Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:16 Hello girls. Welcome to our another episode of soul girls podcast. This is a place of conversation, featuring stories of girls like you, who have been influencing the world with the light of Jesus. Our vision is to raise a generation of girls who soar in Christ. We believe our conversations will lift you, lead you and launch you into your God destiny. So dive in today, we continue our conversation with Sharon Kim and we will be talking about stewarding finance, being a woman of strength versus being a strong woman. Welcome back, Sharon.
Speaker 2 00:00:58 Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 00:01:00 I remember you once in your post talking about the difference between a strong woman and a woman on strength. And I think I was sitting over it for at least a week to understand more and dig deep. Uh, there's so much difference. Do you wanna just give us like a snap it about it and throw some light on it?
Speaker 2 00:01:20 Yeah, yeah, for sure. Uh, this is such an important question. Um, I think especially now in the midst of just everything that's going on, um, I, I feel like, you know, the media has painted this image of what a, a strong woman looks like. Right? And it, it it's one who speaks her mind and, you know, stands up for herself and is just fiercely independent. And, and, you know, I, I really wanted to speak to this matter, um, and rely on Proverbs 31, um, for, for the definition of what a woman of strength really looks like. Um, and, and I believe a woman of strength first and foremost is someone who deeply fears the Lord. Um, she's fiercely dependent on the Lord. You know, she understands when to speak with love and, and when to just listen, she has that discernment, you know, her heart is one of just utter humility.
Speaker 2 00:02:30 Um, yeah, what a beautiful image Proverbs 31 is painted. And, you know, if she's married, she's she fully submits to the leadership of her husband. Um, she fully trusts and God's plan and, and his design over marriage, um, and her husband and her children respect her for it. You know, she, she's not one who just idly sits and, and does nothing with her time. You know, she's very proactive and, and she's working behind the scenes to care for her family and for, for others as well. Um, she's so other minded and other focused, um, she really has time to envy or compare or be jealous. Like those are not even things that she wants to waste her time on. You know, she's so focused on doing the work that God has set before her. Um, and so, yeah, I, I really wanted to just hopefully break it down in, in a post as best as I could. I there's so much to unpack there. So it's very hard when people are so, you know, addicted to like a shorthanded version of it. But I really encourage people, especially women to read Proverbs 31, to pray that over their lives, um, help us to be women of strength, um, in a world that's telling us to be a strong, independent woman, you know, like we need to know what the Bible says about that, about womanhood. Um, yeah, so
Speaker 3 00:04:03 <laugh>, yeah, so true. I think, uh, one of the books I read that, you know, uh, women of strength can show her a strength by being quiet and praying as well. Yeah. I think that so important or because, you know, the world says, keep saying to you speak up, uh, you know, fight for your rights <laugh> yes. Yeah. That's so true. Thanks so much for that. I think that is so encouraging for so many women. Uh, like you said, so much of confusion around what you should be. Everyone wants to tell you, uh, what you should be doing and how you should be acting, uh, perfect. Uh, just go back to co 31 and you know, what we need to do. Yeah. Amen. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. You know, a lot of girls, especially when they start owning or, uh, when they start working, uh, they're kind of, um, you know, handling finances, uh, would you be able to give us a few tips, tips on how to be a good steward of finance?
Speaker 2 00:05:07 Hmm. Yeah. I love this. I love that, you know, um, we're encouraging women to be good steward of finances. Um, yeah, something that I started just early on before I even got married was, um, sorry, I, I just wanna scratch that. I, I wanna start with the most important thing, which is, um, the, this realization that our finances don't belong to us. Right. They, they belong to God. Um, so something that I constantly ask myself is how can I glorify him through my finances, it, and I pray that it, it never becomes an idol for me. Um, how do I hold onto my finances loosely while keeping it it's a very important part of my life. So, you know, making sure I'm a good steward of it. Um, so, so yeah, just, just constantly praying over my relationship with finances is, is something that I like to do.
