There’s a good chance you’re going through something challenging right now. Maybe you’re even facing a huge mountain of adversity. Whatever you’re dealing with and as impossible as the odds may seem, one way or another, God will get you through. That’s the message of our guest, Angela Scott. She’s turned her misfortunes into a ministry to help other women know that they, too, can turn to the Lord. She’ll walk us through some of her struggles and the steps she’s taking to “turn mourning into dancing.” This is not an overnight fix, but real talk to give you some comfort and help you make progress.
Angela's Agape Love on Instagram
Chosen Women's Event
For more inspiration, visit imagineyourselfpodcast.com
Join the conversation on our FACEBOOK, TWITTER or INSTAGRAM pages
For more info on IMAGINE YOURSELF with Lanée Blaise and Sandy Kovach or to contact us, visit imagineyourselfpodcast.com
Join the conversation on our FACEBOOK, TWITTER or INSTAGRAM pages. Email at imagineyourselfpodcast@gmail.com
Thanks for being part of the Imagine Yourself Family! Follow or subscribe so you don't miss an episode!
There’s a good chance you’re going through something challenging right now. Maybe you’re even facing a huge mountain of adversity. Whatever you’re dealing with and as impossible as the odds may seem, one way or another, God will get you through. That’s the message of our guest, Angela Scott. She’s turned her misfortunes into a ministry to help other women know that they, too, can turn to the Lord. She’ll walk us through some of her struggles and the steps she’s taking to “turn mourning into dancing.” This is not an overnight fix, but real talk to give you some comfort and help you make progress.
Angela's Agape Love on Instagram
Chosen Women's Event
For more inspiration, visit imagineyourselfpodcast.com
Join the conversation on our FACEBOOK, TWITTER or INSTAGRAM pages
For more info on IMAGINE YOURSELF with Lanée Blaise and Sandy Kovach or to contact us, visit imagineyourselfpodcast.com
Join the conversation on our FACEBOOK, TWITTER or INSTAGRAM pages. Email at imagineyourselfpodcast@gmail.com
Thanks for being part of the Imagine Yourself Family! Follow or subscribe so you don't miss an episode!
Angela Scott [00:00:03]:
I just realized that friends are great. Therapy is absolutely important, but there is something about God coming in and comforting your heart. He can get to places where no one else can get.
Sandy Kovach [00:00:18]:
Welcome to Imagine Yourself podcast, where we help you imagine your next chapter of life with great gratitude, courage and faith.
Lanée Blaise [00:00:27]:
I'm Lanee here with Sandy, and we want you to imagine yourself feeling comfort and calm and true peace, even in a world full of unexpected, inconsistent and sometimes hurtful people, places and things. I wanted to share that during the early months back of the Pandemic, I finally learned how to open my mind a little bit to the benefits of social media. Because every once in a while, you do meet someone who is genuine, someone who's not trying to sell you anything or scam you. And in this case, Sandy. I met Angela Scott, who's going to be our guest today through Instagram. And, Sandy, you remember I used to never want to talk to anyone on Instagram or direct message, but there was just something about her uplifting posts. She's at Angela's Agape Love. And so I kind of opened up and then I joined her monthly prayer and share Zoom, where women from all over get to pray together, encourage one another. Then I became her friend, and now it's time that we share her wisdom with everyone listening today. So I just am grateful and blessed to introduce Angela Scott, who is a mother, writer, singer, teacher, praise, dancer and speaker, who loves God, loves a good laugh, great food, listening to music, and most of all, encouraging the health of women. So Sandy and I would like to welcome you to imagine yourself. Angela Scott.
Angela Scott [00:02:07]:
Thank you so much. I mean, that introduction, I could just go home. Like, I'm great. End of this episode, we're good to go. Yeah.
Sandy Kovach [00:02:15]:
Everybody follow Angela and your life is better.
Angela Scott [00:02:18]:
But yeah, that was so true when we met on Instagram, it was so crazy because we were like, I don't really do this, and you're saying, I don't really do this, and it was like, this is really weird, but can I get your phone number? It was almost like a dating app. It's not, but it just felt strange, but was really lovely and look at what has happened.
