People change throughout their lives and embracing change in yourself and others can give you

the space to find the path you’re meant to be on. On this episode of The Simple Talk podcast,

host Wayne McCullough speaks with Noel Bouché, of pureHOPE, which seeks to build a world

free of sexual exploitation and brokenness. Bouché shares stories of challenges and successes

in his own life and tells his own truth of change.

Throughout a person’s life, they will often find themselves at a crossroads. Sometimes the

choices they face are difficult or dangerous; other times they are more clear-cut. Fear, guilt, and

shame can be powerful drivers, so it’s important to try to find identity, relationships, and

community that will uplift you in your times of change and need and confront difficult

conversations honestly to move forward in learning and growth.

This Week’s Takeaways

-Embrace transitional periods in life

-Understand that growth means change

-Seek out community and provide it for others

-Help yourself to help others

-Focus on relationship-building

Quotes

“What happens in our life is things get interwoven and what can happen is, we don’t see it

happening, but they can become idols. When our identity is wrapped around something, some

way that’s detracting us ultimately from who we really are and who’ve been designed to be and

it can be limiting.” -Noel Bouche

“If we can just rest in those periods, those transitions, where the oceans are choppy and we

don’t have certainty, what’s going to happen is we’re going to grow. Because anytime we

transition, it literally means to step across. Naturally, our perspective is going to be shifted and

that is a good thing because we can get stuck in ruts. And more than that, healthy things grow

and growing things change.” -Noel Bouche

“Fear is not just the absence of courage, fear is about self-preservation. When a stimulus

comes, what fear is, is me trying to protect myself and that’s why we put up barriers, that’s why

we wear masks, that’s why we hide. And the Bible says the antidote to that is not courage; it’s

love because love is self-giving.” -Noel Bouche

“A crisis is just danger meeting opportunity. It’s a crossroads.” -Noel Bouche

“The beauty of climbing the mountain is not at the top when you look out at everything, it is in

climbing the mountain, which is the hardest part. You don’t tell the story when you climb Everest

about standing up there for 25 seconds, you tell the story of climbing and how tough it was, but

that’s where you grow, that’s where you get stronger, that’s where the story is.” -Wayne

McCullough

References

You can find out more about pureHOPE at purehope.net or on social media @findpurehope.