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Have you ever looked at a situation you’re facing in utter disbelief and thought, "How will I ever get over this?" Lysa TerKeurst understands. After years of heartbreak and emotional trauma, she realized it’s not about just getting over hard circumstances but learning how to work through what she has walked through. Now, she wants to help you do the same. That’s why Lysa teamed up with her personal, licensed professional counselor, Jim Cress, alongside the Director of Theological Research at Proverbs 31 Ministries, Dr. Joel Muddamalle, to bring you "Therapy & Theology." While Lysa, Jim and Joel do tackle some really hard topics, you’ll soon find they're just three friends having a great conversation and learning from each other along the way.
Lysa TerKeurst:
We're not going to tell you what to think. We're going to give you a lot to think about. Welcome to this episode of Therapy & Theology. Let's get started.
We are wrapping up a six-part series. We've already done five episodes, and we've talked about some really challenging issues. We've really covered these conversations that need to be had, but maybe people shy away from having them. And most of the conversations are issues that women are facing. I'm here with Dr. Joel Muddamalle, welcome, and licensed professional counselor,
Jim Cress. At Therapy & Theology, we often like to say Joel brings the theology, Jim brings the therapy and I bring the issues …
Jim Cress:
And we're grateful for that.
Lysa TerKeurst:
… and experiential wisdom. Today, I want to turn our conversation a little bit. We've covered a lot of hard things, but today I want to say what might be possible. And I love this question, because we want to make sure that the hardships that come at us don't reside in us, to the point that they become impossible hurdles in front of us, that either we feel like we cannot get over or the difficulty of getting over it just seems to be too much for us.
So I want to give some inspiration through women that had to overcome a lot and what we might have missed out on had they not done the good and hard work of overcoming the hurdles in front of them. I think it's important to elevate the awareness of what these women did, because it's easy for us to look at the success of other people, especially people who did major things in history. I think it's so easy to look at their success, but underestimate the hurdles of what it took to get to the place, their epic moment that we read about or hear about with these women.
And I think it's also important to address some of these women we haven't heard about, even though they did epic things that are affecting our lives today. So Joel, I'm going to look at you first, and you can pick some of the women that's in our pre-conversations before recording. You had a lot of women that you really felt like it was important to put a spotlight on, and maybe people have not heard of them. I want to do a woman that people have heard of, and it's Martha from the Bible. And I think most of the time when we hear Mary and Martha, I'm just going to pose it to you guys. What do you think about when I say the Martha piece?
Jim Cress:
Martha, you need to chill.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah, I think of Martha who stayed back to do all the cleaning, while Mary sat at the feet of Jesus.
Jim Cress:
And that's not what I really think, I globalized it to go, everybody’s just like, "Man, you need to chill out." That's what Jesus is saying.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah.
Jim Cress:
There may be more.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Well, I think a lot about just the way that people sometimes will say, "Are you being a Mary or are you being a Martha?" And so, she's gotten very categorized in the one picture or the one moment in scripture where Jesus says, "Mary has chosen the better thing." (Luke 10:42)
Jim Cress:
The better things.
Lysa TerKeurst:
But I want to shed a spotlight on the fact that Martha, though she had her struggles and issues just like we all do, those same struggles and issues were still present when Jesus chose her to be the one who He gave, I think it's one of His most profound statements to. In the Book of John, there are seven "I am" statements that are recorded that Jesus is quoted to have said. And I think the most profound "I am" statement is the one He spoke to Martha first.
And I would like to pose that it was possibly the hardship that actually became what equipped Martha to be the carrier of this profound "I am" statement. So just let that sit on you for a second, because maybe the hardships that you are facing, instead of calling them hurdles, maybe we can say, "This hardship is actually the thing that will equip me to, and maybe even clue me in, to one of the most profound things that I ever do in my lifetime."
And so, let me give you Martha's "I am" statement. "Jesus reveals [said] to Martha, 'I am the resurrection and the life.'" (John 11:25)
Jim Cress:
Wow.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I just think that's profound.
Jim Cress:
That's awesome. Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And I think that it encourages me greatly that Jesus chose Martha, of all people, male or female, to give the statement to. And possibly because He knew that she would get busy with it and tell people this statement.
Jim Cress:
That's good.
Lysa TerKeurst:
She would be busy telling this person and this person and this person. I don't know. I don't why Jesus chose her, but I like that He did.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Well, I think I know maybe why Jesus chose her.
Jim Cress:
Do tell.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Because it's Jesus' pattern of choosing women. I think that a lot of times, Scripture is designed to train us to expect what comes next. And so, if you've got Martha, who is the first one really to be revealed to of the messiahship of who Jesus is, isn't it intriguing that the first people to be eyewitnesses of the resurrection are who?
