Hi friends!
If you are signed up to receive my website and blog Email Updates, I’m truly honored to have you as one of my subscribers.
I value your time and realize your inbox is probably really full. So, it means a lot that you would invite me into your already crowded space and busy days :0).
For the next several weeks, I’ll be leading an online study of my book. Even if you aren’t part of the study, as a subscriber you will receive my blog posts. I’m praying God will speak to your heart in a special way by what is shared – even if you aren’t reading the book. He did that with so many last time!
I just wanted to let you know what to expect in the coming weeks – some of my upcoming posts may look familiar. But each week I’ll have a guest or two sharing their stories, and something new to keep it fresh and encouraging for you, too. I’d love to have you continue as a subscriber and journey with me closer to the heart of God during the next two months – and for many more that follow.
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For April 1st Online Study Participants ONLY
This past week I sent a Confident Heart Online Bible and Book Study confirmation email to everyone who signed up for the study that starts tomorrow, April 1st. And if you are one of them, I have a few questions to make sure you get all communications:
Did you receive an email from [email protected] with my website banner at the top – like graphic above?
If YES – you ARE successfully signed up for my Online Study group list.
If NO – click here to sign up here and enter your email very carefully.
If you are reading THIS POST in an email – with my head shot only in the top corner – you are already an EMAIL SUBSCRIBER.
If you cannot say YES to both please take a minute to do these BOTH OF THESE things today:
- SIGN UP to Receive Website Email Updates here {enter your email very carefully}
- Sign up for my Online Study Email Updates here {enter your email very carefully}
- PLEASE ADD [email protected] and [email protected] to your email account as an approved sender. And please check spam these next few days to make sure you are receiving emails.
Important Reminder: If you are waiting on your book, you can read the Foreword and chapter One on Amazon by clicking “Look Inside” here.
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Got any questions before we get started? Are you excited, nervous, ready?? Just click “share your heart” below. I’ll be reading comments and answering questions this weekend as time allows. {If you are reading this via email, click here to return to my website to leave a comment or ask a questions.}
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Read and enjoyed chapter 1! Looking forward to what this study has in store!
I came across your book looking for something else. This study is such a blessing. I have struggled with self doubt for a long time. Focus on Jesus, then put my eyes back on myself. Such a whirlwind. It felt like I was struggling with this alone. Thank you for this site and this great study and wonderful group of women willing to work together so we grow in Christ together. May you be blessed for writing this book that is so needed. Looking forward to growing and helping others grow together. I will be telling all the ladies young and old about this study and your book. Once again thank you very much. I feel so relieved that I am not alone in this battle.
Praying and rejoicing over this bible study
I was so happy when I came across your site and offered this online bible study. I have struggled with confidence my entire life and can’t wait to dig in!
Hi Renee and all you lovely friends in Christ, I am so looking forward to this online study. I am so encouraged by Renee and feel God has really guided your life in such a positive path to help others. Thank you and from a person that loves to help others I will so learn about myself and how hopefully I can share this confident heart with others. God Bless all that you do.
Hello everyone, I am looking forward to an exciting journey with all of you and to see how God will work through each of us to fulfill His will. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” Romans 8:28. I love that verse and it is a promise from God that in everything that happens in our lives, good and bad, God is working. He uses it all to his purpose. Stay strong ladies and know that he is there and have confidence that He is for us and not against us and in that we can build our confidence.
I am excited about this study. I am so lonely for friends. We moved to a new town, about 1000 miles away, a year ago and I am struggling to make friends. I am encouraged by this study to try harder. I have anxiety and it has presented some challenges and I just don’t want to give in to it.
I am so thankful to begin this journey. I too fear that it will not make the change I am so hoping for it to make but like you wrote “I need to turn to the light not continue to turn from it”. I am so tired of living life feeling that I am never enough and not joining in on things because I am afraid of what others think of me. Or not join in on a conversation because I might look foolish. So I sit on the sidelines in hopeful anticipation that perhaps someone will bother to give me the time of day. I hardly ever approach anyone else or begin a conversation because I think that others are thinking horrible things about me. I never feel smart enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, dressed good enough, nice enough, thoughtful enough. I am tired of being less than everyone else around me. I am tired of living the way I think people view me. My perception of what I think people are thinking of me is far more debilitating than even really knowing what they think. I grew up in a family where everyone talked about everyone else and usually in a poor way. Unfortunately it still happens today. My dad always told me he had never wanted me and because of me he had to marry a woman he never loved, my mom. So than of course it felt like my fault that they divorced. The divorce was a bloody battle. Through my teenage years my dad would call me all kind of colorful terms including the words dumb and fat. My early twenties my dad would call and leave horrible messages and tell me more horrible and colorful things and It was and no wonder I didn’t have any friends. I want to believe God’s truth for me unfortunately the bad stuff is easier to believe.
All things are possible for those who believe. That is the truth I am you g to hold onto be wise I don’t want to live in this muddy pit for another 38 years. I want to believe all of his truths for me not just for everyone else.
Thank you so much for this study. I am thankful to be a part and surrounded by woman who are looking for the same thing as me. Confidence in Christ and all my empty places to be filled by his great love.
Michelle, blessed child of God He would never want you to hear or believe any derogatory comments about who you are. You are HIS CHILD and He would not want you to be hurt by what your biological father thinks about you. Take heart hold on to the one that will love you forever. I will offer prayer for your heart to be comforted. God bless
Thank you for hearing me, Helen. And thank you for your encouraging words.
