Girls Night with Stephanie May Wilson

Hey friends! Welcome to Girls’ Night!Y’all, I am so excited to be back for Season 18 of the podcast!! I’m even more excited because our first guest is my new friend, Madison Prewett Troutt. I’m guessing a lot of you are familiar with Madi after her debut on the reality TV show, The Bachelor. But, along with being a TV personality, Madi is an author, speaker, and has an incredible social media presence. Her life mission is to share the name of Jesus and to help women discover who they were made to be and where to find the truest form of love.Madi has a brand new book called, The Love Everybody Wants: What You’re Looking For Is Already Yours. In it, she talks about so many important things like how to stop settling for less than you deserve, how to see yourself the way God sees you, how to find a partner who’s going to compliment you, not complete you, and so much more!And that’s what today’s episode is all about!One of my favorite things she talks about are strategies to combat the lies we so often tell ourselves during waiting seasons. Lies like, “I’m just hard to love” or “I’m never going to be enough.”Y’all are going to love this episode. I can’t wait to share it with you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends! Welcome to Girls’ Night!At the moment we’re in between seasons here on the show. But while we’re waiting for our next official season to begin, we thought this would be a great time to pull some of our favorite episodes out of the Girls Night archive. This is the perfect time to catch up on episodes you might have missed, or listen again to old favorites.Several months ago, I had the honor of being interviewed by my sweet friend, Kait (Warman) Tomlin, for her podcast, Heart of Dating, and that’s the episode I want to share with you today.Now, I know I’m not telling you anything new when I say that we’re given a lot of mixed messages when it comes to our desire for marriage. People either act like marriage is the end-all-be-all goal for our lives, or we’re told to push away our desire for marriage to focus on “more important things” (I put those in air quotes). But in this conversation, I help us find a middle ground, so we can truly embrace our desire for marriage while also not putting an unhealthy pressure on it. A middle ground where we can prepare for marriage and look toward the future, while also savoring and making the most of the present.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends! Welcome to Girls’ Night!At the moment we’re in between seasons here on the show. But while we’re waiting for our next official season to begin, we thought this would be a great time to pull some of our favorite episodes out of the Girls Night archive. This is the perfect time to catch up on episodes you might have missed, or listen again to old favorites.Today I’m chatting with my friend, Debra Fileta!Debra is a Licensed Professional Counselor, national speaker, relationship expert, and author of a new book called, Love in Every Season. Her popular relationship advice blog, TrueLoveDates.com, reaches millions of people with the message of healthy relationships. I can’t wait for you to hear from her!Especially because today we’re talking about a subject that is very near and dear to my heart. Today we’re talking about how to know if you’ve found “the one.” The reason I’m so excited about this episode is because this is a question I MAJORLY wrestled with when Carl and I were dating. This is also a question I get asked all the time by our Girls Night listeners. You're dating a guy, things are going well, but how do you know when things are going well enough for you to actually get married? How do you know if he’s “the one?”For me personally, this was one of the most stressful, anxiety-ridden questions I’ve ever asked in my life. I know that’s not everybody’s story, but it was mine, and I know I’m not alone. So in this episode I ask Debra all of the questions I wish I could have asked back when Carl and I were dating — and I’m hoping that this episode brings some peace and clarity to anyone who really needs it right now.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends! Welcome to Girls Night!At the moment we’re in between seasons here on the show. But while we’re waiting for our next official season to begin, we thought this would be a great time to pull some of our favorite episodes out of the Girls Night archive. This is the perfect time to catch up on episodes you might have missed, or listen again to old favorites.Our guest for today’s episode is my dear friend, Kait (Warman) Tomlin. Kait is a speaker, a writer, and the host of the Heart of Dating podcast. Kait’s actually been with us on the show before. I just love her so much and I knew we had to have her back! Today we’re chatting about a topic that I know I struggled with like CRAZY throughout the years. We’re talking about how to move forward after a breakup.Kait has so much wisdom in this area, and such a passion for helping women through it, and I’m so glad because this is so important. Kait is going to teach us what it looks like to grieve and process a breakup in a healthy way (and what can happen if we don’t).She’s going to talk us through what it looks like to actually let go of someone we’ve loved so that we can move on and be ready to love someone new. And speaking of loving someone new, she’s going to help us recognize how to know when we’re ready to step into a new relationship. I loved our conversation and I can’t wait to share it with you.