Accepting The Cup You’ve Been Given: Seeing God’s Design.

Finishing up the topic of jealousy, Take Heart hosts share about seasons of jealousy, vulnerable stories, and how we parent children struggling with these feelings. Remembering that God is our portion, and He can handle any emotion we have, we learn to grieve, be grateful, and see God’s design in each of our paths. 

October 26, 2021; Ep. 58

Timestamps & Key Topics:

• 0:22-    Intro
• 1:05-    Jealousy
• 2:51-    A Scarcity Mindset
• 5:34-    Seasons of Jealousy
• 10:13-  What Am I Grieving?
• 18:36-  Seeing God’s Design
• 25:21-  Sibling Jealousy
• 30:27-  Take it all to God
• 34:05-  Practical Tips 
• 41:06-  Prayer
• 42:17-  Outro

Episode Links & Resources:

• Scripture mentioned: Psalm 16:5, Galatians 5:22-23, II Peter 1:3
• Bluey Episode: Hammerbarn

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• Find Sara at www.saraclime.com or on Instagram @saraclime

Transcript

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Carrie M Holt  0:22 
Welcome to Take Heart, where our goal is to offer encouragement, give hope and insight, so you can flourish in your journey as a special needs mom. As we explore monthly themes, share inspiring stories and practical tips, our desire is to continue to serve you and new listeners. You can help us spread the word by subscribing, leaving a review, and sharing the podcast with others. Amy, Sara, and I want to thank you for joining us today.

So hello there. It's our collaborative podcast this month. I'm here with Amy and Sara. This month, we are talking about jealousy to contentment. So I couldn't help but laugh the other day when I was watching a show called Bluey, that is Australia originated, with my niece and my daughter. In an episode called Hammer Barn where the two little girls are fighting over these garden gnomes and one falls on the floor. The one girl says, "I can't be happy with what I've got when what she's got is better." So it just got me thinking about our podcast for this month, and just the concept of jealousy. I feel like in the special needs community, there can be a lot of competition. We, as women, I think too, we are comparing ourselves to one another, and thinking about, well, I can't be happy with my situation, because what that person has is better than what I have. Her situation is easier, or her child is farther along, or she's not having to deal with the behavior issues that I'm having to deal with. So we're gonna dive into this topic today, because I think it's one that we all struggle with. Sometimes maybe we're not always honest about how we struggle with it, or how we work through this spiritually with Christ in our lives. Amy, I want to start with you. Can you tell us about a specific instance where you struggled with jealousy? How did that make you feel? 

Amy J. Brown  2:51  
Well, when I was thinking about this question, I could name so many. Instead of a specific instance, I want to name a specific situation and those come with invitations.  We get invitations to weddings. We get invitations to, impromptu go to the beach. Those fill me with a lot of jealousy and envy, because for us to go somewhere is not easy. I remember, it's been several years ago, we got an invitation to a wedding. I mean, that's something that everybody's excited to do. There were so many logistics. Do we take our daughter and she acts out? Do we get a caregiver? How do we find a caregiver because we'd been through so many caregivers who didn't understand the issues that she was having. Do I not go and my husband goes? It was all these logistics. So for me, and I know other moms have that with special needs kids have that too. For me, it was just like, why is it so hard? Why can't we just do this thing, this thing I want to do. If we do go to the wedding, it's not gonna be fun because she's going to be with us, and she's going to act out or one of us has to stay home. Or I'm going to get a bad report when I get home from that babysitter. Often the ease of other people being able to go to coffee, go to the beach, go to a wedding, that you get to save the date a year in advance... It took me a year and then that would put me into a scarcity mindset like I just can't go anywhere. It would discourage me so much, and my own feeling sorry for myself, which I did have to do a lot to go somewhere. It would kind of balloon into this bigger thing and then everybody else seemed like they didn't have a care in the world, and I know that's not true. So that is a situation over and over again, and to the point even when I'd see people at weddings and think, well, it must be nice they get to go having no idea what their actual life was like. So that's just like a general occasion that has happened several times over the course of parenting kids with emotional, and special needs. It can really make me quickly become bitter, if I'm being honest about how hard those situations are. 

