The Map and the Mission

Claire Black: Welcome to True Girl, a podcast for girls and their moms. Together, we’ll explore God’s truth for us, one drive at a time.Buckle up!You’re about to grow closer to each other and closer to Jesus!

Let’s be honest: sometimes life is sad. We suffer. In season 18 of the True Girl podcast we’re going to follow a map—to joy. You know, real joy doesn’t mean pretending to be happy all the time. So, what does it mean? We’ll dig into Psalm 30 to find out!

Dannah Gresh and Staci Rudolph are in the True Girl tour bus today, talking about a girl named Hazel who’s going through a really sad situation. I want to hear about it, so let’s listen to the first episode of this season called, “The Map & the Mission.” Here’s Dannah Gresh.

Dannah Gresh: Okay Staci, now that we’ve had a chance to sleep and eat and catch up a little, wanna show me what fun stuff you’ve got in that backpack?

Staci Rudolph: Sure! I packed snacks, bug spray, flashlights, and my marshmallow roasting stick . . . oh, and my mountain pie iron. I’m ready for this camping trip!

Dannah: Wait—you brought the marshmallow stick and mountain pie iron on the bus?

Staci: Preparation is a mindset, Dannah!

Dannah: True fact. Well, welcome to our tour bus, True Girl. We’ve just finished a season of touring, and yesterday I picked up Staci in Colorado, where she lives. She offered to hang out with me on my farm for a while, and we’re planning to walk . . a lot. I’ll tell you why in a little bit.

We’re almost there. State College, Pennsylvania. Here we come!

Staci: Oh, Dannah . . . map! I forgot the map. Did you pack it?

Dannah: Definitely. Check, I’ve got a map—but not for the walking trails. I know those like the back of my hand. We’re heading to my farm, after all. But the map I brought is even better. 

Staci: Ooooh, I know where this is going!

Dannah: Yup! Psalm 30:1–5 is going to show us how to find real joy . . . even when life gets hard.

Staci: I knew you were gonna tell me God’s Word was your map! 

Dannah: Always, but especially for sad times.

Staci: True Girl, life can be really hard sometimes. We hear from a lot of you asking questions about how to get through sadness, or what to do when you feel like happiness is just gone.

Dannah: Yeah. In fact, we met a mom named Gina who came to one of our True Girl events in Ohio and her daughter Hazel. 

Hazel’s big sister got meningitis. That’s when a virus or bacteria causes a lot of inflammation of the brain and spinal column. It can be very dangerous. In fact, I suffered from it when I was twelve years old. 

Sadly, Hazel’s sister did not survive it. I’m so sad to say that she died.

As you can imagine, Hazel’s heart is hurting. So her mom wrote to ask us if we could help give her some tools to deal with grief.

Staci: Hazel, if you're listening, we are so glad your mom told us you needed help dealing with some serious sadness. You're not alone. This whole season is for you—and for anyone who's gone through something hard.

I can identify with you a little bit Hazel. When I was a teenager, I lost a friend. I remember feeling almost crushed by sadness. I couldn’t understand why God allowed my friend to die or how He would heal my heart and lift the weight of grief as time went on.

Dannah: And Staci, you bring that up from time to time because even though God has been healing your heart. You can still feel the sadness of it . . . and it’s been years. 

Staci: Yeah, I can. 

Dannah: Recently, I’ve been grieving. It wasn’t a person that I lost, so I almost feel a little bad saying this. But I can imagine lots of girls know how sad it is to lose a pet. So here goes: recently, I lost my horse Trigg. He was beautiful and strong and had been my buddy for fourteen years of his twenty-one-year life. I loved him so much. When I’d ride him through the woods, it felt like all the hard things in life just disappeared for a while. And now, well, he’s what’s disappeared.

Staci: I’m really sorry, Dannah.And Truett—his horse friend—is really sad too, isn’t he?

Dannah: He is. Truett doesn’t want to come out of the barn. He just hides in there. Sometimes, he goes to the door of Trigg’s stall and just stares into it with his head hanging low. 

