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.
Hey, friend. Welcome back to Perspectives into Practice. Today's conversation feels tender and honest. We're talking about something that many of us quietly wrestle with. It's who we are when a role that we once carried is no longer ours. What happens when God asks us to release something that shaped our days, our friendships, and maybe even how we saw ourselves? I'm joined today by my sweet friend Pat. She has spent years faithfully serving where God placed her. But recently, she walked through a season where the Lord gently asked her to step aside and let go of a role that had become deeply woven into her identity. And what I love about her story is that it's not about loss. It's about trust. It's about obedience, and it's about discovering who you are when the titles change. But your calling does not. Welcome Pat, I'm so grateful that you're here.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here and get to share with your people.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, I can't wait. So. But before we dive in, you guys know I love a good, fun fact. And, Pat, so you are a huge football fan, especially during the NFL playoffs. And I love that you grew up around sports because your mom was a PE coach, but then God gave you a ballerina instead of an athlete, and I think that that's just the sweetest twist. And so since you have a long history with football and now an intimate relationship and connection with ballet, I've got a tricky question for you. And that is what is something that you found that football and ballet surprisingly have in common? Oh, wow.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: That's a doozy of a question, isn't it?
What is something that ballet and I think they both require a lot of commitment and work, you know, So I know I've had people say, I'm like, ballet's kind of a sport, you know, but some people are like, no, it's not. Well, it maybe isn't in that sense, but it does require a lot of dedication and, you know, to. To get better and be better. So, yeah, I guess that would be it.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that. I mean, that's beautiful. That's. I. I would say that as well. I mean, I don't know really either, but I. I know that what I've, you know, seen and Heard that it is a lot of. A lot of commitment and a lot of work put into it. So I would absolutely call ballet a sport, even if it's not in the Olympics.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I loved it. So it's one of those things. And I think that might be another thing. People. People that are in football and people are. Ballerinas, love what they do. So, yes, most of the time, I think it's something that you enjoy.
Even though it's a lot of work, you enjoy it.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: And they both get to wear costumes or uniforms, whichever one you want to call it.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: That's a great one. Yeah. Yeah. That was always fun.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: So next time someone asks you such an obscure question, you have a couple answers.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how you came up with that. I don't know if I'd have put those two.
Two ideas together.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: But there is a TV show. I think it was a TV show or maybe it was a movie. I just remember this. They were teaching them. Yes, it was Glee. Do you remember Glee? Like, a long time ago.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: I don't know that I saw that.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Okay, well, it's super old, and it was, you know, mostly for. For kids, but they. They taught the football team how to dance so that they could work on their agility, and they were teaching them ballet moves. So that's why I was like, oh, my gosh. Maybe she has a great answer.
It was fascinating. But it was just like they got in this, you know, working on. Working as a team, working on agility and, you know, staying. Staying in step. And then, I mean, it was really cool. Obviously, it's tv, so I don't know if that would actually happen in real life, but that's what made me think, hey, I'll ask her. I'll ask her this.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's cool. I'm gonna have to watch that movie now.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: There you go. There you go. All right. So the comparison actually fits perfectly with what we're talking today because we're talking about the seasons changing and the position shifting and learning how to move gracefully when the role that you once played looks differently. And so I wanna start there. You were in a season where you. You were pouring out deeply into others, and you were serving in significant leadership capacity. And it was meaningful and it mattered, and it really shaped the rhythm of your life. And so in that season, when did you first sense that God might be asking you to let go of it?
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Well, I think that God put someone in my life that I saw him doing in her what he had done in Me. And so I kind of. She was like in a. She was growing towards that, you know, and I could see it.
And so I felt like God brought her into my life to minister to her, to even help her develop into that role.
And. And I can remember having the one conversation with her and saying, God's raising you up for this. I can see it.
And she was like, oh, no, no way. You know, And I'm like, yeah, he is. It's just clear as day, you know? And it took her probably, I would say almost two years from that conversation to really start embracing it. I think she knew God was doing something new and different in her. So it's kind of funny that you're talking to me about my transition, because I really got to be a part of her transition as well.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: So that was pretty cool.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: God uses your own to help someone else, even if the neither party knows what's going to happen next. He's. He's just so beautiful at that. At that. So when you knew that this transition was happening, what emotions surface that you realized wasn't just a passing thought of, oh, this is. This is going away, but it was a real transition.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: Well, okay. In that process, I had to. I kind of walked with her, getting her to that place of getting there. And then when. When she kind of started getting there, I'm like, okay, all right, we're getting somewhere there. But then I started really feeling the sense of what that was going to feel like, to let that go, because like you said, it had been something that I had been a part of and done and really just dove my whole life into. For a season, you know, and so releasing that I knew was going to bring about a lot of unknowns in my life. And I didn't know.
