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Hello friends, welcome back to Grace for my home. I'm so glad to be back here with you guys again this week. I hope that your new year has gotten off well and that you have great plans for this year and things to look forward to. We had we had a rough start. My oldest son, david, came down with a stomach bug and it was a pretty bad one. It's the sickest I've ever seen him. He's 17 and and he's been through COVID and the flu and strep and all these other things, but I've never seen him as sick as he was. The last few days we ended up having to take him to the ER for dehydration. He couldn't keep anything down. Now today he is doing much better. He's still home with me, but I think he'll go back to school tomorrow. Thank the Lord nobody else in the house has gotten it. We did have some people in our church. They had a youth thing this past weekend and several of them shared it with each other and I think it hit about every family in our church. But thankfully we cut it off with just one in our home. But please pray for us. You know how that is when you have sickness go through the family. It just kind of it stops all all things. You know I've been trying to take care of him and and get Christmas down and all those things and actually you know there's just suck of heaviness sometimes that tries to settle on the house when you're dealing with these kind of things.
Audrey:When I was getting ready to record today, I looked around my house and all of my plans, the things I'd hope to get accomplished on these few days before I have to go back to the shop. Just very few of them I have done. I have this mountain and I'm not exaggerating when I say a mountain of clothes that I have in a chair. At least they're clean clothes, right, and I keep thinking I've got to get rid of that. And then my son Caleb. He got a drum set for Christmas and we haven't, we don't even have it up yet because we want to put it in a room and that has been my, my junk room, my storage room, for years, and so I just I thought that I would have time to get that room cleaned out and get his drum set up, and I haven't. And every time I look at it I get this overwhelming sense of dread. And then you know, I finally got the Christmas stuff down, but it's still in boxes here and there.
Audrey:And when I sat down to record this podcast and I thought of all the things I had to do and I thought, who am I, lord? Who am I that I would sit down and tell you guys how to do anything or you know, and act like any kind of authority? Because if you saw my house you'd be like why am I listening to her? And by his grace, you know he is so gracious, the Lord is so gracious. But by his grace he reminded me that I'm not here to tell you how to be or what to do. I'm here to encourage you. And you know it always gets done and we look back on seasons and think you know, lord, you really helped me out there. Lord, you really were there for us. Even when we felt overwhelmed, even when it felt like everything felt yucky, you were still there for us. And so that's how I come to you today. I come to you by grace, I come to you by faith, I come to you to encourage you that hard times don't stay, don't last, they don't stay. That we have good times, we have bad times, but through them all his grace is enough, his grace is sufficient for us.
Audrey:And so I want to tell you today that there is enough grace for your home, that he is enough, that in him you are enough and that your home is enough, it's enough for what he's asked of you. And today I want to come to you and talk with you about self talk. Self talk is the things that we tell ourselves in our own minds. You know, if you have a toxic person that is constantly putting you down, constantly saying negative things about you, never encouraging, always pointing out the negative, never happy, then the best advice is to get away from that person. But what if that person is in your own mind? What if that is you talking to yourself? You can't get away from yourself, right? So those things they affect you just like it would be if it were another person on the outside, constantly telling you those things.
Audrey:And there is a cycle that builds up after constantly telling ourselves these things, we start to believe these things and we become the person that we tell ourselves we are and I'm sure you are aware of this, I'm sure you've heard this concept, I'm sure it's not anything groundbreaking, but if we're not tuned into it, we can let ourselves beat ourselves up so much that we believe the bad things we say about ourselves. And, guys, there are so many things in this world that want to tear us down. We have an enemy. He hates us because we're in the image of God and he hates God and he would like nothing better than for us to think poorly of ourselves and not do the things that God has put us here on earth to do, because we feel like we just can't do anything of any worth. Now there are other people who, either because of their own issues, are jealous or just plain negative or fault finding that would love to whisper in our ears things that would knock us down and keep us on a level lower than what God created us for, and we have to learn how to deal with those things. We have to learn how to recognize them and how to wisely and skillfully deal with those negative outside forces. But if we do all of that well, but don't take care of the inner voice, the inner critic that is constantly berating us, then we still will not be successful in what God has asked of us.
Audrey:And it's the, to me, is the hardest area, because you know if I'm telling this to myself it must be right. Right, it must be real. And we don't even hear it because it's the background noise that we live in. It's sometimes it's not even words. It's feelings and beliefs that we hold about ourselves and about our self worth and about who we are, and we act it out without even thinking about it.
