Have you ever found yourself stuck in the same painful patterns—wondering if things will ever change or if something’s wrong with you?
If so, you are not alone. This week on The Love Offering podcast, I had the honor of interviewing bestselling author Tori Hope Petersen about her powerful new book, Breaking the Patterns That Break You.
Tori vulnerably shares her journey of healing and freedom from destructive personal, relational, and generational patterns. With compassion, wisdom, and biblical truth, she invites us to do the same hard but holy work in our own lives.
In our conversation, we talk about:
- How to identify and disempower harmful cycles
- Why codependency keeps us stuck—and how to break free
- What it means to truly see yourself as good, safe, and loved
- And how lasting healing is possible, no matter your past
If you’re ready to stop repeating what’s been breaking you and begin walking in freedom, this episode is for you.
Listen now: https://www.lifeaudio.com/the-love-offering/
With hope,
Rachael
Summary
In this episode of the Love Offering Podcast, host Rachael Adams speaks with Tori Hope Petersen, a bestselling author and advocate, about her journey from foster care to healing and empowerment. Tori shares insights from her new book, ‘Breaking the Patterns that Break You,’ discussing the importance of recognizing and breaking destructive patterns in our lives. The conversation delves into themes of forgiveness, grace, community, and self-love, emphasizing that healing is a journey that requires vulnerability and support. Tori encourages listeners to embrace their identity in Christ and to love themselves as God loves them, while also extending grace to others.
Takeaways
- Tori’s journey through foster care shaped her healing message.
- Recognizing destructive patterns is crucial for personal growth.
- Healing is a non-linear journey that requires grace.
- Self-love is essential and not selfish.
- Community plays a vital role in the healing process.
- Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves.
- We often project our identity onto others instead of God.
- Hurt people often hurt others, but compassion can heal.
- Embracing who God created us to be leads to freedom.
- The journey of healing is valuable in itself.
Sound Bites
- “You are God’s and He loves you.”
- “Healing is a journey, not linear.”
- “Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves.”
- “Hurt people hurt people.”
- “Embrace your community and be honest.”
- “Self-love is not selfish.”
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Love Offering Podcast
01:11 Tori Hope Petersen’s Journey and New Book
06:10 Identifying Destructive Patterns
11:00 The Role of Forgiveness in Healing
18:32 Understanding Grace and Mercy
21:34 The Importance of Community in Healing
25:28 Encouragement for Women Facing Challenges
28:02 The Biblical Concept of Love
30:06 Closing Thoughts and Prayer
Transcript
Rachael Adams (00:01.125)
Welcome to the Love Offering Podcast. I’m your host, Rachel Adams, author of Everyday Prayers for Love, learning to love God, others, and even yourself. Each week we dive into meaningful conversations about how to live out the greatest commandment, loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving our neighbors as ourselves. Whether through inspiring stories, practical tips, or biblical truths, I hope to encourage you to love boldly, live faithfully, and reflect God’s love in your everyday life.
My guest today is Tori Hope Peterson. Tori is a bestselling author, national speaker, advocate and former foster youth who has dedicated her life to breaking cycles of brokenness and helping others find healing. In her new book, Breaking the Patterns that Break You, she shares the profound ways that she found relief and healing from the pain of her past and how you can too. Tori gently shows readers how to recognize destructive personal, relational, and generational patterns, empowering them to find freedom through vulnerable storytelling, therapeutic insights, and biblical teaching. So, Ms. Tori, welcome to the Love Offering Podcast. I’m so happy to have you.
Tori Hope Petersen (01:11.292)
Let’s go! Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here.
Rachael Adams (01:15.057)
So you all, have to tell you, Tori said that she would stand on her head if we wanted her to today. Like she is just, she is all in.
Tori Hope Petersen (01:22.925)
I do what people ask. I’m a people’s people, you know?
Rachael Adams (01:27.901)
She is you all, if you don’t know Tori yet, you’re going to love her as much as I already do. So this is kind of a heavy topic, but you have such a joy about you. So I’d love to hear kind of just the personal journey that shaped the message of this new book.