Carrie M Holt (5:31)  
Sara, how about you?

Sara Clime (5:34)  
You know, in my podcast, I talked about one specific instance, and it was me having a complete meltdown in a department store parking lot. It involved me and rain and a wheelchair. Those are specific instances, I think are so much easier to deal with because it's easier to deal with when you're talking about one specific moment of jealousy, or one specific moment of those strong emotions. I have a more difficult time through the seasons of jealousy. For me, my son's now 17, so it's not an issue now, but when he was younger, Halloween. I dreaded it for two weeks beforehand. I remember telling somebody one time, "I hate Halloween." They're like, "Oh, are you a fundamental Christian? Do you just not like it?" I said, "It has nothing to do with Jesus. It has everything to do with me not being able to get my kid to the front door." At that time, he was still being invited to do things with friends, and the disease hadn't progressed. You couldn't really see it as much at that time, and just getting them to the front door of houses. He would get frustrated having to get out of his wheelchair. I did a story when he was first diagnosed. He said, "I don't want to trick or treat anymore." He was eight. He's like, "I don't want to trick a trick anymore because army guys aren't in wheelchairs." That's all he wanted to be was an army guy. So we turned his wheelchair into this tank, and it was such a cool story. Everybody loved it. It was so "inspirational."  All I could think of was, I had to go and turn that into a tank, just so he would get out of the house, and the heartache that went along with it. Yeah, we made it into something fun, and it was great. Three houses into it, he's exhausted, we're exhausted, it's not working, we go back home. So those, I think, are harder for me. I mean, I definitely can think of many specific instances, like Amy said. At first, I thought well, where do I start? But yeah, it's the seasons, I think that are the hardest.

Carrie M Holt  (7:46 )
Yeah. It's funny, as I sit here, I can relate to both of your situations. It makes me think about our listeners, that even though our stories are vastly different, the feelings are the same. I have always been envious of those families that just needed a babysitter for their kids. Every time my husband, and I want to go out on a date, we have to have a nurse and a babysitter. It's gotten better as Toby's gotten older and more stable medically, but we still...If we want to plan something, if a nurse calls off, our event is canceled, because we have to have somebody trained to suction his trach, or whatever it is. I can just think of all those instances where I would be so frustrated. My husband would call me from work, and he would say, "Guess what, we just got last minute tickets to a hockey game." Somebody from work would give him tickets. "Can we find a nurse?"  We could never find anyone. We would miss out. The fear of missing out or just the inability to be able to participate in those activities because of our kids. It makes me think that I think we all have stories where we have these feelings. We can all relate to these feelings of jealousy. I can't be happy with what my situation is because their situation seems easier. Their situation seems better. I think one of the things that I don't want to dismiss in this is that we're not supposed to set our hearts on what other people have. The Bible tells us we're supposed to be content. There's still this level of grief that I think we have to grieve our situation. With that being said, how do we deal with these feelings? What have you learned about dealing with these feelings of comparison and jealousy and envy? Amy, do you want to take this one first?

Amy J. Brown  (10:13)  
Yeah, I'll just say this, Carrie, what you said, What am I grieving? I'm wondering. Just when you said that it made me think instead of saying, this person has it so much better than me and being bitter. I wonder if we could ask ourselves that question. What am I grieving at this moment? Sara was grieving at that moment with the Halloween situation. She could have been complaining. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth Sara, I'm just saying just thinking out loud. You could have been saying this is hard to push, I have to do all this stuff. But really, what was she grieving in that moment? What am I grieving? When I hear that another adoptive family, their kids are doing great, and I'm grieving. What's going on? That made me think of that. I also would say this. I remember standing at a soccer game with some other moms, and a mom said, I'm really upset. My child didn't get into honors math. I, of course, made a sweet face like, "Oh, that's so bad," Internally, I had a big, fat, dramatic eye roll. 

Carrie M Holt (11:19)  
We've all had those moments. 

