Pray Instead of Changing, Finding Restoration After Infidelity, Building Authentic Community – w/ Amanda Hayhurst

Aaron Smith (00:31)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Marriage After God Podcast. I’m here with Amanda Hayhurst. Am I saying that correctly? Hayhurst? Good. Welcome to the show.

Amanda Hayhurst (00:35)
You are. Well done.

Thanks for having me. I’m so excited. Thanks for reaching out. I love that God connected us.

Aaron Smith (00:44)
Yeah, I’m a little bit of an Amazon stalker. We have our books on Amazon and I’m always interested to see what other products are being bought and sold with our books. And I love how I found you. was like, ⁓ I saw your new book. It’s like doing really well. And I’m like, who is this girl? our books are, says like, people have also bought this book. And I’m like,

Amanda Hayhurst (00:49)
Hehehe.

I love

it.

Aaron Smith (01:10)
I started looking into you and then I just was like, I’m going to just say hi to her on Instagram and see if she wants to come on the show. So thank you so much for responding.

Amanda Hayhurst (01:15)
Super cool.

Absolutely. And yeah, I emailed you this today, but I was when you had reached out, didn’t realize at the time, but one of my friends was talking about you and your wife’s prayer books. And I was connecting the pieces. I was like, my gosh, I think he just reached out to me to be on his podcast. So cool.

Aaron Smith (01:35)
that’s so funny.

I didn’t see that email. don’t think I need to read that.

Amanda Hayhurst (01:39)
No worries, but yeah, it’s just cool. It’s cool how God puts people together, so love it.

Aaron Smith (01:46)
Yeah,

and I love that you are desiring to use your life and story to spread the gospel and to encourage people to pray. It’s something that my wife and I have been doing for years. And so when I saw it, was like, I just got to get into your story. And so that’s kind what I want to do. Why don’t we start off with who is Amanda Hayhurst? What’s a little bit of your background story, marriage story? And we’ll go from there.

Amanda Hayhurst (02:09)
Yeah.

Yes. So, Amanda, I am married to Marcus. We’ve been married for, someone just asked me this and I was like adding it up in my head, for 15 years, which sounds so crazy to say, I feel so old. Well, thank you. We have two boys, Jet and Reese.

Aaron Smith (02:28)
You’re not and you don’t look at either.

Amanda Hayhurst (02:35)
And we also have guardianship of a girl. Her name is Ivy. She is like our bonus daughter, but she’s also my cousin. So she came to live with us when she was 16. She’s 21 now, soon to be 22. And I live in Georgia. I live really close to the North Georgia mountains and Lake Lanier, which is the largest lake in Georgia. So I absolutely love Georgia, but I’m from Indiana originally. So I’m a Midwest girl.

Aaron Smith (02:45)
⁓ shit.

Amanda Hayhurst (03:04)
But I’m a southerner now. I mean, I am like all the way.

Aaron Smith (03:07)
I was going

to ask, because you live in Georgia, I don’t hear a Georgia accent.

Amanda Hayhurst (03:11)
I

should have put one on for you. I listen, I just tell people I’m a Southerner now. I say y’all, like I’ve stopped saying you guys completely. Cause I’m always like, you guys, you guys, it’s y’all now. And I go to Chick-fil-A three days a week. So I’m really, I’m a Southerner now and I love it. I love the South.

Aaron Smith (03:29)
We

love the South. I mean, my wife and I have been all over the United States. We love Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky. We love all these states. South Carolina, North Carolina. They’re beautiful. We’re in central Oregon. Yeah, exactly.

Amanda Hayhurst (03:42)
man, the Carolinas, I wanna live there. So pretty. Where do you live now?

Oregon, that’s the time change confusion. Like, wait, I had to Google

your time zone because I can’t remember what time it is there.

Aaron Smith (03:58)
We also just had daylight savings happen again and I just, I want to be over that thing all together, but yeah, people email me and they want to schedule stuff and they do it in their time zone. I’m like, can you just, okay, I have to like go to Google, have to like do the conversion and figure out what time zone we’re in. That’s awesome. Yeah, we were born and raised in Southern California, but we moved up to central Oregon about 11 years ago when, yeah, when my son was about one years old.

Amanda Hayhurst (04:01)
yeah.

Ugh, me too.

Yes.

Yeah.

How sweet! California’s beautiful.

Aww.

Yeah, but I love Georgia. We’ve been here now for 14 years. Jet was one when we moved down here. So yeah, we’re not going anywhere. We love it down here. I am a full-time writer now. That started in 2020. It was the most devastating season of my life. Our son was diagnosed with leukemia.

⁓ he was two at the time. And so like the Lord always does, he used that to transition our family and has used it in so many ways, but he transitioned me out of a job in medical sales and actually into seminary, which was a dream of mine. ⁓ so I went through seminary, ⁓ and graduated last May at DTS in Dallas. And soon after that,

Aaron Smith (05:11)
Amazing.

Amanda Hayhurst (05:19)
I got a literary agent and I’m working on a couple of book proposals now to be traditionally published. But yeah, it’s been really fun. It’s so fun to do something that you love and I love to write. It was one of the only things I was good at growing up. That was like affirmed in me. So it’s super cool to be able to do what you love.

Aaron Smith (05:39)
I can relate to that because we had a very similar story, you know, going through one of the hardest seasons in our marriage early on when we first got married and then that God using that and transitioning us into the ministry that we do now. so it’s a pretty cool thing to hear. Did you self-publish Pray for Him? That’s so amazing.

Amanda Hayhurst (05:57)
I did. Yeah.

Yeah. Did you self publish?

Aaron Smith (06:02)
Eight of our books, our top selling books are also published. We’ve been doing, Yeah.

Amanda Hayhurst (06:05)
Isn’t that so fun? Isn’t it so satisfying?

It’s like the Lord gives you this message and you in charge of it. It’s like you’re coming up with the design of the book and the interior and all these things and it’s like your baby and then watching it be well received. It’s so satisfying, right?

Aaron Smith (06:23)
Yeah, it’s so cool that we live in a day and age that someone could, I mean, it comes with its dangers also, because then anyone can just publish anything. But that’s also that allows for people to share almost immediately without having to go through all these hoops or without being denied. It’s a pretty amazing thing. And is it extra amazing when it works and it looks like it’s working for you? It’s so cool.

