Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 34: The Hills Are Alive... With Joy?

Transcript

Ep. 34: The Hills Are Alive... With Joy? · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the We Are More podcast. My name is Alyssa.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: And my name is Bree. We're 2 sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe that Jesus trusted, respected,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. And apparently, that's controversial. Get Get comfy. Happy post Thanksgiving world. Who else is feeling fat
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: and tired? Oh, me. I'm exhausted. So
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: just I could fall over and die. Mhmm.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about making another Thanksgiving dinner today because I was like, oh, I still want turkey. But I'm just so dog tired. I can't even move. I can barely blink.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Well, we don't usually we don't end up with the leftovers Mhmm. Because we go over to our aunt and uncle's house, and they're always like, oh, take it home. Take it home.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: But, of course, we never do. Even if I did take it home, it's not like I would eat it. It would just sit in the fridge and rot.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: That's exactly why we never take anything home. Mhmm. I think this is a millennial thing also. People are like, oh, no. Take this home.
• 1:17
  It'll be lunch tomorrow. It'll be whatever. It won't. Now other millennials, you can chime in, But for me, it will sit and rot in my fridge. I will never ever remember that it exists.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: There are certain things, like leftovers, that I am a
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: fan of. There's some things I'll go back to, but people are always trying to get me to take home my parents. Our parents. We share parents. Are always trying to get us to take home pizza.
• 1:43
  Like, if there's leftover pizza, it'll be like, oh, take this home. We're supposed to go over for pizza tomorrow. Guaranteed.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: We'll be asked to take it home,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and it's like, this will never get eaten. Not ever. I'll get annoyed with it at some point, and I will throw it in the garbage.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: It'll take up too much space in the fridge. I just am not motivated for it. Mhmm.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: And I recognize that that this is wasteful, but I just don't have time
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: for it. I'm a waster devil. What can I say? It is what it is. Anyway
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: so we hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving even if it was tiring.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. I hope you spent today sleeping and being lazy. I guess we've had now this is the second day of being lazy. Yeah. Hey.
• 2:23
  Did anyone Black Friday shop? Yeah. Oh. We made a couple of mistakes. I hit a curb.
• 2:29
  She did.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: It literally has not snowed in Michigan. I don't at least where we are, I don't think at all.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: It snowed, but I haven't really stuck.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: And then we had shopped a little bit. We stopped for breakfast. We're sitting there eating breakfast, and the heavens opened, and all the snow god could make for the day just,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: like, poured right on down. And I couldn't see that curb, so leave me alone. We drove past it again later, and you could see the tire marks. So what was bad was we were all driving past, and we're like, oh, someone else did that too. Look.
• 3:05
  And we're like, oh, no. That was you.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: But it's a great story to tell.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, what a memory we made.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: We were the crazy people. So we have always gone Black Friday shopping. If you've listened to our last couple episodes, we mentioned that. But we are absolutely the crazy people that will get up. We woke up at 4 o'clock in the morning
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Gathered all of our other humans that were coming with us and piled into the freezing cold car and then got out and waited outside in line in, like, 25 degree weather.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Outside in front of a JCPenney because they were giving away free snow globes, and nostalgia just made us do it. They haven't given away the free snow globes in years. And so now we were like, yes. We're doing it. No questions asked.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Did you know also some of the husbands and random people thought they were full sized snow globes? They didn't realize that it they were like, oh, well, they're waiting in line for a full sized cone's decoration.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, no. They're the size of a a golf ball.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: They're like 2 inches. They're very small.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: They're quite small. But I was expecting that. Well, we were.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: But the people who were like, well, this is unreasonable, but at least they're getting a free snow globe. It would it's unreasonable. It's unreasonable. And yet we'll do it again next year.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: I would heavily do it again.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: We're standing there. We're all huddling, because it's now starting to snow. We're outside in line. Mhmm. And we looked at the cousin that made us show up at 4 o'clock in the morning.
• 4:30
  We're like, what did you do? She was like, you guys are gonna be
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: happy when you have your free snow closed. I think they were also handing out coupons.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We got coupons. But I mean, we
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: weren't there for that.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: No. I could give
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: 2 poops about a $10 coupon. But a free snow globe, I'm there.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: But it could've been a $500 coupon, Britney.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Could've been. Could've been. I really wouldn't have cared then either. You would've totally cared if it was $500. Just a JCPenney.
• 5:00
  What am I gonna find in a JCPenney?
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know. They have appliances, I think.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: You could get you could get
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: a fridge for your room.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: A not very good one for $500. No. But I don't
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: know. There was another moment also. Okay. This stuff just your brain just goes blank and Oh. Something takes over with you guys?
• 5:22
  Because it happens to
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: me a lot. I'm I'm sorry for what you're about to hear. So
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: we walked out of the 1 store, and we were waiting for a couple of other people, And there was a 5 Below right near where we were. And, you know, I mean, what deals is 5 Below gonna have on Black Friday? Are they taking a dollar off? I I don't care at all.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: So we looked it up, because we had seen somebody waiting in line to get in. And we were waiting. What else we were gonna do? Sit in the warm car, drinking our coffee? That's absurd.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: So Alyssa looked up the ad, and it said, fill a bag for $20.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: We thought it was the whole store.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: The whole store. I was like, heck yeah.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Let's go. I literally would have filled it fully with the bulk candy. I realized that would be a stupid use of it, but that's what I would want in life.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: That would have been okay. I would have
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: been alright with that. So we walk in, and they're handing out the bags, and our cousin asked. She was like, so we can just pick anything? And the girl goes, no. It's just the squishmallows.
• 6:21
  If you are parents out there
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: is your house just full of squishmallows? Not even like a full size squishmallow. We're talking about, like, the small Squishmallows.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I would say they're maybe, like, 6 inches tall.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: The size of a coconut. Yeah. Well, that's wildly specific. That's exactly what the size of them are. Don't ever question me again.