Amy J. Brown (11:24)  
But my point is, I was thinking, really, that's what you're worried about. I have to lock up all our knives. We have locks on every door. We have alarms. My child harms herself. She harms our pet. She's potentially harming our other kids. I just remember in that moment, just being like, looking down on what was hard for her. God really convicted me that that was not the attitude I should have. You know, hot take. That's not the attitude you should have. What I remember is God saying, "This is the cup I gave you."  One of my favorite verses is Psalm 16:5, and it's, "Lord, You are my portion, my cup of blessing. You hold my future." It goes on to say, "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places." I've honestly not always liked the boundary lines I have, but I don't know, for this lady. Maybe that was a really hard thing. Maybe she has a really judgmental mother-in-law that expects her kid to get into Stanford. I don't know. It doesn't matter. What matters is this is the cup I have and that has helped me. I'm not saying I never snarkily have that same attitude because I do. That has helped me go, okay, wait a minute, this is the life I'm given, and you can't compare people's hardships.  You just can't. Because what's really hard for one person may not be hard at all, if that was your life. But we don't know that. I think that's the thing I have to think about a lot, that I can't compare my hard to somebody else's. This is the hard and the good that God's placed in my hands. That has helped me. That doesn't mean I always like what's going on. But to know that Jesus is with me in that. He's not sitting somewhere unaware of what's happening in my life. Each step of it, each hard thing, each wonderful thing, He's with me in it. I think that has helped me understand and not compare so much because you literally don't know what it's like to have someone else's hard.

Carrie M Holt (13:43)  
Yeah. How about you, Sara, what are your thoughts about these struggles and something you've learned?

Sara Clime  (13:50)  
Well, I agree with Amy. I keep telling myself, it's all relative. You know, I was talking about the one meltdown I had in a department store parking lot. It had a lot to do with me, I'm in sweats. I see an old friend. She's walking. She's so cute. She has new boots. She's talking about the new purse that she's buying for her girls; weekend. I was thinking to myself, "Oh, to only have to worry about a new purse." I thought, and like Amy said. I wasn't convicted at the moment, I held on to that for quite a while. Eventually, I think I realized that Jesus can work through any emotion that we have and in any situation. What I was realizing is that my jealousy and my envy in that moment, was really about so many other things. It was about grief. It was about fear. It was about just being exhausted. I was exhausted. Don't get me wrong, there was some jealousy in it. I'm not going to discount that whatsoever. God can work through anything, and one of the things that I've realized is that jealousy is such an inward emotion. It focuses on ourselves. So when we are focused on ourselves, we can't be focused on God. I felt really convicted after a while. I'd really be holding on to that. I felt him guiding me to. But to what end? Why are you so upset? Look at all I've given you. When I'm so focused on this old friend that I hadn't talked to in 15 years, I wasn't focused on my child. I wasn't focused on my family. I wasn't focused on my relationship with God. Those are the times when I think, when jealousy rears its ugly head, I always...Now I always take it to God. That's once I realize it's jealousy. Sometimes I don't realize it for what it is at the beginning. I just tell him how I'm feeling. I ask him to soften my heart. I ask him to help me focus on everything that my child can do, everything that we do have. God shows those to me, as long as my heart is open and willing to receive them. That's the key. And so there's times where I'm asking God, I need you to open my heart. I give you permission to open my heart to see all the good in my life. That's been a key for me.

Carrie M Holt  (16:13)  
Yeah. I think what I'm hearing both of you saying are just some amazing takeaways:  that we change our focus, Sara, like you said. I think, Amy, what you said is, what am I grieving in this moment? Because I think we have to acknowledge that our hard is still our hard. It's funny, because my sister is visiting right now, and hopefully I can talk about her a little bit. She and her husband have one little girl.They have moved. They have lived in China for the last two years. They have lived in several different states.  They have lived in Costa Rica. I said to her this morning, "I couldn't do what you do. You have had a rough time." She's a homebody. She likes to put her roots down in one place and stay there, and because of her husband's job, their life just hasn't afforded that yet, and they've got a little girl in the mix. She looked at me and she said, "but I couldn't do what you do, with Toby." What I realized is, and I think this is one thing that comes with maybe some time and some contemplation is that. I don't know if this happens to every special needs parent because Amy your situation is a little bit different. I do see that God specifically designed our situation for us, for me. I'm not saying that it's easy to handle. I can see little things like, I was a nursing major in college, and my son has all these medical things. Tthere are certain things that scare me. Sure, but there are certain things that haven't scared me because I want to study about it. I want to research it. I like drawing up meds with needles. I think it's kind of fun, and official, you know, so I don't know if you guys have anything to share about that. I guess what I'm asking is, how do you see how God has designed your specific path, and your specific hard for you? What good Have you seen in that?