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends! Welcome to Girls Night!At the moment we’re in between seasons here on the show. But while we’re waiting for our next official season to begin, we thought this would be a great time to pull some of our favorite episodes out of the Girls Night archive. This is the perfect time to catch up on episodes you might have missed, or listen again to old favorites.Today we’re talking about the beautiful things that can happen when your life doesn’t go according to plan.Several months ago, I had the privilege of being a guest on a podcast called, On the Front Porch. The hosts are two amazing women from our Girls Night community, Angela and Mary. They are so much fun. They asked amazing questions. And I loved the conversation so much I just knew I had to share it with y’all. I asked them if I could share the interview we did for their show here on Girls Night and they so graciously said yes!I’m excited about this episode because if you’re anything like me, you’ve had this picture in your head for a long time of how your life was going to play out. You were going to attend that school, get that degree, get hired for that one job you’ve always wanted, get married, have kids, buy your dream house and the list goes on! But, as most of us know, life doesn’t always play out like we want it to or in the time frame we hope it will.Sometimes God has a way of wrecking our plans, or at least that’s how it’s felt to me at several points along the way. And that’s the story you’ll get to hear today.In this episode, I’m sharing about my faith journey and how I met Jesus in the most unexpected way, and in the most unexpected place. I’m talking about several times when God completely wrecked my plans when it came to my career. And finally, I’m sharing how God completely transformed my outlook on dating and relationships and helped me make the most of my single life.You guys, I share so much of my story in this episode and how God has shown up in the BEST ways possible, and I truly believe he can and will do the same for you!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends! Welcome to Girls’ Night!At the moment we’re in between seasons here on the show. But while we’re waiting for our next official season to begin, we thought this would be a great time to pull some of our favorite episodes out of the Girls Night archive. This is the perfect time to catch up on episodes you might have missed, or listen again to old favorites.Several months ago I got to catch up with a woman in our girls night community who has just graduated from college. She was in the thick of it, trying to answer the question we all find ourselves wrestling at one point or another — “What am I supposed to do with my life? (Or at least with the next few years)”She was holding her newly-minted degree in one hand, a few different opportunities in the other hand, and she had no idea what to do. This moment felt like such a pivotal one — and she was absolutely feeling the pressure. She reached out to me specifically because several of the things she was weighing — her specific degree, the specific opportunities she was considering — were crazily similar to the ones I was weighing when I first graduated from college.So we hopped on the phone and talked through it together. I shared with her some of the things I learned as I was taking my first steps into my career, away from my degree, into a job that paid next to nothing and made absolutely no sense. But also, it did make sense, and it led directly to everything I’m doing today. (Okay, not directly — there were several twists and turns and falls along the way as well).But as I was sharing that story with her, I realized that I’m not totally sure I’ve shared this story with you guys.And so that’s what we’re doing here today.I’ve brought my dear friend Marri back on the show to take over the host chair, and she’s going to help me walk back through my own personal career story — where I started, and how I got to where I am today and all that I learned along the way.Whether you’re just graduating college, or you’re in a different life stage completely, I know there are so many women in our community who are trying to make some big decisions right now, or waiting for something, longing for something or hoping for something in their careers, but it just hasn’t happened yet.I also know there are so many women who have a general idea of what they want to be doing in their careers but they have no clue how to actually get there.I also know there are so many of us who have no clue what we want to be doing, but we know for a FACT that it’s not what we’re doing today.This episode is for you. It’s the story of where I started, where I am today, and all of the twists and turns that happened in the middle.I cannot wait to share this with you.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends! Welcome to Girls’ Night!At the moment we’re in between seasons here on the show. But while we’re waiting for our next official season to begin, we thought this would be a great time to pull some of our favorite episodes out of the Girls Night archive. This is the perfect time to catch up on episodes you might have missed, or listen again to old favorites.I’m so excited because, recently, I had the honor and privilege of interviewing my all-time favorite author, Shauna Niequist, and that’s the conversation you’re going to hear today!If you’ve been following along with my corner of the internet for a while, you’ve probably heard me mention Shauna and her books — one of my favorites being Cold Tangerines. Her words and stories and wisdom have impacted my life and truly shaped who I am as a person, a writer, a friend and, now, as a mom. Shauna has a book called, I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working, and in it she talks a lot about life in the midst of transitions. Well, today she is talking us through some of the things we all need to hear in the midst of life’s biggest transitions and I cannot WAIT for you to hear what she had to say.