[SPEAKER_00]: If you're listening to the intentional parents podcast, brought to you by Intentional.

[SPEAKER_00]: Intentional is all about spiritual formation in the family.

[SPEAKER_00]: We desire to bring biblical hope and practical hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: Enjoy this week's conversation.

[SPEAKER_00]: On this week's episode, you are in for a special treat.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're actually going to release the 2024 intentional motherhood retreat session that Elizabeth and Diane did together.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was an encouraging conversation for parents, but mother specifically, and really if you're a human, it was so encouraging.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is going to be a teaching, so it's different than normal.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not going to be a conversation as much as a teaching moment, but I promise you, you will be blessed if you listen all the way through.

[SPEAKER_00]: And want to say, also, thank you to everyone who's already signed up for the 2025 Mother Herbert Treat, which is happening in just a few weeks time.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you haven't had a chance to get tickets, we have just a few left.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can head over to intentionalparents.org and grab the last final tickets there, join us in Portland, October 23rd through 25th, can't wait to see you there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And also want to say thank you to everyone who's rated, subscribed, and left a comment.

[SPEAKER_00]: We love you for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know it helps.

[SPEAKER_00]: We just want to say thank you for doing that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you haven't had a chance, would you please do that?

[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to kick our first session off tonight with a quote from a film from 2023 that just deeply moved me.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think maybe it'll move you as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: So here we go, you ready?

[SPEAKER_03]: It is literally impossible to be a woman.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, some of you know, some of you know.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like you always have to be extraordinary, but somehow you're always doing it wrong.

[SPEAKER_03]: You have to be thin, but not too thin, and you can never say that you want to be thin.

[SPEAKER_03]: You have to say that you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin.

[SPEAKER_03]: You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's grass.

[SPEAKER_03]: You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean.

[SPEAKER_03]: You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the darn time.

[SPEAKER_03]: You have to be a career woman, but also be looking out for other people.

[SPEAKER_03]: You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line, it's too...

[SPEAKER_03]: hard.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's too contradictory, and nobody gives you a medal, or even says thank you.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it turns out, in fact, that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into not so that people will like us.

[SPEAKER_03]: End quote.

[SPEAKER_03]: In any case, you had not figured it out.

[SPEAKER_03]: That thought-provoking film is, in fact, the Barbie movie.

[SPEAKER_03]: But doesn't that just perfectly describe what it often feels like to be a woman in our current time?

[SPEAKER_03]: I first heard that monologue when I was watching the movie with Duke and Scarlet.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Scarlet and I just looked at each other and said, yes!

[SPEAKER_03]: That's exactly what it feels like.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Duke looked over at us.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's 15.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he just said, really?

[SPEAKER_03]: Guys don't feel any of that.

[SPEAKER_03]: What did that be nice?

[SPEAKER_03]: And let me set you at ease or disappoint you.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, but this is not a teaching on feminism.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's not why I quoted the movie.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to talk tonight about relationships.

[SPEAKER_03]: because we women carry a confusing and sometimes chaotic on the inside mix of feelings.

[SPEAKER_03]: We have deep God-given desire for connection to both know and be known.

[SPEAKER_03]: We all want securely attached relationships where we feel safe to be ourselves.

[SPEAKER_03]: In order to do that, we need four things in our close relationships.

[SPEAKER_03]: We need to be seen, suits, safe, and secure.

[SPEAKER_03]: I wish we could talk about those four things all weekend long.

[SPEAKER_03]: All I can say is come back next year.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're just really going to talk about one of them tonight.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we desire those things at the core of our beings, and it's a desire given to us by God, and it's how He loves us.

[SPEAKER_03]: And any of you have heard it said before, Tim Keller said that being loved by God is being fully known, you know, as every part of us and fully loved.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think every person in the room would say that he want that.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know I want that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think we would all probably agree that many of our female relationships can feel complicated at times.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes, instead of encouraging each other, we judge each other.

[SPEAKER_03]: Instead of bearing each other's burdens, we just pretend that we don't have any.

[SPEAKER_03]: Instead of living a vulnerable life in a community of trust, we can sometimes live guarded and withdrawn from others truly knowing us.

[SPEAKER_03]: Instead of being inspired by each other, we compare ourselves, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And we often either find ourselves lacking or seemingly superior, which makes us feel better, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And there are copious reasons why this is true.

