Latest / The Rooted Woman Podcast / The Rooted Woman: Episode 12: Staying Rooted in Christ
Transcript
- Courtney: Welcome back. We have an official name change. This is the Rooted Woman Podcast with your host Courtney. I am so excited. Today we are celebrating together. Not only the name change of the podcast, a new graphic, but today we are in episode 12, which if you've been following along, this is our final episode of the Rooted Woman audio series. Not the final episode of the podcast. The podcast has plenty more to come, but I have been doing this 12-week series to really walk you deeper, ask some thought-provoking reflection questions, and hopefully give you some additional tools and resources to be able to walk rooted in Christ. As we begin this episode today, I really want to talk about staying rooted. I look back at so much of my life. And in the transitional season that I have talked about in my life when things were really put to the test and I knew something was different. How did I get here? I kept getting questions. How did you handle this and how did you do that? And how do you spin these plates? And the answer every single time is because I am rooted in Christ. I could not have gone through so much of what I've gone through more recently with my son being born with a heart defect. with some ups and downs and trials that we've experienced as a family and even me personally going through a healing journey, could not have done any of that if I was not rooted in Christ. And often we get to good places where we feel really rooted in him and then we go through ebbs and flows in those seasons. And it's okay to have seasons where you're like, I have been studying the word and I feel so rooted and so connected and so in touch with the Lord. And then have seasons where it feels dry. I'm not talking about the feeling. I am talking about the act. Of staying rooted no matter what life throws at you, because that is the key to making a true transformation in your life. And I really hope that you're not finishing this series thinking, okay, like now I need to go and get my whole life together. I did this 12, you know, episode series on the podcast. So that's never the goal. The goal was not to overhaul your life. The goal was not to give you so much to think about that you're overwhelmed about it. The goal simply was to help you to recognize that you do not need to become a completely different person. You just truly need to be more deeply rooted in Christ. And the rest will come. The rest will unfold. Those Holy Spirit conviction moments will happen in your life and step by step. one small shift at a time, you'll become the person that God is calling you to become. We've talked about survival mode. We've talked about peace. We've talked about surrender. We've talked about your thoughts and even choices, habits, and the call on your life. But none of those things were meant to become a checklist for you to go through and just continue to walk through the motions. I dread looking back on the season where I was doing that. Just check, check, check, check, check. Okay, good. I'm good. Because there was no real fruit There was no real transformation. And I'll tell you the saddest part for me looking back is there was no real peace or joy. No real peace or joy in my life at that time. I look at me now and I have lots of ups and downs. I have lots of trials still. There are things that I still need sanctification and healing in, and I always will have those moments. But the difference now is that I don't look at my life or my spiritual walk as a checklist. And I pray that you won't either. I really, really believe that when we find that time as something that is a non-negotiable connection that we have, the same way that we eat and drink, right? It will fully transform the way you see things, the way you respond to things, and the way that you internalize everything that's happening around you to you, seasonally, what have you. And I want you to take away from this whole series and specifically this episode that roots are built in the ordinary. Okay. Not these mountaintop moments, not this night and day transformation. Like I have mentioned in previous episodes, please go back if you have not listened to them all. I think that's really helpful because they do build on each other. Like I have mentioned before, the transformation before and after overnight success. stories that we see are basically make believe. Okay. There is always grit behind the scenes of what people are showing on their highlight reel, on their social media posts. And I think that our brains have become so so attracted to the dopamine hit that is the before and after that comes with the before and after, I should say. But I want you to be so ingrained in the Lord that That dopamine hit comes from time with him. That I've noticed it recently. I could cry saying it, but just the way that a child will snuggle up on my lap. The way that I can look. There's this one view in my home where when the sun is shining perfectly and the kids are playing and I can see them through the doorway, it just it's like a tickle to my heart, is the only way I can describe it. And go ahead and laugh at me if you want to. But I I'm truly telling you, it's this. pure