Latest / The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast / Live Fully | a conversation with Kate Battistelli

Transcript

Live Fully | a conversation with Kate Battistelli · The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast

0:02
SPEAKER_01: Hi friends, welcome back to the Simply Wholehearted Podcast.
0:05
SPEAKER_01: It means so much to have you choose to take our conversation along with you today.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm Amy Wix, your host, and here at Simply Wholehearted, we provide perspective, purpose, and plans for your best life.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: The culture around us holds us to complacency, half awake to our purpose, and more often than not, it seems as if everyone around us celebrates mediocrity.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: But I believe there is more to your story.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: Awaken your heart with extraordinary tales of the ordinary, explore your unique purpose, and be empowered to become wholehearted in life, family, and community.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: I had this extra conversation to share with you all this week, which fits perfectly with our type 8 focus.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: Kate Battastilli is not only the mom of Francesca Battastilli, but she is also the author of two fantastic books, Growing Great Kids and her newest one, The God Dare.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: It's not only about doing courageous things, but how the Lord walks right alongside us in our everyday adventures.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: Let's jump right into this conversation and remember, I'll be back on Thursday with another new episode with Chris Hewritz, author of Sacred Enneagram, and our type 8 guest.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's a lot when you start diving into the Enneagram.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: There's like you said, that we're we're all the types.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: We have some of all of it in us.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: So really trying to pinpoint where do I fit, because that kind of makes sense, but no, but I'm I'm more that it's it's it takes some time.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've read Ian Crohn's book probably three times, and I'm still not sure.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think I know because just what you were saying about I don't, I've I've never really cared what people think.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: There was a great, not a great book, but there was a book titled years ago that just was what you think of me is none of my business.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: And I've sort of taken that as, you know, I'm like, yeah, it doesn't really matter.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: It's what God thinks.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, what my maybe what my husband or my family thinks, but what people think, unl unless you're doing something awful, but I'm not doing that, at least not anymore.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, yes, but that doesn't that doesn't really move me, you know, what people think, unless you know, it just depends, but for the most part, yeah, I'm kind of more don't care about that.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: That's it that's so interesting.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm my my eight radar is going off for sure.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: It's somewhere between those two, I'm pretty certain.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm excited for you to find out.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: I for me, as I coach people, really the the sum of it and the reason why I incorporate the Enneagram, it's a shortcut and a path to our path to growth where it kind of just speeds that along.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: And I think once we once we uncover this language that articulates why it is, what we do, and what it you know, gives us words to what we're thinking and what we've been thinking all along or how we've been responding all along.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: It's just it's just really super helpful.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: And plus combining it with contemplative practice, there's there's just this natural spiritual growth that happens between us and the Lord.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: And when we can engage in that practice specifically, um where our type will find its best growth.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: I I see supernatural transformation happen for people that it's not what they're doing because it's not about changing behavior or modifying behavior.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: It's about becoming beloved and understanding our adoptiveness in Christ and who we're designed to be.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: And when we're living from that place, uh there's so much freedom and growth in all aspects of our life, not just, you know, oh, I know my type now.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: And I can use it as a weapon when I'm acting badly or I think you're acting badly.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: Because that is not healthy.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: No, definitely not.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: A lot of your book, the book captures so much of what we talk about here at Simply Wholehearted about purpose and discovering our purpose, and we tie that in again a lot to the Anneagram.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: But I, in particular, I thought it would be really cool if you could highlight the God Dare manif manifesto.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you even called it that, um, but I kind of typed, um, I wrote to you because I, as I was reading through the electronic copy of it, I saw that little piece and I thought, oh, that is so good.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: I'd really love to highlight taking the God Dare in life.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I mean, I didn't really write anything as a manifesto, just um, you know, that it's our choice when God brings something into our life, when when you get that inkling of that, and usually it's just something crazy, impossible that you know you can't do on your own, and God will drop those ideas.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: I think he's doing it all the time.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: I know he's done it in my life many times, where it just, you're just going, there, there, you're crazy, God.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: There's no way I can do that, which is typically means it is him, because it's when he dares us, he knows we must have his help.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: But if he calls you to it, he'll equip you to do it.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: So that would probably be my manifesto.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that we have to choose to be chosen to change the world, not to be chosen to be saved.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about salvation with that, but if we're gonna change the world, we have to say yes to God.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And but we have the choice to say yes or no.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh there there's no guarantee that Abraham was the first one God went to with his offer.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