[SPEAKER_03]: It could be from childhood trauma or how we've attached to our parents or spending our whole lives being conditioned by our culture at large and sadly even from the church at times of doing relationships this way.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it wasn't supposed to be that way.

[SPEAKER_04]: I love that line, it wasn't supposed to be that way.

[SPEAKER_04]: I find myself saying it to women so often when I hear your stories of heartbreak and disappointment.

[SPEAKER_04]: It wasn't supposed to be that way.

[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, in the very beginning, the garden, immediately after God created mankind in His own image, His idea, He thought it at, well, let me read it to you, [SPEAKER_04]: So, God created mankind in his own image of the image of God he created, the male and female he created them.

[SPEAKER_04]: Verse 28, so God blessed them.

[SPEAKER_04]: The Hebrew word used here is Barrah.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's a verb, an action, a doing, going forward kind of word.

[SPEAKER_04]: It can also be translated abundance.

[SPEAKER_04]: God abundance to them, or to benefit fit, or to congratulate, to praise, to salute, or to thank someone.

[SPEAKER_04]: So the creator starts his story of his relationship [SPEAKER_04]: In Genesis 1, 22, he created and then he blessed the animals.

[SPEAKER_04]: In Genesis 2, verse 3, he blessed the Sabbath a day that is actually blessed by God, abundant, made abundant by God.

[SPEAKER_04]: In Genesis 5, 22, he reminds us again that he created and blessed mankind as male and female.

[SPEAKER_04]: In Genesis 9, 1, God, blessed Noah and his family, God, bless his family.

[SPEAKER_04]: And Genesis 12, too, God blessed Abraham.

[SPEAKER_04]: He blesses individuals.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is no hallmark kind of nice card.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's not a ritualistic, priestly, I bless you my child.

[SPEAKER_04]: He is actively pouring abundance on Noah's family.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's congratulating and thanking and saying, good job Abraham.

[SPEAKER_04]: Then in Genesis 12 3, God raises a bar, a little bit more.

[SPEAKER_04]: He says, I will bless those who bless you, a blessing for those who bless others.

[SPEAKER_04]: Is that so cool?

[SPEAKER_04]: That just stopped me in my tracks when I read that through the eyes of the meanings of blessing.

[SPEAKER_04]: Clearly, we are created in the image of God to bless and encourage others and to be blessed and encouraged by others.

[SPEAKER_04]: a far cry from Barbie's sadly relevant monologue.

[SPEAKER_04]: You hear her cry and you realize it's not supposed to be that way.

[SPEAKER_04]: So we see we are designed to bless and encourage and to be blessed and encourage in order to be full-hearted women.

[SPEAKER_04]: So what does that actually mean?

[SPEAKER_04]: What does that actually look like?

[SPEAKER_04]: Let me create kind of a picture.

[SPEAKER_04]: The definition of blessing in the Old Testament to know the pronouncement of good things on the recipient.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's saying, here's a good thing for you.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is a good thing.

[SPEAKER_04]: The NIV translates this word by rock as gift.

[SPEAKER_04]: Here's a gift.

[SPEAKER_04]: To bless someone is to use words to give the gift of what we would now call encouragement.

[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, the way they know we know the difference between that conviction of the Holy Spirit and the condemning voice of Satan is that the Spirit of God encourages us while Satan beats us down with judgment.

[SPEAKER_04]: The New Testament brings the word encouragement into this way of being into each other.

[SPEAKER_04]: The word for encouragement and Greek is perical recess.

[SPEAKER_04]: It carries the idea of consolation, like a pat on the back, good job, but also of comfort.

[SPEAKER_04]: It has to do with drawing near to someone or coming alongside someone.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus used the same root word to name the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.

[SPEAKER_04]: Be experienced His encouragement even when we mess up.

[SPEAKER_04]: Even maybe especially when we messed up, what was that song that we sang?

[SPEAKER_04]: We didn't do anything to earn it, we can't do anything to cause God's love or his back to turn on us.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is not a performance-based idea or concept.

[SPEAKER_04]: You behave in a certain way, and I will say good things about you.

[SPEAKER_04]: Instead, it is sometimes you'll hear us in the intentional teaching.

[SPEAKER_04]: We just kind of throw it out so easily nowadays.

