Ep. 148: The Journey of Unshakable Moxie
God Hears Her Podcast
Episode 148 – The Journey of Unshakable Moxie
Elisa Morgan & Eryn Adkins with Julie Richardson
Julie: That kind of moxie.
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: That courage and determination to step into something where you think I can’t do it, but I trust that God’s gonna give me what I need in the moments…
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: …not like the five-year plan. Oh this is…He’s gonna mark it all out for me. It’s stepping into something that I'm nervous about, and I might not be the best at. And I'm not maybe skilled like I want to be. But I trust that He’s gonna show up when I step into it.
[intro music]
Voice: You’re listening to God Hears Her, a podcast for women where we explore the stunning truth that God hears you, He sees you, and He loves you because you are His. Find out how these realities free you today on God Hears Her.
Elisa: Welcome to God Hears Her. I'm Elisa Morgan.
Eryn: And I'm Eryn Adkins. In 2021, we got to know an incredible woman named Julie Richardson. While Julie was with us, she shared how her mom came to faith and developed moxie.
Elisa: Julie had a dream to develop a film called Unshakable Moxie where she would pursue women with moxie to help us see examples of living with grit and determination. We are so excited, because Julie’s dream came true. The film series was her first experience with directing and leading a crew.
Eryn: Now we are catching up with Julie to talk about the release of the docuseries Unshakable Moxie. It’s been a long waiting season for this project.
Elisa: Let’s start this God Hears Her conversation by asking Julie, what is moxie?
Julie: Moxie is courage and determination. To me, moxie, thinking about having moxie, is to have a woman that is so closed to Jesus that she has the courage and determination to stay close to Him no matter what adversity, setbacks, or opposition comes her way. I think when I was here last…
Eryn: We alluded to a project.
Julie: Yes, we alluded to a project. So we alluded to this project, but it had just been put on hold. So it was on hold for a year.
Elisa: Oh goodness. So you had this dream of a project called “Unshakable Moxie,” and then it got put on hold. Yay. And so you had to have unshakable moxie…
Julie: Exactly.
Elisa: …to get through the wait.
Eryn: Which is so ironic and of the Lord. What did He teach you in that moment?
Julie: Yeah. Oh, He’s taught me so much on this whole journey of Unshakable Moxie. Because moxie, again, is that courage and determination to stay close to Him no matter what kind of setbacks happen.
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: And to me, I had just come out of pitching two other shows that did not make it. And so this third show I had put in, and they said okay, it’s gonna be put on hold. And I thought, oh…
Elisa: Here we go.
Julie: …I wonder if it’ll happen.
Eryn: Oh.
Julie: And so it was an interesting journey. And then when it did come about to happen, the Lord was really speaking to my heart about the fact that I'm going…if I'm going to lead this show on moxie, I'm gonna have to live with moxie. And what does it look like to live with moxie?
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: So that year when it was on hold, now looking back on it, was it kind of a prep time, a laboratory of you learning it differently? I mean you’ve always been a woman of moxie, because that was your mom’s word. And she raised you with it.
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: Okay. Now different layers of learning. But this time the setback of it being put on hold, what was it like to think about moxie during that quiet time, that unknown season?
Julie: It was difficult. Like it was…it was difficult. And I think any time we’re in…in the waiting, it can be so hard. Especially if you’re gonna lead a project, you get passionate about it.
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: And you get excited about what it’s gonna be. I mean in order especially to lead something, you want to have that…that passion almost fuels you into doing what you’re gonna do. And so I had all this passion and this excitement, like oh, my goodness. I'm gonna be stepping into this project. But then it was ooh, put the brakes on; and trust God with it. And so it was…it was an interesting journey.
Elisa: You got to practice.
Julie: I think of, yeah, of depending on God and trusting Him, even though I didn’t know what the outcome would be.
Eryn: So when you said it was an interesting journey, what kind of emotions were happening inside?
Julie: I would say my emotions were maybe a little frustrated, confusion…
Elisa: Yeah, did I hear Him wrong?
Julie: Did I hear God wrong? Is this really something? A lot of insecurities. I’ve always been the type of person that always thinks it should be somebody else, or I'm always comparing myself to other people. That’s like just…it’s something that I’ve had to work on with Jesus a lot.
Eryn: Yeah, yeah.
Julie: Because I always look to other people and think, oh well, I should do it that way. Oh, they do it much better than me. Oh that person should be the one in charge of this, not me.
Eryn: Yeah, yeah.
