Be Less Dreary | (Ep. 250)

Today we talk about social media, gratitude, and learning to be less gloomy and more thankful in everyday life.

If you enjoyed this episode, check out more from Rachel, Rebekah, and more Christian women at Canon+: https://canonplus.com/

What is What Have You?

Bekah Merkle and Rachel Jankovic are two sisters getting together for a weekly coffee date (in the car) to chat about whatever issues happen to occur to them. They cover the waterfront of topics from confessing sins to sorting the laundry to what books they’re reading at the moment. Unscripted and unfiltered, these two NSA alums invite you to join them for a chat about what have you.

Welcome back to what have you. I'm Rachel Jankovic. I'm Becca Merkel with a cold. I have a cold. She's the one who doesn't sound like herself, but it's not a stunt double. She does her own stunts. Just me. Hopped up on cough drops. So you're as as her calls them for unknown reasons. Fiamm. He can say cough drop, but when he has a good idea that he would like to eat a phiam, that's what he says. I am very funny. Yes. Well, I have this deluxe cold and but ignore it. I feel like the weather here matches my cold perfectly. It is peak slop outside. It's a really messy snow day. It's very sloppy wet snow muddy. It makes no sense that it's snowed because it's like not that cold. And we had a wind storm and a blue more of our fence down our fences in pieces all over the neighborhood right now. I feel like we drug up back into our yard, but it's like a mud pit. It's got a little bit of snow mixed in. Yeah, we're just we're just in the phase of needing to sort of a fall and down fence. We need to rise up above the externals today and be productive and joyfully. We're going to fabulous. That's what we're going to do. We're going to be like those spring bulbs that are coming up nonetheless. Exactly. Also, I have to tell you something really funny on our last podcast, which was now a little while ago. I was talking about my spice tins, which incidentally are now on my website available for pre-order. But in the course of it, I was talking about how even you Rachel with your big spices don't need more than half a cup of nutmeg gloves. And in that discussion, you said, are they called nutmeg gloves? And I was like, yeah, they are. And then the next day, I suddenly thought of that again. And I was like, I should just double check that. No, they're not called nutmeg gloves. I totally made that up. It does. There are people who call them that, but apparently inaccurate. Okay. All right. They are called whole nutmeg. And so if I've misled the public into calling them nutmeg gloves, I'm sorry about that, guys. If you have lost any scores on Scrabble because of that, I'm sorry. All right. Well, thanks for telling us out of that. But anyway, I had to correct it on the tins because it was like, no, I was calling it nutmeg gloves on the tins. So we had to reverse, reverse how you made it on a label. Well, no, the actual four whole nutmeg, I had done it as nutmeg gloves. I got really, we needed to get that corrected. But that was funny. I know. I felt like that was a real treat. But anyway, thank you for catching my, yeah. But it's true because I was sure I had checked it earlier. And, but anyway, I don't know. I saw a clip. I suspect everything on the internet now. And so just you can't trust anything now. And it's one of these funny, like it was like a morning talk show, but I'm pretty sure it's the same. Person, like I think I've seen this per I just felt like whatever it's probably not really real. Okay. However, still is a good illustration, which was a woman talking about gardening. Like they had a gardening special guest on. Yeah. So she's not the gardener. She's the morning talk show person, presumably British. And she was like, um, talking about the corn that and she's like, and the corn does corn on the cob. It does really well. And she's like, but that's the thing. I dig it up and there's nothing there. It looks it's the green parts doing really well, but there's no. There's no corn. What? She thought that the corn was a product. Oh no. Something goes on the stock. So she would be like, it was looking like I was doing really well. And then I dig it up and there's nothing there. And you know what? That struck me as a great parenting metaphor right there. Is it the fruit in your children is not one that happens down in the roots. It happens up later. You know, like hold, hold the line and you'll see the fruit later. But not like I think she was just. Yeah, anyways, it was funny, but my point is maybe it was just someone pretending to be stupid. So many hard to say, hard to say, but I can't say dad says that all the time about don't keep digging the bean up. You know, like plant a thing and then let it go. But that one, I don't know why it was just struck me as when your idea of what the fruit is going to be is. You think it's going to be under the ground. Yeah, instead of waiting for it to be above the ground, you know, and it feels to me like I've sent us in a lot of you might need to give us more of a group. I have said this metaphor Rachel because it sounds like what you're seeing is what all the Baptist would say, which is you have to wait a long time until you the fruit is revealed officially. I don't know why I actually think it's I actually think the Baptist problem is thinking it's that this kind of plant is a is a tuber. You know, like that we got to get down and get your rubric for this metaphor. Here's what I'm really trying to say and that is that that it's in John the whole thing about the less a grain of wheat. Unless it is planted and it dies, there's not going to be fruit. And I've said this lots of times, but it happens all the time that someone would ask faithful parents. And I know it happens all the time because we've heard it happen all the time to our parents where people are like, what did you do to get this fruit? What did you do to get faithful children and grandchildren? What did you do? And they don't know they couldn't tell you they're like they come up with