Latest / Beside Every Calling / Beside Every Calling | Episode 15 | When God Changes Your Assignment: Lessons on Transition

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Beside Every Calling | Episode 15 | When God Changes Your Assignment: Lessons on Transition · Beside Every Calling

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Beside Every Calling, where a life you love is formed beside the call and not lost within it.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: If your date night has occasionally included a hospital stop, or your kids played Let's Baptize in the pool instead of Marco Polo, you understand this rhythm.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Across every season, from little ones to leadership transitions to emptiness, we live beside the call while creating lives we love along the way.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: So please get comfortable and let's dive into today's episode.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, and welcome to Beside Every Calling, a space for those walking beside a calling where a life you love is formed beside the call and not lost within it.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Debbie Daniels.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Joe Barber.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And welcome to this episode.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: We are really excited.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Joe, I'm gonna let you introduce our guests.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, absolutely.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: We are so excited to have two wonderful spouses of district superintendents with us today.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: And we just really wanted to get into some great questions on where the Lord has led them.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm gonna let you guys just introduce yourself.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us your name, a little bit about your family, where you're living, maybe who your husband is, and all that good stuff, and then we'll just kind of start the conversation.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Dawn E Step, and I'm married to Brad, and he's the district superintendent of Arizona District and has been for about two years now.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: We have a son who lives outside of Washington, D.C.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we have a daughter who lives near us here in Arizona, and our son-in-law.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm Kelly Lindstrom.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm married to Mark, and he is the district superintendent in North Arkansas.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: We've been there for a little over seven and a half years, and we have four children.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: One just graduated high school this year, and he'll be leaving for basic training in a couple days.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: We have a soon-to-be sophomore and twins that are going to be in seventh grade next year.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Your life is still very, very busy.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, very busy.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: Let me just throw us all a curveball real quick.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna have the first question in just a second, but Kelly, I want to go back to you.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: So you guys have been in South or North Arkansas for seven years.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: And if I'm doing the math correctly, that means you started this with some littles in your house.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: Is that right?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: We had a fifth grader, a second grader, and our twins were still in preschool.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: How did you do that?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to know because I don't know if I could have done that.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: We have to pause before that because a lot of our are not in the Nazarene church.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So they're wondering what is a district superintendent.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to clarify that we all were at once pastoring in a local church, and a district superintendent gets elected or appointed, and then they were once pastoring and within is your transition 30 days, like a general it's a quick transition.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: So they go from a local church to overseeing a lot of church churches on a certain zone or region.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Am I correct, Jill?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the right?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: There's 78 districts in the USA and Canada.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you were pastoring with your husband at a church, and then he got elected to a district superintendent, and you have little babies, littles at home, and now he's traveling and responsible for so many churches.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: So it it's probably not something that we could have done on just any district.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: We needed to be on a district where it was a smaller geographical area to travel.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it is.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's only about three and a half hours from our house to our most northern church.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: So he's able really to travel to where he needs to go and then be home just about every day.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, great.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: So for us, that's worked having small children.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: And if we were in a different district where he had multiple states, that probably wouldn't work so well.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: But this has worked well for us.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Having littles at home, how did you do how do you plug them into a church so they still have a consistency?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know most district superintendents don't have a consistent church they're at.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Were you able to still do that?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I usually don't travel with my husband.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: During the summer, we'll take the kids and we'll go visit the churches and they love it.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: They think it's so fun.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the churches usually have a lot of food and they think that's wonderful.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: I have three boys.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, there's nothing better than going to with a lot of food.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: We I we got involved right away with a local church in our town, and they've been wonderful.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Our kids are part of that community, and so am I.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know, attend Sunday school and help out where needed in the church, just like I would at any other church I would have been at with my husband.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's great.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to add too that if you're on YouTube, you're seeing us, but most of the listeners are actually on a podcast somewhere walking, I'm guessing, or on their treadmill or something.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But she's actually recording in a hotel room because she is with her husband, which that's the life of the spouse.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: What was maybe one of the most surprising things that you found when you transitioned from the being the pastor spouse to the spouse of the DS?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: Was there any surprising things that I know I did that same transition and I have a few things too I'm thinking of, but I just wondered what you guys was there surprising things and what were they?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: What were they?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: My experience, it's a little bit different than a little bit different than Kelly's in that we were empty nesters.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And Brad had already been pastoring on this district almost seven years.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we had already started the bonding with people in the district.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I was pleasantly surprised at the camaraderie that is amongst the DS spouses, and I think the the leadership, like the generals and others, have encouraged that.