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April 19 – United in Imperfection · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  Welcome back to the Daily Ripples podcast. Today is April the 19th, and I have with me a very,
• 0:10
  very special, might even say beloved, at least to me, guest host with us today, and that is,
• 0:19
  how would you like for us to address you?
• 0:22
  Cristi.
• 0:23
  That is Cristi. And Cristi, for any of those who might be keeping score at home,
• 0:27
  how are you related to me?
• 0:30
  Most days I'm your wife.
• 0:32
  What do you mean most days?
• 0:33
  There's some days that maybe I don't like you, so we'll just leave that for the listening audience to figure out.
• 0:41
  In AA, we would call that an outside issue.
• 0:44
  But anyway, moving on, just as a reminder, because this is the woman who often tells me I spend too much time at the top of the episode talking before allowing the guest to speak.
• 0:56
  And so with her being the guest, of course, I have to let her speak.
• 1:00
  So why don't you tell us exactly what a daily ripple is?
• 1:03
  What does it do?
• 1:04
  What does it mean?
• 1:06
  Do you really want to answer that?
• 1:08
  No, it is where we're casting a stone into the water and which each day that we cast a stone, it can do.
• 1:17
  No, we're going to edit that out.
• 1:23
  We absolutely are not.
• 1:25
  I think what she meant to say was that we take a stone of truth, cast it onto the surface of our lives, and it ripples out with practical application and spiritual application.
• 1:35
  There you go.
• 1:36
  That's what I meant to say.
• 1:37
  That's what I heard from all that that you were saying.
• 1:39
  I was close.
• 1:40
  Anywho, let us jump right into the Daily Ripple for today, April the 19th.
• 1:46
  It is titled United in Imperfection.
• 1:49
  Yes.
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  Man, as you can see that the two of us are.
• 1:52
  That's right.
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  This is my wife today.
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  So let's buckle up.
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  The next couple of days are going to be fun.
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  Bumpy ride.
• 1:59
  The Stone, United in Imperfection.
• 2:02
  Human connection rarely begins with perfection.
• 2:05
  It begins with shared weakness.
• 2:07
  When I stop pretending to have it all together, real fellowship becomes possible.
• 2:12
  The first ripple is practical.
• 2:14
  It says,
• 2:15
  Today I will allow honesty about my struggles instead of hiding behind appearances.
• 2:20
  I will listen to others with empathy, remembering that everyone carries burdens unseen.
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  Compassion grows when I admit we are all works in progress.
• 2:29
  And Ripple 2 is spiritual.
• 2:31
  As I follow Christ, who met people in their brokenness rather than their strength,
• 2:35
  the Holy Spirit forms humility and compassion in me.
• 2:39
  The Father uses our shared imperfections to teach us how to care for one another.
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  Over time, what once felt like weakness becomes the doorway to deeper love.
• 2:48
  And as always, we will save our prayer for the end of the episode.
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  Now, one thing that I often like to do is to read a kind of a grounding verse out of
• 2:59
  scripture to kind of kick off the discussion.
• 3:02
  And for today, what I came up with was Romans chapter 15, verse 7, where it says,
• 3:07
  Accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
• 3:13
  And, well, I know that in the recovery community, we have a certain way that we approach this,
• 3:18
  but where do your initial thoughts go with today's Daily Ripple, my beloved Cristi?
• 3:25
  Well, I'll start with the stone, where it talks about connection rarely begins with perfection.
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  It begins with shared weaknesses, and I immediately connected with that when it comes to you and I,
• 3:37
  because where did we meet?
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  In a church.
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  Where broken people come together for help.
• 3:44
  And, well, that should be the intent of church, where broken people come for help.
• 3:51
  And I think that was true for the both of us, that we were at church because we accepted the fact that we were broken and we needed help.
• 4:02
  And in that understanding, we found each other.
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  And we found something good.
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  And we found something that added to the value of our life where we could grow together in our weakness and become stronger together.
• 4:19
  And then when it comes to the practical, talking about hiding behind appearances.
• 4:25
  Yeah, I'm not one to do that.
• 4:27
  Not usually, no.
• 4:29
  I don't do that when it comes to physical, with wearing makeup, because...
• 4:35
  Can I just jump in and say, as your husband, you look absolutely strange when you do put on the full makeup?
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  Because it's just not you.
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  I'm like, that's not my wife.
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  You know, I know who my wife is, and it's not that.
• 4:48
  And just recently, I purchased some makeup, and you were like, who's that for?
• 4:52
  What did you get that for?
• 4:54
  And it was just because I wanted to try something different.
• 4:57
  But, yeah, it's not me, because I have scars on my forehead for those who never met me.
• 5:04
  And it was from a car accident when I was a teenager that left scars on my forehead.
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  But even in that, I'm not trying to cover those.
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  I'm not trying to hide those.
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  I don't wear bangs to try to hide those because I want someone to accept me as I am in honesty.
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  And I also use that when I am speaking to you.
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  I always grew up with parents that said, especially my mother, say what you mean and mean what you say.
• 5:33
  And that comes with honesty and not hiding behind appearances, not just saying what someone wants to hear.
• 5:41
  Now, I'm going to break my own rule that I talk about you talking too much.
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  No, it's fine. I'm not stopping you. I'll critique it after the fact the way you so often do.
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  And then listening to others, listening with empathy, listening with compassion.
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  But the important word there is listening, not listening to respond, not listening.
• 6:04
  So you have a chance to share your story and one up them and being a victim of life, of circumstances, but listening, truly listening to them.