things to say obviously there are principles and ways to live and there's lots of stuff. But I've always thought it was really funny because there's no they didn't have a checklist of 12 steps. No, and the reality of it is that they planted so many seeds that they let die and forgot about and they don't think about it as a thing they did. So they're not like so they did do tons of things all the time, but they gave them so freely and unconnected to themselves. Sure. Going to be checking on whether we were turning a profit on it or whatever that it was just given so freely and abundantly and they have no record of it. Well, it's true that it like if you think about it like that, the parable of the seeds falling on rocky ground or some getting pulled up by birds, right? Yeah, but sometimes I think parents manage to be both the sower going for the bird and the bird and it can be the weed. I can scatter the grain and choke it out. I can be I can't let it all I can't take it up immediately to see if it took really well. I think I was thinking about it because I've used I have used this illustration before, but but a lot of the time when parents are angry about the outcome like a child is being rebellious or something not good is happening. That they get out the equivalent of a photo album with all of the seeds behind vinyl. Yeah, to point out I did this and I did this and I read them bedtime stories and I took them to the Catechism class and I did this and I did this and I did this. And and probably there's no fruit that probably held it over their head too. Well, you certainly didn't plant it and let it die because you still have it in your cupboard. You still have the record of everything like you've been keeping receipts for every time you were up in the night with the child or every time you, you know, it was just like this funny problem. And I was like I've always enjoyed my parents are not lying, but what they say is woefully inaccurate of what they did because it'll be like what did you do? And they're like we talked at dinner and Jamie rides her an idea like they're it's like actually such a tiny fragment of the amount of seeds that they planted sure in our own life. But they didn't keep a record of it. They didn't. They didn't. They did it in faithful Christians every day. Yeah, and what that meant is that all the time you have things to plant and it's not your life work. Each thing that you planted is the fruit of your life. Like what you're saying just being a faithful Christian gives you a ton of opportunities to plant little things, but it's not like each one is your magnum opus. You know what I mean? Like everything every time you do something sacrificial or kind is not your like I poured my life blood into this, you know, like you better value it. It's just like it was so much overflow of just joy and faithfulness and generosity and and not self importance. So okay, I have something I want to talk about and I think I said this a little while ago that I'd gotten like somehow permanently locked out of Facebook, which has been great. It was like such a better life. I kind of chose yeah to be locked out of it on my phone anyway, but and then it was like I could get on it on my laptop. So I occasionally did if I was looking for a marketplace or whatever, but then I got locked out of my laptop and then I still don't have it on my phone, but somehow some way I like Facebook opened again. I don't know what happened. And so after not having been on it for a long time and then I look at it again and this is not this is not new. Not a new phenomenon, but I think that it just struck me a little bit differently, having been not paying attention to what people are doing on there. And I think that it like crystallized a little bit for me, but okay, back up for a second. I feel like on this podcast one of the things that we have always tried to do is we're trying to speak to the people who are actually listening to us. Like we're trying to say here are some things that you as a faithful Christian woman could do. We don't do the thing of here are the ways your husband should be treating you better. Here are the ways that your mother ought to be taking care of you more. Here are the ways that your co-workers could be more thoughtful. You know, it's more like let's just talk about what's right in front of us and our own just our own duties. The levers that you actually have the duties that other people have towards us, but rather what are the duties we have towards them. And I've noticed like there is such a thing and I mean it's a thing amongst conservative Christians, not just out there in the world victim farming, but like this is a conservative Christian thing where it's like I'm going to do a long post that the net result is you will feel like the deacons in your church. Are not taking care of you the way they should. Here's a post that will tell you that your husband is not caring for you at the level that he should be caring for you. Here's a post that will make you notice that the other women in the church are not in fact living up to what they should be. And the thing is is that anytime you have somebody who is doing that, it is the entire goal is really to just arouse discontent. Slash envy. It's not it's not going to make your husband treat you better is going to make you feel wronged by your husband. It's actually okay. A thing in the in the GM is the RPE which is the rate of perceived exertion. Like what is your perception of how hard that was. So you would be like sure. If you say it's really low on that you could have done a lot more. And it's high you couldn't have done more than that. Okay. It's basically a way of telling everyone your RPE is through the roof. You are exerting yourself so much. You're miserable. No one's helping. You can't survive like this. It's a way of making people quitters which is the thing that's interesting is instead of it talks like we're going to pump you up and you're going to get out of it. You're going to pump you up and build you up and encourage you because you deserve something. But what it's really