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In Ecclesiastes 3:11, we read that God makes everything beautiful in its time. It is comforting to know that nothing is wasted in God's economy, but all of it will be used for our good and His glory. You're invited to join us for poignant conversations and compelling interviews centered on believing for His beauty in every season.
Everything Made Beautiful (00:02.349)
Well, hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the Everything Made Beautiful podcast. And Rebecca George, we are so excited that you are joining us today on the show. I'm personally excited because this is kind of one of my dream interviews of somebody that I have followed and watched and got to interact with a little bit at Esther Press and just was so excited to be able to have you on the show. So thank you for saying yes.
Rebecca George (00:18.19)
Mmm.
Rebecca George (00:29.518)
I am just so honored to be here. Thank you for having me. And I can promise you that's the first time that's ever been said that I was a dream interviewee. So I'm honored and I love having conversations with somebody who's read your work and we just, we have similar hearts. So this is going to be an awesome conversation.
Everything Made Beautiful (00:44.835)
Yes.
Everything Made Beautiful (00:48.885)
Well thank you and yes initially it all started because honestly I think I was looking for something on Amazon and saw your book Do The Thing and I was like her name sounds familiar to me because we were already in planning for Esther Press and so I had seen your name and I ordered the book and I was like I love this it's like we're kindred spirits in so much that you said and now you've got a new book coming out and so
Rebecca George (01:05.365)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (01:17.633)
I want to jump right in and get to talking about it, but something that I found so inspiring was that your life mission, which I think we should all have one, is to leave people better than you found them and knowing Jesus more fully. So how did you land that? How did that become such a core part of who you are?
Rebecca George (01:38.67)
Yeah. So I love running. This is where this started for me. And many years ago, I was sitting at the expo of a race that I was running the next day here in Knoxville, which is where I live in East Tennessee. And Inky Johnson was speaking at this expo. don't know if you've come across Inky story, his former UT football player. And he now
Everything Made Beautiful (01:52.75)
Mm-hmm.
Everything Made Beautiful (02:01.721)
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca George (02:04.098)
does motivational speaking and things like that. And he was speaking at this expo and he had kind of taken that statement that we all hear when we're on a flight and they tell you to leave the bathroom better than you found it and put on your oxygen mask before you help anybody else. You know, those statements that we all hear and then we apply them to our lives. He had kind of taken that leave people better than you found them, leave the world better than you found it idea and had kind of built a talk around it. And as he was
Everything Made Beautiful (02:18.819)
Mm-hmm.
Everything Made Beautiful (02:30.799)
Mm.
Rebecca George (02:32.44)
talking about it, it just stopped me dead in my tracks. And I thought, yeah, that like, I resonate with that. I want to leave people better than I found them, but I don't necessarily feel like I can stop there. want them to know Jesus more fully than when they met me, not because of me, but because of him in me. And so over the years that just kind of developed into like, yeah, this is how I feel called in ministry.
Everything Made Beautiful (02:46.937)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (02:52.313)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (03:01.014)
It is how I feel led to pursue relationship and friendship with others. And so holistically, if I were to distill it down, that was kind of the statement that kept coming to mind for me. So.
Everything Made Beautiful (03:14.479)
Yeah, I love that. And you've called it a gospel centered approach, which those are the magic words for me. But talk practically about what it looks like to have a gospel centered approach to what you're doing. I know that doesn't mean that you are approaching every goal and dream, you know, okay, I'm going to share the gospel and then I'm going to approach this. So for people who may be unaccustomed to that sort of construct, what does that look like as we
Rebecca George (03:20.385)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (03:36.748)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (03:42.905)
consider the goals and the dreams that we have in pursuing those.
Rebecca George (03:46.722)
Yeah, I think it's a really important question to answer as followers of Christ, because I think many times in our culture, we can look around at maybe the bookshelves we see at a Barnes and Noble and whatnot and see a lot of kind of opposing viewpoints on this. see a lot of pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get up earlier and do all the things in your own name and for your own glory. And then kind of this other
Everything Made Beautiful (04:06.264)
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca George (04:15.05)
opposite side of the spectrum of
you
take this out, take my pausing out. But we have, there's this opposite side of the spectrum where we don't have to take the next step of obedience and we just sit around on our hands and wait for God to show up and move where we, we have next steps of obedience that God is going to ask us to take as we pursue using our gifts and talents for His glory.
