Latest / The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast / Hope in the Midst of Lament |a conversation with Aubrey Sampson

Transcript

Hope in the Midst of Lament |a conversation with Aubrey Sampson · The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hi friends, welcome back to the Simply Wholehearted Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It means so much to have you choose to take our conversation along with you today.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Amy Wicks, your host, and here at Simply Wholehearted, we provide simple plans for life's most creative endeavors.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: The culture around us lulls us to complacency, half awake to our purpose, and more often than not, it seems as if everyone around us celebrates mediocrity.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: But we believe there is more to your story.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Awaken your heart with extraordinary tales of the ordinary.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Find encouragement as you discover your creative purpose, and be empowered to create your unique masterpiece in life, family, and community.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you tuned in to last week's bonus episode, you know we're taking the weeks of Lent to realize our need for a savior and ready ourselves and our family for a fitting celebration of Easter.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I hope if you didn't catch that conversation with Barbara Rainey, that you'll tune in after you listen to this week's new episode.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: There is so much I learned from her wisdom and life experience, and it readied my heart and home for the season in a surprising way.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've really been looking forward to sharing this new conversation, which fits perfectly within the 40 Days of Lint.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Aubrey Samson's newest book, The Ladder Song, is a powerful reminder of the invitation to be honest in the midst of our pain.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of just saying we've got this or pretending to be fine, we can find God's pathway through the suffering.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think the cross and the whole reason behind our current awaited celebration declares that suffering will not have the final say.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and Aubrey and I started talking at a million miles an hour, and we were all over the place.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I spared you the hilarity of our rabbit trails, and I'm cutting it to our conversation about the Aneagram.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, you wouldn't want to miss that part.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: We also reference our mutual friend in this discussion, Kate Weese, who has been a dear friend for almost 15 years.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: We've shared many seasons of life, and I'm really grateful it's lasted the distance.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now she and Aubrey go way back almost 20 years to their college days, and Aubrey shares the same affinity as I do about the Weeses.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks, Kate, for the introduction.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So for you, have you discovered the Enneagram?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do you love it?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I am 20 years into the Enneagram.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I could I consider myself I'm very well versed in the Enneagram and have been for a very long time.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I am a huge proponent.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not officially trained, but I train people in it, staffs in it.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm obsessed with the Enneagram.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: What number are you?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a three.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes sense with your podcast.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And do you do I like lean one wing over the other?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I really thought for sure, because for a long time I thought I was a two with a wing.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, and because I'm a Christian.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a pastor's home and I worked in the church and I continue to work in the church.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: So all the things, I'm a two, of course.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I think really going back to that whole, you know, what where you were when you were a kid, I had to go way back.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I think honestly, a three with a four-wing.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm a four with a three wing.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, are you?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So fun.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: So so fun.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: With Kate.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I know hers.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm walking with you to get water.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're fine.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Last time we landed, I believe she landed as a five.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think she's a five, actually.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was about to say that.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: She is.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: She's gotta have a she's gotta have a four-wing though, right?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because she's got a negative expression and yeah, yeah.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think she tends to um air more on that introverted side as opposed to maybe fearful.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: She's also incredibly loyal.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you could okay.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm pepper, right?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I always think of the wings.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: We have sometimes we have a little bit of a that's a good way to put it.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, salt and pepper.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: I like that.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So what started your journey 20 years ago in the Enneagram?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I never heard of the word until maybe three or four years ago.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't heard of it, yeah, until recently.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: I um let's see, I had a friend who right outside of college got involved in a um kind of small group of leaders that was doing more of the contemplative practices that are becoming a little more mainstream now for at least for evangelical Christians.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so she was the first one who introduced me, like literally, I mean, I think I was 20 years old, 21 years old.