Ep 47 - Laziness: You Have To Put The Work In

In this week’s episode of Messy But Motivated, we’re having an honest conversation about  laziness, the slow drift that happens when we stop prioritizing the things we need to do that’ll get us closer to our goals. Sometimes it doesn’t happen all at once. We get busy, distracted, or comfortable, and before we know it, we’re going days without working towards what we had been praying for. 

I share my own thoughts on what spiritual laziness looks like.

Let’s get honest, get encouraged, and get motivated to pursue what we’ve been praying for with our whole hearts. 

Book referred to in my podcast: 

Life Principles- Daily Bible 

 want to get ahold of me? 
Email me, 

Melinda@mrsmotivated.com

Thanks for being a listener, stay blessed friends. 

Don’t forget to follow me on social media:

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Messy But Motivated. I'm your host, Melinda. Welcome, welcome. Yes. You're in this real time. I really like doing this, honestly. Like, I was thinking about doing this for a while, and then I was like, mmm, that's a lot, but I work well under pressure. Anyone else? Listen. Uh it's honestly a good thing, but it's also a bad thing. I'm a procrastinator. So I I work so well under pressure that sometimes I wait till last minute to do things. Uh, for instance, uh, yesterday I had a 14-page paper due, and um yeah, I waited until uh the last day to write it. So I did it all day. Didn't get done until last night. But I got it done. Okay, I got it done. I've always been like that though. I don't know why. I think it's because when I was in the military, I I you just had to, you know, you just had to go. Like you you didn't have they told you to do something, you had to do it. Like just and so now I'm like, hey, I don't want to do that no more. Can we listen? I don't want to do I don't want to rush. I don't want to do that no more. Let me do it on my own time, you know? Stubborn me. So what's new with me? I don't know. Do you want to know? I don't know. Uh, but that's what we do here, so here we go. Nothing, nothing's new besides me sweating. Oh my gosh, I'm sweating. I don't like this. Why am I sweating like that? Ugh. Um, nothing's new. Really, just enjoying life right now, taking a step back, just enjoying it. We have family coming to town next week. Um, just booked my mom another plane ticket to come here in August for Chloe's birthday. Um, we have friends going in and out. Like, I listen, uh, we're just doing our thing. Kind of wake up in the morning and we're like, where should we go today? What should we do today? There's a lot of things on the list, so much to do around here. We're like in the center of it all. So it's like you go 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there, and 30 minutes to 45 minutes is nothing to me, you guys. I don't like it's nothing to me. And maybe it's because I'm not the one driving and my husband's driving. I don't know. Gives me time to edit. Um, but honestly, it just doesn't matter to me. Uh it's nothing. We've been going to all the beaches. My favorite beach so far is uh Venice Beach. I loved it because and and it's okay. First off, one of the things you'll notice around here, well, if you're ever around here, is parking is a lot of money, and you don't want to pay for parking. So we've been finding uh out like from the locals, like where do we go so we don't have to pay for parking? And a lot of the beaches we've been going to, you don't have to pay for parking. They have public parking and it's amazing. Um, but