Sara Clime (18:36)  
Again, there's so much. I think it also goes back to the fact that I had to ask God to open my heart to that. I really had to say, "God, I need you to open my heart to show me the good in my life." It's not that there wasn't good, but when you are so focused on the scary, and the bad, and the overwhelming, it's hard to let the other things come in. I think that God has designed my life specifically, I can see where all of my "nerd tendencies" I am a huge nerd. I'm a huge geek. I love to research. I love organizing, and I know that I am never happier than whenever I'm in a container store, or I can buy things to organize stuff. I love it! Actually in our house when we say geeking out or nerding out, it is a completely positive thing in our house. I think that God has used that to show me. I have prepared you for the 18 different medicines. I have prepared you for all the different insurance and appeals and medical equipment and all that. You know, like you have one piece of medical equipment, and it has 10 different parts. It's not like you can order all 10 parts ever for six months. This part is every three months, this part is every four months, this part is every 90 days. You just don't even realize what's going on. But my organizational techniques have helped me set up systems in my life that I think help me. Actually, right now, that's something I'm working on to help other people is setting up these systems as special needs parents or parents of medically complex children. Even when my grandma got sick and went into hospice, helping others navigate the difficulties. Is it sexy? No, not by our standards, but for me, it is, I mean. Everyone is going to be like, oh, wow, yeah, you're really happy organizing medical stuff. No, I would much rather not have to do it. Like Amy said, this is the cup that God has given me, and I refuse to pour it out. Like, unless it is for good, I'm not going to waste it. I guess, is what I'm trying to say. So that's for me.

Carrie M Holt (21:06)  
Yeah, and I think that's really good, Sara. So Amy, how do you feel like you've been able to see God's provision in your difficult circumstances, and see how God's designed you for your situation and changed you to deal with your situation?

Amy J. Brown  (21:26)  
Okay, so you asked that question, I had a big mind blank, but actually, now that I was thinking about it, it's really interesting. You know, I have kids with emotional, mental health, attachment disorder. So they have altered attachment, altered ways of loving. First of all, I am an RN, so in my years as an RN, I know how to do all the medical stuff, but I don't do a lot of medical stuff with my kids. I do know how to manage a lot because I have six kids, and you have to manage a lot when you're a nurse. But I've always been highly sensitive, intuitive, and emotionally, I guess the term is emotionally intelligent. I'm the kind of person my kids can tell you story after story, where a complete stranger is telling me their heart, in all kinds of places. As a kid, that was always a negative thing. You're too sensitive, you know, all this. That kind of is my, my gifting from God. That has helped me because I have to be able to see the little tiny sparks of emotion, and of connection in kids who can't. On top of all that I have to be able to see it in my other children when they're hurting when our house is in complete chaos. I feel like now that you've asked that question that is one way that God equipped me to. My kids have mental health problems. I have adopted kids whostruggle with being adopted. I'm super sensitive to that, even though I don't have that personal experience. I'm very sensitive to those kinds of things, and can pick up on those kinds of emotions, before they can even articulate them. So now that you've said that, that's what I think it is.

Carrie M Holt  (23:21)  
I think I would just want to encourage our listeners to think through that. Maybe it's not necessarily a way that you've been wired or but how is God equipping you now, in your situation? For you to take that step and see. Ask God to open your heart, like Sara said, to see how God has equipped you for the situation, whether it's something that you can look back in your past and see just this little piece of how God was preparing me for this. Even now, I'm wired this way, like Amy said. Our God is filling me with the Holy Spirit, and he's equipping me now because He's told us that He has given us all of his power for life and godliness. This kind of leads me into thinking about Amy, you said, being in tune to your other children, and their emotions and feelings. I know we talk about and we think about the siblings, or our other children. We think about our kids if they are aware, or if the situation is appropriate when they're struggling with jealousy. Amy, how do you help your other kids when they feel jealous, because they're not having to deal with their siblings having meltdowns in the store and everybody watching them when they were younger. I don't know all your situations. How have you navigated helping your other kids who struggle with these emotions, too?