• 6:39
  I'm so sorry. Everybody listening to us was like, ah, coconut. Got it. Sure. Because we all have coconuts sitting around.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Anyway so logically, my house is full of squishmallows. Okay? I have not I, but my children have 45. My son's bed is so full of them that I don't know where he sleeps.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: On top of them. Yeah.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: He doesn't even need a mattress at this point.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: We'll just put a sheet over top of them, and you're just it's fine.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: But something took over my brain. My cousin, who we had just talked about, she has way too many of these in her house. Something took over her brain. Brie, who doesn't have children, was like squishmallow time.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: I think more of it was just like, I don't wanna miss out. So, obviously, I'm always down for a good time. I'll spend $20 on anything. It doesn't matter what it is. So, yeah, I'm gonna buy $20 worth of Squishmallows.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: So we each bought $20 worth of Squishmallows. And let me tell you. Like so they gave you a bag, and it wasn't that big of a bag. But you could if you sat on it, you really cram some squishmallows in there, and so we did. And my cousin's bag popped.
• 7:48
  And when I say popped, I mean, all the air that we had squished out of the squishmallows
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: hit them again. It was spectacular. It was. Squishmallows went flying. You
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: know what? Disney wouldn't have the fireworks at the end of the night. That's what happened. It was fireworks of Squishmallows.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: And she had already bought 2 Squishmallows at the previous store and yelled at herself for that. Yeah. So now we walk out of the store, put them in my trunk. My trunk was mostly full now with 32 Squishmallows. It was a great time.
• 8:21
  Let's just take a minute and picture that in the back of my Subaru Forester.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I think we need to take a moment of silence for that.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: 32 Squishmallows. Yeah.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: At least if we had gotten in an accident, maybe it would have cushioned the blow.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Purchased from a bunch of something something year old women. Can you believe it?
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: At least we were getting them for children we know. I don't think you're keeping any of them that I know of.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. I'm keeping them. All of them. Never mind. Actually, your daughter came in my room today, looked down, and she was like, are those Christmas presents?
• 8:58
  And I said, turn around and walk out.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: She's been such a butt about Christmas presents because we're the worst at hiding that up, and she finds them everywhere she goes. That's why we haven't bought that many of them yet. Speaking of
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Christmas, I'm gonna jump right back on topic. Back we were never on topic. Listen. This is coming out in December. In December, the entire month is Christmas.
• 9:24
  I don't know if anybody's noticed.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I think anyone who's walked into a Target has noticed. Or a Hobby Lobby. I haven't walked into a Hobby Lobby in quite some time.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: I haven't either, but I think Christmas starts in April for them.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I think Christmas never ends. Oh, like a Bronner's? Yeah.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: The biggest Christmas store in the entire world. Is it the world or the country? I think it's the world. Is it? Yeah.
• 9:46
  I saw a documentary on it.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: There's a store near us. It's called Bronner's, and it it is. It is this massive, 40 acres or something absurd store, and it's Christmas
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: all year long. Open, like, 363 days a year. It's Christmas, Christmas, Christmas.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Interestingly, closed on Christmas. You can't go there.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Nope. Speaking of Christmas, does anybody not feel so joyful around this time of year?
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: You always say you feel melancholy around this time of year, or is it Christmas day specifically for you?
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: I think it's Christmas Day specifically. I love most of the events leading up to Christmas, but Christmas Day itself, I'm a little melancholy. Yeah.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Our family so our our big fat Greek wedding family.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Oh. The family.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: This is the time of year where I would say from Halloween to New Year's is our we see these people all the time Oh, yeah. Time period. And so we'll have all these events. We'll we'll all get together to go see a movie, and they're not always huge things.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Mm-mm.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Or we'll do a sleepover, or we'll do a girl's day, or, you know, whatever. Mhmm. And so we've got that, which is fun, super fun, but there's you know, it's the list of things you've gotta do. Mhmm. So there's that.
• 11:02
  And then my daughter had her Christmas recitals, and so there's that. And then school has its Christmas parties that we gotta buy the things for.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: And On top of all of those things and you wanna have a good time, you're also doing work. Mhmm. And you're also just ticking things off your list until all of a sudden you blink and the
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: year is gone. Right. You're like, oh, ugh. Yeah. It's like real life doesn't stop even though it feels like it should.
• 11:26
  It feels like all of December should be like, well, we just take this month off. The world should know. Yeah. Obviously. And yet throughout all of it, you know, we decorate our houses with signs that say joy and peace and
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Goodwill towards men and women.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I don't think they have that sign. I haven't seen that sign yet.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: I should make that sign.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: You should. We can put that on an Etsy shop. Goodwill towards women. We've talked the last couple of weeks about peace and thankfulness, and we're gonna do one last kind of topical one today on joy. Not from inside out.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Don't get confused. We're not talking about Amy Poehler.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: We are not. Not today. Maybe someday. Actually, we could go through her book. It's great.
• 12:12
  We could. But I actually deeply hate that movie. It's very emotional, obviously, and I really don't enjoy it.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: You don't enjoy it? Stop it. So
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: we wanted to talk today about what joy looks like for Christians, what joy looks like for women in this season, and, I don't know, joy around Christmas time. When you're supposed to have the most of it, but I feel like we almost have the least of it.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Joy around the holidays. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's almost like you're too busy to sit and just be like, I'm joyful. Truly joyful.
• 12:48
  Joyful doesn't mean happiness. I feel like it's a inner, like your spleen.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I feel like when I hear joy preached in churches, it is. It they say it's it's like peace that passes all understanding. It's not situational. It's not based on circumstances. It's this otherworldly thing that God gives you.
• 13:14
  Contentment. Contentment.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: That's a great word. Yeah. And the sense of meaning and purpose in life. Mhmm. Which I feel like, especially when you have the new year coming up, you talk about new year's resolutions and stuff.