Venice Beach so far is my favorite. You just drive right up there. Um, they have the they have it all. Like you have the bathrooms, the washer, um, to wash your feet off and everything after. Um, and the beach is like right there, whereas some of these beaches, you guys you have to walk. Like you're getting to the beach, and then you have to walk like a hundred yards to like I'm not listening whole like football field, two football fields. Listen, my sister got my um husband his birthdays tomorrow. She got him a uh wagon. She was she said I was tired of seeing him lugging all that stuff. It's such a blessing. Cause let me tell you, he's been using it. He's like, listen, listen. Y'all, I lost my aura ring. I forgot to tell y'all. And no, you see it on my hand right now, but I lost it. I don't know what was happening, but I get home and I'm like, me and Mike go for a walk. I'm like, why am I feeling naked right now? Yeah, we went to the beach and I guess it got like wrapped up in my towel. Mike found it. I didn't know that aura has a uh you can locate your ring from the app just in case if y'all ever lose it, just know you can go into the app and you can find your your um your ring. My husband said he tracked it and he thought it was gonna be on the middle of the ocean, but it wasn't. It was in our car, so he just tore the car apart and found it in a towel. So it must have been we were in a hurry because there was a storm coming. I'm thinking I just I don't know. Felt I I don't know. Who knows? It's me. Who knows? Um, the other thing, oh, you know what? I do want to update you. I started working out again. Listen, it has been over six months. We have the tonal, okay? I love the tonal, okay? I can't say enough about the tonal. I love it. But let me tell you something, I stopped doing it. I stopped doing it for about six months because it was almost like the preparation to get ready to move and all of that was a lot. It was a lot, it was it, and I didn't realize it till we got here, and I'm like, oh gosh, like I stopped working out, I let myself go, like, ooh, girl. So I started working out again, and uh, it was rough, and and we don't have the tunnel up, so I just pulled up YouTube, YouTube, 30-minute workout, no equipment. And the first one that came up, I did it. I did it. And I'm telling you right now, if I can do it, you can do it. Oh, was I sore? I'm still sore. It's been three days. And so in between time, I'm like going for walks and stuff because I'm like, I can't do anything right now. I can barely lift a fork to eat. Like, I'm sore. I am sore. But we're making it work. I'm making it work, I should say. Not we, I don't know. There ain't a turd in my pocket, but I'm making it work and it's hard, but I'm doing it. I'm doing it. So today I think it's the first day I'm actually gonna go back to working out. Um, yeah. I was gonna try Pilates. What y'all think about Pilates? I don't know. I was gonna try it, but then I was like, I don't know. I don't know. I heard it hits like I don't know. I I'm kind of up in the air. I'm kind of just gonna wing it until I figure it out. I'll wing it until I figure it out. That's the thing. Some of y'all get so wrapped up, you're like, what should I do? Way workout? Should I do Pilates? Should I do yoga? Just do whatever you feel like doing that day. If you want to go for a walk, go for a walk. That's what I'm doing. If I feel like I'm gonna go for a run, I'm gonna go for a run, which don't hold your breath. Don't hold your breath on that running thing. But there was a time in my life. There was a time.

