Hello and welcome back to the Live Out Loud podcast.
This is the space where we talk about intentional living.
We start conversations on what it looks like to be a woman of faith, what it looks like
to be alive in this world today, and simply put, what it looks like to be completely human,
dependent on God in our family life, personal life, relationships, and everything else in
between.
Again, welcome to the space as we start our conversation today.
Okay, before we jump in fully this week, I wanted to recap a little bit about last week's
conversation and share a short story with you of something that actually happened for
us and how we chose to be intentional this past week.
I think it was Tuesday, it was kind of a rough day with some of us in the home, me included,
and we just weren't having the best attitudes and kindness towards one another.
And something that's amazing about something like this happening is it's always an opportunity
for growth.
So just remember this next time you're going through a day that's kind of hard or a few
days that are kind of hard, it is an opportunity for growth of repentance, of forgiveness,
of grace, and so our day went on.
We went on with our plans.
We had planned a much needed date night and we were recapping our day and I was just mentioning
how it was a really hard day and I needed to make some heart connections.
I knew that by the time we got home, the kids were going to be in bed, but there was still
something we could do to connect with our hearts.
So we came up with this quick, awesome, fun plan and that was to find an awesome song
and put it on the Bluetooth when we got home and we yelled pillow fight.
Immediately the kids squealed with excitement, grabbed their pillows and ran to the living
room where we had an all out pillow fight battle for, I don't know, 15 minutes.
It was a moment of beauty, of playing together, of just enjoying our time together and in
those 15 minutes, there were true heart connections that happened.
There were no conversations.
There was just playing together, laughing together, but so much happened in that moment
and it set us up better for the following days in our week.
And so I just want to share that with you and encourage you that heart connections sometimes
can look simple.
They can be easy.
They can take a few minutes, but if we are intentional, we can stay connected to our
children's hearts and the hearts of the people that matter in our home.
So yeah, that's a quick real life story, a real moment for us and I hope you can just
resonate with that.
Anyway, for today's conversation, I also want to share another story with you.
It was one I shared a while back on Instagram and it was when adventures don't go the way
you planned.
I think we've all been there when we have our plans and we're so excited for what the
day holds and things just don't quite go as planned.
And I want to talk about what it is we do in those moments, how it is that we reset and
maybe pivot when we need to.
So today I want to take you along on an adventure in the Rocky Mountains and what it looked
like for us in a real life moment when things didn't go quite as planned.
Come with me on a family adventure in Canada.
Beautiful home to the Canadian Rockies.
This is where we found ourselves this crisp autumn morning.
The views were stunning.
The sun was shining so perfectly.
The shadows dancing across everything was quite magical.
We had planned a few beautiful stops along our way that were a little bit of a hike,
which were going to be perfect for good family quality time.
And you hikers out there, you know what I mean, right?
The opportunities, the family bonding that was going to happen was just going to be amazing.
The day ahead of us was full of possibility.
This was an exciting day.
We found the trailhead we were going on, parked the car, hopped out and bundled up because
it was a chilly morning.
But we were ready for our adventure.
We started out on the trail up this beautiful gorge that had been formed by glacier waters
over hundreds of years.
We were in no hurry because the day spread out before us with possibilities.
And we took our time looking at the ripples in the water and listening to our voices
echo off the canyon walls, reading all the informational signs along the way, listening
to the wind blow through the trees and listening for birds.
Where we looked, we were surrounded by the glory and workmanship of God.
But something happened on our ascent up this mountain that can so often happen in our daily
lives.
We forget about the splendor of God all around us and start focusing inwardly.
And that is exactly what happened to us.
We had made it to the top of our hike and the kids took a minute to play on some rocks
that we had found up there.
These awesome huge rocks that they would climb to the top and play King of the Castle.
As their voices floated through the trees back to me, I was finding enjoyment listening
to their little giggles and playing together.
And this is when their voices started to take a turn.
I started realizing that instead of playing sweetly together, there was a little bit of
selfishness involved in their tones and in the words that they were using.
I picked up on what was being said and it was sounding very selfish.
And how many of us know that it doesn't take much for that to happen because as humans,
we are kind of self-centered a lot of times.
Often in our home situations like this play out where they figure things out on their
own and they have to communicate and come to an agreement and fix the problem.
But this particular day, I knew that I needed to step in.
I gathered the ones I needed and had a little heart to heart right there on the mountaintop
and this was just going to fix the problems, right?
After having a few minutes of heart to hearts and listening to their parts of the story,
I realized that no, this situation was not going to just take a heart to heart.
We started our descent down the mountain and I was pondering in my heart, what could I
do to help the situation because I wanted it resolved.