joy and pure satisfaction found in the most ordinary things. And that is only the Lord. And that is only being rooted in Him. It's not something that I'm doing differently than I've ever done before. It's not that I'm quote unquote slowing down enough, pausing to notice enough. My life is still fast paced in this season. And I'm praying that it will slow down soon. But just to shape that picture for you, I'm truly doing nothing different, but I'm finding joy in everything. in a different way than I ever have before. And I think when you get to that place in your life where you know that you're not chasing after this overnight success, this big overhaul, and you stop overwhelming yourself and stop completely burning out just to start over again next Monday, next month, next year, you will recognize what it looks like to just start over again five minutes later with the Lord. And it truly impacted my life in the biggest way and I pray that it does for you too. Most of our lives are not mountaintop experiences. And I think that we need to start celebrating the little things as if they were. You know, we have Monday mornings. We have some people have school drop off or loads of laundry that they have to do, deadlines that they have to meet, bills that need to be pay. You have to make dinner. my goodness, when you're an adult, it's like you make dinner every single night. We have to do this for the rest of our lives. Sitting in traffic, right? choosing to do what you want to do when you have twenty minutes to yourself and then ten minutes goes by just trying to make a decision and you feel like you wasted your time alone and now you're stressed out even more. These are the ordinary moments where we can either grow roots in him or we can grow roots in our fleshly desires and the worldly things around us. And this is where the rubber meets the road. I know this episode may not be as maybe encouraging as the other ones in the series, but this is really the time for you to say, have I learned? Have I reflected? And have I taken all of that? And am I ready to apply it? And if you're hearing some of these things and you're like, I don't know how to get there, go back. And keep re-listening to those other episodes. Message me. Let's talk about it. And let's get you to that place where this feels feasible for once in your life. I want to read to you Psalm 1, 1 through 3. This is something that has been prayed over me, has been spoken over me, and a verse that I have clung so deeply to, and I want to share it with you in a way that I want you to grab onto. And it's like we're linking arms and agreeing with this together. Psalm 1, 1 through 3, the way of the righteous and the wicked. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. Okay, I want you to think about this for a moment. This verse stuck out to me so much since the very first time that somebody spoke it over me and said, You are going to be like that tree. And I created this shift into the rooted woman, really talking about our roots, a lot of times even referencing trees. Not to be cliche or to have a play on words, but because I believe that when we are deeply rooted, as I've seen in my own life, we will prosper in every single thing that we do For our good and for his glory. Just like a tree planted by the water, the tree is not chasing the source. It is planted near the source. It constantly is connected to the source. And it does not run dry when it's at that source. When we have the Lord as our source, again, I'm telling you, the anxiety that I used to feel completely gone. I have so much peace that the Lord has given me. And there's time that fear comes up. There's time that nervousness comes up. There's, you know, times in my life, even right now, that I am in a very transitional point of my life. Where I question a lot of things and there is some, I guess you could say, like anxious thoughts that will try to come in, but there's a difference between the way that I used to respond to that and the way that I respond now between prayer and being connected to the Lord and trusting in him, that peace that surpasses all understanding will truly cover me like a blanket. It's like a blanket falls over me every time. Anytime that I start to get worked up, as long as I point my eyes directly back on the Lord, I can get back to that place and truly just trust in him. And I'm trusting that as we go through this, as you've learned through this, as you reflect through it and as you grow into it, you are going to see that you become like a tree planted right there in the Lord that you are connected to the source, that you have that same level or greater, have greater peace than me, have greater joy than me. I want that for you. I want you to have it in so much abundance that you truly say, this is the Lord. This is the transformation that the Lord has done in my life and that your testimony will spur on the testimony of somebody else. And it's just going to be once again a domino effect for the kingdom because I believe that's the vision in the heart of the Lord. Why would he give us words that he has given us and and speak those things over us and to us if it wasn't his heart for us. Of course, whenever we go through a series, whenever we start a challenge, which