And we have a part to play in that and so does God and both of those roles are big and beautiful and we have human responsibility and God is fully in control. I don't understand that fully this side of heaven, but we have to see that rightly as we kind of step back and go, okay, every single one of us listening to this podcast, me, you, Shannon, we all have been gifted with these gifts and talents that
God is lavished on our lives and they can be used for His glory. That's gonna look different as a stay at home mom than it will be in corporate America or in local church ministry or in nonprofit work or whatever it looks like in your life today. But there's a way that God wants to use you. And I think the more we can kind of look up and go, God, make me aware of that in my everyday life. I don't wanna just walk through life unaware of.
Everything Made Beautiful (05:39.535)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (05:44.194)
His presence, how He wants to work in and through me. And so the more I personally have opened my eyes to that and just surrendered to being available to see that, I've just seen God move and work through that. And so the more conversations I had with women leading up to writing this book, the more I realized like, this is something we all struggle with, you know? So I don't know, how does that resonate with you? I know you're passionate about this too.
Everything Made Beautiful (06:10.223)
Yes, I'm teaching a Bible study right now in the book of Ephesians and we've gotten to, you know, Ephesians 2, 8, 9 and all of the familiar passages in the book of Ephesians. But part of our conversation this past week was the passage about there being good works that were foreordained for us to walk in. And I think
Rebecca George (06:19.98)
Hmm. Yeah.
Rebecca George (06:35.246)
So good.
Everything Made Beautiful (06:37.311)
Growing up because I mean I was raised in a Christian home. Both my parents have been in full-time ministry my whole life. So this was very familiar language. But I think as women many of us struggle because we go what are the good works that have been prepared in advance for me to do? And is it okay for me to pursue those? And what does it look like for me to pursue?
Rebecca George (06:46.605)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (06:58.05)
Mm.
Rebecca George (07:02.52)
Mmm.
Everything Made Beautiful (07:05.494)
the desires of my heart and what I feel like God's put in my heart. I think sometimes it's harder for us as women, we have to wrestle with being too much or too confident or not humble enough and somebody who's going after what she wants isn't the kind of godly woman we've created a construct for. And so I think that there is a way
Rebecca George (07:17.012)
Yeah, not enough and
Rebecca George (07:27.928)
Sure.
Everything Made Beautiful (07:33.229)
to have a gospel centered approach to what we're doing because it says in scripture that we have good works prepared in advance for us. And for each of us that is different and for every context it's different. But I think there's a not being faithful with the talents if we don't pursue those. And you write so beautifully about this and
Rebecca George (07:42.222)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (07:54.584)
Mm-hmm.
Everything Made Beautiful (08:00.661)
One of the things you said that I made note of is we can choose to either resent our unmet desires or see them as an invitation to draw closer to God. So in terms of unmet desires, what are some of the ways that you've seen that play out in your own life or in the lives of other women as you talk with them?
Rebecca George (08:08.332)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (08:13.271)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (08:22.198)
Yeah, absolutely. We bump into this, I would say daily in our culture. I think about even one or two generations kind of removed from us. Let's say my mom and my grandmother, the way they navigated longing and waiting looked generationally so much different because of our culture, right? Whether it be
Everything Made Beautiful (08:27.044)
Mm-hmm.
Everything Made Beautiful (08:43.341)
Yeah, yep.
Rebecca George (08:44.79)
because of technology all day long. If I choose to, I'm scrolling my phone and I'm seeing everyone else's highlight reels of seemingly success or expanding their family, getting married, taking that next step in their career where I feel like I'm just sitting here waiting on God and wondering how he'll show up or if he will or what that will look like. And so I think it's a little insidious of the enemy to kind of
Everything Made Beautiful (08:54.5)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (09:14.126)
poke and prod at these areas of our hearts where we're longing for something more. I'm talking, you're not too late about two areas where I think most of our longing falls, which would be vocational longing, desire to grow business, make a career pivot, whatever, or relational longing, whether it's to restore a relationship that's broken, to get married, to have children, to become a grandparent, whatever that looks like for you, we're all probably
Everything Made Beautiful (09:26.543)
Mm.
