Hi there. I'm Jill Allen and this is find your fierce, the show designed for women to discover your fierce, unlock and unstoppable mindset. Build unbreakable courage and completely transform how you show up every single day. Each week I will bring ideas, methods and strategies that will inspire you to step into your greatness and live life on purpose. Let's be fit, fierce and unstoppable.
(00:35): Peter gang. Welcome to find your fear so glad you are here. Today's chat. We are wrapping up the coffee talk series today, and we are diving into how to Trek through the hard while keeping our peace and our joy and sanity and how to get through the tough conversations and just showing up with a fresh perspective on life, which is all about the communication and the relationships and growing that strong foundation with our faith. But before we dive in, I pray that you will come and hang out with us in the just breed. It's our Facebook sisterhood, a place where all women can come together to inspire others, to grow in faith, to pray, to love, to become more and to celebrate our gifts from God. And we're certainly on that mission to live out our purpose and God's plan for us as we embark on this journey that we are on together called life. So we invite you in, I hope to see you there, but Liz is back with us again today. How are you girl? I am great. Excited for the last one. Oh, it's going to be so good. I know we've talked about the noise and how to decipher what's coming at us from all directions. And we talked about how to love through hard disagreements. And I want to continue that today with how we can have our joy, even when it's flat out hard. What do you got to say about that? Oh, gosh.
(01:46): Well I guess it makes me think of the question. Oh, go ahead. No, I said you have a lot of joy. I noticed that right away when we met, I that's, I would say a testimony. Jesus, it's funny. It's like, okay, so what is joy? You know, is it like superficial happiness? Like, and if that's the case, then that's really fleeting. That just depends on your circumstance. So it's like, what is joy? And I think true joy is it's there, even when things are Tufts. So we've talked about the noise and hard situations and hard conversations and stuff. And is it possible to maintain joy through those one thing that at least for me has stuck out so much in my heart and my mind. It's not a denying of the circumstance. It's not even a denying of your emotion in the circumstance because let's be honest.
(02:33): Like when you're going through something difficult, generally your first response, isn't like, woo, this is amazing. There are a lot of emotions we experience, you know, sadness, grief, anger, resentment, all the things. And so it's like, is it really possible to have joy, even in difficult situations? I think the argument or, or often the thought is like, well, that just means it's like, pretend, you know, it's fake, it's superficial, I'm putting on a smile, but I'm feeling this inwardly. And I know at least for me and different experiences and stuff that we face, it's like, it's not a denial of the emotion. And honestly, one thing that I have found in, in my relationship with the Lord is like, he is the safest place for me to be completely real about all of the crazy feelings, you know, all of the hurt, the anger, the sadness, the grief, the, the questions, you know, like the cause how many times are we sitting there in a hard situation?
(03:26): Like, I don't understand the point of this. Like what in the world? And he's the safest place to process all of that. And he doesn't shame or guilt or turn you away. He understands there's a scripture that talks about, he understands our, our Sheltie, our humanity in Jesus, himself experienced some really deep emotion, you know, when we ran through the gospels and follow his life. But in that, that, that at least for me is where joy is found. So I can't, he is the safest place I can go and I can pour out all of these things and, and process with him. And then ultimately it's like laying it at his feet, you know, it's that, it's that surrender piece. It's the, okay, this is all how I feel, but I'm going to look to you instead. So it's like not denying circumstances, not denying emotion, but choosing to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus and the truth of who he is and what he says, because his truth speaks a better word.
(04:21): You know, it's like, it's above, it's above the circumstance. It's above the disagreement. It's above. Like he sees, he sees bigger and he sees more. And so when we fix our eyes on him, I've heard it as saying, we become what we behold. And I'm like, that is beautiful. So if he is what we're beholding, if it's it's that it changes your perspective. And in that, then there's joy. Like, I think about never in this inexperience, I can remember that he's ever forsaken me. You know, he's never left me to do it alone. He's never said like, nah, you got this. I think I'm, you know, you can figure it out. You know, he's never not met me there. He's never not carried and whatever the outcome, whether it's what I hoped or wanted or thought it would be or whatever, he's never first taken.
(05:10): And so in that there's rest in that there's joy, you know, you're, you're fully known. You're fully seen, you're fully loved, fully accepted and in that new rest and have that's, that's the root of joy. Like it's, it's a perspective of who he is and who he is for us. And in that you kidding, I'm like hanging on to every single word that you saying it is seriously purifier. We will see you later guys. We'll we'll just seriously. I am in awe. I'm just in awe it's yeah. It's I love it. No, seriously. Keep going, because I think it's so easy with the whole thing of like seek him first. And what is that we're focusing on? I mean, it is a choice. Sometimes we like to focus on that circumstance and it just, it takes us away a way that we can really bring it all back into what truly matters is on him.