I guess, you know, a lot of times the unknowns scare us.
So there was some fear of what if. What if I do this? Honestly, I even had what ifs of how was that going to affect my friendship with her? Was that friendship going to be okay? Not that.
Not that I saw anything wrong in our friendship. Yeah, I just. I had in the past had experiences where friendships had gone awry in.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: In different seasons. And so I started questioning that.
So I also started wondering, well, what if when I let go of this, how is that going to make me look? What is. How are people going to see. See that transition? Are they going to see that as something good? Are they going to think something's wrong? You know, So I really worried about what other people thought.
So I was Worried about my friendship. I was a little bit worried about what other people thought. And then even for me personally, how is this going to affect me personally?
And is that really going to harm the. The place that God wants to take me next? So it was really a kind of a wrestle to just come to grips with trusting God in all of it.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is. Is so difficult. And you know, I hear you say, like, there's so many things of when God tells us this thing, when he puts us this in our path that we wonder, okay, how is like, like you said, how is this affecting me? What is, what is going to be changing my life? What is, what is it going to look like for other people? And, and really stay stepping back and saying, okay, actually, I'm sorry, Lord, right.
What, what are you doing in this situation? And I love that you were able to minister to her in what he was teaching you and say, hey, as I pass this on, here are the things that you get to take with you. And so when you did finally step aside, you just, you described that, like, pressure to peace. What. What did that feel like?
[00:09:50] Speaker B: I guess I just would go back to. It was just walking it out with God, you know, I had to continually hanging out with Jesus in the mornings and in the Word and praying and walking through it day in and day out as it, as it. It's being laid out before me, you know, and then like separating from, from that position and she, you know, was like, do you want to be a part?
And I, I did, but then I felt like I shouldn't because I felt like what God was saying to me is, I need you to let me make her who I want her to be in this role, you know, And I think she would have had a, maybe even a tendency to want to please. Man, I know she said it, she's even said it to me that she said, I want you to be proud of me. Well, I am proud of her, but I think that would have almost clouded what she did.
And so I really had to decide that it was best for me to fully step out where I was invited to be a part and I think even wanted to be a part, but I think she also understood it. So it really was a. And I think it was very beneficial that both of us were. She was very much seeking the Lord, I was very much seeking the Lord. So it really, because we were both individually were seeking the Lord apart from all of it, and we were also seeking the Lord for what he wanted to do in it. So I think that Was very helpful, you know.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and I love that you were able to recognize that she wanted to make you proud, but really her role in all of that was to make the father proud.
And I mean, that's huge that you're able to say, while I would love to be there and to be part of that, I have had my season, and now the Lord has asked me to be a witness to all of that. So how does that feel now, to be on essentially the outside as a witness to what is happening?
[00:12:03] Speaker B: I would say that, you know, right now, I mean, I'm doing what God wants me to do, so I'm very confident in that.
But I will tell you, when the very first event happened, that my friend was the leader in, and I was going to go to support her because while I wasn't going to be involved in her team and helping her determine how to do everything, I was going to be the one that would just be her friend and still be there saying, I believe in you, I support you, and all that.
But that morning before that event, I just. I recognize the potential to have that jealousy even rise up in me, you know, of. Oh, man, what if. What if this looks amazing and it didn't look as amazing when I did it, you know, and what is that going to say? And all those things. Same fears that I kind of worried about what other people would say, what other people would think about that. I just really had to say, lord, you know, help me, help. One thing I've been praying for a while now is that God would sanctify my ego, that God would sanctify my ambitions, that he would sanctify my dreams and my desires, you know, of course sanctify me. And I think in that he does that. But I've really been zeroing in on that because I don't want it to become all about me. And I, you know, when you do something all the time, yes, you. You can easily get there. And I have been there. And, you know, so I had, in that moment of fear of that jealousy rising up. And it was so interesting, too, when I pulled up that night to that event. And I mean, it was just so many people there, and it was.
It was different. It was different. There were more, you know, numbers. There was more people there. And there was. And it was beautiful. It was a great, beautiful. She had done such a fabulous job of putting this event together. And I just. In my car before I went in. Lord, you just helped me to just be delighted with what you're doing in her You've got something beautiful for her, but you've got something beautiful for me, too. And I thought. Think that's something that's important to recognize is when God does move us from one thing to the next, that just because it looks different and. And even just because sometimes something in the outward appearance appears bigger, better, more beautiful, whatever that is, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: And so in that time when I went to that event, anytime that anything like that tried to. Because I did have to battle it. I did have to battle that.