unknown 6:03

I know.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Um, but yeah, I don't do what you want. If if you feel like going for a walk, go for a walk. If you feel like doing a stair, I want a stair stepper. Listen, I want a stair stepper. I do. I want to do it. I want to get these buns of steel. Alright, that was weird. Anyways, uh, today's episode. Wait, are we done talking about everything? Is there anything we need to talk about? Fourth of July. Oh, let's talk about Fourth of July. Fourth of July was what, two days ago? Um, I will tell you, it was different. It was different. Fourth of July in Clear Lake was you wake up, you go to the parade. Um, my I went to I was in the parade for my my friend. She owns a swan there, and I would wake up really early, we'd go over there, you know, I'd get my coffee, we would do the why did I just sound like I was a New Yorker, a coffee. Anyways, no. Got a coffee, and uh me and Lou were in it last year. Chloe like didn't want to be in it last year, but that was fine. Always hot, but always a good time. And we would hand out things, candies, all the things. Uh we didn't have that this year because we're in Florida. So what did we do? It was really low-key. It was great. I woke up, I drank my coffee, I did some homework because I needed to write a paper. We're in four classes right now, y'all. It's you're gonna hear a lot about homework right now. I'm still trying to keep up with life, too. You know, being a mom, doing all the things because I'm like, it's summer. I don't want these kids to be like, oh, we had to stay home. My mom wrote papers all the time. Mom and dad. Dad's in seminary too. Man. So we're just we're just going at it. Um, so I I woke up, I wrote a paper, and then we went and hung out with my friend. And let me tell you something. Me and my friend are just alike. We're just alike. We're like, listen, we don't want any agenda. Let's just figure it out. We had planned to go to her mom's house and like swim all day, but it was kind of rainy here, even though there's like a thing. Listen, we were like, okay, you know, why don't we stay on this side? We ended up, uh, her husband's a cop over in Pinellas County. We went over there um so that he could be with us for the fireworks, and it worked out perfect. It was just this little like festival. I don't even want to say that. I don't know. There wasn't a lot of people, and it was freaking amazing. It was everything I could imagine. Not too crowded, nothing, none of it. I brought a big box of um like uh glow-in-the-dark things that we got from Amazon with glasses and all that, and we just handed them out to kids, and it was great. Because I remember y'all remember when you were younger, I would look at those people that had that and I'd be like, Man, I wish I had that. So now I'm the girl that hands it out for free. Me and Blake, man, me and her were paying them out. Listen, you gotta use the little kids. I said, You want to go give that to little kids? She said yes. I said, All right, let's go. Some lady handed her five dollars and said, Go to five below, honey. And I couldn't take it from her, so I'm sure she's gonna go to five below, but I was like, we don't want your money. We were just trying to be kind, but we gave all the little kids around us uh the light up glasses and oh, it was just fun, anyways. Anyways, yeah, so we did that uh a lot of fun afterwards. You guys, I I have to say something because it's I feel like y'all are being duped. Duped? Duped? What's that word? I don't know. I feel like somebody's lying to you when we decided to move here. One of the biggest things everybody was telling me was traffic. Can I tell you guys something? We haven't got stuck in traffic one time. Not one time, I don't know what what I I'm I'm assuming, and and hold on. I'm assuming because I got here in the summer that they're talking about spring break, okay? So let's talk again in when it's spring break time. But as of right now, I have not got caught in any traffic. None. I haven't. So do with that what you will, but I haven't.

unknown 10:08

I haven't.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

And that's where I was getting at. So we went to the fireworks. Uh and you know, you look at your maps on your phone, and if it says it's gonna take 45 minutes, but you looked earlier the day and it was like 30 minutes, you're like, okay, I'll wait a little bit. Um, and that's what we've been doing, and we're not in a hurry to get anywhere. So we'll just wait. And then we get there, we haven't had any trouble parking. Like, I don't know. I think they're lying to you.