Julie: So…
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: …when that happened, I thought, oh, maybe it’s just not gonna happen. Because maybe I'm not supposed to do this.
Eryn: Yeah, I think any woman listening that is leading something or has this desire to but maybe feels the insecurity or the setbacks, I think it’s actually easier to sit in the setbacks and then let that be the lifestyle where you don’t pursue anything; because there are so many lies that can really overwhelm us and become bigger than the thing that we’re really passionate about if we don’t pay close attention to our thought life.
Julie: Yeah, I spent a lot of time journaling [inaudible]. And you should see my journals. I’ve got piles. Like I get that…just that confusion can happen often…
Eryn: Yes.
Elisa: It really does.
Julie: …in my walk with Jesus.
Elisa: Yeah. And I love your honesty. You know, for you, here’s the dream of Unshakable Moxie which is, you know, a beautiful series documenting different struggles with unique women of how they learned to courageously and determinedly cling to God, okay. And there’s up close and personal. So this dream is so real and would seem to be so smart in our society, in our world, in terms of needs. And then the door closes, and you have to sit with that. And so how understandable the confusion of, did I hear You wrong? Where’d You go? I thought this was what You wanted me to do. There’s some grief involved in that and some disappointment, and yeah, frustration. Thanks for being so honest about that. So how did you process that? Did you keep hammering at the door and you know, let me in here, God? Or at the other people who decide the budget at their doors?
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: How’d you make your way through that?
Julie: Honestly, I think when I run up against situations like this, the good things that can come from adversity. So in the last episode, I talked about my divorce. I went through divorce when I was in my early twenties. I mean I was…I was betrayed, and I went through just a horrible time. And then God, in His graciousness, down the road, I married. And then my husband, Nick, whom I'm married to, we’ve been married for 27 years. We struggled with infertility, and we talked a little bit about infertility…
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: …and that journey and how Nick and I never had children. So I’ve been through some hard things. And it’s during those hard times is when I have come to realize that God is faithful when I was up against this whole situation. And I thought to myself again I’ve got another confusing time. I just remember back on how He’s been faithful in the past, how He has directed my path. I think that’s helped me so often to even flip back to old journals, to remember, oh wait a minute. God led me through the wilderness in the time that I went through infertility. He met me in that place. He met me in the midst of my divorce when I was turning my back on God, because I didn’t understand what was going on. He met me in those places, and He worked me through it, typically through bringing other people into my path. So a lot of times I’ll look around, okay. He’s gotta bring in somebody to encourage me at this time.
Elisa: Yeah, yeah.
Julie: Is there somebody that’s here that, you know, that the Lord is gonna use to speak into my life?
Eryn: Did He do that?
Julie: I think during that time it was just me growing in my walk with Him more, spending more time in the Scriptures, trusting Him even though it didn’t look like He was gonna…
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: …provide for that. And then embracing…embracing where I was. You know, looking at the projects that I had and just accepting that, like well that’s where He wants me right now. I was working on another project with some of the other producers. And I just embraced that time.
Eryn: Yeah, is there one prayer that really sticks out to you that you prayed that maybe you could encourage a listener in how you prayed to the Lord in the middle of the waiting and the setback?
Julie: Yeah, Lord, I want Your will above my own will. I want to know, if this is of You, I trust that it will happen in Your perfect timing. If this is not of You, I trust that my plan B, which is different than His plan B…
Eryn: Right.
Julie: …I trust that Your will is going to be the best will for me, kind of like with my infertility. My plan A was, I want to have several children. But that wasn’t in God’s plan for me. His plan was spiritual children. And so here I think that…that was my…one of my other prayers. I think even during that time, now that I'm going back, I wrestled again with, but God. I was excited to work on this project, because I didn’t have children. And now this is an excitement to be able to pour into the next generation’s spiritual children. But now this is another closed door. So I think that was a season where I wrestled even more again with the…the resurfacing. Because it’s been a long time now that my husband and I have…we worked through infertility about 15 years ago, so it kind of resurfaced a little bit.
Eryn: Oh.
Julie: And I had to work through that. It’s…it’s like a…like a second grieving in some ways.
Elisa: You know, I want to really normalize that, Julie. We have life themes that thread through our days. And maybe a woman of moxie is a woman who can identify those and follow that thread in her days, cling to those threads while God is weaving them, braiding them through our days. They don’t make sense, just one little thread hanging out there, you know.
[inaudible]
Elisa: It only makes sense as we weave them together, and He forms something, which doesn’t happen till we d…till we’re dead. You know, pretty much.
