The Secret to Confidence

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Abbey Wedgeworth
My name is Abby Wedgworth, and this is my friend Becca Hannah, and we thought we would tell you about each other instead of saying I feels

Rebekah Hannah
like a trick,

Abbey Wedgeworth
you can, you can talk about me first.

Rebekah Hannah
Okay, this is Abby Wedgworth. She is fun, she is wild at heart. Let’s

Abbey Wedgeworth
just do my bio.

Rebekah Hannah
Oh, sorry. I thought we were taking a personality test. Abby, what do you call yourself? You are okay. She said a Bible teacher, which, yes, she is. She also, like, tells people lots of stuff on the internet. Some people may call that an influencer, but I don’t think I’m allowed to say that. But she’s written a lot of books, a lot of them are for babies, some of them are for toddlers, right? And the last one was for moms. There were cards, maybe in your chair, possibly. It’s called “Help, I’m Ruining My Kids, by the way, my kids picked up that book, and they were like, this is so sad. Who’s ruining their kids? I was like, it’s okay, it’s not about me or you, it’s fine, it’s fine. But Abby and I have become dear for dear friends, and so this, when this became an opportunity, she was a clear, clear friend to come alongside with me. It’s always better to do things with friends, right? Okay, so why have a no one wants to listen to me talk for 45 minutes, they want to listen to us talk jokes on y’all. What else do she’s three boys? They are beautiful and lovely and really cute, and a husband, and

Abbey Wedgeworth
so very cute.

Rebekah Hannah
I know, but I can’t say that, part. Obviously, what else was that? Good. Am I fired?

Abbey Wedgeworth
No.

Rebekah Hannah
Okay. Good.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Hired forever. Friends forever. This is my friend Becca Hannah. Becca is a true entrepreneur. The distance between her thinking about something and starting it is 3.5 seconds.

Rebekah Hannah
Oh my gosh,

Abbey Wedgeworth
so she is her like real day job is that she works with the families at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Lincoln Square in Manhattan, it’s like a popular church for some reason, and she also is the CEO of

Rebekah Hannah
because the child care on Sunday morning, so childcare is

Abbey Wedgeworth
amazing. Um, she’s also the CEO of Anchored Virtual and Road Leadership.

Rebekah Hannah
Yeah,

Abbey Wedgeworth
she’s got three girls. Yes, they live in an apartment in Manhattan, and their life is so different from ours, where we are building forts outside in the mud. They are like in the city. We are not.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Yeah, we’re covering a..

Rebekah Hannah
we are living very different lives, very

Abbey Wedgeworth
different lives, and her husband is a geriatric nurse, and I’m not gonna say anything about his geriatric, to be clear. If I.. I’m just gonna say it would be okay if he was.. if I.. if I was an old woman in that facility. Oh, you

Rebekah Hannah
want him coming in to help you to

Abbey Wedgeworth
pick me up, I would be very excited.

Rebekah Hannah
He’s a family nurse practitioner, just in case you’re wondering. He’s

Abbey Wedgeworth
working with old people,

Rebekah Hannah
I know.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Okay, here’s what you need to know. Becca wrote a book, it

Rebekah Hannah
was on accident, but it did.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Becca has written lots of things. One of the things I’m most excited about that she just wrote, she co-wrote with Michael Keller, and it’s a book about how to answer kids’ hard questions, or how to respond to them. I should say,

Rebekah Hannah
yeah,

Abbey Wedgeworth
yeah, it was phenomenal. And then Becca also just wrote this book, which is transformational, and I think that you understand the felt need because you’re sitting in this room. But what Becca did not mention about me, that I want you to know, is that her company, that she started, Anchored Virtual. It is a counseling, a virtual counseling organization, and they are biblically based and clinically informed. And I want you to know that I regularly see an Anchored Virtual Counselor, and I have done all different kinds of therapy. This is the most effective form of therapy I’ve ever experienced. It has been revolutionary and life-changing. So, if you have ever wondered, should I see a counselor, should I talk to a therapist, this is an incredible organization. It’s all virtual, so it doesn’t matter where you live, and you can use the code. I don’t benefit from this. Becca loses money on this, so she’s probably not. I’m going to do this, but it’s true. Tell them all you can use. You can use the code Abby 20 a b b e y for 20% off any session that you book, which is like an amazing deal on the counseling world. Okay, so we after this session we have to run to like a formal thing that we have to do for the conference, but both of us will be at the Anchored virtual booth at 8:30pm After the last session tonight, we would love.. she

Rebekah Hannah
picked out that time, not me.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Meet you, take a photo with you, sign a book for you, if you would like us to. But after this session, we will be run, run, read off somewhere else. But we will see you at 8:30pm at the Anchored Virtual Booth.