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends! Welcome to Girls’ Night!At the moment we’re in between seasons here on the show. But while we’re waiting for our next official season to begin, we thought this would be a great time to pull some of our favorite episodes out of the Girls Night archive. This is the perfect time to catch up on episodes you might have missed, or listen again to old favorites.When I first became a Christian, I remember hearing someone say that God answers prayers in one of three ways. He either says, “Yes,” “No,” or “Not right now.” I think this insight was supposed to be helpful, but instead, it left me more confused than ever. Because especially when I’m coming up on a gigantic decision, or praying for something I want with my whole entire heart, I don’t want to know what God MIGHT say, I want to know what He IS saying. And in the process of trying to figure it out, I end up acting like an amateur detective as I piece together clues. “I didn’t get the job, does that mean that God is saying no? Or not right now? Or yes, but I have to just keep going?” “I haven’t gotten pregnant yet, so does that mean that God is saying not right now, or yes, but we need to just keep trying for a while. Or, is God trying to tell me that I’m not meant to be a mom? Does God say that to people? Is that a thing?”“I really really want this relationship to work out. Is this the person God has for me? How do I know?”And in all of these gigantic life moments, how do we know if faith looks like making the best decision we can with the information we have and moving forward, OR if it looks like stopping and waiting for a clear answer from God before we take another step?Anyone know what I’m talking about here? That’s why I’m so excited about today’s episode. Today I’m talking with my friend Elizabeth Laing Thompson, and she’s going to help us get out of our heads and finally find some clarity here.In this episode we’re talking about: Whether we need a clear yes or no from God about every decision in our lives How to know if God is saying no or not right now How long we should keep trying before we give up on something How to deal with the disappointment when God does say no How to stay close to God even when He doesn’t give us the answer we want If it’s okay to ask God to change His mind about something And so much more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends! Welcome to Girls’ Night!At the moment we’re in between seasons here on the show. But while we’re waiting for our next official season to begin, we thought this would be a great time to pull some of our favorite episodes out of the Girls Night archive. This is the perfect time to catch up on episodes you might have missed, or listen again to old favorites.Our guest for today’s episode is my amazing friend, Bianca Olthoff. Bianca is a Bible teacher, a speaker, and a writer. And speaking of writing, today, Bianca is sharing about a book she wrote called How to Have Your Life not Suck. I recently got my copy, and friends, it is so so good! We’ll actually talk more about it in today’s episode, she’ll tell us all about it.I wanted to have Bianca on the show today to talk to us about friendship, and actually, she’s here to talk about the part of friendship that I find to be the hardest: How to end a friendship. Every single one of us has come to a point in a friendship where things just aren’t going well — and I think every single one of us struggles to know what to do about it. We should fight for our friendships, right? And yes, we should! Sometimes. But there are other times when we’re in friendships that aren’t actually good for us, and other times when a friendship has just run its course.This is so hard to face, and it’s even harder to know what to do with this. But that’s why I’m so glad to have Bianca here today. She’s going to teach us how to recognize when a friendship needs to end, and then she’s going to teach us how to end it in a way that is kind, loving, and healthy. She’s also going to share with us some practical steps we can take today to start making some great new friends. I’m so excited about this episode. I just love Bianca, and I know you will too! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends! Welcome to Girls’ Night!At the moment we’re in between seasons here on the show. But while we’re waiting for our next official season to begin, we thought this would be a great time to pull some of our favorite episodes out of the Girls Night archive. This is the perfect time to catch up on episodes you might have missed, or listen again to old favorites.So, as I’m continuing to share past Girls Night conversations, we have something super special and a bit different for you in today’s episode!Today, my sweet friend Marri is hopping into the host chair, and interviewing me! But she’s not just interviewing me. I’m not in that guest chair alone. Sitting right next to me is my sweet husband, Carl Wilson. That’s right, we have a boy here at Girls Night, but I promise, he’s worth the invite.I wanted to share this episode because this week is mine and Carl’s 9-year wedding anniversary! I cannot BELIEVE It’s been nine years! And so in honor of that, I wanted to go back to the beginning and share our story of how we met, started dating, knew each other was the one, and more!So that’s what we’re talking about today.In our conversation today, Marri is asking me and Carl all of the questions we’re asked most often by my sweet readers and listeners — questions we rarely get a chance to answer! We're going to be sharing how we met, all about our first date, how we knew each other was the one. We’ll be sharing our best dating advice, our best advice for how to prepare for a really great marriage, and so much more.This conversation was so much fun. Carl is hilarious and so so wise, I cannot wait for you to get to know him better.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices