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The Call to Community: Giving and Receiving (Even When We "Don't Have Time) · The Rooted Woman Podcast

• Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Hello and welcome back to the Mission for More podcast. I'm your host Courtney, the face behind her mind on Mission on social media. Today I have two fun things. Number one, we're back in our normal recording corner of my little podcast area in my office. And I'm so excited to just kind of get back to normal there. I had some wild sickness running through my home. I'm still a little bit congested and I had to go with the grace as the grace was flowing. And so I just feel like, yes, it's so nice to be back in my little corner. I've got my little olive tree. Well, Malory, welcome to the Mission for More podcast. I'm so excited to have you on today. Mallory: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah, actually somebody sent me your page. Do you know Emily J. Waits? She had sent me your page and I saw your page and was like this fits so well with the theme of the things that I share and the things that I do on the back end with my accountability group. So I just kind of want you to share with me. We're going to be talking about biblical community. First of all, what is biblical community? Because sometimes people hear that and they're like, ⁓ yeah, go to church on Sunday. But there's a different definition here. Mallory: Yeah, yep. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: special chair and also we have a special guest. So today I'll be talking with Mallory from The Village Calling. Truly just such an open book, truly such a pure heart and truly such a generous giver. And you will see that as she kind of talks about just the motivation behind being able to start your own village ⁓ going out and being the village. This doesn't come naturally for a lot of people. So many times we are so overwhelmed in the season that we are in that we don't know how to extend ourselves ⁓ other people to serve them and Mallory: Mm-hmm. I would say that biblical community, takes what we consider to be ours. So our home, our family, our provision, our energy. And it says like these are all things that are actually for other people. And so what that looks like practically is like throughout the week, outside of Sunday morning corporate worship, you have all of these threads throughout the week where the people of God are woven into your life. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: What a truly fun episode to be able to record. I learned so much from Mallory. I pray that you learned a lot from her as well. I'll be able to put her links in the show notes for you so that you can stay connected with her. Check out her resources and all that's to come on her page. Thank you again for tuning in to the show. Be sure to share it with others that you think that would benefit from it and we'll see you back here next week. to show up as the hands and feet of Christ, but Mallory has done this now generationally in her family, so she is replicating the example that was set before her, and even after a traumatic setback in her life, rebuilt those same habits because they are just so important to her. So I'm very, very excited for you to be able to pull from and glean from the resource that she is. Let's welcome Mallory. Yeah. Mallory: ⁓ stands out because ⁓ you have an understanding that you are the hands and feet of Jesus, that doesn't just happen when you're dressed in your Sunday morning best You all walk into a building and you all walk out. It's an intentional choice to show hospitality, to offer help, and to be growing in holiness as body. And when you... are neglecting that, you're actually missing out on a huge portion of God's purpose for your life and a huge purpose for the church. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Mm-hmm, so I have these questions that I kind of plan back to back because I know as soon as some people hear this they're gonna think I don't have time for that. So talk to that point really quick. Mallory: Mm-hmm. You know, we have a life that's full of demands. We have households that are hard to keep up on. A lot of us have a lot of kids. We homeschool. We have extracurriculars. And I know for me, from the moment that I get up at 4.45 in the morning, I don't sit down and I don't stop moving. And I'm always going until I literally crash into the bed at night. And... ⁓ So we have this at the forefront of our heads. Like these are all the demands of my life. And anything outside of that feels like it's optional. Because, you know, clean toilets are not optional. You do owe your children that. You owe your husband clean laundry, you know, and stuff like that. But anything outside of that feels optional. And everyone is just doing their best to just like... try to get by on these very basic portions of life. And it feels like friendship, community, looking out for others, taking a minute to send a text, feels optional because it is not demanding right in your face. But the thing about community is that the need for it is a lot quieter and it's a lot more subtle, but the damage that it does when you don't have it is a lot worse than the damage that happens when you have a cluttered countertop for a week straight. And I would also add here that we are the most distracted generation, maybe of all time. I want everybody to look at their screen time, okay? Mine is not great, mostly because I work from my phone and stuff like that. But if you have just two hours a day of screen time, that adds up to two months of your waking hours per year. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yes. Mallory: Imagine if you get to the end of the year and then you just get like an extra two months to do whatever you want with. Okay? You can get that time back by being super intentional about what you do in the three to five minutes of empty space, which is a choice about 25 times a day. So we are distracted. And so we get to the end of the day and we're like, why can't I keep up on anything? It's because you, literally like are a zombie. to the thing that is just pulling you away. And I really think that if people want to like experience time freedom, they're gonna have to take an honest look at their screen time and get two months of their life back. I mean, that is a huge amount of time. If you had two months at the end of the year to do nothing but clean your house, you would be done in two weeks and then you'd have six weeks left to just hang out with people. And I think that is a huge thing for people to understand is just how much your screens are taking away from your life. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yes. Yeah. They really are. had somebody else on the podcast that talked exactly about this. And something that we do talk about in these like holy habits challenges that I do is number five is just reflect. Pray, praise, repent, journal wherever the Lord leads you. And I always share this. I shared it at the beginning of the year. I share it throughout the year. But you have to take a time audit. If you say my priority is my husband and then my children, my home, and then all these other things, you know, whatever it is, what is really taking like the number one spot? putting God in there and then are you serving from that place of overflow or are you constantly feeling like I am like grasping at straws just to be able to get by and do the things. And when we put God first and when we monitor that screen time and when we audit our time and we look at our priorities, most of the time when we like really shift all of that, I talk about habit stacking all the time, you will realize if you kind of audit the way that your day is going, you will have a better idea and ask the Lord to like God, show me how to shift my day so that I can do more because I want to do more. want to invite Mallory: ⁓ yeah. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: invite people in. And right now we're reading, having a Mary Hart in a Martha world. And I love that one thing she said was like, always be host ready. Like always have your home ready. But that doesn't mean have your home perfect. Just have your home host ready. Do you have something in the freezer you can, you know, pop in the oven really quick while you're talking and catching up? I mean, do you have just a pitcher to put water in? You don't have to have fancy things. Are we host ready? And then in my mind, I'm like, okay, host ready would be whenever I notice that the toilet paper is kind of getting a little bit low, just put next Mallory: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: to roll in there. It takes one second. But if I were to be like, okay, let me come out of the bathroom and ⁓ let me text this person back. I'm now texting the person back and I forget what I was supposed to do and then that never gets filled up. Somebody comes over later and I'm like, yeah, you can use the bathroom. They're like, hey, there's like no toilet paper left. And then you feel like you're missing the mark. But we wouldn't have missed out on, you know, that one opportunity to kind of get caught up if we wouldn't have gone to our phones. And there are so many days where I look and I'm like, ⁓ my goodness, I have not been on my phone like all day. Mallory: you Courtney Her Mind On Mission: because I've been breaking my phone. It's been so, so, so helpful. I have it now on a set schedule and I will realize like how many people I've missed, but I kind of love it because then I have to say yes. Mallory: Okay. No one died. Nobody died. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: I have this realization that life still went on. Nobody's actually mad at me. That was the thought before. If I don't get back to everybody right away, they'll be mad. No one's mad at me. And when I say, I will normally tell my kids, I'm taking 10 minutes to just kind of sit, decompress, catch up on my text messages really quick. And I literally will set a timer and only do 10 minutes. In that 10 minutes, I can respond to pretty much everybody. But if I do one minute here and there, and now it's like, I answered that person. ⁓ notification on Facebook. ⁓ know. And you get so, ⁓ it's so hard. Mallory: Mm-hmm. Good. That's so frustrating. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: It's so wrapped up. So anyway, I just wanted to touch on that because I'm like, man, this goes so much along with the challenges that we're doing over here and you spell it out so well. Like I love the direction that we're going already. Okay, so we don't have time. We talked about how to kind of look at that. When we talk about... Mallory: Yeah. Okay. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: like practically creating space, whether it's in our home or we're creating space in our schedule to go and be in somebody else's home at the park with somebody at a church event. What does that look like when we already feel full? Because it's a choice. Mallory: Right, so I talk about a ton, the idea of growing your capacity and becoming the type of person who builds a life that has space for people is a lot like bodybuilding and getting stronger like physically. So you don't walk into a gym and put like two 25 plates on your 45 pound bar and try to deadlift that. You just start with the bar. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yes. okay. Mallory: you like try to stretch yourself, if you don't try to go into the gym and lift that bar, you're not giving your muscles any reason to grow. And so, ⁓ so much going from I don't have time for anything extra, I am like ⁓ at absolute capacity to ⁓ I can my home in a way where people can come in and hang out. ⁓ Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mallory: ⁓ I have the margin to send out a couple dinner invites for this month. When I'm out in public, my ⁓ head space and my heart space are open to meeting new people. All of these things happen because you choose them in small ways over time. And every single time you give yourself a reason to grow your muscles, your muscles add tissue and they grow. And so you have to make small choices. all the time so that you can grow your hospitality muscle. And you can't go from zero to 60. I tell people all the time, if you're deciding right now that you are going to become a great villager, do not think that next week when somebody's baby is born, you are going to be able to put together a massive spread like you see on Instagram with. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mallory: homemade protein balls and homemade coffee syrup and seven course meal and all of this stuff, you need to have an understanding of where you are and how you can do small repeatable habits that grow and grow and grow. you have to be willing, it hurts to lift weights. Okay, I do it all the time. It hurts to be sore and you have to trust the process that being sore is a good thing. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yes. Mallory: feeling a little bit behind on a Tuesday because you decided to go to the park with the moms on a Monday is training your body and training your mind to develop better habits so that the next time you get an invite, you know like, okay, I can actually get a little bit ahead on dinner. I'm gonna chop up all the veggies before the kids get up so that that's done and I won't feel behind on Tuesday. It's those really small things that you don't even know until you start doing it, until you lean into it, until you choose to do it. And that's how your capacity grows. People tell me all the time that I'm a very high capacity person and I have always been that way. And I don't think that's true. I actually had a brain tumor for six years of my life where I couldn't drive, I couldn't work, I couldn't go to school, I couldn't be left alone. I was 21 years old and I was basically a child. I have not been a high capacity person my whole life. But when I was healed from that, Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. I'm Bye. Mallory: It was like crawling through mud to get myself back to where I knew I wanted to be as a person as I was building a household that honored God. And it was small, like repeatable habits, not giving up when I felt burnt out, recognizing that that was me not needing to then like go and hide, but it was me needing to audit. Why am I feeling burnt out? Why am I feeling like? Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Mallory: and not choosing to receive what God is giving me to be filled. And the list goes on. You build it over time. You have to give yourself, I say in my course, give yourself five to seven years. And don't give up that entire time. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like five to seven years for so many people feels like, ⁓ Are we ever going to get there? But you have to understand, like we are in a culture that tells us you have to have everything immediately. And the more you're on your phone, you feel like that you need it immediately because you're practicing immediate reward right there, immediate dopamine hit. But when you pull back, when you reprioritize, it makes it more feasible. When I look at, okay, five to seven years, I look at my daughter who is seven and I'm like, that flew by. ⁓ and I think as we're talking the resistance training I was thinking too like there's a difference between resistance and tension resistance is like this little bit of extra push that you have to give where you're feeling like ⁓ man this is a little bit hard or ⁓ It's a little uncomfortable just like you're lifting that weight you're on that last rep and you're like ⁓ I don't know if I could it and you just pull it up and you're like Okay done that felt really good and now you're stronger because like you said your tissues are building your muscles are building all of that, but the tension ⁓ Mallory: you Courtney Her Mind On Mission: sometimes is like is anger rising up in you because you are so far behind because if you don't have systems in your own home and you don't have systems and priorities and rhythms and all of that in your own life it might not the season to now go and try to pour out. ⁓ Mallory: and I think ⁓ ⁓ so of it. I talk a lot about ⁓ what training ⁓ in mind. right now my house is pretty cluttered, okay? ⁓ I have lot going on and yesterday ⁓ I had to choose to let the clutter happen because I had other priorities. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mallory: And if I turn around and this morning I am a monster to my whole family because the house is cluttered and I don't have the self-control to say I can handle this later and I'm still going to be hospitable to my own family, you... Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yep. Yeah. Mallory: aren't going to be able to extend hospitality to others if you haven't like grounded that first. And so no matter what your pain point is, you first need to train your mind to say like, this isn't the end of the world. This is an excuse for me to be irritable, rude, stressed out or angry. This is an opportunity for me to say, okay, I have growth here that needs to happen. I have things that need to get done, but... Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Mallory: I'm still going to choose to be hospitable to my husband and into my children first. And once you get that down. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mallory: once you're, as you're growing your abilities in your home to be guest ready, you also are growing your abilities to not stress out every time people are coming over because you're rage cleaning and you're freaking out and everyone is messing things up. And I have four little ones following me around all day long. When we are getting ready for guests, it is like the great undoing while I am doing. Okay. And I, and I keep my house pretty guest ready. It's not perfect, but it's pretty guest ready. ⁓ but what I've had to train myself to do is to have my entire family be excited when somebody is coming over ⁓ because it doesn't turn mommy into a stressed out monster. It actually like is just something that we all do as a family and I can remain kind and I can remain calm and it's a huge skill to build and it is right up there with how do I keep my bathroom clean enough for guests all the time. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah, ⁓ that's so good. That's so good. And it's okay if they are undoing some of the things that you're doing and you look back and you're like, I just did that. Instead of getting frustrated being like, you know what, they are just trying to help me. And then what I've been doing, which has been so helpful in our home, is giving them a different task. Like, thank you so much for helping. Can I have you go and do this? And sometimes it's like a task that's going to kind of tuck them away for a moment. Like, all right, you're gonna match socks and you are gonna go and do this. And the more that you practice it, the easier it Mallory: Yeah. I'm ready. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: So now I can say, all right, I want you to bring me all of the garbage from any of the bathrooms, please, and then you're gonna check to make sure there's toilet paper. And can you, know, little one, check to see if there's a towel? Go look, is there a towel to dry your hands? And they literally will do it, and it's so great because now they can come and be a part of it versus feeling like I'm trailing behind mom, she's mad at me for some reason, but I just wanna be a part of what she's doing. Mallory: Mm-hmm, exactly. And pushing them away is always going to cement something in their mind that other people means I become a burden to mom and you never want to build your village with your children having that understanding. You really need to tackle that first. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yes. Yeah, and I think when we do that and tackle that and prioritize that, that also says to our kids, like, you are ministering to other people too, and you are opening up to other people too. This is a family thing versus a mom's doing this thing and you guys just like quiet down, chill out so that I can do my thing. Because if we don't teach them how to come into it, how are they going to replicate it? And that's really our job as moms. Mallory: Exactly, that's the goal. I want my daughter to know what it means to have a household that is open for people and have a life that has room for people. And if she grows up and all she can remember is how... hurried stressed out those ⁓ were, she's going to have that mindset of giving to others means giving up my peace ⁓ that not what you want to train your children, especially because it's so important as moms that our children grow into a village. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So we talked a little bit about reprioritizing, saying we don't have time, how to kind of make time. What about the balance of giving and receiving? And why do you think so many people are so quick to give when it says, I can come and drop off coffee, or I can send you a quick gift card, or I'll just pay you money for pizza versus opening their home or receiving when somebody else opens their home? How do we even figure that out, balance it out, and not overcommit? Mallory: think, when it comes to, not receiving help well. I think it's more of a reflex than anything else. I really think that it is just like an innate reflex for us to be like, ⁓ no, no, no, don't worry, I can handle it. I think it's easier on us mentally to just power through, and it really requires you to stop and take a deep breath and choose to receive help when somebody offers it, ⁓ and to just say like, Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yes. Yeah. Mallory: Yeah, you know what, that would mean a lot to me. Thank you so much. And when I was training myself to do this many years ago, and this was during the season of having a brain tumor, I remember just thinking like, I feel so blessed when somebody lets me bless them. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mallory: It's harder on me when someone doesn't take me up on an offer. It actually is easier on me because I receive so much blessing when I'm giving to other people. And so you can reframe that as like, I'm actually allowing this person to bless me and I know that blesses them. And that takes a little bit of the thought that you're a burden. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mallory: If you know that you like blessing other people by offering help and hospitality, give the gift of letting other people do that to you. My husband owns his own ⁓ electrical company and he's in people's houses all the time. And his clients love to give him stuff. So like somebody is like loves to tap trees and he comes home with a jug of maple syrup and somebody was a children's author and like signed a bunch of his books and gave them and he has this like. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mallory: practice of just saying yes to anything anybody offers. He's like, he literally said that out loud to me a couple of years ago. He's like, I'm just getting better at just saying yes when people offer something. And it has reaped so many blessings and benefits to us. Like if somebody wants to help, like my husband is the first one to be like, absolutely, that would bless us so much. Thank you. And that simple verbalization of you receiving the blessing, like does the decision for you. And so when I'm training people to receive help better, I literally just train them to like stop, don't speak for a minute, take a deep breath and then just like spit it out. Spit out the thank you, that means a lot to me and then leave it there and let somebody bless you. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mallory: ⁓ when it comes to the balance of like circle community. ⁓ I think it's really important. One of my favorite examples of the idea of those that you give to may not necessarily be the ones that you receive back from is George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life. That man spends his entire life, literally from the time that he is a child, giving and giving and giving and giving to people and sacrificing himself and his dreams and his entire life is spent. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: I'm going to it. Mallory: pouring out for people. And for the whole movie, you're like, this feels so unfair that this guy never gets anything back from everybody else. People are always asking of him and he is always giving. But at the end of the movie, he's in need and those four decades of choices that he made. of pouring himself out for other people was returned to him fiftyfold. But it wasn't in the timing that he thought it was going to be. It wasn't in the way that he thought it was going to be. It wasn't from the people that he thought it was going to be. The point of that is there is an underlying really strong rod of trust when you are choosing to live in a way where you Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mallory: are giving to people. And that is that God is the one who gives you the harvest of the seeds that you plant and He decides when that harvest is going to be. So if I'm spending so much time planting seeds of this life that is full of hospitality, help and holiness. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Mallory: I'm not just trying to get one apple from that one seed that I'm planting to grow into a tree. I'm planting an orchard. And God is the one that is going to make it known to me when I'm reaping that harvest. And so one thing you really have to be very intentional about is letting go of a scoreboard. That happens first in your home. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Mallory: and then it extends outward. ⁓ And not dwelling on is my life balanced very much. I don't dwell on that very much. All of life is this cycle of people going through hard seasons and other and easier seasons. And I feel like for some time I've been in a season where I have a lot. I have an abundance and an overflow to give to people. It's been a while since I have been hit with a real crisis. And I've had four babies in six years. I really don't consider postpartum to be a crisis. I consider it to be a season of slightly less capacity, but to me, it's not a crisis. ⁓ And so it's been a while since I've been hit with a crisis, but I have no idea when a crisis is gonna hit. I have no idea if today while my three kids are out with my parents, Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Mallory: they're gonna come home safely because only God knows that. But what I do know is that because I am planting seeds of a life that is poured out, ⁓ I'm building something that is going to sustain us when I do hit a crisis. So it's not a day-to-day calculation. It's not a week-to-week calculation. It's a, I'm planting an orchard and should God choose to let me see the fruit of that? ⁓ Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Mallory: I'm thankful when he does, but I'm not hung up over it. And I think just for women, especially letting go of trying to do that calculation themselves and leaning fully into a trusting relationship with God is going to have a much higher output for deep peace, deep joy, deep fulfillment, deep contentment than saying, I really need to make sure I'm balancing this well. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mallory: if that makes sense. It's very anti-woman advice. That is not what you hear, but I'm not your average. I'm not your average woman. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yes. I mean, that's wisdom because I really believe that when we get into a really good place with the Lord and we have developed that consistency with Him and we cherish our time with Him and we do have Him at the center of everything that we're doing, number one, you're not going to say yes when you know that the Lord is like, not today. I need you to reconnect everything in your home. Connect with the hearts, connect with your husband, put all of this first, and then there's going to be an opportunity for you to open up after. Just trusting that the Lord is going to guide you through that. When there's that hesitation from the Lord, not yourself, obviously it's a no. Then there are times where it's like, don't know if I can do this, but you keep feeling that tug on your heart, invite them over, invite them in, invite them in, and you do it. It's like you release that, the pressure, the expectation, all of it when you you do say, okay, God, I'm going to send the message and see if they want to come. And then when you hear from them, like we literally were just saying nobody ever reaches out to us and you are the one that reached out and invited them in and gave them a seat at your table. It is going to bless you so much. And it's going to build your faith with the Lord. Like, wow, you told me to do this thing and it wasn't just for them. It was also for me because that testimony of just knowing that I hear from the Lord in that way, I'm so connected with him that I can be guided that when he tugs on my heart, it's because of the heart cry. somebody else and really realizing that we can be a vessel for other people to receive blessing. And at the same time when we feel like we're pouring out and we have nothing left to give, when you are so connected with Christ you know that He's going to be the one to refill you. And you can trust that and it's okay to say, I don't want to do this. Verbalize that out loud. I don't want to do this. But God, you always have to follow up. I always talk about the follow up because we don't stay stuck, right? But God, I really need you to give me the capacity to be able to. Show me what I can set down. Show me what I need to say yes to. And when you constantly say stay in that rhythm with him, it becomes that much easier. He is your balance, not other people. He becomes that balance, yeah. So I know that you mentioned when we were talking before the episode actually started, I said maybe share one time where you really needed community or you chose community and it might not have been the most convenient thing, but it was helpful for you. And I loved what you said that your answer was probably gonna be here. So can you touch on that? Mallory: Yes. Amen. Preach. Yeah, I literally sat here and I was like, I can't think of any one thing that was like a huge dramatic moment of I really don't want to do this. I'm choosing to do it anyway. And there was some dramatic payout that I wasn't expecting. I will say that I choose community and I choose hospitality and I choose like every single day I wake up and I make Lord show me who needs an extra hand of loving care today. ⁓ Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Mallory: and then I have to follow through. And it's a fight every single time to follow through because I'm a creature and it is natural for me to just want to choose what I want to do and how I want to spend my time. And it doesn't like, you don't just, get, it gets easier to do those things. So when you are stepping into that choice and you have grown your capacity, it doesn't feel like a huge sacrifice anymore. but you are always still making that choice to do it. And every single time I receive blessing that God clearly had waiting for me because I was obedient. And I think so much of building community is about those non-dramatic, small rhythms because ⁓ build your capacity and When you are able to receive the small blessings and appreciate them, you're building something that's really strong and steady and doesn't rise and fall with dramatics because that's not a healthy village. It's not a healthy community. and so I will say that I choose community like eight times a day and every single time it's a fight and every single time it is worth it. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: What does the choosing look like? Can I ask that? Mallory: Yeah, so I, we have a really busy home. have a multi-generational home. So my parents' house is connected to ours. I always say we all live together under two roofs because we do have our own spaces, but we're together and, and the door is always open. My sister lives here. She runs a business out of her, ⁓ of a studio, which is on our house. ⁓ we live in a busy neighborhood where people are constantly walking by. ⁓ Courtney Her Mind On Mission: All Mallory: And we have networks upon networks upon networks of people that are around and that know that this house is one that they can show up to. And this culture has been built for generations. My kids are the fifth generation on my dad's side of the family to live in this town. We have built a deep, deep culture of this. This is a place where people can show up just because they're around and they're gonna end up. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Mallory: sitting at my kitchen counter while I scrub cabinets and getting into some deep theological conversation or solving a huge life problem. And they'll always be welcomed in and I'm always going to be pulling stuff out of the fridge and all of that kind of stuff. ⁓ so making those, upholding that culture starts with me because I'm choosing to get up every single day early and have a Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mallory: have a home where I'm able to receive my children when they wake up in the morning, that I'm ready for them, and that we are diligent to have peace in our home, be in fellowship with one another, and have space that we're not constantly trying to, like, get people out. Because my mom walks through the door while I love my mother, I honor her. So much of who I am is because of how she raised us. As she has gotten older, she has gotten less able to read the room. And so she will come down the stairs while I have like a fussy baby on my hip, a crying toddler needing to be wiped on the potty, and like something burning on the stove, and like add on any number of things. And she'll just be like, hey, can you help me with something? And I'm like, Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Okay. Mallory: Ma, not now. And we joke about this. I wouldn't be saying this publicly on a podcast if it wasn't something that, you know, we openly talk about is like, mom needs a little bit of skill reading the room. ⁓ And so but because our home is just so busy and so packed and has so much coming and going. I have to choose all the time to swallow my pride, not blow up in that moment and be like, can't you say I'm busy? Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah, you're like you could come and help me. Yes. I love it. Yep. Mallory: And say like, yes, mom, give me a second. have a bottom that needs to be wiped. I have a teething baby and my chicken is burning. As soon as figure out those things, I'll be right over to help you. Or I'll be like, mom, if you go wipe Ezra's bottom, I will be able to do it faster. ⁓ But I just think like, and I'm going on a tangent, I'm sorry. But I just think that like. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: ⁓ it's great. Mallory: It's a no brainer for me when somebody knocks on the door to be like, come on in. I have tea and I'm sure that I can pull out some fruit. And if you don't have the house, where people are ⁓ and going, ⁓ be that for your husband. ⁓ Be that for your children. making a to choose community when your comes home from a long day of work. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. practice it. Mallory: and you choose to stop what you're doing and answer the door like you would anybody else, greet him and make him a snack. That is a hospitable person. To choose to just be outside of yourself for one minute and look around and see what ways you can make somebody feel like they're important to you. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah, well, and you even said like this is generational and it wouldn't become generational if it wasn't practiced first. So I'm sure. Mallory: and Courtney Her Mind On Mission: whoever in your family really started cultivating that, started cultivating it in the home with your immediate family first. And then it became, hey, we are good here, so let's open our door. And I wanted to touch on something because you shared it is generational, you shared that it is busy, you shared that it's kind of a revolving door, but you also said that you have to make a choice and sometimes those choices are still hard. So I want to encourage people who are listening that that's not the natural thing and that's not the generational thing. And maybe it is more of a squeeze for you to say, come on over, let's have a play date. when you know that your home is going to be more torn up than it is. if you had nobody over and now you're going to have to do that and bath night on a night that your husband's working late. I get it. So don't compare yourself, but also understand it started with a practice. And if it's not your season to say yes, what can you say yes to? Like Mallory just said, like your husband, your children. But understand it is a choice. And Mallory, you are so good at this because it's been an example before you, even if it is hard, you're still choosing to say, I'm going to keep it going. So can you talk a little bit about the resources on your page to help other women to do this? Mallory: Yeah, so my Instagram is the Village Calling and ⁓ I'm basically taking what my mom taught me because