Latest / The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast / The Gift of Being Hidden | a conversation with author Sara Hagerty

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The Gift of Being Hidden | a conversation with author Sara Hagerty · The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast

0:16
SPEAKER_00: Hi friends! Welcome to the Simply Wholehearted Podcast.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: We are so glad you are here today, and if you're new, we are thrilled that you've joined us.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure that you know about the great song that you're hearing in the background.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: It is the song Heavenly Things from Ener the Worship Circle's newest album down here and up above.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: And I'll be talking a little bit more about them at the end of the show, but in the meantime, just check out more about them at inertheworshipcircle.com.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: Today's conversation is with Sarah Hagerty, and we're talking about all sorts of things, including Athletic Pants, and of course her newest book, Unseen.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: We got to travel recently together down to Dallas, and even though it was October, it was hot and it had me uh reminiscing about last season, summer, and because summer gets pretty hot around here in the Kansas City area, and I forget how quickly you adjust and the when you've gotten to enjoy the cooler weather, going back to the hot weather, is sometimes kind of uncomfortable.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: And so I was thinking again about the free printable that I mentioned in last week's podcast, um, right before I shared a conversation with the Drenskys.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's just a little printable that I came up with about taking note of last season, what you learned last season.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: This, one of the reasons why I do this and make this a regular practice, is because of this tradition that I do with my kids every year called the Super Summer Challenge.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Now there are other episodes where I talk about the Super Summer Challenge and how to create a simply summer, but one of the key pieces of this is learning what I loved about last the summer with my kids and what I didn't like so much, and learning from those experiences too as I plan for my next summer with the kids.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: So obviously I'm not planning next summer yet, but I am taking really good note of what I learned last season.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: So that's what the printable is all about.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: I'll be sure and connect um you two how you can find out more and how you can print that off in the show notes.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: But if you're having kind of a hard time processing what it is that you didn't like or you did like last season, I just have about six different questions to kind of write writing prompts in a way to help you kind of think through what really worked well for you and what maybe didn't work well for you and what you want to make sure you do next year.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: For me, for instance, our kids love to swim, and so pool time is one of the best ways that we can spend the summer.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: With my kids, the age that they are, it's sort of a win-win for the both of us when I let it be.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: And it's also a great time to connect.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: We don't have a neighborhood pool, but we're fortunate enough to have a lot of neighbors and friends who go to the same pool that we do.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: So it's a wonderful way to connect with friends and incorporate play dates throughout the summer.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: So for me, I definitely took note of the pool, it is one of the best ways we can spend our time not only for each other and for my soul and their souls, but also as we connect with um loved ones and friends that we went to.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: But I also learned that we didn't schedule nearly enough time, or I didn't allow nearly enough time for reading.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Now I love to read, you all know that from the books that I'm always sharing and talking about.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: But my kids are still learning to love to read.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that just comes from habit over time and finding maybe a really good book that they get excited about and just take off with.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: And I've I've shared before how my oldest loves Nancy Drew mystery books, the old ones, the ones that my mom read as a kid, uh, and she'll often take that to bed with her at night and stay up all night reading it and be so excited to tell me about it the next morning.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, but my other ones not so much.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: One of them does have a learning delay, so he might be a little slow in coming, but the other one she just doesn't have an interest.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: So I have learned that next summer we're gonna schedule some intentional time where I create a space for them to and encourage them to find a hammock or a little corner of the house where they can kind of cuddle up with a good book and then get themselves lost in a book for a little while.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And for them, it's great for expanding their imagination and mind and their learning and maybe don't always know it.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: So those are some of the things that I am taking note of and I learned of from last season.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: So if you need some help with processing what you learned last season, be sure and find out how to click off those writing prompts in the show notes.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Now this conversation with Sarah took place, like I mentioned, in Dallas, Texas.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: And we were traveling to a conference called Declare.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: It's a Christian communicator conference that was um absolutely wonderful.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: I enjoy getting to meet a lot of um influential women who are passionate about their stories and sharing their message.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thrilled that in the future here of this season two of Simply Whole Hearted Podcast, and next season they'll be sharing more of their stories, they'll be some of our podcast sponsors and the like.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: So I'll be sure to be um sharing more about that in the future.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: So Sarah and I decided to one night, um, after lots of different talking throughout the day and lots of different activity, um, Sarah was kind enough to sit down with me and we got to record our conversation about her newest book, Unseen, um, which has just um been beautiful to see how it's touched and impacted lives.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: I've just gotten to be a little bit on the inside of it in the book launching process and the writing process of that book and hearing her her heart behind it.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: And so anyway, I hope that you will enjoy this authentic conversation, kind of a slumber party, if you will, at the hotel and our PJs as we talk about athleta, book writing, and of course, unseen.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: You just got done doing we're in we're in Texas at a conference, sitting in a hotel room.
6:25
SPEAKER_02: We're starting.
6:28
SPEAKER_02: That's right, I forgot the soft star.
6:32
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: It is basically like a slumber party that we're inviting a bunch of other people to listen to.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure how you feel about that.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: But that's right, we're comfortable.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: There's no like big mics in our face, and there's no computer screen.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of fun, it makes it a little more relaxed.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, last I heard several people came up and talked to me because I had your mascot with me.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: So they knew who I was because of my mascot.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And they were like, Oh, last night was so great.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh god, bless me.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: And they would tell me like some takeaway.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was really good.
7:07
SPEAKER_02: In between, so y'all Amy was holding my baby who was a little bit cranky than I was great.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: I'll hold her even cranky.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And her cranky, like let's just clarify, her cranky is not your typical cranky baby.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: At least my that is true.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: Her cranky is very kind of weak and vulnerable.
7:28
SPEAKER_02: It's really kind of a cute cranky.
7:29
SPEAKER_02: It is cranky.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: And you can't, yeah, you can't be upset about it because she's just too cute.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: And then she'll and then she'll like stop and smile and like show you her gums.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: And show her double-jointed legs.
7:43
SPEAKER_02: Yes, so my baby can actually take her legs and put them behind her ears.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: And I promise we didn't do anything to her to make that happen.
7:52
SPEAKER_02: At least I don't think we did, but maybe.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: No, and tonight I she was clearly enjoying her toes as well.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, they were helping, you know, the gumming of or the teething process.
8:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we don't use pacifiers because she sucks her toes.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: So they work in lieu of pacifier.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: Toes work.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: We'll stop that before she's won.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, maybe Virginia would treasure this at some point.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh so Sarah, you just got done launching a book.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: Your new book, your second book, baby, is out there for the world to read.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: It's been really fun to work on it with you.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: So I kind of wanted to share about that.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to talk about a lot of different things.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: And now that it's kind of late and we're in our pajamas, I'm sort of forgetting.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: So I know.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to convert everybody to athleta pants.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: Because I have you to blame or think the athleta aspiring gold pant is a problem.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know what kind I got, but but they're really great.
9:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so here's the thing about Athleta.
9:04
SPEAKER_02: And if you didn't know about Athleta already, I am going to apologize to you and to anyone who is putting money in your bank account.
9:12
SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: Atletta is maybe three times the price of Target, but here's the thing it's gonna last you probably until you die.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: So if you look about if you look at it's a sunk cost, right?
9:26
SPEAKER_02: But then if you look at the cost to benefit ratio, you might actually wear it to work out.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: You might wear it to bed.
9:33
SPEAKER_02: You might wear it to go out.
9:35
SPEAKER_02: Athletta has these pants that are like not quite workout pants, but they can be.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: And they're just like loose fitting, joggers, super comfortable, tapered at the ankle.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: You can't.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: And we're not gonna wear them to bed.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: Because you talked about we're not gonna wear exercise pants to be able to do that.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: Yes, Amy did tell me tonight that we need to, people, we need to be putting pajamas on at night to indicate to our body that we're not going to be working out, which is kind of interesting to think about.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: My body doesn't naturally think at 10 p.m.
10:04
SPEAKER_02: that it's ready to go for a run, but apparently, if I'm wearing my running clothes to bed, which sometimes I do, something is signifying to my body marathon.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Marathon.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so and I know now athletic sells your typical like tight athletic pant.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: And this is not that.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: Don't go for that piece.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the deal like we all, like as women, need to do ourselves a service.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: And I I don't want to step on toes.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I'm gonna maybe step on some toes, but we need to like let's just bring in the loose pant, a little bit loose paint, even when we work out, especially with a short top and or text on the phone.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: That's the thing about athleta.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the thing about athletic is you can buy pants that you feel comfortable working out, going for a run, running to the grocery, and they're just not like these days.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: We just need a little more loose fitting.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: And they're super cute.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they are really cute.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: And I have really like dressed mine up.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: And it works.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: You can dress it up with a denim jacket where your fans.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: It's cute, it's cute and comfortable.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: So, Athleta, we're not really being paid to do this.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: This is just out of the goodness of our heart.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: I feel like I need commission from them.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: Athleta has now become an MLM.
11:23
unknown: There you go.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've made it.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Do you think they'll sponsor?
11:31
SPEAKER_00: I'll wear whatever you tell me.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no kidding.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: As long as I can wear long pants with your tight pants or long shirt with your tight pants.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Or whatever, something like that.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the other thing that I had said that we were gonna talk about, well, obviously your new book.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: But something that I I was kind of thinking about and we're at a conference that is for writers and speakers and podcasters, and so a lot of the workshops are you know speaking to that, and so that's kind of what's been going in my mind and all of that.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: And I've never known who do you write to when you write?
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Because you've been blogging for a long time, you've been sharing your really your adoption, your infertility story, adoption story, and then unseen it does just obviously it's stories from your life, so it touches all those things, but it's a whole lot more, and we can get into that.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: But when you write, do you have that picture in your mind, a person, a few people?
12:29
SPEAKER_00: What is that?
12:30
SPEAKER_02: That's such a good question.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: I honestly made a decision several years ago blogging when I was blogging more frequently that I would never write a blog post to a particular person that was in my life.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: Because I felt like, and things have changed now in the writing world a little bit, because blogging isn't isn't perhaps as people aren't blogging as frequently.
12:53
SPEAKER_02: But I had seen a trend, and I even just identified it in myself or man, you feel frustrated about something, or you feel like you want to communicate something.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: And as a writer, I could do that on a page in almost a passive aggressive way.
13:05
SPEAKER_02: Instead of either talking to the person, which you know, nine times out of ten, you don't actually need to talk to the person about something you see in them, you just need to pray for them.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: You know, but I could I could address it by sort of passively aggressively writing a blog, um, or I could take it to God in prayer for this person, for this friend, or I could talk to the person if I felt, you know, a nudge to do that.
13:27
SPEAKER_02: And so I just made a decision if I ever got to a point where I was actually writing to a person and I saw a specific friend in my life that I was writing this blog post to, I was just not gonna do it.
13:36
SPEAKER_02: Just because I didn't wanna I I didn't want to sew into that way of publicly communicating something that should be handled in private.
13:45
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I do definitely think there's a value to identifying your audience, and a lot of times I write to myself.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: I write to like the version of me that was five years ago.
13:55
SPEAKER_02: And so I don't necessarily sit down when I'm writing a book and thinking, okay, I am the face on the other end, but I typically am like when I wrote Unseen, I'm thinking, man, what I'm such a resource gusher.
14:07
SPEAKER_02: So like what's the resource I would have wanted to not only read but pass to all my friends ten years ago when I was in the throes of this, and that's who I pictured was my friends 10 years ago and not actual faces, but like that kind of universal generic conversation that you were having and the wrestle.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: That's really good because then you can if you're I mean if you're writing from that perspective, then you really are writing from like an experienced learned perspective, you know, and like a voice of saying I mean we were just talking about it today, man.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: The things we could tell wish I could tell my 27-year-old self or you know, like the you know, you know.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: The things I wish I could tell my 38-year-old self.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Not that long ago.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: No, that's true, because I mean uh and oftentimes even we're just if you're writing, you're just a few years, like you and you may even just be one step ahead of that where you just come through that.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: Or I hear a lot of authors, you know, it seems like the Lord took them through it as they were writing it in a new way in a new level where they were just processing.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: Did you feel that as you wrote unseen and even in the process of launching?
15:22
SPEAKER_00: Because we've talked about the nuance of launching about unseen.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: I actually have said I feel like you live a message three times as a writer.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: You live the message when you're actually living it.
15:35
SPEAKER_02: And I just do I want to pause there and say there's a value to living a message for a long time.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: I think we're in a such an insta culture that sometimes it feels like if I felt a message yesterday, I'd like to communicate it tomorrow.
15:47
SPEAKER_02: And I just think there's a beautiful incubation.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: There's something that beautiful that happens in the incubation period of a message where when you let it sit for years even, that it it gets better.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: And it really grows.