doing is saying you should try less. You should do less. You should not expect to just feel oppressed. But the result is it will stop you from. Yeah. And I was just seeing like here are posts about all the ways you are being failed by the boomer generation. Here are all the ways in which the you know elders of your church are not. You know like they're not. Nobody does. Nobody does any big. Let's take a look at the things that the boomers did that made your life a lot better than it would have been. Yeah. What are your duties to the boomers in your life? Yeah. It's more about what are the duties of the boomers towards more? What should boomers have started doing years ago to make my life better? Yes. But what I'm saying is I think that whenever you notice that that is the thing you're being fed, I would just say seriously turn it off and follow those people. Yeah. Get out. Because they are just like they're not actually not life. You mean encouraging you onto loving good works. No. 100% not. And even though it looks like, and this is I think the key, it looks like they're encouraging people onto loving good works. Because look, they're encouraging the boomers on to loving good works. This is the big thing. They're encouraging the husbands on to like good works. I've mentioned these kinds of things before, but they go around. They rampage around Christian circles. Like stuff like the list of things that no one should have said to me when I was grieving. Yeah. Like how to not be like how everyone else was in my life when I had a miscarriage. That's it's like itemizing the things you should never have said. You are not allowed to do that. You have to do this. You can't do that. And the thing is that it's really just trying to curate your own rules for how people are going to engage with you. And the thing is that it's not the Christian way. You know? Yeah. One of my husband's sayings that has stuck and expanded to us is when someone who's a believer does a majestically weird thing. And you know, like something that really will take the wind out of your sails or give you a real surprise. A real like, whoa. I didn't expect that. You know? Yeah. Let's go just say you got to love the body. And that's that's our takeaway when you're like that was outrageous. But you got to love the body like this is this guy. And what is it helpful is to process everything like it's an offense against you in some way. Like some woman says something crazy to you at church. Yeah. And you're like, that was an amazing insult. Yeah. You know, like what was she doing? Because that was so weird to say that. And then you're like, but you know what? I even like there's no reason to read it as malice or a deep wound or whatever. It's just like, wow. Yeah. You got to love the body. You know? It's true. Surprises happen. I think what I mean is like if we as wives spent a lot of our time reading books for husbands to see what he could be doing better. That would not be a great use of our time nor would it be good for our soul. Now, there's plenty of times where I can see totally. Yeah, read the book on marriage and half of it's about the husband's duties and half's about the wives and whatever. I'm not saying don't read a book about that. But you know what I mean. I usually would say the one place that I would encourage women to really reflect on what men should be doing, what your husband should be doing is in so far as it is a confrontation to yourself. Because one of the things that women can do and do is resent their husband for being a faithful husband for being a faithful man. And they don't categorize it that way. Okay. So like say your husband is sexually interested in you and you're like, how dare he be so selfish. Sure. Well, he's actually obeying the Lord's command to him to be in to you. Sure. Okay. So, but you can skew that in a way that is like this is, I'm not saying I didn't mean to dive into something way too big here, but I'm just trying to say you can tell yourself a story where you're saying he's being selfish. She's doing whatever or you can say this is a faithful husband who is obeying the Lord in having and in only going after his wife. Sure. And I should get over my own to about it. And then you're like or or things like your husband taking the kids to do something and behaving like a father to them and not a mother so it'll help her. Yeah. And then when women then get outraged about him getting them donuts or something like he went off script and that's none of his business, but the reality is that's him being a faithful husband. And so it's easy to the only way I'm trying to say is respect when he's doing the things that are things that he is called to. And I don't be I just mean don't not think about the fact that he's being a faithful man when he is right. I think what all I'm trying to do is with the kids in your organized living room. Yeah, I'm talking about the sort of mood you get into where you flip through the book on marriage to the passage pertaining to him and leave it helpfully open. You didn't do that. You're hopefully open on the table with the highlighted passage like when you're looking for all the ways that he could apply scripture to himself more. It's like now you've gotten into a little bit of a like actually you're swizzling around and the bad stuff. What if you tried okay, but okay, but guys I'm going to say I got to come around. I'm just fighting for the other team today. I'm really I'm not, but this is not a equal way to measure situation because if your husband is like I'd like you to read this about something that he wants you to work on. Yeah, that's actually he actually has the authority to do it. Yeah, so while I'm not saying well, we're saying don't you be going around trying to lead him that way. It's not the same thing as saying it's unfair and a foul play if he says you've been really complaining about this a lot and I think you should read this and think about it. You would not get to say none of your beeswax. No, and it is true that a husband is in a different relationship to his wife's to a wife is to her husband. But