Are You Owning Your Story? with Mary Marantz   0:56 It’s Time for a New Christmas Tradition! 10:24 From Trailer Life to Yale Law School with Mary Marantz 23:00 Can You Answer These Three Questions About Yourself? Resources Christy's New Devotional - Living True: 40 Days to Get Back to YouGet back to you with my brand-new devotional, Living True: 40 Days to Get Back to You, that will help you break through the busyness of life and build the confidence you need to embrace the person you want to be. Get your copy today: https://bit.ly/3mxoa3T Christy's 5-Day Confidence Boost Sign up for Christy’s free 5-Day Confidence Boost. You’ll receive five days of encouragement focused on helping you become a more confident you! https://bit.ly/3fZh71w We want to hear your feedback about The Christy Wright Show! Email us at hello@christywright.com to let us know what you think of the show.   Merry Christmas! This time each year we celebrate and remember one of the greatest stories ever told. So, today, we’re going to talk about the importance of your story. My new friend Mary Marantz joins us to talk about her story and how she’s using it to help others (and how you can too). And then we’ll take some time to pause, reflect and journal. Let’s dive in!   It’s Time for a New Christmas Tradition! We all have Christmas traditions. My husband and I have this Christmas tradition where we write a letter of everything that happened during the year—major events, prayers, goals and dreams. We pack up the letters with our ornaments, then read them the following year when we open our boxes to decorate again. It's always amazing to see just how much can happen in one year’s time. But when you’re writing a letter like this, you don’t know what the next year will hold. Your perspective is so limited from where you're sitting. You might feel like there are pieces of your story that have no purpose. But what I love is that God works all things together for your good—even the hard things. Even those wilderness seasons where you're wondering if God has forgotten you. God can even use those for your good.   From Trailer Life to Yale Law School with Mary Marantz I’m so excited because my new friend Mary Marantz is joining us to talk about her new book, Dirt: Growing Strong Roots in What Makes the Broken Beautiful. Mary is a podcaster, author and speaker, and she has an incredible story that I know you’ll love. Mary and I talk about running from failure (and stumbling into success), speaking life over yourself and others, and the beauty and importance of our stories.   Can You Answer These Three Questions About Yourself? “‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled.’ Then the angel left her.” — Luke 1:38 (NIV) This verse is such a great reminder for you and me. God can speak to us in ways that seem crazy, impractical, illogical or impossible. But when God gives you a dream or prompts you to go in a certain direction, you can still faithfully and obediently say, “You’re God, and I'm not. And I trust what you're doing in my life, even though it doesn't make sense to me right now, and even though I might not like it.” So, I want to give you some journal questions to process as you think about what this means for your life and where you are right now—especially in this Christmas season. Where do you sense God leading you right now? How have you felt about your own personal story in the past? Where have you seen God's faithfulness in your story?