Speaker 2 00:06:04 Um, but another practical step is I, I have a budget sheet, um, and it's, it's filled with all, you know, different numbers, but just to make it really simple, um, J each month I get a paycheck, I take care of all my tithing and my necessary expenses first, and then, um, as well as money allocated for different savings. And whatever's left from that will be allocated towards different categories, such as groceries, gas, emergency funds, home upgrades, blessing others as a huge category I like to keep. And, um, and from there, I just keep track of all my expenses using an app called Wally, to make sure that I'm staying within budget for those given categories. Um, so as you can tell, I'm, I'm a huge fan of planning and tracking. <laugh> I, I try to implement that in, in a lot of different areas of my life <laugh>,
Speaker 3 00:06:56 But that is good. I think, uh, that is also one of, uh, the gifts that God has given you planning and tracking. Uh, oh, I think the next, um, uh, we can, I think you can work for us on, you know, budgeting, finance, or <laugh>, that'll be good. Yeah. I'd
Speaker 2 00:07:17 Love to, I can get really nerdy about it. <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:07:21 All right. Cool. Uh, so I think, yeah, great tips. I think, um, it really helps, um, planning really helps. It will just gives, give us clarity on, you know, where you can, uh, where your money is getting used. And how is it? I think you touched on a very important point. I wanna go back to that saying very, uh, big part of, uh, stewardship is blessing others.
Speaker 2 00:07:46 Mm.
Speaker 3 00:07:47 Can you talk about that?
Speaker 2 00:07:49 Yeah. This is my favorite category. Um, and this is aside from tithing, right? It's just making sure, um, that what the Bible says to be important is important in your life. And, and that is being mindful of the needy and, and those that, you know, are poor and struggling, especially in this time. Um, so I mean, me and my husband, we, we, we save this money for, for anything that comes up, maybe a church member needs finances for something, or, or, you know, we see a, a hungry brother or, or sister, and, and we wanna bless him in some way. Um, something practical that we actually do with this money is we, we create little like Kody bags for, for the homeless. Um, when we're driving, there's so many people that are just, you know, asking for money and, and what, what better way to bless them than to give them a little baggy that meets all of their practical needs, food and, and, and cleanliness items, you know, um, and a little verse and, and, um, we like to bless others in, in that way. Um, so just always making that available, making sure that that fun or that budget, um, never dies out. Um, and, and yeah, we, we, we like to get creative with it too. Um,
Speaker 2 00:09:13 But, but that's something that's very important to us.
Speaker 3 00:09:17 Oh, can ask you, why is it important? What, uh, revelation have you received that, you know, when, when, when you say it's important, I know that you received some revelation. Can you share?
Speaker 2 00:09:27 Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2 00:09:31 I mean, it, honestly, for me, it's, it's very hard, um, to look at someone who's in need or hurting and, and just ignore it. Um, God always stirs something in me to, to do something about it, to, to live out the words, you know, that he he's given to us, um, to care for the hungry and the meat. Um, and I, I, I don't know how else to explain it other than the holy spirit really working through me in those moments, you know, is for example, um, a homeless person who who's asking for money. A lot of times I could feel like just my, just my humanly self, my natural, um, inclination is to just not make eye contact, to do my best, to not make eye contact. But in those moments, I, I feel just a challenge for that. Like why, why am I scared to not look somebody in the eye to see a human being like myself, you know, hurting and in need and how can I not love him well, in this moment.
Speaker 2 00:10:40 Um, so I'm just asking myself, Lord, what does it look like in this moment to love this person? Well, um, and, you know, sometimes it's, it's even more simple than giving something. It's just looking them in the eyes and saying, Hey, how are you? You know, like seeing that they're human too. I feel like a lot of their hurt comes from people, ignoring them and, and dehumanizing them and thinking that they're less than, um, so I, I don't know how many times, you know, homeless person is, Hey, thank you for even taking the time to look at me and to speak with me, um, and to pray over me. And, and that's, that's not, I know firsthand, that's not me doing any of that, because again, my NA, you know, my natural humanly self is just to look away. That's God stirring something so powerfully in me. Um, and yeah.
Speaker 3 00:11:35 Wow. Yeah, yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. Uh, yeah, I, uh, yeah, it's very important to give, uh, I feel, uh, it just, it's, it's one of the ways you, I, I feel that it's one of the ways, uh, you get to be a part of the kingdom of God. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:11:54 Yeah. Yes. That's good.
Speaker 3 00:11:56 Yeah. So important to, to bless because God is blessing you, God is blessing so much. Yeah. Yeah. That's wonderful. Thank you for sharing.
Speaker 2 00:12:06 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:12:11 So I just want you to talk to all the people who are listening and who will be listening, all the girls who be listening, uh, you know, uh, to this podcast, to this interview, and they may be struggling, uh, to start something, or they are, they have started something and things are not working out. Um, you know, can you be a friend to them and, you know, give them a pep talk.