I think what I mean is for any Christian you should not be looking at the ways that everyone else could obey God better. It's how could you obey God better? What is the is an Ambrose Beers who says the New Testament is a the devil's dictionary. Is it the Bible? It's no, it's a New Testament is a collection of works or something admirably suited to the needs of his neighbor. Christian believes the New Testament is a collection. Devinely inspired book admirably suited to the needs of his neighbor spiritual needs of his neighbor. And that is the attitude I'm saying you should avoid. And what I'm saying is that it seems to me that social media is helping you see all the ways that your neighbor could do a better job of loving you. And if you find yourself in those, I've just seen unfollow, just mute that person because they are not helping you. The version of setting your mind on things above, it's get out of that radio station that your dude in so many ways that like, okay, I feel like people do this about your job where somebody comes along to say like, this is how your boss should be treating you. If he was a good Christian boss, this is what he would be doing. Or, you know, this is how the elder board ought to be handling complaints. There's a couple of brothers. I think I think it's the Harbaugh brothers. I think that or both NFL coaches and their dad was a football coach in there. Whatever people who I really actually know football would know them more. I think they're Catholic. They're, but they're some kind of faith involved in their life and their Luke showed me a video of them talking about their childhood. Their dad sounds like a real, real fun guy. It's really what it comes down to. It's two brothers and they're talking about how they're like, you know, things weren't that great. Like, something happened to our car. We didn't have a car that would drive. We had to walk to school and their dad got him up and he was like, they're like, where's the car? And he's like, get your basketballs boys. We're walking today. And he was like, 100 dribbles with your right hand, 100 with your left hand. And they take off down the street, drivelated their dad would say, who has it better than us? And they were like, nobody. And who has it better than us? It was like, is it very sweet? I mean, it's such a sweet thing because all the things that they were talking about was totally their reflections on a really good father. Where you have strongly shaped, nobody has it better than us. And it wasn't pride. It was gratitude. It was just like overwhelming gratitude. And there is so much in your life, no matter how hard your life actually is, that would be better with a little bit of that treatment. A little bit of the like, this is amazing. Like, who has it better than us? Like, nope, like, God has been so abundantly kind. And when you're getting out, what really is a microscope to find the ways that you're like, I should have it better than this. It's no kind of a rallying cry. It doesn't inspire any positive activity. No. And so if you are being encouraged by your social media to sit and go, yeah, where are the tightest two women? Where are the older women? Why aren't they clustering around me? Specifically, why aren't they doing my jobs I don't want to do? Why aren't they making me feel better? Why aren't they? But like, yeah, instead of that, you should reframe it and think, I wonder if I'm really taking care of the older women in church the way I should. Like, I wonder if there are any widows that I really ought to, you know, look into my capacity and what, like rather than thinking, what are all the older women doing for me? You should be thinking, I wonder if I ought to be doing anything for their children. I know the widow with the oil. Like, that's perfect, the Old Testament story of Tel-Ai-Jah, right? Not a Lysha, or is it a Lysha? So a Lysha. Yeah, and when it's that she's down to the last oil and they're going to die and things are pretty rough. And he's like, go ahead and fill up every vessel anywhere pouring from her oil. And she does and they fill up tons of, and it's a miraculous provision. But one of the things is, he didn't just say, look, all the pots are full of them now. It was like, you need to pour. And there's so much in life that I feel like, God, everything we have was a gift. You didn't make a little stash of rue that now you're going to parcel out your energy. It's definitely a gift and it will be given back to you. Press down and shaking down. And running over will be put into your bosom. And the point is though, that it doesn't, you don't overflow so you have a thing to give. It's not like where you stand around. We had friends who were missionaries and they would get missionary care packages. Sometimes, you know, people sending them little boosters for their spirit. And they had some person who sent them all of their once used tea bags. They used them, dried them out and sent them to the missionaries to enjoy. And you know what that is? It's not giving. It's the funniest thing to, I mean, it's just wild. But, but, and this is an important thing. It's like, it's not, we're not supposed to be stingy giving. Who gave you this in the first place? You open your own hands and God does provide. Like, all the time. And that was probably, I actually think, probably the biggest. Like, learning curve for me when I had a bunch of little kids was that. Was what it feels like to give when you don't. When, like, what the mechanism is of giving when you actually feel like you're confident there's nothing in there. You know, like, like, listen, I know, you know, we all know I have nothing in the tank. So why, how could I give it to you right now? Right. And then that, that, it's like the Indiana Jones and the last crusade, right? Where he steps out and then you find out that there is a path there. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's like that kind of a faith. It's the faith step off a cliff that turns out to not be a cliff, but just a path. Right. And, but you have to do that first. That first step is feels like. Right. And I feel like having a bunch of little kids was really where I learned that because up until that point, I had not been in such a physical frizzle where you felt so much at the end of your own capacity all the time. Like, yeah, that took me up to be like, but I think my point here is like, okay, imagine you are a young woman. You are just gutted, exhausted. You feel like you're down there in the drugs. You know, one thing that will not perk you up or uplift you in any way is to have somebody come along and whisper in your ear like, it's really bad, isn't it? Like, think of all the things. Who expected you to have all the children in three years? Like, if any of these older women in the church cared, they would see how tired you are. They would be bringing you a meal. They would be coming over to babysit. You know, like, that is not when you're already down in the deep weeds, having a little helpful voice come along to tell you that this is really mistreated. That is not helpful. And that's why I'm saying that. It's not helpful. It's positively destructive. It's warm tongue and it is coming from these people who put it out there on the internet as if it is godly advice for older women. But what it actually is, is discontent farming for younger women. Yeah. And you just need to see that that's, it's coming to attack you. This is a version of I'm doing the middle of doing a webinar on Lovyn Little Year. So I've been revisiting mentally the little years and the times that I, the time that I wrote that book, but also just the times that we lived through at that time. And one of the things that I was just saying this last week is that this era, which is different than when my kids were really little, the whole kind of, the kind of gentle parenting, let anyone do whatever they feel, let them act on their feelings, let them do whatever. Yeah. That wasn't as cool at all when we were, we had a lot of kids. It was not admired if your child was laying down in Walmart screaming, no one would have said, good job, good job. It was common, but it wasn't held up. It was common because kids have always been naughty with parents who don't love them. But the point being, no one would have said that there's some fine parenting. That's not, would not have been the takeaway. And now there are actually, there's a small minority. But my point in all of this is to say that what is counterintuitive is the people who want unbounded emotions from everyone. Actually despise emotions. This is the destruction of any healthy, fulfilling, good emotion. That's this situation. Like they might not even know that they despise the tired, faithful mother when they're going after it with all of these further temptations. And be like, well, have you thought, you know, one thing you could think about today is who, who in your life should have thought to bring you a coffee? Who out there should have known that today would be hard? Your husband should have bought you cuter clothes by now. Your husband should have brought you a coffee. I still, he doesn't have enough trouble. That's what I've noticed. Your husband should have, like these are the things that like life is hard enough without piling that on. Also, let's just be clear. Making your marriage miserable. Because if every difficulty that you face is something that can be attributed to something that your husband did not do for you or did do wrongly, then you've made being married to you the opposite of being equally yoked, yoke together with someone who's pulling with you, help me. Like you are not. And maybe this is a little bit of a litmus test because here's the thing, like obviously we have Ephesians where Paul says, husbands behave this way. And he didn't say wives, pluggoryers, while I say this. It's just husbands behave this way. Yeah. Wives behave this way. You know, we've got all this palling instruction of older people. You behave this way, younger people. You behave this way, masters. You behave this way, servants. You behave this way. One thing that's noticeable is how equal the instruction is. So if these people you're following, if it always goes one way, if it's always the boomers and their responsibility to you or your husband and his responsibility to you, but it never flips around and says, and now here's what you owe to him or here's what you owe to them. Or here's how you should be a good employee to that boss. If it's always, here's how the boss ought to be treating you, but it's never here so you ought to treat the boss. That is one of the telltale signs that this is a really lopsided worm tongue advice that's only geared to make you discontent and envious rather than a better, more faithful Christian. And so if it is a one way street, then I think that is really kind of the first clue. But I'm not saying like, okay, obviously if you have a good church, you're going to have sermons for husbands, you're going to have sermons for wives, you're going to have sermons for both of us. And I would say, and there are things that would be edifying for you in it. Yes. I can guarantee you that if I heard a good sermon, and I should just say, I mean, I guess I'm giving my say, I have a very kind and loving faithful husband. I'm not trying to say no one could listen to a sermon on husbands and see glaring flaws because that I read the conviction in listening to a sermon for faithful husbands would all be in what it means to me for like because it is like perspective, things and stuff that you'd be like, okay, all right. That's, yeah, this is something that I need to recognize that I'm, and actually I would say you have the capacity. Everyone has the mental capacity to stop your moral outrage for a second. Yeah. And say to yourself, how am I imposing on him? Oh, yeah. And just ask it. Just be curious for a second. Yeah. Have I ever, you know, like, it's almost as if Jesus said things about getting the log out of your own eyes. Almost as if. I mean, don't think he really would have, but you could imagine it. Maybe you could imagine it. But I think that that is the deal. Is it like, it's not like there's never a