Chip and Joanna Gaines aren’t your average couple. The design pros starred at HGTV, Fixer Upper’s hit show. The Magnolia Market, which opened in 2015, is also owned by them. For five seasons, the show followed the couple as they set up homes and put their own flair in each redesign. The Magnolia Market is a shopping complex in downtown Waco, Texas that includes a bakery, garden, food trucks and more.
What sets this amazing family apart from others is their love and trust in God. In this 2015 interview with Baylor University, Joanna talks about her journey and how he built her faith as she waited on Him.
Joanna’s story began when she was a kid just starting school.
She recognized she was different than the other kids and that is where insecurities began to grow, saying that “Those moments, [are] where I really believe – the lie was sewn, that I wasn’t good enough.”
As she grew up, she matured and put away those ideas.
She recalls that in those times, God would talk to her, telling her His plan. She didn’t understand them but she trusted in Him.
She began to have an inkling when she married her husband.
Chip told her to follow her dreams and not just imagine things she would never see through.
With his insistence and her security in God, they made one of her dreams happen.
Together they opened the original Magnolia Market and it was a hugely successful operation. Around the same time, she became pregnant with their second child and she felt the Lord calling her to be at home with the kids.
The couple made the tough call to close the market. As she was mourning the loss of this dream, she very clearly heard God speak to her, “He said, if you trust me with your dreams I’m going to take Magnolia further than you could have ever dreamed, just trust me.”
She remembered feeling a peace about it and she just let it go.
Next, God gave them a unique turn of events that would turn into the show Fixer Upper, and after a year of success, the couple was visiting Arizona.
Joanna was meditating on the year behind them when God spoke to her and said, “Jo, It’s time to re-open the store.”
God has fulfilled His word to her, she opened the store again and it is a great success. She now sees that trusting in God has taken her dream to a peak she couldn’t even imagine.
Before the clip ends, Joanna shares a message with her fans. She says:
“I can look back on the pattern of my life and really believe God has a purpose for me but he also has a purpose for you. And on the other side of that is the enemy where -he knows where to hit, he knows to hit below the belt, he’s going to have that fear be -what if I fail.
“-whether your staying home with your children and your raising beautiful babies or you’re the CEO of a multi-million dollar company, let God speak into your life let his Father Heart come and say, ‘this is what I have for you’ and I think this is the key, not believing the lies, and fixing your eyes on Jesus and walking in that truth.”