Lysa TerKeurst:
The women.
Jim Cress:
Pretty cool.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Pretty amazing.
Jim Cress:
Yep.
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK, Joel. So let's pick someone else, maybe someone who's not in the Bible but had a lot to do with the translation of the Bible.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
So this is difficult for me, and Lysa is trying to lead me to a place, and I just want to let you know that —
Jim Cress:
Are you being manipulated, live on this podcast?
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
No, no. I know what's happening. And this is very good because Lysa knows.
Lysa TerKeurst:
It's not manipulation, it's guidance.
Jim Cress:
Thank you.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Well, here's why, because Lysa knows that this is something I'm passionate about, right?
Jim Cress:
Well, sure.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And so sure, it's hard for me. In fact, we wrote an entire biblical theology paper, A Biblical Theology of Women: Their Worth and Vocation. And so, really what I want to do is I want to talk about Deborah, I want to talk about Huldah. I want to talk about Proverbs 31. I want to talk about the women in the New Testament like Mary, Martha, Priscilla, Phoebe, Junia. There's so many people. You see what I did, Lysa, right there? I just went ahead and talked about all them without actually getting into them.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I know. I caught that. Thank you.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
But I think Lysa brings up a really good point. What about women in history outside of the Bible? And there's a gal, and her name is Paula. And Paula is woefully, woefully unmentioned. And I would say this is tragic, because Paula has a very important role. There was a guy by the name of Jerome, and I've got next to me not only a therapist, but a brilliant theologian in himself. And Jerome was known for what, Jim?
Jim Cress:
The Latin Vulgate.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
The Latin Vulgate. So at a period of time when Latin was rising as the known language, the biblical text was written in Greek and Hebrew. And the Hebrew Old Testament was written in Greek, which is the Septuagint. And so, Jerome took on the massive responsibility to translate the Greek text into Latin. Now here's what's interesting. Jerome is typically the only one who's ever given credit. This is a massive, massive part of it. But Jerome actually had a few women who were part of his inner circle who took part in translating the Latin Vulgate. They never get any credit.
One of them is this gal named Paula, and I want to talk about Paula for a second. Paula was an incredibly wealthy Roman woman who was widowed early on and had all this wealth. And so, what she actually did was, one part of her responsibility, is she actually funded the ministry. Not only did she fund the ministry, but she also paid for ancient manuscripts that were crucial for translation, she purchased them and bought them.
Now, this by itself, we could stop right here, and that could be the end of it and everybody could be like, "Oh, that's cool." It goes a step further. Paula actually was taught Greek from her father, but then she knew that she wanted to participate in the translation work. So what does Paula do? She actually learns Hebrew from Jerome. Now this is what Jerome has to say about Paula, about how well she was in her success of the Hebrew language. He said he found her an apt pupil. And this is what he said, "That she succeeded so well that she could chant the Psalms in Hebrew and could speak the language without a trace of the pronunciation peculiar to Latin." He's saying she didn't have an accent. She was so good that she didn't even have an accent. This is how important Paula was for Jerome. And actually, it was also Paula's daughter who helps as well.
But he decides to dedicate his version of the Latin Vulgate of Job, Isaiah, First and Second Samuel, and First and Second Kings and some others to Paula and her daughter. Now here's again, interesting social cultural thing. He gets made fun of. People are like, "What? This is kind of not common. You shouldn't be dedicating anything for women." This is how Jerome responded to these people. He said this, "These people do not know that while Barack trembled, Deborah saved Israel, that Esther delivered from supreme peril, the children of God. Is it not to women that our Lord appeared after His resurrection? Yes. And the men could then blush for not having sought what women have found."
Jim Cress:
Wow.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
This is how important Paula was to Jerome's ministry. At the very end, Paula ends up dying in Bethlehem at 56, and the funeral story says that six bishops carried her to a grave near the place where Jesus was born. The whole population of Palestine came out for the funeral, and it was pretty impressive.
And so, here's a woman who has to overcome a lot, a lot. She's got family stuff, she's got financial pieces of it. She's got a calling from God and managing all of this. She's got a cultural influence that says it's not a woman's right or place or responsibility to do this type of work. And she overcomes it all because ultimately, at the end of the day, it's not about Jerome or anybody else, it's about being obedient to God's call on her life. And it's because of Paula in part that we can now benefit from something like the Latin Vulgate. It's pretty impressive.
Lysa TerKeurst:
It's very impressive. And she was a widow.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And she was a widow.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Which also ...
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Her husband was a very famous Roman politician, I think, yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
But normally, when I think about widows in the Bible, I think about the instruction to care for the children and the widows.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Yes.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So that doesn't seem like an elevated position. It seems more like someone who, something tragic has happened and now they need to be cared for.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And she overcame the hurdles of her circumstances. And I like what you said, too, “the hurdles of societal norms.”
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And there's something else that's really crazy, Lysa. We have a modern day understanding of monks and nuns and kind of how that works in a monastery. Well, that model came from Paula.
Jim Cress:
Really? Really?
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
When Paula went to the Middle East to do all this stuff, she started a nunnery, basically. And so, she took other people who were widows and people that did not have opportunity, resources, gave them a vocation, taught them how to do language studies.
Jim Cress:
Wow.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And so, the nuns and the monks worked together in order to translate and to preserve very important theological pieces of content so that we can have them today. It all started from Paula.
Jim Cress:
Wow.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And I'm so thankful we get to elevate and recognize her today, because I think she deserves more recognition than she's given. And I want to pose the question: Imagine if Paula wouldn't have? Imagine if Paula would've just gotten stuck in the hardships that happened to her, and recoiled from life rather than pressing into life and rising above her circumstances to do something so significant.
OK. I want to do Phoebe, because Phoebe is one that, again, I don't think I've done previously a lot of study on Phoebe, but Phoebe was incredibly important because she was the one that delivered a very important letter from Paul. And that letter was what we now call today the book of Romans in the Bible. And Joel, why is Romans so important?
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Romans is massively important because it's probably Paul's greatest theological treatise. It's a summation of all of his theology, all of his doctrine, and it's going to one of the most influential churches of the time, the church in Rome.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So in order to deliver this letter now, first of all …
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
It's massive, by the way. And it's the long, yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
It is. OK.
Jim Cress:
It took a long time at Kinko's to get that thing probably printed, right?
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
That's right.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So in normal context, if I said to both of you that I'm going to deliver a letter, what does that mean to you, Jim? Just in modern day context?
Jim Cress:
Well, you'd probably email me.
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK. Yeah. And Joel?
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
If it needs to be certified or something, you might go to FedEx or UPS and give it to them, certify it, write your signature on it that you sent it out, and then get a receipt.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So we don't want to put that modern understanding on what this actually means. There's so much more depth of meaning to what Phoebe did. And according to Dr. Joel Muddamalle, whom we were studying this the other day, in order for Phoebe to be equipped to deliver this letter to the Romans, she would have needed to sit with Paul, learn from Paul, have Paul verbally teach her the principles in the letter, and she would have had to almost be the expert. Would you say that?
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah. Yeah. I'm falling into right on this. She would have been what was known in the Greco-Roman world as a courier. And so, she would have been trained and taught the contents of the letter in order to be able to rightly deliver it.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Because delivering it doesn't just mean she takes a letter in an envelope and just walks it miles and miles and miles and miles, or I don't know what else she had to do in order to get to the place where she could deliver the letter to the Romans. But she's not a mail carrier.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Right.
Lysa TerKeurst:
When it says "delivered it," she would have literally delivered the letter and stayed there to help unpack the meaning of the letter.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah. Some New Testament scholars would go so far as to say, and I would agree with them, that most likely she was the one when it hit the home church, the house church, to stand up, undo the scroll, and begin to read, to recite, the letter to the people so they could hear Paul's words to them.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And when people had questions about it, even when the leaders had questions, who would they go to?
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Probably Phoebe.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah, because it's not like they could quickly send an email to Paul and say, "Can you clarify this paragraph? Or can you take me deeper in understanding of this sentence or this word?" It would have been Phoebe.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
That's right.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So I find that extremely fascinating. And I think in the larger context of Scripture, it points to the value of the woman and the value of the woman participating in the spreading of the good news of the gospel. And certainly, her participation with Paul says that Paul respected her deeply in a society that didn't typically respect women. So what would have been more typical in that society, in that time? Would it have been more typical for Paul to have chosen a man?
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
You would think so.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
You would think so.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So I think it's fascinating that Paul chose her to learn and to receive and then to literally deliver, not just hand over, but to deliver it to the people.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And it's important too, theologically though, we noticed that Paul's language of her ... So you talked about her function of what she did. Well, Paul's language of her, he describes her as a diakonon. It is a deacon. This is a church office, a position of leadership, a position of a servanthood. And so, Paul backs up his love, admiration and respect for Phoebe, not just with the function of what she is to do, but by bestowing upon her a title that fits the function that she has.
Lysa TerKeurst:
That's amazing. And then, of course, it begs the question, imagine if she wouldn't have?
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
This one, to me, is the most significant. What happens? Romans doesn't exist in our cannon of Scripture?
Jim Cress:
Can you imagine?
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
That's devastating.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Devastating. So, OK, let's pick another one. Joel.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
So one of my favorites is Priscilla in the New Testament. Priscilla is an interesting one. In Acts 18:18, it's really... OK. The way that the language works in the New Testament, priority is given to a couple, and a couple is described, right? So my wife's name is Brittany. So if we're to write out something, it would say, well, "Joel and Brittany." Well, in the culture and the time, the first person has the priority, right?
Jim Cress:
Yeah.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
That's the head of the household, typically. Interestingly, in Acts 18:18, and in 26, Priscilla is listed before her husband. It's a linguistic sign of dignity and priority. Priscilla and her husband, Aquila, were tent makers and they owned a business. And Priscilla was key in funding the ministry of Paul. Some might even say that Paul would have been unable … And we're going to go to your question here, why is this so important? In fact, Priscilla and her husband correct Apollos, when he gets some doctrine that's wrong. So they pull him aside and say, "Hey, by the way, let's re-look at this and re-look at this text." And so here you have again, a woman in the first century church that is vitally, vitally important.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And respected enough to be listened to when she needed to correct that doctrine.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Exactly.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So I think that's amazing. Who is Dorothy Sayers?
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah, Dorothy Sayers is an interesting individual. Does anybody know, do you guys know the book that she's most famous for?
Jim Cress:
I think I know because I've read so much about her, but I can't think of the title.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Huh? Well, we're going to have to stop. I'm blanking on Dorothy Sayers.
Lysa TerKeurst:
It's Frankenstein, isn't it?
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
No, that's Mary Shelley.
Jim Cress:
Mary Shelley.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Oh.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
That's why you —
Jim Cress:
So Lewis talked about her.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Lewis talks about Dorothy Sayers. OK, I got Dorothy Sayers.
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
OK. Dorothy Sayers is so interesting. So I'm actually reading a book right now, guys, I can't believe I blanked like that. That hasn't happened to me in so long. I literally blanked.
Jim Cress:
We didn't stop the tape either. This is live.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
This is good.
Jim Cress:
We want to see vulnerability and resiliency.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Well, this is about ... You want to talk about humility right here? Dorothy Sayers. My idea. I forgot who she is. All right. Dorothy Sayers is so important. I'm reading a book right now and it's called The Inklings and it's the story of C.S. Lewis, (J.R.R) Tolkien, Charles Williams, and these other guys essentially who were part of this literary club. This is the place where Lord of the Rings was first kind of ideated. This was the place where the Chronicles of Narnia was first done, poetry, all that kind of stuff. Interestingly, there was a close friend of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien that is mentioned but was never a part of The Inklings, and her name was ...
Lysa TerKeurst:
Dorothy Sayers.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Yes. In fact, Dorothy was so important that C.S. Lewis, The Inklings, they lose, I believe it was Charles Williams. He dies, and at his death, C.S. Lewis goes to T.S. Eliot and Dorothy Sayers and says, "Hey, would you write a chapter in memory of this fallen Inklings brother?" And it was really important because she had a massive following and T.S. Eliot had a massive following. Guess who wrote a chapter and guess who didn't?
Jim Cress:
Dorothy wrote it.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Dorothy Sayers writes it. T.S. Eliot promises to do it and he never does it. The big question is, and it's really intriguing, that Dorothy Sayers is never mentioned as part of being a part of The Inklings, but C.S. Lewis has such great affection for her, admiration for her, that he includes her in these places. And so, a lot of people would make the argument that Dorothy Sayers was an honorary member of The Inklings.
And in fact, if it wasn't the cultural, historical, social, situations of that time, she would have absolutely been a part of their pub gathering and all of that. And I think of Lysa, and I don't know if a better person than you, from a literary standpoint, of a woman who should have by all counts and merits, she's the equivalent of a New York Times bestseller, been invited into the most exclusive literary circle, and she wasn't. But she didn't stop writing. She kept writing.
Lysa TerKeurst:
That's so inspiring.
Jim Cress:
Good, yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And imagine if she wouldn't have. And I don't want to. I don't want to imagine that any of these women would have been so held back by their personal obstacles or their personal hardships or heartbreaks, or even for some of them, the feelings of rejection and the feelings of how unfair some of the ways that their contributions played out and the lack of credit they got. And yet, they did. And I'm so glad we get to elevate their voices today and give them credit. And we could go on and on. There are so many. Is there any other that you just are dying, like, "We have to get this one in."
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
We've got Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, which is another incredible story, where originally when she wrote Frankenstein, they didn't want her to use her name. They wanted her to use her husband's name. And so, can you imagine? If we thought of Frankenstein and Mary Shelley had to use her husband's name as the pen name because it wasn't appropriate at the time, whatever, for a woman's name to be on it. And because they thought that the book wouldn't sell well, so it'd be better for her to ... Right?
Lysa TerKeurst:
And boy, were they wrong.
Jim Cress:
Wow, wow, wow.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And boy were they wrong. You've got Gregory the Great (Pope Gregory) who had a brother, and interestingly, they have a sister that nobody ever talks about. Her name is Macrina. The sister was the embodiment of what Christ-like love was for Gregory. So that on his deathbed, when he reflects back on the person who most shaped him and most taught him what Christ-like nature is, he doesn't refer to his brother who is a well-known theologian of the time, he refers to his sister. And nobody is talking about Macrina, but we should be.
Jim Cress:
Also, just remember ole Jesus, He took along some women who took along some wealth, the scripture says. So to really help Him, I understand it's the wealth and who knows what kind of wealth? Maybe some wisdom, too. But yeah, I'm hearing this whole case being built of all these women there and recognizing them or not recognizing them, their legacy is intact. Even if we don't know, well, you're being impacted. Think about you're talking about the scriptures, the Latin Vulgate and all that is, how much do we not know about the impact of women down through the ages?
Lysa TerKeurst:
Mm-hmm. And so, you may be listening today and you might be thinking, "Well, I'm never going to do something that great. These are epic, great stories." And certainly, throughout history there's so many other women that we could mention, biblical history and just world history.
But here's what I want you to keep in mind. We may be using the wrong definition of great. In other words, when we get to heaven, I do not think that we're going to make much of in heaven what was made much of here on earth. I think everything's going to be upside down. I think heaven is where the streets of dirt and gravel and asphalt here on earth become streets of gold. A crown of thorns becomes a royal crown.
And I think when we stand before the Lord, I don't know that the Lord is going to say, "Well done and good and faithful servant" because of the big, epic things we did. I think it's going to be more the daily character that we displayed, the way we paid attention to our fellow humans. The way, instead of looking at people in front of us as a crowd, an anonymous crowd, we dared to get close and we risked being hurt because we had relationships where we gave it everything we had.
And so, before you discount yourself to say, "Well, I'm no Dorothy Sayers. Well, I'm no Paula. Well, I'm no Martha." Before you do that, I just want to challenge you. You're right. You're none of those people and neither am I. But you are you, a woman of God, made in the image of God, created to carry the goodness and the glory of God throughout all the earth, even if it is just in one small corner where you live. And I think that we underestimate what great really is in God's definition.
So I think this applies to us all, and the common thread here is resilience. This is the common thread. When you have faced personal hardships, societal hardships, all the hardships, honestly, that we've been talking about in the last five episodes, these are really tough things. And yet, the purpose of today's show is to not only elevate the voices of these women who were, but the voices of the women who are.
And so, Jim, you're going to play a really crucial role in the rest of this show because I want, from a therapeutic standpoint, and certainly Joel, from a theological standpoint as well, but from a therapeutic standpoint, what is resilience? How do we find resilience? And what do we do if we feel like we just don't have it in us to rise up and rise above? So let's start, Jim, first. What is resilience?
Jim Cress:
Well, you've used the terms well of rising up. And I try to make it not simplistic, but indeed I do want to make it simple, that no matter what comes at me, and I've experienced this my own life with anxiety, that resiliency for me is no matter what comes at me, I have the ability, even the power in Christ to be able to rise strong. And even for people who are not necessarily Christians, they have the power inside them, just as a human, of whatever comes at them to say, “This does not have to ultimately defeat me. I understand the piece, too. You've alluded to it. But I don't feel like I have the tools or the resources."
Well, you actually do. They're already there. You have to learn how to access them and to access the tools. And sometimes, it's as simple as saying, "I feel like what would be easiest is me to go down a rabbit hole here and just stay in bed or just “poor me” or “woe is me” or believe with stinking thinking, you know that … And what I call the itty bitty pity committee inside and after that versus saying, “No.” We've talked about 2 Corinthians 10:5, “taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ.” (NIV).
So I don't think someone … And Dr. Brene Brown's research, she's written so much on this that would back this up. It's not something external, resiliency that I have to go find. It's already innate in me. I have to access it and rise up, even if I don't believe I can.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And when we were talking about this,
Jim, we talked actually about the necessity for resiliency to be something that's practiced.
Jim Cress:
Yeah.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And so, it is something that is inside of you, but just like muscles atrophy without use, the danger is that the innate God-given gift of resiliency that is inside of you, can be squandered if it is not practiced, if it's not exercised. Now, I think this is kind of what happens is we go, we look for the huge moments of resiliency, the massive hilltop moments of conquering and overcoming —
Jim Cress:
The epic.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
It's the epic. And that's kind of what human culture, human need desires. I'm more and more convinced, and Lysa, you already said this earlier, that there are a billion tiny moments of resiliency that we have, from the moment that we wake up to the moment that we lay down our head and close our eyes at night, that we need to celebrate. We need to remind ourselves of and recognize that these are training moments. This is the training ground to equip us for the larger moments when our resiliency needs to come up, because there are more epic moments and we need it.
Jim Cress:
And we get to practice this, by the way. This is going to low level here, real simple everybody, is one day I will lie down and I will die, no mystery there. And I will rise up as a Christian. You talked about Martha, and "I am the resurrection of the life" and I will rise up, ultimately. I will literally lie down and die and then I will rise up in a resurrection.
Every morning after the night before, where I got in the bed, I go in there, I lie down, I go to sleep, I go unconscious. Absolutely, the old timers all knew it, it mimics my coming death. And then, every morning I rise up. So His mercies are new every morning, but I literally lie down every night and rise up. In our bodies, we are practicing, so there's simplicity here that people miss, I'm practicing resurrection every day.
And David, in Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 said, three times he looked down into his junk and said, "Why are you downcast, O my soul?" (Psalm 42:5) Then he's looked up, that's resiliency. He looked up and said, "I will hope in God" all three times. Look down, look up. Resiliency is glimpsing at your problem and gazing at Jesus, when we have often flipped that. We are gazing on our problems, and "I can't get through this" and we're just maybe glimpsing at Jesus. It's a whole different resiliency, is know where your gaze is.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And as a personal confession, I just want to say that I want resiliency without the resistance. I want to be brave without the experience of fear.
Jim Cress:
That's human.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Right? And in the same way that there is no resurrection without the cross, and that there is no Messiah without the obedience of Jesus taking on human form and suffering through obedience, resistance and the reality of fear are almost a requirement for resiliency to take place.
Jim Cress:
Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah. That's so good, Joel. It's no secret that over the past eight, nine years now, that I've faced a lot of hardships. And I have to make the daily choice to be resilient. And I think my friend Meredith says, "Stack the days." And I just love that phrase. She was talking about, "Get into God's Word even when you don't feel like it and just continue to stack the days." And then, it's going to be significant that you stacked those days of getting into God's Word.
But I also think we have to stack the daily opportunities for resilience, because to me, it's all about proving to myself, not proving to anyone else, but proving to myself that I can do this. So I'm going to give you some examples recently, because I've been on a resilience quest, I suppose. And so, let me show you some of the small moments that speak to a much larger principle of resilience.
So recently, I was at the beach, and I love to fill up a big container of water at the beach and then go down to the beach. And the water needs to be ice cold. But one day, I went to get the ice out of the ice maker and I could hear it spinning, but no ice was coming out. And I was so frustrated. So of course, I could open up the freezer and stick my hand down there and get ice, but I had 10 other people around me and I don't want everybody sticking their hand down in the container and pulling out ice.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
I'm not even thinking about that.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Oh, I'm thinking about it, for sure.
Jim Cress:
Tint his OCD over here. Be careful.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And I am not a fix-it girl. I am not, at all. I don't fix things. And I've told myself forever, "I can't fix things. I just can't do it." But on this day, I thought, "Why am I saying that to myself?"
Jim Cress:
Oh, yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
"Why have I bought into the notion that I can't do this, when I can do other things that are much harder. It's just that I haven't tried it or maybe I haven't found the right instructions." So of course, I don't really like to read instruction manuals, so I did not pull out the instruction manual. But I will tell you, I removed the ice maker portion that all the ice is in. And I thought to myself, "What's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is I break the ice maker situation in this refrigerator, but it's already broken."
And so, I decided, "I'm going to go for it." And so, I figured out how to remove the ice container, dumped the ice out. There was a big clump of ice that had gotten down in there and I guess it was not cold enough to be all the way up in the freezer, so it started to melt. But it was still cold enough to go back and freeze. And so, the reason that the ice wouldn't come out is because there was this big clump of melted and re-frozen ice.
And I just thought, "OK, well I need to get that out." And at first, I thought, "Well, I'll get a knife and sort of chip away at it." And I quickly figured out that was not the safest option. And so, I just ran hot water through it until that ice melted, and I was amazed.
Jim Cress:
Eureka!
Lysa TerKeurst:
I put the container back into the door of the refrigerator, closed the door, put my cup up to the little lever, and ice started coming out again. It was such a victory moment for me. And again, that's not epic, that's so every day. But it proved to me that I need to stop saying to myself, "I can't." And instead, I need to just attempt something. And I may not get it right, but what's the worst that can happen if I don't, in these small, daily, little things?