16:02
SPEAKER_02: But so there's the living of the message, then there's the writing it.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: And in writing it, I mean I think of Unseen.
16:07
SPEAKER_02: I picture myself at this little coffee shop, Lee Summit post-coffee, where I wrote a lot of Unseen.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: My mom came into town for a stretch and would watch the kids kind of during nap time.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: And uh when during when my youngest was napping and the bigs were kind of having their own rest time, except for the afternoon stretch, and I would sit at post-coffee and cry writing it because it felt so close and so tender, even though I was writing about some things that were 10 years ago.
16:33
SPEAKER_02: Right.
16:33
SPEAKER_02: So that's the second time, and then the third time is actually writing like having the book out there.
16:38
SPEAKER_02: I feel like um, you know, you, Amy, and friends who are closest to me know that publishing a book has actually been one of the harder things of my entire life.
16:48
SPEAKER_02: And not so much because like the act of doing it is so hard, but because of for my unique wiring and makeup, I didn't dream about writing a book.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: I didn't dream about putting it out there.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: And so there is a level of hiddenness in putting a book out there and promoting the book to some extent, you know, in the ways that I feel like God may show me to do that, and also going, man, but this can easily be misunderstood, misconstrued, and really the my private dialogue with God is the most important thing right now, even with my name on the cover of a book that's in the Arthur novel.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: Right.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Right.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: So one of the things I was thinking about, because you said that it's the three kind of the three process of like living it, writing it, um, and launching it.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: But there's the editing process and where you have people who haven't lived your story and maybe don't necessarily grasp your the entire message of what it is that you're trying to convey and what you're hoping to convey to others.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean, some of that, I mean you're pretty good about like you have to remove some of the emotion out of it and not be offended and everything like that, but there's also just the thing of um maybe people putting words in your mouth or not wanting to communicate the same things that you're trying to communicate in the pages.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: How does that look too?
18:06
SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's just totally nuanced because it's this creative work, and I feel like in order for it to grow, you have to invite other people into it.
18:13
SPEAKER_02: And I'm actually not a super big team player.
18:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I like to kind of yeah.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: I can't even imagine that.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: I well, I mean, in some senses, in in the writing sense, I like to ro I like to go solo.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: It's um it is a new muscle to work to invite other people into that because it feels so private.
18:31
SPEAKER_02: Sort of it feels like inviting people into your closet, you know.
18:33
SPEAKER_02: You're not showing your friends come over and hang out in your closet unless they're the ones who need to style you and help you.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: Like you are soon gonna be.
18:43
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
18:44
SPEAKER_02: But so I, you know, I feel like um it's uncomfortable, it's a new muscle to exercise, but like as a writer, I know that I'm and I know from experience I grew so much through the editing of Every But Our Thing is Sweet.
18:57
SPEAKER_02: I feel like I got a master's in writing through the editing process.
19:02
SPEAKER_02: My editor just really helped me understand how to determine my voice and how to write in my voice.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: And so Really, that's amazing.
19:09
SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness, she was phenomenal.
19:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, she coached me.
19:13
SPEAKER_02: She didn't, you know, it's just who she is, so it's not like it's not like I think she thought she needed to take that perspective, but she really coached me through it.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's cool.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: And the whole book was done, and I was like, Well, there's a book that's finished, and I think I just got a degree in writing.
19:25
unknown: That's awesome.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: Did she get to edit the new?
19:28
SPEAKER_00: She did.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: She edited on scene as well.
19:30
SPEAKER_02: And it was it, I mean, I really wanted to work with it.
19:33
SPEAKER_02: I actually had two editors on, I mean, you have multiple levels of editing, but I had my in-house editor and my outsourced editor outsourced, meaning it was not um within Zonervan.
19:44
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and both of them were phenomenal and from totally different angles.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, it's uncomfortable.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: Who wants to get a document back with a ton of red ink?
19:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: You know, your first response is always no, and they're wrong.
19:58
SPEAKER_02: And then you take a walk around the block and you come back, yeah.
20:01
SPEAKER_02: I thought this was perfect, and you go, No, this is gonna actually help me grow.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: It sort of feels like adolescence again, you know, like yeah, I want to exert my independence and say, no, you don't understand, this is my message.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: But then I go, nope, you have my best interest in mind, you bring a lot of skill to the table, and this is actually gonna require a team.
20:18
SPEAKER_02: And so, but it does also, you know, it it I ultimately am the one who knows my voice.
20:24
SPEAKER_02: So there is some level of I'm gonna receive these edits.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: There's some of these that nope, it's not my voice.
20:29
SPEAKER_02: I don't think we should go that direction.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's good.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's even kind of like another like double check partnering with the Holy Spirit that he's gonna help shake out what it is that really needs to be said through the power of other people and and I really I mean this last book I really prayed through the second round of edits, like there's a lot here, how do I handle this?
20:49
SPEAKER_02: And just said, Lord, give me discernment, like what's what needs to be tweaked and what can stay, and you make it clear.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: That's well, the team player thing surprises me because being on your launch team, which I mean it was a small team.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean the original the kind of the the thought process behind it and the working, the collaborating, you were like very receptive to the com you know, like the conversations and the ideas and all of that sort of stuff.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: But I guess that's different than the writing process.
21:22
SPEAKER_02: I think that's really it.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: I felt like with releasing the book, I'm totally a fish out of water.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: Like I I the writing part I feel like is so close to me, and I kind of know where I want it to go and I know what I want it to look like.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: The releasing it and the marketing, that is man, I don't know what I'm doing, and I really want to lean into the expertise of others and the giftings of others and the passion of others.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Um so that's probably why I was a creative artistic process that feels a little bit more personal and who you are, and yeah, attach that.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: I can I can see that that makes sense.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Think even in the editing process I would hear little anecdotes anecdotes of other you know, stories that different editors or agents would tell me of as writers.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: Many I think just have it's our first response to buck up against edits.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: Um but if we can resist that, I think the work can really, really grow.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's awesome.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: I I think I've been fascinated in working in this project with you of just the different people involved and the process, and I thought, man, I'd love to do a podcast with the different people, the players of you know, the book process.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: So when people buy that book um for 10, 15, or 20 dollars, they realize like what they're holding in their hand.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Like, is it just a like you know, Louisa May Elka writing in the attic and you know, voila, it's a book.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: It's you know, it's just yeah, it's like 20 people involved in the process.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not quite that many, but it well, maybe actually in the end, it's it is kind of like that from start to finish.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty cool.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think of even the cover.
23:03
SPEAKER_02: I love the covers of my books.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: It's beautiful.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: That's a whole team of people that worked independently, g gathered a little bit of information, but then really worked to pour out their creative effort in just the cover alone.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's good.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the I think is just a really again we talked about the nuance of launching Unseen, and that that was I think you went about it a little bit differently.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, probably because you didn't even you weren't really sure of what you wanted to do with the first book and that all looked different, but you knew you wanted to do it differently or a way that felt true to you and that brought life to you and all of that.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: So why don't you just share a little bit of the process of what it looked like to share this message and to share that a book was coming out and just that you really wanted people to get the heart of this and the message itself, not not just to sell books and not just to like you know make yourself feel good, but about getting that message out there.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: I think early on, I you know, as we started thinking about releasing the book, I just prayed, Lord, I don't want to sew an ounce of striving into this book.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: I don't want anything that we would do to release the book to come from a place of I should do this or I need to do this.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: Like I really want throughout this entire process the story to be, Lord, you did with it what you wanted.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: Like I I wanted it to be faithfulness rather than um success.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: And so as we pray through the process, you know, the other dynamic that I have is that I'm married to a marketer.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and hit it's his passion.
24:44
SPEAKER_02: And he I mean, I mean, among many things, but I mean uh he'd probably roll his eyes if I said that because I don't know that marketing is like his core passion, but he loves the idea of thinking about metrics and and even different avenues of social media to be able to expose people to the message, and so for me it's a little bit of just letting go and saying, you know, this is Nate, Nate loves this, and he loves to think about how could we word this particular post on Facebook in such a way that it would communicate your message and that people would see it and want to read the book, and and hearing his heart is helpful for me, who can be so binary sometimes that's like I'm just gonna write the book and bury it in the sand.
25:25
SPEAKER_02: And if the Lord really wants to do anything with it, he's gonna come bring somebody to dig it out and pass it along.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: Um yes.
25:33
SPEAKER_02: And so we just really pray God give us the process and let it be true to who I am as a person.
25:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Nate and I work really well together, and so he Nate very much honored that some of the marketing things that he might do if he's working with a different author would look differently.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: But for me, I wanted it to honor the process to honor who God has made me to be.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: Right.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: I didn't feel like God was asking me to be some kind of crazy acrobat to like go to this introverted private space where I would create this work with God and then all of a sudden become this uber marketer, you know.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Um I think that's I I've just so appreciated the team, you know, players that you are together in this and just how the Lord has paired you guys up so beautifully in that way where um you can fully, you know, like entrust him in that process, and he he's able to advocate, you know, for the message and for you and just kind of use his gifts and talents in that way.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: It's just I mean, it's just a real neat, like it's a unique situation.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: So and it's fun to sit back and think, you know, this is sort of a little bit of a diversion, but like how many years did those of you who've read Every Better Thing is Sweet or know our story, know that early on in marriage we struggled quite a bit.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, I think I've said it other times I felt like we were hanging on by a covenant, you know, and and I love that I think that needs to like be written and framed somewhere hanging on by a covenant.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean I just beautiful that actually it is beautiful, it's beautiful on the other side to say that oh my goodness, it's grown into so much more than that.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: But if we but if people fought for marriage, and I know I've just you know interrupted and gone on a danger, but if people looked at it that, okay, I'm gonna hang on by a covenant, I'm gonna like just hang on to that.
27:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: And fight for it.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: Even if it's just hanging on, I'm gonna hang on to that covenant and get through to the other side.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: Well, and I think uh looking at it from this angle now, I go, Oh my goodness, like so much of who I am as a person has come from not just rubbing up against Nate in the sense that we've both rubbed each other's rough edges, but he's also called forth from me things that I just never knew were inside of me.
27:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean, even me as a writer, I grew up as a kid reading and like I mean, literally devouring books.
27:53
SPEAKER_02: And when I became a Christian, I like only allowed myself to read Christian nonfiction, like only allowed myself to lead read books that would help me, like if in my linear mind, like this is going to help me grow my faith.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: And I diverged from story and kind of became real narrow.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I stopped reading story.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: And then I married Nate and he had like boxes and boxes of books of the classics and and books that I read the cliff notes of in high school because I had just become a Christian.
28:24
SPEAKER_02: I was too busy like evangelizing to spend time like reading these books, you know.
28:29
SPEAKER_02: And and he's got stacks of the classics and some books that I had read and loved, but just kind of cast aside, thinking that there was no time for the something frivolous like that when there were people to be won into the kingdom.
28:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:41
SPEAKER_02: But then just being married to him and having him be just open my eyes to the beauty of story and literature and the symphony.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the all the the the parts of the arts that are actually I think part of who I am, but I just hadn't had them called forth in that way.
28:57
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
28:58
SPEAKER_02: Um and so now I think, oh, how cool.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: And then that there's this other piece that I love to write, and he loves to market, and I hate to market, and he actually loves to write, but just that we can come together in that way, and he feels like so crazy passionate about my message, and so he gets to do what he loves to do around that.
29:16
unknown: Yeah.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's just so amazing.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: I yeah, it's been really fun to to watch it, how it's all played out, and it's worked.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just it's working really well.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: And t tell me about I mean, you have six kids now.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: You were very, very pregnant the last round of edits um with this book.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: And so you birthed the baby eight months before the release of your book baby.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: Um just the dynamic of and I I think that's what the I think that's the beauty of the message of unseen is that it kind of shares some of your heart position to creating with the Lord and writing and and what that looks like because um motherhood for a lot of people is their season of hiddenness and their season of just obscurity and what has often caused them to lay down maybe their big career dreams or goals or aspirations and all that sort of stuff.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: And and so you know, from just that standpoint, speak to creating and being part of this and being a mom of six kids because I know just uh the outside looking in, but also being in your living room, knowing your kids, having conversations with them.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: Um I see that you're doing such an amazing job, and your hearts are like I know they're the most important thing to you, besides Jesus, your husband, and the kids, and that's obvious.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: But just speak to some of that too, of and maybe even how you bring them into it and bring them into their own creativity and their artistic expression.
30:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, it's been I feel like it's an ongoing process of figuring it out.
31:03
SPEAKER_02: I never had a dream to be a writer, I said that earlier, and so I'm still trying to figure out like me and the Lord, what does it look like to surrender to something that I feel like he's put before me, which is writing?