I'll get to very soon, I know that many of you are itching for it. You need to recognize in this season as you are transitioning to become a rooted woman and not a worldly responding woman, right? You do not need to find more motivation. You don't need to wait to start fresh. You could start fresh literally right now in the middle of your day. You just need rhythms. I was even sharing this with my mom, as many of you know. We had power outages. I've been recording these weekly because I've really been just soaking it in week by week. Instead of trying to have it all pre-recorded and planned out, I've really just been leaning on the Lord. Whatever he wants me to say, I say it. I just show up and I do. And it's just been a fun time for me and the Lord too. And it's been cool to see what's been happening with the podcast and in all of you. And so this is really live in the moment. We had all these storms come through. We had one that they are calling an inland hurricane called a Derecho. And I don't know. It it was just wild. It was wild. And with all without giving all the details of the coming and the going and whatever, you know, I'm so grateful for our house not being damaged and all of that. So I don't want to ever sound like I'm complaining. But in the process, I remember telling my mom, you know, I don't even have very strict routines, but I'm just excited to get back into like my rhythm of doing things the way that I do it at home. Cause we were staying with her a lot. we would come back home to sleep at night. go back there the next day to cool off and charge up and and all the things. And it really reminded me, like I actually have transformed so much in this area because I used to be, and maybe you were late, so strict about my routines. It's like if I didn't have it, I felt like I was failing. Because routine, when they're so strict, if you miss one thing, it just like catapults into the rest of the things that you have to do because they're so stacked together. They're so connected and there's no room for flexibility, grace or for the Lord to move. But what I found out when I began really leaning on the Lord and having these quote unquote rhythms in my life, if I maybe reference this in another episode where I said it felt like I like dancing with the Lord in that postpartum season with my daughter, I have just found that these rhythms allow for me to still have structure because I am a structure person and to still have routines. Like the garbage still goes out on Tuesday night. But There is so much wiggle room for the Lord to come in and say, Nope, do this today. Nope, we need to move this here. Nope, shift this over there. And to really be led by Him so that there is more room for peace and joy to be abundant in my life. And I'm not so clinging so tightly to the things that I think that need to be done or to having control over everything that's going on in my life. It allows me to hold loosely while still being ri a responsible adult. We'll just say that. And so think about it that way. You don't need a strict routine. You don't need more motivation. Motivation will come and go with time and with seasons and circumstances. There's gonna be mornings that you feel like you are excited to open your Bible, and then there's gonna be mornings when you don't. There will be days where taking care of yourself feels fun. It feels natural. And then there will be other days where you feel like you want to abandon every single healthy habit you've ever tried to build. That's that's okay. We ebb and we flow. The difference in building true, healthy and holy habits as unto the Lord is not through motivation. It's through saying, okay, I slipped up here a little bit or I'm not stewarding this very well. Lord help me to do that. And you move right back under his will and his alignment and covering with your life and you're like, wow. That was so easy. It's not this whole process of restarting over, restarting over, restarting over. It is this process of just literally returning to his presence and saying, I need more of you. Fill my cup, Lord. Before I go to this meeting, I feel like I didn't prepare enough because I stayed up too late last night. Why did I forego my nighttime routine? I don't know. But help me, Lord, prepare me for what I have to do. Same thing with motherhood. I was up all night through the night with this child or that child, and I feel like I don't have the joy that I need to be with my kids and be present with them today. Help me, Lord, and watch him show up. And maybe you're not your most joyful. Maybe you're not your most prepared. Maybe it wasn't your best meeting. But I can guarantee you the Lord will sustain you through it. It doesn't mean that it has to be the best and that you need the motivation or that you need to come out and be the most successful. We need to get rid of those worldly expectations and those things that we think. Are the accolades that we want to achieve and ask the Lord, God, what accolade do you have for me today? I just want a job well done. At the end of the day, I want the Lord to be able to smile down on me and say, job well done. Yes, correct this over here, but job well done. Move this over here. Don't do that again tomorrow, Courtney, but job well done. I