Embracing ‘Unwanted Seasons’: Ruth Chou Simons

Ruth Chou Simons shares her inspiring journey of immigrating from Taiwan to the U.S. to becoming an author, artist, mother of six boys, and founder of GraceLaced—a Christ-centered art company.

Ruth explains that she’s always loved being a mom, but struggled through times of frustration when it came to growing a business on top of managing her household. It was during that time when Ruth came to understand the importance of being faithful in the moment. Her story will encourage you to pursue your passions and trust in God’s plan, no matter where you start. 

Listen to Ruth Chou Simons’ podcast, The GraceLaced Podcast, here. 

Connect with us through email at gps@billygraham.org or on Facebook at Billy Graham Radio. 

Transcript

MUSIC STARTS 

Ruth Chou Simons:
00:00:01 It wasn’t what we expected. It was a million miles away from this incredibly adventurous life overseas we thought we were going to be a part of. How does God’s grace lace through this unexpected life, this life that doesn’t look the way I thought it would? God, where are You in this?

Jim Kirkland: Ruth Chou Simons’ life has been full of twists and turns. She never thought she would be a mother to six boys, an author and artist, or the founder of a Christ-centered art company. On this episode of GPS: God. People. Stories., you will hear her story—and it’s an unlikely one. Thank you for listening to GPS: God. People. Stories. It’s an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and I’m Jim Kirkland.

In a few minutes, you’ll hear Ruth talk about surrendering control and allowing God to direct her life. That’s something Billy Graham preached about often.

Billy Graham:
00:00:53 We’re always negotiating in all kinds of areas of our lives. But what are God’s terms? What does He want from you tonight?

Jim: There’s more from Billy Graham later in this episode … but if you’d like to find out right now what God wants from you, there are some insights at our website. The address is FindPeaceWithGod.net. When you’re there, click the button that says, Begin a Relationship With Jesus Christ. That’s what God wants most of all. That’s FindPeaceWithGod.net.

Intro: GPS: God. People. Stories.

MUSIC TRANSITION

Jim: Ruth Chou Simons was born in Taipei, Taiwan. Her parents had immigrated to there from China during the Cultural Revolution. Ruth was 4, her family moved to the United States to join her dad’s family.

Ruth:
00:01:48 They left with no language acquisition, no money, no jobs. They had just moved their whole lives to the United States without any resources.

Jim: Ruth is still grateful for the Christian man who opened his large Maryland home to immigrants and refugees who needed help—and those categories included Ruth and her parents. It was the late 1970s.

Ruth:
00:02:11 My parents were delivering the newspaper on bicycle and that’s how they were trying to make ends meet. 

Jim: In the meantime, Ruth started school.

Ruth:
00:02:21 I was learning a brand-new culture. I was learning what it looked like to speak a language that I barely knew in kindergarten with kids that didn’t look like me and didn’t have houses like I did. And I just look back and think that was such a struggle to learn how to make friends and feel comfortable in a whole new environment as my family was dealing with brokenness within an extended family. That was the kind of struggle they immigrated into.

Jim: At that point in her life, Ruth and her family didn’t know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Ruth:
00:02:55 I grew up with parents who loved me, who did the best they could, and I felt loved and cared for, and yet something was really missing in our lives and it was because we had a story that was really broken.

Jim: Ruth and her parents were exposed to the Gospel during a tough season of their lives, thanks to the man in Maryland who opened his home to them. But it was only after she and her parents moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, that Ruth got a much deeper understanding of what it means to place her faith in Jesus Christ.

Ruth:
00:03:28 My more vivid memories of really coming to faith and understanding who Christ was, was around fifth grade when I started going to VBS with a friend at a church.

Jim: Over the next couple of years, Ruth would continue to learn more about God.

Ruth:
00:03:42 It wasn’t until my eighth-grade year that I made a profession and said, I finally understand; I need Jesus. Like this is not just about going to VBS and learning a couple of nice things or going to church and being a good person. I really need a Savior. 

Jim: It wasn’t long after Ruth surrendered her life to Jesus that her parents made the same decision.

Ruth:
00:04:04 As I was going to church with my friends, my parents were invited to a Chinese-American church. And so, they started hearing the Word of God and feeling convicted.

Jim: After her parents decided to follow Christ, more change appeared on the horizon. 

Ruth:
00:04:21 We all moved from New Mexico to California because they gave their life to full-time ministry. I actually finished my high school years in the Bay Area while my dad went to seminary.