Julie: Yes.
Elisa: But does that ring true for you?
Julie: Absolutely.
Elisa: Yeah.
Julie: I don’t know. Like it’s like peel back an onion, like there’s constant…there’s layers. And I feel like a lot of times, God will bring me back to…
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: …and I'm sure you’ve experienced it, back to a place of pain to bring deeper healing.
Eryn: Yes, with different circumstances.
Julie: Yeah.
Eryn: They look so different than the other one.
Julie: Yes.
Elisa: And then, you know, you stare at it long enough, you go well there it is again.
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: And I hadn’t seen it would apply in this situation.
Julie: Yeah.
Elisa: So the season of waiting ended at some point, because you got a green light to work on this project. Tell us about that.
Julie: I get the green light, and I'm like I don’t want to do this.
Elisa: Ah.
Julie: No, I mean I was seriously…I thought I'm inadequate.
Elisa: So there go back to that one again.
Julie: Back to the inadequacy. I thought God, you have the wrong person. It was a matter of stepping out in my fears of not being…I mean I thought of the list of all the reasons why I would not do a good job. I'm not articulate enough. I'm not smart enough. I don’t have a film background. Yes, I’ve worked at Day of Discovery with a television program. But I didn’t go to film school. I have an accounting degree, for crying out loud, right? Like I, you know, I thought of all the reasons why I shouldn’t. Especially with this project which was of a greater scale than anything I had worked on before. And it was an idea that the Lord had…had given to me. And I’d always worked on other people’s ideas. So this was the first time it was an idea that was something that the Lord had given to me. So all that to say…
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: …when it came time to go forward with the green light, I was nervous. I was…I was a little fearful. And that takes moxie, right?
Eryn: Yes.
Elisa: To do something scared?
Julie: Yes.
Eryn: Yes, exactly.
Julie: Do it…doing it afraid.
Elisa: Yeah.
Eryn: Yes, doing it afraid.
Julie: Yeah.
Eryn: So then how did you transition from that to having the confidence?
Julie: So the first thing I did, which I am so grateful for, was to put together a moxie prayer shield team.
Eryn: Oh, that’s so good.
Julie: And it was like I knew the Lord was calling me to form a team of people to pray this whole project through. Jesus, I need you desperately if I'm gonna do this. I really don’t know what I'm doing, but You will impart to me what I need. And I trust that. Which is a scary thing…
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: …to live with that kind of moxie, that courage and determination to step into something where you think I can’t do it, but I trust that God’s gonna give me what I need in the moment.
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: Not like the five-year plan. Oh this is…He’s gonna mark it all out for me. It’s stepping into something that I'm nervous about, and I might not be the best at. And I'm not maybe skilled like I want to be. But I trust that He’s gonna show up when I step into it. Kind of like the Israelites when they stepped over the river…
Eryn: Yes.
Julie: …over the Jordan River, they step…
Elisa: Beautiful.
Julie: …they had to step in.
Elisa: Yeah.
Eryn: Yeah, Julie, what would you say is a lesson that you are taking away from experiencing and directing Moxie?
Julie: I have been absolutely blown away by answers to prayer, even down to the month before I left, I got an email in my box for a film festival, a film guild from the Kendrick brothers. I’d never heard of it, and I thought; am I supposed to go to this? It was like the next week. It was a week later.
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: And I thought, Am I supposed to go to this? And the Lord opened up the door, and I went to it. And it was everything that I needed, exactly what I needed to help in directing what I had to do.
Elisa: Oh my gosh, yeah.
Julie: Which was amazing. And that…that’s just one of so many things, you know. Toni and Moriah, who are the hosts of the show, had never met before. And, you know, it was a matter of prayer of who these two hosts would be. And we prayed and prayed and prayed, and God made it very clear it was the two of them. We didn’t have time to do a screen test to see if there was gonna be any chemistry between these two women. And so we met, and we met at Moriah’s…it was her 30th birthday party. So this is how we start. And so Toni’s coming out of maternity leave, and she has never…she hasn’t been out of the house in what? Two months? You know, she’d been in her pajamas, she says, you know. And so we get to this party, and the two of them meet. And there’s all these people, the camera crew and everything else. And Toni comes, and they have this incredible dynamic chemistry that is only from Jesus. I mean it’s absolutely beautiful.
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: And then just the way He would…He moved in their lives when we went to Chattanooga, and they’re on a carousel together. And God was building trust in them. And there was a…a horse that Toni was on and a horse that Moriah was on. Toni looks down, and the horse’s name that she’s on is Moriah—spelled exactly as Moriah’s name is spelled, which was huge in helping them to build trust. Because God was speaking to Toni in that moment that He had put them together.
Elisa: You can’t plan these things.
Eryn: No, you can’t.
Julie: And after…right after that, they have this scene where they have to be really authentically vulnerable and real with one another. And it’s just…
Elisa: That’s powerful.
Julie: …I was bawling at the end, because the Lord…it was just like the Lord just showed up in that moment on the courtyard. There was just moment after moment after moment, I can tell you stories. But it’s prayer. And so many moments, I’d send a text out to the prayer team. “SOS, prayer needed for this next scene. Please pray.” And then the Lord, the Holy Spirit would anoint that moment. So it’s caused me to want to pray even more.
Eryn: So okay, so tell us, where is it now? What’s going on?
Julie: So Unshakable Moxie is…it’s a docuseries with six episodes. We have two hosts, two younger women that are going on a quest to meet with a different guest for each episode that has unshakable moxie, somebody that’s been through adversity or opposition, some kind of struggle, deep struggle in their life, and how they have worked through it. So they go to meet with these people. I think of it as like backstage. A lot of these people, you see them polished professional, you know, doing talks. But it’s going backstage. What’s their life really like? We’re going into their homes. We are meeting with them and making potstickers together or, you know, doing something together and getting to know, how did you work through some of the painful trials in your life and cling to Jesus through it…
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: …and not lose hope?
Eryn: I would imagine every episode you learned something new.
Julie: Oh, my goodness, yes, over and over again…
Eryn: Yeah, yeah.
Julie: …like in abundance, right?
Eryn: Was there a theme? I mean in addition to moxie in their story? But was there something that you learned within yourself with each guest?
Julie: Yes, so the beautiful thing about this docuseries is the whole vision is women from all different ethnicity, all different age groups, singles, marrieds, some with kids, some without, like the whole gamut of women to experience the same thing, women that have this unshakable moxie in Christ who have clung to Jesus. And so one of the women, Katie, who’s a young woman…for one thing it was hard to find her. Because we wanted to find somebody that did not have notoriety. And so, you know, you go on the internet, how do you find somebody that doesn’t have notoriety, cause…because…
Elisa: Because they don’t have notoriety.
Eryn: Yeah, exactly.
Julie: Right, but I had heard her on a podcast. And I think it was the first time she’d ever done a podcast.
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: But she is a jewelry designer. And she had gone through just a horrible trauma of losing her mom when she was in her early twenties. She had just gotten married. Only six months into her marriage, and her mom dies tragically. And so meeting with her, all of her jewelry, and she has a ton of jewelry, all of her jewelry is attached to Scripture. But after she lost her mom, she went through a period of testing the Word of God. Lord, if You say that You are a healer, why didn’t You heal my mom? She went through a period where she was just angry. And she went through all of the Scripture verses. And as she did that, she wrestled it out with God and on the other side. So all of that to say, it’s challenged me in my study of the Word of God.
Elisa: Yeah.
Julie: Now I'm testing the Word of God myself.
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: Yeah.
Julie: You know, looking at Scripture verses that I'm struggling with and…
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: …going to them and asking God…the Lord to show me.
Elisa: That’s so inspiring that you can come away with that own application for yourself. Does a woman come to mind that’s a role model of moxie for you?
Julie: Joni Eareckson Tada, she’s one of the women that is in season one. She’s actually the one that we end with is Joni. I wasn’t even going to invite Joni. She was on my list, and I took her off the list for Moxie. But the Lord made it clear that He wanted Joni on there. And that’s a whole nother story. But what I love about Joni is one of the things that she said when we were there is “Own your weakness. See it as your asset.” Embracing our weakness. And really that’s what Moxie to me is all about…
Elisa: Okay.
Julie: …is stepping into our weakness and living dependent on Christ. When she would talk, Scripture would just come out of her naturally all the time. It was just like Scripture after Scripture after Scripture. And I think one of the hosts was thinking, is this genuine? Because, you know, she was just thinking, is she just giving Scripture?
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: But it…that’s how she lives, cause she’s a quadriplegic. She’s been a quadriplegic for 55 years of her life. She lives in chronic pain. She has cancer, all the things. And she said, it’s her lifeblood. She said, Your words are the words of life. She says, I need Jesus every moment of the day. And so she’s very inspiring and definitely a woman of moxie who has been through so much, and she still clings to Jesus. And when we were asking her about the future and what…what does she think about the future, she said, “I have fear for the future.”
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: She said, “My chronic pain is constant.” And she said, “I don’t know how much worse it can be.” And what does it look like? She’s in her seventies now. She said, “What does it look like to finish well? Will I be able to finish well?” She said, “Ken and I talk about this all the time” her husband. Will I be able to finish well. She says, “I don’t know.” She says, “But I do know, that Jesus has gone before me, and He will be with me in this; and He will never leave me.”
Elisa: What do you hope women will take away from the experience of watching and interacting with Unshakable Moxie?
Julie: There are a couple things. One of the biggest things is that Jesus has a deep love for you. And He is so personal. The first 20 years of my Christian life I did not realize that. Twenty years of my life as a Christian, I did not know that He will guide you. He will be the comforter that I need. He will hold me close. I did not know how loving and how personal He is. So one of the biggest hopes is that people will come to see who Jesus is, who He truly is, and how much He truly loves, and how He has a plan for our lives. And then the other one is weakness, of course, this…this whole idea of living in our weakness, embracing, as Joni said, “owning our weakness” embracing our weakness and living out of our weakness. And you know, even for me to lead and to direct you know, the Lord was speaking to me. In order to lead Moxie, I needed to live moxie.
Eryn: Yeah.
Julie: And so what did that look like? That looked like I grab…I grabbed the team together and say, all right everybody. Just to let you know, I am very insecure about this. But I know that God’s gonna…He’s gonna do the work, and I want us to be dependent in prayer. And the more that I would open up about my own wrestlings, my own insecurities, my own struggles, it was amazing to see how the group felt safe, the team felt safe to share their own weaknesses, their own struggles. Like oh, like almost like a relief. Like I don’t have to put on this face.
Eryn: I can be human.
Julie: I can be myself.
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: Is there a woman in the Bible that you think expresses moxie?
Julie: There’s a lot of women in the Bible that express moxie. You know what I would think the woman that poured out the oil on Jesus’ feet with her hair. She’s in this situation with all of the theologians of the day, the Pharisees. And yet she was just called to…to love Jesus no matter what people would say about her.
Elisa: Moxie is risky, you know, it…it really is. What I'm feeling right now, Eryn, is let’s you and I just say a sentence or two prayer over Julie and over Moxie…
Eryn: Okay.
Elisa: …as we close. Because God is guiding towards the future. And you’ve got things on storyboards and see what’s gonna happen next and how God will use the first season.
Eryn: Lord, we just thank You so much for the vision and the inspiration that You give Julie and her team. We thank you that You’ve given her this humility and this desire to create a culture of just honesty, honesty about insecurity, honesty about weakness. And we believe that You are working through her and everybody that are behind the scenes to share and remind women that You are just right there to give us the courage to move forward and to take the next step with determination. I pray that You’ll be with the voices. I pray that You actually will speak louder and dissipate the voices that want to communicate that she’s disqualified or that a team member feels that they are disqualified or if they were more of this and less of that then they could. I just pray completely over any lie that could misguide, misdirect, or even rob of what the beauty that is being created can become. So I just pray a covering over, over everyone as…as they get into this next season of storytelling.
Elisa: Father, we thank you for the concept of Unshakable Moxie that came from Julie’s mom. And Father, thank You that You’ve allowed Julie to carry it and to steward it. We pray favor over those who watch it and distribute it. We pray anointing over next seasons. And we pray, Lord, that You would teach all of us what it means to courageously and determinedly cling to You to respond to Your loving call that we belong to You and that You have amazing purposes on each of us for Your Kingdom. In Your name, amen.
Eryn: Amen.
Julie: Amen.
Eryn: We cannot wait for you to check out this series. Keep an eye out for the first episode of Unshakable Moxie on February 13th.
Elisa: Before we go, be sure to check out our website to find the link for the newest God Hears Her blogpost. You can also find a link to check out the Moxie website. You can find that and more at godhearsher.org. That’s godhearsher.org.
Eryn: Thank you for joining us. And don’t forget, God hears you. He sees you, and He loves you because you are His.
[closing music]
Elisa: Today’s episode was engineered by Anne Stevens and produced by Jade Gustman and Mary Jo Clark. We also want to thank Michaela and Rebecca for all of their help and support. Thanks, everyone.
Eryn: God Hears Her is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries.