[SPEAKER_04]: We don't even slow down and think about it.

[SPEAKER_04]: When we say something like your children will become who you tell them, you see them becoming.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's encouragement.

[SPEAKER_04]: That is encouragement.

[SPEAKER_04]: Call out a moment of responsibility or you noticed kindness or patience or something good you see in your kids.

[SPEAKER_04]: Call that out, especially in front of a few other people and they will automatically respond by trying to live into your encouraging words.

[SPEAKER_04]: Same with your friends, same with your husband.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is who God is and it's how we wire us.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's his very [SPEAKER_04]: Second Corinthians one, three, says, blessed.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's the word again.

[SPEAKER_04]: Be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_04]: The Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, same word, pericaleces encouragement.

[SPEAKER_04]: Note the added word, though, because I think it's really telling, this is the character of God.

[SPEAKER_04]: And this is the character that he can bring into our lives as we spit to him.

[SPEAKER_04]: Note the outward mercies, the father of mercies.

[SPEAKER_04]: It means compassion.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's a father of compassion.

[SPEAKER_04]: So in order to encourage other people, what quality do we need from God?

[SPEAKER_04]: We need His compassion.

[SPEAKER_04]: We have to have compassion.

[SPEAKER_04]: We have to purpose to see people and name people through to the eyes, not of judgment, but of compassion.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then to come along side and bring comfort and courage to get the picture, we need and courage in our lives.

[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, when was the last time someone came along side you and saw you, really saw you into who you are, deeply inside of you, the best parts of you, and then told you what they saw.

[SPEAKER_03]: We feel the disconnect sometimes, don't we?

[SPEAKER_03]: Our souls ache with longing when we hear what mom just shared.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because the reality is that sometimes our relationships can feel lonely.

[SPEAKER_03]: They can feel lacking or unsure.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's kind of that visual of being surrounded by people and yet feeling alone.

[SPEAKER_03]: And in a room this size, I know there are some of you who feel that right now.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're surrounded by hundreds of women and yet you feel alone.

[SPEAKER_03]: And yet we see this faraway idea in the scriptures of how God actually designed us to flourish in a community of encouragement and love.

[SPEAKER_03]: And sometimes those things feel mild, of miles apart.

[SPEAKER_03]: Tonight we can't entirely solve the problem, but we want to spend the rest of our time together just bridging the gap a little bit if we can.

[SPEAKER_03]: Tonight, we're going to talk about how we get from where we are to where we believe God wants us to be.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to talk about three things that we need in order to create this culture of encouragement with each other in our friendships and in our homes.

[SPEAKER_03]: We need to get curious, we need to see people, and we need to learn the language of encouragement.

[SPEAKER_03]: So first, we need to get curious about what gets in the way.

[SPEAKER_03]: Before we can impact change in our relationships with others, we first have to know what's happening on the inside of us that may be prevents us from being these kinds of people.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think most of us in the room would say that we want to be seen, safe, stew, and secure in our relationships with other women.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we want to be that for others.

[SPEAKER_03]: We want to what Anne Shirley and Diana Berry in Ann of Green Gables called each other bosom friends.

[SPEAKER_03]: I still don't even really know what that means.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you're too young or too cool to even know what I'm talking about, I am sorry you all know that I will be 40 next year and I'm officially not very cool anymore.

[SPEAKER_03]: My kids remind me all the time.

[SPEAKER_03]: Although Duke did come home from school the other day and said, Mom, you're dressed like all my friends at school.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I don't know if that's good or I'm trying a way too hard.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: So let's just call it a soul friend to know and be known.

[SPEAKER_03]: Friendships where we encourage others and are encouraged.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we all carry stuff from our stories.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe from our past, from lies we've grown to believe that keep us from offering our whole selves to people.

[SPEAKER_03]: On the screen there's going to be a list of just a few common roadblocks that come up for many of us in our relationships that sometimes stop us from having the relationships that we want.

[SPEAKER_03]: Things like past hurts, mom's going to talk more about that on Saturday.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe lies about ourselves, the enemy loves to get us to believe those.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe self doubt or insecurity or fear.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's often the driving factor behind all the things on the list.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe criticism of ourselves or of others or both.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe idealism, man, nothing can kill a relationship faster than idealism, which leads to unspoken expectations.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I am speaking from great experience in that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Or maybe lack of commitment.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to talk more about that in a minute.

