How do we embrace what seems so glaringly imperfect in the process of becoming more like Jesus? In Lysa TerKeurst's new book, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way, she says "Anytime we feel not good enough we deny the powerful truth that we are a glorious work of God in progress."
For over 25 years Proverbs 31 Ministries' mission has been to intersect God's Word in the real, hard places we all struggle with. That's why we started this podcast. Every episode will feature a variety of teachings from president Lysa TerKeurst, staff members or friends of the ministry who can teach you something valuable from their vantage point. We hope that regardless of your age, background or stage of life, it's something you look forward to listening to each month!
Kaley Olson: Hi everyone. Happy 2019 and welcome back to the Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast where we share biblical truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Kaley Olson, and I'm here with my cohost, Meredith Brock.
Meredith Brock: Well hey Kaley. I am so excited for the new year and what God has in store for Proverbs 31 Ministries. We've got some really cool things coming up on the podcast that our listeners are not going to want to miss. And to kick us off in 2019, we thought it would be real fun to let our listeners access a chapter of Lysa TerKeurst's latest book, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way.
Kaley Olson: Yeah. So cool. Well this might be one of the most fun episodes because for real, how often do you get to hear the author of a book read a chapter on a podcast? That's kind of cool. It's like nebulous in a way. We're hearing Lysa read this.
Meredith Brock: It is cool.
Kaley Olson: You know, by herself in her own-
Meredith Brock: I was in the studio with her when she recorded it.
Kaley Olson: Yeah.
Meredith Brock: Y'all, it's good.
Kaley Olson: I know. And there's really nothing like hearing the author say things in their own words. Because you always imagine what it would be like and Lysa just has so many funny scenarios that she tells about.
Meredith Brock: I know.
Kaley Olson: And it's hilarious.
Meredith Brock: To hear it directly from her makes it even better, right?
Kaley Olson: I know. It does. Well, the chapter that you're about to listen to is called, "Paintings and People" and you might be a little confused about the title, but just give it a couple minutes and you'll totally understand.
Meredith Brock: My favorite chapter.
Kaley Olson: Mine too. So if you're driving, you might want to stop so you can take notes because this one is really good. And at the end of the chapter, Meredith and I will jump back in and talk about practical application just like we do for every episode. Here's Lysa.
Lysa TerKeurst: Chapter Five: Paintings and People.
It was July 21st, my 48th birthday. I was in one of the hardest parts of the season of suffering. The season of dust. I wasn't able to do the typical, "Hey! Since this is my birthday, let me just do a little planning, a little dreaming" thing. Nope. The future felt impossibly scary. I could only face the future in teaspoons of time, not weeks and months and certainly not a whole year.
When there is an undoing of your life, there is an unknowing of every next millisecond, every next breath. The peaceful predictability of what you thought would be your life is suddenly replaced by a very unexpected darkness and silence you aren't used to.
It's like when the power suddenly goes out in an office with no windows. It's jolting. What was full of activity and productivity and plans and important details and bosses bossing and workers working, becomes as quiet as a hospice hallway. Darkness has such a way of swallowing up enthusiasm for the future.
No. This birthday would not be about looking at the year ahead and dreaming up how to build upon the previous 47. Not when a blackout of epic proportions had just spilled across the pages of all my hopes and dreams and assumptions of how safe tomorrow would surely be.
Year 48 for me was supposed to be the year of the last of our five kids going to college. A year of empty-nest bonding. No more carpool schedules or parent teacher meetings on a Tuesday night. Those things were all part of a glorious season of growing a family. But now, we could be carefree and plan a date on a Tuesday, a long walk on Wednesday and then really go crazy and decide on a Friday morning to just drive to the mountains or the beach.
The pages of our life were going to be as fun and predictable as one of those beautiful adult coloring books. Twenty-five years of marriage had helped life take shape. So, all we had to do now was just add color. Coloring in what is already beautifully drawn, is predictably fun for me. There's no stress when your highest risk is whether to color the flowers purple or yellow or pink.
But on this 48th birthday, I opened the coloring book and someone had erased all the beautifully drawn lines. There was nothing but white pages. Empty spaces. Endless possibilities of fear and failure. Metaphorically speaking, my life was now a blank canvas.