Rebecca George (09:42.818)
balancing multiple of those at all times. And what I've realized in my own life is just as soon as I experienced one longing coming to fruition or seeing how God was going to choose to provide in that situation, something else bubbled up, right? As soon as I got married, I felt the pressure to have kids, right? And so, and that's one example of a million. If we were to all exchange our stories,
Everything Made Beautiful (10:03.043)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (10:07.919)
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca George (10:09.218)
But if we're going to be living in brokenness, side of heaven, until Jesus returns, and we're going to be bumping into that brokenness all day long and navigating, waiting, I want to do it well. I don't want to miss how God is at work around me. And I feel like for so much of my life I have. And so as I just began asking the Lord to just open my eyes to this as I was writing, there were so many areas that kind of bubbled up for me. Things like
Everything Made Beautiful (10:21.219)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (10:38.946)
despair, doubt, like is God really gonna show up and what's that gonna look like? Fear, like will I ever, when I was single, will I ever get married? Will I ever get to become a mom? Will my parents ever get to have grandchildren or a son-in-law? Like those results of how our longing might or might not play out and what our brains do with that can be really tricky sometimes. Things like resentment.
Everything Made Beautiful (10:41.263)
Mm.
Everything Made Beautiful (10:54.19)
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca George (11:08.108)
and bitterness that build up in our hearts. Idolatry, dare I say that, like elevating things in our lives above the position meant for God alone. All of those things I've been guilty of and have continued to try to learn how to navigate in the midst of longing. We'll never do it perfectly, but I think recognizing, ooh, that's bubbling up in my heart. I really need to deal with that with the Lord and invite Him into that because
Everything Made Beautiful (11:13.249)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (11:32.643)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca George (11:37.932)
I don't know about you Shannon, but like so many of these seasons of my life where I've been longing have actually been the most beautiful, transformative seasons of my life with Jesus. And were it not for those things, like I shudder to think of where I would be with the Lord because they have refined me and molded me more into the likeness of Jesus. And I want more of that as much as I don't want to long for things. I long to become more like Jesus. And I think our hearts,
Everything Made Beautiful (12:00.302)
Yes.
Rebecca George (12:08.34)
ultimately are grasping for what we will not experience until heaven, which is that perfection, right? That we're longing for. We're living between two Edens. Things are not as they were in the garden as God created them to be. It was severed because of sin. We live in the meanwhile of that and our hearts long for that redemptive perfection that, God, we'll experience one day. But our hearts have to learn how to navigate the in-between.
Everything Made Beautiful (12:13.847)
I was going to say yes.
Everything Made Beautiful (12:19.673)
Yes.
Everything Made Beautiful (12:33.231)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (12:37.229)
Yeah our our I would say temporal longings in this life are are just shadows of that greater longing that will not be fulfilled until we see Jesus face to face and it's I love that you called the book You're Not Too Late like there's there's just something about that that's like tell me more. When you were
Rebecca George (12:50.017)
Yes.
Rebecca George (12:59.766)
Yeah, yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (13:02.519)
when you were kind of conceiving of this content, what made you decide on that title and why?
Rebecca George (13:08.172)
Hmm. You want to hear the really cool story? I've not told this on a podcast yet. On a podcast. Yes. On a podcast yet. That was not the original title. It was not the original title. And there was a book that was released last fall that had the original title that I had chosen and woven through the entire manuscript. You know how it works. You've written enough to know that you're working on books and,
Everything Made Beautiful (13:11.949)
Yes.
Everything Made Beautiful (13:18.925)
Interesting.
Everything Made Beautiful (13:30.447)
Mm yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca George (13:36.462)
there was this moment where I was sent a text message from a friend of this, this, you know, beautiful marketing image of this book that was coming out titled what I wanted to title my book. We were, I mean, like we were choosing covers. We were that far down the path. And so the gift in it was we had time to really pivot and offer this author everything that she needed in the title that she had.
Everything Made Beautiful (13:50.349)
Yeah. Wow.
Everything Made Beautiful (13:57.327)
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca George (14:02.23)
chosen and had run with and also make mine distinctly different and in that I kind of had a choice, right, of is she my competitor or has God given me the opportunity to see that he is drawing more women than just me, just my heart towards this need that's bubbling up in our culture?
Everything Made Beautiful (14:13.217)
Yeah, so good.
Rebecca George (14:29.11)
And how beautiful that like, has a whole set of life experiences that are different than mine. And we both get to speak into that. Like how cool. And now Shannon, we're, we're friends and we've connected and had dinner and it's been like the most beautiful gift that came out of what was a really frustrating pivot, if I'm honest. And, I share that because I think that's an important part of the story because ultimately God knew
Everything Made Beautiful (14:33.102)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (14:37.23)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (14:47.139)
Mm-hmm.