Tori Hope Petersen (01:42.735)
Yeah, so for context or people who maybe didn’t read my first book or have no context for who I am, what I am most known for is that I grew up in and out of the foster care system and I’ve shared that story really for the past 11 years since I was 17, since I came to the Lord. Came to the Lord at 17, I’m 29 now and so I guess I’ve shared that story for the past 12 years. And as I was sharing that story, I wrote my first book, Fostered. And there was a lot of feedback that came from that book, a lot of great, beautiful feedback. But one of the things that people said is that they wish that they heard more about my healing journey, but I didn’t write about it because I actually didn’t feel ready to write about it. And in the seventh grade, had a teacher, seventh or eighth grade, I had a teacher and he had us read this book called The Seven Habits of a Highly Effective Teenager and spin off of the book, Seven Habits of Highly Affected Person. And the first rule in it was begin with the end in mind. You know, when you’re in junior high, you have no idea what that means. So I raised my hand and I asked, and he said, basically he said, you guys need to start taking school seriously. You need to start applying yourselves, because if you don’t, some of you are going to end up like your parents. And that just really struck me, because I kind of pictured my life and me having kids. And I pictured, you know, what the life that I was living and that was drugs on the table and unsafe people coming in and out of my home. And then I pictured me maybe being a nurturing mom and my kids being safe. And I realized in that moment that like I had a choice. I could choose, you know, which way I went and what my family life was going to look like, what my future was going to look like. And I knew that I really felt like God honestly planted the seed in my heart for my kids and my family in that moment And so I kind of set out like I’m going to break generational cycles and my life is going to be different. And literally by the grace of God, I met God when I was seven. I mean, I think God was actually in my life from a very young age. When I look back, I see that he was there. I just didn’t acknowledge him until I was 17. So when was 17, I came to the Lord and I understood that he was my father and that I was his daughter and that he loved me. And even if There were a bunch of people who didn’t want me in their home and were kicking me out of their foster homes that God wanted me, that I was his. And that’s true for anybody listening. You’re God’s and he loves you. And that really started to change my perspective of myself. And by the grace of God, I have broken generational cycles. There’s not abuse or neglect in my family. However, what I have noticed is that there were lot of thought patterns in my life that were leading to behavioral patterns, dysfunctional behavioral patterns. And a lot of these thought patterns, I know now they originated from my childhood, the things that were spoken over me and the things that were done to me, you know, being moved from home to home to home made me feel very unwanted and unloved. It made me feel very disposable and that’s what I believed about myself. And so, but all of these patterns, all of these thought patterns, these behavioral patterns. They really function kind of under the surface of my life. I didn’t really notice them. And so that’s why I wrote the book. I wrote the book because I wanted to bring these thought patterns, these behavioral patterns, these patterns that are in our life to the forefront, to the surface. There’s psychological research that shows that those who grow up in dysfunction are four times more likely to enter into dysfunctional relationships. usually when we hear that, right, we think of romantic relationships. So that can be in any relationship, whether it’s authority figures, mentors, friendships. And for me, like right in the eighth grade, I said, I’m setting out for something different. But then as I got older, I was still falling into some of these dysfunctional cycles, even though I set out for something different. And so what that statistic shows us, it’s something broader. It’s that we tend to fall into what we’re used to, whether we want to or not. And the psychological research shows that we do that because it’s actually where our brains find comfort. So if you grow up in chaos and dysfunction, you gravitate towards chaos and dysfunction because it’s what you’re used to. It’s where your brain finds comfort. And that’s why patterns are so sneaky and why they’re so hard to identify because they’re just what we’ve always known. And so my hope with writing this book was really bringing these patterns to the surface, to the forefront, so that people could address them and see them.
Rachael Adams (06:10.043)
So we are going to talk more about those patterns, but we’re going to take a brief break to hear a word from today’s sponsor. And when we come back, we are going to dive into maybe ways that you might yourself be stuck in one of these cycles.
Rachael Adams (06:27.777)
Welcome back. are with Tori Hope Peterson talking about some maybe destructive patterns in our lives. So what are maybe some common signs that someone might be stuck in one of these cycles without even realizing it?