Jim Cress:
That's a perfect, 4K, beautiful, technical picture of resiliency, because you got into the thinking part, "I can't do this. I can't." You said, "I believe this. Those are scripts that run." And you said, "I'm going to lay the script down for a moment, risk failure. What's the worst that could happen?" Listen to all that healthy self-talk. Nehemiah 5:7, you took counsel with yourself, "All right, let me go." And then once you start going, you used the knife and all that, but you didn't tell them that narrative, "And I doubted my way all the way through it. And I was just saying, 'You idiot.'"
You didn't do any of that. Once you start going, that's resiliency, right? You were like, "Let's see if I can fix this." Right? The thinking had changed kind of first a little bit, but then you moved into it.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So there's another statement that I found that I want to practice resiliency around. And that is "I don't." So I gave you an example of an, "I can't." But the, "I don't" also happened when I was down at the beach. So a friend came down, her name is Jessica, actually, my friends Jessica and Anne both came down to the beach. And Jessica loves to get in the ocean, and I was dumbfounded by this. And I told her, I was like, "Look, there are sharks in the ocean. Just because we don't see them doesn't mean they're not there. And there are jellyfish." I had a family member that brushed up against a jellyfish and then he had this big old welt thing on his arm.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Is this the same family member who then got a chunk of his foot taken off because of the ocean?
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah. Exactly. And there's sharp objects that you cannot see that are on the floor of the ocean. So as you're going from the shallow part to the deep part. Yeah.
Jim Cress:
Well I think Leviathan is out there, too. Anyhow.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah, the sea monster. It's there.
Jim Cress:
Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah.
Jim Cress:
Yeah. Anyhow.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So anyways, as a child, I watched that inappropriate movie, Jaws. OK.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Jaws. I knew this was coming.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And so that's my confession. But Jessica got tired of being in the ocean by herself. And so she comes up to the shore, and she had brought down two boogie boards. I think that's what you call them. Is that something you call it?
Jim Cress:
Yeah, it is.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah, it sounds right.
Jim Cress:
Yeah. Boogie board, yeah. So it is.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK. So she brought up two boogie boards and she said, "Which one of you is going to go in the ocean, because I want to do a boogie board with a friend." And I looked over at Anne and I could just tell Anne was not feeling it at all. And I said to Jessica, "I don't go in the ocean." And the minute I said it, I thought, "Why don't I?" And yes, there is a risk factor in going in the ocean.
Jim Cress:
Of course.
Lysa TerKeurst:
But I had watched Jessica playing in the ocean, swimming, doing whatever, for an hour and she was fine. Now that doesn't mean that I'm going to get in the ocean and be fine, but when I said, "I don't," I thought, "I don't really want to carry that label of 'I don't go in the ocean.’" Now obviously, I want to be safe and I want to put some thought into it, but that day I grabbed a boogie board and I went out into the ocean. And guess what? I had fun. And I saw Jessica wait for a big wave, and she took the boogie board and she kind of put the front half of her body up on the boogie board. And she just sailed right all the way to the shore. And she laughed and she just had so much fun. And then, she came out and she's like, "It's your turn. It's your turn." And it had just been so long since I had done something like that, and I thought, "Where are the other places in my life that I say, "I don't?"
Jim Cress:
Good question.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Lysa, I think that's so powerful. And one of the things that I think is important is that Jessica was a means of grace for your resiliency. So we talk about resiliency as something that's inside of us, but here's somebody from outside that calls you into a resiliency.
Jim Cress:
Yeah.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And this is the story of Scripture. We were never meant to do the Christian life alone. And there are people around us that if we have our eyes open, that we're attuned to, that are consistently inviting us into moments to practice and exercise resiliency. And this is the tension of the invitation and the acceptance of it.
Jim Cress:
Yeah.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Will I do it? Will I ask that question? Why don't I? And will I notice the joy that comes from the other person's action and say, "Why wouldn't I want to participate in that?"
Lysa TerKeurst:
So one last statement, and these are just again, everyday practices of resilience, I guess you could say. It's really a way for me to overcome, in a small way, what I need to prove to myself that I can overcome bigger things in a bigger way. But the last statement, so we already covered, "I can't," "I don't," and then, this is a big one for me, "But they might." And so, I will say, "I really want to do this, but they might say this," or "but they might not give me permission," or "but they might think poorly of me," or "but they might misunderstand me, but they might wrongly judge me." And so, I had this one recently when I wanted to do a retreat for women that have been through similar relational trauma that I've been through. And I really was passionate about it, but I had so many "but they might’s." "But the women might not come. But I have to charge for these retreats."
