Conversations with Faith-full Women:

Mercy Hope: You speak at women’s events across the country and one of your workshop titles is called, “How is your heart style?” I would like you to talk a little bit about that concept.

Ann Downing: It’s so easy to be concerned about our outer appearance. Always wondering “Does everything look okay?” spending hours at the beauty salon and the gym but what would happen if we took even a small portion of that time to think about “Who are we, really? What is our heart like?”

The scriptures say that out of the heart comes the truth of who we are. Character is what you are in your heart not what you do or the way you look. And if our character is not developed, we are not developed. It’s real easy to fix it all up on the outside and make that look good and neglect the real thing that matters, and that is your heart. The question is not “How’s your hairstyle?” or “How’s the style of your clothes?” or “How’s your lifestyle?” but “How’s you heartstyle? Who are you in your heart?”

I’ve met people who look so well put together and you assume their whole life must be well put together and then you get to know them and you find out there’s nothing there, it’s just fluff. Then there are women who look spiritual, and look pure and yet they can be hollow also. It’s real easy to hide behind what’s out front and not search the heart to find out who we really are inside. And our image can last for a while and it can go okay for a while but when the tough times come – when you’re called on to stand up for what you believe and when you’re asked like in my case for fifty-six nights “What are you made of?” it’s not what clothes I’m wearing, or what I’ve done to my hair, or how my make-up looks today, it’s what do I believe about taking care of those who mean a lot me? Do I bail out? Because that’s what some people do in the tough times – they bail out. So if we don’t develop character in our heart we’ll fold when the hard times come. I can usually tell when I’ve met someone who’s hit the bottom. They don’t pay attention to, or get perturbed about the little piddly stuff anymore. Take today for instance, I was driving and there was a lady behind me and I guess she thought I pulled in front of her. I didn’t, but she was just so disgusted with me and I thought, “If this woman had ever had a real problem she would not have reacted in that way. Because she was just so concerned that something wasn’t going her way and once you go through something where you are just trapped in an unbelievably difficult situation you don’t worry too much about the little stuff anymore. When you come out of that you’re stronger. It’s never God’s will to send us problems, He never wants us to hurt, but He will use those times to build character and strength in us.

Mercy Hope: I’ve been through some tough things in my life that most people who look at me today would never guess. But I’m grateful for those hard times because if it wasn’t for some of the things that I’ve walked through I would probably be a lot more shallow, I’d probably be a lot more judgmental. God had used the struggles to create empathy in me because I know what pain is like. One of the main messages that I want to get out to people is that if you are walking through a rough time in your life God will use it to purify and strengthen you, if you’ll let Him. 

Ann Downing: It does help you know how to respond to other people. Oswald Chambers says to be careful how you interfere with what God might be doing in someone else’s life. He may be bringing them to that place of bottoming out so that they will give up, look up from the bottom of the pit and say, “Okay, God, I get it; it’s You” and we want to rush in and rescue them and keep them from experiencing that pain but we have to let them go through it sometimes. Because we are a very stubborn, very obstinate people, and we want things to go our way and that’s the only way they can really learn and that is what builds character.

Mercy Hope: Ann, I know that when you husband was still living, there was a season in your marriage where you walked a rocky road. What was it that got you to that point? 

Ann Downing: We had been traveling with our group, The Downings, for about ten to twelve years, and it’s easy to get caught up in your career or your ministry and not notice the warning signals of struggles in marriage and we blamed each other for the struggles that there were. We just didn’t take the time to work on our marriage, which was faltering. I think it was just over-commitment. It was commitment to some good things but sometimes those good things can become more important than the things you need to work on at the time. During that period my husband was away from the Lord for about three years. And I began to do some solo work and some speaking, and when he came back to the Lord he joined me and we put our group back together and did that together until he passed away.

Mercy Hope: How did you rebuild your relationship?

Ann Downing: We met a lady who had a prayer ministry for emotional healing and she helped us to see that it wasn’t so much that we were dealing with a bad marriage as much as each of us had our own struggles and some real problems individually that we needed to work on. She took us through emotional healing prayer where we prayed back through forgiving those who had hurt us, and with Jesus helping us to forgive the people who were responsible for the breakdowns in us personally (which had led to barriers in our marriage) then we were able to start working on our marriage together. And then not to blame each other for the breakdowns in our marriage but take responsibility for our part and as you do that you are free to accept the other person. It was hard work.

Mercy Hope: When your husband was in the hospital dying you stayed with him 24/7 for 56 days. After all your struggles you showed such dedication. Where did you draw your strength from for that time?

Ann Downing: Even though we were out of state we had some very good people there. There was a family that I knew there in Lexington, Kentucky, and of course my family came, and I had one very special friend, Dolly, who came and we slept on the floor of the waiting room. But that’s just what you do. That’s how I was taught. My parents modeled consistency and support and loyalty. If someone’s going through a struggle in the family, you’re there for them. You take care of them. If one hurts we all hurt. You don’t have an option. You don’t stop and think, “Can I do this?” you just do it.  

Mercy Hope: What message would you like to leave these women with?

Ann Downing: To be honest with themselves, and with what’s going on in their lives. Be careful who you’re honest with. Don’t just pick the first person that walks by and will listen, but find someone who you can be perfectly open and honest with. We make a lot of bad decisions and a lot of that is because we’re not honest. We need to be willing to say, “I don’t have it all together here. I need help. I’ve blown it. You won’t believe some of the thoughts I’ve been having.” And have someone around you who’s not a “Yes person” who will keep you to accountable. The only way you can be delivered and set free to move forward is when you acknowledge where you’re at, good and bad. Healing never comes until there’s true openness because it can’t get to the core problem. We want to patch it up, but patching up won’t get it well; it just helps us get through this little hard time. So get really honest with who you are and who you’re not and be willing to be reproved.   

Mercy Hope: On the topic of healing, sometimes God heals our hearts and yet we still bear the scars. Is that true healing?

See Ann on the web:  www.anndowning.com

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