I understand how he feels. I don’t feel like coming out of the bedroom some days. I just want to lay there and be sad.

But even in all the sadness, I’ve felt God reminding me that joy isn’t gone forever. It’s coming back. His Word says so.

Staci: Yup, that’s what Psalm 30 tells us. Even when we cry ourselves to sleep at night, joy eventually shows up, but it can take some slow and easy steps to find it. That’s why we’re calling this season “Your Map to Joy.” We're going to walk through it together—step by step. On Dannah’s farm and on every walk, we’re going to take a different critter along to enjoy the walk.

Dannah: Yeah, there’s Cindy Lou Who and Boo Who, my mini-silkie fainting goats. Cassie, the fat mini-donkey! Oh . . . maybe we should take Carl Epley, the black sheep of the family. 

Staci: (Giggles) He’s not bad, mind you! He’s just literally a black sheep! 

Dannah: Yeah.

So this whole season is about finding joy when you’re sad.

Or, if you’re not sad, it might tell you what you need to do to help a friend find joy when she is sad.

Staci:Speaking of friends, that’s exactly why I’m here, Dannah. I know your animals make you happy. So when I heard you were experiencing grief, I remembered what that feels like. I know what it’s like not to want to get out of bed. And I thought, I’m gonna go get Dannah and hang out with her and those critters.

Dannah: Except I came and got you! But thanks anyway, Staci.

Staci: Yeah, well, we can overlook that detail.

[Dog barking]

And speaking of four-legged friends . . . hey there, Frankie!

True Girl, this is Frankie. She’s my big ol’ girl! In case you haven’t met, she’s a gray Great Dane. She’s basically the size of a small horse with drool superpowers.

Dannah: That’s why we picked you up in the tour bus. You can’t fly with a dog that big!

Staci: She tried once. It didn’t go well. The airline snack cart . . . toast.

Dannah: Poor snack cart!

Staci: But seriously, even Frankie knows this trip isn’t just for fun and fur. We’re on a mission. So, Dannah, what is joy, really?Because joy is not the same thing as happiness.

Dannah: No, it’s not, even though some people think they are pretty much the same.

Staci: Happiness is an emotion we have when good things are happening around you—like when you’re getting ice cream or having a good time with your best friend. 

Dannah: Or riding your horse in the woods! 

Staci: Yeah, those are happy things! But joy? Joy is deeper.

Dannah: Yeah, and joy can still be there even when what is happening in your life is really hard or sad. Joy is what you feel when you remember that Jesus is with you . . . no matter what.

Staci: I have any easy way to remember what joy is. It’s an acronym—you know where each letter in a word stands for something?

Dannah: Do tell!

Staci: The J stands for Jesus.

The O stands for Overcomes. (As in He overcomes your sadness, sickness, fear, or fill-in-the-blank for whatever has stolen your happy.)

And the Y stands for You. 

J.O.Y. = Jesus Overcomes for You

Dannah: Oooh, that’s good. So even if things go wrong, you can still have joy if you believe God’s got ya?

Staci: Absolutely. 

Dannah: I like that, because sometimes God delivers us from sad things or hard things. So, we don’t go through them. But sometimes He just goes into those painful things with us. 

Staci: Yes! 

Dannah: Think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. It’s a pretty familiar Bible story we grow up hearing, right? You might remember, the king threw them into a hot furnace to kill them! It was a punishment because he didn’t want those three guys to worship God. Instead, King Nebuchadnezzar wanted them to bow down to a statue of . . . . well, King Nebuchadnezzar! 

Staci: Oh, that’s such a great story. Let me just read it. Let’s see . . . I’ve got my Bible in here somewhere . . . It’s in the book of Daniel, I do believe.

Dannah: Yeah, I think it’s chapter 3.

Staci: Precisely. Here it is:

Nebuchadnezzar was so furious with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that his face became distorted with rage. He commanded that the furnace be heated seven times hotter than usual. Then he ordered some of the strongest men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace.

So they tied them up and threw them into the furnace, fully dressed in their pants, turbans, robes, and other garments. And because the king, in his anger, had demanded such a hot fire in the furnace, the flames killed the soldiers as they threw the three men in. So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, securely tied, fell into the roaring flames.

Staci: Okay, let me stop there for a sec. 

Here’s the deal. ZERO people standing outside that furnace believed those guys would survive that fire! If we had been there that day, we would’ve thought for sure they were going to burn up. No one knew how the story would actually end . . . except God.

Dannah: Exactly! Keep reading, Staci. 

Staci:

But suddenly, Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in amazement and exclaimed to his advisers, “Didn’t we tie up three men and throw them into the furnace?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, we certainly did,” they replied.

“Look!” Nebuchadnezzar shouted. “I see four men, unbound, walking around in the fire unharmed! And the fourth looks like a god!”

Dannah: There! That’s it!

The fourth one looked like a god because it was God! 

You see, some Bible experts believe that the fourth man in the fiery furnace was actually Jesus—showing up even before He was born on earth! He was giving us a sneak peek that one day, He would come into our hard, sad, and broken world to be with us in the middle of all the pain. Just like He was with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire, He promises to be with you, too.

Staci: And that’s what makes us feel joy. Joy is more than a happy feeling. It’s the steadiness of trusting God even in difficult times. And knowing Jesus is here with me in this hard time!”

Dannah, let me read the end of the story.

Then Nebuchadnezzar came as close as he could to the door of the flaming furnace and shouted: “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!”

So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stepped out of the fire. Then the high officers, officials, governors, and advisers crowded around them and saw that the fire had not touched them. Not a hair on their heads was singed, and their clothing was not scorched. They didn’t even smell of smoke!

Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego!”

Do you see that!? King Nebuchadnezzar ends up praising God . . . doing the very thing He did not want Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to do! But they had to go through the fiery furnace for that to happen.

Dannah: Exactly.

Ya know, sometimes the hard things in our lives can be a little like a fiery furnace of sorts.

For example, if you lose a pet—or even worse, a beloved sister—things like that are scary and they are hard.

Staci: Yeah!

But I want people to look at me when things are hard and say, “I think Staci is hangin’ with Jesus. Just look at that there, Jesus is in the fire of life with her!”

Dannah: Me, too, Staci!

And of course, hard times do end!

Staci: Thankfully!

In the meantime, you can have joy in the fire because Jesus is with you.

Dannah: That’s the kind of joy we’re talking about this season. Not a giggly, silly, everything-is-perfect kind of happiness.

Staci: But a deep, steady kind of joy that comes from knowing Jesus is always in the fire with us, even when life feels scary or sad.

Dannah: That’s why we’ve packed our backpacks and pulled out our Bibles. This season, we’re going on a little adventure—one that’s all about finding real joy.

Staci: We have a map. It’s God’s Word—the Bible shows us the path to joy. Our mission is learning to walk through life in a way that helps other people see Jesus walking with us.

Dannah: Right. And Psalm 30:1–5 is going to be our specific map for this whole season. In fact, True Girl, we challenge you to memorize these verses with us. 

Staci: Before we get to the farm, let’s read the whole passage together. You got your Bible, too, Dannah?

Dannah: Yeah, here’s Psalm 30:1–5.

I will exalt you, Lord, for you rescued me.
   You refused to let my enemies triumph over me.
O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,
   and you restored my health.
You brought me up from the grave, O Lord.
   You kept me from falling into the pit of death.

Sing to the Lord, all you godly ones!
   Praise his holy name.
For his anger lasts only a moment,
   but his favor lasts a lifetime!
Weeping may last through the night,
   but joy comes with the morning.

Staci: Oh, verse 1 sounds like it was written for Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego. Read it again.

Dannah: “I will exalt you, Lord, for you rescued me. You refused to let my enemies triumph over me.”

