All In God's Timing

Welcome back readers to our next story. This is our first story that our dear Emily got to connect us with. Emily has known this lady for about a year and she has always been encouraged by this woman’s story, so of course we needed to get her to sit down with us. Meeting this lady for the first time, I got to see why Emily enjoyed her so much. She honestly is so kind and truly just a joy to be around. She could really encourage anyone, so I hope you enjoy Her Story.

Her name Ashley Spencer

We decided to meet in the little, quiet town of Mt. Laurel to have this sit down with Ashley, which honestly suited her. We got to take her away from her fun, crazy life to sit down and enjoy a little bit of girl time. First, I had to get to know a little bit about Ashley for my own sake since this was the first person I’ve gotten to interview that I didn’t already know (which I loved by the way). We got to really just share our hearts with each other before diving into what she wanted you readers out there to know.

As always we start with asking her a little bit about herself and what she would want all of you to know. This is what she had to say, “The most important thing that I want people to know that I’m an almost forty year old student. And I have three children and a husband, which they all want my attention a lot of the time. To be in school and to have all that at home, has been tough. My husband and I met in college and he was the boy next door. I met him twenty years ago actually this month. I met him and I couldn’t focus because all I wanted to do was get my degree and marry him and have some babies. That was all I wanted to do in life, but I never really thought past that. Of course, my dreams came true and I got to marry him and we now have three babies. When my youngest went into pre-k, my husband asked me what I was going to do now that he was in school. I had been teaching preschool at the time and I told him that I would just continue to do that and he was not okay with that idea. He told me that we agreed that I could be a stay at home mom while the kids were home but that he wanted me to have a real job, which at first I took offense to that because I put all my heart and soul into being a preschool teacher, but he was right.”

This was the beginning of the Lord really pushing her to pursue a masters degree but she really didn’t know how that was going to work out. She describes how at this point in her life, the director at her preschool was possibly going to resign and she really wanted to do that, but she knew that she also wanted to pursue her degree. She really didn’t know at that point exactly where the Lord wanted her to be. She finally decided to look into the college stuff just to see what it would take to get her degree. She first went to UAB and honestly didn’t know what the program would entail. She then decided to set up a meeting with a professor at Montevallo just to get some questions answered, and during this meeting the professor was registering her up for classes and Ashley didn’t even realize it. The professor kept pushing her towards getting all of her paperwork done that day as well as taking a test needed to get into the masters program, that she hadn’t taken in over 10 years. Ashley describes not really knowing what to do, but this professor was pushing her to do it, so she just went with it. She knows now that the Lord was using this moment to push her to do something that He knows she wouldn’t have done if He gave her the choice to back out. She ended up passing the test and that was the last day to register for classes, so there she went… back to college. As a wife, as a mom of three, and in her thirties. You might call her super woman.

She knew there was no quieting, even how hard it was to be all those things while in school.

Ashley wants to encourage all you stay at home moms out there that you can go achieve whatever dreams you have, no matter how old you are. Just go do whatever God calls you to do.

We went on to discuss what her biggest challenge that she has had to face in life is… since we already discussed one of them. She answered, “This the funny thing, if you asked me on the first of each month, I’d give you a different answer because things are challenging, until I get through them. I realize it wasn’t that big of deal. It was challenging because I was trying to do it on my own, instead of praying about it and letting God lead me, but once I let go and things happen in his time and things start to become less challenging.” This is so true.

She goes on to talk about different adversity that she has faced in her life, from having a “good” friend falsely accusing her of being involved with her friend’s husband to walking along side a friend whom has lost her child. These challenges were hard but there’s something that comes from that and other things don’t look as challenging in life. She goes on to discuss there are challenges that you don’t really get over which she discussed was the challenge of walking along side her friend who lost her child. She explains that that isn’t something you get over, but all you can do is be there and try to move forward.

As we closed our time together, we made sure to ask one of our favorite Her Story questions, which is how would she define beauty and does she find herself beautiful. She explained, “Do I considered myself beautiful? My first thought, I would have to say no. However, in the last two years I have lost 60 pounds, and I definitely feel more beautiful because I’m healthier. Doing plexus, beauty to me is being healthy. It’s not being a certain size, it’s not being a certain weight. It is being healthy. I truly believe healthy leads to more happiness. When I am happy, other people around me are happy. I think it’s hard for a women to pour into others if her cup isn’t full, so I think when you do feel beautiful and you are healthy and happy, especially a christian woman, you are more likely to reach and fellowship with other people. The more unhealthy I become the more I didn’t want to go out and put the effort in because it was too hard. In the past two years, I’ve decided beauty is being healthy and happy. Also, being a Christian, I know at first I say no to being beautiful, but then I think about how I am made in His image. Everything about me is beautiful because he made me the way that I need to be. I used to compare myself to other people a lot, and so somehow with maturity I have found that I don’t have to do that. I’m my own person.”

Ashley really has such great insight on life, and we hope that her story encourages you to really find your true beauty and to see that you can do anything that you set your mind to.

Thank you, Ashley for being so kind and a joyful during our time together, and we hope this experience has been just as good for you as it was for us. Thank you for your honestly and vulnerability to encourage other women.

Also, as always a huge thank you to my partner in all this, Miss. Emily Smith (and eligible bachelors… she’s single). She is the best and I couldn’t do all this without her.

We hope that you are encouraged by this story. If you don’t already, please follow us on instagram at Herstorybham and subscribe to our website so you don’t miss another story. Thanks for reading!