Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, friend. Welcome to Perspectives into Practice, a place where life's stories meet practical wisdom. Together we'll explore how faith filled perspectives can transform the way we live, love and grow. So grab a seat, settle in and join us on this journey to turn inspiration into action. Let's dive in foreign.
I am so excited for today's conversation because we are diving into such a meaningful topic that I think everyone can relate to with someone that I truly admire. Y'all say a welcome to my friend Laura. Laura, say hi.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Hi guys.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Hey. So we met her and her amazing family while traveling and I cried. Quickly found out that she too was a Christian author and a speaker just like me, which was so exciting because you don't meet a whole bunch of those in the travel world.
But also she just recently released a book. What was that? What was that book called? Tell us about that.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: The most recent book, which I'm so excited about. It has really helped me in the journey of writing it. But it's called the Path to Rest and it's about seven steps to reverse self reliance and recover from burnout.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: That is beautiful. And that sounds like something we all need to copy. And it's like pocket size too, which I love. That is so awesome.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Four by six size, it's mini. Hopefully not intimidating for the non readers or for the busy moms who need this, but book the most.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Yes. I love that so much. So if she weren't awesome enough, she also is the founder of Love Fast, Live Slow Movement where she is helping busy women to slow down and live more intentionally. Which again, we all need some more intention in our life.
So she is, I feel like very qualified to talk on this subject that we've got today. So. But before we dive in and because you guys know that I love fun facts. Laura, tell us a fun fact about yourself.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Well, I feel like when you're at my age, with the season of life that I'm in with three kids, one on the way, homeschooling life is pretty spontaneous and chaos. But a fun fact is that when I was younger, I wanted to be a pig farmer. And as a matter I'm not a farmer now. I can barely even keep my garden alive and I have enough mouths to feed already. However, I do want a pet pig one day. Like the little bitty cute ones before they get too big and gross.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Do they have like miniature pigs that stay miniature?
[00:03:01] Speaker B: They do and they're so cute.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: That's amazing. I think that your dog.
Lilo. Lilo. No, Linus. There we are.
I Think that Linus would have a ball with a baby pig.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: At first I did not like Linus when he was going through the puppy stage, and now I like him. So I have all these romanticized dreams of animals and I'm like, but really, Lara, stop. You're just, you have enough children, you.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Know, you just go to farms and like love on all of their pigs before they become huge.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Bingo.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: And breakfast.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: And ham.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: I love it. I love that so much. So today we are talking about rest and sabbath in a 247 culture. And I know that this is something close to your heart. You talk about it often, you've written books about it. Can you take us back to when you first started realizing how important rest is, especially in today's non stop world?
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. Well, by no means am I an expert, but through years I would even claim decades of sanctification on this very subject. Because God knows my heart. God created my stubborn heart and he knew that a pain point and a vice would be that I run, I hustle, and I have ambition. And I feel like the gifts that God has given me for goal setting or having determination. The enemy has twisted it so easily in sense of making sure it's, hey, but rely on yourself. Hey, but chase shiny things. And the more productive you are, the more worthy you are. And so I have had to work really hard to reverse those lies. And so over the years starting the Love Fast Live Slow blog, it has began to peel back the layers of God saying, hey, this is not about you. You're not the main character. It's okay to slow down. I mean, I lived with a mantra, I'll sleep when I die. If something has to be done right, I'll do it myself. I was a runner and God has slowed me down tremendously to the point where it was a few years ago, my health, my body finally said, hey, if you're not going to slow down, we're going to slow down for you. And so having some health issues, went to the doctor, come to find out I had something called severe adrenal fatigue and stage three kidney disease. So that woke me up. I was like, okay, this is no longer just something I can keep doing based on my own willpower, but I really have to rewire my brain. And, and I had tried to do it myself for many, many years, slowing down. By my goodness, I had already written a book about it and I was slowing down. But I had not found the magic ingredient of not feeling guilty. When I rested, I oh, that's good. I know, to a lot of things. And I prioritized my time. I lived in this best yes phase. But I still felt guilty for resting. I. I still told myself, if I had a few hours of free time, what can I fill that with? And I thought I could do more if I multitask, or I can be more productive if I fill in the blank. And God sometimes was like, laura, but what if I'm not asking you to achieve all of these things that you have in your mind? What if you're not supposed to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders? Or what if I'm supposed to perhaps metaphorically put my kids in a Moses basket and let go of some things that I try to control, which then exuded and depleted my energy because I can't micromanage everything they do. I mean, you know, as a homeschool mom, wouldn't it be glorious if they did everything we said when we said it?