But any moment that I would have it, I just pray, Lord, help me. Just help me walk through this and help me be delighted for what you're doing.
And at one point, I felt like God said, it's not about you. It's not about you. It's not about her. It's not about you. It's about what I'm doing.
And beyond that moment and that really. That initial wrestling through that, I really feel like God's given me a lot of peace and confidence, and I'm still going the direction that he has for me.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Because he's. It's not that he's taken everything away from you. He's just shifted you to a new season.
And. And that's. And that's beautiful because he gets to work in and through us so differently because we are all, all unique creatures. But I think that it is very easy to wrap up our identity in. In the season that we're in, and instead of, you know, we attach it to an impact or an influence or even just visibility. And I love that through your constant prayer, that the Lord really untangled that for you so that you could see that you are worthy and significant in anything that he's called you to. Not just one season in your life. And. And when you wrap up everything that you are in one season, it's really hard to pull back and go, okay, I can do other things and still be in my calling and still bless others. And that's. It's just a beautiful. A beautiful story, and I'm so, so thankful that you get to share it with us. I'm so thankful for that.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Well, thank you. I'm excited to share it because I know it.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: I think we all kind of go through seasons where, you know, our life changes and, you know, you don't really understand it. You don't know why. I can't tell you how many times I've thought in the recent past few months, I guess of. I feel a lot like Abraham that I'm going to a place that I don't know, and.
But I'm like, okay, if I can look at Abraham's story, God got him where he wanted to. He ended up in the hall of Faith. You know, he ended up in Hebrews 11 as one of the ones that had that faith.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: So.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: So, I mean, at some point, God will write my own story the way that. That he did with, with Abraham. So. And I think he does that with all of us. You know, it was just coming to that place of trusting him in the midst of it. And it's not always easy.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: No, it's not. So for our listeners that. That are. Are hearing this right now, how can we begin to build our identity on God who. On who God says we are, instead of what we produce, the after effect of what we do?
[00:17:53] Speaker B: I think, first of all, when we look at that, we're having to recognize building your identity on what you produce is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our doing does not make us into who we are. He's the one who makes us into who we are.
And so for me personally, and this is everything that I do is surrounded around getting into God's word, because when we get to know, first of all, we've got to know who he is.
And when we know him and we know who he is and we see that he's the one. One thing I've. I'm studying right now, like before we did this podcast, I'm studying about who is God. And one of the things that I'm looking at is the name of God. Yahweh is always used in context with what he's doing.
And I love that. You know, I've had people say in the past, I've heard, I guess teachers, preachers say something along the lines of, we really can't love and worship God for what he does for us. We just need to worship him for who he is. But I would say from what I understand of a theological study of his word, of his name, is that he is what he's doing. And that's how he progressively invites us in, and it progressively teaches us who he is.
And in that, when we start recognizing what he's done for us, then we live out of that rather than trying to be something. You know, our whole journey is about becoming, being transformed from who we were to who we are, to who he created us to be, who he planned us to be. I think if we base it on anything that we do, we are off balance, we have our foundation Isn't right, you know, so we've got to come back to. Everything has to be built on who he is and what has he done for us. And then we're re identified. We're in Christ. We're new creations in Christ Jesus. We're not who we were. So that changes everything.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: It does everything.
So for those listeners who maybe God is calling them out of, of something they've been doing, maybe it is a job or a volunteer role or a season of motherhood, what encouragement would you offer to them?
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Pray a lot because, you know, God's faithful. He'll give you the. He'll give you the peace. And, and you know, the thing is, is because this is one of the things I think that's a little bit bothered me in my season is I have wanted God to show me, give me your. I mean, every day I have prayed. Give me your vision for this next season of my life.
And it's not that I have no ability to see what God' I do, but there's so much unknown in it. And so I think God, what God is trying to teach me is to be okay with letting him lead and walk it out one step at a time. We don't always get to see everything.
[00:21:19] Speaker A: No, thank God.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: Well, I mean, goodness gracious, I probably would have never said yes to his calling.
Exactly what the, you know, I mean, really, we're not able to process that we even have that ability. There's things that he carries us through that we would say, there's no way I could do that. But in the moment when he calls us to it, or when something happens in our life, even a difficulty, even a tragedy, anything, I think he carries us in that moment.
But had we been able to see that ahead of time, we probably would have said, no, I'm out.
