Lessons for Life and Ministry with Tom Lane

Lessons for Life and Ministry with Tom Lane

Tom Lane is the apostolic senior pastor at Gateway Church and author of Tested and Approved: 21 Lessons for Life and Ministry

Tom Lane

About

Tom Lane is the apostolic senior pastor at Gateway Church in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. As an elder, he provides spiritual governance for Gateway’s ministries. As a pastor to pastors, Tom is a long-term, trusted Christian leader. Tom has written many books including Heritage: A Father’s Influence to the Generations, Foundations of Healthy Church Government, and he coauthored Strong Women and the Men Who Love Them with his wife, Jan.

Get the book and the guide: https://gatewaypublishing.com/products/tested-and-approved

Let’s Connect

Replay: Chickening IN with JJ Gutierrez

Replay: Chickening IN with JJ Gutierrez

We recorded this episode back in February 2020, and first published it in March. In just those few weeks, the entire world changed. I thought we could all use a reminder of JJ’s timely message to an uncertain world.

How many times have you “chickened out”? Chickening IN is an invitation to a lifestyle of courage and faith.

Sometimes a single word or phrase has the power to change the course of our lives, and “Chickening IN” is that word for JJ Gutierrez. This little twist on a familiar phrase launched JJ into a transformational journey from fear to faith. Her book, Chickening IN: From Fear to Courageous Faith, 8 Pillars of Transformation, is a practical guide to defeating fear and doubt. I spoke with JJ in February, but we especially need her message today.

Overcoming fear is a process. One step follows another, with small, sometimes imperceptible forward movement. That first step of faith, saying “God, I’m terrified,” invites Him into the conversation. As He speaks truth, we can take those practical steps we need to take.

Links

JJ Gutierrez, Courage Challenger and Mentor. chickeningin.com
Get the book (affiliate link): Chickening IN: From Fear to Courageous Faith, 8 Pillars of Transformation
Find JJ on Instagram and Facebook

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Redefining Success in Light of the Assignment

Redefining Success in Light of the Assignment

How do you define success? Is it financial? Family? Creative or business achievements? Or does it have to do with something else? 

Tim Winders - episode 52

Tim Winders is a performance coach for executive teams. He’s had a few ideas about what it means to be successful, but, as his story shows, those things we usually consider as “success” can be gone in a moment. In this interview, Tim invites us to look at success in light of our assignment–whatever God has given us to do in a particular moment, or season.

[02:00] Life in an RV
[07:59] Who needs a coach?
[14:47] Assignments
[19:14] Defining success
[30:00] Quiet time
[34:21] Business & ministry
[47:48] Books

Links

Tim Winders is a Performance Coach and author who specializes in helping Executive Teams and Entrepreneurial Leaders maximize their potential by looking beyond traditional “cookie-cutter” methods that often limit the creative process. A lifelong student, he thrives on helping people discover how to live outside of the box and walk out their unique God-given calling. In his own life, he has frequently taken the road less traveled, and found great satisfaction off the beaten path. As host of the SeekGoCreate podcast, Tim goes to the out of the way places to bring you people who redefine success and impact our world in remarkable ways as dreamers, movers, strategists, and connectors.

Tim’s SeekGoCreate Podcast
@SeekGoCreate

The Gift of Doubt

The Gift of Doubt

We rarely see doubt as a good thing. It’s been called a dream-killer. Something to overcome or push through. And certainly, doubt can be destructive. But I propose we take another look at the gift of doubt.

Doubt can be hard to define but it plays out in indecision, hesitation, busywork, loss of enthusiasm, etc.
When we encounter doubt, the first response is often fear. Panic can set in.

Sometimes you start something and find it’s a completely different animal than what you prepared for. In 2006, I co-founded a non-profit, and by 2012 I was desperate to leave it. The ONLY reason I stayed was because I knew God had called me into this. I couldn’t leave. In my case, the presumptions I had at the beginning were not adequate for the task at hand. I had to check my assumptions. Today, that ministry is radically different from anything we imagined when we launched. And I feel privileged to be a part of what God is doing through it.

How is doubt a gift?

I say doubt is a gift because it alerts us when something’s amiss. There’s an inconsistency somewhere. Something differs from our understanding. Doubt calls us to examine things more closely.

It’s normal and okay to have doubts, especially when you are in unfamiliar territory, or when you’re doing something new to you, or new to the world.

In the Bible, the disciples didn’t believe the women who came back and reported Jesus was no longer in the grave. It was a new thing. Nobody had walked out of a grave before.

Thomas, or “Doubting” Thomas, gets a bad rep for asking for proof of the resurrected Christ, but Jesus doesn’t rebuke him for it. Instead, he invites Thomas to test and see. He didn’t push Thomas away; Jesus invited Thomas to come closer.

How we respond to doubt is important.

If we fear doubt, we push it away or ignore it. We cover it with platitudes and affirmations. So there’s this big monster doubt over in the corner, and we start moving around it, avoiding it, tip-toeing past so we don’t wake it up. We leave larger and larger chunks of our lives unexplored, masked, and dangerous.

If we give it freedom to roam about unchecked, it steals from us. It nags and worries. It criticizes. Like a raging fire, destroying everything in its path.

Like fire, if we set boundaries and engage doubt with respect, it can work for us. It can be a good thing, when properly contained.

Think for a moment about a beef brisket. It’s tough. It comes from an unglamorous part of the cow. But if you apply a slow, gentle fire, that meat turns into something tender that melts in your mouth. It becomes memorable, rich, and flavorful. And what about sugar? It has one flavor. Sweet. Just sweet. Nothing but sweet. It has no aroma, it’s only one-dimensional. But when you apply heat, it browns and caramelizes and it develops over 100 flavor compounds.

That process is permanent. Fire (heat) forever changes that food. You cook something, and it never goes back to the way it was.

If doubt is like fire, then it can help us engage our ideas at a deeper level. Look at things from different angles, check our assumptions. And, properly engaged, that can lead to innovation, growth, breakthrough, and discovery.

How to engage doubt without getting burned:

Get the right people in the kitchen. Relationships help us see truth. Explore the doubt with people you can trust. Not the people who will tell you they never believed in your dream, anyway. They could’ve told you it would never work. That’s like throwing gasoline on the fire, and somebody will get burned.

But you also don’t want to go to the people who just tell you how great you are and how it’ll all work out. They’ll make you feel better, but it will not be helpful. You won’t get that rich flavor profile because they won’t let the fire burn hot enough.

And please, don’t let people in your kitchen who don’t know anything about cooking!

You need people with the knowledge and stamina to stay in a hot kitchen long enough to help you draw all the flavor out of this thing. You might need an expert in your field, or someone with more experience, or you may just need a great coach.
Are there missing ingredients? Are you using the wrong tools? Do you need to adjust your systems? Are you basing decisions on dependable information?

These people can help you sort truth from fiction: culture, assumptions & misconceptions. Exploring these things demands honesty and vulnerability. If your perceptions or assumptions turn out to be wrong, then changing them can take courage. You may actually benefit from the false assumption, but that false assumption is still leading you down the wrong path. If that’s the case, change is even more difficult, and you’ll need help to face it.

Facing doubt? Ask yourself, How must I change to hold truth?
Are you facing doubt? Don’t fear it.
There are still new frontiers—new discoveries ahead.
Are you called? Yes.
Stuck and doubting? Engage.
Fire-tested? You were made for this!

Building Empty Nest Empires with Tami Romani

Building Empty Nest Empires with Tami Romani

If you’ve got a message of any kind, you’ll need to find some level of comfort stepping in front of the camera or speaking into a microphone. Tami’s been helping entrepreneurs voice their brands, and now she’s helping a generation build Empty Nest Empires.

Tami goes beyond tips and techniques, right into the heart of why we do what we do.

Tami shared her experience starting her online groups, Building Empty Next Empires, and the Empire Builder Society, and a little about something else she’s got up her sleeve.

Key Takeaways

  • We’re all building empires, of finance, family, faith, fun, and fitness.
  • Small things can have big impact.
  • We can be intentional about building great memories.
  • Different seasons of life look different, and that’s okay!
  • Empty nester? You’ve still got a lot to give!
  • We have to be purposeful about building community.