31:15
SPEAKER_02: When I thought during these years, especially because we waited so long to have children, not by choice, um, that we would I would just be investing there.
31:24
SPEAKER_02: And so there's been that personal wrestle of me really Nate and me, Nate in my ear for eight years before I started writing, saying, This is what you need to do, and me going, I think this might be what God wants me to do.
31:36
SPEAKER_02: So it still feels like something I'm wrestling through, but I do think I've seen the benefit of just the surrender in my own heart to the Lord leading me to write, even though it feels so counter to where I thought what I thought I would be doing with this time in my kids.
31:50
SPEAKER_02: I see like my Lily is an artist, and she's an incredible artist.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, like, has a gifting that's beyond something that we could ever teach or train her.
31:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's gorgeous.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: They're so beautiful hangy wall.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: Yes, well, so for Nate's 40th birthday, I I commissioned her to paint.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: I had seen in a store these like wood pallets with boats on them.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: Nate loves the water and loves boats, and these wood palettes were like 350 bucks a piece or something, and I'm like, Lily can do this.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: So I commissioned her, and right when I told her, um, I won't go into the ins and outs because she's 13 and it's her own story to tell.
32:25
SPEAKER_02: But it was really hard for her to want to do this because she was doing what so many of us do when we get an invitation from God, which is we fear.
32:34
SPEAKER_02: And so she just didn't want to do it.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: She was afraid of failing and messing it up.
32:38
SPEAKER_02: And we what if we got these wood pallets and it didn't work out?
32:41
SPEAKER_02: And we just prayed a lot.
32:44
SPEAKER_02: I prayed for her a lot.
32:45
SPEAKER_02: I prayed with her some.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: She's 13, so it's not like she's like getting down on her knees in the you know, there are some 13-year-olds who are doing that, but there's many who um their moms are doing that for them, getting down on their knees.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: Lily is a prayer, but you know, she was she's fighting fear, and I'm just interceding and praying, God, use this process.
33:04
SPEAKER_02: Well, over three days, this piece of art turns into something incredible.
33:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, truly, I wish we could show a picture.
33:09
SPEAKER_02: It is it was it was amazing.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: And after the first day, she's she's got this little glint in her eyes, and she and she looks at me like I know this is good.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: And I know that feeling too, because I know what it's like when I write something that's really like, man, God infused that, and that's him.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: And it's from the Lord.
33:28
SPEAKER_02: It's so good.
33:29
SPEAKER_02: And that and she had that.
33:30
SPEAKER_02: Um at the end of it all, um, she said, you know what, mom, why why didn't the Holy Spirit just do it?
33:36
SPEAKER_02: Like, why why didn't why didn't I just go to bed, fall asleep?
33:41
SPEAKER_02: But if God can do anything, why didn't He just create it?
33:44
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Lily, he wanted to create it through you.
33:46
SPEAKER_02: Like this gift means so much more because it had your name on it, because it was from you.
33:51
SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking, knowing her history, having been adopted, like it's because of who you are and your story and the significance of this gift to Nate because it came through your hands.
34:03
SPEAKER_02: Yes, and I think um it was sweet for me to engage with her on that level.
34:07
SPEAKER_02: And honestly, I think I in some ways was able to because of my writing.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm watching her this weekend that she's painting it, going, I'm doing the same thing, kid.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm wanting to publish this book anonymously.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: I don't want my name on it, I want to hide under a rock when it's published.
34:22
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to take the risk.
34:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, all the gamut of emotion she felt, I'm like so identifying because as I'm writing, that's what I'm experiencing.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's some of the beauty of the ways that we surrender to what God invites us to do, it spills over to our kids.
34:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:39
SPEAKER_02: That's and maybe not even directly.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: It's not just like, oh, this pocket of time I'm writing, and God is blessing her because he's giving her an art class during that exact same time.
34:49
SPEAKER_02: It's more so like, man, my heart's expanding as I walk over fear, and as I'm willing to let God let his Holy Spirit overshadow me in this gift that I have to write.
35:00
SPEAKER_02: And I'm watching actually the same thing's happening with my 13-year-old, too.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, I love it.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: And it just I see the fruit of it too.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: And it's just uh it's beautiful, and it's a beautiful and it just the story behind it, and yeah, it's just and it's just I think it's an ebenezer moment too.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: I just kind of see it as like a kind of a just a heard that painting.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: And as it hangs on your wall and just a reminder of something really big.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: It feels like that.
35:26
SPEAKER_02: It feels like that for me and for Nate.
35:28
SPEAKER_02: I don't know that it feels like that for her yet, but I think as parents, that's what we do.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we memorialize the things that they don't yet know are significant, but one day they'll look back and go, Oh, that's why my parents had that on their wall for 10 years.
35:39
SPEAKER_02: Totally.
35:40
SPEAKER_02: Though we would probably pay$700 for it because it's that good.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: It really is.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't look like a 13-year-old painted it at all.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, and that's the whole point of photographs, right?
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Baby books.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: Because the kids aren't gonna appreciate when they get their first haircut, but when they have that baby book and they have their first baby and they're like, Oh, look, that's my hair too.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that is we do that for them.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: We do, we absolutely do.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: Well, for those who have maybe heard about and seen, but they haven't yet picked up the book and they haven't like watched the really beautiful trailer that I thought was so neat.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: And my girls got to be part of the making of the trailer.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: They didn't necessarily make it in the video.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: But they one of them it was a highlight of their year.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: That was so much fun.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, because they got a lot of things.
36:26
SPEAKER_02: So I'll just say if you haven't seen the trailer trailer yet, there was a cameo appearance of one of Amy's daughters and one of my daughters.
36:33
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, very quickly, very quick, very quick.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we'll definitely we'll put that in the show notes because that's worth seeing.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, not because our daughter's in there, but just because it's they might think it's because they're in there.
36:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: It gives a feel for the book, I think.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: But um having been a part of launching the book and writing the book study, and then now doing an online um group um gathering around this message and going through the book study, um, it's really easy to maybe think, oh, well, Sarah's a mom now, and she's writing to that audience, and she's writing for, you know, but I think we keep talking about this, and this is why it even intrigued me to be a part of all of it from the beginning, is that this is just a message that the body of Christ at large needs to hear.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: And it speaks to the single woman, the career woman, the mom with no kids, the mom with ten kids, the you know, the the woman who is um going to be single their whole life, to to the businessman even, and to the dad, or to, you know, just anybody who has laid down anything at any point in time.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: And so just just for just from your words and your perspective of how you kind of what the message itself is of is of unseen and how it speaks to everybody.