I think I shared this feeling with my mother. And you know what she did? She suggested ... no, actually, she demanded we get some blank canvasses and paint on my birthday. She wanted us to drive to the arts and crafts store, #hives and survive brushing shoulders with real artists. They would all know I was a craft store imposter and eye-roller at glue guns, a cringer at all things glittery and gooey, a passerby of the paintbrush. Which, by the way, I quickly learned, came in approximately 467 options.
Unbetting artists like me can stress over after we enter said craft store. Not to mention all the different kinds of paint. And then there were these zillions of color options that made me want to just lie down in the middle of the aisle and take a nap. Can you imagine my mom trying to explain to all the real artists why her 48-year-old daughter was in such a state? Thank heavens the craft store was slow that day.
So, the apron-wearing sales gal with pigtails, pep and painting knowledge had time to help us. We loaded up on supplies and headed home. As we were driving, I kept reminding myself that this was going to be good and fun and that there was no pressure to perform or do this painting thing perfectly. I was with my mother who had always had an overly enthusiastic response to anything I'd ever tried.
She would love whatever spilled out onto my canvas. This is the woman who heard me give a book report in elementary school and decided I should be the first woman president of the United States. Bless her heart. She's also the one who once loved a little story I wrote so much that she wanted me to call Willie Nelson and have him write a song to go with it. Willie Nelson! Because I'm sure Willie is sitting by the phone today waiting for a strange girl with craft store hives to offer him some assistance with his musical career.
And then, wait for it, she also wanted me to offer to sing it with him. Ask me if I sing. No! Nor do I paint, but I promise you right there in my little car loaded down with craft supplies, said mom of mine, was making plans in her head about which museum would surely need my first painting more. The Metropolitan Museum in New York or the National Gallery in Washington D.C.
No one has ever told her that some pieces of art are fit for a mom's corkboard, not a gallery display. I love her enthusiasm, until it's directed at me, while I'm holding a dripping, shaking paintbrush. My sisters join in, which helped divvy up mom's enthusiasm. I painted a boat. They all painted angels.
And while my mom was right, it was therapeutic in many ways, it was also a terrifyingly vulnerable experience. It was my moment to be the painter instead of the observer. It was my moment to face disappointment from the angle of an artist. And to be the painter, I would both display my ability, but even more scary, expose my inability.
I came across a quote from the book, Art and Fear, that says it best. "Making art provides uncomfortably accurate feedback about the gap that inevitably exists between what you intended to do and what you did." And that gap never stays silent. It reverberates with commentary. Sadly, for too many of us, it's a negative commentary.
This is such a ploy of Satan. He loves to take a beautiful moment of life and fill it with a negative narrative about our failures that play over and over until the voice of God is hushed. Satan perverts the reality that we are beloved children of God. He wants our thoughts to be tightly entangled in his thoughts. These are his thoughts. This is his script. Not good enough.
We hear it when we try to create. We hear when we try to be brave and start anything new. We hear it when we try to overcome what has been and step into what could be. Remember, while God converts with truth, the enemy perverts the truth.
God wants us transformed, but Satan wants us paralyzed. So when we hear thoughts like, "I'm not good enough," that cause us to shrink away, we must keep in mind that the enemy will do anything he can to prevent us to moving closer to God or connecting more deeply with other people. This “truth” we think we hear, is not truth at all.
In chapter nine, we'll talk more about the three ways the enemy attacks us. But for now, rest assured, God wants us near, no matter our imperfections. The enemy of my soul didn't want me painting that day. To create meant I would look a little more like my Creator. To overcome the terrifying angst of the blank canvas meant I would forever have more compassion for other artists.
You better believe, as I placed the first blue and gray strokes onto that white emptiness before me, the not good enough statement was pulsing through my head in almost deafening tones. And please make note that the enemy doesn't leave this not good enough script as a general whisper that passes through our thoughts. No, he makes it very personal. So personal in fact, we determine it's an authentic assessment of mounting evidence that we fall so very short.
We don't even know this is all coming from the enemy because the recognizable voice we hear saying it over and over is our own. "I am not good enough." How recently have you had this thought about yourself? Maybe yours wasn't with a paintbrush in hand, but I know you felt it too. Anytime you feel disappointed in yourself, the enemy will cue this script.