Resources

tamiromani.com
Faithfullygrand.com
Here’s an earlier interview with Tami, where we talked about ways to improve the sound of our voices, and the way our voice affects how others see us.

Tap the “+” below to open the transcript

Transcript

[00:00:00] Kay: well, hello, Tammy is so good to have you back. How have you been and what you’ve been up to?

[00:00:07] Tami: Hi. Kay. It’s always good to hear your voice. What have I been up to my goodness? Last time I was on your podcast, we were talking about the voice and the importance of your voice, right? Yeah. So, I’ve been a long time voice actor. I still am, an audio book that I just recorded released today. So I still do different things like that.

[00:00:30]But yeah, God has led me into some new, really interesting areas. So I don’t know, but you want to dive into, I still do help people become a more confident speaker. I have a small little course online called a confident voice and, people can reach out to me if they’re interested in that. And, so I love doing that because I love seeing people.

[00:00:52] If they feel called to speak to a group or to speak on their social media. I love seeing them do that with some confidence.

[00:01:01] Kay: Yes. Yes. And that’s a good course to, I’ve been in it and, and, and you’re just, you know, you teach it. Amazing how much, you know, breathing does for you and just drink enough water. I mean, kind of if you get those two back, but then you have a lot of really cool tricks that you teach that can just help you be and confident it’s such a big change when you can be more confident when you speak that adds so much.

[00:01:28] Tami: Yeah, it makes your listeners notice. I mean, there are actually studies. I think we probably talked about this last time. There are studies out there that say you’re being judged by your voice almost immediately, unfortunately, and people will either turn off your message or they’ll lean in to listen.

[00:01:44] So that’s why the voice is really important. But God has led me into some new areas based on my stage of life.

[00:01:52] Kay: Yeah. Tell us about that. What, what are you doing now?

[00:01:55] Tami: Well, You know, it’s a funny thing. So I have been teaching, you know, doing my voiceover work and teaching and just feeling like there’s more for me. And one of the things that I’ve noticed is that I, when I came into social media, let’s say I joined Facebook, kicking and screaming.

[00:02:15] I only joined Facebook so I could see what my son was doing while he was studying abroad in London. Literally, that was my motivation. I had no idea about it, but here I am on this platform and I’m seeing people use it for business in really unique ways. And that captured my attention, and I started studying it.

[00:02:35] I just started studying it. And I think we’re talking eight years. Eight years of studying social media. I love it. I love the impact you can have. I love those people I’ve met, who have had a big impact who have then taught me. And it’s not about the numbers. It’s about you actually can develop relationships.

[00:02:55] And there are so many examples of. Relationships that have happened with DMs. People on, on Instagram. And so I don’t want to go into that, but because I’m an empty nester and I have this podcast called voicing your brand. And the funny thing is at about the same time, I also have an idea for a second podcast called emptiness to empires. And the idea of being that we build empires. Or a legacy if you will, that is left for generations. Whether we know it or not, now it can be a good legacy or it can be a bad legacy. And we build them in more areas than finances. We always see, you know, leave a financial legacy, build a financial empire. But what if we’re also building empires of faith that we leave behind for our family?

[00:03:51] What if we’re building empires of fun? Where they have these memories of just having fall down. Laughter with us. What if, what if we’re leaving, an empire of the fitness that our body is in; that how we took care of ourselves mattered? What if we leave an empire for our family? I mean, so I, so I came up with these five, five pillars, if you will, all starting with F, uniquely.

[00:04:18] And I thought, wow, Empire Builder. That’s really unique. Okay. Building Empty Nest Empires. Okay. Let’s test this out. So I started a free Facebook group called Building Empty Nest Empires. And in one weekend I had 200 women join.

[00:04:35] Kay: All right.

[00:04:36] Tami: just from finding they’re searching the word emptiness and I still every week yet.

[00:04:41] Several new people. I don’t advertise it. I don’t put it out there. Women in the empty nest years want connection. They want ideas. They want to know what’s next. So I did a live in there, you know, let’s, let’s explore what’s next for me. You know, I wrote some notes and it just kind of grew out of that, that I then created a membership.

[00:05:04] We’re called Empire Builders Society, which you have been a part of where we it’s a very small price. It’s less than a dollar a day. And we honestly, this is where you’ll get the resources. So the way to find out, I mean, I could talk for hours on this because here I am in my sixties now, and I hear women in their forties saying, Oh, it’s too late for me.

[00:05:29] I’m too old. I’m too old to try something new, too old to do through all, to learn something new tool, to do something new and I’m thinking, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is, this is your prime. This is better than all the years before.

[00:05:45] Kay: Yeah. I’ll echo down.

[00:05:48] Tami: you have life experience that people need to hear and learn from.

[00:05:55] So that’s where my heart is now. I’m. It’s still evolving. The funny thing was, is when I have mentioned before I started Empty Nest Empires. Now we’ve been on hiatus for a couple of months because life kind of turned upside down during the COVID-19. but I am bringing it back now, but when I started talking about it too, and various networking groups and business groups, I would say, Oh, I’ve got these two ideas for podcasts voicing your brand because I want to tell people it’s okay to be your voice of your own brand and then Empty Nest Empires.

[00:06:32] And people would have a physical reaction to that phrase, Empty Nest Empire. I had people go, Oh, you know, and, and, and like goosebumps on my arms right now. And I’m like, okay, God, definitely. You want me to go ahead with that?

[00:06:46] Kay: Yeah, that sounds good.

[00:06:48] Tami: I really felt like I, I had to do it. It makes sense. It’s not hard for me to have a podcast.

[00:06:53] Obviously I talk, I have a microphone; I have a space. And so it’s just, it’s still, and I feel like for the rest of my life, what I’m doing is going to be a work in progress. And I feel like those women who have said to me, I’m too old or what is my purpose now? You know, my kids are gone. What is my purpose now?

[00:07:18] Or now I’m a grandma. How can I help them? I feel like, what you’re doing now is going to be different than what you’re doing five years from now.

[00:07:28] Kay: Yeah.

[00:07:29] Tami: I love that we all are evolving. I mean, we need to pick one to focus on for sure. Make some money. And then maybe it morphs into something else, or maybe you find a group of people that, you know, you can really help. It’s an experiment. Life is an experiment.

[00:07:46] Kay: it is, you know, and I think it’s so easy, not so easy life isn’t easy, but that’s not what I’m saying, but it’s, it’s so much easier when. You can take that pressure off and say I’m choosing one thing, but it’s not necessarily the one thing, the only thing, you know, had, had, Ronnie rock on a couple episodes ago talking about her book and,

[00:08:14]That was the same message. It looked so different at different times of life, for people in different, different seasons, different places, different. And, and we, I think can really hurt ourselves if we think it’s only one thing. And it’s always just one thing,

[00:08:29] Tami: Yeah, for sure. We limit ourselves and God has no limits.

[00:08:34] Kay: right.

[00:08:35] Tami: He has no limits for his vision for your life. So I w you know, just open it up, open up yourself, and instead of telling yourself, I’m done, I’m over. Ask yourself. What’s next?

[00:08:50] Kay: Yeah.

[00:08:50] Tami: And just go on a journey of discovery and the way I tell people to start that is go back before you ever had kids, or if you never had kids go back to your college days, go back to what brought you joy back then.

[00:09:08] And I did that, and I wrote this big, long list and I thought, Oh, there’s two or three things on there that I could revisit. That could bring me joy again and might be something that someone else is interested in. If you’re interested in doing a business now, because I I’m that way I am a strategist. And so I’m always going to think in terms of how can you monetize this?

[00:09:35] Honestly, I, we had. We went to someone’s house. The other night, we had a very social distancing evening where we brought our own or d’oeuvres and we sat and watched the sunset from their backyard and they have a big long table in that one couple set on one end. And my husband and I sat on the other end.

[00:09:54]And he’s a computer programmer. And we were talking about how difficult it is to order groceries, especially at the beginning of COVID. I said, I put on Instacart and it took me seven days to get a date for delivery. And she just says, Oh yeah, well, my husband wrote a program, and we installed it in my computer and it just pings when a time comes up.