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it really has been 20 years.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and she was like, You have to do this.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so as soon as I took the test and read through the, I think it was Richard Rohr or it might have been Rizzo Hudson's Enneagram book.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, they're the they were the only two really talking about it back then.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: At the time, yeah.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, at least in America.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Western culture.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, anyway, it was when I read about the four, I felt so exposed before the Lord.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: But it also gave me language for like the shadow side, as they say in Anephram.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um it I felt like the Lord brought so much freedom and healing and redemption from some of the dark things in my soul.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it really over the next, I'd say over the next decade, especially helped me kind of get out of habits that I had developed as a four that were really unhealthy.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would say the following 10 years, the Lord has cultivated in me like a really healthy side of four, not that I'm this perfect healthy human being, but but because of the work of the Enneagram, helped me cultivate like what are actually the beautiful things about four, what's the redemptive piece about four?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't have to stay in the shadow side, but can live out of the um actually like God ordained identity of the four.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's been wonderful.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: I and I I feel like I'm discovering more all the time.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just picked up a new Enneagram book um called The Sacred Enneagram.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Have you read that one?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I I've read it twice actually because there's so much there.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And his wife, Philippa, yes, which I love her name already, but she has written a couple books on the content contemplative prayer practice, which I it's something that I've been doing for years, but I had never heard it called that.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that it had that that's what you were actually doing.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, and it's so it's giving me language that I've never had before.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And his yeah, his in-depth study on it, especially as it relates to growth in God, not just uh the thing that I struggle with, and I'm an Enneagram coach, and so not as well versed as you, not 20 years in by any means.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you're a coach, that means you're yeah, you probably do know more of the butt you know, we're just I think that's the beautiful thing of it.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, 20 years, or those who've been in 30 years, they're still learning new things and new aspects of it.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's no longer a label of you know, I am what I am.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: It it becomes okay, now I can understand what I am and how can I move to the high side and to growth and closer to the Lord and less shame and all the things that keep us trapped.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's an amazing, amazing tool.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so fun to meet people who have so much knowledge about it.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I seriously love it so much.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: I have to like call like sometimes like bring it on down because I know that no one cares and everyone has to be on their own Enneagram journey.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: So right, like even Saturday night, we were with some leaders in our church, and they were like, the Enneagram, it the symbol looks like a pentagram.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you hear a lot of things.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to just like, okay, it's okay.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like everyone's on their own journey.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Do it, you'll love it.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: That was the fun thing about Kate is she did text me back and she said, I'm not sure my mom is ready for this.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: She's sort of concerned about some of the symbolisms and things like that.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I know, I know it looks like a pentagram, but it's not.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's really not, it's really not.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: I promise.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, I love it.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're in trouble because I really would hijack this whole conversation when we just talked about the almost 1215.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I I mean, I think we've already had a great conversation, but I really want to talk about, and now it makes sense, knowing you're a four with a three-wing.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of my dear friends, Sarah Hagerty, she wrote the book Unseen.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: She is also a four with a three-wing.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so she is, she's just been so good.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: The fours in my life are so great for me because they are, they are, they are like, I mean, every number is really good for me.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: But in particular, I think it's because we share, share that wing, that number, the primary one.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: But then the threes and the fours differ so greatly when it comes to this idea of grief and lament.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I want to move right through it and come onto the other side of hope.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: To be the overcomer, to be the victor, which we're needed in the body of Christ.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: But we can't know the fullness of any of that unless we figure out the process of grief and lament.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I learned so much from Sarah.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: I learned so much from writing like yours.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm in the process too of going through something that has caused me a lot of pain and grief.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel victory because I because I'm not overcoming quickly, which sounds so screwed up to me to either.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I get it, yeah.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: But for you, it doesn't sound like, wait a minute, what am I saying?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: But that's true.