[00:07:07] Speaker A: That would be so amazing. But that is not reality.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Not reality. So this book, the Path to Rest, really came to fruition from my own health journey and from my own journey of healing to realize I had to unlearn exhaustion. And then I had to take slow, intentional steps to rewire my mind and transform my thinking.
And, girl, God is in the business of transforming somebody's heart and mind. He sure is that he did.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: So what are some of the steps that you took to go from hustle and bustle to actually resting to then truly resting in the Lord in that moment? Because you mentioned you were resting, but you didn't know how to actually take that time and let the Lord do stuff. So walk us through that. What did that look like?
[00:08:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, when I had a few hours to myself, whether that was few and far between, or I will even say on Sabbath, let's say my Sabbath was a Sunday when we, my family went to church. I would still find myself filling in the time and not allowing myself to stop. The things that I did is. I recognized my own issue with Googling or with searching what the world and culture tells me that will fix my ailments. And I was like, let me reverse card this and go straight to the Bible. What are other characters in the Bible that have burnout? Let's start there. Because I had tried to fix it myself in the past, and I just got deeper into the hole. So I was like, let me see.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: Well, because we're not the first ones in this entire world and in our timeline of existence that have ever gone through this. And I am so glad that you mentioned that. Going back to the Bible to see what stories in the Bible can we relate to now because that is so important. So what did you find?
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Because if my mentality was well, I'm going to dig deeper into self help books, I'm going to dig deeper into these methods that the world tells me will help it, help me when I'm tired or when I'm depleted. Well that's doing nothing but stay still. Relying on self.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: So I went to the Bible and I was like there ha. There, there are humans in the Bible. Like there are what?
There are characters in the Bible who have navigated failure and faith and I can learn from them. So a few characters that I learned from were. One was Elijah who basically was on this spiritual high after conquering, you know, the, the gods of baal. They were trying to prove whose God was the best. Well, he obviously had the one true God. He was on mountain peak then he was full of fear and full of weariness and he ran away into the forest to hide and to say, God, I can't do this anymore. And I thought, I have run away and locked the door of my bathroom many times telling God, you got the wrong girl for the job. God, that's not me, I'm done. And you know what? God sent an angel to him and said, hey, chill out. How about you take a nap and eat something.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: And sometimes is that not so useful? Eat and sleep. Right?
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Like note to self sometimes over complicated God's like just take a nap Laura.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: I love that. Yes.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: Another example is when Jethro called out Moses and said, you need a delegate, it can't do it all. Another example is obviously the one and only Jesus who took breaks, who took prayer breaks, who even though he could have been all things to all people, he still chose in his holiness to be in solitude and pray. Those are three amazing lessons. Another lesson that was less familiar to me was from the people of Israel who after they had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, landed with Joshua in this city called Gilgal. And before they entered the promised land and started conquering all these cities, Joshua set the precedent of, hey, here we're going to do something important before we go and fulfill God's purpose in our life, which is to occupy and multiply in this land flowing with milk and honey. And they did a few things. They worshiped, they had Passover. They set up the 12 stones, stones of to remember what God had already done. They were circumcised. All the men who were of age to fight. They were basically saying, hey, we're no longer going to have this hindrance between us and God. We're going to remove all spiritual walls and barriers. So I reflected on that, and I was like, you know what, God? I need to remember in my time of worship and my time of rest that I'm allowed to rest because it's designed by you. But also there's a time for giving thanks for what you've already done, so I can have faith that you're also going to provide in the future that I need to remove all hindrances between you. And I truly surrender if there's a secret sin in my life, if there is a closed door that I'm refusing to give you the key to. And also, when they celebrated Passover, that was them establishing their spiritual disciplines, like me, making sure that I'm in this rhythm of showing up and learning from God's word, showing up and praying, showing up and honoring the Sabbath. So, yes, the Sabbath, when it was taught by Moses, was one day a week. Keep it holy. But truly, God's tempo of rest could be a daily thing. I mean, our whole life is designed by God. I kind of think of it as like a symphony, Right. We have some parts of our life where God asks us to move faster, but sometimes in our life, God asks us to move slower. Just like in a symphony. There's faster parts and slower parts. But as long as we keep up with God's tempo, busyness is not the sin. It's a heart issue.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: That's good. Wait, say that again. Busyness is not a sin. It's a heart issue.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Yes. Because sometimes you can't prevent busy. I mean, you and I, you know, and other people who will be listening to this, you know, sometimes things are out of our control. Yes. Sometimes we take on more than we should, but other times, our busyness is not up to us. God gives us a season where maybe we have to take care of a sick parent, or maybe we have to work two or three jobs so we can be good stewards of our home and pay our bills. Sometimes life happens and you have to hustle, but it's a heart issue. And so I don't want to vilify busyness because I think that there's a time and a season for everything called by God.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: Yeah. So what I hear you saying, and like, all of this is so relatable. And I love that you are talking about the people in the Bible that did all of this before we even were here.
