S3:E10 Backstory

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Welcome back to the Serenity in Motion Podcast! Or rather, I should welcome myself back since I missed last week and missed posting yesterday!

I’ve had a lot going on, like everyone in April and May.

But this April and May have been especially fun.

· Our oldest son got married.

· We’ve been blessed with an amazing daughter in law!

· Our niece just graduated from Ouachita Baptist – shout out to the Tigers!

· Our youngest turned 18 this week – and as she said to us, we have no more kids—only adults (depends on your point of view)

· And she is graduating from high school next week

This is the 10th episode of the Resting in the arms of the one who disarmed you series, a 10-episode series. So, this is also the last episode of this podcast series. Finally.

Last time, I shared with you the MettlEdge Mindset Model, a tool to help you show up with compassion and bring the rain to a weary world.

Building this model for me has been the result of years of study, practice and failure on my part to engage with others well and to offer myself with freedom and joy and compassion.

I’ll let you into my world here a bit.

I live with an ongoing flood of ideas. If you do too, you know it.

This ongoing flood of ideas has created a considerable burden for me. As much as I love the way I’m wired, it can generate shame, dissatisfaction and guilt within me.

Let me tell you how.

I am 52 as of this recording. I cannot tell you the amount of ideas I’ve had over the course of my lifetime that have been developed and implemented by others. Ideas I’ve kept to myself. Ideas I’ve been afraid to share, unable to flesh out, incapable of communicating with clarity to others, um…and so many that I just forgot.

What’s the big deal. What makes this a maker of share and dissatisfaction and guilt within me you ask?

I’ll tell you.

It’s about being a good steward of the gifts God put in me. It’s about offering them.

It matters that I offer the gifts God put in me in a way that ultimately is pleasing to Him. He put them there on purpose. He put me here on purpose. I’ve been made to contribute, to connect with God’s creation, to play my part.

It matters if I’m stuck.

And if I’m not risking doing anything besides receiving a flood of ideas, even with good intentions of developing them, with desire to develop them, but I’m stuck and I’m aware of that…shame finds me. And I have a choice.

I can take action or take on shame and stay stuck, dissatisfied and piling on guilt.

I’ll never forget the first day I struggled to get out of bed in the morning. I was in my 20s and shame showed up, suffocating me. I don’t know how if happened, I don’t remember if I made a phone call or received one. But somehow I ended up in bed on the phone with my dad. I get my gift of gab and mind to develop other people from him. He usually has a lot to say. But that morning, he only said, Jill, you only have one choice. Get up. The call ended. I don’t even remember saying goodbye. I only remember being stunned that he didn’t say more.

That’s it. You have one choice. Get up. So I did. And it helped.

I’ve learned that inaction breeds apathy. And apathy breeds contempt.

I do not want to live an apathetic, contemptuous life. I want to one day stand before God having lived well. Having pleased him, having actually lived free.

Focus for a moment. What are you thinking about right now? Let yourself sit with it for a moment.

S3:E10 Backstory

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