Sweet Grace For Your Journey
236 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 23 hours ago - ★★★★★ - 82 ratingsSweet Grace for Your Journey is the podcast for women who want to lose weight and live healthy—body, soul and spirit. Author Teresa Shields Parker shares tip and advise each week from her personal journey of losing over 250 pounds and having kept it off since 2013.
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Episodes
Episode 134-I Trust You, Jesus
May 25, 2022 07:00 - 28 minutes - 25.3 MBEpisode 134-I Trust You, Jesus Trusting Jesus is at the core of our faith. If we don’t trust Him completely in everything, we aren’t going to get very far because the strongholds will move in. One definition of a stronghold is something we trust instead of trusting in God. God doesn’t want to be at the top of my list, He wants to be my list period. I shouldn’t be the director and orchestrator of my life. I have surrendered those positions to Jesus. It’s more than just walking down, sh...
133. God Sets My Destiny
May 18, 2022 07:00 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBEpisode 133-God Sets My Destiny For years I didn’t believe that God had a purpose or destiny for me. The lie I believed was that God can’t use me because I’m too fat and I can’t lose weight. Turns out my destiny and my weight were very intertwined. It wasn’t just what I was eating and how I was moving which had to change. The biggest thing was surrendering my wants for His and giving over control of my life completely to Him. I thought I had surrendered to God, but as long as I was makin...
132. I Have A Voice
May 11, 2022 07:00 - 26 minutes - 23.6 MBEpisode 132-I Have A Voice Ever since I was 12 years old I felt I had no voice. It wasn’t a natural lie I happened upon. It was much deeper than that. It was a stronghold the evil one set up in me from an early age to keep me from fulfilling my destiny. Writing was different, though. Writing came easy. God knows me, though. He knew the day would come when my voice would be more than words on paper. I am more than mystified at how He got me to the place where I now dearly love to speak. ...
131. What is Comfort?
May 04, 2022 07:00 - 26 minutes - 25.2 MBEpisode 131-What is Comfort? Comfort foods when served by those we love and admire can become the substitute for real comfort. They can absolutely obscure what real comfort which only comes from the Holy Spirit looks like. The comfort certain foods give us that remind us of loving parents, grandparents, great aunts, etc., can also become a stronghold when we think we have to continue making and serving them so our children and grandchildren will be comforted. What is comfort? Is it foo...
130. Heal Me, Jesus
April 27, 2022 07:00 - 29 minutes - 28.3 MBEpisode 130-Heal Me, Jesus The one thing that was at the top of my prayer list every year until I was 18 was healing for my mother’s emotional illness. I kept praying for her, but it seemed her behaviors got worse instead of better. Still Dad said to pray because only God could heal her. It just seemed like maybe her issue was so hard even God couldn’t heal her. I thought the same thing about myself when I weighed 430 pounds. I had gotten myself in such a mess even God couldn’t help me....
129. God Will Help Me
April 20, 2022 07:00 - 26 minutes - 26.3 MBEpisode 129--God Will Help Me There’s one thing I truly hated growing up and it stayed with me for a long time into my adult years. I hated exercise. I was clumsy. I always seemed to somehow get hurt exercising. Plus I just didn’t like to run and sweat. I’d rather be inside reading a book or doing homework or even helping with household chores. Anything except exercise. And the few types of exercise that one time were fun always seemed to end in disaster. I truly hated exercise. Then wh...
128. God Values Me
April 14, 2022 00:14 - 28 minutes - 41.7 MBEpisode 128-God Values Me One issue plagued me for a lot of my life. What is my purpose? Why did God make me? What contribution am I supposed to make in my lifetime. I saw this as what am I supposed to do or achieve. Achievement became my goal in life. When my big dream of publishing a regional Christian newspaper was realized I thought I was finally on the right track. When the internet came into existence and we had to fold the newspaper due to lack of revenue, I hit rock bottom...