Amanda Hayhurst (06:42)
Yes. Yes,

I agree. And that was my, my literary agent, that was her advice last summer. She said, do you feel like you have any messages now you want to share? And I said, absolutely. My marriage is a huge part of my testimony. And so she’s like, well, why don’t you self publish that now? And then later, you know, because I didn’t even have like a website. I was just, you know, very new. And she’s like, as you’re working on all these things, ⁓ go ahead and self publish something. And so.

Aaron Smith (07:05)
Yeah.

Amanda Hayhurst (07:12)
That was really her advice, but then I fell in love with the whole process. I think it’s so fun. Yeah, it’s very, I mean, we’re.

Aaron Smith (07:17)
yeah. Did you do it

all yourself or did you have someone help you with it?

Amanda Hayhurst (07:22)
I, you mean like the book cover and everything?

Aaron Smith (07:24)
the actual

publishing, the formatting, the design.

Amanda Hayhurst (07:28)
yeah, hired, she recommended someone that I use for the design for the book cover. And so I did like some things I hired out. But as far as like being in charge of the whole process and you know, learning all the things I feel like I’ve, I mean, just like you, you, you learned so much, right? It’s like drinking out of a fire hose. There’s so much information to learn, but it’s doable.

Aaron Smith (07:36)
Yeah, that’s good.

So cool.

Yeah,

and you did it and the cover is wonderful. I love that it says change, know, and then it’s marked out and says, you know, pray for him. Great cover design.

Amanda Hayhurst (07:55)
Thank you. Yeah, that was, well, I mean, that

was my idea. I’m just going to say, because that was the felt need for me. It was, I don’t know if you want to get into that now, but I struggled for so long with that desire. And I think a lot of people relate to it. It’s like this desperation of wanting to see change in someone you love and almost.

Aaron Smith (08:02)
I loved it.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hayhurst (08:20)
developing like a Messiah complex, like something in you feels like you can make it happen. And I was praying for my husband, but it wasn’t, I wasn’t really surrendering my husband to the Lord. Like there was some stuff in me that felt like it’s on me to make it happen. And I think our boundaries get blurred when we do that for sure.

Aaron Smith (08:39)
yeah. Well, let’s talk about that. Let’s take a step back. I know that there’s a big chunk of your story that happens leading up to you getting married, meeting your husband. But why don’t you, it’s going to be hard probably to summarize the leading up to meeting your husband, but maybe do a little bit of that. And then like, how did you guys meet? let’s get into your marriage story and how God used your marriage to really get a hold of your heart and you and yeah.

Amanda Hayhurst (08:48)
Yes.

laughs

Yeah. Oh my goodness.

Oh man. It’s so sanctifying, isn’t it? Marriage. Yeah. So I met, I met my husband. I was actually his waitress at Chili’s. So I, I worked at Chili’s at the time. We met so organically back then. I feel like that’s when you could still meet people super organically. Yeah. And so now it’s weird. I couldn’t imagine dating now, but yeah, we met, um,

Aaron Smith (09:12)
most.

Yeah. Yeah, I know.

Amanda Hayhurst (09:33)
at Chili’s and I was still in college. He was a few years older, but I really had a lot of baggage. I like, I had a relationship with the Lord, but there were so many areas in my life. I still needed healing. I had what people call daddy issues, you know, which are really just father winds. ⁓ I had a lot of holes in my heart from my earthly dad and I carried that into the marriage. And so that came out in ways like,

I was really needy and I really needed affirmation. And I already knew that like I, when I dated, I dated a lot and I felt like I constantly needed a man in my life. And when I got married to Marcus, he was, he was a great man, a great godly man, great family, great parents. ⁓ but I went in to that marriage, still carrying a lot of baggage from my childhood and, from

Aaron Smith (10:26)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hayhurst (10:29)
a lot of shame too from choices I had made in like high school, college. And so it came out in our marriage when I, I don’t know why I thought this, but I think subconsciously, like I thought my husband’s gonna be able to heal me in some way, or like he’s gonna fill this void. And when he didn’t, I fell for another lie that I was believing that maybe someone else can.

Aaron Smith (10:49)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hayhurst (10:56)
And so early on in our marriage, there was infidelity and no one thought we would recover from it. I mean, we lived in a small town in Indiana. Everyone knew and I felt so judged and I was like, I, you know, no one thinks we can come back from this. so honestly, that’s what brought us to Georgia is I moved from Indiana to Georgia almost for a fresh start. And Marcus, he was

Aaron Smith (11:21)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hayhurst (11:24)
Following me with my things to Georgia. He was not planning on staying. He was just And we had jet at the time our 15 year old so he was coming down we were figuring out custody and things like that and Before he went back to Indiana my mom suggested that we go to church together Which sounded like why like there’s there’s nothing left. Yeah We’re so beyond repair like he biblically he had every right to leave

Aaron Smith (11:46)
Yeah, right.

Amanda Hayhurst (11:53)
and so of course, in God’s sovereignty, you know, we went to church that morning and it was literally the entire service was on restoring your marriage and on, on hope and how God can redeem what feels so unredeemable. And, ⁓ that’s when I felt like, my gosh, maybe if he, if Marcus could forgive me, you know, we could actually reconcile. And, and that was the start of us really working.

Aaron Smith (11:53)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Amanda Hayhurst (12:22)
in our marriage and putting God first and really, because before, like he was a believer, I was a believer, but I mean, we were not, like God was not at the center. He was not at the center of our marriage. And so it wasn’t until we really started to get healing and God is the one that does the healing. But when we really started to go through marriage counseling and unpack a lot of these things that were, I brought into the marriage and he had some things too.

that we were able to start to thrive. I still, I don’t know exactly when it happened, there was still some, something in me still felt like I could change Marcus and I was still carrying some of that weight, which led into pray for him. But we had, mean, we had a really.

Great marriage. know, God really did a lot. He brought us back. No one thought we would still be married. I can tell you that. Still today. I think people probably look back and think, how in the world are these two still together? But it’s just God.

Aaron Smith (13:30)
So would you tell our listeners, because I’m sure there’s someone listening that might be going through this very same thing, would you encourage them that God can restore it?