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's still something that squeezes my heart in a way that I know, oh, there's it's tender, there's grief, there's pain there, there's work for God to do.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I am excited to share your conversation during the Lent season because this is such a beautiful time where we can really, you know, just be mindful of of this the sacred season.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and the church calendar gives us so much.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the contempt of prayer, you know, just all these different things that they're they're pre practices that have been with us all this time.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're just seeing a resurgence and a re-emergence.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so and so even though we aren't required to maybe fast and you know, withdraw from the world for these 40 days, it is a time of remembrance.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of my friends recently said that her grief feels or often felt a little bit easier during Easter.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I I thought that was a beautiful picture because it is the juxtaposition that Easter sort of presents us on lint of this this pain, the the need for a savior and then the hope that we do have in resurrection.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so just I'd love to know a little bit what provoked the story in you and and kind of yeah, what set you on this path to even write about it?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's that's not for the faint of heart.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, what set me on the path?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Ah um so uh in 2015, so we're looking at three and a half years ago now, um it was this incredible season in our lives.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: My husband and I are church planters in the Chicago area, and so we um had been working towards, praying towards, apprenticing towards, and building a team towards launching our first church plant.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so this one week in October, church plant doors were opened, and God was just doing incredible things in our neighborhood and in our lives and in other people's lives.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that same week, my first book, which we talked about earlier, Overcomer, came out.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So this was like all these dreams that we had been pregnant with.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're we're coming to fruition.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then that same week, just inexplicably, I woke up one morning and could not walk.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't put any um pressure on my legs whatsoever.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I had had some joint pain over the summer, but I I was a runner at the time, running every day.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just thought I've I've you know tweaked something, you know.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um eventually it got so bad Kevin was carrying me around the house.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually had a friend come over and say, Um, you need to go to the hospital, like you're not okay.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I just was in denial.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: I kept like icing, thinking that was gonna help.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I I mean I was I was Kevin was carrying me, or I was actually scooting around the house.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: I just couldn't walk.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I went to the hospital and I'll never forget because it gave me one of those signs that said fall risk on it.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I was like on the spot, my the emergency room doctor has um rheumatoid arthritis, which is a chronic autoimmune disease which uh attacks your joints.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, I've no doubt that's what it is.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he didn't test it, but he just said that's what's going on.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was eventually seen by a rheumatologist who I've been under the care of for three years.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, I was all of a sudden out of nowhere diagnosed with this very painful chronic disease.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: So um heartbreaking, startling.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Heart, heartbreaking, startling, shocking.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And in the season where God was doing all of these incredible things, this thing happened that really began to impact my um marriage, yeah, began to impact my our ministry.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was on staff at church.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: I had to go off staff at church because I couldn't work.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was just really it was quite an ordeal.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then um again the same week, we were um grieving the loss of my cousin Cameron, who I was really, really close with growing up, and he was like an uncle to my kids.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he it's very hard for me still to talk about, but he um was snowshoe hiking in Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: He fell off the side of a cliff, and we've never heard from him again.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Body has never been found three and a half years later.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then our youngest son was going through some developmental issues.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: He had spinal cord surgery, we had ongoing care.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we just had it was just this season where like a lot was happening.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I have been a Christian for 30 years.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: I love Jesus, I walked with Jesus, he's walked with me, but I hit that season and it was like for the first time I started to wonder if I was praying to the ceiling fan.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is God is God who I've always believed God says he is?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Is God real?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Is God and I mean I you know I'm not a naive person, like I know that suffering happens in life, but I just didn't understand how it was happening all at once and why if God is not the author of pain and suffering and tragedy, which I believe that's true, God is not the author of those things, but why wasn't God stopping them?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so anyway, all that to say, um, it's kind of a long answer, but God's gone led me into the the season of lament, where for the first time I began to really kind of dive into the biblical language of lament and the spiritual discipline of lament.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And um now that's interesting.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: You call it a spiritual discipline.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about that a little bit because the disciplines we would see as prayer, maybe fasting, going to church, you know, real surface action, study, exactly.