[00:10:16] So then I know whichever, you know, and it checks like three or four different apps. And my first thought was, and you didn’t monetize that and become a millionaire in the last two months.

[00:10:26] Kay: Seriously.

[00:10:28] Tami: Because I would have bought that app.

[00:10:30]Kay: uh huh.

[00:10:30] Tami: Right. I would have bought that app

[00:10:33] Kay: Oh yeah.

[00:10:33] Tami: So I’m always, I’m always strategizing my brain is just wired that way and I can see things in people that.

[00:10:43] And opportunities and possibilities for people that they don’t seem to see in themselves. And that’s just how God wired me. That’s what I base my membership group on, which is called Empire Builder’s Society is that we have a brainstorming session where people just go, well, here’s my idea. And then we all pour into that, like, okay, what if you tried this?

[00:11:03] What if you tried that maybe you could make some money at it doing this and that? And I see opportunity everywhere. So if anyone wants to book an hour with me and just, you know, we can do that too. I just, I just.

[00:11:14] Kay: yeah. Do it.

[00:11:16] Tami: I love strategy. So, I don’t want to waste that if, if I, if I can help 20 people, 30 people, 50 people, 500 people.

[00:11:25] Aye. That it brings me so much joy because it opens up doors for others. And I, I just really believe that we are called to be light in this world and we are called to teach others based on what we have learned, what God has taught us.

[00:11:45] Kay: Yeah, I think we discount sometimes the things that we know, because it doesn’t maybe look exactly like somebody else’s thing that they know, or it doesn’t look like what we think it should look like. And we, and we miss this thing that other people really think is amazing that they would pay for.

[00:12:07] Tami: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, of course all this stuff is also available on the internet for free, but who has that kind of time?

[00:12:17] Kay: Right.

[00:12:18] Tami: So we don’t all have time to. Explore and search. I have purchased so many courses because I really, I just want it laid out for me. I am a researcher, but I can go down the rabbit hole with the best of them and waste hours and hours.

[00:12:33] Where if somebody has already done that and figured it out, yes, I will pay you for your time. Just tell me what you know,

[00:12:41] Kay: Exactly.

[00:12:42] Tami: whole idea behind I have something I can teach you. You’re going to pay me for it, but I’ve spent decades or hours, you know, months, years figuring this out. And so you don’t want to do that. You want to know what’s the endgame here. And that’s the whole concept behind even having a course online or teaching anything online, even doing one-on-one coaching online, obviously everything’s online now. So. Why not? Honestly, I would honestly just ask you, what are you good at? If you know how to make jewelry, create a jewelry making class, even if it’s make your own fun earrings, charged $10 for it, you do that right there.

[00:13:30] That could make you an extra hundreds of dollars a week. Something as simple as that. So we all have something. I really believe that we all have something, or when we open up again, you could teach it to a mops group, you know, teach the moms a little skill that gets them out of there. Oh my gosh, I have a toddler and that is my life now.

[00:13:54] Kay: Okay. Right. Okay. Yeah. And you just adjust it for whatever group that, you know, every group is going to have its own needs and its own kind of trends and things. And if you’re in that group, if that, if those are your people, you’re going to be in tune with that. And, and you just. Make the adjustments that you need to make.

[00:14:14] And I want to touch on, on the one, one of the things that you were saying there, you know, about, there’s always something that, you know, somebody else is willing to, to learn from that experience that you have. And also, I would say the thing that. Is uniquely you like sometimes, okay. There may be 20 other people teaching the same material, but you’re the one that’s going to connect with that person.

[00:14:40] And so there’s, there are people that are gonna be your people. You just have to find them.

[00:14:47] Tami: And that is often a roadblock that people have is they say, well, I know this thing and I could teach it, but there’s that guy doing it too. I had that. I went through that. I, I w especially when I’m a voice actor and friends started coming to me saying, Oh, you know, my, my, one of them was an author.

[00:15:08] My book agent says that I’ve got to start doing live on Facebook. And I hate my voice. How can I like my voice? And I could have said, Oh, there’s this guy in Hollywood named Roger Love. Yeah. You know, he’ll teach you he’s that guy. Or I could have said, I can do it because you, you like me, you know, me, maybe she doesn’t relate to him, the famous voice guy, you know, which he still is the famous voice guy, but he mostly deals with singers.

[00:15:41]but he also has a speaking course that, of course I’m sure is my direct competition, but is it really, we are so different.

[00:15:49] Kay: There you go.

[00:15:50] Tami: And the interesting thing is, I think you have to think in terms of abundance here; I had an experience where I was at a conference and. One of the first things that the host of the conference did was he got up, and he said, Oh my goodness, here’s a guy you’ve got to meet.

[00:16:08] He teaches you how to speak, basically what I do, how, how to speak with confidence. So if you want to go live and you’re not sure how to do it, connect with this guy and he named this name and the guy waved to San. Well, he was like two rows behind me. And so at the break, I went straight over to, over to him, stuck up my hand and said, hi, it’s so great to meet you.

[00:16:28] And he, at first he was really smiley and chatty and I said, I do exactly what you do. Isn’t that great? And I could see the wall just, he immediately shut down, immediately shut down, cut me off and walked away.

[00:16:42] Kay: Oh, wow.

[00:16:43] Tami: he was, a guy with a Swedish accent. So he’s from Sweden. And then I said, and I’m half Swedish.

[00:16:51] I told I went the whole distance. Hey, I’m half Swedish. That’s so great. I just looked at your website. That’s amazing that you’re doing that. I help people with the same thing and he just went, boom, you know, completely his whole countenance changed. And I thought. Wow. If that is not a lesson in scarcity right there, no one that I deal with would ever be attracted to him, to work with him.

[00:17:19] Kay: Yeah,

[00:17:20] Tami: And we’re totally different personalities. I’m not ever going to be. And, and people who work with him, aren’t going to like me. I’ve never.

[00:17:28] Kay: that’s how it is.

[00:17:29] Tami: this guy. Never going to take business from this guy. So what an odd thing to happen, but I’m glad it did because it really illustrated to me. It’s okay to be doing the same thing, someone else’s, and it’s okay if people don’t like you.

[00:17:46] Kay: Yeah, that’s so true. And there’s always going to be, you know, somebody, but, you know, we, we learned that in kindergarten.

[00:17:54] Tami: yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:55] Kay: we can,

[00:17:56] Tami: Did we though? I don’t think we did.

[00:17:58] Kay: yeah, I know

[00:17:59] Tami: think it stuck.

[00:18:00] Kay: even still staying that’s for sure. You know, and, and they can, they can, there’s some real kind of cruelty edges, you know, to some of that too, but, but, you know, there’s always going to, you’ve got something to offer.

[00:18:15] Tami: And everyone does. Everyone does not. Everyone wants to offer it, not everyone. And like I said, not everyone has to have an online business. Not everyone has to create courses to sell. Not everyone has to do on one-to-one coaching or group coaching online, but maybe it’s something you do. Mm. Maybe you can lead a small group of women at your church.

[00:18:40] Kay: Right.

[00:18:41] Tami: Maybe, maybe you are a leader in that way where you can share your story and help someone in that way. And that’s just as valuable. Yeah. It’s just as valuable.

[00:18:57] Kay: Yeah. Influence. We all influence somebody or a group of somebody that’s really what leadership is.

[00:19:06] Tami: Yeah. Yeah. So when you were, you can tell me now, what, why did you change your podcast to life and mission?

[00:19:14] Kay: Well, I changed it; you know? Yeah. It was the Your Voice Podcast, which of course we really connected over that title. But I never really liked that name and it was confusing. There was another podcast that actually wasn’t producing episodes that had a very similar name. There were a couple of other kind of groups that had a very different message and it was just.

[00:19:41] Okay. I thought confusing. It was hard to find people weren’t necessarily searching for it kind of thing. And it was awkward to say it doesn’t really kind of flow. And I was driving around and I had said, because it went on hiatus and I said, I’m not bringing it back until I have a better name.

[00:20:01] Tami: Okay.

[00:20:02]Kay: and it’s still, I use the same tagline.