Amanda Hayhurst (13:41)
Yes. And I think our culture, especially with this one specific struggle, the sin struggle, you know, this infidelity, our culture wants us to believe like, oh, like once a cheater, always a cheater. There is no coming back from that, but God can change anyone’s heart. He really truly can. So yes, if you’re walking through that, friend, mean, the Lord is more than able. He is more than able. Don’t lose hope.

Aaron Smith (14:01)
Mm.

Amanda Hayhurst (14:11)
I mean, I’ve seen it firsthand.

Aaron Smith (14:14)
Let’s talk about that first-hand experience. So you were walking in some lies, you were believing some lies that made it possible for you to give into this temptation, this sin of the grass is greener. If this isn’t going to fulfill me, then this other man might fulfill me or this other situation. What did it take in you? Because we always talk about, like, God can change, God can restore, God can heal, but there’s

Amanda Hayhurst (14:31)
Hmm.

Aaron Smith (14:42)
something that God was already speaking to you that needed to take place first. What had happened in your heart for that transformation to begin going from you believed this one thing, you were this way, and now you’re like surrendering over to the Lord. What was taking place in your heart in that season?

Amanda Hayhurst (15:00)
Surrender is literally the word. was, it was, it was surrendering. I remember I was, I was in the bathroom and I got on my knees and I’m like, God, I don’t, I don’t want to believe these lies anymore. Like I, I know that these things that I’ve done don’t define me. And I know that you are the perfect father because that, that was one of the things is I, I was, I didn’t know how to be a daughter.

I didn’t know how to be a daughter to the perfect father. And only God can fulfill those longings in your heart. And it was really a surrender. It was me. had to get on my, sometimes the physical posture matters and I had to literally get on my knees, lift my hands. And I’m just like, God, I surrender. I surrender it all to you. These lies I’ve been believing and it was.

Aaron Smith (15:44)
yeah.

Amanda Hayhurst (15:54)
It was too, that I didn’t have anyone come alongside me growing up to disciple me. I didn’t have anyone coming alongside me because I told you I was a believer, right? But there were still so many lies I was believing. I wasn’t reading the word consistently to know what the truth was. And that is such a huge part of it is reading the word every single day and renewing our minds.

I didn’t know what the truth was and I didn’t know how to be a daughter to the perfect father. so surrendering and praying out, know, crying out to the Lord, it’s that relationship and learning what it’s like, you who is God? You who is God? And that’s a relationship. It’s a personal relationship that I was missing.

Aaron Smith (16:41)
It’s just every time I’ve had conversations like this when it’s when there’s these father or mother wounds, you know, like from our parents, it just reminds me of because I’m as a father, you’re a mother now and you’re you’re now but for a while and your husband’s your husband’s a father and just the importance of our role in the home and how important God the importance that God has placed on our role as parents and the influence we have on our children in leading in the way they should go and

Amanda Hayhurst (16:54)
Yes. Yeah.

Hmm

Aaron Smith (17:11)
I wanted to point that out because it’s easy to look back and be like, yeah, my parents hurt me or I have this father wound, but we’re now in that spot and we can see it in hindsight and be like, okay, good Lord, change me so that I don’t make those same mistakes. Even though we’re not the saviors of our children, we’re definitely influencers in our children’s lives, the most influential people, and we’re the ones who are shaping their view of God from the beginning.

Amanda Hayhurst (17:14)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Yes.

Aaron Smith (17:40)
And it just

shows in your own heart and life how important it is for us as fathers to guide our children, to be near our children, to have presence and to speak truth and to apologize when we make mistakes.

Amanda Hayhurst (17:56)
That’s right, yes, exactly,

because we make them. Yeah, and that’s such a good point. And we can’t give our children what we first haven’t received from the Lord. And so a lot of times it’s just sitting and receiving who God is and learning, like I said, learning how to be a son and a daughter so that we can be the best parents to our children.

Aaron Smith (18:12)
Mm-hmm.

So good. So in this season, God was working in your heart. This is something I love. You used say I was a believer, and yet I believed so many lies. And this is story of every believer. Our journey of sanctification is a continual learning to believe the truths. Like our salvation begins at belief in Christ. But then our life as a Christian is continually surrendering the lies and believing the truth.

Amanda Hayhurst (18:44)
Yes.

Mmm.

Aaron Smith (18:50)
Like

you said, renewing our minds, we’re transformed by that renewing. So as the lies are pushed down, the truth is replaced, we begin to become more like Christ. We believe more of what God said. And so you were doing that. What took place in your husband’s heart? Because again, a lot of this relied on not just you changing. He had to do something too. This reconciliation takes two. Repentance takes one.

Amanda Hayhurst (18:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yes.

Aaron Smith (19:19)
Reconciliation

takes two. So what was going on in your husband’s heart in this moment which led to this journey of reconciliation for you two?

Amanda Hayhurst (19:29)
Here, I’ll go get them. And then I’m just kidding. You can tell you he’s downstairs. No. ⁓ I’ve obvious, he would be terrified. There is no possible way. my gosh. No, he obviously, you know, forgiveness it, we can forgive things that we can’t forget, you know, and he, he hasn’t forgotten it, but he has forgiven me. And I’m so, so, so grateful that the Lord has.

Aaron Smith (19:31)
Let’s do it.

I would have loved to have him on the podcast by the way. So if you want to do this again, perfect.

Amanda Hayhurst (19:59)
helped him do that. And if I think if he was not a believer, it wouldn’t have been possible. You know, he has received the forgiveness of the Lord. And so he, like I said, he’s just giving, you know, extending to me with the Lord has given him, but it’s been, was a messy journey for a while, but it was, it was work. You know, it was every day and I, I wish he was here. He could tell you exactly what that wrestling was like, but it was a wrestling, you know, it was a wrestling because

the memories don’t leave, know, the thoughts don’t leave. And so it’s every time, you know, it sneaks into your subconscious like, this happened. And I think those images are hard, you know, to get to, to not stay in. And so it was a surrendering, a surrendering every day of, you know, she did this thing, but I’m choosing to forgive her and reconcile. And part of, of pray for him was he was

He was seeking the Lord, but he still wasn’t like the spiritual leader, you know, of the family yet. And so I have seen, you know, the past five years, Him, God has just continued to form Him into the man that He created Him to be. And so much of that is prayer. Him praying, me praying, I mean, prayer is the foundation of our marriage. It is why we’re still married today. It is why He was able to forgive me. It took a lot of prayer.

We’re very passionate about praying in our home.