unknown 10:32

I think they're lying.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Anyways, but we're we had a great time and just low-key, and the place we were at did run out of food. And so Janelle ordered all the kids some DoorDash. She door dashed them some Chick-fil-A. It was funny, but that'll it all worked out. It all worked out, and we yeah, it was great. Got home at a decent hour. I watched some oh no, I think I did more homework. I don't know what I did, it's all a blur to me, but let's get into it today. Y'all know I like to start my day on podcast days. Now it's Monday mornings to be like, Lord, what do you want me to tell these people? I don't say it like that, but it's more of like, I'm getting ready. Um, and I'm like, all right, Louis, anything you want me to tell him? And sometimes I'm gonna be honest with y'all, he ain't got nothing to tell you. Or at least I ain't hearing it. Okay, I ain't hearing it. Um, but the last two times, y'all, I'm hearing it and I'm hearing it clear and I like it. So today I'm gonna just go over what I was hearing because I mean he confirmed it. I went and opened my book and I was like, oh, oh, you are just saying it. You're saying all the things. So I'm I'm gonna take you here, Proverbs 20, verse 4. The sluggard does not plow after the autumn. So he begs during the harvest and has nothing. It hit. And I want to say the reason this really hits is because it was actually in our sermon this last week, too. He he kind of referenced something about this, and I was like, okay, all right, Lord, you stamp of approval, this is what you want me to talk about. Here's what I got. We are all wanting something. Like, uh the people will comment on my TikToks and on my Facebook videos and be like, I just don't hear the Lord, I don't hear the Lord. And my question to you is, what are you doing to hear the Lord? Are you in the word? Because as Christians, we're supposed to be in the word every day. Are you in the word? Are you talking to him? Are you praying to him? Um, or are you just are are you just sitting there expecting things to happen? I can tell you, I want my dream is to have a ministry. That is my dream. I feel like I've been called. I feel like the Lord is like, hey, I'm using you. And I have surrendered my life to him. I have 100% surrendered my life and said, Lord, use me, do what you got, because or do what you want with me. Because I was so low in my life, I was I was not gonna be here anymore if it wasn't for you. And you turned my life completely around, and where I am today is all because of you. So use me, Lord. And if it means giving me a word on my podcast or giving me something to say on my TikToks or just letting people see the way that I live, please, Lord, use me. Please let me influence others to understand that you are the way. And so my dream is to what? Have a ministry. I can't just sit around. I can't just sit here and expect my ministry to fall on my lap. I can't do that. It's because that would be comical. It's not gonna happen. Do does that sometimes in life happen to people? Absolutely. But I can't, I can't just sit and wait. What do I have to do? I have to start preparing. I have to start doing things. I have to start being in the word. I have literally changed my life from being in the word every day, learning, going to seminary, uh, just reading before bed instead of scrolling before bed, doing all the things that I know the Lord is like, hey, yes, prepare yourself for this ministry. I'm not gonna hand you a ministry right now, Melinda, because I don't even know if you're you're ready. Well, he does, he knows I'm not ready for a ministry right now. I'm not. He's preparing me. He's preparing me. I right now, if a ministry landed on my lap, I would honestly be like, what do I do? Now, do I believe that I'm getting, I'm, I'm, I'm really just soaking it all up and getting all these leadership because right now I'm in leadership classes and I'm in how to how to do all these things. I'm learning and I'm watching the videos of people that are in ministry. People, I'm watching the the trials, the errors, all the things. I'm I'm watching the people who have built their ministry from nothing. I'm watching the documentaries. I am literally just taking it all in. And this is my time. It's kind of like um, I know I always refer back to Ezekiel, but I'm eating the scroll. I'm eating the scroll and I'm eating all this knowledge around me. I'm taking it all in. I'm learning from this person, I'm learning from that person, I'm watching from afar, and I am making sure that I am planting so that one day this ministry can can harvest. Because right now, if I just sat here and I was like, all right, well, one day I want to ministry, guys. And um, so what's gonna happen is uh I'm just gonna rely on all of you. I'm I'm gonna rely on all of you to do my ministry. Um, so yeah, just I'm really just relying on the Lord. And and then I go and I I I eat my bonbons. I don't people say bonbons, I don't know. Sit on the couch, watch some true crime, um, just don't give any effort. And then in five years, I'm like, I really went in my ministry and it didn't happen, and uh the Lord didn't give it to me. And the Lord's