And Shown how, yes, it's hard, but it's doable. And so, like, what I hear you saying is in our, in our busyness, in our schedules, is making that time for the Lord in our hearts, in our surroundings, and having those moments with him. And you said, you mentioned something about a key, like unlocking those things in your heart. Like, lord, tell me where it is that I am struggling and help me to walk with you through this. And I. I just think that's beautiful and lovely, very lovely.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: Is I. Knowing the steps that God has taken to help me reset, recharge, I realized that I could still, and I have still at times gone back to that same place of relying on myself. Because I would say, okay, I sat here in my place of worship, got recharged, had my Sabbath, now I'm going to spend the next six days and then I'm going to rest again on the seventh day. Well, what did I do? I went back to the Bible, I said, okay, what are the mistakes other people made that I can learn from? Because something doesn't feel right, like something's not clicking.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: And I recognize that Joshua, after he had them do those certain things at this city called Gilgal, they went off and they conquered Jericho. Well, then they came back to Gilgal to recharge. Then they went off to conquer the Amorites. Then they came back to Gilgal. This pattern continued because they went to the southern kingdoms, came back to Gilgal, northern kingdoms, came back to Gilgal. So I was like, laura, girlfriend, this is not a once a month, once a week thing. Like, I need to sit in my worship and recharge to my source as often as I can. Because we're going to burn out if we go from task to task to task to task, relying on our own self strength.
I'm not made for that.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: No, no. And I mean, I don't think any of us are because the Lord wants us to be near to him and so he wants to spend that time with us. And I feel like rest and Sabbath is though different from our quiet time with him, which we should be spending every day and praying each time. But the rest is, I feel like maybe you correct me if I'm wrong, but like a deeper level of that.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up because by no means do I think it should just be a checklist kind of relationship we have with the Lord. Because rest is really faith that when we stop, God will still work on our behalf. I think about the Israelites having been freed from Egypt and they were like, wait a minute, you're telling me that we don't have to work one day a week and God's still going to feed us? You're saying that we're not gonna be. We're not getting trouble because they had this bondage mentality and they were slaves for 400 years. So to them, if they rested or if they stopped, they didn't get food. To them, if they stopped, they could have, you know, their life could have been ended. So for us, if we take a day off and say, God, you are the giver and you are the provider, we have to trust that in our rest, God is still going ahead of us and we'll meet our needs. I think about places like Chick Fil A. I mean, I think about how they blessed on that one day and their profits are still booming.
What other company? My kids.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Praise huge.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Yep. I will be a customer forever. I know of. God is always working, Always. And ultimately, are we telling ourselves, well, if we don't do it, no one will? Is it really us anyways, or are we saying God has always been doing it and he is allowing me to be a part of his story?
[00:18:43] Speaker A: That's good. So what would you say to the listeners that are our friends, these ladies on the other side that are struggling with that, the bondage mentality to being busy, that their success comes from their full calendars and their busyness, and that they are not worthy of arrest or they are not, they don't deserve arrest because there's so much more to be done. What. What would you say to those ladies? Because I. I know a lot of those ladies and I feel like I used to be one.
So I think that's very applicable. What would you say first?