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: But lament.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Lament! That's something we want to think about.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like it's been erased from a lot of the church calendars.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um so for me, it became a spiritual discipline because I um had to sort of daily, honestly, um learn what it meant to pour out my heart to God unedited, unadulterated, unashamed, unfettered.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it took a while because I, you know, I know that God wants our burdens and wants all of those, all of our heartache, but I I still think I was operating mostly under the assumption that God only wants our praise, yeah, and that we need to continually offer praise, offer worship, offer thanksgiving to God.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And while I still believe that's true, what I didn't realize, and what it took some discipline to begin to make room for was that God also wants our pain and our suffering and our brokenness.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that God not only um permits us to express those things to him, even if we're like angrily blaming him for them, God also has actually in scripture given us the language of lament to express back to him.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so I guess that's what I mean by discipline is I was reading through the lamentations through all throughout scripture, writing my own lamentations and just daily kind of giving myself permission to just hear God, you gotta deal with all this ugly stuff.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it took a while just to like be there and sit in it for a while.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: To not censor ourselves, right?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, because I think that's what we've sort of been trained and programmed to do is this is the formula of how we come to God and how we pray and don't ask too much, make sure you give enough thanksgiving and enough adoration, and then you'll get what you want.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this very, you know, tempered exchange instead of how you kind of said unfettered, where it's just put before the Lord.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: What for you as you wrote that, what came out that was really surprising?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that is part of the process too of the contemplation and everything is writing and waiting.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm often so surprised by the process and what comes up.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I was um even as I was kind of beginning a lament journey, and and by that I mean I literally had a lament journal that I was trying to just practice, like I'm gonna get it out, I'm gonna get it out.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I one thing that was very hard for me to admit, um, and took me a long time to admit, was that I was really disappointed with God.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I felt like God was not acting like he's supposed to.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I felt like there are promises in scripture about God, you know, protecting, even in the Psalms, God, you've protected my feet from slipping from the rock.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't do that for my cousin.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so there were just it took a long time to just be able to like say, God, I'm disappointed with you, which feels so sinful and so wrong, and so like, no, no, no, you shouldn't say that to God.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think bottom line, when I was finally able to admit that, yeah, um, and just say, here, take that, God.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I I have I don't know what to do about that, but that's how I feel.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Please take it.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then I somehow, and I it's just the Holy Spirit, but began to sense that maybe there's an invitation even in that disappointment.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: And what does that mean about my relationship with God?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: And what could God even do with that?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, could God even make that disappointment into something beautiful in time, not rushed in time.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Disappointment with God is real, and I think that is what hijacks so many of our faith.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I mean, disappointment leading to doubt, doubt leading to disillusionment, and ultimately sometimes our faith, faith in him and his existence, but also faith in his goodness, which then changes so much about our faith walk when we lose, you know, because we can't explain it and it seems outside of his nature.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: What are we left with?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I've seen so many of my friends or colleagues or young Christians at that point they walk away from God because it is like, well, what do I do now?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the beauty of lament, and I do say this in the book, so I'm not trying to quote myself, but the beauty of lament is that it for me it became the rope that kept me tethered to God's presence when all I could feel was his absence.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um over time, what I began to realize is that I was worshiping God for like God and blessings and God and benefits and God and goodness, which is wonderful.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to ever act like those aren't very valuable important things, but I think I had to get to the place where was I worshiping God for God's sake alone?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right and for his holiness and the fact that it's due to him.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, because he is worthy of worship, period.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and that's a hard place to come to, but I think a really important place for us to come to in our faith maturity.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then helps us, I think, go, okay, God, yeah, this is on you.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna do what you're gonna do, and I'm gonna worship you, period, no matter what.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was just sort of talking about this, trying to unpack it a little bit with my oldest.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: We were coming away from a youth gathering where the Lord answered a real sweet prayer for her, and it was a very just lavish, generous, generous answer to prayer, and it was something that both of us had this premonition or you know, prophetic inclination of I think this is gonna happen.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and it did.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: But then, but then I also felt the responsibility to unpack that, you know, going, okay, so he answered your prayer and he also I mean he he gave you an insight into that prophetically, and and it's you know, this fun, frivolous, amazing thing.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: But what about when?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: You've prayed.