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I've really enjoyed that.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And just like pastor spouses do, you kind of share some of the same joys and some of the same frustrations with each other.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other thing I would say is you don't really know, you think you know a job looking from the outside in, but you don't really know the job until you're in the job.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've been a Nazarene my whole life.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've known district superintendents my whole life, and that's the other thing is every district superintendent is different, every spouse is different, every district is different, and I didn't realize the scope of the job.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I knew the scope of the job, but there's a whole lot of stuff that goes on that I was not aware of.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a few of the things I knew DSs found pastors for churches, so there's the search, there's the pastoral search, and then there's the finding the right pastor for the right church.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: You're doing your best to make it a good match, and then sometimes there's other issues before you can even bring the a new pastor to a church.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that is a big many times that's a bigger process than I realized.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then of course, there are times when a district superintendent needs to guide a church through some kind of difficulty they're going through and just help them through that.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or a pastor in their personal lives need to help them through that.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, just the different the properties of the district and the dis district, all the events and things like that.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I really didn't know what to expect.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't, I didn't really have any thoughts on it one way or the other.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I was really surprised at how smooth our transition really was.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: I was mostly worried for my kids.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: This was a change for them.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: We were moving states, they're gonna leave behind friends that they'd only been in that one church that we were at their whole lives.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, except for one of them, but that's all he really remembered.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I was more worried about them than me.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: It just, God just worked the whole thing out.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: We found the most perfect house in the most perfect neighborhood.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's not the house we wanted, but when it came down to it, it was the house we really needed.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: It was filled with children who my kids immediately bonded with and have been friends with.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: There was even somebody who moved in right next door to us, just I don't know, three weeks after we moved in.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: And we became fast friends.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm still great friends with her, even though she's moved on and we talk all the time.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: So just immediate friends.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: I was able to find a preschool for my little ones who were still in preschool, which we moved like mid-year.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: So we started in January.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of the preschools in our area were already filled up.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: But I not only was able to find a preschool that they could both be in, but they were in the same class.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: That was wonderful.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I didn't think that was going to be able to happen.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: Just little things like that.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: And the way the schools welcomed my children.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was just a wonderful transition for us.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I know, I know that's not how it's been for everybody.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't take that lightly.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very grateful and I'm very thankful.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really just been a really positive experience.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's awesome and wonderful.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we were empty nesters as well, like Don and Brad, when the Lord called us in to be in district superintendents.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: And we moved states, we moved halfway across the country back home, so to speak.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: And there was just so many things.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: We kind of knew the territory or the city or the area because we had pastored here before.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: And we knew some of the people, but you know, a lot of time had gone by, almost 10 years that we had been away from this area to from where we were.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of things happen in a little bit of a decade, and people get hurt or things happen and tragedies and just different things like that.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I think one of the surprises for me, and I everybody has a different situation, and everybody walks into a different group of people and just all that kind of stuff.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: So every district is not the same, like Kelly was saying and Don was saying.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: But our district, I was sadly surprised that how many wounded people in ministry we ran into.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and I and we got to hear we got, you know, it's not like the whole groups raised their hand and said, No, I'm I'm one of the walking wounded with you kind of thing or whatever.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: But they when we went to the churches on Sunday and we would try to take the pastor and his family out and just to get to know them and hear them.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: And for whatever reason, they just opened up to us and we'd end up praying with them before we left to go home.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: And somewhere along the line, it was a hurtful situation.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: Not everyone, but a high percentage of them.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: And it just felt like I I wasn't expecting that, even though I've lived that life, and I guess I should have been.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what I was thinking, but the Lord helped us and hopefully helped them too.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: But what do you wish somebody would have told you before accepting this role, before jumping into this kind of life?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: I again, I really didn't know what to expect.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I if somebody would have told me, I I don't even know if I would have listened to them.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: But I do not, like I said, I don't travel with my husband a lot.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't realize how much I'd miss hearing him preach.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: So we've been married for 29 years.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: So at the time it was 22, 23.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, that that's all I'd ever had.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: He was my pastor from before we even got married.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: He did a student pastorate, and he's the only one I ever heard preach all that time.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I hope we have a wonderful pastor at the church we're at, and he's a great preacher, but it's different, and I really was not prepared for that.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Don, do you have anything on top of your head?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely thought about this going into becoming a district superintendent spouse.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something that somewhere along the way I learned being a pastor spouse, and that is do not try to be as much as you admire the previous ministry spouse, do not try to be them and and feel that confidence that God made each of us special and unique.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I know we've heard that a lot, but it's so true.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: As much as I admire certain women, God doesn't want me to be those women.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm good friends with our previous district superintendent's spouse, and I love her, but it's like I'm not her.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: She's she did some things, I'm probably not gonna do those things, but I'm gonna do some different things, and that's okay.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's great advice no matter what role a spouse is in in the church, in ministry in general.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to add Scott and I never he was never a district superintendent, so I really didn't understand the role, and I did not grow up in the church, and so unlike Don, I didn't see this played out.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: But now that my husband has his role, I've realized truly the hardest role and maybe the most powerful role is the district superintendent in our denomination.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just because so much happened, all of the not the power, but the decisions really are made at a district level.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like you decide at a district level who gets ordained or who doesn't.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, Scott, or the generals could look over that and change it.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: But basically, there you put the board together to decide that.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: You get a sent decide on the delegates going to General Assembly, which is what I love, that really the people do get to pick and choose and vote on what is this denomination doing moving forward?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I I am in awe, and it really is such a big, huge, tough job because you do deal with some of the hardest parts of the church, because you, you know, deal with the broken pieces.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: What is something that you wish those of us that have never been district superintendent spouses, what do you wish we knew?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And how could we be praying for you?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: So again, yeah, I'm going back to my children.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the DS, DSs, and spouses, they don't have children as young as ours in the role.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: They may, I mean, there's more and more over the past years to spend more and more.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: But our children are still pastors' kids, and they do know that.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, people realize that and recognize that and are so wonderful to our kids.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: But sometimes they have pastors' kids in the church.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: So sometimes I think it's kind of hard for our kids to fit in and know their place a little bit.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen that just a little bit, not bad, but they know their dad is a church worker and that he is a pastor, but it's different the way he does it.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: And they're not the same as the pastors' kids that are in our church or staff kids that are in our church, even though they are, but she said I'm saying it's just a little bit different, and that maybe it might be good to recognize that it is still the same for them, too.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Great, yeah.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And because you guys really are pastors to pastors, that's what you do, that's your rule.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now that Kelly gave me time to think about it, I drew that curveball.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, sorry.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was perfect.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well we're all complex people in all complex situations, so I think just a blanket prayer would be pray for healing for us.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't just mean physical, I mean emotional, I mean spiritual.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Spiritual healing, I envision us growing closer to Jesus.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, emotional healing.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: We have lots of ministry leaders that deal with depression or other emotional issues, and it's becoming more easy for ministry leaders and spouses to talk about those things, but there was a time in ministry when we didn't, you know, ministry leaders didn't have any problems, period.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Healing would encompass marriages.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: We can't just presume that everybody's marriage is just hunky dory, you know.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and that would encompass our families too, our children.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Anyhow, I would just say overall for all of our DSs and their families, just healing.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: So one of the another surprise to me was the rhythm.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: First of all, I want to say what rhythm?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: When you're a pastor's spouse, we called it the seven-day grind.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, you get done with Sunday and Sunday lunch, but Sunday's coming again.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: There's just this seven-day grind, so to speak.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: And every week will look a little different for the themes or the seasons or whatever.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: So you, you know, we all live that.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: And then you the Lord calls you into these roles, and Debbie will even, you know, appreciate this too.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_03: Her rhythm, there is no rhythm.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: But for the district superintendent, I think I did I didn't think about that.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, holy cow, every week is different.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_03: The only thing that was kind of the same for Sam and I what the was the yearly calendar.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_03: We knew we were gonna have district super or district assembly.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_03: And we knew there might be this meeting here or this meeting here, you know, scheduled.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: So you kind of knew a a couple things throughout the year, but in between those meetings, there seemed to be absolutely, you know, you had to literally, let me just say, we are still learning to take control of our calendar, but even in in this in a district superintendent's role, we were not doing well.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: We would just, you know, it's like, oh yeah, we can have that meeting.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: He can be there, we can we can do that, we can speak there, whatever.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: And it was just every week was different.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: Did you guys experience that?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: Are you still experiencing that?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: And how are you grasping that kind of non-rhythm ministry?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's not a every week is gonna kind of have the same things in it, because it just doesn't.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say we're enjoying the adventure for the most part.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: I would say 90% of it, we're enjoying the adventure, 10% of it is rough wrestling, different situations and whatever we've experienced.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Something probably more than I've ever done before is I've said to Brad, guard your Sabbath.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, you know, again, we're dealing with different personalities here.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: But if Jesus needed to have a Sabbath and He told us to have a Sabbath, we need to do it for the long haul.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll even say to him, on your Sabbath, take your phone, take your smartphone off.