Everything Made Beautiful (14:52.653)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (14:56.908)
what this book was supposed to be titled. And I remember sitting down with a mastermind that I'm in and just saying, here's what happened. Give me ideas. Any word has merit at this point. Just help me retitle this book. And one of us said, you're not too late. And it was in a list of probably 75 titles and something about it resonated with my heart. And the more I thought about it and we kept talking about it.
Everything Made Beautiful (15:06.349)
Mm-hmm.
Everything Made Beautiful (15:19.448)
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca George (15:26.434)
One of the ladies jumped in and said, Rebecca, this feels like kind of the raw nerve ending underneath what your original title was going to be. Like, yeah, you liked this one, but really what you're, you're getting, you're like hitting the jugular with you're not too late because that's really what women are feeling in their hearts. And that's what this book offers them encouragement in. So that was really its own beautiful journey in and of itself.
Everything Made Beautiful (15:36.909)
Mm.
Everything Made Beautiful (15:44.525)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (15:47.865)
Totally.
Rebecca George (15:55.682)
but I love that you asked because it's a really sweet part of that book.
Everything Made Beautiful (15:57.805)
Yeah. Well, and that's, that's what I love about it. That's what initially made me go, tell me more was the title. So that's so interesting that that wasn't the original. And it's actually interesting that you said that's what women are thinking and needing to hear. Because in that Bible study I mentioned in talking about the good works, I said, it's really only been, you know, I believe everything is preparation for the next thing. So
Rebecca George (16:05.806)
Mmm.
Rebecca George (16:26.147)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (16:26.927)
This is a holistic statement, but it's really only been in the last year that I have intentionally, willfully kind of stepped fully into what I believe my good works are because I was being prepared. And I said, I'm 48. Don't wait until 48. Step in as quickly as you see an opportunity. And a lady piped up and she just said, too late.
Rebecca George (16:54.381)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (16:54.431)
And it's because she's in her sixties and she was thinking I'm too late and immediately your book title came into my brain and I said, no, no, no, no, there's no such thing as too late. That's not how the economy of God operates. So be encouraged that what was a second title in your mind was the first title in God's and it has been helpful. you mentioned meanwhile seasons, which I, whoo.
Rebecca George (16:56.813)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (17:03.086)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (17:10.146)
Amen.
Rebecca George (17:18.486)
I'm so glad.
Rebecca George (17:23.362)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (17:23.509)
I love that word, meanwhile. I sometimes call it liminal space of the no longer and the not yet. But talk a little bit about meanwhile seasons and what it looks like to be in one and rather than resenting it or growing bitter, how do we settle a little bit in a meanwhile season?
Rebecca George (17:28.362)
Yes. that's so good.
Rebecca George (17:47.402)
Yeah. Yeah. I'll give you a quick story that I think has been helpful to me. My husband and I, the year we got married, we went to Israel. Have you ever been to Israel? Okay. So we saw olive trees everywhere, right? Everywhere we went. We went to the, we went to Bethlehem and saw, you know, the, the people who carve all of those beautiful statues and things that you can buy. And then we went to the garden of Gethsemane and saw the olive trees there. And it was just this theme of the trip. We saw olive trees everywhere we went and
Everything Made Beautiful (17:54.671)
Yes, I have.
Everything Made Beautiful (17:59.629)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Everything Made Beautiful (18:11.801)
Yes.
Rebecca George (18:16.908)
My husband is a gardener. He has much more of a green thumb than I ever will. And I could kind of see his wheels turning the more of them that we saw. And I kind of saw him Googling something on his phone one day when we were in Jerusalem and he was looking to see if he could find a species of olive tree that we could somehow grow in Mississippi where we lived at the time. My husband was pastoring a church in the deep South when I married him. And so we were living in a very hot climate at that time.
Everything Made Beautiful (18:40.088)
Mm.
Everything Made Beautiful (18:45.795)
Yes.
Rebecca George (18:46.594)
And he did his research and found this species of olive tree called the Arbequina. And what matters about the Arbequina to us in this conversation is there's a term that people use when they talk about how to grow olive trees in different climates. It's called chill hours. And what chill hours means is every olive tree has to have a certain number of chill hours in order to bear fruit.
Everything Made Beautiful (19:16.068)
Wow.
Rebecca George (19:16.172)
If it has too many, it's too cold, that tree won't bear fruit. If it does not have enough, part of the darkness and the cold and the churning of that is what allows that plant to grow. So it has to have enough. And our Bikiniya had like just enough chill hours to be able to produce fruit in our Mississippi climate. And so we get back from Israel, Dustin orders kind of a pregrown, it's already like five or six feet tall tree for us to
you know, plant in the backyard. And the next spring, once it kind of leafed out a little bit more, I was sitting on our back porch thinking about this book. And I just looked at it and I thought back on all that research he'd done. And I thought, man, isn't that us in our meanwhile, don't we just want to go like, okay, let me Google and see what is the
Everything Made Beautiful (20:05.155)
Yes.