looking at me like, girl, I can't do it. Can you do some work too? Because I called you to do it. I've called you to do it, but you also need to put the work in. And some of you will come and say, I don't, I don't understand, I can't hear from the Lord, or I don't understand, you know, I I wanted to, uh, I felt like I was called to do this, but nothing's happening. What work are you putting in? What work are you putting in? Some of you will sit and you'll pray and you'll pray for that that spouse or that significant other, or you want that so bad. But can I ask you something? Are you working on yourself in the meantime? Because maybe God's not giving you that significant other because he says, ooh, I don't think you're ready for one. I don't think you're ready. I don't think you're ready for it. If I gave you it him, him or her right now, I believe that it would, it would not succeed. Because I need you to work on yourself right now. I need you to get through that that trauma, that I need you to uh to get stronger in your mental health. I need you to work on yourself. And you're like, no, no, I'm fine. I'm fine. You say you're fine, but then you have other things going on. You're noticing that you are you're just laying on the couch watching TV. You're scrolling all day. You're scrolling all day, and then tomorrow you're like, oh my gosh, I have all this to do. Um, and that it that's a problem. You don't want to shower, you're hoarding, you're doing all these things, and then you're like, but I don't have to heal. What do you mean you don't have to heal? There's something you need to heal. There's something you need to fix, there's something that you need to work on. You can't expect the Lord to just hand it all over to you and say, here you go, here you go, here is uh, here is a million dollars. Do what you he knows you would fail. He couldn't even entrust you with the the hundred doll he gave you last week because you went on Poshmark and spent it all. You went to 7-Eleven and bought Slurpees. You went and ordered that top that was $60 when you only had $100 in your bank account. But you're over here praying? You're praying for him to give you the the $20,000 that you need to start a business? He says, honey, I need you to work on yourself because if I gave you that $20,000 right now, that business is gonna fail. And I know that's hard for some of you to hear. That's hard. Because it was hard for me to hear too. Because I am, I'm, I'm, I'm just as guilty, you guys. I am just as guilty. I sit here sometimes and I sit and I'm I'm I'm lazy, and it's not on days that are that I have put towards Sabbath. It is not on those days, which I need to get better at. I believe that we all need to get better at it. Remember that he worked for six days and he rested on the seventh, and he commanded us to do the same. Our bodies need rest, but I need you to know this. I am just as guilty as sitting there sometimes scrolling and getting caught up in it all of it. And then I realize, oh no, what did I just do for the last two hours? Oh, girl, you scrolled. You scrolled, is what you did. And then you put it off as, oh, I'm just learning different content. Honey, you already know the content. You know the content you need to put out. You know the editing. You've done it, girl. You've done it. You what you needed to do is you needed to be learning. You needed to be doing the things that are gonna get you to where you're at. Now, there are days like today, I'm I'm honest. I'm just hey, I worked so hard yesterday on that paper. I'm gonna put myself on the back. I I'm doing my podcast, and then I'm gonna clean my house and I'm gonna put my headphones on and I'm just gonna do it. And for me, that's kind of like a I know that sounds crazy, but it's kind of like a relaxing thing for me. Listen to a podcast, listen to my worship, and just clean my house. And I'm kind of looking forward to it. But y'all have to understand, God is like, listen to me. I want the best for you. He does, you guys. Oh, God is so good. He wants, he wants to give you everything that you're asking for, but he will not set you up for failure. He will not. If I would ask for my platforms two years ago, three years ago, four, he would have been like, I'm sorry. I'm your loving father, and I can't give that to you. He gave me a little bit, he gave me a little bit, and I took advantage of it. I I started thinking about the money more than I thought about what I was giving to the people. And he said, uh-uh. No, no, no, no, no, no. And he brought it back. Y'all noticed for a long time all I posted was things about the Lord because I felt so I felt, what is the word? I want to say I felt heavy. If I would post something that wasn't about him, because he was working on me, y'all. He was working on me. I was having to learn not to curse in every video. Y'all remember those videos I used to curse all the time? I used to do all the things. Um, and he was working on me. And so every time I would post a video, and let's say I slipped up and I said a curse word, I felt so heavy. I felt like my dad was gonna see it and be like, girl, what are you doing? I'm trying to set you apart. I'm showing people that you were on that