Rebekah Hannah
Okay,

Abbey Wedgeworth
taking care of business. Us, yes. Do you want to say anything else about Anchored Virtual? Maybe tell us why you started

Rebekah Hannah
it. I love bragging on Anchor Virtual, not because I started it, but because we have counselors that we curated for them to be there, so they are there on purpose. They are there because they are gifted and called and equipped to do the work. So I get to say that about them, which is pretty cool. It’s amazing. Many of you have walked up to me and said, “Oh my goodness, I see a counselor. Thank you so much. So it is a privilege to get to do what I do. It’s all about Jesus, for real, for real, for real, for real. Yeah.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Well, we want to get to the meat and potatoes of this session, because I don’t know, I would feel like if I was someone sitting in your seat, I would be like, I want to walk in these doors feeling not very confident, and I want to walk out feeling very confident. Guess it’s that easy. Yes, because it’s not easy. But I actually wanted to tell you that I, when Becca asked me to do this with her, I was like, I don’t think I’m the right person for the job, because I think I project confidence. But I thank you very much. I, but I feel like a struggle of mine, and one of the things that I talk about with my anchored virtual therapist is, I walk into every room I walk into feeling like nobody wants me to be there. That’s a real struggle for me, or has been. It’s something that Jesus is healing, but this content was so helpful for me. But one thing we want to communicate is that this is not something that you arrive at on this side of glory. This is a lifelong process of putting your confidence in Christ. So, I wanted to start off just by saying, like, we live in a cultural moment that is obsessed with confidence, like we are being told to live our truth, to trust ourselves, to believe in ourselves, to become our most authentic selves, and even as Christians, I think we can identify certain things as, like, oh, that’s heretical, or like, I’m going to throw that out, but the way that we talk about confidence has slightly different language, but similar undertones, but your book argues that we are all asking the same question under the surface, which is, am I enough? So, why do you think that that question resonates so deeply with women?

Rebekah Hannah
Yeah, I mean, am I enough? Well, I think the first place we really see this in scripture is in Genesis, right? The certain, the serpent comes to Eve, and he doesn’t just offer her nothing, he offers her enoughness. You could be like God yourself, you can actually be sufficient for yourself. And so I think this is at the root of the beginning of sin, when we go, are we enough? And it’s not wrong to ask that question, but there’s a reason why we’re always asking that question. But I think this question is often dressed up as something different. If you have any, if you’ve any kind of maturity as you grow in Christ, you know the question is no. Of course, I’m not enough. That’s the gospel, duh. Right? We all probably almost every one of you in here would answer that, but it comes out and the nuances of what we’re thinking, how we function, what we do when we’re, when you’re waking up at 2am in the middle of the night, what are you thinking about? And maybe it could be about the dishes, or maybe it could be about your kid going to college, or maybe it could be about

Abbey Wedgeworth
that thing you said you wish you didn’t say. I

Rebekah Hannah
literally was about to say that, but and we all do this, right? I did not write this book because I figured it out, and I was just telling Abby this earlier. This is such a journey of a book. I even wonder, like, who’s going to make it to the end, because you could get through the first parts, and it could even possibly seem repetitive, because I kind of say the same thing a little bit over and over again, because it’s a foundation. This book is building a house that you want to live in forever, and it won’t ever be. If you own a house, you know that you have to do repairs constantly, right? That’s house ownership. And so, that’s that’s kind of what reading this book and confidence in Christ is like.

Abbey Wedgeworth
When a woman asks, Am I enough? What is she actually asking or searching for,

Rebekah Hannah
yeah. I think I think about it as there’s a verdict, right. We’re always putting ourselves in the courtroom. Today I did really well, and so I, the gavel went down, and the people in the.. what do you call the people in the jurors? The jurors. Thank you. Those change from day to day, and so maybe the jurors are your children one day, maybe the jurors are your coworkers one day, maybe the jurors are the people that you looked at on Instagram, and they got it right and you got it wrong. And so those jurors change every day, and so I think this is a this is a courtroom we put ourselves in every day, and we’re trying to answer the question, Am I enough? We would never articulate it that way, but in reality, we’re going, How did I do today? How did I measure up today? And we often answer that question with identity in Christ.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Okay, and that’s I wanted to ask you about this. So one of your main arguments that I thought was. Revolutionary, actually, which seems silly to say, is that we, instead of seeking, I like finding our confidence in our identity in Christ, that we need to find our confidence in Christ himself. Why is that an important distinction?