Jim: Ruth did early dual enrollment while she finished up high school.

Ruth:
00:04:36 I started going to UC Berkeley because I was an overachieving Asian-American biochem student. And then I went to Westmont College. 

Jim: Westmont is in Santa Barbara, California. While she was there, Ruth sensed she wasn’t on the right career path. Her desire to overachieve was causing a lot of anxiety and adding pressure to her college studies.

Ruth:
00:04:59 I really had a massive, overwhelming breakdown of realizing like, I am performing; I am acting like somebody I’m not. I am trying to find my worth in being this wonderful biochemistry student and I don’t even want to do this, and so I turned to art, not because I had such great vision for how I would use art, but because I just didn’t want what I had at the time. And so was it rebellion? Was it just giving up?

Jim: Ruth still isn’t exactly sure what prompted her to switch majors, but she knows this: It was part of God’s sovereignty.

Ruth:
00:05:36 I said, “I cannot study biochem anymore. I cannot keep the pace that I’m going in the striving and the constant, like, pressure to perform.” And ironically, what I thought was moving away from something and simply taking an easy way out turned into the very medium that God would use later on to bring Him glory, which I just think is fascinating, right? Because I turned to art kind of in a big sigh of like, I don’t care anymore. And God really said, Well, actually, I’m going to take the very thing that you think is giving up and using that for all these things that you can’t even imagine.

Jim: Ruth gave up her scholarship at Westmont and transferred to the University of New Mexico to pursue an art degree. By this point, she’d already met her future husband, Troy Simons. They met at a Christian ministry. 

Ruth:
00:06:29 My husband and I got married out of college and then decided to go back to the same seminary that I been at with my parents in my high school years. We thought we were gonna be full-time missionaries. 

Jim: Ruth and Troy planned to study in a two-year master’s program at a seminary to prepare for a life of missions—but it did not pan out that way.

Ruth:
00:06:52 For several reasons, we actually did not finish that degree. With my background as a recovering striver, you can imagine how hard it was for me to stop something I set out to do. I felt like such a failure to, like, leave seminary, not finish, not go on the mission field, and then move to Colorado and help with a family business and basically just work a normal job and do normal things. 

Jim: It was the start of a frustrating season for Ruth … and a time when she questioned God’s plans.

Ruth:
00:07:28 I kept thinking, “Lord, why would we be doing this?” Like, “Why would we possibly have gone to seminary,” or, “Why do I have these giftings, if it’s just going to be not used?” That was a season of waiting. 

Jim: The next several years were hard for the Simonses.

Ruth:
00:07:44 My husband wanted to be a pilot—that didn’t come to fruition. And then he was offered a job in pastoral ministry over youth back in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So we lived in Colorado for two years, moved back to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the early 2000s, and that’s where we started our family.

Jim: That family would eventually consist of eight people: Ruth, Troy, and six sons. 

Ruth:
00:08:11 It wasn’t what we expected. It was a million miles away from this incredibly adventurous life overseas we thought we were going to be a part of. And now we were back in our hometown in church ministry with a whole bunch of boys. Every other year I was having another boy somehow.

Jim: While raising a family, God used Ruth and her husband to lead a collegiate ministry, plant a church, and start a Christian school. And in her spare time, Ruth turned to art and writing.

Ruth:
00:08:41 During that season, I really painted for friends, offered some of my paintings sometimes as part of a silent auction to benefit the school. There was so much more about developing the craft than it was to develop a profession. I remember I started a blog at that time and began really small thinking, “I’m just going to write to work out these things that I’m going through and learning how the grace of God is woven through my everyday life.” 

Jim: Ruth poured her heart into a blog that she named GraceLaced. Its purpose was to encourage herself and others to seek God’s Word.

Ruth:
00:09:20 How does God’s grace lace through this unexpected life, this life that doesn’t look the way I thought it would? I’m not overseas. I’m not even doing the kind of work I thought I was going to do. We’re not living where I thought we were going to live. God, where are You in this? 

Jim: In this busy season of motherhood, Ruth worked to let God shape her heart as she helped shape her children.

Ruth:
00:09:45 I was able to carve out some time during naptimes because some of the kids were a little bit older and my career really started and flourished from my kitchen table. I was just sitting there working on reading with the kids or doing some homework, and I would pull out my paints and linger on the Word of God and paint right there at my kitchen table, and I started sharing it online.

Jim: This is when Ruth started to see her gifting as a ministry to others. 