• 22:01
  unknown: Yeah.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it didn't come the way we wanted it to.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we have a current family situation that, oh gosh.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a couple of them, right?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, where we have labored years in prayer, and against all hope and against all prayer, and what we think God is best, what's happening is still happening, or what has happened is still happened.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so how do you do that?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you have kids, obviously, too.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I I think sometimes when we go to explain it with them, it helps us understand.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: So what what have you?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I was just saying a friend we were talking about, she has this desire to maybe write a couple kids' book.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, actually, that's the ticket.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you figure out how to write the kids' book, then us adults can finally understand it.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously, we need to make sense of it.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think two things.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: One, sometimes I think this side of new creation, there's no answers, right?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's sometimes we just have to rest in like the unanswerable.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Dang it.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want the answers.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And every five Enneagram five goes, Yes, wait a minute.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and of course, as a forum, maybe sometimes it's easier for me to go, okay, I can rest.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: You're upset with that pain and the you know, the suffering.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um one thing that we do say to our kids a lot is that when they're, you know, let's say someone's mean to them at school, that's not a massive tragedy.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: But well, even when camera, it is for them.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we talk to our kids about how um bees, like bumblebees, they um they sting you and they die, but the stinger is still poisonous for a time.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: And how even though Jesus has conquered evil and death and suffering on the cross and at his resurrection, we still live with the remains of that stinger, that poison.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so we really were in that.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we don't use the phrase already not yet with our kids because I don't think they're old enough to understand that yet, but then we are in that already not yet place where yes, we see like your your daughter experiencing that prophetic word in that answer to prayer.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: We do see God's kingdom invading, but we don't see it in full, and we won't see it in full until the Lord returns.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have to like kind of live in that, in that already not yet place, or in that the it's dead, but there's still that brokenness, there's still that poison of the singer and stinger, and just beg that God helps us to see more of his kingdom while also saying, Okay, God, we're waiting expectantly in the middle of the not yet, you know.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm totally stealing that illustration.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: That makes so much sense.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Go for it.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's really good because it is.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's such a tough thing to wrap our minds around so many elements of faith, and that is therein lies the element of faith, but that really helps because it is the tension of the here and the not yet, and the the just the reality that we still have to experience pain, and therefore also the tension that goes, Well, I mean, we've had a bout of influenza in our home, and it just you know, there's never a good time to deal with sickness or anything like that, ever, ever.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: For you know, they're they're all old enough to have a conversation of you know, this is one of those reminders of heaven is a really wonderful place because I think as a kid, heaven is still this maybe boring thing.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're singing all the time, it's just like church, you know.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: How could it be this great place?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Floating around this nebulous nothing, right?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: But suddenly, in light of the suffering that they're currently experiencing and going, Oh, wait a minute, this is not our home.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the hope I have is someday for eternity I will never experience this again.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And there is, yeah, you know, but we have to go through that really hard season, the sickness to even maybe grasp it just a little bit or put it into proper context.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes we, you know, of course, again, it's so good to focus on on Jesus being victorious.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes we forget that we actually like serve a suffering savior, and that's because of his suffering, we're saved in ours, but that we're also saved through suffering, right?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Not in spite of it, but through it.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there is something about that suffering that helps us, I think, understand a little bit more of his, and like you said, gives us a longing for heaven and one day when all things are redeemed and made new.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because if everything really went our way here on earth, I don't know that we would long for it.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: We just I think you're right.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't wired, we were wired to be perfectly content if all things are going well.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: So lament almost creates the need, which is yeah, a fascinating thing.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, I I there's so much that I want to talk to you about this book, but I'm also really curious because I'm part of a church plant here.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're a couple years in.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was yeah, I was part of a church plant as a kid, as and I said I was never gonna do it again and all those things.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I would love to know just how your experience has been, and maybe bits and pieces, because there's a lot in the book, and I want people to go out and buy it and go through the journey with you.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but just church and and how that has been for your family and community and the support system as you've gone through these last few years.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think one of the things I'll I'll answer a question and tie it to lament, because one of the things that I learned in Lament was that um we we tend to lament at least at first selfishly, at least in the States, and um ultimately all laments have to lead us to God, but then lead us outward to begin lamenting with and for other people, um people in our neighborhood, people around the globe, you know, and all that to say that was really modeled to us by our church.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like we had our our church plant folks bringing us meals, cleaning our houses, doing all those.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they seem like small things, but they're such significant things like not limiting alone.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: And just sit sit on our morning bench with us and cry with us and let us be as sad as we wanted to for as long as we needed to, you know, and that was really, really a powerful um embodiment of Jesus to us in a time we really needed him.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as far as church planting goes, I was I was really skeptical because I didn't grow up in a church plant.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in a pretty traditional church, and so I just didn't, I was not excited about church planting.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: But now that we're like three and a half years in, I'm like, was I a Christian before we planted a church?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I love it.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: God has built my thing.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, I love that.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: I just love watching God change lives.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: I love watching um the trajectory of people's paths change.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've built relationships with the local schools and with the local governance, and I God has just done awesome things, and so I feel like every Christian needs to plant a church.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's so good.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or be part of a church plan.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's I mean, because it really strips the comfort of westernized church, totally, and because we get, I mean, it's so easy.