Rebekah Hannah
Okay, so I want to articulate this very carefully, and I think in the book I call this the transference of value. Is that what you’re talking about? The identity in Christ is a good and beautiful thing. It is true. It’s true of anyone who receives Christ through the gospel. It’s just true of you, but our confidence doesn’t – we can, we can be confident that we have that identity, but my confidence isn’t in the identity, it’s in the identity giver, because when I use that identity to build up myself, I failed. It’s okay, I’m a daughter of the king. Okay, you are, but you still failed. So, like, what happens now? The identity doesn’t shift, but what happens is when we try to build ourself up by using identity in Christ to feel better, we are doing the same thing that culture does, right? You’re not that bad, it’s going to be okay, your daughter, the King, you know, you know all those like beautiful, wonderful truths, and we end up transferring the value of them onto ourselves to build ourselves up, so when we build ourselves up, then we’re like, oh, I’m okay, I’m the daughter of the king, and that’s the transference of value from God, the deity, to the imago dei. We are created in His image, we are privileged to reflect Him, we will fail, and it’s okay, because we have the gospel, so that transference of value, I don’t steal God’s value from Him through my identity. I worship Him because of my identity. The identity is given, and my confidence is in the one who gave it to me, because that means that the identity doesn’t change.

Abbey Wedgeworth
I noticed you like all the statements that you’re saying, of like you are enough. You are doubtless hanging. You like everything is self

Rebekah Hannah
or not enough, but Jesus is enough,

Abbey Wedgeworth
right? You’re nothing, Christ. Yes, we are enough in

Rebekah Hannah
Christ.

Abbey Wedgeworth
So, should the should the statements we derive confidence from begin with he instead?

Rebekah Hannah
Yeah, I mean it’s a focus thing, right? It’s a focus that really shifts from navel gazing to this is all about me, and there are things that are about us, right? We have feelings, we have toes that get stubbed, we have hearts that get broken, we have bodies that get diseases. It’s not that we don’t have feelings about these things, so it’s not that we don’t feel, but it is about having a stability in a person we’re talking about a person, so I can have confidence in this other person who tells me who I am. My confidence isn’t in who I am because I’m not going to always feel like, quote, the daughter of the king. I’m going to feel like the loser mom who yelled at my kids, retweet, retweet, right? Not that I do that, but if I did, if I did, so my confidence can’t ever be in that identity that I’m constantly failing, because I’m always failing my identity in Christ. And so it is about this person, it’s about a person that we draw near to. That person is who we have confidence in, and that means we can fail and it be okay. That means we can actually succeed and not have pride, that means that we can have conflict and have confidence in Christ in the middle of conflict that makes us uncomfortable. Does that

Speaker 1
track that makes total sense?

Abbey Wedgeworth
Yeah, I feel like we should circle back just to ask, like, what are some places that you see Christian women finding their identity that are not Jesus, like ways that we, you talked about the jurors, and I wanted to ask this. Then I got so excited about you saying identity. So, what do you think some of those places are?

Rebekah Hannah
Okay, don’t kick me out after I say this. I think I was thinking about this in terms of the people who are here, and I think for a lot of us sitting in this room, it’s ministry, and I say that because we have the right answers, we know the right things, we love the Bible, that’s why we come to Bible conferences, right? We have this stuff that we know, and it’s really a more sophisticated theological selfishness, is what it ends up being, and there’s a sense in which if I can show up in my ministry, and I can teach the Bible, and I’m learning all these things, and I’m doing these things. Then that’s where, what if I fail, or what if I forget something? Or, you know, there’s a, there’s a sense in which, if we are doing ministry the way we think we should be doing ministry, then we are actually doing what we’re supposed to be doing, and we can have confidence in that. So, I think that’s an easy one for the people in this particular room to have the right answers to know the right things, that’s an easy one. Ministry,

Abbey Wedgeworth
what’s like a metric we could use to say you’re finding your identity in this thing, not Jesus.

Rebekah Hannah
Yeah, I mean, I talk about this in the book, there’s a roller coaster. There’s a roller coaster that we experience. If I do great one day, then I’m feeling good. If I do bad one day, then I’m feeling bad. So, I think our feelings tell us a lot. It’s not that our feelings are bad, but they can be a metric of what’s going on in the heart. It’s right to grieve over things, right? I just had a conversation the other day with someone, and we were actually, we were comparing anxiety and grief, and I said I would rather have grief, because I know really clearly what to do with that, and sometimes I have to search for, like, what am I even anxious about. None of this even makes sense. So, there, there’s questions we can ask ourselves, Why am I doing what I’m doing? Why am I.. you know, I think a lot of what this looks like for me right now. I have a teenage daughter, and man, is there a lot going on, and I have to check myself of why am I saying this to her. This could be a true statement, but why am I saying this thing right now to her? Is it because I want her to do this thing? Is it because I’ll look better if she does this thing, or is it because I just want her to be okay, and if I’m okay, then I have confidence, because she’s okay, and so even that’s part of the journey of this, is it we don’t ever arrive in confidence in Christ, because the desires and the hopes and the things that you have to deal with shift right from season to season, and that’s an easy, easy metric. Is why am I, why am I feeling what I’m feeling? Why am I doing what I’m doing? What are the results that I hope for? All of those things can be good things, right. We hope and want good, good things, but asking yourself, why, what, what is this? Because am I good enough. We’ll all just answer that with the gospel, of course we’re not. That’s why Jesus died for us. But really, why?