Rebecca George (20:13.076)
fewest amount of chill hours I will have to experience in order to produce fruit in order to get to experience that thing that's happening that I want to happen in this liminal space of meanwhile.
Everything Made Beautiful (20:14.915)
Yep. Yep.
Everything Made Beautiful (20:26.073)
What's the shortest distance between two points?
Rebecca George (20:29.126)
Yes, yes. And it's natural for our hearts to long for that. But again, and we mentioned it earlier, it is those chill hours that actually produce in us what's necessary for us to get to experience what God has for us next. I mean, I think back on my writing journey. You and I talked about that before we hit record and I...
I've been a book girl my whole life. Like when my kids in school were playing doctor and school teacher, I was playing librarian. Like this has been in me my whole life. And I thought I was ready to write traditionally published books when I was 23 years old going to my first little writing conference. But I had no clue the life experience and the refining that God was going to see fit and necessary in me that actually enabled me
Everything Made Beautiful (21:03.844)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (21:25.208)
to live the life that I wrote about in this book, you know? And so that's an example that I think if we could all share, we would have those, but I think it's what we do with our chill hours and how we view them in light of how he's at work. And we won't fully, that's another one of those things that we won't fully understand this side of heaven. And that's the tricky thing. Many times we kind of, we equate the goodness of God
with our life being good. And so if my life is good, if the thing is happening for me, then God is good. And if the thing is not happening and my life is bad, God is bad. Whereas what has changed my life is being able to stand on the truth that God is sovereign. He is in control. He is unchanging and he is faithful in the valley, in the liminal spaces.
Everything Made Beautiful (21:56.406)
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca George (22:21.3)
in the meanwhile, in the, don't know how it's going to work out, just as he is on the mountaintop. And I'm just so grateful in the last few years, as I reflect on just our journey and what the Lord has been doing, that I can stand on that in the middle of not knowing how it's going to work out.
Everything Made Beautiful (22:24.943)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (22:39.587)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (22:43.117)
I love chill hours. I can think of 30 directions even that can go. That is such a good analogy for those meanwhile seasons. I have one more question for you about the You're Not Too Late book because then before we go, I wanna also talk about Do The Thing, which was how I was first introduced to you. But...
Rebecca George (22:50.358)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (23:02.157)
Mm.
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (23:10.475)
The kind of the other side of the coin of chill hours is the temptation or the struggle with envy and comparison when we are in a meanwhile season and we're looking around or we're scrolling on social media and we're seeing it seems others get exactly what they want or seemingly pray for something one time and then the storehouses of heaven open up and shower them with blessing.
Rebecca George (23:20.726)
Hmm.
Rebecca George (23:31.906)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (23:39.247)
What is the antidote for envy and comparison in our meanwhile seasons when we look around and see what seems like thriving in every direction for other people?
Rebecca George (23:47.022)
Mm.
Rebecca George (23:51.244)
Yeah. Yeah. I think the first thing I want to always start with there is what I'm not wanting to offer an answer to this question is like toxic positivity, because I totally recognize that there are moments when you're struggling with infertility and your friend gets pregnant and like, that's really hard. That's no. And what I'm not here to do is spin it. What I am here to do is to say we have a choice.
Everything Made Beautiful (24:02.04)
Totally. Yes.
Everything Made Beautiful (24:10.063)
There's just no good way to spend that. Yeah.
Rebecca George (24:21.558)
in our thought lives, God gives us agency over that. He made our brains such that we can rewire neural pathways in our brains that are very well trodden and choose, you know what?
this friend getting pregnant is a gift from God. So while my knee jerk reaction is to be frustrated with my own story, to be envious of her, wouldn't that be a creative distraction of the enemy to allow me to not see God's blessing in her life? And so if I were to distill it down, it's this statement of her win is not my loss. Like,
Everything Made Beautiful (24:54.639)
Totally.
Everything Made Beautiful (25:05.711)
That's so good.
Rebecca George (25:06.922)
a win for the kingdom, whether it be whatever that looks like, whatever area of chill hours you're walking through right now and it's happening for somebody else. It's, likely that you are getting to peek behind the curtain at how God is at work in your friend's life and your family member's life, whatever it is. And I don't want to miss that. Like I have a baby shower to go to in a couple of weekends. My husband and I, we've been married almost six years. We don't have children yet.