This paralyzing lie, it's one of his favorite tactics to keep you disillusioned by disappointments. Walls go up, emotions run high. We get guarded, defensive, demotivated and paralyzed by the endless ways we feel doomed to fail. This is when we quit. This is when we just put the kids in front of the TV because nothing in the parenting books seems to be working. This is when we settle for the ease of Facebook instead of the more challenging work of digging into God's book of transformation.
This is when we just get a job to simply make money instead of pursuing our calling to make a difference. This is when we coast in our relationships rather than investing in true intimacy. This is when we put the paintbrush down and don't even try.
So, there I was, standing before my painted blue boat. Making the choice of which voice to listen to. I'm convinced God was smiling, pleased, asking me to find the light in what is right. Wanting me to have compassion for myself by focusing on the part of my painting that expressed something beautiful. To be eager to give that beauty to whoever dared to look at my boat. To create, to love others. Not to beg them for validation.
But the enemy was perverting all that. Perfection mocked my boat. The bow was too high. The details too elementary. The reflection on the water too abrupt. And the back of the boat, too off center. Disappointment demanded I hyper focus on what didn't look right.
It was my choice which narrative to hold onto. Not good enough or find the light in what is right. Each perspective swirled, begging me to declare it as truth. I was struggling to make peace with my painting creation because I was struggling to make peace with myself as God's creation. Anytime we feel not good enough, we deny the powerful truth that we are a glorious work of God in progress.
We are imperfect because we are unfinished. So, as unfinished creations, of course everything we touch will have imperfections. Everything we attempt will have imperfections. Everything we accomplish will have imperfections. And that's when it hit me, I expect a perfection in me and a perfection in others that not even God Himself expects. If God is patient with the process, why can't I be?
How many times have I let imperfections cause me to be too hard on myself and too harsh with others? I forced myself to send a picture of my boat to at least 20 friends. With each text I sent, I was slowly making peace with my painting's imperfections. I was determined to not be held back by the enemy's accusations that my artwork wasn't good enough to be considered real art.
Again, this wasn't for validation, but rather confirmation that I could see the imperfections in my painting but not deem it worthless. I could see the imperfections in me and not deem myself worthless. It was an act of self-compassion.
We must get to this place of self-compassion if we ever hope to have true, deep compassion for others. Disappointment begs us to be secretly disgusted with everything and everyone who has gaps. Everything and everyone who wrestles with the "not good enough" script. But what if instead of being so epically disappointed with everyone, we saw in them the need for compassion?
The artist, the writer, the preacher, the prostitute, the teacher, the one who runs carpools, the one who runs races, the wives, the husbands, the singles, the co-workers, the teenagers, the small children, the larger than life superstars, the ones on top of the world and the forgotten ones at rock bottom. No exceptions. They all need compassion.
This is a much bigger deal than I'd ever known before my season of sorrow. On the surface, there doesn't seem to be much danger in not having compassion for others. But, make no mistake, a lack of compassionate connection with our fellow humans, is part of a much bigger move of the enemy. If he can distract us with the negative narrative of not good enough, we will miss the meta narrative, the grand overarching story of redemption in which God intends for us all to play a crucial role.
Understand that no time showing up and bringing compassion to another human is ever a waste of time. Rather, it's our chance to bring context, purpose and meaning to all of life. Quiet moments of compassion are epic moments of battle. They happen when we hush the chaos and shame of Satan with the truth of Revelation 12:11. They triumphed over him by the blood of the land and by the word of their testimony.
Jesus has brought the blood; we must bring the word of our testimony. We are most triumphant when we place our disappointments in God's hands and say, "Lord, I trust you to redeem this and return it to me as part of my testimony."
Our disappointments in ourselves and in our lives aren't just isolated pieces of evidence that we fall short and life is hard. No, they are the exact places where we can break secrecy with fellow humans and show up to say, "Me too. I get it. I understand. You aren't alone. Together, we can find our way home."
Just as breaking bread with another hungry human feeds our bodies with nourishment, breaking secrecy with another hurting human feeds our souls with compassion. We take the comfort of God we've received in the midst of our disappointments and use it to bring comfort to others. In the words of the Apostle Paul, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we are ourselves receive from God.” Second Corinthians 1:3 through 4. When we show up with compassion for others, our own disappointments won't ring as hollow or sting with sorrow nearly as much.
A few weeks into my painting adventure, my house was filled with canvasses and I decided it was time to go to an art show to look at other people's work. Now that I dared to be a painter, I felt I could break secrecy with another painter. I knew her terror, her angst, her disappointment, her wondering if she was good enough. She didn't need to worry about keeping all that a secret, because I wouldn't require her paintings to live up to any unrealistic expectations.
I would bring compassion. I now knew to stand before each painting with nothing but love, amazement and delight. I refused to demand anything more from the artist. I just wanted to show up for every single piece she was so brave to put on display. I fought against any negative thought as if I were fighting away a hound of hell trying to take even the slightest bit of ground.
Might I just be courageous enough to stand before her work and require myself to find everything about it I love. Release my clinched fist and pouty disappointments and trade my live up mentality for a show up one. It's so much more freeing to simply show up and be a finder of the good.
Break from the secret disappointments. Let my brain venture down the tiny, little opening of love. A sliver of light sweetness in this world wrought with dark judgements, disgruntled comment, jagged edged opinions and lofty huffs of disgust.
As I took in painting after painting at the art show, I showed up and finally, I realized what makes painting so delightful. It's their imperfections. We already know a painting isn't going to look like a photograph and that's what makes it art. It's been touched by a human. It's been created by someone whose hands sweat and who can't possibly transfer divine protection from what her corneas sees to what her fingertips can create.
Even the best painters will get something off scale, out of alignment, a shade too dark or a hair too thick. It will be flawed and that's where we must make a crucial decision. What will we do with disappointment? Will we see it as an unraveling of the precision we long for? A mockery of perfection, an unbecoming another disappointment to add to all the other disappointments we constantly feel? Or will we see the human behind the ink, the heart that dared to hold the brush dripping with color?
Remember that she was the courageous one. That she was the one who showed up, took the risk, braved the secret disappointments of others and lived and made her mark. I love her for doing that. And therefore, I can love her work.
We dared to have affection for a painting, not because of our tolerance of it, but because of our delight in the way it carries its imperfections. It's personally unique. It eloquently expresses something our souls understand in the unseen connection we make when we stand before it. There is a burst of courage that will explode off the canvas if we don't shrink back afraid.
The moment the painter laid down her brush and stepped back pleased, is the moment when she allowed that painting to steal a few beats of her very own heart for you, the viewer. Close your eyes and receive this very human gift without any demand for more or better and just show up and live.
The way we show up for a painting, is a direct reflection of the way we will show up for people, regardless of who they are and how they are; there is only one way to stand before paintings and people. With compassion.
That doesn't mean you agree with everything they say, or everything they do, but it does mean you value each of them as a person. A person who needs compassion. I like that word compassion. It's being aware that all of us fear the imperfections deeply carved into our naked selves. We all cover up. And then we all get stripped bare when the wins become losses.
Who do you want standing near you in those moments dripping with disappointment and saturated with sorrow? I can assure you, it isn't people who don't know the whole story. Draped in gold plated pride with mouths eager to spill out commentary like, "Well, here's what you did wrong. I would never have allowed myself to get in this position. If only you would have ... "
Nope, it's those clothed with garments of understanding. They have personally experienced that this life between two gardens can sometimes make it excruciatingly painful to simply be human. They keep in mind the Bible's instructions as we rub shoulders human to human: “Therefore as God's chosen people, wholly and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Colossians 3:12.
We are to put on each of these things every day like a painter puts on color he knows will connect his creation with others. God wants you, his creation, to connect with others and bring them light and life with the brushstrokes of compassion. Note that compassion is listed first in Colossians 3:12.
It's from a heart of compassion that kindness, humility, gentleness and patience naturally flow. Just as the best paintings have the most distinct focal point, God wants you and me, his favorite creations, to have the focal point of compassion.
When people see us, do they see the compassion of their Creator? If so, I guarantee when the enemy sees us, he shakes with fear. He isn't scared of the judgmental soul shellacked with a fake sense of perfection, but the compassionate soul who has hurt deeply and has come out loving, yes. She is one the superstars of God's grand story. And she's the one you want near you in the battles of life. She wears well the scars of suffering and can't wait to tell you her survival story, so you too can survive.