Abbey Wedgeworth
Yeah, I love that response of using affect as a metric, that feelings are not bad, but they are information. So, like, yes, my emotional response to my kids’ behavior could point to the fact that I’m seeking an identity for them, I think this also shows up in marriage, or not being married, like just any, any longing or strong, any strong affect. I think we can point to and say, am I like emotionally sober, just rooted in Jesus? Yes.

Rebekah Hannah
Well, I do talk about sober-mindedness a lot in the book, don’t you do? I think I do. I don’t remember sobriety. I do think about it in terms of sober-mindedness a lot, and I see this with my kids a lot. I have three girls. We all live in a Manhattan apartment. Okay, so everyone can just like it’s tight. Let’s have a moment of prayer. All three of my girls share a room, so there’s a 14 year old, a 12 year old, and a nine year old. So one’s in high school, one’s a middle school, and one’s elementary school. And there’s a lot of emotions that go around. Our best friends live next door. There’s two girls over there. Other best friends live across the way. There’s two girls over there. I run a sorority home. Let’s just be honest, it’s true, right? It’s I have slept there on the floor, and it’s true. Oh my goodness. Hi. Okay, I gotta get on track. There’s, there’s a lot of emotions, so oftentimes I will ask, tell me what, what about this makes you the saddest, which is kind of a sad question to ask, right? But if I can get to, like, what actually makes you the saddest about this? It shows me their heart. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be sad about whatever it is, right? My nine year old can be sad about whatever nine year olds get sad about. My 15 year old is gonna look different. So, I don’t even remember where I was going with that, because I got thrown off by my story. Sorry,

Abbey Wedgeworth
emotional sobriety, sober-mindedness.

Rebekah Hannah
Yes. Oh, so the point of me asking that is it’s okay to feel sad, but I want to teach them to be sad over things that really matter. There are things that matter to them, and so they’re going to be sad about those things. And then I’m going to explore why do those things matter to you, and not like I’m going to correct you, they shouldn’t matter to you, but like, tell me more. I’m going to get to know you, because you’re going to tell me why this matters so much to you.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Yeah, which

Rebekah Hannah
creates sober-mindedness.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Yes, because confidence in Christ leads to other things mattering less.

Rebekah Hannah
Yes,

Abbey Wedgeworth
yes, because He matters so much.

Rebekah Hannah
Yeah, self-forgetfulness.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Yes,

Rebekah Hannah
which we don’t like.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Okay, I want to talk about this as we’re talking about emotions. So one of the things that you devote several chapters to, like the physical Jesus, the emotional Jesus, the tempted Jesus. How does knowing the humanity of Jesus help us with confidence.

Rebekah Hannah
Yeah, I think we are people who are really impressed with who Jesus is, but not an approximate way. So, I think this really hit home for me the most when I probably, like, when I was pregnant and had small babies. Right, you’re so exhausted, which, quite frankly, I’m so exhausted now. So, I don’t know why I think that’s any different, but if I remember having a moment where, or even if you’ve taught, if you don’t have kids and you’ve taught Sunday school with little kids, they all follow you around, and I’m like, I have all these kids following me around, why are they following me around and the click and I thought Jesus had whole towns following him around and not doing what he said and not no no and then they were all hungry and they were tired and they were thirsty and I was like this is literal child’s play and how who can better understand how I feel physically in this moment than didn’t Jesus? So, when we can make him proximate to us, and I mean, like when we unpack the reality of his physical body, things about our body actually become more relatable to us when we are in relationship with Jesus. He is a real person with real flesh, sitting next to God the Father, praying for us. He’s a real person, right? So it’s not just enough that He’s all powerful. He could have said, “Yeah, I created you, I know, like I get it, I know all things, but instead He’s also, also so loving, he’s perfectly loving, so it’s not just perfectly powerful, but perfectly loving. And when we unpack the reality of who he is, his emotions, his temptations, his, the physical thing, the reality that he grew up in a body, he had a physical body. I am naturally going to be drawn to him more. He’s going to understand what it feels like to be tired, he’s going to understand what it feels like to be hungry, he’s going to understand what it feels like to mourn and to weep and to be sad, to have conflict with people. The more I know about Jesus, I will not be able to help myself, but have more confidence in him. The more we know him instinctively causes us to have more confidence in him, and that’s why unpacking the realities of who Jesus is really matters.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Okay, so we’re talking about embodiment. So I just want to ask this question for myself. I literally feel more confident when I am a certain body fat percentage. Do we have any other, like, gym people here? We have goals. Okay, we

Rebekah Hannah
have one hand, one person. Rebecca has to be a

Abbey Wedgeworth
personal trainer, only

Rebekah Hannah
one person in here, like, and I like,

Abbey Wedgeworth
want to be, but I need another job, like, I need a hole in the head. So, but I feel better about myself when I am a certain body fat percentage. I also feel really good about myself when I have my nails done, and I feel a bunch better about myself after I put mascara on.