Ruth:
00:10:16 It wasn’t just that I wanted to sell a few prints. It was that, Wow, I suddenly realized that all this time spent thinking about how the Gospel matters in a life that you didn’t expect. How does this gifting and art matter when you didn’t even think you were going to be an artist? Or what does it mean when you start seminary, but you don’t finish it? Well, all those things were brought together and woven in the stories that I was telling, in the ways I was meditating on God’s Word—and even in the paintings I was painting, inspired by what I was reading. 

Jim: As people started responding to her work, Ruth had a realization. 

Ruth:
00:10:55 So much of what we aim for, we want to make a difference. We want to do something with our lives, but God was choosing to use several broken parts of my life, things that didn’t seem like they made sense at all, and He was bringing them together in a way that ultimately told a story I couldn’t tell any other way. My encouragement through the Word of God, my pointing to God’s faithfulness through a piece of artwork, or the way I was writing a blog post that would encourage somebody who’s also struggling with motherhood, or also struggling with ministry, or also struggling with where they were at in life, that that was making a difference. And so that started that next season of life where I started asking the Lord, “How can I use writing and painting for Your glory?”

Jim: Around that time, Ruth’s art brand—also called GraceLaced—was born, pretty unintentionally. This was October 2013.

Ruth:
00:11:51 It started with me literally just trying to do a blog series, posting it on social media. I would write at my kitchen table while my kids were homeschooling and reading their books and finishing their assignments. I would read some Scripture and then I would say, “OK, part of today’s task is to, like, actually draw something, create something, paint something in connection with something I’m meditating on, thinking about.”

And then the internet ... slightly just getting really excited about this and saying, Can I please buy that? By Thanksgiving, I knew I needed to make this really actually more available. I was getting so many emails and so many DMs about buying my artwork and I began selling them on the e-commerce section of my website.

Jim: After seeking advice from other people, Ruth was able to get her business up and running with just a few hundred dollars.

Ruth:
00:12:46 I had $300 saved up in a little account that was just for saving for things that I was interested in, and I took that $300 and said, Let me just try. Initially, didn’t even buy a scanner—just got things scanned at Kinko’s and then get them printed and then put them in a plastic sleeve and put them in a mailer. I remember drawing all over that mailer that first year because I wanted people to feel really loved when they got that package. That’s how the business started. 

Jim: By November 2014—just over a year after the business started—Ruth had processed her first 1,000 online orders … all while raising six boys. 

Ruth:
00:13:26 It was already so shocking that I had sold a thousand orders that first year. There’s no way I could have imagined hundreds of thousands of orders around the world in the years to come—or that because I developed an audience where it wasn’t just matching furniture or having pretty art, it was the desire to hear what I had to say about the Word of God paired with His artwork, that I would have the opportunity in 2017 to publish my first book that I self-titled and called GraceLaced.

Jim: That devotional was a combination of Ruth’s artwork and her writing. That was somewhat of a groundbreaking concept for a book. 

Ruth:
00:14:06 It wasn’t common to have a devotional that was a little bit more theological because of who I am, but also in full-blown art so that it almost felt like it was worthy of being a coffee table book, but also something that people took to the beach.

Jim: Ruth had thought she was just going to write that one book. But again, God had other plans. She has since authored several other devotionals—hardbacks—with full color art in them, as well as traditional hardback chapter books. She’s also penned Bible studies and even a children’s book.

Ruth:
00:14:41 I’m astounded just that I have so many opportunities to use my words and my art in ways that can encourage and build people up, but also help other believers look to Jesus and hear the Gospel in a fresh and encouraging way. And for those who are not believers, for them to behold the beauty of the Gospel and behold the beauty of Christ in a way that’s, I pray winsome, in a way that is invitational. 

Jim: Ruth remembers a time when she got a glimpse of how God had used her work. It happened while eating with her family at a restaurant. 

Ruth:
00:15:20 The waitress who is serving us says, “Wait, did you write a book? I recognize your boys from a photo.” She says, “I picked up your book because it was just so beautiful. I didn’t even really look at what the book was about. It was just really beautiful.” And I smiled to myself and thought, “I hope she finds Jesus. I hope she knows her Savior and knows her Creator through the pages of my book.” 

Jim: Ruth and her husband now live back in Colorado and run GraceLaced together. And two years ago, they planted another church. In her life’s journey full of these twists and turns, Ruth shares what she struggles with the most.