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you don't take your smartphone off, you get buzzed every time your ministry texts you or emails you.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say for the most part, we're enjoying it, but probably more than ever, I do my best to help Brad have a Sabbath.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good point.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: It is hard.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: You're very accessible and you're always available.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: And with cell phones and computers that you can take and do things anywhere.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's good.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: You can get it done, but you are, you do really need to guard that a lot.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we feel that too.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: It in a way, though, we've also experienced the flip side where it's been a little easier than Mark when Mark was pastoring.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: So our kids are still involved in all the things soccer and baseball and school activities.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: And because Mark has a little bit, I say that loosely, more control of his schedule and when he can schedule things, he can schedule around those events and he can come and be a part of it.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel in church work there was always a pressing and urgent issue that we had to attend to at the moment, whereas we still have those, but it's okay to kind of kick it a little bit for a couple hours or, you know, um a couple days so that you know we can take part in these events and their lives.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we see both sides of it, but I would say the fact that he can kind of control around those activities for the most part, it has been has been good for us.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: So what I'm hearing, Kelly, is I look at look into your life from my perspective and go, oh my word, how in the world is she doing?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's just like crazy.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: My mind just going, like, I don't even understand.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: But now what I'm hearing from you and your heart and even from your schedule is it sounds like your sweet kids, your sweet blessings, where you find yourself in this role in ministry, kind of are your grounding of your calendar, of your, you know, it's kind of your anchor that he can work around.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_03: And what a gracious district to allow that to.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's a beautiful gift.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: That's wonderful to hear because I didn't know if you were like losing your ever loving mind, or you know, or if you're you're sane and you're doing great and all that kind of stuff.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: And it I'm so happy to hear that.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a beautiful perspective to hear that these sweet blessings, your children are your grounding right now.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_03: That that's something I never even thought of for you in this particular role.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: But it's good.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Which is so good because it sounds like we all need routine, but we also need Sabbath.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe when you are an empty nester, it's harder because you can just work 24-7, right?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And your blessings have baseball games.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, you don't want to miss that, or dance recital or whatever.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is so beautiful.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: So to end the conversation, I have a question.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: If someone spoused that just got elected or appointed to your position, what a piece of advice in closing would you give that spouse?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like the one thing you wish someone might have said to you right when it happened.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: So, and probably everybody already knows this, but just go into it with a lot of prayer.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like Don said earlier, it's not gonna be the same for you and your family as it was for the people who came before you.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: And just ask God, what's it gonna look like for you and your family and how are you gonna handle it?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then just all the details.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: The the like for in our case, the home, the preschools, the transition for the kids into school, and you know, just pray, pray, pray, and then just embrace it, just enjoy the change and the journey and um, you know, just look forward to a new chapter.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: Beautiful.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: What about you, Don?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: A woman gave me advice several years ago when we had moved from Virginia to Florida, and I was grieving the loss of serving in Virginia and moving to Florida, and I was venting to this woman, a leader of a women's Bible study, and she just lovingly, kindly listened to me, and then she said, you know, every situation will have a blessing, but you you need to look for it.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be different blessings in different situations, and she'll never know that I've taken that all these years, and a couple of blessings right off the bat that Florida offered that Virginia did not, because we were so close to Disney World, we always had people in the churches who worked for Disney, and we could get into Disney World anytime we wanted.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then I met one of my best friends in Florida, and so I would just say every situation has blessings, but look for so beautiful.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Any closing thoughts, Jill?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I would just say anybody that the Lord is bringing into any of these roles, especially the district superintendency, just uh keep grounded in the scriptures, keep your prayer life fresh, and just always be you.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: I think we've heard that from everybody.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: We all admire someone, right?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_03: We've all looked up to someone or say, oh, she's got it together when she probably really doesn't.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_03: She we think she does.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: But anyway, you know, we've all done that.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_03: We go, I want to kind of, I can do that.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: I can be her or whatever.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: And that's not who the Lord needs us to be.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, friends, thank you so much for joining us today.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And for those of you listening, thank you for listening to this episode of Beside Every Calling.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if for some reason this has you thought, wow, that was really helpful, will you please text it to one ministry spouse out there so we can help build this community in this sacred space, walking beside the calling?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone, thank you for joining us.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and episode 12 of season two will be we will be answering some of your questions.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_03: So it's starting now uh with uh with all of these, you know, you're listening to all of these things, email us at um beside everycalling at gmail.com and we will answer some of your questions.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Bye, Ice.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: If this conversation felt a little too familiar, were they sitting in my living room this week familiar?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's your sign.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Text this episode to one ministry spouse who might need it today.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if this space feels like oxygen in your season, would you please take 30 seconds and leave us a review?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: It helps more spouses find this beautiful, sometimes overlooked, but wildly important community.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next time on Beside Every Calling.