Staci: Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego exalted or worshipped God.

Dannah: They sure did!

Staci: And then God rescued them from the fiery furnace!

Dannah: Yep!

Staci: And God did not let their enemy, King Nebachudnezzar, triumph!

Dannah: Exactly!

Staci: And you know what? God still rescues those who worship Him, and he doesn’t let our enemies get the last say.

Dannah: Psalm 30 is a promise that the hard moments in our life don’t get to tell the whole story. God does.

Staci: Oh, Dannah, there’s the exit: State College, Pennsylvania. Almost there!

Good thing, too, because I think Frankie’s about ready to get some fresh air

[big dog sigh and tail whacking]

Dannah: That tail has been whacking my backpack for the last ten minutes.

Staci: She’s just excited. I told her she’d get to meet your dog, Moose.

Dannah: And don’t forget the goats, the donkey, my sheep . . . .oh, we’ll probably get a peacock sighting in . . . and, of course, there’s my very sad horse, Truett. He’s missing his best friend, but I think Frankie’s going to be good company for him.

Staci: She’s good company for me too. You know, sometimes just having someone with you—like a faithful friend or a giant, drooly dog—makes the hard things feel a little more bearable.

Dannah: So true, in fact I’m so grateful you’re here with me, Staci! Thank you.

Staci: You’re welcome.

True Girl, we hope you’ll memorize Psalm 30 with us this season, especially if you’re going through some grief or sadness right now.

Dannah: You could be saying, “I’m not really good at memorizing Bible verses.” Well, we’ve discovered something that helps with that: walking. Your brain likes it. The back and forth movement of your legs fires up the memory part of the brain. Since I learned that, I’ve been walking when I memorize God’s Word. I even have a name for it. I call it my Holy Girl Walk!

And this month, I’m challenging moms and daughters to join me in taking a Holy Girl Walk. You can walk and memorize Psalm 30. We’ll learn to experience joy in our hard seasons. If you want, you can just memorize the first five verses: Psalm 30:1–5, or you can bite off the whole chapter—it’s just twelve verses. Each week Staci and I will be here to support your memory challenge.

Staci: Hey Dannah, we know there are girls and moms having hard times right now. Maybe we should pray for them before we jump off the bus today.

Dannah: I’d love to do that, Staci.

Lord Jesus, I thank You so much for Hazel and her mom, Gina, who wrote to just remind us that so many of our True Girls are going through really, really hard things. I pray that You would hold Hazel up. I pray that she would know that You are with her in the sad season. And anyone else, whether their sadness is losing a pet or not making the soccer team, or moving across the country, whatever it is that makes them feel sad right now, I pray that they would know that they can experience joy because You are in the sad thing with them. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Staci: Amen. 

Claire: True Girl, joy isn’t pretending to be happy. It’s knowing Jesus is with you in the hard stuff! We’re on a mission in this season of the True Girl podcast to help you experience, joy even if you’re grieving or sad. Our map? God’s Word!

We challenge you to memorize Psalm 30 as you learn what it means to experience true joy. It’s pretty easy . . . you walk while you memorize Psalm 30. That’s it! And in this month’s True Girl subscription box, we’re even shipping out a Holy Girl Walk Map featuring Psalm 30. Your mom can learn more or subscribe at MyTrueGirl.com.

And hey, while you’re there, be sure to learn about the True Girl Pop-Up Party. We’re hosting four of these regional events in 2025. Join us in Pennsylvania, California, Texas, or Wisconsin! The Pop-Up Party is a fun mom-daughter weekend where you’ll learn why the Bible matters in your life. I hope you’ll join us for one of them!

Okay, in the next episode of the True Girl podcast, Dannah and Staci are gonna talk about how to experience joy even when you’re feeling sick. Everyone struggles with health now and then, so come back to learn how to cry out to God when you don’t feel so good physically. That’s on the next episode of the True Girl podcast!

The True Girl podcast is produced by Revive Our Hearts, calling women of all ages to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ!

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