This is so exciting to read everyone’s post. how encouraging. It is so amazing to see how so many of us are on a similar journey, especially in our own homes – Satan always seems to attack us where it hits the hardest – in our homes. I am confirmed even as I post this that I am in the place God wants to teach me to trust in Him through this study. I will be praying for everyone throughout our journey. I love the Ephesians scripture from Renee in one of the post above. My 26 year old son used to tape note cards with scripture written on them to his steering wheel of his care. I think I will do the same throught this study. What a great way to have God’s power in your face all day long.
This study is so timely. I had downloaded a copy of A Confident Heart several months ago to my smartphone when it was offered for free. I knew I needed to read this, but just hadn’t had the time,….or maybe the discipline to get past the first chapter. This study is a Godsend. Please pray I will make it part of my routine.
I have battled with a lack of confidence and self esteem for a while now. I am missing out a lot because of this. I even “settle” instead of having the confidence to wait on what God has planned for me.
I am in a challenging marriage and have been told by several I should just leave, but that advice conflicts with wedding vows which I hold dear. I’m also reluctant to confront. I know Satan would rather keep me down and listening to him, but I would like to soar with a confident heart and be ready for all God has in store for me.
Please pray, I really need it to get started.
Bev, I did leave and am now reconciled. My marriage has been a challenge for me, also. Or so I feel. I can tell you leaving is not the answer. I thought that was the answer for me and discovered it was not. Reconciling is a journey now, too. But God has done a great work in me throught it all. Hang on, find someone you can talk to, and dive into this Study. I had to get honest with myself, too. Honesty is hard, but well worth the journey. God showed me so much during my time alone. I wish I had learned to focus more on Him in the beginning. It took alot of pain for me to learn that lesson. I will be praying for you. Stay focused on what God is teaching you. He will show you. Take care of yourself for a while and heal. Believe it is okay to love ourselves and nurture ourselves. I truly believe God will direct you. Always be watching where He is working and ask Him where He wants you to join him.
The sentence that really got to me was, “Although you’ve been miserable, at least misery is familiar where you are now.” I currently live in a city I hate, but God moved me here for my job. I am extremely unhappy here (don’t like the environment, place, behaviors of people, the commute), but I am too scared to leave and move back to the city I love without a job. The job hunt has materialized into nothing. So as tough as it is being here, I stay here out of fear! Fear of the unknown, fear of living by faith without a job for a while. So I stick with being miserable because of fear. A friend once said, “until you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you will not do anything about it.” She is so right!
The doubting whispers are so true and sometimes they are not whispers, but actual people who speak into your life, loudly and constantly. Often they speak from their own personal fears and which we allow to shatter your confidence.
I love Philippians 3:12-14 and am trying to live by it daily, “Not that I have already obtained this or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (NIV)
Although I have only read chapter one of the book, I am so looking forward to the rest of the book and our online discussions. Thank you Renee for stepping out in confidence to write this book and share it with all of us!
I have a million emotions running through me at this very moment. I told a friend of mine about the book and as I was telling her about it I said I loved it, but hated it. I thought i was finished with things in my past by just saying i was done with it. Turns out I was so wrong. I did not realize that my shaped me into the person I am but not realizing it wasnt the person God wanted me to be. People always told me my life story made me strong. I am not so sure about that now. I realized how fragile i really am. God has been speaking to me everytime i open the book. I am so grateful and nervous at the same time.
My favorite sentence from Chapter One – Self – doubt blocks the promise of God’s power and truth to change us from the inside out so that we can live with a confident heart.
Renee, I would like to Thank you for writting A Confident Heart. Because of my past, self-doubt affects every area of my life. I know that with God all things are possible, and I think God has lead me to your on-line Bible study to show me what He has planned for my life and family. I want to find God’s will for my life with a Heart like Christ. Please pray for me.
Yes, I received and read the first chapter, actually I am on the 7th chapter, I had read ahead before I knew that the Study was starting, all I can say is wow.
So excited for the study. Was literally almost in tears reading the foreward section about the childhood rejection. Could relate 100% and the process was repeated in my marriage. So thankful for the perfect, eternal love of our Heavenly Father and our Bridegroom. Can’t wait to experience this love in person in eternity someday!
So very blessesd to have God lead me to this study. My life fell apart about 6 months ago. My husband fell back into drugs alcohol and adultry. We had both slipped so far away from the Lord and his addictions took him further. We were a breath away from divorce. I reached out to the man that helped lead him back before and he with the Lord leading got my husband down to a ministry about 20 hrs away. God is working in us both and rebuilding our marriage. He is very blessed to have the help and support he does and I am grateful for that. I on the other hand have very little support or understanding in this season.
I am praying this study helps me to diligently seek the Lord and find confidence in Him. I need to become the strobg Godly woman God has called me to be. My livibg situation is very very hard and my family does not understand how I can be with this man. I know this is the man the Lord created for me. I know He will bring ustogether as a family again and it will be better then I could have ever dreamed. However doubt creeps in and I am scared. Scared of the unknown. I don’t know when I can move to where my husband is and I don’t know how God will enable thos to happen. I need to trust in the Lord for it all but it is hard to let go and sit still and wait.
Dear Renee,
I am doing this study again in hopes that this time I can go further with a stable God-confidence. I have struggled all my life since I was a small child with deep insecurities which has affected my relationships and my purpose. I pray that this beautiful and touching book along with the study will once and for all eradicate my inner self-doubts. Thank you for your transparency and vulnerability!
Love, Giselle from Miami, Florida
I am ready to start this study. Sometimes I feel like I am not living with doubt then life circumstances (health etc) creep in and tells me different. I find myself wondering am good enough to be doing the things in church that I do such as Stephen Minister. I question the role. Am I qualified enough? I ask God to use me as his vessel then question the opportunity. I look forward to truly relying on God for my confidence. Thank you for this study. Blessings
How long do we have to finish first assignment before moving on to next assignment?