wide path, girl. You were going down it, and you were holding people's hands, and you guys were skipping, and you were having a gay old time. You were doing the drugs, you were drinking the alcohol, you didn't care about anything. You didn't eat you. We're so worldly that your kids were behind you watching you, and you didn't care what example you were setting for them. And that was hard. So I started posting things that I'm like, okay, no, this is what I want people to see right now because I'm I'm transitioning into this, this, uh, this person that the Lord wants me to be. I'm transforming. I repented. It the day I got dipped in that water last August is the day that I said, listen, I can't do this anymore. It all started in May of last year when I when I went so low that I wanted to take my own life. And the Lord said, uh-uh, we ain't doing that. But I am gonna use you. I'm gonna use you. Whether you like it or not, I've given you the platform, I've done it all, I've said it all. Oh, he is just, he's he does everything in his own way. And looking back, I see it. He gave me the platform, he, he brought the people to me, and then he said, All right, you're gonna hit rock bottom. And it's gonna hurt. Oh, it's gonna hurt. You're going to do the drugs, you're gonna do the or drink the alcohol, you're gonna, you're gonna feel like there's no way out. And you're going to look around and you're gonna say, what was all of this for? Because I did. I looked around, I had the money. I had it, you guys. I had the nice suburban, I had, I had it all, but internally I had nothing. I had nothing. And I couldn't live like that anymore. I couldn't do it. And I know people have heard this before and they say, I'm sure you had it. No, I did. I did have it all, you guys. How blessed am I? I don't work, I make money off of social media, I do all of these things. Like I have companies coming to me saying, Hey, promote my product and I'll give you this amount of money. Hey, make me a commercial and I'll do give you this. I have that. And I was taking advantage of that. And God said, Listen, mm-mm, I'm gonna use you. And I'm gonna show all of these people that are following you, all 200,000 of them, I'm gonna show them what it's like to repent and turn the other way and go down that narrow path. And that's exactly what I've been doing. And my goal in my ministry and right now is to show people that you can turn your life around. Is it hard? Oh, it ain't easy. I I went there are listen, when I first turned my life around and started walking with Jesus, I was under so much spiritual warfare, I didn't want to go to sleep at night because I was getting night terrors. What it took is godly people around me to pray for me. I needed to learn how to walk with people who were going to pray for me at night. I needed to learn a whole listen, I didn't, I'm not the girl that hung out with the people at the church. Listen, uh-uh. I went to the bar. I'm the girl that went to the bar, okay? I was at the club, I was twerking, I was still with the thing, okay? And then now look at me. I said, uh-mm. God says, uh-uh, you don't need to be twerking. Get off that pole, girl. I wasn't on a pole, but you know what I mean. Like, girl, get you don't need to be doing that. Here's what I need you to do. I have these people for you, and I know you don't want to walk in that church, girl. Oh, I know you don't want to do it. Because I know you better than you know yourself, girl. But I'm gonna need you to walk into that church. And I have people waiting there for you, and they're gonna just put their arms around you, and from that day forward, they're your people, and that's what he did, and that's what he did. And I'm also the girl that was like, I will never go to a small group, and y'all know I went to a small group, and those people became my family, they're like my sisters. We text every day. I need you to know that you cannot sit back and expect things to happen for you. You need to do something to make those things happen. You have to do that. You cannot be lazy. There's one thing about being lazy and resting. Sabbath is resting. You are resting because you worked for six days. And I want you to understand that working doesn't mean I need you to get up and do something all the time. Working is are your dishes in your sink done? Is your laundry done? You always eat out. Maybe you can meal prep. Maybe, just maybe, those sheets that you keep talking about that you need to wash on your bed, maybe you can put those in the washer. Maybe you keep talking about you want to start working out and getting fit, but you still keep sitting on your couch scrolling or watching true crime. Maybe you can get that walking pad and put it in front of that TV and walk while you watch the true crime. Maybe you can go on a walk and put your headphones on and listen to that podcast. Maybe you want to get closer to the Lord. Maybe you set 20 minutes out of your day in the morning while you drink your coffee to open up, open up your Bible. I have this one, y'all. It's called Life Principles Daily Bible, and it's by Charles F. Sandler. I love it. It will tell you the date, and then you go to that date and you just read. And I'm