The first few years of our marriage were leading a church through a global pandemic. Like they were not fun years. So we are, we are having the fun that we did not have in the beginning of our marriage. It is not our season to have children and both of our hearts long for that. So, so it bubbles up in me when, you know, I'm in my thirties, all my friends are having babies. And even just this past week, I was kind of
Everything Made Beautiful (25:42.895)
I remember it well.
Yes.
Rebecca George (26:03.234)
having to practice what I preach of doing a couple of things. One, being really honest with the Lord. Like go read the Psalms, go read the Psalms of when David cried out to the Lord, how long am I going to wait? How, what is, how are you going to work this out? We can be that honest with God. He can take it. And, and he loves, he longs for us to bring those things to him. He already knows the desires of our hearts. He already knows how
Everything Made Beautiful (26:10.051)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Everything Made Beautiful (26:20.281)
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca George (26:32.514)
He's gonna work those things together for his glory. So I think being really honest with the Lord and even just real practical example, a couple days ago, I was sitting in my car thinking about going to this baby shower and I thought, you know what, instead of just ruminating and what I'm longing for that's not my story today, I'm just gonna go to God about it. And I just prayed like, Lord, you have gifted my friend with this life.
that she gets to steward this child is going to spend eternity somewhere. I get to be a part of, of her life and what and how you desire to work in and through that. And I don't want to miss that. And so I'm, I'm just asking that you would grant the joy that feels really difficult right now, because I know you're able to do that. And I just was really honest with the Lord.
And the second piece of that, and this is the difficult part, I think, especially as women go into baby showers or anything like that, being the woman who's married, who's been married a few years, who doesn't have children, a natural question to be asked at baby showers is, when are you having kids? And so for me in those situations, whether it's a baby shower or something else in an area of longing, something that's helped me is kind of pre-deciding how I'm gonna respond.
Everything Made Beautiful (27:36.057)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (27:43.82)
huh. Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (27:55.342)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (27:57.122)
because I can think through that and pray through that and not script out a conversation. But like, if I get asked when we're having kids, I can either be kind of smacked in the face with that question and be offended by it or frustrated and let that totally ruin my day. Or I can pre-decide like, okay, I don't even really know this person that well that's asking me. They don't know anything about my life. And so they're just asking me a question and I can pre-decide how I want to...
Everything Made Beautiful (28:18.479)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca George (28:25.686)
honor the question, honor my season, but not get torn up about it, right? And I can decide that now. So really being honest with the Lord and then being intentional to pre-decide how I'm gonna respond in situations where I'm experiencing envy or comparison, those two things have really been transformative for me.
Everything Made Beautiful (28:28.623)
Yeah. Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (28:47.267)
That's such good wisdom. My dad, who is with Jesus now, but I often say he made it a practice of his life to be unoffendable. And that's kind of the pre-deciding of like, I'm not going to assign motive or ill intent to this person who's just honestly probably filling space and doesn't know what else to ask. So at a baby shower, that seems the natural next question.
Rebecca George (28:59.405)
that's so good. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Rebecca George (29:10.562)
That's right.
Everything Made Beautiful (29:17.549)
He just did not get offended or certainly not outwardly and demonstratively offended. And that's kind of what that pre-deciding reminds me of is like, I can probably guess what people are gonna ask me and I'm just going to make it a practice not to be offended by it. And instead here's my gracious response. That's so good. Okay.
Rebecca George (29:24.757)
Yes.
Everything Made Beautiful (29:40.651)
So your book, Do the Thing, this is what I ordered on Amazon. First of all, it's a gorgeous cover and I'm a sucker for beauty. And something I can write in, which you can, because it's workbook sized. But it encourages women, and I just love that it's like, do the thing. It encourages women to step into their God given callings.
Rebecca George (29:42.958)
Hmm.
Thank you. Me too.
Rebecca George (29:54.04)
Yes.
Rebecca George (29:58.445)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (30:03.221)
I picked it up in a season where I knew I was transitioning out of a church staff role and I have been on staff at churches for 30 years. So this was a year ago now and, I was just like, honestly, it was a rubber meets the road moment of like, okay, Shannon, you've talked a lot about it and you were able to blame it on how busy you were at church. And all of that was great and kingdom building and wonderful. you know, everyone is wonderful, but
Rebecca George (30:09.23)
Mmm.