Aaron Smith (21:30)
Amen. That’s been the majority of my wife and his ministry with Marriage I Forgot is encouraging couples to be praying for each other, praying for their marriage, praying for their spouse. So totally on board with that. And it’s true because a lot of what prayer does is not intended to change God’s heart necessarily, but it changes us. It draws us closer to the heart of God. The prayer… You’ve experienced this. When you pray and you ask God to change your husband, right? You’re like, God, change this.

Amanda Hayhurst (21:33)
Mmm.

Uh-huh.

Aaron Smith (22:00)
this thing that’s there. And I think God’s like, well, is that thing there with you? Or where’s your heart? And like, That often happens, yeah.

Amanda Hayhurst (22:02)
driving me nuts. Yeah.

It’s like a mirror. It’s like a mirror back to you. Does that ever happen to you when

you’re praying and God’s like, wait a second. Like you need to be praying this about yourself. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (22:15)
it’s every single time.

That’s why often we’re afraid to pray, I believe, is we’re afraid to be found out. You know, if I pray and if I ask this thing for God to work in so-and-so’s life and God’s like, well, I want that to be in your life. I want you to exemplify this. You know, and God loves them way more than you’re going to love them, but he loves you also and he’s looking for the surrender in our own hearts.

Amanda Hayhurst (22:24)
Mmm.

Yes.

Yes.

Wait, it’s, mean, that’s what I, I honestly think that prayer is the foundation of our walk with the Lord. You know, it’s, it’s our conversation with him. It’s, it’s, it’s foundational and it’s, it’s like, we’ve been talking about so much as the Surrendering is literally surrendering our will for the Lord’s will every single time that we get on our knees and pray. And

It takes care of so much of that anxiety and discontent in our relationships because when we pray, we’re learning to trust the Lord with our future and the future of those that we love. You know, it’s when we’re not praying that we feel anxious and discontent and we’re questioning God’s plan all the time. And, um, I know for me, it was when I started it, not like a last resort prayer, but when I started being consistent, consistently praying every single day.

that I knew what it meant to trust the Lord. Because you develop this tough God confidence when you pray. You know, that’s the assurance that we have in prayer. That’s 1 John 5, 14 through 15, and I’m going to read it verbatim because I don’t ever want to mess up the word of God, but it says, this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, to His will, He hears us.

Aaron Smith (23:52)
Do it. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hayhurst (24:05)
And if we know that he hears us and whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of him. That verse has changed everything for me. And I think it can change everything for the listener. mean, God hears and responds when we pray in accordance to his will. And who are we to stand in the way of God’s plan and his will? You know, his plans are the very best plans. So yeah, I’ve.

Aaron Smith (24:19)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hayhurst (24:35)
I have gotten so much freedom from just standing on the promises of God’s word and finding comfort in His sovereignty in all of our circumstances.

Aaron Smith (24:45)
Yeah, it made me think of Psalm 37 4 Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. And I think often we translate that because it sounds like it’s saying that God will just give us what we want. That transformation that takes place in the renewing of our minds is that he gives us new desires. He gives us a new heart. He changes the things that we’d long for when we delight in him.

Amanda Hayhurst (24:58)
Mmm.

Yes.

Aaron Smith (25:13)
When we delight in Him, we delight in what He loves. We delight, we hate what He hates. We want what He wants. And I believe that’s the context of this psalm is that He gives us new desires. Like, you you had in your heart a desire for certain things. God’s like, I’m going to give you new desires, a desire for your husband, a desire for your role, a desire for me.

Amanda Hayhurst (25:13)
Yes.

I love that. And yes.

Yeah.

That’s so good. Yeah, he literally changes our desires. I the things I prayed about, you know, six years ago, I don’t desire those things. He’s completely changed and he changes us. I think the more we give God the desires of his heart, he gives us the desires of ours, but he changes our desires. So, yeah.

Aaron Smith (25:56)
Absolutely changes.

So you guys are going through this infidelity restoration, messy, hard, ugly in probably lot of ways, but beautiful in a lot of ways. What were some of the practical things that God was having you guys walk through in this restoration process? Because there’s the spiritual, there’s the change of heart, there’s the believing what God said is true that begins this process.

Amanda Hayhurst (26:09)
Yes.

Aaron Smith (26:26)
As James says, faith without works is dead. The process of the faith is walking out the thing in real life. What did that look like? What were some of the practical things that took place for this restoration process to work? For God to restore you guys.

Amanda Hayhurst (26:32)
Yes.

hands down, it was community. We were not in community before. And when we got in good, godly community, it literally changed everything. Yes. ⁓ there were so many times that Marcus wanted to walk away. There were so many times that I wanted to walk away and we had people that knew the ins and outs of our marriage. They knew us, they believed in us, they contended for us and they would not allow us to walk away.

Aaron Smith (26:51)
Amen. Amen.

Mmm.

Amanda Hayhurst (27:12)
Like I literally had a friend one time, cause I told her, you know, I just don’t because listen, I, we’re talking a lot about the infidelity, but there were, you know, there are things Marcus struggled with too. And I remember telling my friend, like, I just don’t think I can stay in this marriage anymore. I just don’t think I can. And she’s like, I’m not going to let you get a divorce. Like she’s like, I’m not going to let you like she was just so, so sure the Lord is.

There are, that’s why it’s so important that people know you have safe people that really know what’s going on, that know the ins and outs. Because there are some times things that are going on where maybe it is safer to take a step back, you know, for a little bit. But, you know, we had people that knew everything and I, that is why, you know, outside of prayer, it was the community that we had.

Aaron Smith (27:49)
yeah.

The bearing each other’s burdens, you know, because there’s that other scripture, I don’t know, I it off the top of my head, but it’s that God does not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear. Right. But often people say, oh, God’s not going to give us more than we can bear. But that’s actually it’s actually not true. He doesn’t allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear for sin purposes. But there’s so many things in life that we individually as humans cannot bear on our own.

Amanda Hayhurst (28:09)
Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Aaron Smith (28:36)
life circumstances, the weight of our sins at times. But that’s why we have a body. We’re a community of Christians. There’s a body of Christ that we each individually are one of another. We’re a part of something bigger than ourselves and it’s so necessary. I think that you nailed it on the head. That community was probably not the only thing, but the number one largest thing that God used. It’s what he used in my marriage.