Ruth:
00:16:01 I think the biggest challenge every day is accepting what God’s given us and not trying to run ahead of Him. We all think that we know what’s best, right? I’m tempted every day to believe that somehow, I could hustle a little harder, strive a little more, or just like somehow squeeze the situation or kind of reorganize my circumstances so that I could get exactly what I want for my circumstance, for my life, for the people that I love. And it’s a posture that can wear us out if we don’t recognize how sinful that is. What I struggle with every day is wanting to turn this situation that I don’t want into something that fits my agenda. 

Jim: Keeping her eyes fixed on God in all seasons of life has been an important lesson for Ruth to learn. In some seasons, she has spent her time picking cereal up off the floor and looking for her kids’ matching socks; in other seasons, she’s been frustrated that her business wasn’t growing fast enough. 

Ruth:
00:17:03 There are unwanted seasons where it’s like I don’t know how to get what I want, and the difficulty is that we all go through seasons like that. We all go through days like that, and if we don’t stop and recognize who God is in the midst of those seasons, we’ll be tempted to go and like shift and change and fix what God’s given us. We need to have a posture where we say, “OK, Lord, whatever You choose to give me, I’m going to steward that. I’m not going to go outside of what You’ve given me.”

MUSIC TRANSITION

Jim: Ruth Chou Simons has discovered the joy of trusting God in every situation. There is true joy in taking that stance. If you’d like to discover that joy, would you please go to our website, FindPeaceWithGod.net? Once you’re there, you’ll see, “Grow in Your Christian Faith.” Click there. That’s FindPeaceWithGod.net.

Next, Ruth shares a word of encouragement about dreaming your dreams and embracing God’s work in your life. Stay close.

MUSIC STARTS

Voice-over: You’re listening to GPS: God. People. Stories., a podcast production of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Billy Graham:
00:18:27 We’re always negotiating, but what are God’s terms? What does He want from you tonight?

Voice-over: Billy Graham …

Billy Graham: 
00:18:35 Jesus used strong terms. He said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” It sounds strange that God wants total surrender, but Jeremiah the prophet once wrote, “For I know [that] the plans I have for you.” Think of that now. God knows He has plans for you. “… Plans to prosper you … not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Have you ever surrendered yourself unconditionally to Jesus Christ? God has a plan for your future if you’ll surrender to Him. Jesus said, I’ve come that they might have life and might have it to the fullness. Tonight you can take off your old life, its selfishness and sin, and put on Christ and let Christ be the dominating thing in your life.

Jim: You can know the fullness of life offered by surrendering your life to Jesus Christ, and you can know that right now. Go to FindPeaceWithGod.net, and when you’re there, click on Begin a Relationship With Jesus Christ. Again, FindPeaceWithGod.net.

Our guest on this episode of GPS: God. People. Stories. is Ruth Chou Simons. She’s a wife and mom of six boys, ranging in age from 22 to 11. She’s also an author, artist, podcaster, and the founder of GraceLaced. It’s her hope that the content she creates and shares will help people know their Creator … and trust Him and know His joy, no matter what season of life they’re in.

Ruth:
00:20:15 Regardless of where you’re at in life or what your giftings are, never underestimate what God is doing right now when your dreams aren’t coming true, that God doesn’t waste anything. So make sure you’re stewarding right now what you have already. 

If you have three people you can disciple and teach the Bible to, do that diligently. You never know if you’ll ever get an opportunity to stand before a microphone and teach 300 or 3,000, but don’t worry about that. Be faithful with the three right in front of you. If you long to be a public speaker and have opportunity to influence so many, but what you have right now are little people eating lunch at your kitchen table, influence them; be the primary influencer and the leader in your home with them. You never know how God’s going to take those skills and those hard-won battles in your own home where you learn to grow and to persevere. You can’t anticipate how He might use what you’re faithfully doing right now for His glory and your good in the days to come. Be faithful right where you are and let God write your story.

Jim: We’re grateful Ruth Chou Simons joined us on this episode of GPS. Thank you for joining us, and make sure that you are subscribed to GPS so you do not miss a single episode. We publish new episodes every other Wednesday. And if you enjoyed this episode, please give our podcast a review and also share it with a friend—they’ll likely enjoy it too. If you’re listening on Spotify or YouTube, would you consider letting us know what you thought by leaving a comment? We cannot tell you how much we value your feedback.

I’m Jim Kirkland, and this is GPS. God. People. Stories. It’s an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association—Always Good News.

CLOSING MUSIC

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