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  And in your sharing of your situation, have the ability to share examples of what you used and how you made it out.
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  But more importantly, keep in mind that everyone is going through something.
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  There is a true story in saying when people say, just walk a mile in my shoes.
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  That is so true.
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  because we all have a story to tell.
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  We all have been through something.
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  I know that this podcast was started because of AA.
• 6:58
  I'm not an alcoholic.
• 7:00
  I don't come from an alcoholic family.
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  However, there are things that are in the AA 12 steps
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  that I can still identify with,
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  apply to my life and every day and grow from.
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  So this podcast not only speaks to those AA members, but it speaks to everyone, which is why I listen daily.
• 7:26
  Yes, and you do, because you do give feedback, and I do appreciate it.
• 7:30
  I would definitely say that it is certainly a blessing to have a wife who is also my number one fan.
• 7:36
  And so I know that I don't tell you enough how much I appreciate that, but I really do.
• 7:41
  You were talking about, you know, listening to others with empathy, walking a mile in their shoes, and the fact that we're all broken people and we use our experiences and our brokenness to actually, once we're past it, we can actually use that to help bring healing to others.
• 7:56
  And that's exactly what in the recovery community they talk about as being the experience, strength and hope, using our experiences as alcoholics or addicts or what have you and using that to speak to another who's going through the same thing.
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  Because I know that when I was struggling with trying to get sober from alcoholism, it was the people that were already there that made it even possible for me to do that because there's no way that I could have done that on my own.
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  And it's odd to think about today, especially on the topic of the compassion, kind of still in that practical ripple.
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  Compassion does grow when we admit that we're all works in progress.
• 8:40
  And why I say about that is I, growing up and throughout most of my life, I would never have considered myself to be a compassionate person.
• 8:49
  You know, I would always, you had a surprised look on your face right there.
• 8:54
  I mean, you are surprised by that?
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  I guess I shouldn't be, but yes.
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  Yeah, I always struggled with feeling for another person or feeling real empathy for people,
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  because it's not the same as sympathy.
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  Sympathy can be kind of sickening a little bit, you know, but empathy is actually caring.
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  And I just always kept such distance from everybody else.
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  And it wasn't until, well, I got back into that church we were just talking about, you
• 9:21
  started trying to explore faith again. It wasn't until that as well as, and once I got into that
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  church, that's where I found the recovery community as well, because there were people that were there
• 9:35
  that were through their lives carrying the message of recovery. And so that when I was open to receiving
• 9:40
  it, I got that message. And then a few years later, I caught a wife there too. So yes, that always
• 9:45
  This comes in handy.
• 9:47
  In terms of the spiritual ripple for today, you know, it says that, you know, as I follow
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  Christ, who met people in their brokenness, the Holy Spirit forms humility and compassion
• 9:57
  in me.
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  And that's exactly what I was just talking about, because that's a fruit, what we call
• 10:01
  a fruit of the Holy Spirit, is that compassion and that love.
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  And it's grown in me just because I was willing to show up and try to help somebody else who
• 10:10
  was going through the same thing I was going through.
• 10:12
  Yeah, I know when it talks about the spiritual, Jesus truly did visit the broken.
• 10:19
  But when he left, there was a change.
• 10:22
  That's right.
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  There was a change for the better when he left those broken people.
• 10:27
  And so when we encounter someone who is broken, we too should leave them for the better.
• 10:36
  They shouldn't feel less than when we got there and we had that conversation.
• 10:42
  They should feel connected. They should feel loved. They should feel community. So those things should enhance and add value to their life, no matter what their brokenness is.
• 10:56
  Even if you can't identify with it, brokenness is brokenness in any form.
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  So the fact that we admit that we are broken, no matter what their brokenness is, that should be enough for us to connect, for us to share in that brokenness and leave each other in a better place.
• 11:20
  And so sometimes that's easier to do with a stranger than it is with family.
• 11:26
  Yeah.
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  But, you know, the Bible also speaks about charity beginning at home.
• 11:32
  And I know for myself that is something that I need to work on.
• 11:35
  So I'm talking about my brokenness right now and how I need to show more compassion, more love towards just family members because I easily extend it to the stranger.
• 11:49
  But, yeah, sometimes we need to extend it to our own family members.
• 11:54
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 11:55
  It reminds me of just earlier today, you know, I woke up in a bad mood because I felt bad
• 12:00
  yesterday and I was being kind of grouchy and things of that nature and some other, you
• 12:06
  know, things recently where some anger had kind of started to creep in.
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  And we've been talking about anger and resentments a lot on this podcast lately.
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  And sometimes I'm talking to myself as much as anybody else because I remember you kind
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  of stopped me and said, well, you need to work on that.
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  And so I took some time and I kind of got quiet and I went and kind of redirected, you
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  know, what we would call in the recovery community, restarting the day.
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  And usually what that means is that we pray about it and we try to put on a different attitude.
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  And so that's, I had to practice that even just today.
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  But that's kind of what I thought of as you were talking about that.
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  And because you're right, it does start at home.
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  It does indeed.
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  Well, what else do you have for us for today's episode, Cristi, before we sign off with our
• 12:46
  prayer?
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  I think that's it.
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  I think we covered all the important areas and brought some great tidbits to light.
• 12:55
  Absolutely.
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  Well, our prayer for today says, Father, help me live honestly among others.
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  Through your Spirit, grow compassion in me and teach me to care for people the way that your Son does.
• 13:07
  Amen.
• 13:07
  Amen.