Latest / Overwhelmed to Overcomer / When the Teacher Becomes the Student - How God Leads Us to Relearn When We're Ready to Teach
Transcript
- 0:03Welcome to She Consider a Field podcast with coach, encourager, and fellow
- 0:08entrepreneur and homeschooling mama of four, Anna McLaughlin.
- 0:11As a homeschooling entrepreneur, you are uniquely positioned to impact the kingdom
- 0:16of God, both deep through your investment in your children and wide through your
- 0:20business.
- 0:21And yet guilt, frustration, and overwhelm can hold you back from all that God has
- 0:26for you.
- 0:27Come with me on a journey to walk in deeper peace, purpose, and joy.
- 0:32because God has given you a legacy to build and I'm here to help you enjoy the
- 0:37ride.
- 0:41Hello and welcome to the latest episode of She Consider a Field.
- 0:44Y 'all, I am hot off of doing a guest podcast.
- 0:48I was a guest on Jen Rogers' Amazing Podcast, which is currently called The
- 0:53Empowered Stepmom.
- 0:54She might be changing that.
- 0:55I will be having her on as a guest.
- 0:56She's amazing.
- 0:57And I was like, I just want to come and talk to you guys because the people are
- 1:02quiet relatively, although there was this, I'm just getting right into it.
- 1:06I'm just warning you guys.
- 1:07And like, let me just say real quick, thank you, Jesus, for being here.
- 1:10Come and be in our midst and bless every single person who is listening today.
- 1:14Amen.
- 1:15Okay.
- 1:16So there was this moment where I'm like mid stream and encouraging on something.
- 1:21And all of a sudden you hear thunk, thunk, and then it gets louder and louder and
- 1:26louder.
- 1:26And I hear crying and I'm like, that she's, she said, is that something with
- 1:30the audio?
- 1:30Nope.
- 1:30That's my kid.
- 1:31That is my kid.
- 1:32So praise God for editing.
- 1:34She's going to be able to cut all that out.
- 1:36Hopefully I gave her a good enough like edit point or whatever, but my.
- 1:40youngest was about to break the door down to get in here because the our guest
- 1:47bathroom, we just have a two bathroom house, didn't have toilet paper and that
- 1:52was unacceptable.
- 1:54And so he had to break down the door to make his way in here.
- 1:57Okay.
- 1:58So we did have that fun little moment, but just coming off of this wonderful
- 2:02conversation with the lovely Jen Rogers and feeling so grateful.
- 2:07to get to serve you guys, grateful to get to do this work.
- 2:10I love what I do and I just want to encourage you, if you don't love what you
- 2:14do, like we are made to love our work, okay?
- 2:19Yes, there is a fall.
- 2:21Yes, it is imperfect.
- 2:22There is sin, there is struggle, there is darkness, there is striving, there are
- 2:27personalities.
- 2:29But if the work that you do in the world on the whole does not fill your heart.
- 2:36with joy and satisfaction, at least sometimes when you're doing it, where
- 2:40you're just like, yes, this is it.
- 2:42I'm in my sweet spot.
- 2:44Book an exploratory call with me.
- 2:45Please let's talk about it because the Lord put something in you that you were,
- 2:52you were like made to set right an earthly problem to make it more closely aligned
- 3:01with the heavenly reality.
- 3:02Okay.
- 3:03You were created.
- 3:05with a bent.
- 3:06Some of those things that drive your husband and your kids and your best friend
- 3:09crazy are the exact same things that make you the perfect person to do the work that
- 3:13you were called to do.
- 3:15Okay.
- 3:16I was laughing the other day.
- 3:17I got to hear an amazing training with my podcast like course that I'm a part of.
- 3:21And if you ever want to start a podcast, I've got the perfect coach for you to
- 3:24follow.
- 3:25I'll get you, I'll get her on here at some point and get you connected with her.
- 3:28Her name is Kristen Fields Chadwick.
- 3:30So she brought on this lovely disc assessment.
- 3:34person.
- 3:34I'm just dropping all kinds of names because I've connected with all kinds of
- 3:37great people this week.
- 3:39A disc assessment person named Andrea Johnson.
- 3:42I think I've got that right.
- 3:43And she was talking about, are you the kind of person who feels excited when
- 3:49there are other people in the elevator when you walk on or disappointed?
- 3:52And I had to laugh because one of my indicators that I was in the wrong
- 3:58profession was that
- 4:00as a lawyer, I would get on the elevator.