[00:20:04] Find your voice, tell your story, change the world. It’s the same idea. But I said, what, what is that? And, and I was just playing with words one day while I was driving around and I just came up with life and mission and I thought this, they sound really good. Together. And it’s really what I’m about because it’s not just your work.

[00:20:23] It’s not just your ministry or your organization or the thing you do, the vocation itself. It’s the calling, which permeates your whole life. Every aspect of your life. We can talk about anything on this podcast, but,

[00:20:37] Tami: I love it.

[00:20:38] Kay: you know, that’s it,

[00:20:40] Tami: Yeah. And, and what a perfect example, what a perfect, yeah. And the name was available. Perfect example. You are okay. It’s okay to change. It’s okay. To grow and morph and add to its. Okay. Like if you’re, if you’re like me, I’m 61 and what, how, I don’t know how that happened,

[00:21:04] Kay: I’m I’m close.

[00:21:05] Tami: yeah. And, And here I am.

[00:21:08] I’ve been a voice actor for decades. I mean, like over 40 years and here I am being called into this new space. I’m a, I’m a pastor’s daughter. My mother was the preacher. I was never called to ministry, but here I am with this new mission that I’m so excited about, and that is, you know, to help, to help people with build their empires by my podcast, Empty Nest Empires, all the things that we leave behind, I really was inspired by my mom. And then also, you know, you said I’m doing so many things. I do know that you need to focus on one thing. So I have started an Instagram account and I have not launched anything, but God gave me another idea. And that is that grandmas need to.

[00:22:00] Pour into their grandkids or overflow from themselves into their grandkids to leave that legacy of faith of fun of all the things. But I felt like, my mother did that so well. And now my kids are adults in their late twenties and thirties, and I still see the impact she had. And so I want to be that now during COVID I’ve got my grandkids living here, so I bought a five-year-old and an 18-month-old.

[00:22:31] And I think about my mom and how good she was at pouring into them, into my own kids. Yeah. And I, and her faith was so strong. My daughter just recently wrote a book called, God you’ve never met who is the Holy spirit and. She basically went through a lot of my mother’s notes and says, you know, and dedicated it to her grandma

[00:23:00] Kay: Oh,

[00:23:01] Tami: who was such a giant in the faith.

[00:23:03] And I think. I want to leave that kind of, of a faith empire for my grandkids. I want to be so filled with face. So what does that take? I saw my mom constantly studying the word, calm in prayer, praying for everyone. And I just felt this calling almost a new calling that grandma’s need to be built up in their faith.

[00:23:29] So that they can overflow to their grandchildren. And so I don’t know what will come of it. I’m calling it faithfully Grande. And that is the name of the Instagram. It has one post, and that’s all, but you can go to faithfully grande.com and get on my email list for updates. I don’t know what that’s going to look like.

[00:23:52] I don’t know if it’s going to be a monthly Bible study. I think so. I think it will be, a private group where we can do monthly Bible study. And maybe even if we get enough, people create some small groups in there. I just have this. Paul inside of me to suddenly go into ministry for grandmas. Isn’t that the thing, and to just, To just show them the legacy that they can leave? And, you know, it kind of correlates with my Empty Nest Empires and, and like I said, it’s just been so evident to me. my, my parents died over 10 years ago and to see their impact still. 10 years later. And then when I think back on my kids were in college when they passed away.

[00:24:39] And I remember having that yard sale,

[00:24:43] Kay: Yeah.

[00:24:44] Tami: you know, that you take what you want, and then you’ve got mugs and for 50 cents each, and, you know, just the crazy little things. And I had all the kids look at everything that was left in the house and they each just chose one thing. And my daughter chose a little, a replica is made of cast iron, a replica of an antique stove.

[00:25:09] So, you know, you can picture it’s cast iron. It’s very old fashioned like settler 18 hundreds. And her comment was, I said, Oh, why’d you pick that? And she said, Oh, grandma. And I used to make food out of play dough and pretend we’re cooking it on this little stove.

[00:25:26] Kay: Well fun.

[00:25:28] Tami: And I said, Oh my goodness, I would not have known that.

[00:25:31] Or if I saw it, it was, you know, Hey, great. Mom’s playing with Nikki so I can do other things. And then my son picked these cute little. Dessert bowls that I think were milk glass. So very antique little dessert bowls. And there, I think there was four of them left. They’d been broken, and he grabbed those.

[00:25:51] And I was like, Oh wow. I would not have guessed that. That’s what you want. And his comment was, Oh yeah, grandma used to give me ice cream in these bowls.

[00:26:00]Kay:

[00:26:00]Tami: I never knew that.

[00:26:01] Kay: they had these great memories.

[00:26:03] Tami: They had those memories, and she was so intentional with them and I thought, wow. Oh, That’s a beautiful thing. So learning to be intentional with the grandkids is what I am teaching myself based on my memories of my mother.

[00:26:19] She was so good at it and she inspires me and I want to pour that into grandma’s too and give them ideas. And like I said, my grandson’s with me, he’s five the other night. He said he wanted to drink from a fancy cup. And so I just took him over to my China cabinet and let him pick whatever he wanted. I don’t care if it breaks, you know, how I’ve got like 50 pieces of stemware in there at least that we never use, but what fun it was for him to eat his old chicken nuggets and drink his water.

[00:26:52] And he, and he was like, and I’m going to hold it like this then, you know, and he was, it was just so cute. And I thought, this is it. This is it.

[00:27:02] Kay: Oh, man, those smiles. Yeah. Those moments.

[00:27:07] Tami: Yeah. And none of those, Oh, you can’t use that. It might get broken. None of that. I mean, really, if it chips or breaks, my heart is not going to be broken.

[00:27:16] There’s another one in there. And I, and I just think placing so much value on their little lives, over our things.

[00:27:27] Kay: Yes.

[00:27:30] Tami: You know, that that creates a legacy. And then also just being the faith giant, that you’re the one that they come to for prayer. And you’re the one that they come to for grandma. What do you think the Bible says about this? Or, I’m really struggling with that?

[00:27:45] Would you pray with me? I think that’s what grandma’s need. And so I don’t know where that’s going. It’s way in the infancy stages. I’m hoping to get some help with it. But I I’ve just created the Instagram for now and a landingPage@faithfullygrande.com. And we’ll see, I don’t talk about it much yet because I really, like I said, I don’t have a direction, but God gives you an idea. You write it down and you ask him for more what’s the next step?

[00:28:16] Kay: Yeah, step at a time and that’s what you’ve done. You start to lay the groundwork. It can take shape as you move. Sometimes it won’t take shape until you’re taking those steps.

[00:28:27] Tami: Yeah. And that’s honestly why I created the Empire Builders Society, because I want people to have a roadmap to see what are the steps I take. Wow. I’ve got this idea now, what do I do?

[00:28:41] Kay: Yeah, and I love it. I, and I would tell people if you’re interested in either one of these to connect with Tammy, because even as she’s, I mean, when she’s learning something entirely new, she’s going to bring you along for the ride and it’s fun, right. She’s really cool person to be around. And, and, you know, but you learn and you share what, you know, And you grow and then everybody gets figure out.

[00:29:11] Tami: Yeah,

[00:29:12] Kay: Yeah. And she’s already smart about a lot of things, so it’s not like you’re starting from square one, so she’s still going to be ahead, you know, a good deal. So it’s really, I love, I love what you’re doing.

[00:29:25] Tami: Great. Yeah. It’s very fun for me and I love seeing results.

[00:29:30] Kay: Yeah.

[00:29:30] Tami: I love seeing results. I love having people, just see and be encouraged by, Oh wow. You know, I, I made a sale today, or I got 30 people on my email list or, you know, anything like that, it just lights me on fire.

[00:29:46] Kay: Yeah, and we need, we need each other to celebrate each other too. And it’s like, you were talking about that scarcity mindset versus more of a generous kind of thing. It’s a, it’s a community where we can be generous to one another. We may be using these tools in different ways. We can encourage each other and, and, share you need people cheering you on.

[00:30:07] Tami: Yeah. Oh, you do. We do. And especially now we’re, we’re also isolated, you know, I talked about just meeting up with those friends and sitting across a very long table with them. I left there going, that was so refreshing. Just to have in person conversation and air hugging across the yard. I mean, we did, we didn’t get close at all because they are, they’re very much quarantined.