place for you to have to address someone else's Christian duties. There are those places, but also we're told about what sort of spiritual state we have to be in first. You know what it reminds me of though? It reminds me of a lot of the time. You all probably know of us that we've had, there are things that have happened many moons ago with someone in our church or sin things that have become popular anecdotes for the internet. You know, like things that are popular topics. And one thing that I've always found remarkable. So I was like, who has the time? Oh, my word. That they feel like they have the bandwidth. Having mastered all the sin problems in their own vicinity. They're ready to take on something from 20 years ago across the country with people they've never met in a world they've never heard of. And it is like, who wants to be there looking at that? And the funny part to me is that like, it's actually a sign almost universally that people are not dealing with the sin of the accident. They're not dealing with their own stuff. It is a way of feeling superior without dealing with it. And if you are getting into like thinking all the time about stuff your husband should be doing better. Yeah. It's a sign that you haven't been doing the jobs that are right in front of your own eyes. Because you have a bunch of them. You have stuff that you're aware of that you need to deal with. Right. That you need to do. And it's not like there's never a time. I'm not saying that. But what I mean is in the average daily life of your average Christian. I think the mental routine as well. Yeah. Kind of talking about it. You don't need to spend a lot of emotional energy thinking of ways that other people could be doing a better job towards you. Okay. Okay. And I'll say. And if you have a problem, we've talked about this kind of thing before. But like, let's just say that you have a problem, which is you have five dinky kids at home. You're absolutely fried. You're trying real hard, you know, to do what you need to be doing. And you're reading your Bible and you're praying and you're whatever. But your husband keeps on not coming home for dinner because he decided to stop at the neighborhood bar and be there for a long time. Yeah. And you have, and you think he's drinking too much. Okay. This is not, this is not the, this is the call your pastor. Yeah. Like it's not the spend a lot of mental energy getting getting on the internet and fussing about it and finding people who'd agree with you. Go directly to authority. Get help. Get help. So we're not trying to say nothing. You know, you have a situation like that. You just carry on and think I better make better. No, no, no, no, no. You know, like not that is not. But you should get help with that kind of thing. We're talking about the kind of thing where you're like, well, if you look at it from this angle, you can see that. Yeah. If he loved me, he would have agreed to buy that slip cover for the couch. You know, I talked to a woman years ago and this I felt like stood for everything. And it did stand for everything. But she was describing for me and in like this was like a level 10 outrage that she had against her husband. Was that she would come home sometimes and he would have bought a magazine for her and some chocolates and left it on her pillow. And I was like, so I mean, what are we mad about? And she was like, if he knew me, he would know that I don't need a magazine. What I needed was, I mean, he was, she turned like his attempt to be thoughtful and leave you a fun little surprise on your pillow. And she turned that into a wild offense against her. And it's just like God and man, how could you have that? Yeah, it's like if he knew me at all, he would know that what I actually wanted was not chocolate but toffee. We know, we did know an old farm couple, farmer couple and his wife, who he bought her a chain song for Christmas. Which she wasn't interested in. I don't know how it was that she got a chain song. But he bought her that too. She got it, I assume it was the next year, I don't know. Do you remember that? She got a, she got a mistrant of pearls and she said, and they were very nice pearls. And that is the kind of give and take and funniness that is more like a story that they always told fondly about that time that he bought me a chain song. You know what I did? Yeah. I had a, but I'm just saying there are, there are ways that you can invent grievances out of nowhere. And it's like because you're just deciding to be a turkey or you're deciding to listen to people that you really shouldn't listen to, like turn them off. Yeah. And the reality is, it's way more fun when you have, so I think I've probably said this on here before. But sometimes you're like, I feel like this particular kid needs some, you know what I mean? Like here's a kid that I feel like I need to be paying more attention or anything. It's pretty just as funny. These people really do do a lot of that. They don't know how to bring that. Basically you're like this particular child. And you could get, and a big swizzle about it, like you could get in a, like, oh no, I haven't been doing it up for this child. I have it, whatever, what if, what if they don't know that, you know, like just get into it, whatever. You could get into a whole thing. Or you can be like, Lord, help me today to express my love for this child and help them to feel that. Yeah. And it's amazing because you only begin to pray that you see the steps right in front of you. Yeah. You already know how to love that person. Like you already, and it's like, and then it's just things that you can do that encourage you and encourage them. And you're like, oh, this is very, this is like a thing that I, not I can control, but the Lord in His kindness has given me all kinds of handholds on me. And it's so funny how many times that sensation almost feels like a physical letting go of something when you decide to send it down and do the obedient thing. Yes. It's funny how much it is like, it's almost a physical sense. It feels like a tense little naughty ball of something