like, ultimately I will join the church then.
Because I knew at that point that's what was going to happen.
I was not going to change my head covering and then, you know, not join the church.
I didn't want to deal with the fact of
when I'm outside the community, what am I going to be again?
And so there was just this,
you know, I would Sundays would come and I would just have this
strong urge to, like, change my head covering.
And it was intense.
It was interesting. I didn't really know why.
It was why all of a sudden I had this this urge.
And, I held off for a while because I was like,
I don't want to do this on a Sunday and then not the rest of the week.
Like, I don't want to just wear whatever I want, you know, during the week,
I wanted to
make a change and actually stick with it.
So I remember one Sunday in our ladies
Sunday School class, the story of Joshua
and the walls of Jericho was being talked about.
And again, it just felt like the the Lord was impressing
upon me that he wanted his people to be different.
He had his people walk around the walls at Jericho and they were like,
there they were outside, walking around silently
and everyone within the city was surely not silently watching them.
You know, I'm sure that they had things to say and things to throw at them
and whatnot, you know, especially after a couple of days had passed.
But God made his people go through that.
They had to walk around for seven days in silence and
so it just
kind of really stood out to me again, you know, we’re to be different.
And so
I remember ringing my mom and I was just like, well, what do I do with this?
Like, here's this thing again, you know, so in front of me.
And it was so interesting.
She was like, hey, wait a minute, they're walking here, Jericho, for seven days.
Maybe you need to walk around Jericho for seven days.
Like, here you are, you're battling with this.
You need to make a decision.
And so I was just like, oh, but, like, that would be terrible, scary, you know?
Like, that would be the ultimatum.
I'd be like, here, God, you got to give me an answer.
And so I was like, okay, wait, what more can I do than admit it’s scary.
And just go for it?
So there were there ultimately three things that I wanted
to know from God, like I needed him to show me.
Before I just made my own decision.
I needed to know clearly that it was off of him.
And so I, I did I took the seven days
of walking around Jericho, basically
just really praying about it and seeking God's face about it.
And one of the things was that I really wanted
someone to talk to me about how I felt about the head covering,
I had had some conversations, but, you know, just I there hadn't been a lot,
but randomly someone asked me and it was just like, okay, there's an answer.
Like, here someone comes to me and asks me where I am with it.
And so I just shared them that I was like
shared with them that I was going through this time.
And, yeah, I was just kind of struggling with, how is God going to give his answer?
How will I know his answer?
And so a friend had shared with me this podcast,
it was on Elizabeth Elliot.
She was sharing something and it just really stood out to me.
And I think what was really special was this poem that she read in there.
And that kind of is what ultimately gave me my answer.
I like this is what I'm supposed to do.
So the poem goes like this.
It's going called, “Do the Next Thing”.
from an old English parsonage down by the sea.
There came in the twilight a message to me.
It’s quaint Saxon legend, deeply engraved, hath, as it seems to me.
Teachings from heaven and on through the hours.
The quiet words ring like a low inspiration.
Do the next thing.
Many a questioning, many a fear, many a doubt.
Had its quietning here.
Moment by moment let down from heaven.
Time, opportunity, guidance are given.
Fear not tomorrows, child of the King.
Trust them with Jesus, do the next thing, do it immediately.
Do it with prayer.
Do it reliantly, Casting all care.
Do it with reverence.
Tracing his hand, who placed it before thee with earnest command.
Stayed on omnipotence.
Safe neath his wings, leave all resulting do the next thing looking to
Jesus ever serener, working or suffering,
be thy demeanor in his dear presence.
The rest of his calm, the light of his countenance, be thy song.
Strong in his faithfulness.
Praise and sing.
Then, as he beckons thee, do the next thing.
And that just really stood out to me.
And I just yeah, I just knew that it was the next thing for me
and that it was the right thing for me to do.
So that was just a really special moment for me.
And I think what was special was at the end
of the seven Days of Silence, the people were supposed to shout,
and I was like,
my way of proclaiming what God had done for me
was in changing my head covering and wearing the white then.
And yeah, ultimately taking instruction
class and committing to to joining the church.
And yeah, I've just found so much blessing in doing that.
The, the power of the next step
or choosing, okay, I'm going to take the next step.
I'm going to keep moving forward with what God is asking me to do.
Wow. That's
you know, that that's hard oftentimes. Wow.
And again, I think we we touched on this a little early in its process
and the journey, clearly, as you're describing,
you know, in this particular case or maybe there's other cases to you
and I'm sure people listening will think, oh yeah, I mean, what is that?
What is the next thing that God wants me to do.
And yeah that's a lot to think about.
I think it's really good to be sensitive to,
you know, where God is leading us.
And, where it will go, like, I, I know I could have made that decision
because I felt it was right, but for me, it just
I just needed to know that it was right for me now.
But that's actually what God wanted me to do.
Versus you could have easily said, oh, I'm just going to fit
and, you know, with the rest of the church
and just kind of just do it and that that's that.
And you clearly went a lot deeper than that, you know.
And that's I think that's pretty important.
Yeah.
So is there anything else you'd like to leave with our listeners
by way of encouragement or.
Yeah. As we, as we wrap this up,
and or maybe another
part of the story that, that we should, capture here.
Yeah. I think that
it's important to remember that ultimately, God's in our story.
He's the one that guides us.
He's the one that, you know,
he's the one that leads us to where we are now.
And each of us are on,
on different journeys, like, none of us are going to have the same story.
And I think that's the the beautiful thing about it,
when we allow God to
be the hero in our story, you know, he's
the one that brings us to the place that we are today.
And you know, our my story is not finished.
I have a lot to learn.
I have a lot of growing to do.
There's challenges that I face,
even in living in such a good setting,
in such a healthy setting.
But just remembering that
we just need to keep doing the right thing.
The thing that's ahead of us, the thing that God is
guiding us in doing and
yeah, it's it's not about my story,
and it's not about who I am and where I've come from.
It's ultimately what God has done in my life and how he's led me.
And just being willing to let our story
be something that glorifies God.
Yeah, I think that's that's the biggest thing for me.
I don't want it to be about me and
any of that.
It's just all what the Lord has done and how he's carried me
through these last, especially these last four years.
Like there's been a lot of a lot of grace and,
yeah, a lot of growth.
Yeah.
I have to think of the prophet Isaiah says something to that effect.
You know, God says of his people, you are my witnesses
and you'll bear witness of what I've done for you.
And the whole point there is, is what God has done for us.
And then we'll share that then with others.
I feel like that's what you've done with us here today.
Tirzah, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your story.
I hope this is an encouragement to many people. And,
I'm sure there's people listening that are in various stages of their own journey.
And I think you gave them a lot to think about today.
So thank you. Thank you.
Thanks for listening to this episode with Tirzah.
If you found this interesting, you should check out this episode
we did with Samantha Bender
on the topic of Is Mennonite a Faith Culture or an Ethnic Culture?
You can find that linked in the description down below.
You can, of course,
find all our content on our website at anabaptistperspectives.org.
Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch you in the next episode.