127. I Matter to God
April 06, 2022 07:00 - 25 minutes - 23.9 MBEpisode 127-I Matter to God Have you ever thought you didn’t matter to the people who mattered the most to you? I felt that way about my mother for a long time. When I felt I didn’t matter to her it affected how I felt about accepting the comfort of the Holy Spirit. This happens to us when we don’t feel the love of a mother or we feel distant from our mothers because one of their jobs is to comfort us. Since that is also the job of the Holy Spirit we don’t how how to accept comfort from...
126. My Protector
March 30, 2022 07:00 - 32 minutes - 27.6 MBEpisode 126-My Protector Fear is a stronghold the devil loves to set up in us. All he has to do is move all the players in place to set up circumstances that cause us to feel we are all alone. This leads us to believe no one, not even God is there to protect us. When this happens, we either go crazy or we try to protect ourselves. I couldn’t go crazy because I had already determined I never wanted to have an emotional illness like my mother. This left me believing I had to protect myself...
125. Follow Jesus
March 23, 2022 07:00 - 29 minutes - 27.2 MBEpisode 125-Follow Jesus As a kid I got the idea that I had to follow a bunch of rules in order to be a good Christian. Things like no makeup, no short hair, no shorts, no slacks, no jewelry, no dancing, no movie theaters, no mixed swimming with boys and so forth. These weren’t necessarily rules direct from the Bible, they were church interpretations of rules and since my dad was a pastor I had to follow them to be a good Christian girl. As an adult, I knew I was not saved by followin...
124. I am Not a Failure
March 16, 2022 07:00 - 30 minutes - 26 MBEpisode 124-I am Not a Failure Several incidents have made me feel like a failure. These triggered thoughts like, “I am fat. I am nothing.” I’ve had several of these and focusing on them kept me living in shame and condemnation for years. The first thing many of us do when we feel we have failed is to invite condemnation and shame to flood us. When the poor, poor pitiful me syndrome happens, instead of using it to propel us to do something about our plight, we bury our sorrows in ice cre...
123. God of the Impossible
March 09, 2022 08:00 - 27 minutes - 26.3 MBEpisode 123-God of the Impossible What do you do when God asks you to do the impossible? Especially if it’s something you’ve tried and tried to do but just couldn’t no matter how hard you tried? Do you throw in the towel and run screaming the other way? God showed me that He really is the God of the impossible. Let me tell you how it happened. And what does God do? Does He just give up on trying to get you to do what He knows you must do to live in His abundance? This was the issue I fa...
122. God's Got This
March 02, 2022 08:00 - 26 minutes - 24.5 MBEpisode 122-God's Got This Have you ever done anything that you felt like you had thought through completely and made the only decision available, but you still weren’t sure? Still you went ahead and did it anyway? Well that happened to me and maybe it’s happened to you too. I don’t talk much about this leg of my journey because every time I do, people think they should make the same terribly bad decision I made. This is one of those times I feel I should put a warning on this podcast: D...
121. Real Strength
February 23, 2022 08:00 - 27 minutes - 24.5 MBEpisode 121 Real Strength When God reveals something He wants you to do that you know you don’t have the strength to do, what do you do? At first I rejected what He told me. I told Him it was a great plan but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t ask Him to show me how to do it or to help me, I just said, “Nope God. I can’t do that.” Then one day I was reading the Bible and a verse I had never paid attention to jumped out at me. That verse changed me. It made all the sense in the world to me. Se...
120. Finding Truth
February 16, 2022 08:00 - 27 minutes - 24.6 MBEpisode 120-Finding Truth What is truth? Where can we find it? In college in the early 70s, I majored in journalism and Bible. Both needed to be based on truth. These days, though, both are being questioned. The dictionary gives about six definitions of truth, but I propose two answers are right. Truth is what God says is truth. Truth is what God says is a fundamental spiritual reality. What we as Christians believe is that Jesus is the truth So if I believe that Jesus is the truth, ...
119. Goodness of God
February 09, 2022 08:00 - 28 minutes - 23.8 MBEpisode 119-Goodness of God God’s plans are always for our good and not our disaster. God is the author and finisher of our stories. He has a plot twist for every time we throw ourselves into disaster. He will then use that disaster to teach us something that we will never learn any other way. God still has a way of taking our messes and using them to forge new pathways that will still get us to His designed purpose for our lives. It’s vital that we don’t buy into lies that say God doe...