She has great compassion toward every created thing, whether it's covered in paint or flesh or dust. The only way to gain more of this compassion is to pick up the paintbrush for yourself and sit in the seat of your own suffering. If you've ever experienced an unexpected darkness, a silence and stillness you aren't used to, know that these hard times, these devastating disappointments, these seasons of suffering are not for nothing.
They will grow you. They will shape you. They will soften you. They will allow you to experience God's comfort and compassion. But you will find life-giving purpose and meaning when you allow God to take your painful experiences and comfort others. You will be able to share a unique hope because you know exactly what it feels like to be them.
In my own season of suffering, I feel as though I've licked the floor of hell. So now, everything else in comparison looks a little more heavenly. I promise I know paintings and people are more beautiful to me than I've ever troubled myself to see. Paintings and people need the compassion I've now gained. Paintings and people need the more hopeful outlook I can now bring.
Now, it's your turn. Hurting one, become a helping one. Pick up the paintbrush. Feel the tension. Feel the fear and the weight of every view. All the eyes, all the opinions, choose to be converted by showing up with God's life-giving truth. Not perverted by the enemy's deathblows of discouragement. Let your heart beat fast and furious and wild and terrified, drumming against your chest and begging you to get on beat with him. Show up.
People need you. People need me. People need to know God's compassion is alive and well and winning the epic battle of good versus evil. People need to know redemption is more than just a word. Put some paint on the emptiness. Color-correct your perspective. Forget the cravings for comfort zones. Trade your comfort for compassion. Don't welcome hardness of heart as easiness of life.
Get wet with paint. Put the brush to the canvas. Own it. Declare yourself a painter and when someone steals all the lines from your coloring book, determined to color the world anyhow, with the same generosity of compassion that God offers every day. Be like Him. The creator. The master artist.
Don't be like them. The hard-hearted haters. The ones who refuse to admit that their coloring books are missing lines too. The ones who refuse to break secrets with their fellow humans. The ones who would rather criticize than comfort. The ones who are loud with their opinions, but who have never suffered with a blank canvas.
Grab the brush. Enlighten the world with your color and attempts at creation. Don't try to be perfect. Don't pretend it's even possible. Don't apologize or strategize and don't minimize that you are crushing fear and judgment with every stroke. You are walking the way of the artist. You are simply showing up with compassion. And I love you for that. I love whatever is about to come to life on your canvas. To the glory of our almighty creator, God, the redeemer of dust. The redeemer of us.
Well, cue the Willie Nelson song, mom. And let's paint and sing together until the 48 candles burn out.
Kaley Olson: Wow. You know that chapter made me laugh one moment. Like I said earlier in the intro how Lysa just has her quirks and the way that she described things so funny.
Meredith Brock: I know.
Kaley Olson: Like her mom wanting her to put her painting in one ... A museum or something like that.
Meredith Brock: I know.
Kaley Olson: Can you imagine? Can you imagine? So, let's just pause and let our listeners know that for real, the Lysa they just listened to talking about getting hives in the art store, is the real Lysa.
Meredith Brock: It's true.
Kaley Olson: She's hilarious, but as much as fun as it is to imagine yourself in the paint store with her, because I wish I were there for that, I just want to take a couple of minutes and digest this with you and maybe help our readers unpack this and apply it to their own lives.
Meredith Brock: Absolutely.
Kaley Olson: I'm just going to kick us off. If you're listening to the audiobook, you don't know what page this is on, but if you have the book, open up to page 80, because this is one of my favorite lines that Lysa said.
She said, "Just as breaking bread with another hungry human feeds our bodies with nourishment, breaking secrecy with another hurting human feeds our souls with compassion." And then she goes on to say, "When we show up with compassion for others, our own disappointments won't ring as hollow or sting with sorrow nearly as much."
And so I want to talk about friendships because I think that can of course easily be applied to our own lives and how we show up in our friendships.
Meredith Brock: Right. How many of us have had disappointment.
Kaley Olson: Yeah. Right.
Meredith Brock: In their relationships and their friendships particularly. I know I have.