Audrey:I was listening to a podcast yesterday. The guy on the podcast was saying how 95% of our behavior is subconscious. We don't even think about it, and so that's why it's so hard to change our habits, because so much of what we do every day we're on autopilot, it's just what we do, we don't even think about it. And so a habit, a good habit is hard to establish because we have to overcome all of the negative, bad habits that come so naturally to us. And so with in my life I have struggled with the habit of negative self talk and I dare say most people do, and I want to talk with you a little bit today about how I have been able to overcome that to a good degree. And so I want to ask you what kind of things do you say about yourself? What kind of thoughts do you think about yourself? Because those things. If they go unchallenged, they will become how you see yourself and they will become who you really are, because you will act out what you believe about yourself in your own mind. You will act that out. You will become that person. It doesn't matter if that's who you really are, doesn't matter if that's who you were created to be. If you don't know who you were created to be, if you don't believe it. When you do know who you're created to be and if you don't act it out, then you'll never be that person. Negative self talk are false beliefs about ourselves that set up defeating negative patterns in our minds.
Audrey:Just today in our homeschool I was teaching my son Caleb about hurricanes. Actually, we were reading about hurricanes together in his science book and then we went and watched a video about it and it was really interesting. Here on the coast of South Carolina I have lived through so many hurricanes and I know the drill. Okay, I know the hurricane drill. We know exactly how to prepare for a hurricane when we should start storing up supplies, you know getting the generators out, all those things. When I was in high school I lived through Hurricane Hugo and we were without power for almost a week and that was probably one of the biggest hurricanes I've ever lived through. Just the last few years we've had some pretty strong ones also.
Audrey:A lot of times this self-talk is like a hurricane. A hurricane is a storm that it starts in the tropics and the heat of the water that's evaporating from the oceans in the tropics, the heat it's so hot and that water is evaporating so quickly that these big storm clouds form. And as the storm clouds form and the lightning and these things heat up the air even more, it produces a cycle and the longer that it goes, the bigger that it gets, and basically the hurricane is feeding itself as long as it's in the warm waters and it's continuing the cycle and then, because of the rotation of the earth, it starts to spin and then it starts to move and it just grows until it either hits land where there's no more water to feed the cycle, or it goes into cooler waters which doesn't fuel it as fast. And so that hurricane, until it hits land or it hits colder waters, it can do a lot of damage and it only grows and spins out of control. And so that's how it feels. Sometime with our negative self-talk, it feeds on itself and I can have that feeling of being out of control.
Audrey:And I remember when I was dealing with anger and I have spoken about that on several occasions on my podcast. I even have a whole episode about that but there were a lot of. When I look back now, I can look back on it rationally. At the time I could not. I was too wrapped up in it emotionally. But there were a lot of factors that went into my issues with anger. I was working full-time, driving an hour to and from work, and it was the kind of job that I brought home with me because I had clients that were calling me during the night. And at the time I had three small children small as in three and under and I was trying to do all of this and at the end I was able to come home, to quit that job and come home with them. But I didn't realize how little I had taken care of myself and so physically I was having some issues issues with my heart, issues with my health and I didn't realize how much that lifestyle had affected me.
Audrey:I did not sleep. I had always been one who didn't require a lot of sleep and I love coffee, and when I had three small children, I just I never had time alone and I craved time alone. So what I would do is I would stay up late at night drinking coffee at 9 and 10 o'clock at night. Yes, I know that's crazy, but I thought I was superwoman and I could do that, and I so craved time alone that I would do that just to have time to read, to pray, to think, to write, and then in the morning I was exhausted and I had no energy, I had no sleep, I wasn't eating. Well, I ate junk. It was just easier for me to eat what the kids ate, and they wanted chicken nuggets, and so, you know, we lived on chicken nuggets and it was. It was a bad cycle.
Audrey:Also, I had, you know, I had just gone from this high-paced job. My job gave me a lot of personal satisfaction, you know, made me feel like I was doing something important. And then I come home to three very needy, immature children who were constantly pulling at me, and every time I looked in the mirror I looked like a hag. I had, you know, wild hair and you know dirty, spit-up clothes and I just felt like my life is horrible. My life is just. You know what have I done? I have given up this wonderful job to sit home with these children who do not appreciate me, and so all of these factors played in to my anger issues.