- 4:03We worked on the 42nd floor and I just couldn't help but initiate conversation
- 4:10with all those suits that were in there with me, the accountants and the
- 4:13investment bankers and the fellow lawyers and all the other staff that worked in the
- 4:17buildings.
- 4:18We just had to talk.
- 4:19I had to tell them how cute their shoes were.
- 4:21I had to tell them what a cool tie it was.
- 4:22I had to have a conversation about the weather.
- 4:24I could not help myself.
- 4:25Nobody else in there had any sort of inclination or bent towards that but me.
- 4:29Why?
- 4:30Because I'm a people person.
- 4:31I like to interact, right?
- 4:33And so I was not in my spot.
- 4:36We've talked about that before.
- 4:38Okay.
- 4:38But I came on here to talk to you guys about something specific.
- 4:40It is none of this, even though I told you I was going to jump right into it.
- 4:43And now we're five minutes in and I've just been telling you other things that I
- 4:45think about the world.
- 4:47But here's the deal.
- 4:48One of the things that came up in the conversation with Jen today that I thought
- 4:52was so important for us to remember is this concept.
- 4:58The student becomes the teacher, that is true, but the teacher to teach best must
- 5:03again become the student of the work they are teaching.
- 5:07Okay.
- 5:08Wherever we are leading others, we must go back into the valley again so that we will
- 5:16lead others well with seasoning.
- 5:20If we don't, we come from a place of pride or we can, we can come from a place of
- 5:26pride.
- 5:26We can come from a place of...
- 5:29hypocrisy, or simply a lack of seasoning, a lack of tenderness to recognize the deep
- 5:37struggle of this road.
- 5:40Here's the catch though.
- 5:42When we face those moments of reteaching, of relearning, of revisiting the thing
- 5:49that we're feeling called to lead others into,
- 5:53It can create, we can, we can walk in.
- 5:56It can, it's like, I'm like, I just want to say it so much.
- 6:00I want to get the words out.
- 6:01I'm trying, it's like my vocabulary, my words aren't big enough.
- 6:04That is the quickest route to a dark night of the soul of any that I have felt
- 6:09because we wonder if we made it all up.
- 6:13And so here we are.
- 6:16And I know I'm speaking to someone right now.
- 6:19You're you've you felt called to this thing.
- 6:24You felt called to this thing.
- 6:25I'm going to serve here.
- 6:26I'm going to love others here.
- 6:27I'm going to nurture others here.
- 6:29I'm going to fortify others in this way.
- 6:31This is how I'm going to serve the kingdom of God." And we start to walk into it.
- 6:35And as we do, all of a sudden we're face to face with all of our own failings and
- 6:43blind spots in the exact area where we're seeking to minister to people.
- 6:49And it's like, I made it all up.
- 6:53How can I help other people find freedom in the area where I'm just now face to
- 6:58face with my own bondage?
- 7:00How can I love and minister to others when I don't know what I'm doing myself?
- 7:05I can't even lift my own head.
- 7:06And this is something that, that we've been walking through in our family where
- 7:12the whole mission of she considers a field is like, rise up woman of God, walk in
- 7:17your fullness.
- 7:19Right.
- 7:19And we're specifically, I'm specifically speaking to homeschooling entrepreneur
- 7:22mamas.
- 7:23because you're like, I know you, you're my people, right?
- 7:27And I know how intentional you are in your life.
- 7:31I know how much you seek the father's face.
- 7:33I know how much you desire serving deep in your family and wide outside of the four
- 7:40walls of your home.
- 7:41And so I, although my, my focus is on y 'all, my goal is not like,
- 7:51helping you be better at homeschooling or better at entrepreneurship.
- 7:54My goal is helping you rise up in your fullness before the father.
- 7:57And yet I've never been more aware of my emptiness and my smallness than I am since
- 8:03I decided to like step into this.
- 8:06And so the, these, these moments of, of sitting down to record and going, what do
- 8:14I have to offer?
- 8:15These moments of, you know, trying to,
- 8:20serve y 'all on social media or in the Facebook group or on an email list that
- 8:25I'm like woefully neglecting because of the chatter in my head, right?
- 8:32Those questions feel so loud right now.
- 8:36And so, but I'm going to tell you this because the father has met me here and I'm
- 8:39telling you because I know that you have work to do in the world.
- 8:42We are misdiagnosing the source of that wrestle.
- 8:47We think that the fact that we feel that
- 8:49self -doubt that we see our own inabilities is proof of our inability, of
- 8:57our like, that we're disqualified.
- 9:00It's like, therefore we cannot.
- 9:02And it's like, no.
- 9:05The Lord is saying to you, this is proof that your commission is true.