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, our God is so often comfort, and I'm speaking for myself, but but I think that when we have to be a part of church in, church out, you know, all the inconveniences that I are with a mobile church, and you know, everyone's part of this serve team and not just one role, but you know, three or five.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Doing all the things, there's such ownership and getting skin in the game and being part of it where it becomes uh it becomes where it's family and it's really doing life together and just set up instead of this thing you just go to with take or withdraw from, but yeah, you you partake and give simultaneously when you're doing that with a a baby church or an or you know, just are involved in that way.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we some of the language that we use kind of internally is like we have seen people move from being consumers of church to contributors to contributors to church.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that that has to happen at a church plant.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: You're just all hands on deck or nothing happens, you know.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I love it because then it's like, oh, it really is like the priesthood of all believers, not just the teaching pastor, not just the worship pastor, but every single person is is being the church.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's I love it.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: I really have been so deeply surprised at God's goodness.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's it.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not easy, of course.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pain to have to like roll the cards in and set the stuff up, and yeah, you know, but and it's so unfinished, like that's so western too.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I want everything ready right now, but even that God has you know been really faithful and graceful in it.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's what's awesome.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think there's a you know, being outside the context of a you know, confined building or a set building, there's there seems to be more fluidity and growing and changing, expanding, which I think in the end brings a lot of life because it's easy to get stag stagnant when you're at a you know constant, stable location and you just do things because they work.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And whereas with you know, a couple years in, you've got opportunities to grow and shift things and move classrooms around because they're curtains and yeah, it's so true.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: We're even we're about to transition to two services.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: We our our next step is hopefully to plant another church, but right now we're transitioning to two services, and even that is like it's been interesting, you're like um how our people have already grown comfortable with one service, and so the transition to two services, like a really challenge for everybody, but it's so good.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, it's dynamic and it's shifting and it's stretching, and it's like, why do we exist?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we exist for all those empty seats that God is gonna fill, and you're gonna invite your friends, and you know what I mean?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I feel like we're kind of replanting our church all over again.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's been really it's been a good, good challenge.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love it.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've joked about sometimes Easter for the pastor is Super Bowl Sunday, you know, you kind of have the that is the big moment.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like you gotta have game on, the programs have gotta be sharp, worship has to be amazing, and uh, you know, glitter canon 9000 for all the songs and you know, just all the stuff.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, for you, as being, you know, being so involved with the church, what does the Lent season look like?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: How do how do you invite your church to participate in?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: But then also how do you, as a family with the extra demands and responsibilities, participate in that season well?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that is a great question.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like in the past we have done it well, and in the past we have not done it well.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes we're like, sure, oops, Lent happened, it's Easter, you know.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, look what happened.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Especially when it starts so early.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, then we're like, oh no, and it every Sunday flies by.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so what I hope to do again this Lent season, which is something we did last Lent season, was similar to Advent.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: We had um every night we turn off the lights, light a candle, and have a small family devotion.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing incredibly theologically deep, but just remember like this is our time of waiting, and this is our time of darkness, and this is our time of remembering the pain in the world and the pain of the cross.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, we invite our kids if they want to give up something for those 40 days that they can.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my kids are still pretty little, so sometimes they're like, we don't want to, yeah, we don't want to give up.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're like, what about free time?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: What about candy?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, no, we don't want to.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Our 12-year-old is starting to be formed spiritually a little bit more, and so he's starting to take it a little bit more seriously.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then as a church, we um we typically have a like a focus um each week, at least of of Lent, and what um kind of the calling people to remember this, and here's some scripture you can read.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then of course on Easter Sunday we have a massive celebration.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and it's definitely the Super Bowl.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: You're totally right about that.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: It is like the big so much pressure.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's so good, all hands on deck and all the things.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's always amazing.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think it has become one of my favorite holidays.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's I think it's actually been one of my favorite because there's not the pressure that Christmas and you know, all of that adds to it, but it's as meaningful and powerful, and maybe it is all because of the connection of Christ ultimately.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, plus we get to eat good food, so there's that.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up with the sunrise service, and then you do the brunch after.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: I love a sunrise service.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't done it forever.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: It would be so, so good.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: So fun.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're having fun asking some really random questions about Easter.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: One of them was your Lint observation.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever read a book or, you know, was there just something one year that you remember that you go, oh, that was that made a marked difference in my understanding but participation in the season?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um I read a book called, of course, I'm not gonna remember the title, but it's probably off guard.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's honestly like, I mean, it's something simple.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Readings for Lent.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's something simple on Amazon.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's another one that's Readings for Advent.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the Readings for Lent is an anthology of um mostly Christian thinkers, um, but it's got poems, it's got um really contemplative, it's got practices, it's got um just like thoughtful devotionals on um Jesus' time leading up to the cross.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that to me was profound in that it was just time to stop and acknowledge that Lent was happening.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know that I remember anything specific standing out about the book itself, except that it existed and it could draw my heart and my husband's heart and my kids' heart into the cross, you know, and take these 40 days to really ask what it means to be formed by the cross.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, besides the sunrise service and maybe a brunch after, what do you guys currently do uh as a family or maybe individually for Easter that you just really look forward to?
