BONUS Episode - Never Give Up: One Woman’s Resilience in the Face of Hardships

Today we welcome Jena Fellers with an incredible story that highlights God's faithfulness in all of our lives.  

While in college, Jena Fellers was diagnosed with a progressive and an incurable eye disease. She is here today to share her story and tell us what it means to walk by faith and not by sight, both physically and spiritually.

“I'm so busy serving God that most of my friends don't think of me as blind.”

 Jena enjoyed normal eye sight until high school when she was told that she had a cyst on the retina and that glasses wouldn't help. She was only the third person under the age of 40 who had even had a cyst and it could go away or it might not go away.

It was during college she went back to the specialist and discovered that she  had a disease called retinitis pigmentosa,  a rare progressive hereditary disease.  

When she told the news to a friend through a letter, tha friend wrote back and said something that was so powerful it stuck in Jena’s life for all her life: 

“It's not the circumstances God looks at as much as the way we react to them.”

Jena prayed to God to use her as He sees fit. And that was the turning point.

Jena chose to trust God.

Jena was religious before the diagnosis, but after that really put her faith to the test. Everything in her world was unknown.  

But she sought the Lord and He guided her.  God gives us grace to walk through whatever path He has for us. We exercise faith in the grace of God showing up for us in the moment we need it. And that's how every Christian lives their life, that's what it means to walk by faith.

We are daily moment by moment relying upon that grace to be there underneath our feet. Jena had a choice in the moment to believe and trust that God was there.

Jena never quit. She kept seeking him. And that's a tremendous example for us because it's so easy to be discouraged to the point where you just give up when you face a diagnosis like she did… or any number of hardships we face in life.

Christians fall down, but they get back up. For the Christian life, that's what it looks like for us. There are aspects in our lives whether it's financially, whether it's relationships or career, God always in some way has us on a path where we don't know where we're going. God keeps us in that place in order to develop trust in us. 

We encourage you to listen to Jena’s full story and discover how trust has a lot of different levels to it. Faith is trust in action. Faith is a call to action. We can know God and because of that, we don't have to blindly trust. There is no blind faith. We trust and we put our faith in the God that we know.  

Trust God a little more each day, give yourself grace in doing so because if He does call you, He will equip you, and He has a purpose for all of us. God wants us to surrender. He wants all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our soul.  

Will you trust Him fully today?

Meet our Special Guest

Jena Fellers walks by faith, not by sight – both physically and spiritually. While in college, she was diagnosed with RP, retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive and incurable eye disease. As an author, home school mom, inspirational speaker, and co-pastor, Christian personal coach, and encourager Jena loves to share personal stories to assist in changing your focus from life's hardships heavenward to God's blessings. Her passion is to educate and encourage others to follow Christ a little closer.

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