Lanée Blaise [00:02:44]:
Yeah, I'm going to be speaking at an event that you're hosting. All these good things have happened and I do believe it was blessed by God. And Sandy, what do you think of all this?
Sandy Kovach [00:02:53]:
I think it's awesome and I'm kind of new to the whole Angela scene, so I'm going to catch myself up and everybody else up and just say that from what I have read from your posts and your blog and so many things, is you have been through a lot and you have a ministry that encourages people. And with everybody going through all this stuff with the Pandemic and just mental health issues and situational things, deaths and separations and just so much anxiety. We really could use your kind of encouragement. And you kind of specialize in turning morning into dancing. That's sort of your hashtag. So can you break that down for us?
Angela Scott [00:03:34]:
Yeah, I've really experienced that so much in my life, how sometimes you can have pain from a lot of different situations. It can be heartache, it can be a loss of a loved one. It can be, as you mentioned, some mental health or some issues that are going on in your life. And I just realized that friends are great. Therapy is absolutely important. But there is something about God coming in and comforting your heart. He can get to places where no one else can get. He sees your real self, you're going to give Him everything. There's things you won't tell your friend, especially when you messed up or when you maybe cause heartache or pain, but you can come to God with anything. And then when you do, when you give Him all of that, he will then change or exchange that pain for you to really be able to use it to encourage others. And that's when it ends up being joyful to you, because if you think about it, you go through something and it's extremely painful to you, and then you're able to use that. It doesn't happen right away. It's not like I feel pain, and then tomorrow I'm like, oh, let me tell you about Jesus. You still cry, you still have pain. It's still difficult, but as you move through the process with Him, then you're able to say, okay. It's like I was telling someone a while back there were some things that I wanted to do in my life, like with ladies and help them and encourage them before. But now I realize that a lot of the things I went through was so I could have content. When you really think about it, what could I talk about? If I hadn't experienced some things now, I might not have the same issue, like I didn't have an issue with infertility someone else had. Right? Maybe. But I have issues with a broken heart, and so I can kind of identify in that way how I took that broken heart to God. He helped me with that. You don't have to go through the same stuff, but you can identify.
Sandy Kovach [00:06:01]:
Yeah. Did you want to share any of what you've been through personally? Because I know even before things happened, you were still helping women and encouraging them. But this really kind of set you on a path, right?
Angela Scott [00:06:14]:
Yeah, it did. Without getting too much into it, it has to do with dissolving or the dissolution of my marriage of almost 20 years, which was very difficult and still is. So it's a process. I'm not dancing every day. Some days I am in morning. Some days are difficult. Birthdays, anniversary, or it doesn't even have to be an actual event. A smell someplace, maybe we used to go and things of that nature. And so when you're having those types of feelings, maybe sometimes you may feel like, rejected or maybe abandoned or your heart is broken, or you wish that that dream you had was still occurring. The dream you had for your marriage, the dream you had for your life it's difficult. And sometimes you may feel like there is no hope. I think what happened was taking that pain to the person that could help me, which was God. And so maybe some of those things happened because he wanted me to get closer to him so that I could actually share how he's helped me with other ladies.
Lanée Blaise [00:07:38]:
And that truly feels to fall in line with one of my favorite scriptures and lots of people's favorite Romans 8:28 and we know that God works together all things for good. For those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And it's very hard to focus on that when you're in the midst of the problem or the disappointment or the frustration. But if you truly believe it somewhere deep within your core. I do believe that that helps you to come running back to God and to be willing to try to see how he can still work it together for good. Even though we acknowledge that. We did not enjoy any part of what happened in a B or C scenario. And the reason that Sandy and I wanted to have you on is there are so many people hurting right now for so many different reasons situational in their personal lives globally, we see so many things. We're taking in so much of the frustrations of the world and we were never meant to be able to hold it all on our shoulders. And I love that, Angela, that you are telling us to take it to God and to leave it with Him and to have Him show us it's just faith in the strongest way and love and belief in God and his power in the strongest way.
Angela Scott [00:09:10]:
Yeah and the one thing I want to make sure that everybody understands is that it is not easy at all and there are days when you may not feel that way but that's the thing, it's one day at a time. Like I will have certain scriptures that I would refer to we talked about the prayer time even though I'm hosting it I'm getting just as much out you've been on it. Sometimes I'm like, hey, pray for me. I'm facilitating it. But we all need prayer, and we share and we do things to encourage each other, but you have to also be able to encourage yourself. And so as you walk through it, kind of going back to some of the pain and the healing and all of that that I'm still working through, I learned that I have to encourage myself in the Lord because there won't always be somebody for me to call. So what can I do? I can read some scriptures, I can pray, I can listen to worship music. And then everything isn't always spiritual. I can go for a walk. I can exercise, which I don't really like to do, but neither it's a good thing to do. I don't like to do it, but it's a good thing to do. I love to eat, which is why I probably need to exercise. But I'm set light a candle, which I love. If you have pets, things of that nature, there's a lot of things that we can do to help lift us. I've learned through it too. Nothing is ever wasted. Not even one tear is ever wasted. And one of the verses that always helped me with that was you keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. And that's Psalms 56:8 Just think about that. All the tears, whatever they're for, he is collecting them. Like, when I think about that, that alone comforts me.
Sandy Kovach [00:11:24]:
It kind of reminds me that we should be fully accepting of our sorrow sometimes. Especially like, you're a mom, you have other things going on in your life. You have a job, you lead a prayer group. You're busy, busy sometimes you probably want to think to yourself, okay, just pick it up and move on. Come on, Angela. But that's not the way it is. Like you said, it doesn't snap and go away. You have to allow yourself to feel those tears. And you're saying and you're pointing out in that scripture that actually brings you closer to God and your healing as well.
Angela Scott [00:11:57]:
Yes, definitely. And as you said, it's so funny you said that because I was telling Lanee in the beginning of the month, because normally the prayer and share is every month, I just kept getting this feeling of rest. You need to rest because you don't need to think that, because you don't do something. It means that you're not dependable. And all of those thoughts that you have, you need to rest so that you could be refreshed, so that you can help more people, but also so that you could reconnect with me. Because as you stated, sometimes we're busy, busy, busy doing everything and helping everybody and encouraging everybody and praying for and then we are totally empty. So then you go to Starbucks and you're in the drive through and you're ordering coffee. They ask you what you want and you start crying. I want to know. I don't want almond milk. Right. And you can feel yourself when you need to refresh and start over again. And there are times, too, when I may feel like, Lord, why me? I don't want to go through this anymore. I'm tired. And there are times to be honest, where I'm just like, forget this, I don't want to see another scripture today. But then he comes back and he reminds me, really, where else do I go? What else do I do? You know what I'm saying? Like, I could have the pity party all day long, but then I have to come back because there's nothing else that can comfort me or help me or refresh me or give me what I need. Like he can a person can't do it. The person can't give you everything that you need. Only God can do that. And sometimes they're an idol to you because you're looking for everything from them and they cannot give it to you. So that's what I think. He definitely wanted to teach me, the person that you look for, for everything, which is acceptance and love and comfort and peace and joy. And you know how people say, like, you complete me?
Sandy Kovach [00:14:25]:
Jerry Maguire.
Angela Scott [00:14:26]:
Yeah. We learned that that is no person. No person?
Sandy Kovach [00:14:31]:
You mean Tom Cruise got it wrong?
Angela Scott [00:14:34]:
Yeah, we're all messed up about that. Yeah, you totally did. No one can complete us. No one person. Right. But not even a husband. Sometimes we think, well, when we get that job, when we get that baby, we'll feel completed. When we get that degree or when that person finally notices me, that group finally accepts me when they say good job to me. One of the things that really helped me, and this was Joyce Meyer that said this, but I will never forget it because you know those things that kind of change just your thinking. And she said, you are already good and it's so simple. But what she was saying was, because of the righteousness of Christ, we are already good. So if I go into a situation knowing I'm already good because of Jesus, I care what you think, but not really. You know what I mean?
Sandy Kovach [00:15:38]:
Don't have that power exactly to make somebody another person can't make you feel a certain way about yourself.
Lanée Blaise [00:15:46]:
And we have to be humble and realize that we also cannot be everything to someone else. And we don't want anyone to look to us as an idol and we don't want to put that expectation upon ourselves that we are going to complete someone else either. It works both ways. But our natural desire to have community and acceptance and belonging with others really leads us down that road. And then like Sandy said to Tom.
Angela Scott [00:16:13]:
Cruise, really tried to show, know that.
Lanée Blaise [00:16:17]:
You're the person, you're my person. You're the person that's going to make me happy and you complete me. And we buy into that because it's very romantic and exciting and even if a person can do it for a while, it is not sustainable. And that's why you are honest, Angela, and you are just oozing encouragement and reminding us to continue to look to God. Stop looking all around at everything and.
Angela Scott [00:16:42]:
Everybody else with social media, it gets easy to do that comparison. I saw a picture today. It's actually one of my friends. She looks so fabulous, and right away I'm like, I need to go to the gym, the place I don't like. But I was like, My goodness, she looks great and it's great that she does, but I don't need to start to beat myself up. You know what I mean? But it's so easy to happen.
Sandy Kovach [00:17:14]:
Yeah. So what you're saying is if we live in those worldly comparisons, a simple thing like somebody we really like, like a good friend, can have something going on, whether it's how they look or a job they got or they had a baby or grandchild or whatever. And then all of a sudden we're in comparison mode. When if we're just thinking about our righteousness in Christ and we're just thinking that he completes me, then we're just happy for what they have. And we know that we have everything that he has planned for us and will have.
Angela Scott [00:17:45]:
Definitely.
Lanée Blaise [00:17:46]:
That goes to Bible scripture. Also, as far as not everybody's supposed to be a brain or a foot or an eyeball. We're all made up of different components that will be blessings overall and we can work in conjunction. And it's very symbolic and a very great analogy on how we truly can look at the others and be grateful for them and happy for them and for what they're doing. And a lot of us do need to take a moment and listen to God and see what it is that he wants us to be doing so that we can stay in our lane and we can be effective in what he wants us to do. And even that part of Romans 8:28 ends with and are called according to his purpose, not Sandy's purpose and not Lanee's purpose and not Angela's purpose. For everybody else, it's a tough one, especially sometimes even with our kids. I sometimes feel like I can be the end all, be all for my kids and that they need to do all these things that I want them to do and be what I want them to be. But they're really God's kids. And I'm God's kid. And it's just a very humbling way to live. Same with spouses and siblings and all the people in our relationships. They're God's kids. They're not under our control.
Angela Scott [00:19:06]:
We have to give them to Him. Like we give Him our hearts and our disappointments and rejections and all of those things. We have to give Him everything, including something like our children that mean the most to us is very difficult. But he loves them more than we ever could. So I remind myself of that. My daughter's in college almost 8 hours away. I can worry about her all day long, or I could just know God. And it's not easy. But sometimes I have to say it several times. God, I know you love Jasmine more than I ever could. You are the God of the universe. There was a time, and it probably was like about a year ago, where it was very difficult, very difficult every day. And this verse really helped me. What it did was it took my attention from what I was feeling about myself and a way that I could take it and use it. And so it felt like I was doing something, you know what I mean? I couldn't change how I felt, but I could take the focus off of myself. Two corinthians one, three through four. All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. And this is the part that really got me. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others when they are troubled. We will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. Because you could know Bible verses and you could go to church, but until you experience it to actually live it out, that's when you have content. You know what I mean? That's when you could say, girl, I'm telling you, I know he can give you dancing for your morning. I'm telling you, you will smile again, you will have joy again. There is an end time for this. Your encouragement, your whole demeanor, like you're standing on something you know to be true because you have experienced it and you experience it so you could get his comfort and then you share him with others and in that way they're comforted too.
Lanée Blaise [00:21:49]:
I love that because everybody in at least this country and maybe the world loves a good success story or makeover story or rags to riches or even just before and after. And then like you said, when you have experienced something personally and it was hard and you made it through it, you walked through it and then someone gets to see someone like you who now is just oozing encouragement and love and faith, it makes the person watching feel that encouragement, that they can do it too. And like you said, that these things are temporary. These heartaches, these disappointments, this sadness is temporary. And when you really believe that it gives hope and hope and love and faith are really the things that we're all after, that's going to be the way God is going to lead us out of this tunnel that we sometimes feel we're in the hope.