[00:19:28] Speaker B: I would say there should be no shame or guilt in even knowing or admitting the struggle. Because we've all been there. And it's a daily thing that I have to surrender. So nobody has truly ever arrived. But rest is a gift and it's not something we have to earn. And if we can allow ourselves to first believe it enough where we can finally receive it, we will know that the free gift of rest, of setting aside work for a day when we're talking about Sabbath or ensuring that daily you have a moment, even if it's a small moment of worship so you can get grounded and recharged for what God is calling you to that day, you're not alone. First of all, you're not broken, right? But you are missing out on so Much peace. And if this is a gift God is offering you and you're refusing it, you're telling yourself and telling God, I'm going to fight for my peace. It's kind of like this was an illustration somebody gave me the other day. She had a stepfather who was going to adopt her. And, you know, she had an estranged relationship with her biological dad. And she said, wouldn't it be silly if this man in my life who had stepped up to raise me said, hey, I would love to adopt you because I love you and I delight in this. And then she said, no, let me earn it first. No, let me prove to you that I'm lovable first. Let me work really, really hard so you realize that I'm worthy of being your daughter. And she said, that's crazy. No, that. That would not make sense in an earthly relationship for a man trying to. Who, you know, married to the mom is trying to say, I would love for you to be my daughter, and I delight in you. And for the daughter to not accept it. That's like us and our Heavenly Father. Like, God's giving us the gift, and we're saying, but let me earn it, God. Like, I don't.
There's so much freedom that God is offering us. So I would not want anyone to be stuck in bondage.
And it. Just allow yourself to surrender that part to the Lord. And I think in time you could begin to trust that he really will work all things good for those who love him.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Absolutely.
That's so good.
Laura, can I ask you to pray for our ladies? I feel like this is a huge burden that a lot of women carry that they don't know how to release or allow the Lord to help them in this. Could you pray for our ladies? Just a quick prayer. I really feel like this is the moment that that is needed. Would you mind?
[00:22:23] Speaker B: Absolutely. I would be honored.
Dear Lord, thank you so much for this time. I pray for those listening. I pray that, God, in this moment, you would just pierce through the brokenness and the fear and the hurt that we have. Because it's so easy, Lord, for us women to hide behind our fear and our pain because we want to take care of everyone around us. And, God, that is also a privilege and an honor and a responsibility perhaps you've given some of us. But, Lord, you've also gifted us the opportunity to rest and to recharge and find purpose and peace in your plan for our life. So, God, give us the supernatural strength to let go of the things that are not ours. To carry and let us, in clarity, know for sure what is our calling and what we should be using our energy on. And, God, give us the power and the capacity to do what you have called us to do, no more and no less. You are a good, good God. And you are a good father. So I pray for freedom over these ladies. I pray for peace, I pray for surrender, and I pray for rest. In your name I pray. Amen.
[00:23:37] Speaker A: Amen. Thank you so much. I really feel like there's a lot of women that struggle with this, which is why I wanted it to be a topic and I knew exactly who to ask about this. So I'm so glad that you're here.
Is there anything that you would like to. Before we wrap up, leave our listeners with one perspective to take away from today from our conversation.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: To say that my perspective has changed in this topic is an understatement. Who I was 10 years ago versus who I am today, I can hardly recognize it. I was, you know, quote, unquote, what the world call a girl boss.
I was all in. And not to say that that's bad, because that was a beautiful season of my life, but how God has given me a new perspective that I do not have to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders because he has died for my sins. And I will rejoice and say, lord, I'm going to just do what you asked me to do. Even today, I got in the shower and I was like, hey, God, you know what? I just need you to give me the energy to make it through this 24 hours. And then tomorrow I'm going to ask God to do the same thing. And so it really is a shift of perspective in who I'm relying on. Myself, which I did, and I tried, and I burn out, or God. And you know what? I'm still able to accomplish so many things. I'm still able to reach higher heights and bigger dreams than I ever thought possible, but my perspective is shifted to him instead of my own gain. And it's so much better. It really is.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: Oh, yes. Oh, I love that so much.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Laura, for sharing your wisdom and your heart with us today. This has truly been a blessing, and I really believe that it's gonna. It's gonna help a lot of ladies out there. So. So, ladies, I pray that this podcast becomes a source of encouragement and inspiration for you. If you are loving this, please be sure to follow and to share it with a friend who needs some encouragement today. And remember, even small shifts in perspective can lead to big changes in your life. Now go put those perspectives into practice. Talk to you next time.
