My guest Sue Corl is the Founder and Executive Director at Crown of Beauty International. Her childhood and young adult years were very difficult. She was born with a facial birth defect and from birth to 15 years of age most of those formative years were spent living with complications both physical and mental, from back to back corrective surgeries.
But talking with Sue, listening to her life, hearing about her ministry, her husband and family, God has not wasted a single moment of pain and suffering and neither has Sue. In pursuit to rewrite the lies that she believed about herself, she has agreed with God on everything that He has to say about her, and the way that He loves her. Hence the birth of Crown of Beauty International. It is her passion to lead women to find freedom from the defeating lies that they think, feel, and live out in their personal lives.
Sue travels all around the world and walks through every door God opens for her and she points the hearts of women to God’s truth and His deep love for them. Sue is amazing!
I want let you know that the thing that was supposed to keep your mouth shut, the thing that has you feeling guilt and shame, give it to God and He’ll transform it into an adventure you would have never thought to ask for nor could you imagine.
We talked about so many things but a few of those that stuck out to me were, talking about how reading God’s word (the Bible), how it transforms you through the work of the Holy Spirit. Not just from a spiritual aspect. She talked about when the word is built upon and it begins to transform us little by little it also affects our posture, the way we walk, how we talk to people, the way we show up in places, roles, responsibilities. It reminded me of this, I’m not sure if you’ve ever experienced it but sometimes when you’re talking to someone you can see joy in their eyes, a light in some people’s eyes. Without fail, every time I dig a little deeper in conversation with them, sometimes asking point blank are you a Christian or a different faith based question I find out that they are indeed Christians. Seeing a light in their eyes makes complete sense to me because we are filled with the Light of the World.
Because of Sue’s international travel she talked about how our negative self-image and negative internal dialog is seen all around the world, even including men. They’ve started a separate program for men. Hearing that, I asked her what is the common dominator. And of course you can always trace it back to the one who steals, kills and destroys us from the inside out.
Ultimately, we believe varying degrees of lies about ourself. Anytime we believe a lie and it goes unchecked, it is not in our favor. We will not fare well. It can start out as a good thing but at some point it has the potential to tip into a lie. We can start out confident but then end up prideful, we can start out being kind and caring but we end up being a doormat.
So I had to ask her this question, how do we keep our life in balance? Sue’s response? By consistently, exposing our way of thinking to God’s truths. Challenge the triggers in our life by allowing God room to speak into those places. In doing so He’ll expose the lies for us. The best part is that He downloads His truth so that if we choose, we can rewrite what we thought was truth with the real thing, God’s truth AND His love. I saw a quote from Billy Graham “ Most of all let the Word of God fill you and renew your mind every day. When your minds are on Christ, Satan has little room to maneuver.”
If you’ve been listening to several of my past podcast episodes on the healing ministry here’s something that Sue shared that lined right up with how God made us mind, body, soul, spirit, it’s all meshed together. Sue has been studying the brain and unforgiveness. She’s been reading medical materials etc. and she shares that through medical science she discovered that unforgiveness is now considered a disease because it has the same impact on your body as a disease. So, that of course reminds me of the Bible verse Proverbs 14:30 (NLT), A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body; jealousy (in my opinion a form of unforgiveness) is like cancer (a disease) to the bones. (My emphasis added)
Let me wrap up with this and we’ll get started. Our transformation from bondage, and I don’t care what area or form of bondage you’re in, but going from bondage to freedom it’s going to require our participation. An active engagement not only pursuing God for truth but putting it to work in our life. Taking part in our transformation has to do with interrupting negative thoughts or beliefs by using God’s promises, His truths to rewrite the lies we believe, and Sue says, it takes intentional work to create new neuro pathways that change our brain and therefore change the course of our life.
God is inviting us to discover Him in the healing process and He’s created our body to be successful at overcoming the obstacles of this life. So let’s listen in and see how and where we can find God meeting us in our pain with solutions, transformation and redemption.
Live Loved and Thrive!
Bio:
Crown of Beauty International founder, Sue Corl, was born with a severe cleft palate, without a nose, upper lip, or palate. During the first 15 years of her life, Sue underwent 26 major operations. As a child, she heard lies about her physical appearance and struggled emotionally with her self-worth. In her late twenties, she began the journey of emotional healing as she opened God’s Word and discovered the truths of who she is: fearfully and wonderfully made and an image bearer of God.
Her personal story inspired her to begin Crown of Beauty International to help women around the world to experience the same freedom from lies, shame, and strongholds that God provided for her.
Sue is an international women’s conference speaker, author, mentor, and Bible teacher, and served 25 years as a missionary in Asia. Her greatest joy is being a wife and mother of two adult children. She has a passion to see women set free by receiving the love of God and living out their potential in the powerful truth of who they are in Christ.
Connect with Sue:
https://www.CrownofBeautyInternational.com