• 13:27
  A lot of people maybe that's why I get so melancholy is, like, a whole year passed. And what do I have to show for it?
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Right? Nothing.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: When that's not true,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: obviously. Yeah.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: But you have this sense of dread.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that really ties into what we talked about last week when we talked about thankfulness. And it really ties into joy in a big way too as people, at least in the United States. I don't know about, you know, other countries and cultures, but where we are right now in time, the only thing that gets valued are your huge accomplishments.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. The US puts a big emphasis on progress. Right. Staying busy, always moving ahead. Right.
• 14:13
  And if you're not doing those things, if you're kind of just treading water Mhmm. Even though you're staying above water, it's not enough. Right.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: At the end of the year, you're evaluating your year, and you say, did I get a huge promotion this year? Mhmm. Well, no. Maybe that didn't happen. Did I Travel.
• 14:30
  Travel? Did I get married? Did I buy
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: a new car? Did I Birth anything. Yeah. Anything. Not humans.
• 14:38
  Anything at all. Whatever.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Not even gonna we're we're moving fast. We're breezing by. I think that's how we evaluate our year. You know? And and how could you possibly have peace, thankfulness, or joy when that's how you measure Mhmm.
• 14:58
  What your life has been if you can't look at the smaller moments and say, these were just as important. Mhmm.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: I think that's why social media around this time of year is damaging to my mental health. Mhmm. Because social media is just everybody's highlights. Right. It doesn't reflect everybody's, like, true day to day life.
• 15:18
  So as you're scrolling through, you're like, oh, this person got engaged. Oh, this person had a baby. Oh, this person got a promotion. Oh, look at their beautiful Christmas pictures. Look at they got a dog, and that dog looks nice.
• 15:31
  It can be overwhelming Yeah. And not so joyful. Not
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: really at all, actually. No. So I have we've both got some notes, but I have a couple of sections from the Bible that I wanted to talk about.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: The Bible, because that's why we're here today, people. This is a Christian podcast. I want you to buckle up. Alright. Moving on again.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: So the first one is actually a verse that both Bree and I have in our notes, which we usually research and take notes separately and then kind of sit together and chat about them
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. So
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: that we don't completely blindside the other one.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, that happens though too.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Well, usually, we just say stupidness, and that blindsides the other one.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: No. I never say anything stupid.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Right. You're very serious.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: I'm a very serious person.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Yes. The seriousness. So the verse that specifically in this section talks about joy is Psalm 35. So not 35. 30 colon 5.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Chapter 30 verse 5. Thank you. That that was so much, by the way. You're welcome.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And in the NLT, that says, for his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. Now, again, because it's really important to read more than just a single verse, and, of course, we love to pull this verse. Right? I've heard joy comes in the morning.
• 16:57
  It's in worship songs.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Comes in the morning.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Who sang that one? I don't
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: know, but I don't know anybody who's joyful in the morning other than, like, 2 people, and I think I'm scared of them.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, my daughter is. She is awake and ready to live life in the morning.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what comes before joy, caffeine. And then maybe, maybe, you might get, like, a glimmer of joy.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Oh. From the caffeine or yes.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay. From the caffeine. Not from life. Not from anything else.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: You might wanna pray up and edit to the Bible real quick.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Lord, help me find some joy in anything other than caffeine. So, anyway, so because it's important to read
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the rest of the section. I'm not gonna read the whole chapter. It's not terribly long. I would encourage you to go read it. It's, again, Psalm 30, but it is a song.
• 17:47
  It says the header says it's for the dedication of the temple. So we pull that out when we say joy comes in the morning. Every new day, you can be joyful. You can find something to be joyful about. Right?
• 17:58
  And that gets I feel like as Christians, I don't know about you, but whenever I hear a sermon on joy, it gets kind of thrown at your face.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Be joyful. Be joyful for heaven's sake. Stop it. And I get that to a point. You're saying you have this wonderful God Right.
• 18:17
  Who laid down his life for you, and now you have the opportunity of heaven available to you, so you should have joy. Yeah. But day to day life sometimes is not joyful. Mhmm.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: As the chapter goes on, that's what David says next. He says, when I felt secure, I said, I will never be shaken. Lord, when you favored me, you made my royal mountain stand firm. Mhmm. But
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, not a booty, but with one t. When you
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: hid your face, I was dismayed. To you, lord, I called. To the lord, I cried for mercy. What is gained if I am silenced, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you?
• 18:56
  Will it proclaim your faithfulness?
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Keep getting sassy.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Hear, lord, and be merciful to me. Lord, be my help. So just like Bree said, of course, as Christians, we have a reason to be joyful. Mhmm. We have Jesus.
• 19:13
  We have the lord. We have a path to heaven. There's a a solid reason that we can be joyful.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: I think what it acknowledges here, which I really like, is it's okay to be melancholy. It's okay to be angry. It's okay to wallow in self pity.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Well, you can see David is saying, when you were good to me, god, when all the blessings were heaped upon me, I was praising you. Life was good. All of his songs of praise were going up to heaven. Whatever. But the moment that all of those blessings in his mind stopped, even though there still were probably blessed I mean, I'm assuming here, but there were probably still blessings.
• 19:56
  There were probably still good things going on. The moment that the blessings David wanted to happen Mhmm. Stopped or paused or became something different, he was like, god, you will hate me,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: which that is so human. Yes. And I love to see that reflected in the bible. This is this is us. Mhmm.
• 20:19
  We're a little forgetful. Yeah. Yeah.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Or we just see things very, very differently.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Another one of the sections I wanna talk about, one of the verses, god is speaking, and he says, I see things so much differently than you could possibly
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: see them.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: So we're sitting looking at our to do lists this time of year and saying, my gosh. What do I have to be joyful for? Maybe I don't have enough money to get Christmas presents for everyone that I want to. Yeah. Or maybe someone's health has taken a turn.