Tori Hope Petersen (06:42.009)
Yeah, for me, I was seeing a lot of broken relationships in my life, a lot of unstable relationships or dysfunctional relationships. And I was seeing a lot of angst and anxiety in my life. And I think learning about my attachment style has really helped me. So there, for anyone listening, there are four different attachment styles. And I’m not gonna go into every single one, but I have what is considered, I believe it’s called insecure or anxious attachment style. And what I learned is that people who have that kind of attachment style also pretty much they have what’s considered co-dependent tendencies. And co-dependency is how I would define it is it’s an unhealthy dependency on people rather than a healthy dependency on God. And so I really look to people to tell me who I was and I look to people to tell me what I should do and how I should do it. I really looked to people for everything to tell me my identity, to validate me. And I was putting people in the place that I should have put God, right? Like we need to put God in the place of validating who he says we are, going to him, asking him who he says we are, and understanding who we are through the lens of the gospel and through the lens of him creating us. And so when I realized that I was putting people in the place that I was putting God, I understood why all my relationships were kind of falling apart. That’s because people can’t withstand the pressure that God can withstand. I was putting very high expectations on people. And I was putting a lot of weight on people to write, to validate me, to tell me who I was. And that’s a lot of weight for people to carry. And we’re not supposed to put weight on people like that because we’re supposed to put it on God. And God is big enough to carry all of that. And so I think those are some just like top signs. I think people are like, don’t care what anybody thinks. I do think that that’s part of it actually. You kind of got to not care so much what people think and you got to care what God thinks because at the end of the day you are going to be meeting God eyes to eyes in heaven, not some dude or friend who thinks something about you. And so I think that that has been something that has been really freeing, like what does God think about me walking in that? But at the same time, I think that it’s like you kind of walk a fine line and that like we should care what people think about us, like wise counsel. And when I So I would say that have a lot of mentors in my life. I have a lot of wise counsel. I have a lot of people who have kind of went ahead of me. And I think one of the ways that I’ve been able to see things in myself that I didn’t see is I would just go to them. And I would say the question that I would give anyone to go and ask someone that you love and someone that loves you is, do you see in me that I don’t see in myself? That question has been so helpful. And it’s such a Like I said, really is walking a fine line of not taking in everything that everybody says about you because that can be quite crushing and at the end of the day, you have to know what God says about you, but at the same time, you have to have wise counsel speaking into your life.
Rachael Adams (10:10.213)
Yeah, absolutely. You know, you’ve mentioned that you found the Lord at age 17. Is that right? Yeah.
Tori Hope Petersen (10:17.106)
Yeah, I was 17. I was in my church. had a foster mom who started taking me to church. And I had been in and out of church really since I was young. Like I said, the Lord was literally always pursuing me. I just didn’t acknowledge him. And it was when I was 17, I was actually singing the song Good, Good Father. And the question that I always had was, why didn’t God give me a dad? Because if I would have had a dad, I would have been protected from the abuse that I went through And if I had a dad, wouldn’t have went into foster care, I could have lived with him. And it was in that moment that I realized God is my dad. And he has been there protecting me, preserved me, loved me throughout my whole life.
Rachael Adams (11:00.635)
And so that’s the turning point. And I’m just wondering in the healing journey, what role has forgiveness had to play?
Tori Hope Petersen (11:09.117)
Yeah, well, okay, so I love that. That was a turning point. I will say there has been so many turning points. So it was like, I came to the Lord, understood, like, I really felt his love for me. It felt really clear. And then as time went on, I really, I went to college and started to seek validation and love from boys was very gotten to very promiscuous relationships. And that’s when a lot of the dysfunctional relationships continued from my childhood, from my upbringing. And so it was like, I knew God’s love for me, but it hadn’t quite sunk in. Or it was like, I knew the truth, but I didn’t know how to believe it. And so I would also go and I would speak to other former foster youth or other kids who came from hard places, whether it was at like homeless shelters or churches that threw events for youths who came from hard places organizations that were serving these vulnerable youth I’d go speak to them and I would tell them like you’re so worthy and you’re so loved and then I would go back home and I would lay in my bed and I would literally think like I hate myself and I have every reason to hate myself and I knew that those thoughts were coming from my childhood I knew those thoughts were coming from my experience in foster care, but I did not know how to how to believe anything else and it was really this one day I was laying in bed and it was like, how can I believe this for everybody else? And I really did. I really did believe it for every single youth that I spoke over and for every single woman that I spoke over, for every single person I spoke over, I believed it and didn’t believe it for myself. And I felt like the Lord just told me like, the love that is accessible to everybody else is also accessible to you. And I think a lot of us struggle with that, right? Like we, like giving love and showing love and communicating love to other people is easy for us, but letting us accept it is a little bit more of a challenge. And so yeah, that would just be first off, that was a big turning point for me. And I would just say that to anyone else who knows God loves them, but can’t quite believe it, doesn’t know quite how to internalize it. The same love that is accessible to you is accessible to everybody else. You actually asked me a whole different question, but I don’t remember it.
Rachael Adams (13:34.013)
It’s okay. It’s it’s what it was meant to be said I think I you know as you’re talking I’m thinking about you know the greatest commandment to love the Lord God with all of your heart mind soul and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself but there is this component of we have to love ourselves and so many of us don’t even like ourselves let alone love ourselves and so I imagine like it’s kind of got a start there to really know who we are in Christ and our identity in him and who he’s created us to be. So I don’t know, does that evoke any thought in you?
Tori Hope Petersen (14:03.611)
Yes, Rachel, let me tell you something. like, you know that phrase, it is said in the, I know you know the phrase, because you’re in the church and anyone who’s in the church knows this phrase. It’s more of God less of me, more of God less of me. Theologically correct, literally in scripture. think it’s John, John says it in scripture, like, theologically correct. But when I heard it, I interpreted that through the lens of my trauma. So came to faith in March 17, heard that and was interpreting that as I need more of God, but I also need to lessen myself. I need to make myself smaller. need to hate myself because that’s what I had been taught. That’s what felt like that was what was spoken over me. And so I was always kind of trying to figure out how do I get rid of Tory so that I can be more godly. And then it took me a while to start reading after I was saved to start reading the Bible for myself and to start reading scripture. I Felt like I interpreted that quote from the lens of my trauma So I I thought that I needed to lessen myself I needed to make myself smaller and then in a sense I needed to get rid of me to have more of God in me and then It took me a little bit to start to read scripture for myself. So saved at 17, I wouldn’t say that I started to read the Bible for myself, probably until I was like 20. And when I was just listening to what pastors were saying, listening to the church, listening to podcasts. But when I started to open and read the word of God for myself, it was so transformational. And so I went to Genesis one. And what it says is that God looked at everything that he made and he called it good.
Rachael Adams (17:00.359)
Very good. Very good.
Tori Hope Petersen (17:01.322)
Very good. That means that God did a good job making me and God did a good job making you. And so now what I speak over myself is more of who God has created me to be, more of God, more of God, more of who God has created me to be. And it’s really cyclical because when we look to God, more of God, we look to him, we do become more of who he’s called us to be because we’re made in his creation. You know, we’re made in his image. And so I think embracing just who God’s called me to be has given me a lot of freedom and it’s given me this permission to love who he’s created me to be. think there’s a lot of confusion in Christian spaces. We confuse self-hatred and we call it humility. We confuse self-hatred for humility. And while I really struggled with self-hatred for a very long time and I actually had a mentor who is a minister. And she spoke over me and she said, Tori, humility is simply agreeing with who God says you are, nothing more, nothing less. It’s not elevating yourself, but it’s also not lessening yourself. And you to walk in your God given calling and your God given gifting, you have to know who he’s called you to be. And he has not called you to get rid of yourself. He’s called you to embrace who he’s called you to be.
Rachael Adams (18:18.157)
I cannot wait to continue this conversation, but we’re going to take a brief break to hear from today’s sponsor. And when we return, we’re going to talk about giving ourselves and others grace.
Rachael Adams (18:32.155)
Welcome back. As I mentioned before the break, we are going to be talking about giving ourselves grace. So Tori, what role has grace and mercy played in this process of your healing?