Amanda Hayhurst (28:51)
I love it.

Aaron Smith (29:06)
that kept us together. And it’s still the story of our marriage today. Like we go and there’s moments that I’m overwhelmed by my anger or frustration or hurt. And in the alone time, it feels impossible. It feels impossible to win over. And then I sit down with someone who loves me and I share my heart and they’re like, and they smile and they love me they’re like, you know, yeah, that feels like that sometimes does it. it’s like, ⁓ I’m not alone. And

Amanda Hayhurst (29:06)
⁓

doesn’t

that feel so good? It feels so good to have that. Yeah, I think a lot of times we’re in fake community where, you you go to church on Sunday and you have some people, you know, maybe they are your close friends, but it’s just like, everything’s good. Surface level, everything’s fine. And even in small groups, you know, sometimes it’s hard to really take off the mask and to be real.

Aaron Smith (29:35)
Yeah.

Surface, surface level, yeah.

Amanda Hayhurst (29:57)
But when you have those people, what a gift it is. And if you don’t have those people, pray and ask God to bring those people in your life because he wants that for you, truly. But I think one of the things that can stop us from having that authentic community is our shame because we feel this need to put on a mask and it’s so scary to be vulnerable and to feel. But there is freedom waiting on the other side of

Aaron Smith (30:09)
Yeah.

Amanda Hayhurst (30:27)
authentic, real community. there’s no, mean, just pray for it you don’t have it. You know, I’ve, I prayed a few years ago because I, I do have really good friends, but I almost felt like I was praying for my husband, like a future husband. Cause I’m like, God, like, I feel like there’s someone out there for me that will really understand me. I can be fully Amanda. I’m like my weird self and God brought this woman into my life. I could just cry thinking about like how he is intertwined us.

Aaron Smith (30:30)
Yeah.

That’s funny.

Amanda Hayhurst (30:56)
And she’s still somewhat of a new friend. It’s been two years, but she’s literally the answer to that prayer. The things that her and her husband have walked through that parallel what we’ve walked through and some things her husband’s struggled with that I used to struggle with. And just the way that God has brought us together and the conversations we have, I feel like we get so much freedom after we meet for coffee because we can be like, yeah, yeah, you’re not alone. Or yeah, man, I struggled with that last week.

And it’s so, it’s so fulfilling. told her, I texted her last week and I was like, I just want you to know, I prayed a prayer two years ago and like you’re the answer to that prayer. And she said, no way. Like I literally did the same thing. I prayed for someone like you, I can be myself with. So like the Lord wants that for us, you know?

Aaron Smith (31:36)
That’s so awesome.

And we got to desire it. We got to desire that we are in true fellowship with the body of Christ and that yes, shame can keep us from that pride. I think often it’s like, no one’s going to really know or no one’s allowed to have access to this area of my life. That’s mine alone.

Amanda Hayhurst (31:53)
Mmm.

Sure.

Aaron Smith (32:00)
Proverbs 18 one makes it very clear a fool separates himself and goes out against all sound judgment because he’s seeking his own desires like often we avoid the community because we don’t want to hear the truth we I have this solution over here, but when like you said you walk with people and they’re like no, I’m not gonna let you do that. You know, not that they actually can control you but the fact that they say that yeah, but the fact that they said that it’s like ⁓ like they’re not gonna make this easy for me.

Amanda Hayhurst (32:06)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm. check you. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (32:27)
That’s great. I tell believers all the time, like, have to make, we have to stop making it easy for our brothers and sisters to sin, which means we need to let others make it not easy for us. Yeah. It’s gotta get multi-way.

Amanda Hayhurst (32:27)
Noooo

that’s good. Yeah, right. You better, it better go the other way around.

that’s so good. And that’s part of love is rejoicing in truth, you know? So it’s literally just part of loving each other. But there’s a way to do it, you know? Yeah. You don’t want to lead with that. Like you don’t, shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t do that. You know, you shouldn’t do this, but there’s a way to do it, but it’s great. Yeah. I absolutely love that.

Aaron Smith (32:45)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, I totally agree.

So tell me about, so you, I know we talked a lot about the infidelity, but that’s just a part of your story. That’s as we all have just that one piece, moving forward and there’s, you’ve gone through some hardship with your oldest son and has sickness and, ⁓ your youngest, I’m sorry. How has God used that situation in your marriage? Cause there was a lot of the restoration healing and then.

Amanda Hayhurst (33:10)
Mm-hmm. So many parts.

My youngest, Reese. Yes. Yes.

Aaron Smith (33:32)
you guys going through that together. Would you like to share a little bit about that journey and how God used it?

Amanda Hayhurst (33:34)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. ⁓ my gosh. I was someone who was a pain escapers. I had a really hard time feeling my feelings. And it wasn’t until this season of finding out that Reese had leukemia that I feel like God really arrested that in me. And I was, was praying so hard. mean, my gosh. When you are pleading for your child’s life,

Everything that you thought you believed better be real. Like I need to know what I believe about healing and I need to know it’s real. I need to know, I need to stand on the promises of God because everything else felt like it was fleeting. The rug has been pulled out from under us as a family, know, our child may not survive. And I was just wrestling so hard with the Lord about so many things, like my theology on pain and suffering. There was so much that was coming out of me.

Aaron Smith (34:21)
and

Amanda Hayhurst (34:37)
But one of those things that I felt like the Lord was really impressing on me was you cannot use anything to numb out right now like you’re used to doing. So I was using wine at that time in my life. I wasn’t an alcoholic, but I was definitely using it to help with like the sting of a hard day or an argument or whatever, just enough, right, to like take the edge off. And I feel like which in our culture is so acceptable.

Aaron Smith (34:47)
Mm.

Yeah.

Amanda Hayhurst (35:05)
to like take the edge off, like, I just need a glass of wine, you know? And so I felt like God was calling me in that season to give it up to completely. Because he’s like, you know, and of course he didn’t say this verbatim, this is just what I felt as I was wrestling with the Lord, like, and it was just scripture. Like if you want to comfort others in the same way that I’m comforting you, you have to allow yourself to be comforted and you can’t numb out anymore. And so I gave up alcohol and I cried.

Aaron Smith (35:06)
yeah.

Mm.