118. God's Lifeboat
February 02, 2022 08:00 - 27 minutes - 23.8 MBEpisode 118-God's Lifeboat Do you feel stuck on your healthy living journey? Maybe you’re just getting started or you have lost weight and have gotten to a place where you just feel stuck and you want to give up. Maybe it seems impossible for you to go forward. And you just want to find out what is holding you back. As you probably know in 2020 I spent a lot of time writing my sixth book, Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds. That resulted in me also putting together a course called Bre...
117. Total Transformation
January 26, 2022 08:00 - 30 minutes - 26 MBEpisode 117-Total Transformation Our goal in all that we do should be total transformation—Body, Soul and Spirit. The vehicle to get us there is habit change, but the enemy loves to try to throw obstacles in our way. We can’t control everything that happens to us and has happened, but we can change how we respond to it. We can change our habits. It’s a huge key. Proverbs 5:21 TPT tells us that “God sees everything you do and His eyes are wide open as He observes every single habit you ...
116. How Habits Work
January 19, 2022 08:00 - 31 minutes - 24.5 MBEpisode 116-How Habits Work We will never be perfect. But as Matthew 5:48 AMP says “We can be growing towards spiritual maturity both in mind and character, actively integrating godly values into our daily lives.” That’s how God defines perfect. In order to do that, we have to change the habits that got us into our mess in the first place. A habit is simply a routine or a shortcut our minds use to conserve energy. We are creatures of habits, but our minds don’t know a good habit from a b...
115. Comfortable Ruts
January 12, 2022 08:00 - 32 minutes - 26.2 MBEpisode 115-Comfortable Ruts To be comfortable is at the top of most every person’s list. I want a comfortable home, comfortable chair, comfortable clothes, comfortable meals, comfortable people to live with, comfortable climate and comfortable shoes. What happens, then, is we fall into comfortable ruts. Ruts can be good or bad. They can simplify our lives or they can cause us to stay stuck in difficult situations. When we find what we think works for us we do it over and over again and ...
114. Thrive in 2022
January 05, 2022 08:00 - 31 minutes - 25.3 MBEpisode 114--Thrive in 2022 From as far back as I can remember, God has given me a word to ponder throughout the year. But it wasn’t until 2013 that I started keeping track of those words. Each year the word He has given me has defined that year in some way. Some years He drops the word into my heart and I know right away that that’s the word for the year. But for 2022, it wasn’t that easy. I shied away from the word when He first highlighted it to me. It didn’t seem like a biblical wor...
113. Embrace Hope
December 29, 2021 08:00 - 29 minutes - 22.8 MBEpisode 113-Embrace Hope I’m looking towards 2022 with the desire to embrace hope! Last week we talked about some emotions that may have become core issues. These are holding us back from being all in with God. Some of these are hatred, overwhelm, procrastination and exhaustion. Altogether the first letters of these words spell HOPE. And oddly enough so do the first letters of the core truths that we need in order to put these issues to rest and embrace hope. Hope is not wishful think...
112. Why Can't I Stop Eating
December 22, 2021 08:00 - 26 minutes - 23.1 MBEpisode 112--Why Can't I Stop Eating? As a Christian weight loss coach, there are several questions I’m asked that all kind of fall into the category of emotional eating. Like, why do I eat when I know I shouldn’t? Why do I keep eating when I’m full? Why does it seem food is in control of me rather than the other way around? Why can’t I stop eating? We can’t stop eating because we are eating to quiet our negative emotions. We don’t know how to deal with them so we try to stuff them down ...
111. Perfect Failures
December 15, 2021 08:00 - 28 minutes - 24.3 MBEpisode 111-Perfect Failures The issue of perfectionism keeps us spinning in circles. We try to be perfect, but as humans it is just not perfect. So if you have a goal of being perfect, you will fail. And then that will stop you dead in your tracks every time. Our goal should be to live as God wants us to live. So if you want to be perfect, be the perfect failure. Confess your failure, hand it to God and then, continue on your journey learning all you can from your failures. Without G...