- 9:09Okay?
- 9:10This moment right here, this doubt right here, this like, what am I even doing?
- 9:14This is proof that the commission is as you think it is.
- 9:19Because the Lord is saying, okay, yes, take on this mantle.
- 9:25And now I will train you as the true, like, it's like, it's like the expert,
- 9:33right?
- 9:33This is where you go from knowledge to becoming.
- 9:39This is where you embody the struggle in all its fullness so that you can give the
- 9:46path to others well.
- 9:48Because the first step is we don't even know there's this road to take.
- 9:54The next step is we get led down the road.
- 9:57The father teaches us how to walk it.
- 10:00And then when we say, okay, this is where I want to serve.
- 10:05Now he leads us almost down the road again, but with the lens of a teacher.
- 10:10So that when we get out of that next iteration of learning the thing, we.
- 10:17not only went through it, but we revisited it as the teacher in training.
- 10:24Does that make sense?
- 10:29Listen, mama, with as many different things as you're juggling, I'll bet some
- 10:33days you struggle to remember to eat breakfast.
- 10:36Failing to take care of yourself not only dampens your joy, but it also impacts your
- 10:40ability to serve those you love the most.
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- 11:26Y 'all, everything in me is like scrap this episode and just drop it.
- 11:29Cause I don't know if I can get my words out for you guys, but my heart is like,
- 11:32just, I just want to, I think part of it is I don't really know.
- 11:37I know that this is for someone, but I don't really quite know how to get my
- 11:42words around me.
- 11:43So I think what's going to happen is the people who are not in this season of
- 11:47stepping into a higher level of service.
- 11:52You're going to hear it and you're go, you're going to go, there's my, there's my
- 11:55girl chattering away.
- 11:58And then those who are stepping into this new season are going to be like crying.
- 12:02It's like, yeah, I'm feeling it.
- 12:05It's painful.
- 12:06This leveling up this coming to know intimately the struggle a second time
- 12:14where I just am doubting.
- 12:16Am I even, did I make it?
- 12:18That's all I can.
- 12:19That's all I keep saying because it's what I've been saying to Brian.
- 12:21Did I make it all up?
- 12:23Did I make it all up?
- 12:25Friend, you did not make it all up.
- 12:27Okay.
- 12:27This proves the commission.
- 12:29I'm just going to keep saying that this proves the commission.
- 12:32When you are being retaught the lesson, it is because you are being taught it to
- 12:38teach others.
- 12:39Okay.
- 12:41It's a whole different level because you're becoming, you're becoming not just
- 12:47the
- 12:47the student of the work, but the teacher of the work.
- 12:50Okay.
- 12:50The master of the work reflecting the face of the father in this area.
- 12:55Okay.
- 12:56So I just wanted to encourage you with that today.
- 13:00We had, I had my little diatribe at the beginning.
- 13:04You're called to love your work or you're, you're invited to love your work.
- 13:08It is okay to make changes so that you can love your work.
- 13:14Okay.
- 13:16Changes.
- 13:19I was just talking to a friend about this today.
- 13:23Like, there is, we love to say we serve a resurrection God.
- 13:29What we forget about that is that the only way we get to resurrection is by death.
- 13:34Old things have to die, okay?
- 13:37What we experience in the spiritual in the New Testament, we saw in the natural in
- 13:42the Old Testament.
- 13:43So for example, in the desert, the 40 years in the wilderness,
- 13:48God cast judgment on all the adults who left Egypt except for Caleb.
- 13:56Okay.
- 13:58it's interesting because sometimes he includes Jonathan or Joshua and sometimes
- 14:01he doesn't.
- 14:02And I wonder if that's because of Joshua's age or if it's because Joshua was already
- 14:06under Moses covering.
- 14:07I'm not sure, but Caleb and Joshua.
- 14:08Okay.
- 14:09So otherwise all the other adults died in the wilderness, never seeing the promised
- 14:17land.
- 14:17Only Moses was graced with the opportunity to see the promised land, but he never set
- 14:21foot in it.
- 14:24People don't have to die for new things to be born, but the spirit, the old spirit
- 14:33has to die.
- 14:34Okay?
- 14:35The judgments that we have, the fear of man that we have, the kind of like self
- 14:46-effacement, right?
- 14:48Looking down on ourselves that we have.
- 14:50All of these things,
- 14:52We can carry our packs to a certain point, and then there reaches a point where it
- 14:57has to die for us to be able to move into the new thing.
- 15:02And if it doesn't, we cannot advance.
- 15:04Okay?
- 15:05So that's...
- 15:08It's painful.