5:20
SPEAKER_00: That's so true.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: We don't see that.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: There's no other stories.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there uh the things that I've said no to, God probably offered them to somebody else that would do it, that would have the courage, because typically it will be something scary.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: It'll be outside your comfort zone.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: But I I mean, I I the impossible, I say in the book, the impossible is God's comfort zone.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: So if he's calling you to that crazy thing, he's going to equip you to do it.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: And you and you can't do it without him because it typically is something that's way too big for you.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like your the one of the quotes that I wrote down is that I would choose to be chosen.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: And I think that articulates that God dare really, really well.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we have we have to say yes, really.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: That's what choosing to be chosen is.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: It's okay, God, I'll step out and do that crazy thing.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: I'll move across the world to be a missionary in a c in a country that hates Christians, or I'll adopt a crack, you know, a baby from a crack addicted mother, or any number of things, or go to school to get that degree for the thing I believe you're calling me to do, or whatever.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: It can be anything.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's it's just really just saying yes.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to highlight too, because I think there's a lot of us who have said yes.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: I think I think our wholehearted community are people who have said yes in their lives or are saying yes now.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: But one of the biggest pieces for some of us is that it hasn't turned out exactly like we thought it would.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: And I know you talk about this in a book, and I really appreciate it because I feel like this piece is even a whole book in itself and a whole nother conversation.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: But how what does it look like to lay down our desires and walk out this Goddare?
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's hard.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when when my husband and I, way back when we first got married, we were in the New York-Broadway theater world.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: That was our life.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: But then we met the Lord after we got married, and God very clearly called us out of that life.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: I didn't see it, I didn't have the phrase the God dare in my brain then because I was a brand new Christian.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: And I think we were just young enough in the Lord to say yes, because I think had we been, you know, been Christians for a while, we might have really questioned is that really God.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: But I think he also knew that had we stayed in that world, if it what I just wanted to be famous.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be on be win a Tony Award, be a Broadway star.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: And I think God knew that had that happened, we're we were gonna compromise.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure he was, he knew what we didn't know, he could see what we couldn't see.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the wonderful things about the Lord that when you do obey, when you step out, you're knowing that it if you, I don't know, you just have to wrap your brain around it, that he can see the things you can't see.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: There's so much in the spiritual realm that we'll never we're never gonna get to see till we get to heaven.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: So we were just immature enough and young enough in the Lord to say yes.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what what that would have looked like.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, I do know because years later he did the same thing.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: He's called us, I call it 90 degree turns in the book.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: He's done that so many times with us where we're going this way.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, nope, you're gonna turn left and go that way.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Completely different than what you were thinking.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: But the the neat thing when you do obey God, and we did, we left everything behind.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: We moved out of New York, moved to New Jersey for a while, then down to Orlando, where we raised our daughter.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: But you know, it's just what what I've seen now, what he's done is taken what we wanted for ourselves, fame and fortune.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: He's given that to our daughter.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: Our ceiling has become her floor.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's how it should be with parents, because she's doing it in the right way.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: She's doing it to glorify the Lord.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to be famous and make a lot of money, you know.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: That didn't work out.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: But that, you know, but today that that means nothing to me anymore.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: So, but just seeing what God has done through her and with the training and experience that we had in the performing world, we were able to help guide her in the early days.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: Not so much now, she doesn't need us anymore for those things.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: But when she was young, you know, a teenage girl doing music and playing and performing all around, we were able to really help her and guide her in the early stages.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's so good.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: And and I want to go ahead and jump to that idea of our ceiling becomes their floor.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: So, how have you seen, besides obviously Francesca's uh, you know, music success and her giftedness and all the things that she's gotten to see, what else have you seen where you're like, oh, maybe this is why the Lord had us do this, so our ceiling could become her floor?