110. The Beauty of Surrender
December 08, 2021 08:00 - 29 minutes - 26.2 MBEpisode 110-The Beauty of Surrender The holiday season which should be all about Jesus. His birth, life, death, resurrection was all about surrendering to His Father’s will. Without His surrender we would still be caught in following rules and laws, which was an impossible situation for a human to follow. So then blood sacrifices of animals, which were their livelihood at the time, had to be made. Because of what Jesus did for us, all we have to do is surrender our lives to follow Him. ...
109. Unmasking Sugar
December 01, 2021 08:00 - 32 minutes - 28.9 MBEpisode 109-Unmasking Sugar As Americans, we spend over $35 billion a year on candy and consume about 7 billion pounds of the white stuff. Friend, that’s a lot of sugar that we are guzzling. Sugar has been related to many diseases and issues from depression to memory loss, Alzheimer's, diabetes and cancer. We need to understand that sugar is not some sweet and innocent product. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It needs to be unmasked as the killer it is. Yet we still choose not to li...
108. Am I a Sugar Addict
November 24, 2021 08:00 - 30 minutes - 25.8 MBEpisode 108--Am I a Sugar Addict? One of the questions I am asked the most is how can I stop eating sugar like you did? That question is one I personally never asked myself because I didn’t want to give up eating foods with processed sugar. I never thought I would have to do that. I foolishly thought I could just eat less. Friends, if you are a sugar addict, eating less just never works. I didn’t know I was a sugar addict. You may not think you are either. But if you are there are d...
107. Through It All
November 17, 2021 08:00 - 29 minutes - 26.6 MBEpisode 107--Through It All How can we be thankful in the midst of everything that is going on in the world today? We’ve been through a lot in the last few years and I just want to stop a minute and thank God even for the difficulties many of us have gone through. One of my favorite songs is Through It All, written by Andre Crouch in 1971 after having purchased an engagement ring for a young woman. He was heartbroken when she announced that she was getting married, but not to him. He w...
106. Build Each Other Up
November 10, 2021 08:00 - 29 minutes - 26.2 MBEpisode 106-Build Each Other Up In Romans 15 and 16, Paul covers a lot of ground to make sure he’s telling those in the church at Rome everything they need to go forward until he comes to them again in person. He’s teaching them and us how to build each other up. This is critical to any forward motion. We don’t do our journeys alone. We do them in a community of faith. He encourages mature Christians, while at the same time warning them. Romans 15:1 AMP: “We who are strong in our convict...
105. Focus on God, Not Sugar
November 03, 2021 07:00 - 31 minutes - 40.1 MBEpisode 105--Focus on God, Not Sugar I’ve been reading and studying Romans 14 for several weeks. I thought when I first read it that it would be an easy passage to talk about. I knew it related to my journey but in what way? So I asked Jesus, “What is the message of Romans 14 for my listeners?” And He said, “Focus on Me, not on anything else. Not on sugar, not on food, not on diet laws, not on what to celebrate or not celebrate. Just focus on Me and everything will fall into place.” Th...
104. Time to Wake Up
October 27, 2021 07:00 - 26 minutes - 23.6 MBEpisode 104--Time to Wake Up It’s time for Christians to wake up to what’s going on in the world around us. The time is growing short. We are closer to meeting Jesus now than we were first saved. In Romans 13:11-14 Paul gives a dire warning about the future and describes how we as Christians are still always one day closer to meeting Him. He tells us how we should live by describing a normal day. First we have to wake up to the spiritual issues around us. Romans 13:11 tells us to wake...
103. Holy Spirit Glow
October 20, 2021 07:00 - 29 minutes - 27.3 MBEpisode 103-Holy Spirit Glow Do you want to glow with the power of the Holy Spirit? It’s certainly something I desire. This is lesson 20 in our study of the book of Romans. We’ve learned that Romans is all about the foundations of the Christian life, how to follow Jesus, how to renounce our fleshly desires, how to renew our minds and how to transform our lives. Now in the latter part of Romans 12 we learn about serving God. After we learn to lay down our selfish desires, we begin focusin...