Rebekah Hannah
Okay, I feel like so became a counseling session. Listen,

Abbey Wedgeworth
no. Well, I think I’m not the only person who, like,

Rebekah Hannah
there was one hand feels

Abbey Wedgeworth
so.. Here’s my question. Well, they don’t go to the gym, but everybody in this room feels better after they showered. Okay, my question is, like, is confidence in Christ practical? Because, like, I really do feel good at that body fat percentage, and I really do feel good when I get my nails done. So, like, why should sell me Jesus? Why should I put my confidence in Christ instead of a manicure?

Rebekah Hannah
Did you know I used to be a professional personal trainer.

Abbey Wedgeworth
I said that.

Speaker 1
Did you know that?

Abbey Wedgeworth
Yeah, I just told them

Rebekah Hannah
I didn’t even hear that.

Abbey Wedgeworth
She never listens to me. I

Rebekah Hannah
thought you said you wanted to be a personal trainer. No,

Abbey Wedgeworth
I said Becca used to be a personal trainer, and I want to be.

Rebekah Hannah
Oh my goodness. Then

Abbey Wedgeworth
I said something about a hole in the head, and that’s probably you got distracted.

Rebekah Hannah
I was like, that’s not an appropriate thing to say in front of other people. Christ is my righteousness. It’s okay. Okay, God gave you your body. You are the imago dei. You’re created in His image, so He cares about our bodies too, and they are given to us to steward, right? It makes a lot more sense when I feel good in my body that I’m going to feel good outwardly, right? Like, if your knee hurts and it’s hard to walk, then it’s hard to walk, and that causes problems when you get a diagnosis, right? There are things that become out of our control, and so when there are confidences placed on our body, there is a – there’s a shelf life to it. Okay, as I was a personal trainer, I was a super fit person, and my husband was a personal trainer for a while too. Like, we, like, we actually liked it. Okay, we enjoyed it. My life does not lend that to me anymore. I am fully perimenopause. Sorry for all the men in here. If there are men in here, I can’t remember things like I can’t think the way that I used to. I can’t run like because I pee myself every time I run. I got excited at the Knicks game last night, and I’m peeing myself. I’ve been dying to say, talk about the next.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Yeah, she doesn’t even like basketball.

Rebekah Hannah
You guys, I will do a whole session on the next winning, okay? But come talk to me later about that. My point is, confidence in our bodies have a shelf life, and if you, as it hasn’t filled you yet, it absolutely will. It doesn’t matter how beautiful you are, it doesn’t matter how fit you are, it doesn’t matter if you take all of the greens and all of the supplements, and it doesn’t mean that we don’t do that, but we’re doing it for what purpose are we doing it, so we can serve and worship and keep up with what God has given us to do, and be okay when He takes that away from us, right? When He allows that to not be part of who we are, and a lot of us, as we get older, our identity is stripped of those things, and I totally have felt this when you’re going, well, I’m not, I can’t wear those pants anymore. Do I buy new pants, or do I keep those pants? Am I going to get it back to those pants? And so the whole, we care about the embodiment, because again, we’re imago dei, we’re created to reflect his body. Also, Jesus went through the same thing with his own body, but it has a shelf life, so eventually that confidence is going to fail. Is it okay to feel better after you work out? Yes. Is it okay to work out? If you came to counseling for me and I said, listen, go get your lab work done, get your lab work done, you need to start walking. Those are real things that really help people, and they’re good. They’re good because God gave us bodies to use them, but it’s not going to always be all the answer. Everything we go through is spiritual, right? As we work out, working out is a form of worship, and if you see that in a way that’s different, and you’re going to hang your confidence on it, then it’s going to break down eventually. So it’s okay to feel that way. It’s okay to want to take care of your body, because your body was created by the Lord, but it’s not going to be the end all be all. The hope that’s where the hope becomes okay when I feel this way, or my body hurts, or when you know we’re all eventually we’re going to be in heaven, right? We’re going to be perfect in heaven, whatever that might look like. So it’s just not going to last. So it could feel those feelings that you have when you work out, it’s okay to have those feelings, and that’s God’s given that to us as a gift, but they’re not Him. Does that answer your question.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Yeah, it does. You did a phenomenal job. Okay, we.. I’m gonna ask Becca one more question, but as I ask her that question, maybe you have a question. So, there’s a QR code up here. There’s also a phone number, and if you have a question, you should text to that number. Here’s why we left a whole section of time in this segment, this thing we’re doing for your questions,

Rebekah Hannah
17 minutes.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Yeah, so if you don’t ask any questions, it’s just gonna be very boring.