telling you, it has changed my life. Because there are days I'm like, I don't know what I want to read. I don't know. I'm just gonna flip to it. And this is like simplifies it, and I love it because it gives you life principles, life lessons. Um, I mean, you guys, it breaks it down in a way that we understand it. So if I can recommend any, I'll I'll link it down below of this podcast. But let me tell you, it is it's absolutely amazing. Um, 10 out of 10, highly recommend. But open your Bible. Open your Bible. If you want to get closer to him, open your Bible. You want your marriage, you say, Oh my gosh, why is their marriage so good? Why is mine a dumpster fire? Are you working on it? Or are you what are you doing? Are you just sitting there praying about it? I hope that my marriage gets better. But then, but then he gets home from work and he's grabbing a beer and he's going out to the garage and working on things, and you're sitting inside watching true crime or watching Love Island. When you guys could be maybe going for a walk together, maybe going out for dinner, maybe playing a board game. Me and Mike sometimes just pull out Scrabble. We play Scrabble, kids love it too, actually. But there are things that you could be doing in order for those things that you're praying for to come true, to, to, to finally happen. I know I just talk about my ministry and I'm like, I pray for my ministry, but you know, I I want to also say, like, my husband's a runner. He could you imagine this? He has a goal. I'm gonna go run a I remember one time he had a he was like, I'm gonna go do this 50-mile run. If he just sat on the couch and didn't prepare for that run, how do you think that run would go? Not very good, right? Right? BB SOS and listen, you just the same in our life. You want that house, you're like, you know what? That house, I want to live in that neighborhood. I love that neighborhood. That house is so beautiful. I'm I'm manifesting. That's what people say. I'm manifesting. Maybe you should start putting the work in in order to get there. You know, you know what? My boss says if I keep working on working and doing this and getting this done, that I'm probably gonna get that promotion. Okay. That has to only seem too far away if you keep working on yourself and working on uh what what your boss keeps telling you to do and and getting that promotion, you're gonna get the keys to that house. Or maybe I want to be that free. I want to, I want to have a better credit score. I want what are you doing? So you have $100 and you owe that debt collector, and instead you're gonna go to Walgreens and you're gonna buy Pringles and you're gonna buy sunscreen and things that you don't need that you already have at home because you want to have a little bit of that dopamine release when you could have given that $100 towards improving your credit. That's just an example. There was a time in my life, I know I talk about this, but I had credit, S-H-I-T credit, okay? Because monkeys see monkey do. Monkey see monkey do, okay. Um, I just went and got credit cards, maxed them out, didn't care. Didn't care. Debt collectors were calling me what I was 18, 19. Yeah, I didn't care. Got that American Eagle credit card, I got that outfit. It's fine, I'm good. And you know what happened is I go to get buy a house, and guess what happens? Mm-mm. Girl, you got bad credit, you ain't buying nothing. You owe us. So embarrassing. It had to go in my my husband's name at the time. Because if y'all didn't know, I was married before, it's a whole different story, different day. Um, so yeah, embarrassing, right? What did I have to do? I had to make some changes. And I knew that wasn't the only change I needed to make. I wasn't happy in my life. I wasn't, but what did I have to do? I had to make some changes. I joined the military, I started going on deployments. Hey, when you're on deployment, where are you gonna spend money? I came back with all this money and I paid off all my debt. Okay, and bought a car. You have got to understand that if you see a problem in your life, stop thinking that it's gonna fix itself. I'm not saying don't pray on it, pray on it. But also, can we try to do something to improve that, to fix that, and not just give it all to God and say, oh, he's got it, he's got it, Jesus take the wheel. Can you help him out a little? That's all. Can you help him out? I hope that this isn't that somebody's not listening to this right now, and they're like, ma'am Linda, you're rude. I'm not trying to be rude. I just see it so much. I see it so much. People saying, uh, you know, I have the worst arthritis, I have this and I have that, and I don't do, you know, I'm achy and I'm this. I have a question for you. What are you doing to try to improve it? Because I promise you that sitting on the couch or not moving your body is not gonna help it. It's actually making it worse. But you're exactly where Satan wants you. He wants you in your mind saying, I'm never gonna get better. I I'm just my knee's gonna be like this forever. It's gonna, nope, I'm not taking that. Nope, I'm not taking that vitamin. I know you said it helps with inflammation. I ain't taking it because I know it's not gonna work.