Wow.
Rebecca George (30:25.772)
Hmm.
Everything Made Beautiful (30:30.785)
now you don't have that as an excuse, are you going to do the thing? And so your book was so helpful in that. And so how can someone discern as they're going, okay, yeah, I think I'm supposed to do a thing. How can somebody discern whether a dream or a goal is from the Lord or?
Rebecca George (30:33.409)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (30:53.791)
Is that is that some kind of nebulous like nobody ever quite cracks the code? Like what would you say to people who are kind of who've kind of gone, I think I might supposed to be doing a thing. And I don't know if it's from the Lord.
Rebecca George (31:04.888)
Yeah.
Mmm, such a good question. And I think as you are asking that question, our friends who are listening already have something in their mind likely if their heart is stirred by this book, that's kind of swirling around and maybe it's swirled around for a month or two. Maybe you've been thinking about it for 15 years. I talked to women all the time who were anywhere on that spectrum of, man, I
Everything Made Beautiful (31:16.483)
Mm-hmm.
Everything Made Beautiful (31:21.849)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (31:26.083)
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca George (31:31.394)
had something happen to me or there's this situation in my life that has stirred my heart and I sense that God's given me this gift or this passion or he's given me life experience that has given me empathy to understand a need and other people or something to that effect. And even as I rattle that off, you're, you're probably nodding your head because something is coming to mind. And so I think we should listen.
Everything Made Beautiful (31:52.342)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rebecca George (32:01.282)
when our hearts are stirred towards something. Sometimes the path toward that, many times, will look very different than maybe what you're imagining in your mind. And I think that's what we have to grapple with a little bit. and the factors can look different. Maybe it is the actual journey to that thing looks different than you thought. Maybe it's the timing of it looks different than you thought, right? Like your ability and capacity
Everything Made Beautiful (32:10.415)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (32:24.75)
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca George (32:29.89)
to pursue this podcast, to write more, looks drastically different today than it did a year ago. And praise God, like he's provided the means and paved the way for that. But sometimes our doing of the thing many times will require us to pivot and shift our capacity and say no to some things. I love that statement of...
Everything Made Beautiful (32:35.715)
Yeah. Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (32:51.682)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rebecca George (32:55.274)
Every no that we say is a yes to something else and every yes we say is a no to something else. So I think if your heart is stirred and it's likely, especially as women, you're thinking like, I don't have the time. have all these responsibilities. I'm serving in my church. I'm making chicken nuggets for my kids. I, how do I do all that? And this, this thing, and I've, I've even challenged myself in certain seasons of my own life to go like,
Everything Made Beautiful (32:58.563)
Yes.
Rebecca George (33:25.442)
Do I have time for what God has called me to do? That's a really simple question. Is there margin to follow him? And if my heart, knee jerk response to that is no, something is out of alignment. Something needs to shift because I don't know that that's God's heart and desire for us to be walking around this side of heaven.
Everything Made Beautiful (33:28.627)
So good. Is there even margin to follow him?
Rebecca George (33:52.302)
always in a hurry, always feeling like we have to hurry on to the next thing and feeling an inability to faithfully obey and follow him in the areas that he's called us to. don't, that is not his heart for us. And so then begs the question of what needs to shift or what can realistically shift to be able to say yes to that. And sometimes that means
Everything Made Beautiful (34:04.269)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Rebecca George (34:17.998)
asking our spouse to babysit our kids, not babysit our kids, they're your husband and father of your children. But like keep your kids on a Saturday morning and let you go to a coffee shop for a half a day and write. Maybe it's you sense a vocational shift and you're just terrified. And you don't know what's on the other side of turning in your resignation letter, but you've already written it. It's on your computer. You've just not sent it yet.
Everything Made Beautiful (34:21.955)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Everything Made Beautiful (34:28.665)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (34:40.451)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (34:42.87)
And so it can play out a million different ways, but I think we have to be willing to confront what has to shift in order for us to faithfully take that next step.
Everything Made Beautiful (34:43.297)
You
Everything Made Beautiful (34:53.987)
Yeah, and you've talked about it can be a small step. I think for those of us who are like, I'm gonna do it. And so if I don't have all 300 steps, then I can't start. And it's like, what is the one small step of faithfulness you can make in that direction? And I have to still, multiple times a week, go, Lord,
Rebecca George (34:59.701)
Yes!
Rebecca George (35:04.344)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (35:09.034)
Yes.