in your chest that you're picking at. And then you're like, what if I don't have that? What if I just put that away? What if I just put that away? What if I set it down? What if I'm like, actually, I think we shouldn't. I think I shouldn't do that. I think I'm going to stop it. What if I just say, huh? And now some stuff I meant, like when you're feeling like this is a child that needs something, it's not that you have a big sin to confess. It's that you could spend a long time feeding yourself up and wallowing in that feeling. Or you could turn it around into a, like, you know, here's what I'm going to do. So if you're having a malaise at home, a great thing to do is to think, okay, how could I, like Lord, how could I change the mood? Yeah. Here. And sometimes that may be that you have, I'm just imagining our audience out there, okay? So I don't know for sure what kind of people you all are. I'm just guessing. Maybe we meet you and we have a good guest. But I don't know the overwhelming direction you would go. But let's say that you're feeling burnt to the socket and you're, I am not saying you're having a hard time. Make sure that you make homemade ravioli tonight because it's the only way. I'm saying sometimes it's to put down the emotions and get de jorno. I mean, like do a thing that is actually taking into account that you don't always, you're not always at your best moment. Sometimes on the run, you have a bad sideache and you're, you need to slow down for a minute until things get in control. It's practical, but it's still giving. It's still giving without all the snarls of emotions on. And where's the passage that says laying aside every weight that's so easily entangled. So is that how I remember when we were kids mom talking about to women, like if looking at the catalog, you know, I don't know, it's probably Sears. Sears. If you're looking at the Sears catalog. If looking at that makes you discontent and envious, stop looking at the Sears catalog. Throw it away. You know, whatever. Lay aside every weight. It was like, is this actually encouraging you to do? Right. Like did you pick out a elaborate menu when you were feeling more optimistic? Lay it aside. Lay it aside. You know, like, and if it's like for the. I thought I was following a really helpful Christian, faithful, whatever on Facebook. But you know what? As I think about it, it's like making me discontent. I'm going to turn it off. I'm going to not follow them now. I'm going to not listen. I'm going to lay aside the weight. You know, it's just 100% noticed that every time you eat something, it gives you horrible heartburn. Well, stop eating it. Like if every time you see this person's post, it makes you discontent with your husband. Stop reading them. It's like just be done. Just be done with it. It's so true. There's too many ways that we are like Velcro to the entangling the weights that are the nearest. We just run around and snuggle them all up. I've had to do this with stuff that is stuff that I could talk to myself into being like, this is a really big deal. This is a thing that I that I really should have mastered or done or accomplished or something. And then been like, I think I probably said it in here, but the year that I was like, this is going to be the spring where I really make outside our house look a lot better. I turned out to be the spring that I was wildly morning sick with. As red didn't see that coming. Yeah. Got a delivery of all the plants that I had ordered. And I ordered them way back when there was some chance that I would have been. I mean, it was like stuff. It was terrible. It was a really terrible time of things like moldy asparagus. Oh yeah. Like stuff that was just like, I bought this stuff wanting to do something to bless. To glorify the Lord and blessing my family and for my team to mean. I was going to do all kinds of godliness out there and I was going to really bless us all up. But you know what? Bless us up a lot more. Me throwing away a lot of things and being like, I can't. I'm going to not. Yeah. I'm going to not acknowledge the dirty deeds that just happened with that. Like that is the thing I have to let go. And that's the kind of thing when you say that's it. That's it. It actually feels like a physical thing that you're that you're like, you know what? Yeah. No. I'm going to be well going to turn my back on it. Fairly well all the things that I thought I was going to do that would honor the Lord. And this similar thing could be true if, if like I'm talking about a really specific thing that I just have seen a lot of it. I think it's really, really bad. But you could equally be watching all these videos of the homemade Rabioli and feeling like a failure because you're not doing it. That's also a way that's ensnaring you through. And it's not helping. It's not helping at all. Like if it is encouraging you want to do a better job and it's making you better at what you do and it's blessing your family great. I don't think it is though. And I, this is me just being the, I have not been on social media for quite a while. So I actually am in social media world. You're probably completely dysfunctional. Yeah. Basically a boomer now. You can't deal with me. But there will no reason. One reason now the definition of boomer is appears to be anyone older than me. Yeah. So like I think you and I are technically probably boomers. Yeah. A lot of people's eyes show because. So one of the things though that I feel like is an important element to this. Is that so much on Instagram is fake. Oh. That I'm not even. I'm not even. So I am one of the reasons I don't call I don't post on Instagram a lot right now is that I don't want to be anyone's excuse. Thinking that they're having an edifying time when I'm really just part of a doom scroll. I'm really part of something like you are actually able to go through all kinds of like say you spend a half hour scrolling on stuff. And you read one post that felt spiritually encouraging. But then you went straight on to now I'm jealous about someone's eyebrows. I've moved directly on rather than