[00:30:33] They haven’t even been to stores yet or anything because they have an app to tell them when, to order food. But, you know, but they are doing this, which I thought was so wonderful. And we do need the connection. We do need connection.

[00:30:50] Kay: Yeah, we do. And the other thing about these, these groups, you know, on online, these communities, whether it’s a mastermind or, or, a Facebook group or a membership. When do you, cause the encouragement you don’t always get that from the people that are around you, like your friends and family that have known you for years.

[00:31:11] And they all, a lot of times they know you as such and such, who does such so-and-so so-and-so, who does such-and-such. And that’s the box that you’re in and, and you might be forever in the, in that box, you.

[00:31:27] Tami: Oh, no one, no one in my family understands me. No one,

[00:31:32] Kay: And I think that’s really common with. Yeah. Yeah. I asked, I asked on my personal Facebook feed for people to tell me, you know, what, if I were to teach a class, what would you want me to teach? And I was really surprised at some of the.

[00:31:50] Tami: What did they say?

[00:31:51] Kay: of the answers because, there were a couple that wanted me to teach video production and, and I did that years ago, I used to have a video production business, but it’s been 20 years.

[00:32:03] Tami: It’s a little different now.

[00:32:05] Kay: And like the whole thing has changed. Like all the technology’s changed, everything’s changed. And, yeah, you know, it’s just kind of, you know, people, again, people that have known me for years, but they haven’t really seen the change that they remember the part when maybe when we were closer. It’s just, and we’re all like that.

[00:32:25] We do that to the people we know as well. It’s, it’s just, we’re in different parts of our lives kind of run in different Orbitz. Yes.

[00:32:35] Tami: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of my friends are like, why are you doing all this? And I, I mean, I need a Plan B for retirement, I suppose, but also I can’t not do it.

[00:32:49] Kay: Yeah. Oh, that’s, that’s great. When you’re doing the thing you can’t not do.

[00:32:53] Tami: Yeah, I can’t, I, I just, it would make me crazy to see so many people who need help and not be able to help them.

[00:33:03] Kay: Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool.

[00:33:05] Tami: So,

[00:33:06] Kay: Alright, well, we will have all the links to connect with Tammy and all these great things that she’s doing online. And I will also have the link to our earlier interview back on the old podcasts,

[00:33:21]Tami: huh.

[00:33:21] Kay: great, we had talked about voice and how to speak confidently and breathe properly.

[00:33:27] And if you’ve listened to that, other to the earlier interview with Tammy, you will. Already at the end of that 40 minutes, you will already be a better speaker. You gave us some really useful tips, so good stuff. Thank you so much, friend, for being on the show.

[00:33:44] Tami: Oh, you’re welcome. Kay. It’s my pleasure.

God Meets Us When We Suffer – Interview with KJ Ramsey

God Meets Us When We Suffer – Interview with KJ Ramsey

We are in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, and my guest is therapist, and author KJ Ramsey. We’re taking about faith and suffering, our bodies and stress, grief, and our communion with Christ.

When we suffer, we might question our faith, or we might question whether we have a strong enough prayer life, or wonder if there’s more we could do to earn God’s favor. We tend to think that more effort should produce a blessing.

K.J. says, “I think that for me, finding hope and suffering and finding joy in suffering, being able to be resilient within vast amounts of uncertainty. That has largely come through dwelling in the scripture and seeing what the whole scripture says about what is the story that God is writing in our world and where does my life fall within it.” 

What becomes clear is that God chose to enter into our suffering.

Now, as we walk through the uncertainty of our times, in this coronavirus pandemic, we can know we are not alone. Still, we have lost much. Acknowledging that grief and allowing ourselves to grieve the losses is human and healthy. It’s not a sign of a small faith, but rather, it’s an invitation to draw close to God, who loves us.

KJ is a therapist and a writer. She’s written for multiple publications, including Christianity Today and Relevant. Her new book, This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers, comes out May 12th.


Links

This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers
kjramsey.com
@kjramseywrites


Quote: "We can experience the grace and rest of a God who loves us, not for what we do but for existing. Because we're his children. - KJ Ramsey

Transcript

Kay:  My guest today is KJ Ramsey and KJ is a therapist and a writer and she’s written for multiple publications, including Christianity Today and Relevant. Her new book comes out in May, it’s called This Too, Shall Last Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers.

[00:00:45] KJ, first of all, thank you for being with us today.

[00:00:48] KJ-Ramsey: Thank you for having me.

[00:00:50] Kay: KJ  let’s, let’s just start, with you and your book, and then we’ll move on to current events. Because, as at the time when we’re recording this, there’s a lot going on in the world that is so new to all of us, and we will, we will get there, I promise. But, because I think in terms of where we are in the world right now, and it’s such a timely message that you have.

[00:01:15] I’d like for our listeners to know a little bit about you and because of the type of questions that we’re all asking now, and the discomfort and the fear that we are feeling, you’ve not necessarily in a pandemic, but you, you’ve been down the road a little ahead of us. And so if you would tell us a little bit of your story.

[00:01:37] KJ-Ramsey: Yeah. So living in uncertainty, and loss is a big part of what my whole adult life has been. So I, I, I’ve lived with a severe autoimmune disease called ankylosing spondylitis for 11 years now. And, and along with that, my husband and I have experienced a lot of spiritual abuse and job loss. So combine my physical illness with some deep spiritual pain and job insecurity because of both.

[00:02:18] And that has really made me and my husband have to dwell in the place where we don’t know what our future holds, which is really all of us all the time. But we’ve had to live with that palpably in our faces for our whole marriage. We’re about to hit, um, our 10th anniversary in June, and we’ve had to live in the place of. Finding that God is with them, even when our life doesn’t feel good and doesn’t look like it’s going to get much better. Um, so yeah, both through disease and, and some deep spiritual pain and wounding, I’ve had to learn how to live in this deeply painful place and find that there’s still goodness here.

[00:03:09] That’s all. So that’s a little bit of a start.

Kay: and part of that road that you have traveled, that’s, that’s driven you in into God’s word. In a way maybe that a lot of us haven’t gone down that you know, some, sometimes, I mean, you can just kind of tell how the, the sometimes we kind of fling scripture around, without really grappling with it and with its meaning and the full meaning rather than just taking one verse.

[00:03:39] You know, but really saying was this whole passage say, and what does it say in the context of the whole word of God? And, and, I imagine that you have spent some time  doing those deeper things. And in doing that, what have you found.

[00:03:55] KJ-Ramsey: Yeah. Well, you know, I think the way that the western church especially looks at suffering, is as though it is an indication of a lack of faith.

[00:04:08] KJ-Ramsey: Because we’ve so tied our faith in our risen Lord with progress with the American dream. So we think that more effort should produce a blessing, that a stronger faith and praying harder will produce the life that you want.

[00:04:33] Even if we don’t consider ourselves adherents of the prosperity gospel, it’s sunk its teeth into our souls. And. So when my life was turned upside down by suffering by this disease that came and never left, I had to find my way back to the whole story of scripture. I had to find my story. Within a bigger story and to see that the whole Canon of scripture tells us that pain and suffering actually have a place in the plotline and that within the scope of scripture, our suffering is part of the story of God making all things new.

[00:05:18] But that story isn’t done yet though the end has been written, we’re not to the end yet. And so. I think that for me, finding hope and suffering and finding joy in suffering, being able to be resilient within vast amounts of uncertainty. That has largely come through dwelling in the scripture and seeing what the whole scripture says about what is the story that God is writing in our world and where does my life fall within it.

[00:05:53] So I think that’s what I would encourage people to. To begin to explore is not just what does Romans eight 28 say about your life, but what does the whole story of how God relates to his people say about where you’re at and, and what is our hope? What are we longing for, and where are we headed? And I think where we’re headed, I think what scripture makes clear is that we’re headed to God making all things new.

[00:06:23] And when we suffer because of Jesus, we get to be. United to this power in the midst of our weakness that we can’t know in any other way.