Jim Cress:
I know why you're laughing too, same.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And so, it was messing me up. I have to charge for these retreats because they're going to cost a lot because I want to bring in excellent speakers and there's a cost for the food and all the stuff. And so, I was worried, "but they might say that I'm profiting off of someone else's pain." And there were so many "but they might’s."
And I was wrestling and wrestling and wrestling, and I was so afraid to do this conference or this retreat. And then, one day it just occurred to me, I could spend the rest of my life worried about the "but they might’s" or I could step into this and do it and say something else. "But what if?" "But what if it really helps women? But what if it changes the trajectory of some woman's life that attends? But what if it furthers my healing, to use my pain for a greater purpose to help other people heal? But what if this is what God actually wants me to do?"
And so, I decided to do the retreat. And was I scared? Oh, a hundred percent. The day we launched the registration, I was so afraid that not one person would sign up. And I know,
Joel was part of this process, and to some extent you were too, because you guys are both going to be there speaking at this with me. And I just remember delaying and delaying and delaying.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah. Poor Michael. Michael's anxiety was skyrocketing in the process.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Michael is my son-in-law that works for me. And so, he was handling some of the logistics. And I just remember —
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And he kept messaging me, "Joel. Lysa keeps saying, 'but they may, but they may, but they may.'"
Lysa TerKeurst:
Mm-hmm. And then, finally we hit the button.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And what happened, Lysa?
Jim Cress:
DEFCON 5.
Lysa TerKeurst:
The retreat sold out in less than two hours.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Oh, before it even sold out, what happened? You broke the internet.
Jim Cress:
Yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And I didn't die.
Jim Cress:
There's resiliency again. You stepped out. And the body and brain will remember, "And I didn't die." Let us remember that. "I've been here before. I've survived every crisis and every day of my life." That's a good one. I use that. I use it with people. "I've survived every situation so far." The brain goes, "You really have." That's what you just spoke, truth to yourself.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah.
Jim Cress:
"And I survived."
Lysa TerKeurst:
And you know what? There were some snarky comments that people made, but there were so many more that people were thanking me for doing this. And it taught me a valuable lesson. And so, my point of sharing these daily small acts of resilience, my point in that is I think we all have small acts of resilience in front of us. And we have a choice. When we've gone through something really painful and really hard and really unfair, we have the choice to either hold up the banner of victim or the banner of victory, but we cannot hold up both at the same time.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And I'm going to ask you the questions that you were asking me throughout the biblical examples. Lysa, what if you didn't fix that ice machine? You would have been without cold water. That's miserable. What if you didn't say yes to your friend and go out there? You would have missed a bonding moment with a dear friend out on the beach that is a lifetime memory.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And an opportunity to laugh that I needed.
Dr. Joel Muddamalle:
And to laugh. And what if you allowed the, "But what if they says" to not do this retreat? How many women would miss out on the therapy and the theology and the biblical insight and the wisdom in order to process very, very difficult things?
Jim Cress:
And what if, ooh, this is the edgiest thing I've said on this podcast, don't worry, it won't be that bad. I love what Joel ... I thought, "Something holy is going on at the end of this podcast." What if you had not gone in, in the midst of your tragedy and all that went on and did your work? We call it do your work. And you came in and explored the facts and the impact and three, four books later, and now we're sitting in this podcast, we're able to talk about these things, and you are the epitome for me of resiliency and integrity, both things.
And now, look at all the women we've talked about, we land with you. You're not bringing this up, we are, Joel and I are. But look where you are. And out of this, many captives are going to be set free, already happening. So God is redeeming your story because you've actively participated in it, and you went into it ... You've gone into... I've watched you go into some serious shark-infested waters. They were, metaphorically. And you've gone in, you've done your work. And we've only just begun to see what will happen through this podcast and through what God is doing as the story is being redeemed.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Thank you, Jim. Well, I want to say, back to your point, Joel, and we'll wrap up with this. It didn't start by me grabbing the microphone and doing episodes of Therapy & Theology. It started when I was laying in my bed, drowning in my own tears, feeling like it would be impossible to get up.
And I think for those of you who are there, I pray that just even hearing this podcast today, which I'm not putting on the level of some of the other women that we've featured, but I pray that hearing this podcast today, if there was one sentence that helped you, then to me, I look back at where it started, and that was in that puddle of tears. And I think sometimes it's in the places where we have been wronged, where we have been hurt, where we have been devastated, where we have been devalued, where we have been so many of those other topics that we covered, maybe emotionally abused and silenced and all the other topics that we've covered in this series, it's in that place of pain where often we find a clue to our greatest purpose. I would have never done this podcast, Therapy & Theology, if I wouldn't have walked through what I've walked through and saw my own need for therapy and theology.