I can't do that. But then God gives us the grace we need in that moment. So I guess my answer to your question is it's to allow God to take you one step at a time.
Ask him to give you the peace and the comfort, the strength, the courage, whatever it is that you need to be okay with the place that you're at today and know that you've go in somewhere tomorrow and you're going somewhere the day after that. And even if you can't see it, he can. And that's okay because his plan for our lives is good. I mean, I've got three daughters, I've got five grandbabies.
And what I have come to know of God throughout all of These years is that he loves them. I love my babies, I love my children, and I love my grandchildren. But they are not loved by me nearly as much as they are loved by God.
And so just being able to be settled with how much we're loved and how much we want the best. I want the best for my kids. I want the best for my grandkids. And he is our perfect heavenly father. I'm a flawed mother at best.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: You know, but God, God's plan, His will, his desire for us is so good, and it's just a safe place to be.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: It is. It is. And when we. When we position ourselves to see that, to see that his will is better than our will every single time, and that he does know what the next step is, even for us, when it looks unknown and it looks hard and it looks tricky, and you have no idea what that's going to look like. Even, you know, in your story when you were walking with this lady for two years and she's just like, no, no, no, no, no. There's so many times in my own life where God has called me to something and I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Surely you mean someone else. But as soon as I say, okay, Lord, what are you doing? Let's do this together and start walking that path. He just opens up the doors and he makes it easy for us. But it's hard sometimes in our. In our earthly minds to. To wrap our mind around that he is always good. He does always know the best for us, and that when we trust him and what he's doing, the rest falls in place. That. That's. That's all he's asking is for that next right step, when he tells us to do it and not worry about what's to come on the other end. But it takes practice. It takes practice.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. And get in. To know the Lord in that way, where you can trust him is. It's progressive. You know, that's the whole thing about use the word. Practice is a great way. We practice trusting Him. We practice our faith through prayer, through His Word, and get into knowing through His Word. And as we do that, he's faithful to. To grow us and to strengthen us and to give us what we need for that next place. And then you go down the road and you look five years down the road, you turn around and look back and go, wow, look at what God did in me. You know, because if you're walking with the Lord like that and you've walked with the Lord, for five years, you are going to look back and go, wow, there's just no way that you're not. Because he's working and transforming us. And some of it in those five years, just using that timeframe, we may go through it and think, this is the most awful thing I've ever been through. But then we come out of it and we see how God worked in us. He built us, he strengthened us. He made us more of who he wants us to be, you know, more his character is starting to shine through us.
So there's. Looking back is so cool when you've walked with the Lord for a long time to see the journey lay out, you know, but on the other side of it, it's not always so easy to.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: It's not.
It's always worth it. But yeah, looking back, that's. Yeah, that's the beauty of it is that you have to have eyes to see what he's done. And that's a choice. That's a choice that we get to make and he allows us to have, which it's just a beautiful thing. Oh, Pat, thank you so much for your honesty today, your willingness to share that in between season, not just the polished parts. It's really such a gift. And I know that the women listening who need to hear that their identity is secure in Christ even when their role and seasons change. And so before as we wrap up, I want to ask you a question I ask every guest, and that is, what is one perspective that you would encourage listeners to apply today?
[00:26:58] Speaker B: The scripture, a scripture came to my mind. That has really been something that I have held on to. And I would say it's the thing, the scripture I've gone back to over and over again, and I feel like it would be beneficial to anyone. So I'm going to read that. It's Philippians 3, 12, 14.
Not that I have already attained or I'm already perfected, but I press on. I love that word, press on, press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended. But one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
I press toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
And I felt like that was so, so reflective of what you're doing. You're really in how you're wanting your guest and you're wanting your audience to hear what's happening presently so much of the time. Yet. Yes, we look back and see what God's done. But so much of the time, we do have to forget what's behind and just press forward to. To the goal of God's call through Jesus Christ, rather than getting stuck in what God's done in the past. Because I've been there where we've wanted, you know, I've wanted to be like. But I liked it there, you know, and so we want to stay there, and God's going, forget that and let's move forward. I've got something else for you.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: So press on.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: What a wonderful perspective. Yes, press on. Oh, I love that friend. If today's conversation stirred something in you, maybe you're walking through a shift, a surrender, or a redefining season, we would love to hear from you. This podcast exists because of real stories, of real faith in real life. So if you feel like God is writing something meaningful in your life right now and you'd be willing to share it, please reach out to me at Perspectives into Practice dot com. I would be honored to have you as a guest here. And remember, even small shifts in perspective can lead to big changes. Now go put those perspectives into practice. Talk to you next time.