Amanda Hayhurst (35:34)
I lamented so much that my lips were chapped for two months because I felt so many feelings. ⁓ but the Lord comforted me so much. And I’m so grateful because he really revealed some idols that only would have come out in, this situation where I got to the end of myself because my child’s life was on the line. And I’m so grateful for that. ⁓ you said this earlier, maybe it was when we prayed before the show, but

Aaron Smith (35:50)
Mm.

Amanda Hayhurst (36:04)
that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. And He used that in so many ways to transition me out of medical sales into seminary and into writing. And not to mention what He did just refining us and, you know, forming us more into the image of Christ through that. In our family, in my oldest son, Jet, he was able to

use that to really create a dependency within Jet for the Lord because I was no longer there like I was before. I was living at the hospital. I was all, you know, I had just gotten guardianship of Ivy. I was stretched so thin and my oldest son really struggled with having me gone. And I, and it was actually a gift later because that really, that season showed him that, know what, mom is not enough and, but God is.

And he even started to really develop not a relationship as like an offshoot of ours and being raised raised in a Christian home. He had a very personal relationship with the Lord that started in that season. So, I God used this in so many ways. Maybe I’ll write a book one day about that. What God did through my son’s cancer diagnosis. But I always tell people and it’s so hard for an unbeliever to understand. But it’s like I would never in a million years want to walk through what I did.

Aaron Smith (37:12)
Mm.

Amanda Hayhurst (37:28)
in watching my child suffer because it was so excruciating. But I am so grateful for what the Lord did in that season and I would not trade it for the world because what I experienced and what was the greatest gift in the midst of my suffering was experiencing more of God Himself. Like it was Him. Like it was His presence that was the gift. More than anything He did with it, it was literally just more of Him. And I miss that sometimes.

Aaron Smith (37:46)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hayhurst (37:57)
As crazy as that sounds, I miss parts of that season because you cannot manufacture that raw dependency that only happens in the suffering.

Aaron Smith (38:06)
You speak of the suffering and I haven’t personally had to go through this level of suffering with my own children, but I’ve had many friends that have had very serious, very life threatening or have lost children. And so I can understand from a distance, but I think of the story of Job and I think of this, I mean, it’s…

like 30 something chapters, 39 chapters of just torture in his life. But at the end of it, he gets to see God face to face. He has this moment where God comes and meets him personally and speaks to him and shows him. never explains why. But like you said, you met God. You experienced God in a way that you hadn’t before.

Amanda Hayhurst (38:38)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (39:01)
And I think that’s the point. That’s the point is the reward is God. The reward is our relationship with Him, not the changing of the circumstances, not the restoring of all things. It’s God. He was the end of the story with Job, which I think is beautiful. I also, as you are explaining more and more of your story, I seeing this picture of God

Amanda Hayhurst (39:03)
Yes.

Mmm, isn’t that beautiful?

Aaron Smith (39:29)
revealing himself to you as your father. He’s probably going to continue to do it the rest of your walk with him, but you were talking about this hole in your heart, these father issues that you had of a distant father. I don’t know all the details of that, but I know that that’s real thing. In all these situations, God’s continuing to show you what it means to be a real father, that He is your

Amanda Hayhurst (39:49)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (39:56)
real father and teaching you comfort and teaching you how to experience your emotions. And I think I’m like my own daughter, my oldest daughter, and she can get very emotional. And then I have to be reminded. like, you know, I can’t I have to teach her to walk through these emotions appropriately, but I also can’t just stifle them and tell her not to have them, which is something I struggle with personally. I struggle with emotions in general. This is something that is true. There’s truth to that. I think I’m on another level, though, so it’s something that

Amanda Hayhurst (40:01)
Hmm.

Yes.

Well, you’re a man, so I’m just kidding. Okay.

Aaron Smith (40:27)
It’s something that I’m in this last handful of years. God’s really revealing to me and he’s trying to show me how he’s my father in this situation because I don’t think I’d been taught how to deal with my emotions or to, you know, I have my own coping mechanisms that God’s like, I don’t want you to have that. I don’t want you to cope with these things this way. I want you to feel them and experience them. Not that the feelings are the highest form of truth, understanding my wife’s

Amanda Hayhurst (40:45)
Yes.

Sure.

Aaron Smith (40:56)
feelings, understanding my daughter’s feelings, others, having empathy. These are things that my Heavenly Father has to teach me because I never learned them. They don’t come naturally to me. Yes, I am, but I think hearing you, I’m being convicted in my own heart of understanding how good it is for you to be comforted by God, which is something I desire.

Amanda Hayhurst (40:57)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Yes.

Yes, yeah,

right. And I really believe that our ability to heal is based on our ability to feel. So for us to heal, it’s imperative that we feel because God needs to meet us in those places. And that’s part of having an intimate relationship with the Lord is being able to feel your things, your feelings before the Lord, to feel them before the Lord.

It’s, does us no good if we’re feeling these things apart from the Lord. if you’re getting on your knees and crying out to the Lord, like your tears truly matter. And if we take God’s word at its word in the Psalms, like God keeps record of our tears. Like how crazy is that? I mean, they believe that in Israel that the women had the crematories and actually, you they would catch their tears in these bottles and these tear jars. Like that’s.

Aaron Smith (41:58)
Captures them all, yeah.

Hmm.

Amanda Hayhurst (42:10)
There’s something to lamenting and crying out to the Lord that He desires for us to do. And it’s, think it really is, it’s imperative to our intimacy with the Lord. And, you know, a loving father, son, daughter relationship, like there are tears sometimes, you know?

Aaron Smith (42:26)
Thank

love that. One of the things that God really encouraged me, like when Jennifer and I were first married, very prideful, very arrogant, didn’t want children, had no heart, like desire for that. Yeah, I six kids now. But God captured my heart. I told him, I said, I want to know more of you. And he’s like, well, there’s a side of me that you’ll never know unless you become a father. And I was like, oh, no. And so in that moment, in that moment changed my heart. I was like, oh, I want to be a dad.

Amanda Hayhurst (42:39)
You? Wow!

Aaron Smith (43:00)
I want to know this side of God. And then of course it’s a lifelong journey of realizing, ⁓ this is probably why God was so frustrated with Israel. This is probably why God was so frustrated with me. I’m so consistent in all this stuff.

Amanda Hayhurst (43:10)
Right?

my goodness. Yes. Man, he has so much patience with us.