want that at the end of every single day. And if I could just get there, then I'm satisfied. I don't need all the other accolades. I don't need perfection. And I also don't need motivation to keep moving in that direction. And can you say the same? Can you say the same? Holy habits, healthy habits, they're not about proving your devotion to the Lord. They're about positioning. Okay. Positioning your life to constantly be connected to him. I'm going to say that again if I remember what I said. Holy habits and healthy habits are not about proving your devotion to the Lord. They are about positioning so that you can return to him and stay connected to him again and again and again. Okay, that is the biggest thing. We're not gonna have seasons. Yes, you might have seasons where you feel like things are dry, you're not as excited to get into the word, but I don't want you to have to look back and say you had a season where you were completely disconnected from him and and completely apart from him, turning your back to him. Gone are those days, gone are the days of striving. Let's just stay connected with him, stay rooted there. There again, think about a tree. There are times where a tree loses its leaf. Leaves, there are times where the tree has brand new fresh leaves and we're excited and it's spring. That tree did not move, it did not move away from the sorts. It's source is just going through its seasons. Allow yourself to go through seasons while remaining connected to him. And when you see that that's the one thing that changed, but you see everything else in your life changing, you'll give him the glory every single time. And I want you to recognize this as we kind of wrap up the main parts of the episode today. Your habits are forming someone, not just something. You think that you have this end goal of like the things that you want to do. I want you to remember that you are trying to become who God called you to be and to steward it all well. Every single day, the habits that you engage in, whether or not they're in alignment with your goals, are forming someone. They're forming the future version of you. So if you're consuming things you shouldn't consume, if you're listening to things that you shouldn't be listening to, you're reading books that you shouldn't be reading, if you're engaging in conversation that's not godly or that's not glorifying to him, that's going to impact your life and who you become. If you are consuming food that's going to be beneficial for your body. If you're working out, if you're reading the word, if you are spending time with people who encourage you, who lift you up, if you're serving others, if you're pouring out love to the people who are hardest for you to love in your in your immediate circle or otherwise, you are going to be forming somebody. And the difference between those two is going to be somebody that looks, you know, maybe depressed or anxious or stressed out or striving. somebody who is unhealthy, maybe has gained an unhealthy amount of weight, feels achy when they wake up. I mean, that's the trajectory of person A. Person B, the opposite, those other habits, is going to be somebody who is chasing their grandkids around and is healthy and happy and has energy and can focus on the things of the Lord and is grateful and has joy and has peace and has people in their lives that that are are going to just be Yeah, lifting them up in prayer and encouraging them. And those are very, very different people that are formed by very small habits. So pay attention to the habits that you have right now, the habits that you want. And remind yourself, it's not about, again, checking boxes. It is truly about becoming the person God is calling you to be. Because habits don't just form something. They form you into some one. Someone. Okay. So you might be asking, okay, we've wrapped up this series. How do I get there? I still feel like this series was great for me, but I've got all these notes and I don't know how to actually get practical with it. Well, let's get practical. Small steps of faithfulness will create deep roots. Always ask what is the right next step? What is the best next step? What is the best next choice for me, Lord? Stay connected to Him. Ask those questions. And think about this. Deep roots are not created in like one super dramatic decision, okay? when you plant a tree initially, its roots are not immediately deep. But you planted the tree, right? Plant the tree, tend to the tree. your deep roots in the Lord are going to be cre be created by a thousand small choices. Okay. That might look like opening scripture up before you open up social media, praying in the car on the way to work, we're listening to worship music instead of other music. going for a walk, maybe with no phone. Can I challenge you to do that? Go for a walk with no phone instead of scrolling. don't scroll on your phone while you're trying to eat a meal. Don't be watching something while you're eating. Focus on the food that you're eating and the people around you while you're eating it. Turn something off because you know that it's not helpful for your mind. I love the ones that are focused on like health. I was just talking with my doctor about this, like I still park ever since my