• 20:55
  Or, you know, we've had we've had some health scares in my family recently, and that's been really it it's a difficult time of year to deal with that. The reality that
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: we're all getting out of here one way kinda hits especially this time of year.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Because some of us are going into this season without people that we had Mhmm. Last Christmas. Or, you know, I remember when our grandpa passed away, and this was many years ago at this point, but I really distinctly remember going through our first Christmas without him.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And then I really distinctly remember my grandma saying that going into the New Year without him was especially difficult. Mhmm.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: So if
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: that's something you're dealing with this year, even if it happened earlier in the year
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: For all of a sudden, the world to be saying,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: joy to the world, all these things. Like Sing it again.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: No. Thank you.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: But you could. No.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Every time we try and be serious, it just doesn't function for us. Us. But with the world trying to say, this is the time of year to be happy and joyful, and it's wonderful. And yet for so many of us, it's not. Mhmm.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: The world doesn't stop turning. Time keeps going. You can't stop it.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Tragedy happens when it wants to.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: And I think it's it's important, and it's also really validating to look at the bible and see verses like this and be able to say, yeah. It would be great to be joyful all the time. Mhmm.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: That
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: would be great.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you think, like, Christmas when you were a kid. Right? Completely carefree. You didn't have to worry about paying for things.
• 22:34
  Right. You didn't have to worry about losing people, hopefully, when you were a kid. And you want it to stay that way. And when you get a little bit older and things start changing, you're like, why isn't Christmas as joyful as it used to be? But that's just part of life.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Right. It's really nice to know because when you hear sermons on joy and it's it is smashed in your face that you should be joyful. You should be joyful. You try to have all the joy in the world. Yeah.
• 23:01
  To know that even in the Bible this is David saying this here, but god allowed this to be in the bible
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: to say,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: there are moments where I lose that joy. Yeah. There are moments where I have it, and there are moments where I lose it.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: And that's okay, and it'll come back. Mhmm.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: I think that's maybe where joy comes into place. Hope.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Hope that it will come back like the tide. You know, it's always like night and day, it's always gonna come back as long as you have that faith.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Right. And when you look at things as black and white, when you hear a sermon that says, you must have this at all times Mhmm. And then you lose it. And we've talked about this in other contexts before. When you give an absolute Mhmm.
• 23:50
  And then that absolute falls apart, because, of course, it does because we're people and we're not perfect, then you do you lose all the hope. You feel like it's never coming back. I'm done for.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I will never be joyful again. Yeah. And it's it's okay. We see here that it's okay to not be joyful for a
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: minute. Mhmm.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: It hurts. God would prefer that we hold on to that joy, I think. He would prefer that instead of feeling melancholy and wallowing or whatever, that we do always say, but things will be okay, because God's got us.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: But he made us who we are.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And, also, I think something that is on my heart right now that I wanna say, if you're listening to this and you're like, I don't have anything to be sad about right now. I am joyful. That's okay too. I am so happy that you're joyful, but maybe this is an opportunity for you to spread that joy.
• 24:46
  Mhmm. Give that make space in your life to find moments where you can put joy on someone else. Mhmm. Buy someone's coffee or sit down with them and talk to them when they need you to.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And and as you're spreading that too Spread it. Spread it.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Nope. You know? I take that.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: As you're sitting with people and trying to spread joy throughout this season, if you are just super blessed and and having a a good time right now. Mhmm. What I wanna caution people on, because I I just see this in Christianity a lot, is sitting with people and saying, well, here's what you need to do to fix your problems.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: You know? Here's how you could be more like me. Here's my opportunity to fix you. Yeah. Yeah.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: So I would recommend not doing that. But, yeah, like Bree said, just buying someone's coffee. Mhmm. Or if you have the means to paying for someone's groceries. And this is stuff that you can do at any time,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: and it doesn't have to be specifically around
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the holidays. Or there's a missionary that I follow, and she is absolutely always doing amazing things. So you could donate to someone like that or sitting with someone in their pain. Mhmm. Not fixing it, but sitting with them in it.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Think there's a lot of power in just active listening.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: You don't have to think about what you're gonna say next or how you're gonna fix this for someone. Just listening to them. Let them vent a little bit, and then pat them on the back and move on. Wow.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: So there are a couple of other verses that I wanna talk about too. Let's go to the the one that I talked about where God is talking. This is in Isaiah. And, again, I'm reading for the n from the NLT because that's what I decided to use today. The note.
• 26:40
  The note. That's the New Living Translation,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: in case you weren't aware. In the new living translation, Isaiah chapter 55 Verse
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: 12.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Verse 12.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Commence. So verse 12 specifically says, you will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands. I wanted you to, sing the song.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. No.
• 27:12
  Not not that's not a song. And the trees of their hands will clap their hands. That one? Yeah. That one.
• 27:20
  You're welcome.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: So I was just looking up versus on joy, and I love this particular one, and we'll read through a little bit more of this section in a second. But I love this particular one because it makes you feel it a little bit more. It's not just like and be joyful. You you. It's you will live in joy and peace.
• 27:45
  And and what does that look like? What does joy and peace look like? And I don't necessarily think literally that the mountains and hills are gonna burst some sun. Maybe they will. I don't know.
• 27:56
  I think they could. I think, specifically, here, it's talking about post Jesus coming back, heaven heaven on earth, whatever you wanna call it. You know that Disney short?
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: I think it's before Moana, where the the mountain Yeah. Is looking for a lady. Yeah. That's what I'm picturing. We just watched that the other day.
• 28:19
  What is that one called? I Lava You. Yeah. I think it's
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: just called Lava, actually.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Probably. But I love you and peace and joy. Wow.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: You can find that one on Disney plus. Mhmm. Yeah. We just watched that not too long ago. But I like that it just sort of describes it for you.
• 28:39
  Imagine this wonderful, incredible setting, and I'm thinking, you know, the opening scene, not any other scenes, but the opening scene from the sound of music?