Kaley Olson: Yeah. I have too. And I think that I have this expectation of myself. I've really high expectations of myself. I'm a One.
Meredith Brock: Yeah.
Kaley Olson: So hello Enneagram One people out there. You know that you set high expectations for yourself and for others that are hard to live up to. And so I think, I would go onto social media and I would look and I would see all of these people post about hanging out with their friends.
Having friends giving or doing this fun friend date or doing all those things. And I would just feel like, "Am I a bad friend because I don't do that?" Because this year, the Lord has just been bringing things up in my heart that need to be cultivated and weeded out and just taken out of my life. Which is a really good thing, but it's made me wrestle a lot this year and made me almost not even want to show up. Because I just felt like I'm not that fun to be around because this is going on in my life and do you really want to talk with me again about this right now?
Meredith Brock: Wow.
Kaley Olson: Instead of posting these happy pictures hanging out with my friends this year, which we did have a lot of good times. I really, actually posted less than I ever have on social media this year. I left my phone on the kitchen island if we were at my house having a conversation with friends. That way I could just really talk and be with them.
Meredith Brock: Yeah. That's so good Kaley.
Kaley Olson: And let my friends just love me as I am. And the season that I'm in where Lysa talks about having compassion for yourself.
Meredith Brock: Wow, yeah.
Kaley Olson: If I don't have that same compassion for myself, I'm not going to have it for someone else to let my friend right now who's struggling in a job situation, be herself either.
Meredith Brock: Yeah. Kaley that's so good.
Kaley Olson: You know, so like I want to be able to let my friends love me through any season of life. And especially just breaking that secrecy to say, "This is what I'm struggling with and I'm inviting you into the messy middle of it" has helped me so much this year.
Meredith Brock: Kaley, that's so good. Can I actually ...
Kaley Olson: Yes.
Meredith Brock: I'm going to ... this is going to be confessions of Meredith.
Kaley Olson: Okay.
Meredith Brock: I don't know that I've ever told anyone this story but this just reminded me of when I was in college, I had a roommate who I really, really loved. And it was my first year in the college in South Carolina, Columbia International University, for any of my alumni friends listening right now.
Meredith Brock: Anyway, they assigned me a roommate and so obviously I had no friendship with this gal yet, but I was getting to know her. And from anyone who knows me, and for those of you who've been listening for a while, you've probably figured out I'm a fairly intense individual. Lots of goals, very driven, very forward moving. And I remember, there came a point in my relationship with this particular roommate. Who, she said to me, we had had some kind of disagreement and in my mind we were friends. I thought I was friends with her.
Kaley Olson: Yeah.
Meredith Brock: And she said to me, "Meredith, I don't ever feel like I could tell you anything. Or be myself in front of you because you're so hard on yourself. I know you're going to be just as hard on me."
Kaley Olson: Oh wow.
Meredith Brock: And I remember thinking, "Oh my gosh, I had no idea." And it translates directly into how people receive you. When you're hard on yourself, when you have these insane expectations of yourself, when you lack compassion for yourself, I think people can sniff it out in you. And so they're afraid to open up to you. Because they think, "Oh man, she's just going to judge me or think I'm not good enough."
Kaley Olson: Yeah.
Meredith Brock: I think that's so insightful, Kaley. I think it's really good that you're seeing this in a way that you can apply to your friendships where self-compassion a little bit. You know?
Kaley Olson: Yeah.
Meredith Brock: I loved one of the lines in here which said, "When people see us, do they see the compassion of their Creator?" And I think for me personally, in those years in college, I was in the process of discovering the compassion the Creator had for me. And because I hadn't fully experienced that yet, I had no compassion for myself. And so in turn, it affected all my friendships.
Kaley Olson: Yeah.
Meredith Brock: You know? So really good stuff. Really, really good stuff.
Kaley Olson: I think too, whenever we hear people say this at church. From the pulpit, they'll say, "Come as you are." But a lot of times we don't really take that to heart. And we feel like we have to get our mess cleaned up before we bring it to Jesus.
Meredith Brock: Yeah.
Kaley Olson: Just like we feel like we have to get ourselves cleaned up before we can go be with our friends and the ones who are supposed to know us so dearly. And so, maybe we just need to close with that little nugget for our listeners today. Wherever you are, maybe you have a friend out there who just wants to be let in and doesn't want you to come to her whenever you have things figured out. But maybe she needs to process this with you.