Tori Hope Petersen (18:37.748)
So I feel like in healing spaces there’s a lot of like once you get to this point then you’ll be healed then you’ll be whole then you’ll be complete and I really don’t view healing that way. I really believe that healing is a journey that it’s not linear. I do believe I have witnessed that Jesus can heal someone in an instant but I’ve not experienced that myself. In my own healing, my healing has been a journey and it’s been gradual and there are some times when it’s been five steps forward, three steps back. And I think that’s what Mercy and Grace has looked like in my healing journey and that’s what it’s looked like for me when I view other people in their healing journey. There was a girl who actually came up to me after a recent speaking and engagement, or I should say she was a woman. She was older than me and that’s why she was really discouraged. She was like, you know, I’m like three decades older than you and I’m not as healed as you are. And I told her, said, first off, you’re watching me from a stage. Like you do not know my day to day healing and the things that I struggle with. And the second thing I told her was really, you should not be comparing yourself to someone else. You should be comparing yourself to your past self. And so, know, compare yourself to some, your version of five years, five years before this or 10 years before this. And I think when we do that, we’ll actually see that we’ve come much farther than we, if we were comparing ourselves to somebody else. We’ve just all had, you know, different, different levels, different variations of adversity and trauma. And so our healing is all going to look different. And I think when we embrace the journey of it and not look at our lives and say, okay, once I get here, then I’m going to be good. But saying like this healing journey is good within itself, the journey is good. I think that’s what happens. We give ourselves grace and mercy, but also it takes the pressure off of, I think sometimes we create more hurt in what we expect of ourselves and healing rather than when we embrace it. It’s actually healing to embrace the journey.
Rachael Adams (21:11.901)
Hmm. Wow. Yeah, that’s, that’s powerful grace for yourselves and grace for others. And you mentioned, counseling, you mentioned mentors. So talk to us about the value and role that community has played in your healing. And now you’re like just paying that forward and helping other people break these cycles too.
Tori Hope Petersen (21:34.48)
Oh, you’re so kind. I remember the question you asked me. You asked me about forgiveness. And I would say, actually, I think the first time that I ever forgave was in a community setting. I lived in a group home when I was a teenager and we were required to do group therapy with our peers. And so there was this girl who lived in the group home that I was in. There was a ton of us, all coming from different backgrounds of trauma she started to share her story and this girl, name was, we’ll say that her name was Jen and Jen was really, really difficult. She just had really big behavior. She was also the youngest out of all of us. And so just like, you you imagine we’re all immature because of our trauma. And then it’s like, add, you know, I mean, I think trauma makes you have to grow up in a certain way, but also it makes your brain immature in some other ways. And so we all have our own immaturity because of our trauma. And then I feel like her being the youngest she kind of faced more of that immaturity and hardship. And we all kind of turned our backs to her. Like we didn’t want to really, I feel like we weren’t as accepting and loving to her as we were the rest of the group, but she started to share her story and she started to talk about how she was actually adopted at one point and her parents, adopted parents were her traffickers. And then she had to go back into the foster care system and she was adopted again. And when I heard her story, it was similar to my biological mom’s. And as I was listening to her and looking at her, was like I was looking at my mom and I realized in that moment that my mom was once a kid too. And she was once a kid who was hurt and who didn’t have opportunity to heal and didn’t have her needs met. And that has really helped me forgive really quickly, really anyone, because I just think, like, one, this is God’s kid, right? And God has forgiven them and God has forgiven me. I’ve made mistakes and I’ve needed forgiven. So I’m going to pass on that forgiveness as one of God’s kids to another God’s kid. But also that even if it’s an adult who hurt you that they were once a kid too, and likely they’re unaware of the hurt that they’ve caused and it’s because of the hurt that was caused onto them. And that’s not an excuse for like, right, because I’m a hurt person, I can go around hurting people. But I do think it’s a reason that we can have compassion. And, you know, I think the idea that hurt people hurt people is a tool to help us see people through the lens of love and forgiveness and heal people help heal people is a lens that helps us take accountability and responsibility and agency for our own healing.