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: And she I do. She's Yes. I truly do.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Mountaintop. And she is singing her heart out, and she's spinning her. It's a beautiful day. There's grass. Whatever.
• 28:58
  Did you know they had to
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: do that in one take? Did you know that to get that scene, there was a guy hanging out of a helicopter with a camera?
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's why they could that one take. Yeah. But, anyway, that's may what it makes me think of is, like, this beautiful, perfect moment. Now, again, don't think of the rest of the movie.
• 29:15
  Just cut that out of your brain.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Get rid of the Nazis. Get rid of the, you know, what else is in there?
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: The the guy is kind of a jerk. That is. Get rid of the sexism. Get rid of the terrible parenting. The death.
• 29:33
  There's there's a lot going on. Keep the music. Keep the just the just the first song, though. And the nuns. The nuns aren't in that.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: The movie? Well, that particular moment. Clean cut. Move along.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: But it just that's what it like, that's what that evokes for me. That's the image that comes to mind. Mhmm. But remember that my understanding of this moment here is that we're not talking about right now. Yeah.
• 29:59
  And that hurts a little bit.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: It's not right now, ladies and germs.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: And I think we because we like to pick out single verses Mhmm. We wanna say, well, God is telling us that the moment we become Christians, the moment we accept Jesus into our hearts,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: we're gonna live in joy and peace. I struggle with that because if you're in the you know, going to church and you're in the Christian world, you hear this a lot. Mhmm. When someone accepts Jesus into their life, there's a change
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: In them. And maybe there is. I'm sure there is, obviously. But if you're like, me and Alyssa, we've been Christians since, we were fetuses.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We were raised into this.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So your the strength of your faith comes in
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: waves. Mhmm.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: And sometimes a fair one.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I always actually struggled with that because people would have these really incredible testimony stories.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. Like, I was an alcoholic, and I was on drugs. And I lost lost both my legs and my arms and my toes. Wow. Well, if you lose your legs, I assume you also lose your toes.
• 31:12
  Not necessarily. They kept the toes.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, well, that's alarming in many ways. But we would hear these stories, and they were just these incredible powerful stories of, oh, and I came to God when I was in my twenties or my thirties, and, you know, I had this massive transformation in my life. And I always felt very left out, yeah, when people would tell those stories, because I got saved when I was 4.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Me too. 4 or 5.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: And, I mean, we were absolutely always in church. Mhmm. And yeah. So where does that change come in? Which I'm happy about.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: I feel lucky Yes. For that happened to us. But, yeah, sometimes you feel like, where's the fire? Yeah.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I don't wanna for those of us that did grow up in church, and I'm sure many of the people listening can relate to that. For those of us that did, I don't wanna be like, oh, that was terrible. Our parents should have thrown us to the wolves. Like, that's not what I'm saying at all. It just it's a very different experience because it does feel a little bit like Mhmm.
• 32:07
  That fire to find god and find what he wants for you Mhmm. Can be a little dim by the time you get to adulthood and can actually do anything about it. Mhmm.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: And sometimes I think as you get to adulthood, you've believed these things for so long. Mhmm. Like, we've talked about deconstructing things a lot. Once you are old enough, you have to figure out why you believe what you believe, which I think is a big reason why we started this podcast.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: It was for us, I think, as much as it was for anybody else. Mhmm. For us to pull apart our faith. Mhmm. I I'm sure I've said this before on the podcast, and this is a little bit off topic, but we'll we'll maybe circle back.
• 32:46
  We'll maybe. It depends.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: We might forget. We're old, period. Our memories are failing us, and so are our knees. Our knees really are.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Walking through the mall for 9 hours was a tough time.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Walking up the stairs today was back on the off topic topic. Mhmm.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: I think deconstruction, if you go on TikTok or any of the social medias and you look up the hashtag, like deconstruction or deconstructing religion or something, a lot of what pops up is people doing what we're doing, pulling apart their faith, and then walking away from it completely. Mhmm. And that's always that's always a possibility. If you pull apart why you believe anything Mhmm. There's a possibility that you're gonna say, I don't resonate with this anymore.
• 33:36
  This doesn't make sense for me anymore. And so I had a fear walking into this that I was going to pull apart my faith and not have anything left. Mhmm. And I didn't want that. That's not what I wanted in my life.
• 33:51
  It's not what I want for my kids or my husband because I truly, in my soul, believe all of this stuff. I believe in Jesus. I believe in god and the bible, and and I want that for my life. And I just really I like I said, I've said this before, but I really felt god telling me, you can ask questions. Mhmm.
• 34:11
  You can pull apart the whole bible, and I will hold
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: up. Mhmm.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, God encourages us to ask questions.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: There's a song called, you waited for me. Mhmm. I love that. So taking the time to ask those questions and maybe even you step away for a while, but he's gonna be there. Mhmm.
• 34:34
  When you you don't even have to turn around. Mhmm. He's gonna be there.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: So there's a Lauren Daigle song that's called rescue. I I don't wanna sound super smart because I had to look that up. But it says there is no distance that cannot be covered over and over. And prior to that, it says, I will send out an army to find you in the middle of the darkest night. It's true.
• 34:56
  I will rescue you. And that's supposed to be God talking to you. Love
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: that song.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I do too. I really enjoy that one.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: I listen to that sometimes in my car on the way to work, like, rescue me from this. And then I come to
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: work, and then you get to work, and then you still have to go in. Yeah. But what I really like about that is this idea that we're gonna run away from god in our lives sometimes. It is just the reality.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, there goes grassy.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: And I think we some of us, those of us who are blessed enough to have really good, older, faithful people in our lives
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: We look at them, and we're like, my gosh. You've never turned away from God. God is with you always. You never questioned your faith. You're like, perfect.