initial conversation with her. I'm like, your voice is always in the back of my head, and I park as far away as I can so I can walk more steps because those little choices add up over time. All the little things that you can do, if you realize I haven't drank much water today, go and have a glass of water. Just because you're not finishing your water and meeting your water goal doesn't mean that you just forego the water completely. Drink some water. Rest when you feel like you need to rest. Repent quickly, forgive quickly, worship while you're folding laundry or washing dish dishes, pick up your Bible while dinner is cooking on the stove. All these little things that you can do. I could probably maybe I will. Maybe I'll come up. I'll do that. I'll come up with a list of as many as I can think of decisions that would benefit you. Maybe I'll break them up by like. you know, being in the word and the the five things that we do as our list for the holy habits challenges. Maybe I'll come up with a list of things that would be practical for you and just highlight one in each category. Okay, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna open my Bible while dinner is simmering on the stove and at least read a verse while I'm just standing there, you know, browning the taco meat. I don't know. And hopefully that will help you because you don't need to have like this perfect streep streak in the Bible app or even reading the Bible every single day, like opening your actual Bible, if you miss a day, it's okay. It doesn't mean that you've failed. You are still adding up. If you look at like the scale, you're still tipping the scale in the right direction. You're adding up those points. You're moving in the direction of again forming the person that God is calling you to be in these small actions. We need to celebrate the small actions and start to recognize them. The more we get our eyes off of like the big grand prize and the more that you look at the small little things and start celebrating them. The easier it will be to recognize in the moment when you're about to make a decision that is not in alignment with who you want to become. But you can't focus on those if you're only ever focused on the big thing. We only have so much mental capacity, okay? so that's something that's really helped me, and I pray that it will be helpful for you. And then think about this. What do you do? Okay, I've given you a lot of like practical steps. We've given biblical encouragement, we've talked about this in depth, a lot of reflection questions. But what do you do when life gets hard again? Hey, life is gonna get hard. I'm telling you another hard season will come because they do, and the Bible tells us that it will. There will be another overwhelming week or an unexpected bill or a conflict or your heart got hurt by somebody in your life, a diagnosis or a phone call, a season that you maybe did not plan for. I did not plan for our town to, you know, have these storms. I did not plan for our power to go out. I did not plan for, you know, eating whatever we possibly could on the stovetop. It was like four days of of eating. things that were not the healthiest and I was not feeling great about that. Okay. But that doesn't mean that I just give up on my goals or that I just toss in the towel. That means that, okay, that was a hard season. I season, it was a hard couple days. That was a hard thing to walk through, right? And I adjusted the way that I needed to adjust, but I didn't give up. And now I'm gonna pick up and I'm gonna return right back where I left off and we're gonna move forward in the direction towards my goals to be healthy and to steward my body well. Being rooted does not mean that That hard things will stop happening to you. Just like becoming a Christian doesn't mean that your life just all of a sudden gets easier. It means that they, I'm gonna say this loudly, okay? They don't have the same authority to uproot you anymore. And you need to plant your feet and say that with all the confidence that the Lord has given you. My circumstances will not determine my steps. I just made that up right now. My circumstances will not determine my steps. You can still take a step in the right direction, even when your circumstances make it more difficult to do that. Okay. You can can take authority over those things that are happening in your life. You can't change, I can't change the weather, but I can change my response to what it feels like to maybe fail on a meal plan because the weather took out the power and we're cooking things that weren't on the meal plan. You know, you you just have to be able to return to have the right perspective in it all and to continue to surrender it to the Lord to go back because He's the one that sustains you. Okay. You're not going to sustain yourself through survival mode. You're not going to sustain yourself through seasons that are a little bit more challenging than others. The only one who can truly sustain you is the Lord. And when you go back to that time and time again, even yesterday. Yesterday I am on a drive. My husband said, Go on a drive. I I feel like you need a break and I don't know, see if anything's open. Nothing was open. The lights were still completely out on that