Rebekah Hannah
We could do a staring contest.

Abbey Wedgeworth
I would stand up bit. Okay, so I recently, when I was sleeping on Rebecca’s apartment floor, met a girl who told me that the content of this book, which Becca has taught for years and years, was totally life changing for her. So, I’m curious, if you could help us catch a vision of if we were to embrace putting our confidence in Christ. What does it look like? What does a person’s transformed life look like? Where can it take you? What can it take you from, and to what to put

Abbey Wedgeworth
your confidence in Jesus?

Rebekah Hannah
Yeah, well, I think the first thing I’d like to say is this looks different for everybody. We are not trying to be transformed in the image of Abby or each other or me. We are wanting to be transformed in the image of Jesus, and you are uniquely created by the most fascinating creator that could ever exist, which means you transforming the image of Jesus is going to look different from person to person. We have essential practicals in the Bible, the Bible that God tells us, you know, commandments – we do this and we don’t do this. But being transformed to the image of Jesus is a personal journey, which is what confidence in Christ is, because you’re gonna think, okay, I get it, I got it on this level over here, and they’re gonna be like, whoa, no, I don’t, not go now, I got it over here, and I think part of that is as we get older, or as things change, or as different things happen in our life, tragedies, or disease, or whatever that might be, we have, we, we are sanctified, and so it is a process of sanctification. I mean, I think part of what we could have called this book is confidence in being transformed, but we’re transformed by looking at Christ, by drawing near to Christ, by knowing Christ, and that’s not just about knowledge, it’s about knowing a person, so there’s four parts in the book, and each part is part of the journey, right? So I’m nervous about this book a little bit, not because I don’t have confidence in Jesus, but because I’m like, what if people read half of it and don’t read the other half, because the good news is we’re. Really, at the end, so if anything, skip the first part and read the end. My Michael Keller, my fire professor, he was like, “Why wasn’t that last chapter the very first chapter? And I was like, “Because I don’t think like you and the journey. I did a journey that way, but it is something that you like. I want you to get to the end of it, and I’ve counseled, I’m not getting hundreds of women through this, and it’s to do it with other people. To there’s questions at the end of each chapter. The chapters are pretty short. Doing it in groups and having conversations about it and thinking on it is really important.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Great, we have 1 million questions. My phone’s just vibrating, vibrating. Are you ready?

Rebekah Hannah
Yeah. Okay.

Abbey Wedgeworth
How do you know if you’re operating in pride or confidence in the Lord slash faith? How do you gain confidence and have confidence? And

Rebekah Hannah
wait, wait, you’re asking me. So I know this is a lot of parts

Abbey Wedgeworth
person who’s sending these questions, like, how do you function in confidence and remain humble? Yeah,

Rebekah Hannah
how do you know if you’re operating a prior to a confidence board? Yeah, maybe you don’t. I think. oh, wait, was that the wrong answer? No, but I didn’t write the book, but you may say more. Okay, so are you operating in pride? Yes, you are. And that’s not because you are the most prideful person, it’s because you’re just not Jesus, right? There’s no part of us that are that that can respond perfectly. Not one part of you is going to be able to do that. There’s so much freedom there, and so you will be humbled. I promise, the Lord is in the work. He will finish the work that He began in you. So, are there things that bother you? Honestly, I think if you, if whoever asked this question, if you read the book, you’ll go, “Oh, there it is, because you’ll start noticing things, and I think this is what I found with women that I’ve walked with – you’ll start noticing, like, “Oh, why did I respond that way to that person? or “Oh, why do I feel like that about them? I’m uncomfortable, and you start asking yourself, like, okay, what am I really wanting here? Like, that wasn’t the response I wanted, and now I’m a little perturbed, and you’ll start seeing it. It’ll be red flags that pop up,

Abbey Wedgeworth
I think. Also, confidence in Christ looks like humility, more and more, like when you are exalting Him, and he’s your reference point.