102. From the Inside Out
October 13, 2021 07:00 - 27 minutes - 24 MBEpisode 102-From the Inside Out We can be changed from the inside out. We can renew our minds which will then transform us. Romans 12:2 AMP and in the MSG gives us several keys to consider which we visit in more depth on the podcast. First, to renew our minds we can no longer just go with the flow. We have to ask ourselves, is this really what is best for me or is it just what my flesh wants? Second, we let God mess with our priorities, our habits and our comforts in order to transf...
101. Surrender Delights God
October 06, 2021 07:00 - 28 minutes - 24.5 MBEpisode 101-Surrender Delights God Why should we surrender to God? Because our surrender delights God. If there is anything we should want to do it is to please God. Surrender also has great value for us on our journeys which also delights God. Romans 12:1 AMP: “Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies, dedicating all of yourselves, set apart, as a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing to God, which is your rational, logical, intelligen...
100. Listen to God
September 29, 2021 07:00 - 27 minutes - 24.3 MBEpisode 100--Listen to God Why don’t we listen to God? The other day I was jogging in the water and pondering what I would share on this podcast. I had been reading Romans 11 for several days but I had decided I was going to go on to do the next podcast on Romans 12 because I understood how it fit into my journey. Still, the last four verses of Romans 11 kept calling me back. It’s a great section of scripture but I knew there was something I wasn’t getting. I have to grab hold of it fir...
99. Grace is Amazing
September 22, 2021 07:00 - 31 minutes - 28.5 MBEpisode 099--Grace is Amazing I know a whole lot more about God’s amazing grace today than when I accepted Jesus at age seven. I knew I had been saved by grace, but that’s all I knew. I also knew it was amazing because we sang about that all the time in church. I love how grace is explained to believers in 1 Peter 4:10 AMPC: “Each of you has received a gift, a particular spiritual talent, a gracious divine endowment. Employ it for one another as good trustees of God’s many-sided grace,...
98. How Beautiful
September 15, 2021 07:00 - 28 minutes - 24.5 MBEpisode 098--How Beautiful “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” It’s right there in Romans 10:15 NIV. It’s also elsewhere in the Bible but it is quoted here to emphasize the fact that no one can become a Christian unless someone first shares with them the good news of who Jesus is. In Mark 16:15-16 ESV, Jesus tells His us what He wants us to do. “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but...
97. The Master Potter
September 08, 2021 07:00 - 31 minutes - 26.3 MBEpisode 097--The Master Potter We are all lumps of clay in the Master Potter’s hands. God is God. He created us for a purpose. When we find that purpose it makes all the difference in the world. Instead, a lot of us rebel against how God made us. Romans 9:20-21 TPT: “Who do you think you are to second-guess God? How could a human being molded out of clay say to the one who molded Him, ‘Why in the world did you make me this way?’ Or are you denying the right of the Potter to make out of c...
96. Jesus Loves Me
September 01, 2021 07:00 - 31 minutes - 26.6 MBEpisode 096--Jesus Loves Me Romans 8:38-39 are some of the most dramatic, poetic and impactful words in scripture. They are so monumental that we sometimes just pass right by them. However, when we finally internalize what they really mean to us it will change how we view God and drive us to trust Him more. “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, sh...
95. More Than Conquerors
August 25, 2021 07:00 - 31 minutes - 28.3 MBEpisode 095--More Than Conquerors One of my main goals is to be a victorious Christian. I want to be an overcomer. I want to be able to conquer whatever difficulties come my way. Romans 8:37 tells us that in all things we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus. But what does that really mean? First and foremost I know I cannot be victorious without God’s leadership. That means I have to lean on Him every step of the way. Paul, in Romans 8:35, asks the question. “Who shall separate...
94. God is for Us!
August 18, 2021 07:00 - 30 minutes - 26.3 MBEpisode 094--God is for Us! Do you believe God is for you? Are you living that our in your everyday life? Are there times you think you are all alone and have to protect yourself because you feel vulnerable? Romans 8:31 NIV asks a really poignant question. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” The issue for us is believing completely that God is for us. As this passage continues it uses words that remind us of a courtroom scene. Romans 8:32-34 NIV: “He who did not spare his own ...