10:00
SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: That's a hard question.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: Um I I can't, you know, I don't know why God did it the way he did it, but it it just worked out, it made sense.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: I see her now the way she mothers, you know, more than the career stuff, just the wife that she is, the mother that she is, to see that, oh, okay, I did pass down something good.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, I don't take full credit for for all that she is and all that she does.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, she's on her own, she's a just a unique woman that knows and loves the Lord.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: But just to see her doing those things and to think that, oh gosh, I had a small part in that, you know, to see her love her kids the way she does and just is such a great mom.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, it it just kind of blows you away and you think, man, she's gone far beyond, you know.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, my my little ceiling has become her floor, but her ceiling's, I think, going to be a lot higher for her kids.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: That's so amazing.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: That's so beautiful and how encouraging as you look back and you go, oh yeah, that was because for you, you made a lot of sacrifices to do motherhood well.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: How how did you follow through with that when that was really hard, when it lands you in obscurity?
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think for me, because I didn't have that, I I don't feel like I'm really fully standing on my parents' shoulders.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: They the it was different, you know.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: When I was raised, it was just a different time.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: And you weren't told you're, you know, you're great, you can do anything, you can, you're gonna change the world.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: God has you here for a reason.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: We weren't raised in a we well, we were we went to the Episcopal Church, but it wasn't like a life family thing.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of my parents typically would drop us off and we'd go to Sunday school.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: So we had that.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I knew who Jesus was, and I remember always I loved the, you know, singing Jesus Loves Me.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: So I knew it was true, but I didn't, it took me a long time till I accepted him.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: I was 29 when I finally met the Lord.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I didn't, you know, I didn't have that same foundation of I had to figure it out on my own, which I think is pretty typical of my generation, just because it was different in the 50s and the 60s than it is today.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: We were we're much, and we were, I was determined with my daughter that I was going to raise her to know who she was in the Lord, to know that she had value.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: Because I think for me that was probably the biggest thing that I just sort of didn't feel that there was much point to my existence.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, I sort of was um I I felt like I was usually just annoying my parents or in the way.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: I was the the middle child of four kids.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: And you could do, you know, that that's an obscure place as well.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Because you're uh there was a brother, an older sister, so she was the oldest, and then a younger sister who is the baby, and I was the middle girl that just kind of tried to just keep the peace and stop the fights and you know, do all that kind of stuff.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: So I think just the way I was raised made me determine that I was not going to raise my child that way.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: And I only got the chance to have one.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm the crazy woman who wanted five kids, but God gave me one, though now I kind of have it with four grandkids.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay, that's that's good.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've got it second second generation, but that's fine.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: Because it's a lot of work.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: I realize now God probably knew exactly what he was doing to only give me the one child, knowing that I would have probably lost my mind with five, but we have a we have a great time with the grandkids.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: But I th I hope that answered your question.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: I think oh yeah, I think that's so great.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: No, I I think that um and it kind of goes back to the laying down our desires because uh, you know, a lot of your book tells some of the stories of what you thought the Lord or what you wanted, what you thought maybe the Lord wanted for you.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: But I kind of go in back to that conversation of how sometimes you know, the Lord maybe gives us this vision or this idea and and we start going down a path because we think that's the direction we're going.