• 35:40
  And sometimes, because those people are from a different generation, they may think it's better for them not to tell you those stories. Mhmm. So you really may have never heard those stories. And I can definitely say that about some of the older really strong Christians in my life. It just seems like they were born with the Bible in their hand, and they've never questioned their faith for one minute.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: But just like social media, when you see everybody's highlights, you don't know everybody's story.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Everybody has their own story. Even when you're driving down the road and you see all the people in traffic, everybody has their own story and they're the main character in it, and we forget that sometimes. Even the people that you think, my gosh. How do you even turn your head to breathe? They are living a big life of their own.
• 36:28
  Mhmm.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: And everything that they're going through is as important to them as what you are going through is as important to you.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. And so
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: I think what that song illustrates and and what the verses in Psalms illustrate also is that you will walk away from god in your life more than likely. Mhmm.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Unless you Possibly more than once. Probably more than once.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Whether you walk away completely or whether you emotionally shut down, whatever that looks like. I mean, I've already done it I think you and I have
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: 15 times. Both done it on multiple occasions. And maybe, like you said we should redo our stories because that is an episode 1, and we struggled with microphones, and I struggled to even figure out what my life has been about. But now we're a little bit more confident and old. Yeah.
• 37:20
  We're a whole
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: 9 months older. That's
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: it's like we've been in the womb.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: Now we're birthed. Right.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: And now we're loud. We are loud, but we've always been loud. That's not new. Anyway, even when you do step away, I think part of having peace, thankfulness, and joy in your life isn't having perfect faith all the time. It's not having even peace, thankfulness, and joy in your life all the time.
• 37:55
  It's having the faith and the knowledge to say, even though things aren't good right now, whether it's because of circumstances, whether it's because of apathy Mhmm. Where you're just like, well, god, whatever. You know? Whatever it is to know that those things are gonna circle back around. Mhmm.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: History has a way of repeating itself. Things come back around. It's like fashion. It's like fashion.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Hold on to those skinny jeans, millennials. Don't throw them out.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: But throw out those low rise ones because we don't support them.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: No. The low rise are back in style.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: If I could say anything for the 2 of us as a statement of the We Are More podcast is that we are vehemently against low rise jeans. We do not stand behind them. We never have and we never will.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: We have. There was a time, Brianna. It's because that's all
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: that was the options. That's all the those are the only genes available to us at the time of Kohl's. Oh, Kohl's. I hate Kohl's. And sometimes our butts would hang out.
• 39:09
  Sometimes they would. And so, ladies and germs, we encourage you not to purchase those low rise jeans because your butts will hang out as well.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: And that's quite a feat
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: because neither of us has quite a butt. No. Crack kills. Stop it. Stop it with those little rice treats.
• 39:26
  And that was your daily PSA from the We Are More podcast.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: On PBS Kids. Do they still have PBS Kids? I think so. Do they?
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: We used to watch a whole lot of PBS Kids, especially when we moved. I was, like, 12.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: And we didn't have We didn't have cable anymore. Yeah. Then we did. Alright. Sounds a good story.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Anyway, so the next section the last section that I wanna talk about is John 15. Who's John? John is
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: I know too many Johns. We need to be specific. The biblical John. Which John?
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: The one that wrote the book of John. Brianna.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: Did he really, or was it Paul?
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Paul wrote most of the New Testament, but I don't think he wrote John because that would be quite confusing. He wrote Timothy. He did. That's fair.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You're welcome. So who wrote John? Okay. I'm done.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: So this is John 15. And this is Jesus talking, and he's giving one of his parables. I don't really wanna read the whole thing because unlike the Psalms, these are long verses. They're extensive. They're paragraphs.
• 40:48
  But this parable, if you aren't familiar with it, I would encourage you to go read it because all of Jesus' parables are really good.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: I would just encourage you to read the bible.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Yes. But if you need a specific section
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: No. Today. The whole thing today. Oh, dear.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Isn't there on Gilmore Girls, we've been watching through Gilmore Girls. And I have not been. Lane's mom. Mhmm.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Do you
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: remember she's highly religious and won't let her daughter date this particular guy, and he wants to prove to her that he's worthy of dating her daughter. So he stays up all night and reads the entire Bible cover to cover. He tells her that he did that, and she goes, oh, that's very impressive. I've only done it myself a few times.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: What? Now
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: I realize that this is not real, but good heavens.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: I don't think you could.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: I don't care if you stayed up for a week.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: And I'm a fast reader. The pages are so they're so thin. Oh, and not only are they so thin, there's like 4 columns. So if you need 2 columns, you weirdo. Like, there's 2 and 2.
• 42:01
  That's 2 separate pages. But it's like you're reading so many pages. So if you need a specific page to go to,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: this is John 15. This parable is about if you're a churchy person, you might be familiar with it. If not, I'll explain it a little bit. Jesus is talking about the vine and the branches is the general story. So essentially
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: song there as well.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: I'm absolutely certain that there is. So, essentially, Jesus is saying that he is the vine, like, the source that everything comes from.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: And we are the branches coming off of that. So when we accept him into our hearts, we are tied to him, connected to him, and kind of branching off on our own while still being rooted in his word. Yeah. And who he is. It also talks about the fact that branches need to be pruned.
• 42:59
  So in order for
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: Cut people out.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: Not cut them off.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: Cut them off. Shun them.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Now this is not the best of the metaphors for me because I am no gardener. Okay? I kill things. I just do. There's no My thumbs
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: are not green.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: They are not.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: Do not call me alphabet.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: So this is not my this is this is just this doesn't resonate with me quite the same as it might with a gardener. But I'm told that for a lot of plants, in order for them to grow properly, in order for them to grow best, that you have to prune them. It's like your hair.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. People who wanna grow their hair out really long, it's not just not cutting it ever ever again until your ends fry and you use your hair to wipe your butt. You have to trim it, And that will help keep it healthy and grow long.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: That's a much better metaphor for me. Thank you. You're welcome. And when you trim off hair in particular, you do have you have split ends, you have damage at the bottom. Mhmm.