applying this right now or thinking about this right now or doing whatever. And this is the thing I'm not claiming you can't do anything useful on Instagram. But you also have other ways the useful things that are on there. Other ways to do them. And the problem is they just require a little bit more involvement in it just like like go get your cookbook. Look at it. Well, I do know I'm like a thousand percent agree with you on that. So I am not I'm really truly agree with you. But I'm just going to throw in my one thing which is I feel like I try really hard to like like I said I'm just not looking at Facebook. Instagram I try really hard to only follow people who make me smarter. If I open Instagram I want to come away with something I didn't know before and I only will follow people that like I actually know that they are incredibly good at what they do. It's a real person who is actually accomplished who is actually teaching me something. So I am not I'm not just going to go drifting around. Right, but there are ways to do that and then there are ways where because the overarching premise is that this is this is I'm getting good things out of this. Right. Then you can very easily just sort of slide down the hill into spending a bunch of time but not applying it to yourself or not changing it. I think it's really important that you actually really don't spend much because life is too short. Like it is too short. You cannot spend hours a day looking at this and expect to be having a fruitful life. But what I mean is if I open it I want to find out like oh my word that's how you actually would propagate a doubt you tuber that way. I didn't know that. Sure. And obviously it's a resource in some ways. However, my point is to I think the vast majority of people are using now I'm just going to lump everything in here and say using their phones, the internet, whatever to become less human themselves. Yeah, less engaged. Absolutely. Less doing a thing. And it's easy to say it can be done well. So therefore that justifies me doing it not well at all. And it's like it can be which is not the same. Okay, like it's like saying to Jesus me. I guess no. I guess I guess you can you know do a particular exercise well. This can be done well which means that I could not so say a triple South cow can be done. And that means that I'm at no risk if I just do it. And if I just go try and the reality is that yeah, it can be done well. You can also stupidly injure yourself. Yeah, right. You can also make it so that you have a hard time walking for the rest of your life. You know, whatever. Yeah, I guess I'm just trying to say in general. I don't think it's anywhere near as harmless and and quick to deal with as we all think it is. Oh, and I have an update Becca. I realize yes. Give me an update that I got my first project of the month out of the box. Oh, I know. And it was it was everything I ever dreamed it would be in terms of the fun of getting all this stuff out. It's your Easter banner. Yes, it is. And so far it's quite fun. It's it's how was your box? The box is it. I don't care about the box. The box could be better Rachel. I think we probably should do it. I think we should. Well, the thing is is the box was not the high point. I'll show you my picture. But you wanted it to be a high point. I am what I'm doing now. Now, isn't it going to be fun? It's going to be really cute. That pin all iron. It's off. I have the friction pin. So anyway, it's the point is I'm I'm did it. And I was like, oh yeah, that's and the side effect that I know and knew was that it's actually just made me get so much done on the projects that were lingering that I don't want packed in the box. I want them to be done like the ones that you're like, yeah, but I just want that to be done. I don't want it hanging over me. I want to do a new fun project. Not this one. So it is it has made me get a lot of work to on to let it work. Well, I have an update for you. And this is a very mean update. I'm really upset about it. Everyone knows if they've been following along that I've been really doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm putting in rest of theurer. I'm putting in rest of theurer. It's just kind of a great function that I like to deal with. a little bit wet but not too wet because I know they'll rot if they're too wet. Anyway, I thought I had a fine tuning at situation. So I we have yet to see but all my tulips in the ground are coming up just fine and I only have like one coming up into each pot. But anyway, well the jury is out. I don't have high hopes but the jury is out. Okay. But I walked around the green yams the other day and those lumps of soil that I have that are sitting there like little buckets that you do with sand like they just are in a pile. You can't never seen so many tulips roaring out the sides of these. I was like stupid. These are the pots they did in work class. Can you just pot them up? Can you just sort of know? Can you kind of like shovel the whole thing into a pot? No, but I'm so ticked at it. But also the other thing that really doesn't make sense to me is that like I've always wondered if you plant like a bulb upside down it can correct itself and come up you know and I'm like how does it? No, it's down there in the dark. How does it know where the sun is? And you're like maybe gravity you know like maybe gravity helps but how did these things know to go sideways to get quicker access? I think that we need to bring it up. I think I got to write the article. Write the article now maybe make slides post it. How tulips ought to be treating me? And if like this is an injustice any if they cared they would have done this in the pot they would have done it no matter what they would have done something for me for once. I know what we got to say. And if I don't have a luxurious bountiful pot of tulips this year I don't know I don't know. It's terrible. Well Becca congratulations on your dirt pile tulips. Yeah, dirt pile tulips that are all gonna have weird corkscrew stems. All right well guys thanks for coming and talk to you next time. Bye bye.