13:55
SPEAKER_01: But I found more times, often than not, that it's to get us to a point to get us to another.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: And that original vision is really not the end goal.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: And it's you know, even the the task is not what he's looking for.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: He's looking for the heart process that is going along with it.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you haven't already gathered, the Enneagram is something I chat about often on this podcast, and of course, in my everyday.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: So I've created several ways to help you learn more about this invaluable resource.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: First, you can check out our Instagram feed for weekly Enneagram postings, and then you can get the Wholehearted Enneagram Quick Start, which is my step-by-step guide to help you gain clearer understanding on your dominant type.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're looking for an overview, my wholehearted Enneagram summary gives you the highlights of all nine types on one page.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: It is super helpful as you talk to others about this awesome resource.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: And last but not least, I have a few more coaching spots so you can get on the wait list for a free 30-minute console.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: All the info is in the show notes or at simply wholehearted.com.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think absolutely it's that there's always something else in God's mind.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: I think he's always looking, he's years ahead.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're here and he's he's 20 years down the line, generations down the line.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: We we always think it's all about us.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: Right.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: And God's thinking about the generations.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: He's thinking about my great-great-great-grandchildren if if he hasn't come back before then, which I hope he does.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: But so, you know, I think he's he thinks generationally, and he's you're right, he's always three or four steps ahead of where we are.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: We just, and that's why you just have to take one day at a time.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Just do, like Emily P.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Freeman says in her book, you know, just do the next right thing.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: What is that next thing that you're supposed to do?
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Because we can get hung up on, is this the ultimate goal?
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Am I supposed to be doing something else?
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Where am I going to be next year?
15:59
SPEAKER_00: And that'll make you today.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna find and just let the Lord bless that, whatever that leads to.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: Now, for you, what was one of those, one of those dreams or desires that you thought was maybe a god dare or a god dare that led you to another god dare?
16:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, that maybe didn't have quite the outcome that you thought it did.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: But again, with that idea, I mean, there might even be ones now that you're like, well, I did that, but I really have no idea maybe the impact for generations to come.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: I think probably writing my first book because I was not a writer.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it made absolutely no sense for me to write a book when you I had I went to four colleges in two years.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: I didn't graduate from any of them.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: So let's just put that right out there.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a college degree.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: I had no platform, no way to get it published.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: It just made no sense.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Yet God kept telling me, because we were asked to speak, my husband and I, because we homeschooled our daughter most of her life, most of her growing up.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: And the homeschool organization, a big organization in Florida, they were having their 20th anniversary, said, Will you come and speak about what you did to raise your daughter to find her purpose?
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Because by this point, she'd already been on the radio and you know her name was getting known.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: So we, you know, I said, Okay, sure, we'll come.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: And I hung up the phone, I looked at my husband, I said, What the heck did we do?
17:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, because you don't you you don't always have it all written out, you're just parenting and living life and doing the best you can.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, we sat down and we came up with these 15 intentional things that we realized, okay, we had really been intentional with these things.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: So this is what we did.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: We gave our talk.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: And um, the next day I'm just praying and thanking God for those 15 things that we were able to tell the parents.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: And as clearly as I've ever heard him speak in my spirit, I just heard him say, Those are book chapters.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: No.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: And I went, God, you're crazy.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's no way.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm do you know I'm not a writer?
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Do you know I didn't graduate college?
17:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, I gave him every excuse in the book.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Typical that we all do when God calls us to do something scary.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: And I just kept saying, No, God, no, and he kept saying those are book chapters.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: I just kept hearing it.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: So I found a friend who was a writing coach, which I didn't even know was a thing, but I saw something on Twitter and I said, Oh, well, shoot, can we get together and can I show you this?
18:10
SPEAKER_00: And I showed it to her and I said, Is this a book?