Rebekah Hannah
Yeah, I think I think when you start to grasp this too, life becomes a bit more quiet, and what I mean by that is you stop thinking so much internally about everyone else or yourself or what was said or what they might think or how am I going to do this, or and instead you start thinking about Jesus is like here with me today, and I get to have the privilege of having this conversation, and oh my goodness, I get to experience this with Jesus today, and I can’t believe I get to do that, so it changes, and it can be small things, it could be, it could be. I was getting my hair done a couple of days ago, and this lady was like, “What do you do in New York City? I’m always like, “Oh God, you ready for this? My barista will ask me what I do. I love my barista so much, Raymond. And I finally told Raymond that I work for the church, and he was like, all right, but he still loves me. He’s still, he’s still giving me a free coffee every once in a while. But the point of me telling, I had to walk away and go, okay, like I want to build relationships with these people, I want to be in relationship with these people. And so, how do I respond? Like, what’s internally going on when I have these.. I don’t remember what the original question that makes

Abbey Wedgeworth
sense, like embarrassment and paying attention to one

Rebekah Hannah
conflict, embarrassment, being annoyed. Yes, like, why are you annoyed or angry? All of these things, there’s reasons behind.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Yeah. Okay, so you talked a little bit about the value of doing this, having these conversations with other people. Do you want to say anything more about the role that community plays in helping women see themselves the way that God sees them?

Rebekah Hannah
Yeah, I do think I talk about this a little bit in the book too. There’s a little section that I have an incredibly eclectic group of friends, and each one of them portrays to me very well a piece of God’s character. We can’t display all of God’s character to everyone around us, right? I am actually not perfectly loving, and not perfectly good, and not perfectly faithful, not perfectly wise, and not perfectly whole. I’m not all of those. Things, but I have friends who are good at very particular things, and I allow that to be a display of God’s goodness to me in community, and so as I live this out, there are going to be some friends that maybe serve me in this plight of transformation and sanctification differently from others, so I would say you need to surround yourself with different kinds of people and be on a journey with them as you’re processing this, and it’s okay to be vulnerable, it’s okay to share what you’re learning, and as you do that, you’ll find that’s reciprocated,

Abbey Wedgeworth
okay, continuing off community,

Speaker 1
because we

Abbey Wedgeworth
live in the context of relationships. Can you speak a little bit to battling insecurity in long-term relationships, friendships, or marriages in which people are disappointed with you

Speaker 1
or communicating

Abbey Wedgeworth
to you a lack of value?

Rebekah Hannah
Oh, I love this question.

Abbey Wedgeworth
I do too,

Rebekah Hannah
because there’s so much freedom to not measuring up, there’s so much freedom when you are okay with not measuring up, you get to be happy in Christ. I upset people all the time. Do I do that on purpose? Not usually. No, no. no, but I think there’s a when you’re confident in Jesus and not in your ability to please people, there’s a freedom to be fully yourself, and that means fully broken, fully His, and fully known, and it be okay and when we disappoint people, we get to point them to Jesus. Repenting is a privilege, right? When we have confidence in Christ, I can say I completely blew that. I mean, this is what I was wanting, this is what I did, this is how I messed it up. Can we forgive me for that, that being able to do that is a privilege of being in Christ. And when we can do that, what it does for the person across from us is, well, if they can do that, maybe I can have that too, because it turns out I’m not perfect either. So, there’s a lot of freedom in disappointing people. It’s okay to disappoint people. It’s okay,

Abbey Wedgeworth
I think, for me personally, that I can share a little,

Rebekah Hannah
yeah, is yes.

Abbey Wedgeworth
She’s leaning in. I have struggled with this. Just, there are times in my life where I’ve wondered, am I crazy because the way someone is talking to me about me, or how they perceive me, or how they experience me, that I don’t want to be true or don’t feel like is true, and this is actually a lot through anchored virtual, but one of the things that has shifted for me as I have begun to understand and embrace the content of this book is moving from wondering, am I crazy, am I seeing things accurately, to being more concerned with God’s word as truth than my perception of it, and to understand him, and worship him, and be most concerned with him as the author of truth than that person’s opinion, to be more concerned with his ascription of value and his value than that person’s value, or their assessment of my value.

Rebekah Hannah
Yeah,

Abbey Wedgeworth
so that has been tremendous for me, of just it’s a shift in the reference point,

Rebekah Hannah
yeah. So, okay, the confidence in Christ piece, your value when people are disappointed with you is not up for discussion.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Yes,

Rebekah Hannah
it’s not up for discussion when you totally fail. It’s not up for discussion because your value is not intrinsic to you. Your value was given to you by your creator as a reflection of who He is. When we fail that, that’s what the gospel is for. But, but you don’t have to fight for value, you don’t have to think even about yourself as valuable. You can think of God as the ultimate, He is value, right? He is the ultimate creator of worth. When he created you, he created you as a mirror to him. That’s not pressure, that’s actually a gift, because we have Jesus. Then we draw near to Jesus. Do you see? Yeah,

Abbey Wedgeworth
yeah. Can you paint a picture for us of what a woman who is confident in Christ looks like practically in the everyday.