(06:13): First beautiful thing too with about Jesus is like, it's all about relationship and he wants to do life with that. And so even in the hard things, like it's, like you said, we want to focus on this situation instead of him, but he's like, I just want to do the situation with you. You know? So it's like, that's that whole, the reality of like, wow, I really can't. He cares about everything in my life. He cares about everything that concerns me and this disagreement or this hardship or this situation. He actually really cares about that too. He cares about me, the person in it. He cares about the other people involved in it and he cares about what's going on. And so knowing that too, then you're like, oh, okay. So I can, it's even more like, wow, I can really just sump everything in his feet.
(06:55): You know, it's not, it's not even this superficial, like the situation doesn't matter because honestly they do, they do matter to us. Like we, you know, that's part of life and loving and being in a relationship and community, it does matter. And so the beautiful thing about Jesus is he's not like that's just insignificant. You shouldn't worry about it. And he's like, no, I care about everything that concerns you. And I just went to with you. And so in that, then we can invite him into these experiences, into these situations, pour it all out on the father, pour it all out on his feet and then like, okay, what do I do? How do I navigate this? How do I, we've talked about being bold and speaking up, but then also sometimes how the, we need to be silent. And so all of those things we can ask, we can invite him in, Hey, when do I need to speak up?
(07:41): Or is this the moment where I just need to be silent and all of those things? And he's like, I'm right there. I want to navigate it with you. Cause we do like, we have to walk through them, you know, carrying the load, he's carrying the burden. He's, you know, he's doing the fighting for us. Yes, yes. Able to choose, well, choose that. We need to be able to let, go and let go of that white knuckled steering wheel. You said something so powerful of the joy is found in the rest and bond bonds. Let's take a nap. Let's kick back. Let's dive into that rest piece a little bit. And I don't even know if we're even on what we were going to talk about. I'm just going to let this go. But that is so powerful. What is rest? I think it's very easily and I always struggled with this too, you know, with somebody to say, oh, I think you need to be in a season of rest.
(08:31): And you're like, but if, if rest is defined as an activity, I'm like, but I'll never have the season of rest because I have four little kids. There is always something and it's not there. The reality is rest. Isn't it? I mean, yes, there, we obviously have to have times of not doing our inactivity where we can just sit or be still or whatever, but it's rest really isn't I think there's a deeper, deeper than just the inactivity or the not doing. There's like a soul rest, his spirit rest, or like an internal rest where yes, where it's like, that's where all the things are poured down on the seat where he's carrying the burden. Like you said, understanding like realizing the weight of the responsibility. Isn't on me. One thing when we were talking last episode about truth and can become zealous for truth and we should be true, you know, like he is truth.
(09:24): Jesus is the way the truth and the life and the truth is what sets us free. So we should have used Alice for truth, but then sometimes in our zeal for truth, it's like, I've got to convince everybody of the truth, you know? And even in that, he's like, I asked you to speak. I asked you to stand on that, but it's not, you can't open eyes. You can't change. You know, like it's up to me to convince it's not up to you to convince and that there's rest because how easy is it? Like we get frustrated and you're like, I'm supposed to be a truth-teller and I'm supposed to convince you the truth and you're not getting it. And then we get, you know, frustrated, cause he's like, no, that's not on you. So there's rest in that too. It's the same thing, like in difficult situations and all that understanding like he wants to do with me and vitamins in the process, let him carry the burden and poured out all out on the feet of Jesus.
(10:11): And in that it's arrest for, for your soul arrest for your spirit, like understanding that he's there and he's carrying a spiting Horace, like you said, but I think that's yeah. Interesting. I think a lot of times it's easy to think of rest as an activity and it doesn't necessarily, it's not limited to inactivity. It's there's like a deeper rest and he is that rest when we're talking like it allows us to have space for joy. And then the joy itself is actually going to help convince if we want to use that, for lack of a better word, what's going to convince people of living that life with joy. Like, why would you not want that to go you joy? Right. And join us because it's like, come with me on this side of joy. I can't imagine not having joy and what breaks for people who don't have that don't know a different way.