18:12
SPEAKER_00: She said, It's absolutely a book.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: Those are book chapters, and you're gonna write it, I'll help you.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: And she did, and I got it published.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like it just made no sense.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: And that's when I realized that, but but that that dare by taking that, then I moved into a new place because when you take a God dare, you can call yourself by another name.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Now I can say I'm a writer, I'm an author.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: It it where it made no sense, but by obeying, and then it led me to this next book and to who knows what will come after that.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm there's a lot of issues in the book, if if you've read far in there that um that I really want to be able to speak into, especially for women, just you know, yes, so many things that I've walked through with just infertility, abortion, all that stuff, miscarriage, everything, you know, that I that I've never ever ever wanted to talk about.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: But that was probably my most recent God dare where God made me put that stuff in the book just last summer.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: I fought like crazy on that.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: But you know, it you just you have to do what he's telling you to do, and there's always a good reason for it.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: And if it will help even one woman just get past the guilt and shame and pain that she's held on to, then it was worth it for me to just expose that about myself to blow my own cover, you know.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: But we have to do it.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: A a friend of mine, we are always talking about if we could just know that one person was impacted to draw closer to the Lord, whatever the pain and suffering that they're experiencing that they can relate to, if we're willing to go first and be vulnerable.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: I think that's really powerful.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you make such a good point because you do that one step and it might open the door to this other thing and to this other thing and just continues and you know, to build the impact that you're able to have because of it and willing to be compelled by the Holy Spirit.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I I think, I mean, I think there's books written for all of us in heaven, you know, of what our life's supposed to be.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: And I've told the Lord when I when I kind of realized that that might be true, I said, God, I don't want to miss anything that you wrote in my book.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: I've probably already blown a lot of it from the early years, but in these later years, what time I have left, I want to fulfill every single thing you have in there for me.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you want me to do, give me the courage, give me the ability, let me fulfill that to make your name known, you know, just to I mean it's all about him.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's so good.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: Now you point out an interesting thing.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we have to overcome some emotional, you know, wrestling with the Lord.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: And if we're gonna relate it to the Aneagram, probably three ways that I could categorize this.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna either deal with shame, anxiety, or anger when it comes to living out our God dare.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: For you, what did you have to overcome?
21:01
SPEAKER_01: Not just the arguments of, hey, I'm not qualified, but what were some of the emotional pieces that you felt I need to get over this hurdle or I need to deal with this so that way I can go do what it is that the Lord has asked me to do?
21:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, probably probably more shame, I would guess, just because of my past and knowing the things that I did that before I knew the Lord that were not honoring to him.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I I would think, I mean, all of them to a point.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: I've I've had anger, I've had dealt with anxiety, actually real anxiety in the last few years.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: It's much better now, but it kind of dropped on me out of nowhere in 2016 because I was never that person.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: I was always the one that would say, just get over yourself, snap out of it, you know, do what God's telling you to do, not this trembling, terrified person with just this stuff and you know, going through my gut all the time.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: It was, it was a it was a scary time.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: It it stopped me, stopped from write from continuing to write the book because I Had I actually the God Dare started as a little blog post back in 2011, and a friend of mine who's a writer said to me that you need to turn that into a book.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: And I thought about it and thought, yeah, you know, I'm as I read through these different Bible characters, it's all through the Bible.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: But I wasn't adding a lot of my story to it.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until really more last summer, God was like, you're putting this stuff in there.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: You this needs to be in the book, all the different things that you've dealt with to make it more relatable, more real to people to not think, I don't know, I just wanted to make it something that's just not Bible stories, but how I can weave in my own story in the way God has dared me and the scary things He's asked me to do that that I've been willing to say yes to.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, people can relate to those so well because we we probably could raise our hand to similar stories and go, oh yeah, I I know what she's talking about, or I'm facing this right now.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: And I mean the whole idea is to help push people into what it is that the Lord has called them to.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: And it's so good.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: I love how, you know, we've talked a little bit about the shape of the book, what it involves as your story, and you weave in uh stories from the Word of God and and how it can inform our yes and how what their obedience looked like.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: And at the end of each chapter, you have different God dare secrets, you call them.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: And I love that.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a plethora.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: I I couldn't even count.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm there, I'm guessing there's probably five to ten for each chapter.