- 15:10It's really painful.
- 15:12There's a lot of loss that precedes the rebirth.
- 15:17But it is never wasted.
- 15:20Okay?
- 15:21It is never wasted.
- 15:22and it is never overlooked.
- 15:24The Father sees the hurt, the Father sees the sacrifice, the Father sees the pain of
- 15:30laying down the old thing and risking the belief that there is a new day on the
- 15:38other side.
- 15:39It's a risk to walk in that faith, to say, I believe there's something different
- 15:43coming, right?
- 15:44But that's where we get to know the Father better.
- 15:47So my invitation to you all today,
- 15:51My invitation to y 'all is to love your work, give yourself permission.
- 15:55And you know what?
- 15:55You might be just like I was when I was a lawyer, where the only thing I could say
- 15:59was what if I could?
- 16:01I used to say to anyone who would listen, I could never leave my job.
- 16:05I earned about three quarters of our family's income and we didn't make it to
- 16:09groceries without my salary.
- 16:13So I looked at the natural and I said, I can never leave my job.
- 16:17It's impossible.
- 16:18Nothing else could possibly work.
- 16:20And the Lord stopped me in my tracks one day and he said, you are not to say that
- 16:24again.
- 16:24And he called me to say what he knew was the biggest stretch that I could do at the
- 16:29time to say, what if I could, what if I could leave my job?
- 16:33What might that look like?
- 16:33And all of a sudden out of that curiosity came this, this road that led to where I
- 16:39am now and all that's to come after that.
- 16:41I don't even know what it is.
- 16:42Okay.
- 16:43So that question, what would need to change for me to love the work that I do
- 16:48in the world?
- 16:49And friend, that includes your work as a homeschool parent, that includes your work
- 16:53as a mother and as a wife.
- 16:55What would need to change?
- 16:56What would I need to believe?
- 16:58What boundaries would I need to set?
- 17:00What would I need to incorporate?
- 17:01Like for me, there's a lot of flexibility in our homeschool day because I find the
- 17:06world incredibly fascinating and I get kind of bored by checking the same boxes
- 17:09all the time.
- 17:10Like, please don't just give me a curriculum where we have to get up and do
- 17:13the same thing every day.
- 17:14Like, I just, I don't know, I just can't.
- 17:16So sometimes school looks not very schoolish.
- 17:18Like today school was planning a trip together.
- 17:21We got out maps.
- 17:23We looked at, YouTube videos of the different places we could go.
- 17:27We figured out our route.
- 17:28We talked about the different states we would visit and that was school.
- 17:31And you know what?
- 17:33If the North Carolina homeschool commission is listening right now, and
- 17:36that didn't count, like I will delete the check mark.
- 17:39Just let me know.
- 17:40But in my mind, my kids learned a lot.
- 17:43They learned a lot today.
- 17:45that they're going to be able to use for this experience that's coming up with this
- 17:48trip and for their lives.
- 17:51Looking at how mommy plans.
- 17:53Okay.
- 17:55what would need to change for me to love the work that I'm doing to earn an income
- 17:59for our family?
- 18:00Okay.
- 18:00Give yourself permission to ask that question and then recognize if you are in
- 18:04a season of growth and you are asking yourself, did I make it all up?
- 18:09Why is this so hard?
- 18:11Why are we revisiting the same thing?
- 18:14friend, it's because you were called to teach it.
- 18:17Okay, this when my dad was became paralyzed.
- 18:22Someone said to him, your wheelchair will be your pulpit.
- 18:28Our sufferings, our struggles, our losses, these become the place out of which we
- 18:35serve.
- 18:36These become our pulpits built by blood and sweat and tears before the father, but
- 18:42they are
- 18:44founded on the rock.
- 18:46They cannot be shaken because we have seen the face of God in this place.
- 18:54Only where basically the only way out was death.
- 19:00Like I can't survive this.
- 19:02And then we get the resurrection story.
- 19:05The new thing is born.
- 19:06Like we basically have to, we have to die to self where we're in that much
- 19:10struggling.
- 19:10We're in that much suffering.
- 19:11We're in that much pain.
- 19:13Only in that place where we have first died do we actually get the resurrection
- 19:18God.
- 19:20Okay?
- 19:20Things that we do not struggle with, we do not have much to offer.
- 19:23We have strategies, we have concepts, we have theories, but we don't have the
- 19:30crucible forged truths that we can give to people because we've been through the fire
- 19:37and come out on the other side.
- 19:39Like, for example, C .S.
- 19:41Lewis wrote,
- 19:42the problem of pain as a theological treatise around grief and suffering.