street. It starts raining again. I'm so frustrated. I'm in my car and I'm like, my goodness. I don't have anywhere to go. I don't have anything to do. What is this break? What is this break? And then I was like, no. My break doesn't need to be a tangible thing. My needs my break needs to be spent with the one who has given me all the things that are in my life right now. And I'm just driving and I start recognizing. I start recognizing all the homes without power. I start recognizing people being frustrated. I start recognizing the trees down again. And I'm like, man, here I am complaining about needing a break when the Lord has protected me so much and protected even our town. I mean, all the destruction I can't believe. that there's not more damage than there has been. Even the damage that has been done, the way that people are coming together as a community, it has been so incredible to see just people linking arms and serving one another. And so I started to look at it and be grateful. And it didn't give me the break I needed. I I you know it's my my mental capacity was just like at an all-time high. And I came back and I wasn't necessarily, I guess you could say like fleshly satisfied. But I knew that the Lord would show up and sustain me. And I'm like, God, I'm trusting you. I'm trusting you. And by the time that we're done with dinner, I believe that our power is going to be back on. I believe we're not going to continue to go through this. They were giving us another week of an estimate. I'm like, no, I I trust you, God. Sorry for my attitude. And we prayed, we ate dinner, or we sat down to eat dinner, I should say. And then we got a call saying, Hey, just let you know the power is back on. my goodness, can you believe it? And what would happen maybe if my heart had not changed, if I had not surrendered that to the Lord? it just it really changed my perspective. So I encourage you to not let your circumstances change the steps that you're going to take. And don't give it authority to uproot you completely from the plans that you have made to steward all that you have been given from the Lord well. As we wrap up, I want to ask a couple of questions. Ask yourself today. Where am I more rooted today than I was when I first started this series? I would love to hear your celebrations on that. Please message me and share. What has God revealed to you that you do not want to forget? Write it down and remember it. And what is one thing that you know that He's asking you to leave behind as you move forward from all that you've learned in this series? Before I pray, I just want to commission you: you don't graduate from needing the Lord at any time in our life. Maturity will teach us the exact opposite of that, that we need to rely on him more, that we need deeper roots, that we need Holy Spirit conviction and leading and guiding. So go and lean on him and go and build and go and lead and go and be a mother and go and create and go and take care of your body and go and steward what God has given you and go and walk boldly into your calling. But whatever you do, stay So, Lord, I just pray for every single woman that has tuned into the Rooted Woman audio series, Lord, that she has just grown, that she has been convicted, that she has seen room for change, Lord, and transformation in her life in a way that maybe she didn't before, and in a way that gives her hope. And I just pray, Father, that you help her to be be remaining in you, that you help her to be rooted in you, Lord, that you help her to find you when things get hard, when life circumstances take a turn for the worse, or when Things don't go the way that she had planned, Lord. I just pray, God, that she can return to you and remember all that you have to offer her, Lord, that it's better than anything that this world has to offer, Father. And that you will just help her through it, that you will lead her and guide her, and that you will just be ever present with her in the good, in the hard, and the in-between, Lord. And just pray that moving forward and out of this series, she can remain rooted in you in all things. And we just pray all of this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Rooted Woman podcast and finishing out the Rooted Woman audio series with me here. If you are not already in the Rooted Woman connection on Facebook, I will leave a link for you in the show notes so that you can get plugged in there. I also want to encourage you today, the free holy habits challenge goes live. There has been a little bit of a change. We are going to be doing a 14-day holy habits challenge, and this is the last challenge that we will collectively do together in this nature. The Holy Habits Challenge will continue to be. Ongoing. It will continue to be free and it will continue to be talked about in the community. However, things are going to be shifting a little bit and there will now be quarterly cohorts that I will be coaching. So stay tuned for that. There's so much more to come, but I wanted to get you plugged into our free holy habits challenge. Again, the last one that we will be doing together. It is now live, and I will leave the link for you below. Thank you again for being here. It means the world to me, and I will talk to you next week.