• 44:05
  And so you're cutting that off. Now you would imagine if your hair had nerve endings that that would be painful, that it would be hard to cut off the damaged parts of yourself. Mhmm.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Like a skin tag.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Now everyone turned us off. They all clicked away.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Continue. Read the verse. So, anyway, so that's what
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: it's talking about is that we should all be connected to Jesus, but we should all expect that hard things will come in order to make us grow healthier and better. Mhmm. And I would assume that as he's telling this story, people are kind of a little depressed. You know?
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Because, essentially, he's saying, well, you've got me, but also life isn't gonna be perfect.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Life is not always going to be easy for you.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Across the board, I think all of humanity. It's not just because you're a Christian. It's just human life is hard.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. Well, think about this in comparison to other religions at the time. I'm thinking about the Greek gods. The concept was, if you're favored by a god Mhmm. Then your life will be easy.
• 45:28
  Mhmm. If you give sacrifices and offerings and whatever to, I don't know, the the god of the farm fields Mhmm. Then he'll bless your crops.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Or, like, the story of Job after God was testing him. Right? He was
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: The devil was testing him.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: Testing him. So all of his, you know, his kids died. He lost his legs. He blah blah blah. Everything in the world bad happened to him.
• 45:54
  His friends started asking him Mhmm. What did you do? What did you do? You must have done something to make god angry at you.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Right. Well, because that was the and still is, really. Mhmm. The concept when things go horribly wrong for someone that has any faith in any God at all, it's like like, David, why did you turn from me? Mhmm.
• 46:16
  Why do you hate me? Mhmm. I thought you liked me. Mhmm. I thought we were best friends.
• 46:23
  And if the other religions surrounding you at the time of Jesus are saying, if this God likes you, he's gonna do great things for you, or she's gonna do great things for you, or whatever. And Jesus is over here saying, so here's my my religion that you can follow. And if you do, life is not gonna be easy. Mhmm. Now you can argue certainly that life is not easy regardless of whether you follow Jesus or not, but he's very specifically telling them The branches are gonna get pruned.
• 46:55
  And in the end, it's good for you. In the end, it'll make you grow. But while it's happening, it's gonna hurt. It's gonna be hard. And so the verse that talks about joy, I'm gonna start
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: in verse
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: 10. It says, when you obey my commandments, you remain in my love. Just as I obey my father's commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things, so that you may be filled with my joy. Yes.
• 47:20
  Your joy will overflow. This is my commandment. Love each other in the same way I have loved you. And then he goes on, and you could definitely read that section. It's all about loving each other, which is something that we certainly need to be hearing about right now.
• 47:37
  But he says he tells us this to bring us joy.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. And I
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: think that shows that we have a fundamental lack of understanding of what joy is. Your life is gonna be hard, and I tell you this so that you'll have joy. We just don't get it. We don't think and in the section in Isaiah that I talked about a few verses prior, it's God talking, and he says, I don't think like you think.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: What I'm seeing is so much bigger than what you're seeing, and we just don't get it.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Well, he sees a head, behind, around. He's God. His understanding is different. And when we start to try to understand that, we'll never understand that. Our brain explodes.
• 48:22
  Yeah. Our brain literally explodes. But I think what he's trying to say is, like, joy isn't happiness. Mhmm. Our little human brains think joy means things are going well.
• 48:32
  Mhmm. And sunshiny, happy place, and those songs from the sixties. You know? Flowers and smiley faces and peace signs. Yeah.
• 48:42
  That's joy. We weren't around in the sixties. But his joy, maybe he's saying, hey. Heaven's coming. Mhmm.
• 48:49
  And that is joyful.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: I think, to me, what that's saying is joy comes from knowing the fact that once we accept Jesus into our hearts, we've always got him. Mhmm. We've already won. He will come after us over and over and over again. He won't leave us.
• 49:10
  You are part of him now. Jesus is the vine. You are the branch. There's nothing that can happen there to sever that. Mhmm.
• 49:19
  And I think that, at the end of the day, is the source of joy.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Of that internal Jesus.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Joy.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Peace, thankfulness, joy, is to know that even when things get bad, even when you curse God, even when you say, God has forsaken me, that he still is holding on to you, that he's walking right next to you. And I I always picture that. I always picture Jesus walking right next to me.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know why. And that helps me
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: picture him in my day to day life. But, like, sitting next to me in the car or anything like that, it makes it a little bit more real to me. Mhmm. And I don't know. It makes it it makes it a little less pressure filled to be joyful when you know that all joy has to mean is knowing, having faith that Jesus has you.
• 50:17
  You don't have to put on some show. Like, I'm a Christian, so look how peaceful and joyful and happy and thankful I am. I just think that takes a lot of pressure off. I am joyful because God loves me internally. I can be joyful internally because God loves me.
• 50:33
  But I can also question, and I can also say, God, why have you forsaken me? And it will all be okay. Yeah. And whatever this season looks like for you, whether that is a full of joy season, and full of happiness season, and full of peace and thankfulness and all the good things, or whether it's melancholy, or whether it's outright bad.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Your source is Jesus. Your source is god. And if it's not, then it might be time to look into that and to
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: start asking really big questions and find out what you believe. I always think life is really hard. How much harder would it be going through life not knowing Jesus? Personally, I don't think it would be worth going on because there's hope there.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: There's hope that even when my whole world starts crumbling around me, I can close my eyes and Jesus is face to face with me, and I can take one more step. Mhmm. But without that, I just feel like if you just think death is it, what's the point of living?
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I've always kind of struggled with that, and I saw someone recently. I know I've talked about this before, but I watched all the Mormon content on YouTube.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: The main girl that I watch is an atheist now. And I I totally understand where she's coming from. She came from a high control religion. Mhmm. And she said that she finds it very calming to think that death is the end because her life means so much more.
• 52:05
  Like, everything she does now means so much more because she doesn't have anything else. Mhmm. To me, and this is just to me. Mhmm. Could be different for you.