[00:06:36] Kay: [00:06:36] Yeah, that’s good. And we’re all in this strange new place. We are recording this on April 3rd, 2020 in the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic. So if you’re listening to this years down the line, you can look in the history books and see what happened because we’re in the middle of it right now.

[00:06:59] Kay: people all around the world are at home. We’re practicing social distancing and we’re dealing with a lot of uncertainty. And, um, it feels like the ground is moving under us every day.

[00:07:13] KJ-Ramsey: Yeah.

[00:07:14] Kay: and our usual coping mechanisms are, are groups that we go to are, we can’t even go to church right now and be with our people or our jobs right now. Many, many people, either are sitting home and trying to do their work alone or have been let go from their jobs because their businesses are closed right now because people can’t go in.

[00:07:39] KJ-Ramsey: Okay. Yeah.

[00:07:40] Kay: So much uncertainty and, and it’s global, like there just doesn’t seem any place that’s not touched.

[00:07:48] Why do we do when we’re so alone?

[00:07:51] KJ-Ramsey: Mm. Yeah. This is such a profound time of upheaval.

I find so much comfort in and Jesus in that Jesus knows the agony of feeling forsaken and the depth of feeling isolation, that Jesus was no stranger to anxiety, that in the garden of Gethsemane as he was about to die, it was preparing for his death. That he was so in so much anguish that he had sweat, like drops of blood. And, and when I read that as a therapist, I think Jesus had a panic attack. Our God knows what it is like to have your, your whole body in life feel like it’s shaking.

[00:08:55] Like, like you’re breathless, like God willingly and enfleshed himself into a life where he would feel that on our behalf and carry all that weight to the cross. I find so much comfort there. So in the middle of our aloneness, Mmm. I think we have a God who. Who knows where we’re at. He is not just the creator of the universe. He’s also the pain bearer of the universe. He. He moved in among us and decided to feel this weight of living in a broken world and in a broken body personally.

And I think that’s where we start. I think that’s where we started. I think it’s where we finish, uh, that there is a communion that we get to have with Christ in the middle of our uncertainty and in the middle of upheaval. That we can’t know when we’re so busy hustling hard to do things for God’s kingdom.

[00:10:16] Kay: Yeah, yeah. Two, two things there. As you were saying that, you know, Jesus told his disciples, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. And I thought it was interesting that he uses the word orphan  because orphan is, that’s so much more than saying, I won’t leave you alone.

[00:10:41] An orphan is, is truly, truly alone. And unprotected, and probably feeling rejected.

[00:10:53]Kay: so much uncertainty in the life of an orphan and Mmm. I think in him saying that, I will not leave you as orphans. He’s acknowledging even there, you’re going to feel like orphans. There are, there are times when you are going to feel exposed. And broken and alone and Mmm. not provided for We need to acknowledge that, that we will feel that, that he understands that that’s something we feel. And the also says, I will come to you.

[00:11:32] KJ-Ramsey: Yeah.

[00:11:33] Kay: and the second thing when you, you said communion, I’m thinking literally about the practice of communion where we remember, do we, I mean, when we, when we take communion, how often do we do it um, some, just something we do.  It’s something, it’s a ritual, but it’s in remembrance of him and the breaking of his body and that, and the shedding of his blood, which was for. Not only our salvation, but for our healing, and understand that there’s this tension between the already accomplished, it is finished

[00:12:17] KJ-Ramsey: Yeah.

[00:12:17] Kay: and the not yet, that we live in. That’s the space.

[00:12:22] KJ-Ramsey: And right now, as we, as we acknowledge the upheaval that we’re in, as we feel the weight of our uncertainty, we have ample moments where we get to acknowledge that God was broken on our behalf. That God chose to be shattered by suffering. So every place of our shattering right now where our souls just ache with what is happening with where our stories feel shattered, our futures feel like they are not going to come together like we wanted. Every place, every moment where we acknowledge that becomes a thin space where the not yet of God’s kingdom touches the already where we get to acknowledge and feel perhaps in a truer deeper way that God really did come to dwell among us and to make us new. These moments of feeling ripped apart by what’s happening in our world, I think are also moments where we get to more deeply know that God chose to allow his own life to be ripped apart on our behalf to to purchase and create our world being healed.

[00:13:56] Kay: And, you know, we have this space here  where we’re home. And I know that not everybody  has a quiet home or unnecessarily restful home. All right? Now you’ve got kids that are home that weren’t, weren’t there all the time before people are getting a little antsy. I know I  uh, to the bank today because I needed to, but I took the long way there. Just to be out of the house, Um, but we have this kind of, in America, we have this idea that we always have to be productive. We always have to be doing something. 

But then there’s this rest that Jesus calls to a, yeah. He, he calls us into that rest and that’s the place where we can sit with him. And find peace in him. And I just wonder if we’re doing that. We have so many things that are, fingertips that we can do. We can, where we can just kind of put a screen in front of us and how can we find…

[00:15:04]KJ-Ramsey: Okay.

[00:15:04] Kay: that peace? I mean, they’re there. How can we enter into that rest, I guess is my real question.

[00:15:10] KJ-Ramsey: Well, I think we are all in our country—I’m addicted to productivity. And it is where we have found a lot of safety and identity. And so right now with how scarier the world is, we are not capable of staying as productive as we were. So that coping mechanism is being stripped away from us. But I think a lot of us are finding that we feel, a continued pressure to produce from home in our jobs and we don’t know how to stop.

[00:15:59] and so then a lot of us are feeling guilt, and shame about just how little we’re getting done in a day. Mmm. There is an invitation here. You can’t do it. You can’t keep up with your life like you were. The weight of the world is too heavy. This is heavier than anything we have ever seen and. You are not made to be able to carry this weight.

[00:16:32] We’re swimming in a sea of anxiety and loss grief. I mean, you look at the numbers. I don’t know when, by the time this comes out, we’ll see how many people will have died by then. But the numbers that are being projected right now are massive. And the number of people who have already died massive.

[00:16:56] That we are, we cannot be unaffected by this grief. And so we have an invitation here to be honest about where we’re at, but this is too heavy for us, and that we can set aside our striving and let our souls be where we’re actually at. And, and that, like you’re saying, that’s where we. Can experience the grace and rest of a God who loves us, not for what we do, but for existing because we’re his children.

[00:17:31] Kay: I believe something happens when we allow ourselves to just be raw with our emotions before

[00:17:38] KJ-Ramsey:  100%.  Yeah. I think that, you know, we talked about Jesus and him being broken on our behalf. Well, his own cry, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Comes from the Psalms. So let Jesus’s own words carry you back to the prayer book of God’s people. The Psalms are full of God’s people, being honest about where they are.

[00:18:06] And crying out to God, not as  people who are purely steadfast in their faith, but as people with great needs and  arresting anguish and profound anger. That is the cry of God’s people. That is what God has given us in his word as the main demonstration of what it looks like to be faithful in prayer. So we get to go there and pray along with God’s people throughout the ages and say, God, how long?

[00:18:46] How long? Oh Lord, we get to. Call out anger and, and, and lamentation on, you know, what? We wish our world; it was like right now go back. We get to go back to the very prayers that Jesus himself prayed. And I think it’s really in that. Place of letting ourselves be honest about how hard this is that our hope will rise.

[00:19:23] Kay: Yeah. and we’re in that place, and just as there’s a tension between the, you know, the kingdom that is and the kingdom, that is, is to be, it’s not yet, you’ve written in, in this book that’s about to come out, This Too Shall Last. The subtitle is finding grace when suffering lingers. And you talk about, The grace, but that, you know there’s suffering and joy can, can the two coexist.

[00:19:51] KJ-Ramsey: 100% 

[00:19:53] Kay: Okay. That’s such good news. We needed to hear that.

[00:19:58] KJ-Ramsey: you can’t, I believe that you can’t have joy without sorrow.

[00:20:06] Kay: Hmm.

[00:20:07] KJ-Ramsey: really, it’s grief that makes space for goodness.  This is the pattern of the human soul. And as we acknowledge the grit and groaning of where we’re at, who we are. Are enlarged by the Holy spirit to also see and taste and share the goodness of what’s here too.