93. What is My Destiny?
August 11, 2021 07:00 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBEpisode 093--What is My Destiny? You can probably quote from memory the main verse we’re talking about this week. Romans 8:28 NKJV, “We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.” We might see this verse as meaning God is behind the scenes pulling the strings and we are all just puppets. We also focus on the word good thinking this means that nothing bad will ever happen to us. So we think, why d...
92. Towards Glory
August 04, 2021 07:00 - 29 minutes - 26.3 MBEpisode 092--Towards Glory As we’re running this race called life it’s good to remember that we are headed towards glory. Suffering is part of living in our very mortal bodies. But suffering for Christ, either physically or in any other way, is not losing. It is winning. Romans 8:18 tell us that “what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later.” 2 Cor. 4:17 NLT echoes that. “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet t...
91. Run the Race
July 28, 2021 07:00 - 29 minutes - 25.7 MBEpisode 091--Run the Race We have a race to run while we are here on earth. It’s leading us towards a heavenly prize God already has waiting for us. Of course, we know we have an enemy that does not want us to run the race or obtain the prize. One big obstacle our enemy throws in our way is condemnation. He makes us feel condemned or ashamed, guilty, fearful, unworthy, forgotten, useless, good-for-nothing. God, though, tells us in no uncertain terms that we are not condemned. “Theref...
90. The Conundrum
July 21, 2021 07:00 - 28 minutes - 25.2 MBEpisode 090--The Conundrum A conundrum is a difficult or confusing problem or question. It’s like a mystery we can’t solve. In Romans 7, Paul shares a conundrum that I identify with and I expect if you are honest, you do too. Like any problem or mystery, I want the conundrum to be solved in 30 minutes like a good tv show. I don’t want to be left hanging to find out how things are solved for a week! Good or bad, I want it brought to end right now! However, for years I had no idea how to ...
89. What War?
July 14, 2021 07:00 - 30 minutes - 26.5 MBEpisode 089--What War? We are in a war. We may not realize it as we walk through our daily lives but we are. Romans 5:17-6:23 talks about this as a war between the power of sin and the greater power of God’s wonderful grace. If we belong to Jesus, sin has no legal control over us. We are free to follow God. However, we are just as free to be entangled again in the pull of sin. Romans 6:6 TPT: “Could it be any clearer that our former identity is now and forever deprived of its power? F...
88. Patient Endurance
July 07, 2021 07:00 - 29 minutes - 27.1 MBEpisode 088-Patient Endurance If you’re like me, somewhere along the line in Sunday School you learned the nine fruit of the Spirit which include: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are all great virtues we should be incorporating on our Spirit-Led Transformation journey. As I was reading Romans 5 this week, I realized that as Christians there is one of these virtues we rarely talk about. That might be because along the way so...
87. This Thing Called Faith
June 30, 2021 07:00 - 31 minutes - 28.1 MBEpisode 087--This Thing Called Faith Faith is foundational on our Spirit-Led Transformation journeys. Without it, we have no transformation. Without it we cannot be Spirit-led. So what just what is faith and how do we know if we are really living our lives based on faith? I’m a words person, so let’s see what the dictionary says faith is. First definition is “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” Second definition says it is a strong belief in God. Hebrews 11:1-2 has l...
86. Why Forgive Others?
June 23, 2021 07:00 - 27 minutes - 22.2 MBEpisode 086--Why Forgive Others? An important step on our Spirit-Led Transformation is forgiving others. It’s actually a command from God. He demonstrates exactly what He wants us to do for others when He forgives us. He is teaching us by example. Most of the time, this feels like a really hard thing to do so we sort of just put it in the back of our minds and leave it there. We have a problem with forgiving someone who has done us wrong because we want them to be brought to justice. ...
85. Forgiven
June 16, 2021 07:00 - 30 minutes - 26.2 MBEpisode 085--Forgiven Forgiven. It’s such a great word. This is the second in our series of Spirit-Led Transformation because understanding the depths of being forgiven can set us free to follow God with all that we are and all that He made us to be. However, when we feel like we are not forgiven and feel deep shame and regret, we are stuck and cannot move forward. Forward motion on our transformation journey is what we want. The devil will continually remind us of our sin if we let...