Amy J. Brown  (25:01)  
Well, I have two thoughts. First, let me just back up to what I said before. I don't want anyone out there to think, oh, Amy Brown was calm every second of the day with her very intuitive mind. No, I want you to know it's hard. Lots of days where I lost it. So, don't come away from this thinking, they all know how to do everything because we don't.

Sara Clime  (25:17)  
All unicorns and rainbows over here!

Amy J. Brown (25:24)  
Okay, so in my situation, as I've said before, there's a lot of behavioral outbursts. I remember one of my kids being at a swim team with one of my kids, another one of my children with special needs, and him coming home and saying, she's so out of control, and I'm so embarrassed. So, they have that kind of situation. They also have the jealousy of all the attention that comes, all the attention a special needs kid gets over them. That's the reality of it. Right? So for us. First of all, I always listened. I didn't say... Initially, we had a son that came from a Bulgarian orphanage at age 10, and didn't have parents for 10 years. So initially, when he came, he was raging, which is very common for adoptive kids that come. His whole life changed. I would kind of do the guilt trip with my kids. Like, look, you guys came from an orphanage. Get it together! Okay, that's not helpful ever. So for me, I always listen to where they are. A lot of times in the moment is not the time to go: "Well, you know what, here's what you can be grateful for." A lot of times, my kids just need to be heard. Then maybe later on, go back, and just encourage them. I also think it's really important for us as parents to be vulnerable ourselves, and  say, "I felt jealous about this, or I understand." Not in a way that's going to talk negatively about the special needs child. I think being vulnerable with our children. I think that helps them feel less alone. Obviously, we always point them back to God, but I feel like they need to be heard first, and we need to be vulnerable. When their hearts are past this moment, like the moment that Evan came home and said, "I'm not going to go to the swim team, I'm so embarrassed." I think he was like 11, which is not the time for me to lecture him about the fact that he doesn't have fetal alcohol syndrome. Not to say I haven't done that, I have. That’s how I worked through it with my kids. Now I have adult kids, and I just listen now because their life was what it was. Right? I don't think they're necessarily jealous, but they do have some feelings about growing up in our home, and I just listen because I feel like that honors them.

Carrie M Holt (27:43)  
Yeah. Sara, how about you?

Sara Clime  (27:47)  
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I just agree with everything Amy just said, because I can think back to times where I would want to say, "well, your brother has hard time walking, I'm sorry that we don't get to ride bikes on our vacation." Or certain things like that. I'm thinking back to a certain vacation where it's like we were in D.C., and what my oldest wanted to ride bikes around the Capitol, to rent bikes and ride. It just wasn't possible. It's just not possible. Initially, my thought to him was, well, get over it. We're in DC on a vacation, look at all we've done. But for him, that was something he was missing out on. That was something that he wanted to do. He had to, whether it was grief, or whatever, but it was just something he wanted to do. He was jealous that other people could do it, and he couldn't because he saw these kids on these bikes around his age. I just remember stopping in that moment, and just acknowledging him, and saying, gosh, yeah, it does stink. Sometimes you can't work around it, but in that moment, we could. I said, "I tell you what, we're on our way back. Your brother's tired, he needs to go lay down for a while. Why don't you or I or your dad and I ride bikes." It's not all four of us, so it's not as good, but let's see what we can make out of it. Eventually, he was like, you know, you're right. Now let's just go back. I'd rather go back and rest with TJ. I mean, a lot of times when you acknowledge it, and you not even try to fix it for them, but have them work it through, they'll come to the right conclusion. Sometimes they don't because they're kids. Sometimes they throw tantrums. But like Amy said, you allow them... Amy, I'm not putting words in your mouth, sorry but allow them to have those emotions, allow them to feel what they feel. For us, it was also important for us to say, I tell you what, let's find a counselor and they are not going to judge you. It's a completely separate party that you can talk to if you want to. You can say whatever you want to say, you won't be judged, and letting them know that. It stinks that you have to deal with this. That doesn't mean that you don't love your brother, that doesn't mean that you don't love our family. That or talking to a school counselor, if you can't afford a therapist. Talking to the school counselor letting them know what's going on. Just having other people that they can talk to is important, too. We had a youth minister that he could open up to. He didn't do that often, but when he did, it was there. It helped just because we let other people know what was going on. So yeah.