[SPEAKER_03]: These are the types of things that we need to approach with curiosity.

[SPEAKER_03]: Often when we see a list like that, we quickly go to condemnation.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe we tell ourselves, I shouldn't feel that way, or I should be able to do this better, or they should be able to do this better, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yet Jesus came to people with curiosity by asking them questions, not with condemning words.

[SPEAKER_03]: Jesus asked 340 questions in the New Testament.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's a lot of questions.

[SPEAKER_03]: The all-knowing, all-powerful, all-seeing God was a question-aster, asker.

[SPEAKER_03]: We need to apply that to our own self-nuration and to our relationships, but to ourselves.

[SPEAKER_03]: Our inner script sometimes tell us things that are right and often they don't.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we're going to carve out some time here shortly to do that very thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: So just be thinking of what on that list stuck out to you that's like, yep, that's the thing that gets me.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it's something from the list, maybe it's something totally different, but we're going to approach God together just with curiosity in a few minutes and we're going to ask him just to show us what is this about.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I want to highlight one thing on that list before we move on.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's the last one which is lack of commitment.

[SPEAKER_03]: In our day and time, commitment is hard.

[SPEAKER_03]: We have so much coming at us and asking for a piece of us, which can make committing to people kind of a back burner issue instead of a high priority.

[SPEAKER_03]: That word commitment literally means an engagement or obligation that restricts freedom of action.

[SPEAKER_03]: Not many of us like restrictions from our freedoms, do we?

[SPEAKER_03]: but you know, no one universal truth about relationships.

[SPEAKER_03]: They require commitment and commitment takes time.

[SPEAKER_03]: A study was done a few years ago on how much time friendships take and I'll just thoroughly depress you.

[SPEAKER_03]: It concluded that it takes 40 to 60 hours to form a casual friendship.

[SPEAKER_03]: It takes 80 to 100 hours to transition to being friends and it takes more than 200 hours spent together to become good friends.

[SPEAKER_03]: So let's just do the mom mask for a minute, okay?

[SPEAKER_03]: With life and work and kids, let's say you have one hour a week to spend with the friend and that is generous for a lot of us.

[SPEAKER_03]: But let's say you spend one hour a week with the friend.

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you know how long it would take for that person to become a good friend, the no and be known type?

[SPEAKER_03]: Three point eight years.

[SPEAKER_03]: It takes nearly four years of commitment to develop deep relationships.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, I don't tell you that so that you will just give up and defeat because it sounds impossible.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I tell you that so that hopefully you'll have the freedom to just exhale a little bit if it feels like friendships are not what you want them to be currently and to encourage you to keep building and not give up.

[SPEAKER_03]: Joseph Hellerman put it this way, said long-term interpersonal relationships, are the crucible of genuine progress in the Christian life.

[SPEAKER_03]: People who stay also grow, people who leave do not grow.

[SPEAKER_03]: Many of us carry deep wounds from people in our lives who didn't stay.

[SPEAKER_03]: For some of you, it was your own family origin, maybe even your parents, and I'm so sorry if that's you.

[SPEAKER_03]: For others, maybe it was one person too many, whose own wounds got in the way of being able to stay committed to you, or maybe it was your own wounds that were the sabotageer.

[SPEAKER_03]: If that's you, you are not alone.

[SPEAKER_03]: I carry some of those wounds too and we're going to talk more about that on Saturday like I mentioned because the reality is we both get hurt in relationships and we heal in relationships.

[SPEAKER_03]: You've likely heard that before, but we also grow in relationships even in the ones that are hard, maybe especially in those.

[SPEAKER_03]: We need each other and we need to stick it out long enough with each other sometimes to create these meaningful friendships of encouragement.

[SPEAKER_03]: And here's what this can look like.

[SPEAKER_03]: Last year, my mom and I were making plans to go to If Gathering in Texas.

[SPEAKER_03]: Any of you guys go?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it was incredible, it was incredible.

[SPEAKER_03]: And a few of our friends got win that we were planning a trip, so we just decided to make a girls' weekend out of it.

[SPEAKER_03]: To total introverts, not like what's the word.

[SPEAKER_03]: More and more responders in relationship, somehow we were initiating this great trip.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was fantastic.