(11:10): Right. I think another thing that goes hand in hand to enjoy is hope. You know? So as we, you know, we pour things out on the father, we pour things on his feet. We surrender, we let him carry the burdens, all of those things. And I don't know, I just always think of like, he speaks the better word he speaks. His, what he says is it is a better word. And there's always hope like it's rooted in trust. We decided, okay, I'm going to trust you. I'm going to lay this at your feet. I'm going to trust you. And then he's like, there's always hope because I never fail. And I never, you know, and so then it's like, there's this help? And it goes hand in hand with joy because we can be, then you have abundant joy because there's this hope of who he is and that it's all going to work out for our good.
(11:50): Yeah. It's so good. I want to share, I mean, I shared this with you before we hopped on here, but I know this is so trivial, but it's going to go hand in hand with our assignment and our homework this week for this. But I was just so, so excited about this. And when we talk about challenges or, you know, hardship and things like the fact that this is very low on that totem pole, how it's so good. But when we have that, I mean, it's just so amazing. So anyway, so here we are, we're going to a vet appointment and we're there late. It's nine, 15, the appointment was at nine and I whipped it in, you know, the parking lot. And there was a couple cars already there, but you know, the vet office was all shut up. It was locked, like close, open at 11.
(12:38): And I'm like, well, okay, well, do we really have this appointment? I mean, I didn't get all this. Now. I was talking to the girl that was next to me. Okay. Went back to conversation. Hey, how are okay? And so, you know, I ended up, you know, getting through and they come out and it's about 9 20, 9 30. Okay. So again, either like my lateness didn't even matter, but I want to like share this with you. When we were on this mission of the go, go, go, not resting, we're striving. And we're going through and we're on our self self, me, me, me gonna make it happen, make it happen, get through it. And just like in this survival mode kind of thing, we lose sight of the joy and we can lose allow the circumstances to stay. Absolutely. So the old Joe who did probably did not know Jesus, you know, before that, I would've been upset of why, why aren't they taking my dogs, places to go people, to talk to people, you know, just things to, you know, be at.
(13:41): And it wasn't the case. And so what happened was, is this a whole entire blessing of like, okay, didn't work out. It did, it all works out, but it allowed us to have a conversation and a boy in a completely different way with a stranger. Oh, that's so good. So good. So we started talking, the dogs are in the vet. Okay. Everything's great. And we connected had this amazing, beautiful talk and she shared her Facebook with me. Okay. Like, let's connect, let's get us on. So of course I'm going to like start a friend requester. I kid you not guys. This is just today. Like this was happened two hours before you know, here. So I go into her first Facebook page and guess what? Our last post was huge and beautiful meme, a beautiful thing. All about joy. That's not a God thing. I'm not sure.
(14:36): What's probably read into those things because it's like, that is just confirmation. And we miss this. Yeah. Smiles being passed. If there weren't stories or talking about life. Totally not worrying about the, that the vet was all locked up. Right. And I think we miss out on those moments because we are so go, go, go, go, go. Yes. Caught up in the chaos or the storm or just the division that we miss that opportunity to pass along the Juul or have some express joy to us. Yep. That's good. What's our homework because I got fired up. Even share the homework. Well you actually kind of did in your story, our homework was to bless someone, find a way, like think of a way and get creative, however, big, small, whatever you buy somebody coffee, reach out to somebody and say hello and share an encouraging word or whatever it may be, but find a way to spread joy.
(15:49): How can you spread joy? How can you give joy? But then I just think if you go into it with an open, with open eyes, like your story, you very well may discover you've received joy in the process too. Like you're being intentional and present in that moment. And you're like, oh my goodness. Like exactly like what you said, you, you, you get to experience and receive it. Because you're not focused on other things you're being present the moment. So the homework was to spread joy, think of a way to get creative, you know, user, create them juices here and think of a way to spread some joy. Yeah. It's so awesome. Yeah. We're definitely gonna brighten someone's day today and you're going to have fun. You're going to have fun add like a hashtag hashtag choose joy or hashtag spread joy, joy challenge, challenge.
(16:36): Let's just do that. Let's do. And just, yeah. Experience it, receive it, give it, and it definitely is contagious. And I know what we speak. We shall find and want to find more joy and so good. I know I loved our talks. I love you so much for sure. So I think it's so good. I hope you guys enjoy this series as much as we did. So let us know what your thoughts are and if you have not grabbed a copy of my book, set free head on over to Amazon, check that out. And if you have leave a testimony or review, it helps spread the message to more women. It's definitely a team effort. So thank you so much heads up on the next episode, we are diving into the success mindset. So be sure to come back and check that out. Thanks so much for joining us today. Please subscribe, share this episode, link on your social media. If you felt encouraged or inspired, as we all know someone that can benefit. And I would love it. If you would give some feedback and a review as well, talk with you next time. Be fit, be fierce, be unstoppable. See ya.
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