Angela Scott [00:22:54]:
We are seeing so much with the suicides and I just felt like I couldn't do this without just mentioning there is hope. It may seem like your world is crashing in, everything's falling apart, but it is a promise that it will get better. It will. It's like a temporary thing. It may hurt really bad, but it's a temporary thing. If we could just know, like, don't make that decision on something that's temporary, reach out, a friend, your church, a therapist. There is the suicide hotline and people that you can speak to, pray, scriptures, some of the things that we mentioned before and then on the other side, not just for the person, but for us as a community, let's not be too busy to get involved with people. Sometimes we don't want to get involved, but how can we comfort, love, help people if we don't want to get involved? I just felt like I really wanted to make sure that I mentioned that you matter. There are people that love you. You may feel like that's not true, but that is not true. And if there is anybody that loves you, for sure it's God and his love will never change for you.
Sandy Kovach [00:24:29]:
That is a beautiful message. And just to kind of ping off that for people who are watching, other folks who seem happy, like we just heard about the Miss USA, beautiful woman, great career, all these things going on and she commits suicide. So we as people don't know what other people are going through. So we always kind of have to be as aware. And be available. And I think you hit it on the head just to be open, to be encouraging to people. Because sometimes if you can get them out of that space and into the next day, that might be what they need.
Angela Scott [00:25:05]:
Exactly. into the next minute, into just like I care about you and it's so good. As you said, some people, we look at them, they look like they're on top of the world. Everything is great. That doesn't matter. So let's look behind that smile because it's a mask. So how are you doing? Oh, I'm fine. Well, a little bit deeper than that. A little step closer. Let's not just put everything on that person to reach out. Let's reach maybe that better. Let's reach in.
Lanée Blaise [00:25:41]:
I love that sentiment.
Sandy Kovach [00:25:42]:
And you are doing a lot of that with your ministry. And Lanee gave a little bit in the beginning, but can you give us some specifics of what you're doing, some contact information?
Angela Scott [00:25:53]:
Well, if you go to At, Angela's Agape Love on Instagram, under my profile there's a link that has everything that I'm doing. But I do have a website. I also have a YouTube channel. I started that last year. A lot of that was just to tell ladies, look, just start. I don't even know how to edit properly. I'm just learning like some little snippets here and there. But I just didn't want anything to hold me back any further. I set the camera up, I get on and I post and I talk about all kind of different things. And that's Angela's Agape love also. And oh, so excited about March 26 and that will be my first ever women's event or conference. And I'm just so excited. And I just know that it has been blessed by God. And as Lanee talked about in the beginning, he has planned out our lives. He already knew that Lanee and I were going to meet awkwardly on Instagram. He already knew I would talk to her about what I was planning on doing and that we would come to the fact that she's going to come and actually speak, which is, I told her so amazing to me. But the one thing that I wanted to say was that she doesn't know how much she encouraged me, because sometimes you are, like, wondering whether you can do something and you have all these questions and second thoughts and sometimes God will send people who will believe for you. So when she said that she was going to come, what she did was she took my faith to a level of, like, this thing, you know what I mean?
Lanée Blaise [00:27:45]:
It's happening.
Angela Scott [00:27:45]:
Unbelievable. Yeah. So I wanted to make sure that I said that because I was still in between, even though I had gotten so many confirmations. But I feel like God used Lanee to say, I got you. I'm with you. And she even said, I believe in you, girl. So anyway, it's going to be Saturday, March 26. It's called chosen. So we'll have Lanee and another speaker, we'll have worship, we'll have prayer, all of the things. But every single thing goes back to encouraging women, just letting them know that they're not alone in any of their situations or issues. Everything just points back to God, how he can come into our life and help us in every area that we need.
Lanée Blaise [00:28:37]:
And at the same time, too, like you said, he does use his other children to bless his other children. It's something where you don't know if you're the one right now being used to have an impact on someone else's life. Or perhaps you are going to be blessed by having someone into your life that you already know or that you don't know, or carefully, someone on Instagram, but who will come in and, like you said, bring in a whole level of belief that you didn't know and confirmation that you didn't know. Of course, again, they're not an idol, they're not the end all, be all, but someone who has just been brought in to encourage you. And many times it works both ways.