Rachael Adams (24:37.467)
Yeah, and you know that reminds me of something I saw on social media and it said, be patient with your parents because this was their first time living. And I thought, you know, it’s true. It just like when you view everybody in that with through that lens and that perspective, it’s like everybody for the most part is trying their best. We’ve never been in this place before. We’ve never had this experience before. And so I think it does help us to view them with more compassion and love.
Tori Hope Petersen (24:46.717)
No, I’m sorry.
Rachael Adams (25:05.839)
And so I’m just mindful today of the person, the woman listening today that is in maybe just a really difficult place right now. And she is dealing with some really destructive patterns that she wants to break through and wants to stop the generational cycles. How would you encourage her today?
Tori Hope Petersen (25:15.531)
Yeah, think that I remember there have been times in my life where I’ve kind of wanted like the next season and I’ve been like, I can’t wait for this next season. And then someone says like, well, just embrace your now or especially when I was like a kid, I would say, can’t wait till I’m an adult and people would always say like, it’s only going to get worse. And I don’t, I really don’t like when people say stuff like that because I think that, there, I want to give people hope. Like I really do believe that things can be better. and I think it starts with, I do think it starts a lot with the choices that we make. and then the second thing is I think it starts with the way that we walk with God, the way that we embrace him. And I think that one of the really good ways that that can be started is being in community, something that I’ve noticed in myself when I’m in really hard times, when I’ve been in really hard times, I tend to isolate and I tend to push people away. And I tend to say, I have nobody, I’m so alone, I have nobody. And Like that’s just not the truth. Usually we do have people around us in one way or another. So I would encourage any woman listening to this to embrace your community, embrace your people and tell them, be honest with them, let them embrace you. Think that sometimes we can have people around us, but we’re not honest. And so we don’t see the benefit of community because we aren’t actually showing people ourselves And I think that that’s a huge indicator of healing. When I look at people and I see their ability to be close to people and to let people in, that’s usually an indication of a rather healed person being honest and letting people in closely. And so that would be like the first step that I would just encourage you to do. I know it’s hard when you’ve experienced so much hurt and pain But I really do think that there’s so much fruit that comes from it.
Rachael Adams (27:45.499)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, you’ve talked a lot about love. You’ve mentioned it quite a few times already, loving yourself and loving God and loving other people. So is there a biblical concept of love that you think applies to this topic beyond anything that you’ve already shared?
Tori Hope Petersen (28:02.223)
Yeah, so in my first chapter, so all 14 chapters are lies in my book. And so the first chapter is that self-love is selfish. pretty much I talk about what we’ve already talked about is that you can love who God’s created you to be, that you can embrace who God has created you to be, that God has done a good job making you, and you don’t have to lessen yourself, that you can love yourself I think that’s a really taboo topic in the church, but I think it’s one that needs to be embraced because when we love who God’s created us to be and we begin to kind of just grasp on to the gifts that he’s given us, right, our gifts are used for the kingdom. Our gifts are used to love others. And so I think when we begin to really grasp those gifts so that they can be used for the kingdom, it literally turns into love for others and love to God, us embracing who he’s created us to be is really just an honoring of his creation and then an extension of the love that he’s given us to other people.
Rachael Adams (29:09.083)
Yeah, absolutely. You’ll tell us something that you are loving right now.
Tori Hope Petersen (29:13.887)
Ooh, something. Okay, let’s actually, yes, what is this place called? I am in Waco, Texas. It’s called, believe, I’m really hoping I’m saying it right, Hotel Herringbone. It is in downtown Waco. And I’m not kidding you, it is probably the cutest, most beautiful hotel I’ve ever been in when it comes to interior design. I really enjoyed it. Like I just can’t even stop looking at it. And I’m sad that I have to leave. And I also am thinking, how could I make my house look like this?
Rachael Adams (29:14.895)
I’m loving the hotel room that you’re in right now. Can we talk about that?
Rachael Adams (29:43.101)
Well, that’s what I asked her. I’m like, is that your house? Because it’s so cool. I know. Yeah. Well, she’s on book tour right now. So she is in Waco. I wish this was going to release soon enough that we could tell people where you’re going to be and they could join you. But because I know that after, after meeting you, everybody’s going to want to come and follow you and buy your book and all the things. So tell us how that they can best do that.