- 19:48And then he married his wife, who I believe when they married was already
- 19:54struggling with cancer and they were married for a season and then she passed
- 19:57away.
- 19:58And then he wrote a grief observed.
- 20:02And in the movie, the shadow lands, which details this, this arc of their love
- 20:07story, it talks about,
- 20:11the difference between the two books.
- 20:14How in the one book he thought about pain and the other book he knew pain and he
- 20:21knew the face of God through the pain, through the grief, through the loss.
- 20:28Okay?
- 20:29So two, is this what you can offer to the world when you show up after having been
- 20:37forged in the fire, right?
- 20:38And so allow your...
- 20:42Allow your areas of struggle to kind of like awaken hope in you.
- 20:48It's not proof that you don't know what you're doing.
- 20:51It's proof that he's training you.
- 20:53Like this is the commission.
- 20:55This is the calling.
- 20:56Okay.
- 20:57I remember telling my husband, like I leaving law and coming home.
- 21:04I really wanted to squeeze myself into a tiny little box where I kind of like.
- 21:09cleaned the house and kind of sat on blankets and read stories to the kids and
- 21:13baked fresh bread and did dinner and just was very kind of like meek and mild.
- 21:19It did not work.
- 21:22And I was kind of mad it didn't work.
- 21:23Like I wanted to be Susie Homemaker and like look like the little, I wanted to
- 21:29look like what I thought women of God were supposed to look like.
- 21:33And that wrestle of...
- 21:37How do I be faithful as kind of a little bit of like a tough, strong, intellectual,
- 21:47thoughtful, you know, loving, but kind of like bold in my words, woman of faith?
- 21:53How do I do this well?
- 21:54Because it doesn't look like all the other girls I see in church and I'm kind of mad
- 21:57about it.
- 21:58I want to look like the other ones.
- 22:00And I remember telling him, I was like, I'm going to figure out, I'm going to
- 22:04figure out this Proverbs 31 thing if it kills me.
- 22:07And some days it felt like it was going to, but guess what?
- 22:10Lo and behold, now she considers a field as the rock that I stand on, right?
- 22:15Like this is, this is, well, I stand on the rock of Jesus, but like, this is my
- 22:18platform.
- 22:19This is the thing I have to say to the world is like, yes, women of faith, like
- 22:22you can rise up, you can grow, you can serve from a powerful place.
- 22:26You do not need to shrink back.
- 22:28Please don't, please don't.
- 22:30Yes, we have a call to submit.
- 22:32Yes, we have a call to sit under authority.
- 22:36But we can do so without like squishing ourselves down into little boxes because
- 22:42the kingdom of God needs us.
- 22:43Okay.
- 22:44That was my threshing floor.
- 22:46That was the thing that the Lord was working through, through me.
- 22:49And so it like kept coming up again and again and again.
- 22:51How do I work faithfully?
- 22:52How, how do I work well?
- 22:54And how do I do it as unto the Lord?
- 22:57What is the thing that keeps coming up for you?
- 22:59What is the thing where you're like, again, we're going around this mountain
- 23:02again.
- 23:03Maybe it's financial.
- 23:04Maybe it's marriage, maybe it's children, maybe it's illness, maybe it's, maybe it's
- 23:10mental health, maybe it's, exercise and, and healthy body image.
- 23:15What is the thing that you are like for the love?
- 23:18It's been 30 years.
- 23:19I thought I'd put this thing to bed.
- 23:20Here it is again.
- 23:21You are being trained.
- 23:23This is your commission.
- 23:25Hold hope in that.
- 23:27Do not give up.
- 23:29Turn around and teach wherever you can and know that not.
- 23:32one ounce of this suffering will be wasted.
- 23:35Okay?
- 23:36He is a resurrection father.
- 23:37He is going to bring out in you this ministry and you will look back and you
- 23:44will go, I never would have had this if it hadn't been for all of that struggle and
- 23:47suffering.
- 23:48This is how you come to know the resurrection God in this area and that is
- 23:52what the people need.
- 23:54Okay?
- 23:55That's what I've got for today.
- 23:57I thought I was done at like 10 minutes.
- 23:59You all know me 23.
- 24:00Here we go.
- 24:01Until next time.
- 24:02You got this.
- 24:07Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of She Considered a Field.
- 24:11If you found value in this episode, I would be so grateful if you would leave a
- 24:15review wherever you listen to your podcasts.
- 24:18And be sure to share with a friend who needs some encouragement on her journey
- 24:21today too.
- 24:22Until next time, remember, you've got this because he's got you.