set the standard for me my whole life ⁓ and taken that and I've scaled it for people growing up, ⁓ know, and raising families in this day and age. And so on my page is really just Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mallory: practical motivation to say, here's what your list of circumstances are. You can make a choice to prioritize this anyways, and here's how to do it. The most value that you're gonna get is in the village calling course. That's where I go into the nitty gritty of how do you actually carry out hospitality if you've just ⁓ not it before? ⁓ How do you actually offer help and follow through in a way that stays within your capacity and doesn't burn you out? And how do I grow in holiness around my home so that I have like the bandwidth and the margin to bring people in? Because if you have a quarrelsome marriage or you don't have obedient kids, you aren't gonna have the margin to extend yourself to others. And all of those nitty gritties. are in my course and that's where you're going to get a huge amount of value. And so that's what I have now. What I have coming is super exciting. Right now within my courses is recipes for villagers. And it is just all of the go-to recipes that are allergy friendly, easy to travel, crowd pleasing, really quick to prepare and super nourishing. And I've just spent years cultivating that resource and I've put it together and I've been expanding it and expanding it. I'll be releasing that soon. ⁓ I'm releasing something ⁓ that haven't landed on a name yet, but that's essentially gonna be like no hospital food, like central. So if you know somebody who's gonna be in the hospital for a couple of weeks and you want them, their body, their cells in their body to actually receive nourishing food that's gonna help them heal, I have the ⁓ process of how to plan that, execute it, and... get it to them and what all that looks like. We just did it for my sister who had a very unexpected early preemie baby who was in the NICU and over the course of 24 hours I was able to plan. shop, prepare, figure it all out, and get seven ladies over to make 40 plus meals for her so that she didn't have to eat hospital food while she was there. So I'm putting all of that together. That's going to be a separate resource. Once I fill out recipes for villagers a little bit more, that will be a separate resource. And all of that is coming. But right now, it's all everything that I do have is all within one course, which is the Village Calling course. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Wow. I love that. You know, it's so funny because people will always be like, another course, but I'm like, people have done this for years. It was just in magazines and books and it was... Mallory: Exactly. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: and you didn't get to know the person and that's why I love social media and even podcasting because you get to know your story and from going from a generational where this has been cultivated to experiencing something like what you went through and then having to have people you know cater to you for a little bit while you were going through that and rebuilding these habits and getting back to where you were probably better because you've learned so much through that hard season that you went through just how much can we learn from you because of all that you've walked through and I love that aspect of the social world is just being able able to hear people's stories and be like, that's the person that I want to learn from. So thank you so much for sharing that. Before we wrap up for the day, is there a verse, a resource, something that you've been clinging to that helps you get through the mindset to open your home, to steward it well, and to be able to be a villager for other people? Mallory: The one that comes to mind and I have it like on a index card on my fridge is Luke 1.38, Luke 2.30. When Mary says, behold, am a servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. If we wake up every single day and we say that, ⁓ I am a servant of the Let it be to me according to your word. It is so much easier to step outside of yourself and receive what God has for you and to step into that. He's going to equip you. If He's called you to it, He's going to give you what you need in order to be obedient. And I meditate on that every single day, every time I'm in the kitchen and every time I'm tempted to forget what my actual purpose is, is that I'm a servant of the Lord. ⁓ It's not about how many friends I have. It's not about how many postpartum meals I receive when I have a baby. It's about being obedient to what God has called me to, and I'm always going to be open to that. And then a couple of resources. I tried to get it off my shelf, but I've loaned out the fourth copy that I've ⁓ ⁓ Organization is a book by Misty Winkler. ⁓ is, especially if you want to get to a place where you are running your home and your life in a way that... ⁓ Courtney Her Mind On Mission: This is Mallory: creates margin to bring other people in. You have to read this book. ⁓ Misty Winkler is a like decades long coach for ⁓ women. It's super practical. It is the most practical homemaking book that I've ever read. Just extremely tangible, granular, and she has a subscription, absolutely massive resource. Like ⁓ find Misty Winkler. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Okay. Mallory: She's amazing. And then the second one, think I just want to drive home this point a little bit more of the fact that you want to be building a village inside what you have already established as a peaceful home. And I think so ⁓ of that requires you to learn how to be a loving and respectful wife. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mallory: no matter what your husband is like. And there's a really great resource on that. It's a book called Wisdom on Her Tongue by Lexi Sauvé. This is a pretty new book. It's like 80 pages. It is quick. It's pretty radical. It is life changing. And I want women to understand that if you are are quick to criticize your husband or you let out a lot of stress on him, you're going to have huge roadblocks in building a generous life because so much of village building is covering people's offenses with grace and with love and understanding how to reconcile with people and to do it quickly and to not keep a record of wrongs and to not let the sun go down on your anger, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that's one thing that a lot of people really are missing and they don't even know it because they don't realize that they're a reviling wife that is always getting on their husband's case, that he's not doing anything right, that he's not helping them around the house. And this book really helps you understand what your role is in your relationship as a wife, what your husband's role is as your husband. and how to practically create a peaceful marriage that you can, because you're building a village that is welcoming people right into that. You can't hide a quarrelsome marriage. One time we had our pastor come over. We had just joined this church and this pastor had been there for almost 50 years and we invited him over and I had... My fourth wasn't born yet, but he afterward he was like, we never have families of young children invite us over because one, ⁓ too scared ⁓ of the behavior of their children to like be that vulnerable in front of their pastor. ⁓ ⁓ they're in a really hard place in their marriage because having children makes marriages ⁓ sanctified. ⁓ he was like, we were so blessed that number one, like you had children that were a part of this hospitality. ⁓ number two, ⁓ you guys related to each other in a way that was just so odd, gone, honoring, and I could tell you weren't putting on a show. You need to get to that place in your marriage, and that is going to take so much work on your behalf. But wisdom on her tongue is a great place to start and understanding how to build a peaceful marriage. ⁓ And I don't talk about that a ton on my page. ⁓ It's more of it's more of a conversation within the course because that's deep. Like, that's really deep stuff. But it is super, super important. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, And I will say, you know, my first year or two of marriage was really, really challenging. We got pregnant really quickly and I can relate to everything that you were saying that the pastor had said. And when we ⁓ really chose die to ourselves and to pick up our cross and to ⁓ respond and the way that God was calling us to respond and react and not do that in our flesh. And when we honored each other, when we encouraged each other, when we lifted each other up, ⁓ I say I'm like, I don't even recognize my husband, but I do because I always knew he would become Mallory: Thank you. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: this person and he always knew the same for me but we were so stuck. before where we were and now where we're at is a constant balancing act. And I don't feel like I'm going to crumble under the weight of things because he just comes in and picks up where I'm falling. Or if he's having a hard week, then I come in and I do a little extra and it's not like, well, I did this for you last week. No, it's keeping each other afloat when the other one is struggling or encouraging them a little bit more when you know that they need to hear it and just being so aware of that. And then when other people come in, they come in, they feel your peace, they feel the love and it's not even the peace that you have to offer. Mallory: Okay. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: It's the peace of Christ really living through you because you're living it out You're the real deal and people want that and so if you ever want to radically change people's lives for Christ and bring them to know Christ or plant seeds in their heart if they don't know him then that's one way to really really do it because they're gonna say I want what you have like why are your kids this way and how is your marriage that way and you'll begin to build that relationship or you can pour into them that way so I love that you shared that resource and I feel like this is a great point to just kind of have you pray in all of these things into one for the woman because I know so many people will hear this and be like how do I ever get there? Mallory: I'm Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to ⁓ speak on the practicality of what it means to be your hands and feet. Thank you so much for your design of the church. Thank you that you did not create us to do this alone. Thank you that it was within your design that we would be hospitable to one another and that we would, our lives would be woven in and through the body of Christ. I pray that for each woman that is hearing these ideas and wanting so badly to apply them that she would get on her knees before you first and foremost and understand that her strength and her motivation and her drive and all of it is going to come from you alone. And no, it's not going to come from some groundbreaking course or some groundbreaking idea. It's going to come from her willingness to do it, to make it a priority. And you, because you have called her to this obedience, you will give her the strength. You will give her the wisdom. and you will bless her in her obedience. I thank you so much for Courtney and all the ways that you have given her wisdom to share with others. I pray you bring blessing upon her ministry as she does this and talks to people that are a little nervous like me and ⁓ but just wanting to be obedient with the message that you have given us for other people. And I do pray Lord overall for each of our homes that they would be places that the love of Christ and the peace of Christ is ruling. We know that that cannot happen in our own strength. That cannot happen with one more cleared off counter. That can not happen with a more obedient child. It happens supernaturally and from the Holy Spirit, which you have given us. I pray that each person ⁓ stepping into their day right now would be able to open their hands and just say, behold, I'm a servant of the Lord. Let it be to me, according to your word. We give you praise and thanks God that ⁓ that in and through all of this, we are growing, are overcoming, and we are being sanctified because of the blood of Jesus. And it's in His name that we pray these things to you. Amen. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Amen.