[00:20:42] This has been my story. This is the church’s story. This is what we get to know more tangibly right now than we ever have before. God meets us in our grief because he took it on himself. And he makes grief the place where goodness grows.

[00:21:03] Kay: And it’s a place, um, think about when, when we go through things and we have those friends that stick with us through the hard times. The friends that come to visit when it’s, you know, when we’re in the middle just willing to be, you know, that  I’m not trying to fix us, not trying to shame us or change us or. Push us in a direction, but just to they don’t come with an agenda, except to be with us in that and that in a way, even right now, Surely Jesus is there with us in our suffering. The friend that is always with us and always available to take, uh, take that space.

[00:21:53] KJ-Ramsey: Yeah. And Jesus is the friend that’s closer than a brother. Um, but we can’t see Jesus just an end right now. There’s so many people in our lives we can’t see . I think that. This time is in its profound pain is also such an invitation. I think that something I wrote about a lot in my book is that when we’re stuck in trying to make and, and identify the purpose in our pain, we can’t feel God’s presence.

[00:22:35] Because. When we’re stuck in an, okay a state of analysis, operating largely in the left brain, and we are anxiously trying to figure out why would God allow this to happen? What is the point? Um, our brains and our bodies can’t experience. We can’t turn on what is called the social engagement system of our brains.

[00:23:03] And. So I think I bring this up for listeners because Oh, and stress, what we know how to do is to run away from it, to avoid it, to pretend like it’s not as bad as it is. And when we do those things, we’re not going to be able to feel the presence of the invisible God. But if we can. Stop and remember our bodies.

[00:23:35] Remember that what is happening in our world really is affecting us and really is making us feel dysregulated physically, most moments of most days right now. And we offer our bodies a chance to breathe.That is what turns on your brain social engagement system, which is what you need, not only to connect with other humans, but to connect with the God who is here.

[00:24:01] So faith right now and always, but right now we can feel it more acutely and notice and notice it and lead into it more palpably. Faith actually looks like remembering that your body is fragile and susceptible to stress and that you can breathe in the midst of it. Acknowledged the breath of God. The spirit of God is in you because you’ve been United to Jesus, and from that place of physical care, self care, you will begin to feel the presence of the invisible God.

[00:24:37] Kay: what are some things that we can do? How can we take kind of some first steps towards doing, taking care of our physical bodies so that we can do that?

[00:24:46] KJ-Ramsey: Yeah. So I talk about breath prayer all the time because I think that our breath or actual in and out breathing is our first, first means of remembering that God is with us.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the spirit is called the breath of God.

[00:25:10] and that we. Have to breathe to live. So when you breathe, when you remember to take a deep breath, you really are offering your body a moment to remember that the breath of God is in you, that you are not alone.

[00:25:31] You are not forsaken. You were always connected to the spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. So first and foremost, we have to remember our bodies. We have to remember to breathe. We get to acknowledge throughout our days that we feel overwhelmed by all the news that we’re seeing, that we feel deep sorrow over the suffering of our world.

[00:26:00]That we feel anxious about the ways that our family’s futures are changing. Every one of those moments throughout our day, which is many, many moments. Because if you’re human, you are being affected by this in a lot of ways. Every one of those moments is a chance to breathe, to remember that when your body feels stress, overwhelm, anxiety, shame, guilt.

[00:26:29] Your body is sending signals throughout your whole body. Your brain is sending signals throughout your whole body that say like, you’re not okay. You’re not okay. That is a chance to stop and breathe. Offer yourself a physiological way to remember that God is with you. So I always start with breathing.

[00:26:50] Kay: Yeah.

[00:26:51] KJ-Ramsey: with breath prayer, you can just, you can just breathe. But. You know, saints, throughout the ages, Christians throughout the ages have used breath prayer. So tying your in and out your inhale and your exhale with a simple prayer. Like what I use is just Lord on my inhale, have mercy on my exhale and I just pray that in my head.

[00:27:13] There are other, you know, lines that you can use, but just a simple acknowledgement as I breathe, that I am dependent on God’s mercy to live and breathe and have my being and that that is a good thing. And that remembrance in those moments, changes the way that I experience my day.

[00:27:34] Kay: what role does gratitude play in that?

[00:27:36] KJ-Ramsey:  In breathing?

[00:27:37] Kay: Yeah. I guess in that whole experience of understanding that at once now we’ve taken that moment to acknowledge that dependence on him and his presence.

[00:27:49] KJ-Ramsey: well, I think the—we, we don’t necessarily have to start with gratitude, but I think that, when we are honest about our need for grace and we breathed into it, that gratitude will be the result because you will experience that God is with you. Even if you don’t feel everything is better. Cause you probably won’t

[00:28:18] That moment of breathing, that 30 seconds that you take to breathe in and out slowly to remember that the breath of God is in you will counter the story of scarcity that’s happening and playing out in your life right now. That. That you aren’t enough, that you won’t have enough, and that you’ve had enough with this already.

That’s the story that we’re all living, but the greater story that each of us is part of is that God is enough.

[00:28:50] Kay: Yeah.

[00:28:51] KJ-Ramsey: God has enough for all of our needs, even unto death. Yeah. And that he will always meet us where we’re at. Acknowledging that story that produces gratitude, a gratitude that is a bit beyond what we can understand or a gratitude that’s passed sometimes what our circumstances would appear to hold. But I think also, when we breathe, our bodies are put into a state where we are more capable of acknowledging and savoring goodness that’s here.

[00:29:35] So when you’re in a state of stress and alarm, which we’re, like I said all in like many, many times throughout the day, right now, you’re not capable of. Noticing as much beauty or goodness. But when you breathe, your body is going to be in a state where it’s more capable of seeing goodness too. So as we pay attention to our bodies and try to stay regulated right now, that’s gonna put you in a place where you’re going to be able to be more grateful because you’re going to be more at peace within yourself and capable of noticing what’s here. That’s good.

[00:30:13] Kay:  was thinking about, you know, some of

[00:30:15] KJ-Ramsey: Okay.

[00:30:16] Kay: some of our experience with what is happening in the world right now is because our expectations have just been shattered. We have, um, I’m thinking of like high school students that were planning their graduations, you know, and now school’s out.And, all of these kinds of milestones in our lives and things when we have shattered expectations, what does that do to us? How is that playing into, how do you think that’s playing into what’s happening with us right now and, and what can we do.

[00:30:54] KJ-Ramsey: Well, I think that  there, I’m seeing a lot of Christians. Treat these moments like we, this is exposing our idols and we should never have had these expectations in the first place. And I don’t think that that’s, an embodiment of the kindness of the God that I know. I think that God grieves with us for the way that our stories feel shattered right now. And. I think the invitation is to grieve. These are losses, not being able to graduate, not being able to see the people that you love. Having your future be changed. That these are losses. And I believe that every loss that we endure. That God endures it with us. He doesn’t judge it from a distance because we’ve been United to Jesus.

[00:32:04] Jesus is experiencing this in us with us, and so as we feel a deep sadness and sorrow for what’s happening in our lives. The God of the universe is experiencing that, feeling that with us on our behalf in us, God grieves for what we are losing and grieving too. So I think the simple answer is grieve. We have a lot to grieve right now.

[00:32:40] I wish that there was more that I could tell people to do. But, I think our culture is allergic to grief and we would rather just feel good, but grief is what your soul needs in order to, again, find. Goodness, in where your, what your life is becoming. You need grief. And, and that’s, I, I guess I would love people to know that we as Christians, we often treat our emotions like there fickle things that should not be trusted.

[00:33:17] But emotions are actually just body States. God made you with a body that is good and that feels. Because he wants you to pay attention to your life and yourself as though they matter.

[00:33:35] Every emotion that we feel from fear to grief to anger are. Physical first felt physically as sensations and their physical prompts to pay attention to ourselves as though we are loved by God and to pay attention to our needs as though they are things that God cares about.

[00:33:56] So every feeling of grief and loss and even anger that we have can propel us to the feet of Jesus. Who, who stands with us in our sorrow. I guess I just really want people to know that your, your big feelings that you have right now are not the enemy and they’re not, and they’re not only things that are being used by the enemy to keep you from faith.