Speaker 2 00:12:35 Yeah. <laugh> yes. Um, oh, I, I mean, sometimes I kind of just like to work backwards in these things and just ask myself, honestly, what's stopping me from starting. Um, and I kind of touched on this in different points of our conversation, but yeah, just not being afraid to ask myself the hard question, you know, if it's a feel fear of failure or fear of being judged, you know, um, praying Psalm 27, you know, over myself, the Lord is the stronghold of my life, whom shall I be afraid? Um, you know, if it's for more of like a financial or practical need that I, I need in order to get started praying, um, Philippians for 19, my, my God will supply every need of mines according to his riches in glory, in Christ mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, and so again, just being just readers of the word and having these Bible versus ready and handy, it, it like, it, it equips us, you know, to, to address different fears, different struggles we're going through.
Speaker 2 00:13:46 Um, and it also invites God in such a beautiful way to take part in, in this. Um, and, and just again, I, I honestly believe that if God brings you to it, he will get you through it. And so have whole heart of reliance on him. You know, whenever I feel like giving up, I, I think of the story of Moses, right? He, he did not have an easy job bringing the Israeli out of Egypt and into the promised land, right. He, they had endless complaints and nothing was ever good enough. And it's funny, cuz we get so frustrated at them when we're reading the Bible, but it's actually a reflection of ourselves too, in different moments of our lives. Um, but you know, sometimes their complaints turn into like open rebel rebellion and you know, on several occasions, people empowered or people like rose up against him and try to appoint a new leader to take them back into slavery, back to Egypt.
Speaker 2 00:14:48 And it's just so ridiculous. I mean, mean like talk about like a toxic work environment, you know, like Moses went through a lot and, and, and this struggle went on for 40 years. Um, but, but Moses never walked away from his calling. Um, you know, he, and what was the secret to his resilience? It it's that Moses had a powerful and personal and, and conversational relationship with God. Um, the Lord was his strength and his rock and I believe that's how you are able to stay in your God given dream. Like the Lord needs to be your strength and your, your rock, the thing you turn to in every situation. Um, so yeah, that's a good story that I like to remind myself of if Moses can get through it. I know God will get me through it too. <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:15:45 Amen. I think that's, uh, that's so insightful. Uh, it just reminds me of what you said in the start of the interview where, you know, you spoke about, um, the fact that if, um, you, you gotta check on yourself and know what you, why what's your purpose. Uh, yeah. But when you, when you have to start in, if God is telling you to start, you gotta just be and key to it is the relationship with God. You that's, I think, yeah. You're so right. Key to anything, your relationship with God. Yeah. Uh, you know, um, when, when, when I personally encourage a lot of goals to start, okay. Uh, one of their questions is, oh, you know what I, uh, okay. If, if let's take an example of social media or Facebook or Instagram, like, you know, you just start there and then, you know, let's Le see how God leads you. But most of them say that, you know what? I don't have a big audience, a very small, uh, following. Who's gonna listen to me. Am I even gonna get, be listened to, um, how do you tackle that? Like, I'm sure you've gone through it. And how did you face, you know, overcome that challenge.
Speaker 2 00:17:02 Yeah. Ooh, I don't know why, but I, I, I feel like, um, yeah. Okay. So that, that's definitely something that everyone will, will face starting out. Um, and, and I feel like at so many different points in my journey, um, I was just really asked hard questions like it, if God can't entrust you with just one, one listener, one follower, how can he trust and trust you with 50 or 500? Like, I really feel like being a good steward to whatever God has given you, um, is of utmost I importance. Um, and, and again, you know, God, you know, leads the 99 to go after the one, right? Like he cares so much about the one. And, and I wanna have a heart like that too. I wanna care so much about this one person who's interacting with my post who's commenting. Who's engaged with me.
Speaker 2 00:18:05 I wanna pour into them because that's what God has given me. And, and I constantly ask myself, how do I love this one? Um, and, and that's something I do not just for, you know, Instagram I do for my work too. Um, you know, before I only had a few customers and, and I used to get down on myself about that, but, but wow, thank, thank you, Lord that I have a few customers, you know, it, it's also just shifting your mentality about it. Wow. Thank you. That five people have bought my product and love it and are using it and it's helping them, what a blessing. Um, so I encourage the girls to just really pray, pray about why, why they wanna get started with something like that. Um, and ask them, what does God feel about this and how do you love God, well, in this situation, um, and how do you love others? And that one that he, he entrusts to you. Cause cuz that's really what it is. He's entrusting you with one person one life, um, and, and it's your job to influence them and steward them well.