Carrie M Holt (30:27)  
I think with Toby, our son is very verbal, and he has two older brothers who are pretty athletic. They're playing sports, and they can run, and he's in a wheelchair full time. I've really struggled with trying to fix it for him, and not letting him sit in his space of grief. I have had to learn to let him sit in his space of gried, and listen, and empathize and not just say, "Oh, well, you know, you'll be able to run in heaven someday." Well, that's not comforting right now, Mom. That doesn't help me in this moment, because I can't even wrap my brain around that. That's been really hard. On the flip side of that, it's been a lot of praying for wisdom, because with Toby's hydrocephalus, and the way his brain is wired, and his cerebellum has cerebrum, everything is the wrong size and shape and in a different spot. He has a tendency to fixate on things. He'll sit in it sometimes too long, too. It's also having that wisdom of redirecting him too. Like you said, Sara, helping him and praying for him that God will open his heart to see the good in his situation and to see the positive in his situation, and not sit too long in the pity party and feeling sorry for himself, because he can do that. He has a tendency to do that. I think one of the things that our listeners can take away from this is just being a great listener and letting your kids grieve their situation. So before we close, I think I would just ask if there's any other practical tools that you can share with our listeners about when you feel yourself slipping into that jealousy. I know one of the things that I would just like to share real quick. We were talking earlier about, when you're secretly thinking, what do they have to complain about. Their situation isn't as hard as mine. I can remember having a very similar thought when I was a young mom, but it was the opposite. I had two toddlers at home, and I was dealing with lack of sleep and potty training issues and behavioral issues. My two older boys are 18 months apart. I knew this family, and they had a really rough birth and their son almost didn't make it at birth. I remember thinking, I can't even take this to God because God has bigger things to deal with. He's dealing with life and death over here in this situation. The Holy Spirit said to me, "No, no, you need to bring me your hard. Your hard t is still your hard, and you can bring it to me. I am the God of the big. I am the God of the small. What are some practical tips that you could share? That's kind of mine I guess to bring it all to the Lord. What would you like to share when you're feeling these feelings? Amy, would you share with us?

Amy J. Brown  (34:05)  
I would say this, and I've said this in other episodes, so please forgive me for the redundancy but I really try to look for signs of life and beauty and love in the everyday. It's kind of my way of doing a gratitude list. Sometimes I'll say, "Where did I see love today?" It may not even be in my own house. I remember after this particularly really hard season. I would write it down in my journal at the end of the day. I saw love today because I saw somebody pushing a kid on the swing, and I saw two old men laughing on a park bench. I mean, I know that sounds silly and it didn't really affect me, but then I started to notice and go searching out beautiful things that made my soul kind of settle whether that was seeing somebody else that wasn't even in my family showing love to somebody or seeing something beautiful because that's where God is. God shows up in those moments. Sometimes honestly, my glasses are whatever the opposite of rose colored glasses would be. My vision of what was going on in my house, I couldn't see anything good. There are times I will honestly tell you, I could not see anything good. So I would look outside those four walls and go, okay, here's where I saw beauty today because I don't understand why a lot of stuff in life has happened. I know that I know that I know that God loves us and is good. There are lots of days, I couldn't necessarily point to the reason and still can't, but that has been my practice for years. Whenever I feel unsettled, even think back on my day and go, when did I see love or beauty, or what made me feel comforted, or settled or just made me laugh? I'm remembering, and that kind of puts me in my own life again.

Carrie M Holt (35:55)  
How about you, Sara? How do you deal with...what's a practical tip for when these feelings come up?