Audrey:You know, not to mention that I had a lot of unresolved issues in my heart. I was dealing with stress, I was dealing with anxiety, I was dealing with, I was dealing with these, these health issues that made me afraid my heart. I was going into AFIUP and so I was constantly just anxious and I thought you know what if something happens to me and I'm here with the kids, you know, nobody would ever know, and you know, and just crazy thoughts, and I really was struggling, and so my anger was like always bubbling right below the surface and one small thing would cause it to break the surface like a volcano. I'm switching analogies on, I'm going from hurricane to volcano, but there were so many factors that were that were fueling the storm of anger. Now, when I look back, I probably would have benefited from a counselor. I've even seen recently where there are coaches there are anger coaches that did that help moms, and I think, oh wow, that would have been really helpful, but I was ashamed and I was afraid to tell anybody that I was dealing with this issue number one.
Audrey:I was a pastor's wife and I thought, well, they're gonna think, well, she's a hypocrite. You know who is she trying to teach us when she can't even keep her, can't even be kind to her own children and she has her own issues? And so I was ashamed and so all those things fed the storm. I wish I had reached out more. I wish I had got. I did go to certain people, but you know, you have to be careful who you share your stuff with, unless you want it plastered everywhere. I kept it very close to me and now, when I look back, I would have really benefited from sharing that, but I didn't.
Audrey:And the only thing that got me through that season was was God was grace, he was kind to me, but he started showing me the voices in my head, the things that I just assumed automatically were true, because I had heard them, I believe them. I kept saying them to myself, and one of the biggest ones was I'm a bad mom, and I heard that all the time. You know, a good mom wouldn't yell. A good mom would have her act together. You know, a good mom would keep the house cleaner. A good mom would Do this, a good mom would do that. And of course, it was always the things I wasn't doing or I didn't feel like I was doing well enough. And so I tried to do the good things to prove to myself that I am a good mom.
Audrey:But I never felt like a good mom, and so the more I tried to do good, the more I didn't measure up and I felt like there was this constant cycle of me trying to just prove to myself that I am a good mom and the Lord said it's showing me you're not good, you're not bad, you're just a mom. Just be a mom. You know, let me be good, and when you do bad, I need you to lean on me. The times when we need God the most Is usually when we feel like we deserve him the least, and those are the times we want to run from him because we're ashamed, we're embarrassed, we know we're not measuring up, and so it's like Adam in the garden we just want to hide. But those are the times when we need to see him as a father with arms wide open, wanting you to run to him and he will help us. He will help you.
Audrey:And so, by his grace, when I had meltdowns, I learned to run to him, throw my arms around him and say Lord, I know I don't deserve him and I have nowhere else to run to help me. And little by little, he started helping me with my negative self talk and showing me that it was fueling this pattern cycle that I was stuck in. I couldn't get out and I would promise this will happen again. I won't do this again. But then I mean I turn right around and happen again. And he started helping me, not just on the lead litany of things like the things that I was eating, the sleep that I was not getting, the caffeine that I was consuming, but the things I was thinking. And that was a major turnaround because he was starting to show me you have your believing I'm a bad mom and so you're acting it out. It's like a negative self-proposy you already believe you're a bad mom, so you're just acting out who you already think you are. But that's not who you are.
Audrey:And so he started showing me go to the word and find out who you really are and start believing this is who I really am, not because I want it to be so. But because God says it, you know it's the word of God is true. Jesus said my word is truth and you know he said I am the way, the truth in the life. If he said it, if he said that to I am, even if I don't feel like it, even if I don't, it doesn't seem to be true. If he said this is who he made me to be and that's who I am and that's who you are. But we have to get into the word, find out what he says about us, believe what he says about us and start acting that out instead of the negative things in our minds. And after a while we start to believe those things because we start to be who he calls us to be and we see breakthrough.
Audrey:And breakthrough for me is not always a big thing, sometimes it's just the little things. Sometimes, for me, a breakthrough was when my kid would spill all the cheerios on the floor and look up at me like she gonna blow a gasket and I would say, oh honey, let's clean it up. And I wouldn't react, I wouldn't go crazy. And that was a breakthrough and that gave me enough courage for another breakthrough, made me hungry for more breakthrough and they started trusting me that I wasn't going to be this crazy woman, I was gonna be stable and that they could trust me. And I started seeing the way they responded to me change because now I was somebody that they could trust and they didn't have to be afraid of or afraid that I was gonna lose my temper when they made a small infraction or even a big infraction. But it really changed, started changing and see positive momentum, seeing things change for the better, is the best fuel for change, because you see that change, positive change, is possible.
Audrey:And so I had to get real with God. You know I had to start running to him. I had to start, you know, saying. You know not saying, oh Lord, I do better. I just heard saying Lord, if you don't help me, I'm not gonna do better.