38:03
SPEAKER_02: I think if we sliced up our day, we might say that you know, 80% of our day is unseen and um uncelebrated.
38:13
SPEAKER_02: But yet we put so much of our energy towards the 20% where people can see or celebrate, acknowledge, where we feel like we're making a physical impact on the world in some way.
38:23
SPEAKER_02: Not that that 20% is bad, but there is an invitation from God to find him in what we call what I call the middle minutes, the time that nobody sees us, that nobody knows us.
38:34
SPEAKER_02: And I think maybe 30 years ago that was a little bit more accessible, but I think in our current culture we can so easily make ourselves seen and known.
38:45
SPEAKER_02: And so the book is essentially about the craving that God gave us to be seen.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: He made us to be seen.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, Psalm 139, 15 says I formed you, I mean uh my frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: So from the beginning of our existence, we were seen.
39:04
SPEAKER_02: But we can so easily take that craving to be seen elsewhere.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:09
SPEAKER_02: And so this book is about actually finding God's eyes on us when nobody's looking, when nobody's celebrating.
39:14
SPEAKER_02: If we could actually find the power, strength, beauty of God in those minutes, I I think it changes everything.
39:22
SPEAKER_02: I mean, at the risk of sounding overly dramatic, I actually think it changes everything.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: It really does.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: And I I love just even what you you just said there because it's not how I had framed it before.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: Because uh uh the word unseen had been one of my words for the year of 2016, and I knew that God saw me.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: I I I had no doubt of that, but the fact that He created me to be seen, to desire to be seen, like that just framing it that way and saying it that way, I was like, whoa, you know, and just like not fighting against it but going with it in the right way.
40:02
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I think yeah, I think we can live so um black and white sometimes.
40:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, I tell a story in my in my book about like noticing early on this desire I had to be seen and just wanting to like completely squelch it, like kill my flesh.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: Right, and not seeing actually he put he made me in human flesh, and he made me from the beginning with his eyes on me.
40:26
SPEAKER_02: So I was actually made to be seen and known.
40:31
SPEAKER_02: And so given that, okay, how can I act get what I was made to get, but in the way that's gonna make me continue to grow and come alive.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: Not to go into seclusion or hermitage.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:46
SPEAKER_02: Though sometimes I want to do that too.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Yes, this is true, and sometimes you can.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: But that's what's great, and I think that's what keeps you grounded too.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: It really does.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, now that everyone's gonna wanna go check out more about the book, and there is a study guide with it.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: That's so I was hoping you were gonna say that.
41:09
SPEAKER_02: Let me take over now.
41:11
SPEAKER_02: Say y'all.
41:12
SPEAKER_02: What's so cool?
41:13
SPEAKER_02: We'll give a little bit of the backstory.
41:15
SPEAKER_02: Last fall, as um, I was just praying about this book unfolding, and I think Amy you may have even mentioned I think there should be a study guide with it.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you I well, I was thinking about it for my women at Radiant Church.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and I really I knew like this message was for them.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: And I just knew that I wanted to lead a small group around the book.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know how the publishing process works to know, like, are you naturally gonna do a book study for it?
41:43
SPEAKER_00: Or does someone do you hire someone to do it or whatever?
41:46
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, my women need a book study for this book.
41:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I like all of my memories of this stretch of time of praying are in my like bathroom, not in in in like the vanity area of my bathroom getting ready in the morning because that's when I would pray about it.
42:04
SPEAKER_02: Sorry about that, maybe that should be edited now.
42:07
SPEAKER_02: Um I so I have these memories in the fall of just praying through this, and and your name, Amy's name, continued to come to mind.
42:14
SPEAKER_02: And I just felt like I think she's supposed to write the book study, which is semi-unusual for somebody else to write the uh study of the book.
42:23
SPEAKER_02: But you know, as we dialogued about it, two things happened.
42:25
SPEAKER_02: One, I learned that this was Amy's word already for the year, that God, and and long before this one year, Amy had had probably a decade of knowing this message.
42:34
SPEAKER_01: So there was that.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, we're talking about it very openly and like it's just easy for us to kind of latch on to it.
42:42
SPEAKER_02: But I, you know, took me a good year to like be able to codify this message and like explain it because hiddenness isn't a term that's tossed around a lot in normal Christianity.
42:53
SPEAKER_02: So it was Amy.
42:55
SPEAKER_02: This message is already in her, and the other thing is she actually named the book.
42:59
SPEAKER_02: We were tossing around lots of different ideas, it could be a whole other podcast episode, but and we were praying for you that you would add my kind of like at a hard deadline where we gotta come up with a name for this.
43:11
SPEAKER_02: And and I was not familiar with that because my last book I just knew the name of from the beginning, and in a message, uh a Voxer message actually, Amy said something, she listed a series of names, but not even with a s not even with the intent to say if you named it this book, but referring to the book under you know, the if it's this or this or this, and she said unseen, and I just went, that's the name of the book.
43:36
SPEAKER_02: While the next day, um, or that night, I think I emailed it to my agent and to my editor.
43:42
SPEAKER_02: The next day, another friend who was reading the first five chapters said, I think the title of your book should be unseen.
43:48
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Oh my goodness, we've been in we've been at a total standstill on this title for six months, and now all of a sudden, look, it was unlocked.
43:56
SPEAKER_02: And it was then that I thought, I think Amy's supposed to be a part of this, so we invited her in.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: Write the book study.
44:01
SPEAKER_02: And again, this is where I can be a team player because honestly, I feel like understanding the heart of women and those reading it and really opening up a dialogue around it.
44:11
SPEAKER_02: So it wasn't just something that somebody has this private conversation with God about it, but actually invites their friends in.
44:17
SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about what this looks like.
44:19
SPEAKER_02: So Amy wrote the book study and it's so good.
44:23
SPEAKER_02: It is, it's just uh I feel like as a as Nate and I were both going through an editing before we passed it along to Sondervin, we were like, This is man, she knew how to create conversation around this in such a way that it would make people grow.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, for me it was and I've told you this before, but it was partnership with the Holy Spirit, unlike I've done probably ever, it was a new, a new level of that.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: And so I can very easily say it's really great because it was the Lord really coming through and meeting me because you know I had like five different projects going on.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: It was a busy summer.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: It's a busy summer, and so it was just in little pockets, and I you know, but I just I kept envisioning sitting down with those that I love and trying to, you know, create a conversation around it and and give like just words and language to this wrestle, and also wanting to make sure that it wasn't just a and you and you guys really spoke to this a lot, was that we don't want to just like boom, here it is, here's the answer.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: That you it's okay to wrestle with it, it's good, it's okay to sit in it and to you know really discover what it is that the Lord has to say without like the questions aren't intended for a right or wrong answer, right?