Speaker 3 00:19:17 Mm, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. Thank you so much for that. That was really, really, uh, powerful. Uh, yeah. If, uh, yeah, if God can trust you with one, he will be able to trust you with more. Yeah. Um, being the word for small things is also important.
Speaker 2 00:19:36 <laugh> yeah.
Speaker 3 00:19:37 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:19:37 So important.
Speaker 3 00:19:39 Amen. Amen. Uh, well, you know, uh, what a wonderful time, I think, uh, I'm enjoying this conversation with you, Sharon and, uh, you know, it's, uh, I wish we could never stop <laugh> I wish I was in California. You were in India. We could just go on talking about God, because it's so wonderful to meet, uh, someone who shares the same faith and you know, to just discuss God and the works of God in life. I just get so encouraged, um, by stories of women, like you, you are an absolute blessing and such a powerful and woman of strength. Yeah. Yeah. So glad, so glad we are enjoying, I hope you are enjoying cuz I'm really enjoying this so much. I
Speaker 2 00:20:24 Am.
Speaker 3 00:20:25 <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:20:25 It flew by? I mean, yeah, it's wild. Oh my gosh. My favorite topic is God. And ensuring that with someone who also loves him as well is there's no greater gift.
Speaker 3 00:20:38 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, uh, just before we end, we'd like to know, uh, do you have any upcoming projects that, you know, you wanna talk about in the, the pipeline? Something that we can look forward to something exciting?
Speaker 2 00:20:52 Yeah. I, I mean, in terms of, um, camp plan, I am in the process of creating a guided journal for cancer survivors to help them just navigate back into the world and think through really important areas of their life, such as career relationships, you know, after finishing treatment. Um, I realized that a lot of survivors don't know what to do once they finish treatment. Cancer's such a big part of their life now. Um, so I really want to create a tool for them specifically for that. Um, and you, it's also in my heart to do something to some capacity with, with my drawings. Um, I don't know exactly what, but you know, when the timing is right, I believe God will reveal it to me. Um, and again, I'm just, I'm, I'm trying to walk with him, not ahead of him, you know, and, and just trust that he's placed out on my heart for a reason, and to pray through that too. Um, but yeah, so, so those are kind of exciting things that, that I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 3 00:22:04 Wow. We, we are looking forward to it too. We will be your cheerleaders <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:22:11 Oh, awesome. Thank you.
Speaker 3 00:22:13 You're welcome. Uh, right. So, um, how can our listeners connect to you, you know, in future, if they wanna connect to you or if they wanna know where to find your content or where to learn about can plan, how do we reach out to you?
Speaker 2 00:22:32 Yeah. Um, again, I'm kind of taking a social media fast, so if, feel free to reach out to me through there on my Instagram at Sharone Kim, I might take a few days to respond to you on there and it's not cuz I'm ignoring you. It's just cuz um, I'm not really frequently on there. I'm just again, trying to purge and have, make sure that I can have a healthy relationship with social media. Um, and really just surrendering that to God. And so the prob the fastest way to probably reach me is through email or, or my website, which is my cam plan.com. And my email is Sharon, my cam plan.com.
Speaker 3 00:23:14 Thank you so much again for joining us. We are so blessed of whatever you've shared and we, we pray and we believe that this is going to change a lot of them, a lot of lives. Um, and the holy spirit is going to lead them to the hunger of the word, uh, the same hunger of the word that you carry. I believe that's going to pass on to many who will listen. Amen. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:23:38 Wonderful.
Speaker 2 00:23:40 Um, thank you. Thank you Cheryl. I mean, I just, yeah, this time has been such a gift and um, just from like the, the short snippets that you shared, like I can really sense just your hunger, um, to get, to get women like in love with God's word to, to lead them and steward them well. Um, and to encourage them to, to live out their God given calling, um, so what a wonderful resource to have, and, and I'm praying that it continues to bless women all over the world. Um, you know, God has no boundaries and, and I really believe that just the lives that you're able to touch can is endless. So, so thank you for, for having me on here. Again, I'm humble and honored to be here.
Speaker 1 00:24:29 Thank you so much for listening and hope you enjoyed this episode. If you found this inspiring and think someone needs to hear this today, do share the episode. Link with them for sharing is caring and don't forget to visit our website, soar girls.com and check out our weekly blogs, free resources and other exciting digital content. See you next time.