I didn't want to leave those emotions sitting in their hearts.
Pondering and praying on my way down, I realized, whoa, just take a minute and pray with them.
This felt like a breakthrough but it should have been my first response when I first started
talking with them.
But the beauty of life is we get second chances.
So I stopped us on the trail and gathered everyone together and took a minute to pray
right there on the top of that granite mountain on a walking path in the middle of the forest.
As we began praying over each other's hearts and just the situations that had come up,
hearts began to soften.
Tears started rolling down the cheeks as we realized just how selfish we had been.
This moment was by no means perfect.
We were not in a perfect situation of being at home, being able to pray just together
with God.
We were outside in a public place but we were able to pray together with God.
A perfect situation would have looked like walking to the top of that mountain and just
taking in the beauty of God and walking back down to our car and again taking in the beauty
of God.
But it didn't.
It looked like selfish moments where we had to stop and ask for help from our Father.
I think most of us are aware that life doesn't always go exactly like we've planned.
Sometimes external situations get in the way and other times we get in the way.
But I think that part of the beauty of living life to its fullest is learning to take one
moment at a time and figuring out when I need to press in a little deeper or when I need
to take a step back.
Knowing when it's okay to draw a line in the sand and start your day over.
God is a God of grace again and again.
He will show up for us again and again.
He will not wait for our day to start over tomorrow but He extends grace right now in
this moment.
To finish out our story of our hiking adventures, we finished our little prayer circle and then
we took time to ask for forgiveness from one another.
The ones who had offended and the ones who had been offended to extend forgiveness as
well.
It was just a beautiful moment of taking ourselves out, stepping over so God could step in.
As we made our way back to the car, it seemed like the colors were more vibrant on that
mountainside even though I knew nothing had changed.
So much had changed.
The change was inside and how we saw each other and the importance that we placed on
the relationships.
It had changed our hearts and it had really changed our entire day.
I don't want to forget to hit pause on moments in life because I feel like I have to get
on to the next thing or I feel like I don't have time to hit that pause button.
Even sometimes that is true, we have to move on but so many times we do have the opportunity
to take a step back, to meet the people in our life where we are and be real with them
and let them know, hey, I'm sorry, I need to start this over.
God is not a God of perfection but He is a God of real and He is a God of hearts.
He cares about your heart, He cares about my heart, He cares about our children's hearts
and He wants us to take those minutes to say, I am sorry, I need more of God in this moment,
I need to start over.
And that's my story for today.
I hope that in some small way you could connect to the truth behind the story.
We all have different stories that we could all tell about different moments in our day
but I hope that it spurs us on to think about how we interact with the people in our life,
how we interact with hard moments and I hope that we can all just grow together.
Before we finish out our time together, I would like to throw out some questions and
maybe we can take those with us this week as we ponder how we go through moments in
life when they don't play out quite like we wanted them to.
So question number one.
Do we often focus on the tasks and forget about the hearts?
An example of for this question is Sunday morning.
Take any Sunday morning of your week and for some reason Sundays are usually the craziest
morning to try to get out of the house.
We're trying to get to church on time but it seems like we are usually running late
on these particular days and I want you to put yourself in any Sunday morning and say
for example that on this particular day one of your children comes out of their room with
tears in their eyes.
Now getting to a Sunday gathering with other believers is a good thing and because it is
a good thing, sometimes as parents, we rush our children out the door and then we quickly
make a mental note that we need to talk about this later on.
As we are focused on the task at hand, we miss out on their hearts in this moment.
When all it would take is a few minutes to maybe stop and ask what you can help with.
This happened to me a few weeks ago.
One of my children walks out of their room and they had tears in their eyes.
My first reaction was okay we're running late, get out the door, we will talk about it on
the way or we will talk about it later but I had this urging in my spirit to just take
a minute and stop and listen.
So I knelt down in front of them, looked them in the eyes and just asked what was wrong
or what I could help with.
I was ready for a long conversation and for us to be really late to church but it turned
out they just needed a little bit of help to grab something off the top shelf that they
couldn't reach and it was important for them to take it with them that Sunday morning.
If I had rushed them out the door, they would have really missed whatever it was that they
wanted, this little item that they wanted to take with them.
They would have felt unseen and unheard as we swiftly went on to the next task.
But just pausing for a few minutes lets them know that you care about their hearts instead
of the task at hand.
We can insert any situation here but how often do we focus on tasks and forget about the
hearts in our home?
And question number two, how can we create an atmosphere in our home where we can start
over?
Your day might look like having to draw a line in the sand over and over again but we
get an opportunity to teach our kids what being human means and what fully relying on
God means in our daily walk and in real situations and what a gift that is for them as they grow
up and face their own lives.