45:50
SPEAKER_00: It's intended to just for to begin the dialogue.
45:53
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's that's what I love about the book study.
45:55
SPEAKER_02: A little plug if you want to still circle up with friends this fall.
45:59
SPEAKER_02: And it's free.
46:00
SPEAKER_02: And it's totally free.
46:01
SPEAKER_02: It's free download on the book page.
46:03
SPEAKER_02: Um.net backslash unseen.
46:08
SPEAKER_02: Um, what I appreciated about the book study is it invited sitting in it.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: I, you know, I've told a lot of people about this book.
46:16
SPEAKER_02: It's not one that I mean you could read it in one sitting, yeah.
46:20
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I feel like it's one that as I wrote it, I intended it to be a long, slow sip.
46:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:26
SPEAKER_02: Like just taking it in, taking it before the Lord.
46:30
SPEAKER_02: I don't feel like it's a message you just get in an instant.
46:32
SPEAKER_02: And I feel like even in writing and publishing, like I certainly don't feel like I'm I'm an expert on finding God and hiddenness.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: In fact, there's been many times in this process that Nate said to me, Ah, looks like he's still working that message into you.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is why we named it Unseen Journey.
46:49
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: Like we we named the launch team Unseen Way because we were talking about the idea of it in the way that been like now we're going on a journey, now we're walking it out.
47:00
SPEAKER_00: And that's the feedback I got so many times because I took the women through the rough draft version in seven weeks.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: And so many of them are like, that was way too fast.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: There was no way we could digest it all.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: I feel a little cheated that it's done because I need to have more conversation around it, more time.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: And it's true because as I read it, I just felt like I'd have to put it down after a chapter and like a walk away and think about it and talk to the Lord and have some dialogue and conversation.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I mean, it's definitely and I certainly have read wonderful books like through the night because I was so captivated by it or whatever, but um and you could with this, but I just felt like there was so much there to really just sit and ponder because I didn't want to read it, and I think this is the thing, is where I got the feedback from a lot of friends and women in the group was that you didn't want to just read it and go that was a good book.
47:56
SPEAKER_00: You wanted you really want it to be transformational.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: You really want to read it and go, Oh, this is this is how I really want to frame things from here on out.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: This is how I want to view how I make choices and how what I share, you know, social media-wise.
48:14
SPEAKER_00: What I even the conversations that I have with my friend, you know, like I want all of the you know, the misunderstandings in my life to have, you know, to go about them in a different way.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: The winters of my life, the seasons where it feels like everything is dead and dying and nothing good is happening.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: I d I, you know, like just all those little things where it's like, oh no, I wanna I really wanna do it differently and do it differently.
48:39
SPEAKER_02: So well, and the book studies are great.
48:41
SPEAKER_02: And the book study is though it's intended for to be with other people, it's also I think a great way to dialogue, which is a little bit different.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the other thing is that you already in the book put a lot of scripture at the end of each chapter, and so for the most part, there there is maybe like one or two scriptures we also maybe added in within the book study in each chapter, but we mostly took those scriptures and incorporated it so that we because I don't I I'm kinda bad about it.
49:11
SPEAKER_00: If I don't have my Bible right there and I don't want to pick up my phone to look up the Bible app, you know, I'm not gonna necessarily look them up.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: And some of them maybe I've memorized and like, oh, that's what you meant, but this actually like puts your, you know, feet to the fire.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: And so you actually do it.
49:27
SPEAKER_00: So Okay, so before we're done, because we're both gonna like probably fall asleep soon.
49:33
SPEAKER_02: It's late.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: It is gonna be late.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: And we're not gonna tell you what time it is because late for moms is different than late when you're 25 and eating chips and salsa with your friends.
49:44
SPEAKER_00: And you probably didn't get that much sleep last night.
49:47
SPEAKER_00: So and there was no napping today.
49:50
SPEAKER_00: No napping.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: No napping ever.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: No, not anymore.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, so uh maybe last thing, because I know you're as crazy, voracious of a reader as I am.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: And I know we have a stack always.
50:07
SPEAKER_02: I'm a book order.
50:08
SPEAKER_02: I don't know that you'd say crazy, voracious reader or just book order.
50:12
SPEAKER_00: No, we're share too, for sure.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: I know that.
50:15
SPEAKER_00: But um, so maybe like the last two or three that you can remember books that you've read and loved and that you think people should go ahead and go get and add to their Kindle or book list.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh goodness.
50:29
SPEAKER_00: I know I'm asking.
50:30
SPEAKER_00: There's that I didn't prompt you.
50:32
SPEAKER_02: I know.
50:34
SPEAKER_02: I think you recently finished.
50:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe I'll talk about books that are coming out.
50:38
SPEAKER_02: Because there's a couple that I, you know, there's I get this one.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
50:42
SPEAKER_02: Um, because there I really do have like ten books in rotation right now.
50:46
SPEAKER_02: Um, but there's a couple that are coming out that I think are gonna be really ones to definitely read.
50:52
SPEAKER_02: I have a friend, Jodi Burnt, who wrote Praying the Scriptures for Your Children at different stages, but she's got one coming out for your adult children, and ironically enough, I have no children who are adults, and I read it and I just told her I feel like this is a sneaky parenting book because you're not telling me how to parent my kids, you're actually just telling me to sit at the feet of God and have great hope and trust.
51:15
SPEAKER_02: And you're actually teaching me how to talk to God about my kids instead of talking to my kids about God, which one is easy easier than the other.
51:23
SPEAKER_02: It is.
51:24
SPEAKER_02: Um I wanted to read that one.
51:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that one's coming out in in December.
51:28
SPEAKER_02: Um another one that's coming out that I'm reading right now is Kristen Kill.
51:32
SPEAKER_02: My friend Kristen Kill has a book called Finding Sayla.
51:36
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that is beautiful.
51:40
SPEAKER_02: She's a writer.
51:41
SPEAKER_02: She is a writer.
51:43
SPEAKER_02: And I told her, you know, when you're a chapter into a book and you already have a mental list of all the people you're gonna buy a book for, that's a good sign.
