0:00:04 - Eric

Well, we welcome you into Your Encouraging 5-Minute Podcast. Give us five minutes, we'll give you encouragement. We'll give you some hope, because it can be hard to find encouragement yeah, especially easy encouragement. So we're going to bring you some good news and encouragement for your day. 

0:00:18 - Heather

Yep, hey, we're Eric and Heather. 

0:00:20 - Eric

Think about it for a second, if you would, how old you are. And I don't mean that, like I didn't mean to emphasize old, I just meant think about your age. Well, you too, heather, think about it. Okay, no matter how old you are, if you look back over the course of your life, most people, including you, would say your best years were your childhood years. 

0:00:41 - Heather

Oh, of course. 

0:00:45 - Eric

The second. I saw that over the weekend. I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's true. Here's why I believe that's true, and you may or may not agree or have something to add to it. You were taken care of in every way. 

0:00:53 - Heather

Yeah, exactly, you had a mom, or? 

0:00:55 - Eric

dad or you know one or the other, or both, hopefully. Maybe you hit some setbacks or bumps in the road, but they were there to kind of guide you through. Absolutely. You were free of responsibility. It was safe and wonderful. When you wake up in the day, all you thought was what am I playing today? Yeah, what am I getting myself into? 

0:01:11 - Heather

What am I doing today? Yeah, exactly no responsibility. What am I getting myself into? 

0:01:14 - Eric

I think that's part of it. 

0:01:16 - Heather

Maybe there's something else to it, like what Maybe it's you know time, the more time between it. Colored glasses? I, yes, and I get that now that you say that, because my husband and I lived in Chicago for a few years and it was rough. It was such a hard place to live because some really atrociously horrible things happened to us there, but it's like the further we get away from it. 

Just the other night, I promise you, my husband and I was like, oh, you know, we should take the kids to Chicago. And I was like, yeah, that would be so fun. And then my daughter goes, wait, wait, didn't you tell me like really awful things happened there? And I was like, well, yeah, but we'll just be visiting, we won't be living there. And so I think that the perspective changes because of the amount of time. You only remember the good stuff. 

So how can baking teach me something about Jesus? And that's what I kept like shaking my head about, my daughter and I both. When we're stressed, we bake. And so this weekend, a little stressed out and did some baking, and I'm looking at the eggs on the counter and I was like, oh my goodness, I can't use the eggs. They're no good for me in baking unless they're broken. Yeah, and I started thinking about how broken I have felt and how useless I have felt to what God has designed for me. I keep feeling like I'm getting in his way, and so it's something that's really sort of hung heavy over me my whole life that I could be doing more for God. But seriously, those two little eggs reminded me that God can't use me unless I am broken. 

0:03:07 - Eric

Oh, that is such a good picture of it. I think sometimes we look for the easy path along the way, but so often in life the most growth comes from the hard parts, the parts where we were broken. 

0:03:20 - Heather

Yes. 

0:03:21 - Eric

Why don't you paint such a good picture of? 

0:03:22 - Heather

it. Oh, thank you, I don't cook or bake or anything. 

I think it is important to understand, like you see, somebody with joy in their life. And I just remember joy and hope came from the Lord, from him dragging me out of the deepest steps of my rock bottom. And you know, my joy didn't just appear one day. You know, I had to work on it and I had to hone it and I had to spend time with God and I had to shine it. And now I want to protect that because I know how much work went into it. 

I know how hard it was to have a mindset of bleakness and despair before God created this amazing view. So that's what I hope is that people don't look at someone and mistake their brightness for, oh, they don't understand the hard stuff. I had to go as deep as a soul can go to find the hope of Jesus, and that's what I want to reflect every single day. But some days when I wake up in my mom used to call it pooch mouth I'm pouting. I have to work a little harder on those days than I do other days, when I wake up and feel authentically that joy in the Lord and don't have to go searching for it. 

0:04:35 - Eric

Honestly, the next time I'm in a hard situation I'll be like did Heather say, use two or three eggs for this? 

0:04:41 - Heather

As many as you want. You can use a dozen. 

0:04:42 - Eric

Back to what it is about being broken and just going through a hard time. The beautiful part of it is the God we serve will heal us, he'll restore us. It reminds me of the verse in the book of Psalms 147, verse three he heals the brokenhearted it's a promise and he binds or he bandages up our wounds. He takes care of us. 

0:05:07 - Heather

The deal is, we just have to let him. 

0:05:10 - Eric

Oh, we hope you feel encouraged today. We just want to give you hope and inspire you. 

0:05:14 - Heather

Thank you so much for listening to Your Encouraging 5-Minute Podcast.