Tori Hope Petersen (29:46.732)
I wish! No!
Tori Hope Petersen (30:04.1)
You’re so sweet. Yes, people can follow me at Tori Hope Peterson. I’m probably most active on Instagram, but I have TikTok and Facebook and Peterson is S-E-N, not S-O-N. You’re going to type in and you’re not going to be able to find me. That’s because there is no Tori Hope Peterson with S-O-N. It’s just me, S-E-N. Yeah, and you can get my book anywhere books are sold, Breaking the Patterns That Break You, Amazon, Target, Barnes and Noble Wherever, wherever you like to get books.
Rachael Adams (30:35.005)
Do you know what I love? That your middle name is Hope.
Tori Hope Petersen (30:37.635)
yeah, my mom, I really feel like my mom was really, I read about this in my first book Foster. My mom was very intentional with the way that she named me and I really feel, very big opinions about names. I feel like what we name people can truly be what they become and who God helps them become. I feel like that’s true for my own name. And yeah, I think I’m just so thankful that my mom named me what she did because that’s what she spoke over me and that’s what God did.
Rachael Adams (31:02.615)
Mm hmm. Yeah, and that’s that’s the life that you’re living in the legacy that you’re leaving for sure. So, Tori, would you do us the honor of praying for us as we close?
Tori Hope Petersen (31:09.315)
Thank you.
Tori Hope Petersen (31:14.307)
Yes, I would love to.
Lord, I know that you are here with us. I just thank you for every person who has ears to listen to this podcast that they have that they’ve taken the time to spend with you to learn more about you and to try and draw closer to you. And my prayer is that they feel that intimacy and that they don’t they don’t lean on you and expect a feeling And they’re not led by these feelings of closeness, but they just know the truth that sometimes they may not feel it, but the truth is that you love them, that you’re close, that you’re near, that you will never forsake them, that you will never leave them. Lord, we thank you so much for your truth, that you have made us good, that you have given us permission to love who you have created us to be, that we can embrace our calling and our giftings. And if there’s anyone who’s like, don’t even know what those are, would you just give them a vision and help them see, you know, who you’ve created them to be and what they’re good at, what their giftings are, Lord. And I thank you. Just thank you for your word. I think that your word can be quite intimidating to us. But would you just help anyone who is feeling a little, that is a little hard to enter into? Would you just Remind them that your yoke is easy and your burden is light? And would you remind them that they can open your word and that you will help them? You will help them understand it? That you will guide them, that you will speak to them? They just need to open it. They just need to begin, they just need to start. And if there’s someone who maybe they started and they’ve fallen off for a long time, then let them know that you’re just happy when they come back. You’re just happy to spend time with us beloved children and you’re waiting for us with open arms. And so Lord, my prayer is that anyone who hasn’t gotten in their word in a long time, that they would just see this as an encouragement to open it and that it would be clear. It would be clear what you say about them and that they would know who they’re called to be and that it would be clear who you say you are. Thank you for being our father. Thank you for calling us sons and daughters. We embrace that identity. In Jesus name, Amen.
Rachael Adams (33:44.671)
Amen. Thank you so much.
Tori Hope Petersen (33:46.685)
Thank you.
Rachael Adams (33:48.263)
Thank you for joining us today and thank you for tuning into the Love Offering Podcast. I hope today’s conversation encouraged and inspired you to love God, love others, and even love yourself a little more. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and leave a review. It helps others find the show and spreads the message of love even further. To connect with me, visit my website at rachellekayaddams.com. While you’re there, be sure to download the Love Offering Calendar, a free resource filled with simple daily ways to love those around you.
Don’t forget to pick up a copy of my new book, Everyday Prayers for Love, Learning to Love God, Others and Even Yourself, and Tori’s book, Breaking the Patterns that Break You. They are available now wherever books are sold and we pray they are meaningful resources for your faith journey. A special thank you to Life Audio for supporting this podcast and making it possible. To find more great podcasts, visit LifeAudio.com. Thanks again for joining us today. Until next time, let’s make our lives an offering of love.
*Transcript is AI generated.
Connect with Tori:
https://www.torihopepetersen.com/
You have Successfully Subscribed!