Meredith Brock: Yeah.
Kaley Olson: So whatever it is, don't be afraid to have that conversation and just let somebody in. Even if it's the smallest little thing that you're struggling with, it's okay. Because chance are, she probably has something that she's struggling with too that she's just waiting for you to open up with.
Meredith Brock: And just break bread with her.
Kaley Olson: Yeah. Yes!
Meredith Brock: Just like it says in this chapter.
Kaley Olson: Yeah.
Meredith Brock: Don't be afraid to break bread because then their true intimacy is found.
Kaley Olson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Meredith Brock: And that's what I think we're really looking for. Intimacy with our Creator and intimacy with the people God allows into our lives.
Kaley Olson: Right.
Meredith Brock: I know that's what I want.
Kaley Olson: Yeah. And bread. Carbs are good.
Meredith Brock: Oh, man. I love bread. Really I could use some right now.
Kaley Olson: Yeah. That sounds great. That sounds great. A good old croissant or something.
Meredith Brock: So good.
Kaley Olson: Gosh. Well you know, I wish that we could have more conversations like this and just take hours and dig through this book. Because it just makes me feel more normal, like we just talked about a minute ago. Maybe for someone out there listening, maybe it's been really refreshing for you just to say, "Me too" to a lot of the things that Lysa covered in the chapter of this book. Or even to the conversation that Meredith and I just had. You might be looking for a practical next step to take on your journey, so I'm going to let Meredith tell you about this.
Meredith Brock: Absolutely. We're serious here at Proverbs 31 about equipping you on your faith journey. The first is I think you need to go out and purchase one of Lysa's books, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way and start diving in. It has been incredibly helpful in my own personal journey. And we are getting endless stories honestly here at the ministry about the impact it's having on others' stories.
Kaley Olson: Yeah.
Meredith Brock: At the end of each chapter, I love this about the book, is that there's a section called "Going to the Well" where Lysa gives you a verse to remember, some sticky statements. Those are just kind of catchy phrases from that chapter. And then ends with a prayer to help you really process through what you just read.
It's so helpful. Because it's not just up in the clouds things that you can't apply. She's going to drive it all the way to the point where you can really apply and make some changes in your life.
You can purchase this resource at the p31bookstore.com. And just to remind you, remember if you purchase a resource from Proverbs 31 Ministries, it is helping us continue to do the ministry we do here. So we would love for you to jump on over to p31bookstore.com and grab a copy of that.
And second, guess what?
Kaley Olson: What?
Meredith Brock: We are hosting the It's Not Supposed to Be This Way Online Bible Study and we are so excited about it. It's going to start January 21st. Registration is absolutely free. All you have to do to sign up is go to proverbs31.org, hit that study tab and then hit the Online Bible Studies and it will lead you right through registration. You'll meet some incredible ladies online. Make some new friends that you can break bread with.
Kaley Olson: Yes, absolutely. And one reason we really want you to join in on the study is because at Proverbs 31, Online Bible Studies is all about community. So like Meredith said, "Breaking bread here."
Meredith Brock: Let's do it.
Kaley Olson: Imagine you and 75,000 or so of your closest friends. All reading through It's Not Supposed to Be This Way.
Meredith Brock: Eating croissants.
Kaley Olson: Eating croissants and talking through making progress through life disappointments.
Meredith Brock: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kaley Olson: Again, we're expecting thousands of women to join us and we want you to be one of them. When you sign up with Proverbs 31, you'll get access to all six weekly teaching videos from Lysa. This is exclusive to the ministry.
Meredith Brock: Right.
Kaley Olson: Really cool. Normally, you would have to pay for this stuff.
Meredith Brock: You have to buy all six of them usually.
Kaley Olson: Yeah. And they're really-
Meredith Brock: Get them for free.
Kaley Olson: Really good teachings, you'll get those for free as well as access to blog posts where our OBS leaders will walk you through practical next steps, to take what you learn from the book to the next level.
Thank you so much for joining us for this episode. We pray it helps you know the Truth of God's Word and live out that Truth because it really does change everything. See ya next time.