unknown 34:13

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

What? Some of you need to hear this. It's uh it's not fun. Sometimes people tell me things, guys, that isn't it, it ain't fun. I have friends that do that to me, and honestly, thank you. Thank you. I have friends that will lay things down gently for me. I have a friend, uh, I know she's gonna listen to this too. She's she's like one of my biggest fans, but she was like, hey, on your last last, she texted me on your last podcast, you said that Chloe had said those people aren't on her level, but then you had said that you know the people you were hanging out with or that you got introduced to just weren't your kind of people. And I was like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, you did say that. Like, I did say that. I said that, and I didn't even catch it. So it does make sense. Those aren't her people, that's fine. That's fine, they aren't her people. Um, we'll find our people, and I will tell you guys this, and I don't even know. Um, I know my son would get very mad at me if I told you guys this, but I'm gonna say it because I love being relatable. Um, I think it's part of my ministry, is y'all need to understand that this is life. All right, it ain't all butterflies and rainbows. Um, my son is having a hard time. I didn't think it would be like this, but he's having a hard time adjusting. And tears were flowing last night. He misses his friends. And oh, it was hard as a mom to see. Oh, it was so hard. And I was just strong for him, and I said, you know, that's why it's so important, Carson, that we meet other people. It's important that we meet other friends. You guys have a wall up right now, and I want you to understand you can't do that. You've got to put the wall down because Satan wants you to isolate yourself and sit in your room and just be thinking about your friends all the time. And that's not that's not what God wants for us. He wants us to go meet people, he wants us to go hang out with people, he wants us to go to the church. I said, but you don't go to the church program because you guys don't want to go. Understandable, they have anxiety, and I'm not gonna force them to do it. But also, when we're around people, why are you not being more open to meet people meeting people? And then you want me to homeschool you, which I have no problem, but what am I doing to you if I homeschool you? Like I really have to. This is a conversation we've really had. I said, I'm I'm rethinking homeschooling because I want you to meet friends, and I don't want you to think that it's okay to not have friends and we just homeschool and we isolate ourselves. That's not what we're doing. So you either need to decide, are you gonna go to the church program and you're gonna meet people there? Or are we like, what are we gonna do? So there's things that as a family, we sat down and we talked about it. Here's what we're gonna do, and we came up with a plan because they want to homeschool, and I want to homeschool them. I do. I do. I am very excited about doing it, but I'm also not gonna set them up for failure. I don't want them to be isolated enough where they think um, you know, it's okay to sit in their room and do this. No. So just a little thing that we're dealing with right now, but we'll get through it. I appreciate you guys for showing up. Thank you. Thank you for showing up. I I pray so much that every one of my listeners are blessed. Everybody on the other end of this, you guys came here, you listened, and you take something away from it. Um, I don't care what it is. Maybe it's you're taking away, you know what? I do need to get off my butt and stop being lazy. Or maybe it's I'm I'm doing the same thing, Melinda. I'm struggling too. Or maybe, you know, I don't know what it is, but I pray that you take something from it today and you walk away and you say, All right, I see you. I see you. Um, but I love you guys. I cannot thank my following enough for showing up for me day in and day out. Um, the comments, the shares, the all of it. It's not even for me. It's to glorify the Lord. Um, because I I tell him all the time, this is not for me. Lord, it's not for me. Make me small so you can get big, okay? Make me small. I just want to give the people what you want. And I want to glorify you. So that is what I'm here doing. I don't care if you know my name at the end of this life. I I care if you know his. Like I want people to say, Melinda talked about the Lord so much that I didn't, I really I couldn't get away from her TikToks. Like I they just kept coming up. Or I loved her and her personality, but she talked about the Lord so much that I ended up going to church. I ended up doing this, or I, you know, picking up the Bible. I don't know what it is. But whatever it is, I hope that I hope that the Lord just uses me. So I love you guys. I know I already said that. Have the best week, and I will see you next week.