Audrey:And I really had to get into God's word and find out what it said about me and I had to start believing it. And I had to start doing it. You know, I had to start believing that the word said he predestined me before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blame before him, in love and Ephesians one. That's who he created me to be. He didn't create me to be perfect. He didn't create me to be, to be this crazy person. He created me just to be before him in love, to be his daughter Good, bad and ugly. He accepted me and did not reject me. And see, those things started healing the wounds from the past and help me to catch up with you know how to be a mom, how to be a mom that these kids needed.
Audrey:It wasn't about me when, about me being good, about me being bad is just about me being me and finding out. You know what, god? What are you doing? Let me get in what you're doing and stop thinking about me. And, little by little, the cycles started breaking and the cyclones, the hurricanes were stretched out further and further until they dissipated. You know, one day I just you know, I realized I still say that humbly, because we can all have our days but they got fewer and fewer and less volatile and less volatile, until I could see God has healed me, he's healing me, you know it's. I've really seen breakthrough here and I was not able to take credit for that. I was able to say thank you, lord, but not take credit for it, and so I just want to encourage you.
Audrey:If there are areas where you struggle, I want you to think about what you're thinking about. You know how do you think about yourself. Do you think good thoughts about yourself? Do you think bad thoughts about yourself? What kind of things do you tell yourself? Do you tell yourself things like I'm stupid, or do other people do this much better? I don't know what I'm doing. I'm a bad mom. I'm a bad person. I encourage you to think about what do you think about yourself? What do you keep telling yourself? What kind of words do you use? Are you harsh with yourself? Are you kind with yourself? Are you honest with yourself? Now, think about those things.
Audrey:Go to the Word and find out the things that God says about you. Find out who God says you are and who he is. You know he is not the God that I thought he was growing up. I thought he was looking to punish. I thought he was looking for the mistakes, and as I came to know Him, I realized that he knew I couldn't do it. That's why he sent a Savior. You know, if I could do it without Jesus, then Jesus was not necessary. And so now I have learned to lean on that, to lean on the fact that God knows I can't do this without Him, that I need Him, and he knows I need Him. And I'm better off when I know I need Him, because when I think I have it all together and I can do it without Him, that's usually when I fall, that's when I mess up. But as long as I'm leaning on Him by grace and I'm usually leaning on Him by grace when I'm weak then he makes me strong. Isn't that beautiful how he does that. I don't understand how he does it. That's why he's God and I'm not, but I'm so thankful that he does. But think about the things that you're thinking about. Find what God says about Himself and about you and who he is to you.
Audrey:I love that Psalm that says he is gracious and compassionate, he is slow to anger and rich in love. I stood on that promise when I was dealing with anger with my kids. I had to keep reminding myself that's how God treats me and that's how I'm going to treat them. He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in love. He has compassion on all that he has made. And that's how I'm going to treat my kids, because that's how my Father treats me and then start adding it out, start believing this is who I am, this is who God is. You know, I'm not that person. I'm not a bad mom. I'm not necessarily a good mom. I'm His mom. I am the mom that God knew these kids needed and I'm, by grace, going to do what he tells me to do. It's not about me, it's about God. He's the one who gets the glory when we get it right, right.
Audrey:So we find out. What are we thinking? We decipher. What am I saying to myself? What am I thinking about myself? We find out what God really thinks about us, what God says about us, who he says he is for us and in us. We find that out in His Word and then we act it out and then we become who he says we are. We start being that person instead of that negative mindset of who, instead of that person that we keep telling ourselves we are. And then we do it all over again, because it is a process. It is a process and we are always in process. We're always renewing our mind. We're always becoming more like Christ. It says until we see Him, when we see Him, we'll be like Him, but until then we're being changed, we're being transformed into the image of Christ by His grace.
Audrey:So let your weaknesses draw you to Him and not cause you to run from Him. He does not want you to run from Him. He wants you to run to Him, and I'm going to pray for you today. Father, I thank you for my sisters out there today who are listening. I thank you, lord, god, that you have a plan for them. That, lord, you speak good things over them. That, god, you speak love, you speak forgiveness, you speak mercy and grace. Lord Jesus, you died so they could be successful. You died so they could live. You died so they could be obedient. They can't be obedient in their own ability, their own strength. If they could, then you died for nothing. But, lord, I'm so thankful that you did not die in vain. That, lord, because you live, because you suffered, lord, we can be set free. And, lord, we can be the people that you originally created us to be in the very beginning. And I pray for hope right now in the ladies who are listening. I pray for faith and hope in Jesus' name, amen.