Aaron Smith (43:15)
Yeah Hey, I wanted

he does and and then I just feel so guilty that I have very little patience after Like give me I need more patience lord I want to talk about your book. This journey has led led you to of course, this is not the end of your journey. We know that but you’re you’re writing now you You’re you’re as god’s teaching you your your heart is to share with others and share with women and I just I was reading through your about page and you just

Amanda Hayhurst (43:25)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (43:45)
genuinely want to draw women closer to God and his heart and wives and sharing these things. I just, think that is exactly what the body of Christ is intended to do is as he pours into us, it flows out of us. And so I want to talk about your book, you self-publish, which I just, I love this because there’s a lot of people that seek for this, you know, the traditionally published route, which there’s nothing wrong with It’s beautiful, but it’s not as easy for everyone.

Amanda Hayhurst (44:00)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Aaron Smith (44:14)
But

self-publishing and then seeing it flourish and seeing people receive it and then I’m sure you’re getting messages of people saying, you. Thank you for showing me how to pray for my husband. I just want to get into that. So what was the catalyst for writing this book? Pray for him. Change him. Pray for him. And I want to just share about your heart for this book.

Amanda Hayhurst (44:23)
Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. ⁓ it was probably five or six years ago that I decided I would stop trying to change my husband. And I’m sure he was thrilled that I would stop trying to change him because often when we do have that, that desperation of, of change for someone, it comes out so sideways, you know, comes out with nagging, criticizing, ⁓ comparing them to others. And that doesn’t feel good. No one wants to feel those things.

but I was, I was honestly so exhausted because usually when that happens, like we do have a boundary issue and I was carrying a lot of Marcus’s issues. Like if he had a bad day, I had a bad day. If he struggled with anxiety, I somehow took it on and it’s hard, especially in marriage because you are one flesh. And I just, struggled so hard to be okay when he wasn’t okay. ⁓ that I just felt like I couldn’t do it anymore. I physically couldn’t, I couldn’t.

I couldn’t even get through the days sometimes because I’m like, he’s having a bad day. Now I’m having, mean, I was exhausted. And so what I really needed to do was shift my focus from fix and control to surrender and prayer. And that’s what I did. I woke up early almost every morning at like 5 a.m. because I thought I’m going to make this a commitment and I’m going to pray for him. ⁓ and I prayed over nearly every area of his life.

And I felt like every morning I would go in and get on my knees and surrender my husband. I felt so much lighter because I was really learning how to trust God with this future. And I was standing on first John five, 14 through 15. Like I had such assurance because I was learning to trust God’s plan. And I’m like, you know, I was, I was at that time. This, this is what also comparison does. Like at that time I was.

desperately longing for him to be the spiritual leader of our family. And I was looking around and I’m like, you why can’t he be like, you know, our pastor, Jacob, he’s leading this family, you or why can’t he be like this person? And, and it was comparison that was really robbing me of my joy in my marriage. But like, who was I, you know, to be the judge of my husband’s spiritual growth and God’s plan for him? Like, who was I to get in the way of that plan?

Aaron Smith (46:34)
Mm hmm.

Amanda Hayhurst (46:51)
And so God really started to reveal that to me that I actually was the one with a lot of the problems because I was wanting to control, you know, so much of my husband’s own journey with the Lord look like. And so I, it changed me. I mean, it changed me. And that’s something that I warned the women in my devotional is like this journey, you think you’re praying for your head. Well, you are, you’re praying for your husband. Like God’s going to change your heart. And that was my prayer is that, is that, you know,

the men in these women’s lives would see them changing and that they would want what they had and that they could see God changing them. And my husband saw that. My husband, was one, I remember one day I was in the kitchen and he’s like, I’m kind of like jealous of what you and the Lord have lately. Like I feel like you’re really walking with the Lord. I want that. My husband literally said that. So it’s a way for,

It’s not about changing your circumstances. Will the Lord provide breakthrough? Yes, my husband has gotten breakthrough in so many areas. He struggled with anger really bad and anxiety and spiraling. I know, he’s raising his hand.

Aaron Smith (48:04)
I’m raising my hand because that’s something

that I’m praying through with the Lord is anger and where it comes from and why it’s there.

Amanda Hayhurst (48:09)
Yes. Yeah, because there’s always something deeper, right?

Behind it. Yeah. And so many men struggle with that. Like I remember one of our old pastors used to say, like, that’s like my signature sin struggle. I feel like a lot of men struggle with anger and not even anger that’s bad. It’s not bad. It’s like reacting in our anger that’s bad, right? Like anger is it. But anyway, like, yes, God will.

Aaron Smith (48:24)
Well, we have like two emotions, that’s why.

Amanda Hayhurst (48:38)
provide breakthrough in these areas. And I have seen that in my husband in so many incredible ways, but the Lord has given me such peace. And I have so much contentment by making prayer a consistent part of my life. I have a friend and she’s, I think she’s like 75, she’s in her seventies, but she’s been married for a very long time and her marriage still isn’t awesome. Like she struggles.

Her husband’s come a long way and we praise the Lord for that. But this woman is the most joy filled, most, I she has more contentment, more peace. She is a bright light everywhere she goes. And her marriage is rocky. And she, it’s like, she, God hasn’t changed all of her circumstances. But this woman has so much joy and contentment because she has allowed all of those things in her marriage to point her and draw her closer to the Lord, which we can do. And that’s when,

Aaron Smith (49:23)
and

Amanda Hayhurst (49:35)
That’s when it becomes a gift, you know? It’s like, these things that I hate, but if I’m allowing it to draw me closer to the Lord, what a gift it is. And that’s what it became in my marriage. You know, even in like, not just a structured prayer time, but like, if I was upstairs and I heard Marcus downstairs in his office, you know, spiraling over something, my natural fleshly reaction would be to walk in there and fix it. Because like, I can’t. Like, I have all these awesome solutions. I really don’t. But.

Aaron Smith (49:37)
Yeah.

Mm.

Amanda Hayhurst (50:04)
I thought I did and, but I started, yeah, I was like.

Aaron Smith (50:06)
Yeah, some of them might be.

This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to work in this situation, you know.