• 52:15
  But to me, thinking that when I die, it's just over. There's no consciousness left. I'm just done. I'm out. You're right.
• 52:25
  What was the point?
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: What was the point? What was the point? Bizarre.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Because so few of us will be remembered in a 100 years. Mhmm. It's that's a simple reality. You know, there there are certainly people that will be remembered in the history books or or whatever. But even your family, eventually, will forget your name.
• 52:42
  Mhmm. You know, I can give you the name of my grandparents, my great grandparents. But my great great grandparents, I would have to look up. I don't know their names offhand. I think, maybe not really high control Christianity.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. But our Christianity, like yours and mine, really focuses on relationship. Mhmm. And I think that's the key difference is that I believe that I have a relationship with Jesus, and he cares about me, and he cares about my iced coffee in the morning. Mhmm.
• 53:11
  You know? And that gives me motivation to say, hey. When I die, I wanna hang out with him. Mhmm. But if you don't have that relationship, yeah, I can see how it would be like, no.
• 53:20
  Mhmm. Thank you. Goodbye. Have a nice
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: If you're the type of religious person that's just working towards the end, whether that's heaven, whether you know, whatever, depending on your religion. But if all you're doing is working towards the afterlife, then what you're doing your life now doesn't seem that important.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: You're just looking forward to the end. You know?
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's me. Hallelujah.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: But I think if you are the type of person that's building a relationship with Jesus, that's trying to to find our
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: way back to him, babe. Yeah.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: To find that bigger picture here to make an impact on the people here
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Then what you're doing here matters
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Because maybe you're leading someone to Jesus. Maybe you're sharing love, joy, peace, all of the beatitudes. But, also, the afterlife matters. Heaven matters because you get to be there and you get to truly actually experience what it's like when all of those things, the peace, the thankfulness, the joy, they don't go away.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: They're just there and they're a part of you and they emanate from you.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: Something that's hard to think about. Yes. I'm so excited for heaven. You know? Mhmm.
• 54:39
  Get me out of here. But you're right. What God tells us to do is bring everybody to him, as many people as you can. Because as much as he loves you, he loves the person that you despise. Mhmm.
• 54:54
  I think we posted a quote on our Instagram by I think her name is Dorothy Day. Okay. But the quote was essentially, you can only love god as much as you love the person you hate the most or something like that. Because think about that person. Mhmm.
• 55:13
  Think about that person in your life. We all have them. You don't like them. You don't like them one single solitary bit. But god loves them.
• 55:24
  Jesus died on the cross for them.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: As much as he did for you. Yep. Yeah. I saw a quote one time, and I I don't remember exactly what it was. I don't even remember exactly who said it.
• 55:34
  I know it was from an atheist. And he said, if Christians truly believe that heaven can only be achieved by believing in Jesus, then they are the worst people in the world because they aren't shouting it from the rooftops. They aren't running to everyone they've ever met and saying, Jesus loves you. I don't want you to go to hell. Yeah.
• 56:01
  And I don't I'm not saying that that's a good way to go about
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: talking to people about Jesus. Someone buy me a megaphone.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: But the point is what we do here matters. Mhmm. What we do here matters because we were called to go out and make disciples of all nations. Mhmm. And what we do when we get to heaven will matter.
• 56:23
  It all matters. And I can't wait for that too, even though it means it doesn't mean dying. Unless Jesus comes back before we all die, which this aunt thinks is on the way.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: I might think that too.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, we're supposed to mention her.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: She got very mad at us over Thanksgiving.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: Which aunt? Aunt Jeanie. Jean. Giving. Which aunt?
• 56:42
  Aunt Jeanie.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: Jean. Hello.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: Shout out. Because we talked about Andy Griffith on the last episode or maybe 2 episodes ago, and we did not mention that it is her favorite show in the whole world and that she watches it on repeat just absolutely all the time. So, Jean.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the We Are More podcast. At at thank you for listening and supporting unconditionally, and we're so glad that you wanted to be included. And that you love Andy Griffith more than you could ever say.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: Alright. So I think we're gonna wrap up there.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Doesn't that bring you joy?
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: I feel like I was trying to build towards a conclusion, and then I thought about that. And I was like, if I don't mention that, she's gonna yell at me again, and she already yelled at me once. So listen. Jean. She
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: didn't yell at me. Well, she may have, but I wasn't listening.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: So the next few weeks, we're gonna be doing a series on Mary, who birthed Jesus, that particular Mary. Mary do do know. Look forward to Bree singing many parts of that song, just many parts of it in a really alarming, the blind will see. She might have to listen to it again.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: I like the clayey conversion. He did a good job.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: But so we're gonna be talking about her. We're gonna talk about as much as we know of her life, but also kind of imagine what her life might have been like, what her story might have been like. Mhmm. And then the beginning of the year, we are going to rerecord our stories You're welcome. Because the quality was not, like, our best.
• 58:33
  Mhmm.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: We're using a microphone called the snowman, I think.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. And I weren't we passing it back and forth too?
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Listen. We didn't know what we're doing. We didn't know. Quite frankly, we don't know what we're doing now.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: A little more. It doesn't take us 45 minutes to get set up when we wanna record. So look forward to that. We will see you in no. Why do I I there's no hope.
• 58:55
  Hi, Belgium. If you haven't followed us on social media already, follow us on Instagram and TikTok. We're super active over there. TikTok, we post things that our family might not approve of.
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: Instagram is a little bit more approved. So if we just pick your own adventure. Yeah. Most of it's the same stuff,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: but sometimes sometimes when we feel a little wild, we go to TikTok. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. So follow us on there. Invite people to listen if you think that they would enjoy our content.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: I think Jesus would. I think he's listening. I think he's always listening. I assumed he was right here next to us recording with us. Jesus, do you wanna say anything?
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: I'm for sure to come there.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: We like a heat gun heaven for that one. Goodbye. Okay. Let's see you next week. Love you back.