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Any love?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so one thing that we do that I think is amazing, now some people it can rub them the wrong way because it can make sound controversial, but um we actually do it at our it's I mean it's a our church-related thing, but it is um our families involved in it.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we do a reverse offering.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of um having people tithe or give offerings that Sunday, we actually give money back to people with the intention, we're not bribing them to come back to church.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: The intention is go and use it to better someone else's life.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so if someone and pray, God, show me who you want, um, show me who you want to bless with this money.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so we've had stories of people who like a kid couldn't go, it's not a ton of money, but a kid couldn't go on a school field trip.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so that went to that.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a family whose car broke down, and so a lady was able to give them the envelope and say, This is from God for you.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: God sees you here.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um stories of a family who didn't have food that month or that week, and so here's some grocery money for you.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Or you know, I mean, it goes on and on and on, even small things like a uh I know a really good friend of mine.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: She had another good friend who was going through a divorce, and so it was like, let's go on a just a girls' night out.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: I want to celebrate you because I know you're in pain right now.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um that has been amazing.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: What a great opportunity to get it.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I mean, you know, so good.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: You can't control obviously what happens with all of it, but some of it is letting go of the control and just saying, God, you work here, and um it's an offering, right?
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: That is the whole point.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, control surrendering and the and then God will use it as He desires.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's good.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that's really fun.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I love from I love my kids seeing that, you know, that you can give rather than always receive.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so important.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, so important.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so very frivolous, but yeah, it is frivolous.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: But what candy goes into Easter eggs because you really want the leftovers.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: And if you guys maybe guys don't eat do Easter eggs, but I mean, I love um Cadbury cream eggs.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: They want the original or the, you know, there's all the different flavors.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: I like the original, which I know same people have a love-hate relationship with.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like you either love them and think they're amazing, or you're like, these are so disgustingly sweet that I'm not gonna eat them.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have um my kids have mixed feelings about them.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: I have one kid that loves them, the other two don't, or three sons.
• 39:25
  unknown: Okay.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so we do we also have uh my oldest son, or my youngest son, sorry, has all kinds of like life-threatening food allergies.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we have I know, so we have to be kind of boring, like jelly beans, keep it simple, sweetheart, sweet tarts, whatever they're called.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: We can't do like I guess sweet tarts is Valentine's, but you know, smarties.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Smarties, yeah.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: We can't do a lot of like the really good chocolate and peanut butter and stuff like that.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of a bummer.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: That is, yes.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm suddenly very aware of it when we do Easter eggs with cousins and stuff, because we have one who also has allergies, and so um I've got kids with allergies too, but not the nut allergies.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: So and suddenly you realize you're reading all the packages and you're like, geez, there's nothing out there.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's so sad.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a for like pure dark chocolate and what kid enjoys that?
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: What kid likes that?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, going back to just as we go back to Lament and the season of Lent and all of that, I love giving something very tangible for those who are listening and who are provoked by the conversation and who are just, you know, all of these things are some there's some tangible ways to unpack this season that we've we've talked about, but in connection with your book, how do we go from here?
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we are we can accept the invitation to Limit, whether it's the season of Lint or whatever heartbreak we're facing currently.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: What's some tangible ways that you have found that have gotten you to the other side that have held helped you hold on to hope?