Rebekah Hannah
Well, I mean, I think it’s everything we’ve talked about, and this is something that we come back to time and time again. So, again, I think in different seasons this looks different. What you struggle with is going to be different. We all know the age-old, like the more we know Jesus, the more we know our sin. The more we know our sin, the more miserable we can be if we’re not actually looking back at Jesus. And in the same way, that’s true about our confidence in Christ too, right? So there’s a sense in which we can struggle with that. Us for a little while, and then maybe we really have this like beautiful thing going on with Jesus for a while. Then maybe there’s a really hard season, and this doesn’t come easy, and that’s part of this journey of understanding. Okay, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, forever. He finishes what He began in me. My confidence isn’t in how I feel about this, it’s in who he is, and so it’s that constant reminder of going back to him.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Is there a Bible verse you love that points to this?

Rebekah Hannah
You always ask me these things. I

Abbey Wedgeworth
mean, it’s just came in on the Q and A.

Rebekah Hannah
Oh, a verse about that point last time we did something, she was like, ‘What’s the Bible verse for you? I was like, ‘I don’t know the Bible verse. She’s

Abbey Wedgeworth
like, ‘I don’t know the Bible, actually.

Rebekah Hannah
No, I do. I,

Abbey Wedgeworth
you know, what I asked, what

Rebekah Hannah
verse I was saying about for motherhood, right now. It’s fine, right now. She

Abbey Wedgeworth
says she’s a Bible teacher. She doesn’t know. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. I have a

Rebekah Hannah
graduate degree in Bible.

Abbey Wedgeworth
I know you do. That’s why I can make that, but your confidence is in Christ. Yeah, okay. I can’t love

Rebekah Hannah
blessed thing I

Abbey Wedgeworth
love, and you mentioned this. The more we look to Jesus, the more we become like Him. I love those who look to Him are radiant.

Rebekah Hannah
Yes, they’re

Abbey Wedgeworth
like that. Is where we..

Rebekah Hannah
I quote that in the book. It is in the book.

Abbey Wedgeworth
I know that’s right. That’s how I know it. I didn’t know the Bible. I just read your Bible.

Rebekah Hannah
I do. You’re a Bible teacher, I think. He, who I’ve mentioned it several times, he who began a good work in you will complete it. This will be finished by Christ. And so you don’t have to worry about, like, oh my goodness, how do I become confident? Christ, now I have to go do this also. No, he finishes this work in us. So all of the knowledge that you’re getting today and tomorrow, and all the things, the beautiful listen, being in a conference like this is ridiculous. Can I just say that the amount of information and knowledge and things that we get the privilege of learning, it’s like drinking from a fire hydrant, and you’re not.. I think we walk away with 10% of it, right? And this Holy Spirit praise God puts those seeds in us what we need to hear, and this is a process, but it’s a process he’s going to finish. The process doesn’t rely on us being able to do it. Do we need to do things? Yeah. Are you going to fail at them all the time?

Abbey Wedgeworth
Okay. Speaking of only retaining 10% of what we learn here, the women in this room walk away from this session, and they are just going to remember one thing. What, what do you want that to be?

Rebekah Hannah
Yeah, I think one thing that you’re going to hear in the book a lot, if you’re not too scared to read it after this, is that Jesus didn’t die for us because we are so awesome. He died for us because he is so awesome, and I repeat that a lot in the book. I think because we so were like, yeah, of course he’s awesome. So he died, but I was thinking about this, you, I knew you were gonna ask me this, and I thought, would I die for Abby? And the answer to that is, yeah, I probably would, because I, but I would like your children, right? Like the people you love, we would probably die for, but we would die for that, because Jesus loved us first, and He gave us people as gifts, and we love them deeply, right. And so there’s, there’s a, there’s a death that comes with being sanctified. There’s a death that comes from gaining confidence in Christ, which is actually where we find life, is where we find life. So, Jesus did not die because we are so awesome. It’s actually completely illogical, because He created us, so we are worth thing, we are, we are worthy, and we are valuable, because it came from Him, but not intrinsically derived from ourselves. And so He died for us, not because we are intrinsically valuable, but because He put His value in us, and He is awesome. He’s awesome.

Abbey Wedgeworth
Can we talk to Jesus on behalf of these people before we go? Yes, you should.

Rebekah Hannah
Lord, you know how ridiculous it is, even for me to be up here talking. It is in our weaknesses that you display your power, and so I pray that every woman in here and every man in here would walk away feeling peace and feeling like the pressure’s off, and looking to you, the author and perfecter of our faith, Lord. We can know all these things, and we can grow in wisdom and knowledge, and we’re so grateful for that, Lord. I pray that it would transform our hearts and our actions as much as the things that we take in. So, thank you for the beautiful people in this room, Lord. Thank you for the gospel that makes all these things true, and we love you. Amen.