Angela Scott [00:29:20]:
That's how I feel about you, Angela.
Lanée Blaise [00:29:21]:
I feel like we both encourage one another. I'm so grateful to God that he had us befriend one another. I'm so grateful that now Sandy is in this circle too, and that our listeners, everybody is getting to enjoy this wisdom, this real talk, this honest truth about how some of the bad things are temporary and some of the good things are temporary too. But how God is the architect of all of it. And that's the one we need to go to. And I'm just grateful that people can go to in this case, social media and online and all these technology things that I used to hate. But they do have a good purpose now and that's what sandy, I know you always make sure that people can find these things.
Sandy Kovach [00:30:06]:
Yes, we put them on our website. Imagine yourselfpodcast.com and in the show notes. So we'll have info on the conference.
Angela Scott [00:30:13]:
Which is Saturday, March 26.
Lanée Blaise [00:30:16]:
Yeah, it's Saturday, March 26, and it'll be in anyone who's in Atlanta can still purchase tickets even by going to the link as well.
Angela Scott [00:30:25]:
Yeah, the link is in my bio.
Sandy Kovach [00:30:28]:
Okay, beautiful. We'll put all those links on our website and in the show notes. So Linnae, I am feeling a lot more encouraged since we started talking to Angela.
Lanée Blaise [00:30:38]:
Yeah, I'm going to float. I think everyone have a little bit of floating today and just knowing that they're seen that they're heard. We just pray over and just want to send some love out to everyone who's listening right now. And again, we get it. This has just been a hard set of years and there is hurting and that's part of the reason why we do need to continue to encourage one another. It's so interesting. We always have something called takeaway time at the end. And I have a Godmother, which is very appropriately termed relayed a message to my mother from God recently. And it was very simple and it's just something that I wanted to share with everyone. She was reminding my mother and thereby reminding us to take time each day and simply say the words, God takes care of me. And you can say it over and over again as many times as it takes so that you mean it, that you accept it, that you truly believe it. God takes care of me. And I just wonder, in anything that we've talked about, Angela, is there a parting message that you have that you would like to leave with anyone to make sure that they go away with the thought that you have to share as well?
Angela Scott [00:31:55]:
Well, that's really beautiful. I'm definitely going to remind myself of that. I would just say to your listeners again, their pain has a purpose. You may not see it now and you have a purpose in the pain. And then after the pain is over, in the pain, you're being grown, you're being matured, you're dealing with certain things. Say, for example, you've been praying for self control. You will not get that without being put in a situation where you need to have self control. Or you've been praying for acceptance, so you'll be in a situation where you will probably be overlooked or maybe rejected, you know what I'm saying, so that you can learn to move from that place. So you have a responsibility in the pain, right, to grow and to learn and for it to be something that you end up using and then after it to share how you. Were able to like the gospel sons how I got over how you got over share your testimony. So there is purpose in it. There is. It's very difficult when you're going through it, but then you will sit back and you will say, look at what the Lord has done. And it is more than I could have ever imagined. I think that would be my thing.
Sandy Kovach [00:33:24]:
What a beautiful message to go out on.
Lanée Blaise [00:33:26]:
Amen. For all of that, we just want to truly thank our Angela's Agape love, our Angela Scott for giving us something real and strong and comforting to hold on to as we try to make it through whatever it is that we are trudging through right now. Thank you for being our guest, Angela.
Angela Scott [00:33:48]:
Thank you so much. I just appreciate the opportunity and I'm so glad to get to meet you, Sandy, and this was wonderful. You too. Thank you.
Lanée Blaise [00:33:57]:
So for everyone else, imagine yourself being comforted by the God of all creation, having your mourning and sadness turned into dancing and gladness and being able to gradually comfort others in the process and in the future.
Sandy Kovach [00:34:19]:
Thanks for listening. Hope you found this episode encouraging. We'd love to hear what you think. Give us some feedback, a rating, a review, or drop us a note or hook up with us on social media or on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and you'll find all those links as well as a place to message us at. Imagine yourselfpodcast.com.