How Faith Transformed Me Physically, Professionally, and Emotionally with Leanne Ellington, Pt. 2

She's in the City by NaSHEville

On last week’s episode we heard from our dear friend and health coach, Leanne Ellington, about her 15-year struggle and journey to physical health and healing, as well as her business, Stressless Eating. This week, Leanne is back to share her incredible testimony – a story that reveals God’s intentional and steadfast work on her heart, ultimately leading her to spiritual restoration as she pursued bodily healing.

Leanne grew up in a Jewish family in Orlando, but claims “it was never a faith [for me], never a religion, but more of a culture and a heritage.” She was active in Hebrew school, trips to Israel and part of all the Jewish traditions. She tells us she knew of God and believed in God, but was never connected to God.

“[God] wasn’t part of the paradigm of how I lived.”

Then, when Leanne found herself in a season of both personal and professional loss, something inside of her began to wonder: “I think [maybe] I need God?”

From this point she began her quest to simply discover more about the Lord. Because she loves music, her first church experience was with a friend here in Nashville, one where she says she “came for the worship and stayed for the sermon.” For more than a year, she went to church, listened in on prayer groups, and simply allowed herself to be curious about God and open-minded to the possibilities of faith. At that point, she admits she didn’t know she was seeking Jesus, but simply wanted to know more about God and this church community.

In spite of not understanding Jesus as Lord – and being resistant to it, at times – she approached the Bible with a blank slate attitude and asked any and all questions she had about God and the Christian life.

“I gave myself permission to be a freshman and have childlike faith. I think God wants [us] to ask the hard questions and hash out [our] doubt with him.”

Then after a year of searching, praying, and opening her mind to new possibilities of who God is and who he could be in her life, Leanne’s eyes were opened to full truth of the gospel. But from there it wasn’t all magically easy.

Even after surrendering to Jesus, she says a lot of the darkness and shame she’d been living with came to the surface. She’d given up old coping mechanisms and was left to hold hard emotions as she faced some difficult things from the past. But even in those initial days, she speaks of “a sense of peace I can’t describe.”

From there Jesus began to transform her heart, and subsequently, she began to change the way she does business, the way she dates, and how she relates to others in her life. She began to see miraculous flourishing as she surrendered her business, finances, and relationships to Jesus, results that “to the outside, may have looked like hustle and grind, but it was just the love and the grace of Jesus.”

Leanne’s journey to faith in Christ, and a life totally transformed and enriched as she’s learned to follow him, will inspire absolutely anyone seeking truth and peace in God. Whether a believer or not, steady in your faith or skeptical, Leanne’s story attests to the power of pursuing the one true God and how walking with him brings hope, peace, and self-acceptance in every facet of our lives unlike anything we can muster up ourselves.

Honest and real, Leanne is a light to all around her. Don’t miss how Christ has changed her heart, her business, and her life!