Sara Clime  (36:01)  
Well, like I said earlier, it's whenever I feel the inward emotions, whether or not it's jealousy, or fear, or anger, whatever those are, I always think back to the nine fruits of the Spirit, the nine attributes, that the Bible talks about. The fruit of the Holy Spirit when a person or community is living in accord with the Holy Spirit. I feel that those inward emotions halt that progress of living in accord with the Holy Spirit. I will go back to Galatians, 5:22-23. The nine attributes are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Whenever I have a situation, I don't care how ridiculous it might sound to me, or how materialistic it might sound or how childish I might feel in that moment, I first acknowledge it and realize that God gave me those emotions, and He'll help me deal with them. So they're not minor to him. I always remind myself that, you know, that might seem minor to me, but it's not minor to Him, and He wants me to go to him. Then I will actually list out the fruits of the Spirit. Then, I will look and see where can I find love today? How can I find love in this situation? How can I find joy in the situation? How can I find peace and so on? There's times where I can't find some fruits of the Spirit. Sometimes I can only find one in a certain situation. I kind of hold on to that for a while. Then I realized, if I haven't found joy in a while. I actually have an app on my phone, where I will put the fruits of the Spirit on there. If I'm like, okay, I haven't found joy in a long time, I'm going to really make a concerted effort to find joy. I suffer with depression. Sometimes people say happiness and joy is a choice. It is to a certain extent, but there's sometimes you cannot seem to make that choice. Sometimes I am very intentional about finding joy. If I haven't felt it in a few days, I pull up my joy document, like Amy said. I'm sorry, I don't even know which one of you is it, but they're like the men sitting on the bench laughing, that would be joyful. What I've  found, what that does is that I am more receptive to those fruits of the Spirit, because I'm intentionally seeking them. That turns those inward emotions to outward, it turns them upward to God. And that helps me a lot.

Carrie M Holt  (38:35)  
Yeah. I just would like to add too. I think both of these are really great. I have a lot of internal critical talk that the Lord has really had to help me deal with over the last  many years, and I've gotten better. Maybe we've been on the playground, and Toby can't keep up with a kid or he's kind of off by himself, and I start to feel jealous. Because other kids are playing together, but he's being left out. I see that mom at the grocery store seems to have it all together. Instead of thinking about how she has it better than me, and I can't be happy because what she has is better than what I've got. I try to think about what we have in common. What do we have that's similar? How can I connect with this person over our similar common ground? I feel like Sara and Amy, the three of us did that. We found what our common ground is and that is that we hurt over life's hard things. We grieve. We have these similar feelings of jealousy, and we're actually not that much different. Then just praying. I also think the other practical tip that I would say is, if you're a reader, read about people who've gone through hard things. That always helps to put things in perspective for me. When I read about Jim Elliot, Gladys Alward, and Corrie Ten Boom, I think I could never survive those circumstances. They went through horrible things. The fact is, is that again, that God showed up, God was with them. He's the same God, with the same power in my situation. That helps to redirect my perspective. Anything else you guys want to share? And if not, Amy, would you close us in prayer and pray a prayer of blessing over our listeners today.

Amy J. Brown  (41:06)  
I would be happy to. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much, that there is not one road we walk without you. That there is not one moment in our lives where your love is not with us, and that there's not one situation or feeling that we have that we cannot take to you. God, you are a portion and our cup. You are a cup of blessing. Help us to stop and reach our outstretched hands to you and give you our grief, and our feelings of jealousy and our hard. Help us to remember we can take it all to you. Show us where we can see you in our cups: the beauty, and the love, and the blessing. Give us eyes to see God. Thank you, Lord, that you give us this cup. Help us to hold this precious cup with honor as we give it back to you. Amen.

Carrie M Holt  (42:17) 
Thank you for joining us this week on Take Heart. Our prayer each week is for your heart to be encouraged. We are very grateful that you are walking on the journey with us. Be sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter @takeheartspecialmoms.com, and you can follow us on Instagram or Facebook @takeheartspecialmoms. If you have any questions or comments, please follow the links in our show notes. We absolutely love hearing from our listeners. We would love to hear your story. Thank you for listening and listen in next week as Amy will start our new topic for the month of November on moving from fear to trust.