51:51
SPEAKER_02: Because I feel like there's a lot of really great messages out there, but I tend to be one who likes to gift books that are really good messages.
51:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that are really well written.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: Um, there's so many others that I could recommend, but honestly, those are those two are top of mind.
52:06
SPEAKER_02: And hers is coming out in January.
52:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
52:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so December and January.
52:10
SPEAKER_00: Get your book list ready.
52:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
52:12
SPEAKER_00: Maybe your Christmas or Amazon gift card.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: Hey, this is that's awesome.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you, sir.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: This has been fun.
52:19
SPEAKER_00: I know.
52:20
SPEAKER_00: It's been kind of a fun way to do a recording.
52:23
SPEAKER_02: We should this is like the uh seventh grade slumber party all over again.
52:28
SPEAKER_00: This is the way I should do all of them.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I already have fun.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: This this takes it to another level.
52:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay, now we gotta eat some more chocolate and then go to bed.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
52:37
unknown: Good night.
52:41
SPEAKER_00: Well, friends, I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did.
52:45
SPEAKER_00: I certainly appreciated Sarah taking the time to just sit and reflect and talk about what the Lord has done and what he is doing with the message of Unseen.
52:54
SPEAKER_00: If you are currently reading the book or if you're going to after this, I hope you will also get the free study guide that you can find on our website and you can print that off and then join us on the Unseen Journey at Facebook where we just have this closed community.
53:11
SPEAKER_00: You can ask for an invitation and we'll accept you right away, of course, and you can um join in the conversation as we go chapter by chapter, week by week, and just um several women who are just fantastic women who are also pursuing this message are taking time in their lives to pray over this message, pray how the Lord would share, um, would want them to share with the group, and also praying for those who are a part of the group.
53:39
SPEAKER_00: So we would love to see you there.
53:41
SPEAKER_00: If you'd also take a moment and hop onto iTunes and give Simply Wholehearted Podcast a five-star rating, and then also let us know what your favorite episode is, especially as we continue to grow and expand as we share the message of living simply wholehearted.
53:58
SPEAKER_00: We want others to know that they're welcome here and what episodes they might enjoy and what they're all about.
54:04
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you enjoyed this episode, let me recommend a couple other simply wholehearted episodes you might enjoy.
54:10
SPEAKER_00: The first is episode 22, not that far back, and it's our conversation with Stacey Thacker.
54:16
SPEAKER_00: Is Jesus Worth It?
54:18
SPEAKER_00: Is her newest book, and she has several others that we discuss in the conversation, as well as a health crisis her family recently went through and the miracle the Lord really performed in her husband's life and in their family as a whole.
54:34
SPEAKER_00: So that's a really great conversation that be sure and listen to.
54:37
SPEAKER_00: Also, episode 19, Front Yard People, and it's our conversation with author Kristen Schell.
54:44
SPEAKER_00: She wrote the book Turquoise Table, and we talk about the really the thought and the reason behind what is now the movement of the turquoise table all around the country, and she is truly a treasure and a joy to listen to, and I hope that you will listen to that conversation as well.
55:01
SPEAKER_00: And lastly, if you haven't heard our previous conversation with Sarah, she is on episode 8, Why We Adore.
55:09
SPEAKER_00: Sarah takes a few minutes to share about how adoration really shifted her heart and her mind and seasons where she was dealing with grief and loss and barrenness.
55:19
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful and encouraging conversation, and I hope that you will be sure to listen to that one.
55:24
SPEAKER_00: And I did mention before about enter the worship circle, about finding more information about them on their website.
55:31
SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't clicked on there yet, then you need to know that they also have a podcast.
55:37
SPEAKER_00: It's called Heart of the Psalmist, and it's also one of the current projects, music projects that they have going on, and I know they just recorded, I think wrote and recorded several songs for a new album coming out in 2018.
55:54
SPEAKER_00: So I've enjoyed listening to Ben Pasley and Carla Adolf talk about just their journey and as they say, the Heart of the Psalmist, but the journey in worship and that the process, and they also are going to have some really great interviews and conversations coming up with other worship artists that I really love and enjoy following.
56:16
SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking forward to kind of their fall and new season of Heart of the Psalmist podcast.
56:22
SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't discovered them already, I can definitely endorse them and they're a ton of fun to listen to as well.
56:29
SPEAKER_00: And another um just wanted to share kind of something that I've been listening to lately that has really blessed me, and I've I've shared this on several formats, but um, and I haven't I'm not personally benefiting in any way, but um Christy Knuckles' newest album, Beheld Lullabies for the Beloved, is incredible.
56:50
SPEAKER_00: Y'all you need to go download that right now, whether it's on Amazon or iTunes or her website.
56:56
SPEAKER_00: You can still get the old fashioned, which is hard to believe, but you can still get the CD of it.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I realize that I hardly have any other CD players um anymore, but um you can get that album all sorts of different ways, and it is worth getting to listen to.
57:13
SPEAKER_00: Now, wallaby might make you think it's just for little ones, but let me tell you it's not just for little ones, it is definitely for um okay, so maybe the young at heart.
57:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I personally I tend to be um not one who easily comes like a child to the Lord.
57:31
SPEAKER_00: It's definitely not um something that comes naturally for me, or maybe that I've lost that natural ability.
57:38
SPEAKER_00: So there's something incredibly touching and beautiful and moving about this latest album.
57:44
SPEAKER_00: I've listened to it several times before, but kind of in the car with the kids and lots of other noise and distraction.
57:51
SPEAKER_00: But recently I let it play in my house, and the house was quiet except for that, and um one of the songs came on and I suddenly just burst into tears.
58:00
SPEAKER_00: It totally took me by surprise.
58:03
SPEAKER_00: I was so moved by it, and honestly, I I seriously felt the presence of God, and I just felt that moment of where I could just sense crawling in Abba Father's lap and being held by him, and just told that I am loved for who I am and to just be as I am, and he's proud of me, um, and just my being and not my doing, which is something I always am having to remind myself.
58:32
SPEAKER_00: So I love that you're all on this journey with us to learn how to live wholeheartedly in the season that you're in.
58:38
SPEAKER_00: And that's really just the mission of the podcast as Ashley and I um share stories that have encouraged us and blessed us and that we're learning from, and and as we share the things that we're learning along the way, we're so glad to have you on this journey with us.
58:54
SPEAKER_00: So until next time, we hope you find more ways to live simply wholehearted, unplugged, purposeful, and intentional.