Amanda Hayhurst (50:12)
Yeah, mean, some of them, listen, there might be some great pieces of advice, but I felt like God’s like, why don’t you just pray for him? And that I remember this specific time because I did, I fought against my flesh and I’m like, I’m gonna pray. And Mark, was like 10 minutes later, Mark has walked upstairs and he asked me, he’s like, did you just pray for me? And I said, I did. And he’s like, Amanda, I literally felt this wave of peace come over me. I’m not even kidding.

Aaron Smith (50:39)
That’s

so cool.

Amanda Hayhurst (50:40)
I’m like, my gosh. And I started crying because I’m like, babe, that is so cool. Like I have been praying for you so much and like I’m trying to get better in the moment. like, I mean, it’s so crazy. Like Jesus is literally sitting at the right hand of God interceding on our behalf. If we truly believed in the power that prayer has to change things, we would never cease from doing it. I am so passionate. I know.

Aaron Smith (50:56)
Mm.

which is what we’re commanded to do to not not cease doing it. You’re

convicting me because there’s so many times that I again, what you’re explaining is a very common situation for the man. Like, I’m to just fix my wife right now. I’m going to fix this situation. She’s got this problem. Here’s the logical solution. And I’m just I’m convicted on wondering how many opportunities I’ve missed to intercede on my wife’s behalf to have the peace of God just overcome her.

Amanda Hayhurst (51:34)
Hmm.

Aaron Smith (51:34)
and

that God would come to her. It’s something that early on my wife and I realized. It doesn’t mean we figured it out perfectly, but what you’re explaining is like this. We in our flesh have a desire to become the Holy Spirit to our spouse. Instead of letting the Holy Spirit be the Holy Spirit to our spouse, which is we are wholly inadequate to do it. Like.

Amanda Hayhurst (51:43)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Ugh.

Yeah, who do we think

we are?

Aaron Smith (52:01)
Far from like you said, it’s like you almost

we end up doing the opposite of what the Holy Spirit’s wanting to do. But I just convicted on that. We always encourage people to pray and I’m convicted in my own heart on the amount of times that I forget to go to prayer before I go to my wife to to pray before I go downstairs, like you said, you know, metaphorically, this, you know, trying to just barge in and do the work of the Holy Spirit.

Amanda Hayhurst (52:07)
Wow, that’s good.

Yes.

Yes.

And don’t

we do that too in not just our marriages but our relationships with our children? I mean, in so many relationships, we try to be the Holy Spirit. Yeah, every relationship it’s like, oh my gosh, we are robbing. God needs to be God and the Holy Spirit needs to be the Holy Spirit. And like, we can trust that they are really good at doing those things.

Aaron Smith (52:38)
with every relationship.

Amanda Hayhurst (52:55)
So like, why are we trying to stand in the way? But it’s our flesh. I mean, obviously it’s something we all struggle with. But I think it’s like, yeah, getting, and I’m trying to get better at that too, like in real time, you know? I mean, structure prayer time is great. That’s like what my whole devotional is about. But in real time, there’s a beautiful opportunity to get into that rhythm of just like, it takes like five seconds to pray for someone instead of going and trying to fix it. And I’ve also tried,

Aaron Smith (53:01)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hayhurst (53:23)
like in any conversation, even if it’s with friends, when they’re sharing something they’re going through, because I do feel like I’m a fix it person or I want to just fix it. Which is honestly kind of annoying. Like, you know, when you talk to people and they’re always coming up with like, well, you should do this or have you done this or have, and you’re just like, dude, like, I just want you kind of to listen right now, not talk. So I’ve been trying to get better about asking people like, Hey, do you want me to give you advice or do you just want me to listen?

Aaron Smith (53:31)
Mm-hmm. That’s me too.

Yeah.

That’s really good.

Amanda Hayhurst (53:52)
because

there’s a lot of discernment in that. Sometimes you should, but.

Aaron Smith (53:55)
I need to do that with my wife.

I need to say, hey, right now know you want to share. Do you want me to give you advice or do you me to just… I know. I for sure know this. And she would look at me like, oh my goodness. Yeah, that would be… I’m going to do that next time. I’m going be like, hey, just to start off with…

Amanda Hayhurst (54:02)
She would love you for that. You’re welcome.

Yeah. I would just want to support you the best I can. What do you need from me? Yes. Yes. Yeah, it actually would. You should do it.

Aaron Smith (54:19)
And what do you need from me right now? Yeah. To just listen and just shake my head and hug you at the end? Is that what you want? Yeah. And I’ll do it? Yeah. That’d probably save me a lot too.

Someone once gave me some really good advice and it’s something I’ve tried to do is when you’re when you’re giving advice to someone to avoid the word should It requires you to shape your your Perspectives and your input in a way that is is not so like I have the answers But here’s here’s a way you could walk. Here’s an idea that you could pursue. Here’s a thing that you could consider Because yeah

Amanda Hayhurst (54:44)
⁓ yeah.

Hmm. I like that.

Yes, I like that.

is, yeah, should’s not a good word. We should, we should stop using should. Yeah. That’s true. That’s true.

Aaron Smith (55:05)
There is a time for it. Yeah, there is a time and place for it, but it’s rarely every single time.

Amanda, I really appreciate you, your transparency, your honesty. I loved everything you shared and I love seeing God work not just in you, but in your marriage. And now the outpouring of the minister that you have online and with all the women that follow you and probably many wives.

just desiring to see their marriages flourish, see their husbands lead well, and ultimately seeing people come to Christ, which is exactly my heart and my wife’s heart. So I really appreciate you coming on, giving me your time. I would love for everyone that’s listening to know where to find you and know about your book. So why don’t you share some places they can get you online.

Amanda Hayhurst (55:32)
Yes.

Yeah, I’m mainly on Instagram, but they can go to my website, amandahahirstrights.com. I sell my book on my website and also on Amazon, obviously, and TikTok shop as well. I’m not on TikTok a ton, but I do check in every now and then. But yeah, I would love to talk, if anyone wants to chat, I love to answer any DMs or emails. I love building relationships and I honestly see online as a…

a ministry. was on my application as seminary. One of the things I wanted to do was to reach more women online. And obviously you can’t be incarnate ministry or I love writing, obviously, but yes, I would love to connect. So.

Aaron Smith (56:31)
Mm.

Amanda Hayhurst, thank you so much. just pray that God continues to work in your marriage, of course, and work in your ministry online. Thank you so much for joining the show.

Amanda Hayhurst (56:40)
Thank you

so much.