[00:34:24] They’re actually the very ground where your faith can be nurtured and sustained because God wants to meet you in your big feelings with his big love.

[00:34:36] Kay: yeah. And that’s the thing that doesn’t leave. It’s the thing that won’t leave us. He’s, we, we get outcomes focused. But he’s focused on us and on the relationship. That, uh, to me, that’s very comforting. But yeah, that permission to grieve, because I think we have really, Mmm. Struggled to name what is happening with us on what we’re experiencing.

[00:35:08]KJ-Ramsey: Yeah. And you know, I study a lot of interpersonal neurobiology and the father of interpersonal neurobiology,  talks about name it to tame it, that we have to name our feelings in order to tame them. You know, our feelings do feel really overwhelming right now cause there’s a lot of them and they’re intense.

[00:35:28] When we take time to name how we feel too. And that first starts with noticing your body. Notice where you feel tension. Where are you feel pain or, discomfort? Because that is often your first signal or way of figuring out what you’re really feeling. Notice your body. Take Mo. Take more than a moment, but take at least a moment to try to name what you might be feeling right now.

[00:36:02] You can use things. You can Google feelings wheel. There are lots of. resources out there where they have, it’s, when you Google it, you’ll see there’s like a really colorful wheel that has a ton of emotions. Words on there. You start in the center with some of the bigger feelings, like mad, and then you can trace your way out to get more specific from there.

[00:36:25] If you have a really hard time naming what you feel, you can use things like an emotions wheel to help you figure out what is this feeling. That you’re feeling, and by naming it, you actually are helping your brain and body relax. you know, it’s like Harry Potter, were, I think it was reminding us of like, fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself.

[00:36:53] Naming this Massive loss. Naming these feelings that we have actually decreases their power to overwhelm us. So taking the time to slow down and stop trying to get so much stuff done and just name how you feel that is actually what’s going to bring you back to a place of feeling that God is with you.

[00:37:23] Kay: Mm. Mm,

[00:37:24] KJ-Ramsey: It takes time. It’s inconvenient, but it’s actually what you most need.

[00:37:29] Kay: and I know a lot of us, um. Especially, therapists, pastors, certainly the people that are working in healthcare. But I’m thinking kind of the next, the next circle out, the people that are trying to help the helpers that are on the front line, um, are hearing a lot. Yeah. You know, we’re, we’re sharing stories and even, you know, we’re listening to people’s stories on the news and, but especially the ones who, in their role.

[00:37:59] As a counselor or pastor or hearing the stories there, the other people are bringing their suffering,  um, to us and maybe maybe there’s physical symptoms is the first clue that I’m bearing too much weight on my own. But what would you say to the counselors or pastors who are having people come to them maybe in more numbers than you’re used to or with things that you’ve never, where we’re all encountering things that we’ve never encountered before, but you know what I’m trying to get to there.

[00:38:35] KJ-Ramsey: Well, we, you know, as a therapist, I’m feeling the weight of my clients and the sum, I’m not just feeling my, the trauma that I’m going through personally in this, but I’m feeling what they’re going through too. And what I’ve noticed is that I can’t, I can’t carry the weight. It is too much. And while it’s a sacred thing to get to meet with them and to hear their stories and to make space for those stories, I have to make space for myself again.

[00:39:15] After having heard those stories, and I have to have ways to release the weight of their stories and their trauma back to God because he is the only one who can hold this weight.

[00:39:27] So I think that it’s paramount for those of us who are in helping professions right now. To first be honest, that we can’t hold the weight of the stories that we’re hearing and the things that we’re witnessing.

[00:39:43] We just can’t, our bodies were not made to encounter this much trauma, and that means we also have to be willing to stop. And to set aside pockets of time where we let ourselves slow and we acknowledge how futile we feel and fragile. We feel. And, um, take time to grieve what we’re hearing and to come back to ourselves and acknowledge how this worldwide trauma is affecting us.

[00:40:23] Personally, I think it’s. It’s essential and that, and, and sometimes that might be like, you have to take a whole day off. But sometimes that might mean, like I did this morning before our podcast, I had things I was dealing with before we started recording, and I needed to take a few extra minutes to center myself because I didn’t feel grounded.

[00:40:49] And I wanted to be able to be here with you and listen well and extend kindness. But I first needed to extend some kindness to myself that I, that I didn’t feel okay. So that was just me taking three minutes to breathe. Sometimes you might just have one minute, but when you acknowledge that, Whoa, that was a lot that I just heard, or a lot that I just encountered with somebody’s story, or w you know, the trauma written across their face of what they just lost.

[00:41:21] You get to take a minute to breathe and to, to release that weight back to God.

[00:41:29] Kay: Yeah. Because we can’t, I think that just that acknowledgement. And it’s not ours to bear, and I know we’ve probably all heard this a million times, I’m going to say it again, that the oxygen mask in the plane, right? Put it on yourself first before you help others so that you’re able.

[00:41:50] And I think we all just need to make sure we’re doing that. It’s hard because we want to, especially we kind of, if you’re wired to be a helper,  um, the tendency is to keep going, keep going, and keep going. But there’s a crash. That comes. 

[00:42:05] KJ-Ramsey: Well the thing is that we can’t fix this.

[00:42:09] It, we just can’t. There is nothing that we can fix. but what we can do is be present for one another even just through our screens. Cause that’s the main way that most of us can be present right now. And.  to be present. Like we can extend the presence of God through our presence with one another, but you’re not going to extend a grounded, gracious presence.

[00:42:34] If your body is dysregulated and flooded with your own fear and, or, or the fears of those who you just helped, we have to keep going back to the presence of God. The peace of God and grounding our bodies there and help our bodies to feel okay, to not be in this heightened state of alarm. So that then when we meet with someone again, we can extend the grounded grace and peace of God.

[00:43:05] So I think for helpers right now, that means taking a lot more time in between for therapists, taking a lot more time in between sessions to ground ourselves. we have to protect space to be still so that our bodies can keep coming back to a state of calm, to offer that first to ourselves and then to our clients.

[00:43:29] And you know, the same is true for pastors, etc. But.

[00:43:33] Kay: Yeah. Yeah. As we wrap up the interview, I do want to come back to the book  that This Too Shall Last.   because I, it is such an important message. I think a lot of people, um, and church that. Or wondering, you know, w what does this situation that I’m in or the sickness that I have or, or this experience,  there’s a shame even they can, can be there or a feeling that I’m not doing enough. We touched on that a little bit, but what do you hope will happen with this book as it comes out.

[00:44:12]KJ-Ramsey: I hope that the book will be a message of relief for those who feel like they’re drowning in sorrow. Number one, to be shaken by our suffering or to feel ongoing sorrow because of it does not mean that we are not faithful. That a story that includes suffering is a story that is still good and loved by God.

[00:44:53]  I hope that it is relieving to people that your life doesn’t have to look amazing in order to still be a life that’s full of faith.  And that. It makes people turn toward themselves and their stories with curiosity and compassion and courage that perhaps this God who chose to suffer as the means of showing us his love really does meet us in a unique way when we suffer.

[00:45:38] That perhaps these stories that are shattered by suffering are stories that make it possible for us to hold and know the most grace

[00:45:51] that perhaps we really are loved by God. Not for what we do, but for existing. And that perhaps because Jesus suffered and died and was Rose again by the spirit. But that spirit who lives in us can empower us to live these lives where we feel totally inadequate and totally shattered as full of grace and life and even joy.

[00:46:26] I pray that the book, um, just meets people with the compassion and the, uh, empowering energy of the Holy spirit to say that, Hm, maybe my life that is really full of sorrow can actually be full of grace and goodness too.

[00:46:52] Kay: KJ, thank you for being with us

[00:46:54] KJ-Ramsey: Thanks for having me. It’s good to be with you.

[00:46:57] Kay: Thank you for the book. Thank you for the articles and for the wisdom and the depth that you speak to these, these deep issues. You know, you speak to at a level that a lot of us are afraid to talk about?

[00:47:15] And you go there.  And so I want to thank you for that. And I wish you well as we continue on this adventure that we are in.

[00:47:25] KJ-Ramsey: The same to you. Grace and peace to you in this too.