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that the Lord has given you along the way.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think one real tangible thing is um most laments begin with the question how.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: And um lamentations actually in Hebrew is titled how.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's the Hebrew word ika, e-k-a-h.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's spelled different ways.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I as I've been talking to people about lament, I have encouraged, um, if you if you are a writer or if you express yourself creatively through drawing or something, get an eka journal and just begin to ask God all your hows.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: God, how could you let this happen?
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: God, how are you gonna show up here?
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: God, how are you gonna make this better?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: God, how am I going to get through this?
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then wait, you know, because I think again, going back to sort of the Western mind, we want to like rip the put the band-aid on, we're fine, we're gonna walk away from it, we've learned a lesson.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: Pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, we got it.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so as you kind of have this eca journal or however you express yourself, um, just wait.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: And God, what is here's my question.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to lay it at your feet today.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, sometimes I've encouraged people to even like pray those things out loud.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and then just wait for God to show up.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe God's gonna show up.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: It will take time um because lament is not easy and lament is not short.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: But um the beauty of laments is that every lament moves from that first question biblically, uh, how to yet.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Jeremiah says, yet I will praise you, God.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Your uh your unfailing love never ends, you know.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so just wait and God will move your house to that place of yet.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I think um you'll find a deeper faith and a greater intimacy with God on the other side of it.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one practical thing.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: For for you, before maybe our friends could get your book, was there a psalm or scripture or passage that you really held on to during some of that season?
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I actually grabbed my book here because I wanted to read it.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I could read it from the Bible, but Psalm 13, which is a Psalm of David.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um maybe you'd indulge us, yeah.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you don't mind if I read it to you.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: I would love that.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this was the first psalm that I began to pray through because it was the first time that I began to felt like I had permission.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like if David had permission to pour all this stuff out to God, then surely I have permission.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: So this is Psalm 13.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really fearless psalm.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: David says, of course, he starts with the question how?
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: How long, Lord, will you forget me forever?
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: How long will you hide your face forever?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Me, how long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: How long will my enemy triumph over me?
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, and my enemy will say, I have overcome him, and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: But then David switches, he gets to his yet.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: He says, But I trust in your unfailing love.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: My heart rejoices in your salvation.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: I will sing the Lord's praise, for he has been good to me.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I just love that David really is thrusting all of that pain, all of that anger, all of his hows at God, but somehow a supernatural shift takes place.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's as David is lamenting, his lament begins to be transformed, and he is transformed as well, to kind of like stake his faith in the ground.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yet, God, I trust you.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it happened in one sitting, and I think we often visualize the psalms, and he just all of a sudden, you know, at the moment of inspiration, and he was able to get from beginning to end.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: As writers, we know that never is how it works, or rarely.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that is the the permission to write out the questions and wait on the Lord to hear the reply.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's beautiful.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, once again, I just another conversation that I knew I was excited to have.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful to Kate for introducing us and you know making sure we got to connect.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Kate.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, thank you, Kate.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're amazing.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: We both love you.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that our paths will cross in person someday.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Love this.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I could see many hours of conversation, but definitely thank you so much for having me.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: I truly enjoyed it.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Truly enjoyed it.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I think there is so much there.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: And friends, you do need this book.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: At some point in time, if you haven't already, grief will be at your door.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the question is, will you pretend it doesn't exist or accept the offering of suffering?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Will you wrestle down the moments of disappointment with God and discover the louder song?
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you in the middle of grief, I hope you will find Aubrey's words and practical ideas helpful as you navigate your way forward.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think the grief journal is a brilliant idea, and I don't think you need a new separate book with fresh unused pages.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: Just use what you have on hand, but begin to write a more honest conversation.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: Stay tuned because we are sharing more stirring conversations during the whole lynch season to encourage us as we reflect, remember, and celebrate Rebirth.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to have you share these episodes with your friends and family to join this wholehearted community.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I don't know if you've been counting, but our 100th episode is coming up at the end of May.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe how many amazing conversations there are to have.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to celebrate by reaching 100 reviews on iTunes so as to let others know which episodes are your favorites and why you like the podcast.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: We only need about 60 more, and I know we have thousands of downloads a month, so it should be easy to reach 100 in no time.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, let's invite others to join us as we continue to pursue perspective, purpose, and plans for a simply wholehearted life.