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: I thought it'd be really great if you gave maybe your favorite three, if you can pick, of the God dare secrets that could maybe help us today as we're just, you know, maybe inquiring of the Lord what he has for us to say yes to.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about a couple of them, but um one that I love to that I say is to believe the impossible, we must see the invisible.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: So we have to be able to understand kind of where where God's going and trust that I don't know, we just have to, it's it's it's a place of trust, you know, because that's the only way we're gonna see that impossible thing happen in our life.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Like for me, writing my first book, it was to me just a huge impossible task.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: There was no way, but by being able to see and hear the Lord and what he was drawing me to and obeying and walking into that scary place where you can't see, but then suddenly you can when you've accomplished the thing he's called you to do.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: So I love that one.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, I love another one that I say that guilt and grace are fighting for the same place in your life.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: And you have to let go of the guilt and move into the grace because they both want that same spot.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, when you've lived with guilt as long as I have, you want to let that go.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: You want to welcome in the grace and bring that in.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: Give me a story to kind of illustrate that a little bit as people are like, okay, guilt and grace.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: I I think, well, I think I would just go to my story of when I got pregnant at 18.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, I ended up having an abortion.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: This is before Roe v.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Wade.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: This is 1972.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: We're talking a long time ago.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: I held that guilt and that shame for 46 years.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: I never talked about it.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: My husband knew.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Maybe on you could count on one hand the people who knew.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: I didn't tell my daughter till last summer because I had such guilt and shame over that.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: But when I've released that, and of course, she when I told her she loved me, she doesn't she wasn't gonna walk away from me just because of a sin in my past.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: But I I've so experienced the Lord's redemption and his just pouring in his grace by me being able to finally talk about this.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: When we you take away its power, you you just take its power away when you're able to talk honestly about the things that you've done.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Because the other um little God there secret, Jesus knows all your faults and sins and he's praying for you anyway.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: He knew what I've done.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, as soon as I got saved, I I all I could think about was what I'd done, but I knew that he knew and he loved me anyway.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: He accepted me, you know, when he reached out with salvation and I said, Yes, he welcomed me in as his daughter, as his bride.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: That's why I relate that story in the book to the woman caught in adultery.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: We don't know her name, but it was sexual sin.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: And the way that, you know, when when it says in scripture that Jesus is writing, scratching something in the sand, in the dirt, and no one knows what that was that he was writing.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: And they think that probably it was he's writing the sins of the men that were about to stone her to death.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: But I the I don't know, it just the thought came into my mind, what if he was writing something about her?
26:22
SPEAKER_00: What if he was writing how he saw her, the true things about her that she didn't know, and let her see that as he said, go and sin no more.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: Because he said those things about me.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: He said them about you, about all the listeners, who we are, who we truly are.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: But we believe the lie that the enemy tries to tell us that we're not worthy, we're not good enough, we're not, God has nothing for us.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: There's no, there's nothing he's gonna dare me with.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: He can't use me.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: All those things, I'm too old, I'm too young, whatever excuse we give, but I you know, that's all a lie because what he sees in us and what he calls us, we're all here to change the world.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: We all have the capacity to do it if we just will say yes.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: Oh, amen.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: I think I think this is just some great ready application right now as we listen and we go, okay, how can we take that to our life and how can I take grace today?
27:15
SPEAKER_01: And how the Lord is praying for us, right?
27:18
SPEAKER_01: And interceding for us and how he loves us anyway.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: Well, I've loved this conversation.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: I think this has been really great.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: I I think that the God dare is exactly just the message that I want those who are desiring a wholehearted life because wholeheartedness doesn't look a certain way.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: It's there's not a specific formula, but it looks like being obedient to what the Lord has called you to do and following his leading in that way.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: You gotta you gotta just say yes.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: I really enjoyed getting to know Kate, and I hope you will continue the conversation with both of us on the socials and get her new book, The God Dare.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: And, of course, share it with others.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: There is more for each of us as we become wholehearted in our life in Christ.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: Now stay tuned this week as we continue our summer in the Enneagram, and let's invite others to join us as we pursue perspective, purpose, and plans for a simply wholehearted life.