Everything Made Beautiful (35:21.039)
The outcome is your responsibility. The obedience is my responsibility. And so I'm going to just do the next right thing. And you worry about the outcome and I'll worry about the obedience. so, yes.
Rebecca George (35:22.69)
Amen. Yes.
Rebecca George (35:32.043)
Yes.
Rebecca George (35:37.026)
And there's such freedom in that, right? Like I think sometimes we get so distracted by feeling like we have to have the whole journey mapped out. And I think our hearts as women, as moms, as just go-getters, we like to be visionaries. We like to know the path forward, but I have found a lot of freedom in going, okay, Lord, what is the next literal, like one step that you have for me to take? And it's that journey.
Everything Made Beautiful (35:54.084)
Yes.
Rebecca George (36:06.552)
over and over again with him.
Everything Made Beautiful (36:09.263)
Yeah, and I tell my kids often, scripture over and over and over shows us that blessing follows obedience. And so we're not always going to know what is in the promised land or what the next thing is that's waiting around the corner, but blessing follows obedience for the people of God. So, well, I could talk to you all day. I have a feeling we could literally just keep going.
Rebecca George (36:16.972)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (36:28.023)
Yeah.
Rebecca George (36:32.386)
Same.
Everything Made Beautiful (36:35.959)
But I want to honor your time and I'm going to have you back and we're going to talk more and that's going to be great. But I want to say to people, I'm going to link all of Rebecca's information and books and all of all of that in the show notes. She's also a consultant. Like there is so much. So go to her website, follow her on Instagram, buy all her stuff because you will not be sorry, especially if you've kind of got that thing in your
Rebecca George (36:39.58)
I would love that.
Rebecca George (36:56.046)
you
Everything Made Beautiful (37:01.379)
gut that you believe God's asked you to do something or to carry something or are called to something. Both of these books do the thing and you're not too late will be such an encouragement on that journey and a companion for you. So, but Rebecca, before we go, I want to ask you the question that I ask all my guests to end the podcast because
This is the Everything Made Beautiful podcast and we believe that God is always in the process of making everything beautiful in its time, even the things that don't seem beautiful to us. So if you could design your perfect, beautiful day, what would it look like from start to finish? And there are no constraints in the perfect, beautiful day.
Rebecca George (37:47.218)
I have to admit this question challenged me so much and here's why. The things that came to my mind are the things that require intentionality for me to carve into my day. And so what I would consider a beautiful, perfect day would be, I'm an early riser. I have been my whole life getting up and moving my body in some way, whether it be going on a long walk, I do that.
Everything Made Beautiful (37:51.951)
you
Everything Made Beautiful (38:01.604)
Mm.
Rebecca George (38:17.076)
often and just listen to worship music, listen to my dwell Bible app, talk to the Lord. Like that is the best way. The best version of Rebecca starts her day in that way. spending time with people I love.
eating food that I love. Like I have such joy. I'm such a foodie. And so whether it be going to one of my favorite restaurants or something like that, and just enjoying time and a great meal with people that I love, that would be a part of it. And vocationally like I'm doing what I love. So like, what a gift and a testimony to be able to say, like, if I was having conversations like you and I are having right now, if I was sitting at my desk with my Bible open,
Everything Made Beautiful (38:37.485)
Yes.
Everything Made Beautiful (38:51.47)
Yes.
Rebecca George (39:02.21)
talking to the Lord about a chapter of a book, like that's a perfect day to me. And so I've, I feel blessed that that is part of my answer and part of my life. So some combination of those things.
Everything Made Beautiful (39:07.395)
Yeah, that's so good.
Everything Made Beautiful (39:14.233)
Yeah.
Yes, I love that you said the things that actually I want to do are the things I have to make the time for. Like even that is profound. And I'm now thinking, I think that's true of me too. It isn't the things I have to do or the things I automatically do, but the things I can be intentional about putting in my day. That's really good. Thank you for sharing that. And thank you so, so much for being on the podcast. I know this conversation.
Rebecca George (39:23.189)
Yes.
Rebecca George (39:34.702)
Yeah.
Everything Made Beautiful (39:42.785)
is helpful to me and I know it will be helpful to so many who are listening and watching. So thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time.
Rebecca George (39:50.832)
I'm so grateful. So honored. Thanks for having me.
Everything Made Beautiful (39:53.845)
Absolutely. Well everybody we're so grateful that you joined us for this episode. We look forward to seeing you next time and in the meantime be on the lookout for the way that God is making everything beautiful including you and we'll see you next time.