[SPEAKER_03]: And in the months leading up to the trip, unbeknownst to all of us, each one of us were wrestling just various feelings of longing and just some relational loneliness, just a longing for deep connection and encouragement with other women.

[SPEAKER_03]: So this past February, we all met up in Texas for the conference and at that point, none of us knew each other all that well, except for Momenai.

[SPEAKER_03]: Pretty quickly into the trip, one of the women voiced that she was feeling a little bit insecure about being there, which kind of surprised us.

[SPEAKER_03]: She was like the most vivacious outgoing out of all of us there, but she felt a little bit like she was maybe imposing, maybe like she didn't fit.

[SPEAKER_03]: And one by one, each of us voiced our desire for her to be there, and told her that it truly would not have been the same without her, which was very, very true.

[SPEAKER_03]: And her willingness to share what was coming up for her set the tone for the rest of the weekend.

[SPEAKER_03]: Over the course of our three days together, we had to reassure each other on several occasions that we did really want everybody there, and that we were so thankful for each woman's presence and the role that they brought to the group.

[SPEAKER_03]: But after just a few times of doing that, vulnerability began to flow between all of us, which made space for encouragement, which led to healing and to deep relationship.

[SPEAKER_03]: We left that weekend completely exhausted in our physical bodies, like most of you are going to be this weekend, but invigorated in our souls.

[SPEAKER_03]: We left with plans to keep what had happened going in some way.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're on a text chain now with each other.

[SPEAKER_03]: Deeply praying for each other.

[SPEAKER_03]: But here's the point in me sharing that story.

[SPEAKER_03]: I am not sure that that would have happened if we hadn't been able to reassure each other [SPEAKER_03]: the encouragement part, and it certainly would not have happened if we all weren't willing to be vulnerable, our friend Greta going first.

[SPEAKER_03]: That dirty word that we all want to run from vulnerability literally means a state of being exposed.

[SPEAKER_03]: It has the potential to cost you something.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the potential for hurt is very real.

[SPEAKER_03]: Vulnerability is sharing where you are and trusting that the person on the end other end can hold your longings, your hurt, your dreams, and simply who you are on the inside.

[SPEAKER_03]: And ultimately, it takes trusting God if they can't.

[SPEAKER_03]: because vulnerability always requires risk, but with that cost comes such a great reward.

[SPEAKER_03]: Every woman on our trip got to reap the benefits of the one friend who was brave enough to let us know what was coming up for her.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because this culture of encouragement starts with us understanding what's going on inside of us that keeps us from entering in that way.

[SPEAKER_03]: But when we do that, then we can do the second thing we're going to talk about, which is learning to encourage people by really seeing them.

[SPEAKER_04]: We need to learn to encourage people by really seeing them.

[SPEAKER_04]: I grew up in a family of high achievers.

[SPEAKER_04]: Do worse.

[SPEAKER_04]: Get it doneers.

[SPEAKER_04]: My dad rose out of extreme poverty to succeed as a nuclear engineer.

[SPEAKER_04]: The first in his family to go to college, even though school was always hard for me, didn't have sport.

[SPEAKER_04]: My mom, she was an administrative genius.

[SPEAKER_04]: who ran our lives as if our family was an arm of the DLA.

[SPEAKER_04]: Have you heard of the DLA?

[SPEAKER_04]: Because my mom, which should have been present of the corporation, is the defense logistics agency.

[SPEAKER_04]: Their motto, which she would have loved, was, is effectiveness and efficiency.

[SPEAKER_04]: All of that just describes my mom.

[SPEAKER_04]: My sister is always, I've a little sister five years younger than me.

[SPEAKER_04]: She's always the best of the best, no matter what she does, she pours herself into in her career and all that she does, and my brother, my big brother at 67, still qualifies for and runs the Boston Marathon every few years, and then there's me.

[SPEAKER_04]: Instead of competing, I hid myself from all that high achieving.

[SPEAKER_04]: In an efficient family of overachievers who measured success by checking off their never-ending list, reading and dreaming, animation, and going on long walks in the woods and curiosity, we're not highly valued.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think a lot of times my parents just [SPEAKER_04]: There I had, and said, where does this girl come from?

[SPEAKER_04]: No one saw me, mostly because I didn't let anyone see me.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I suspect that a man named Nathaniel in the Gospels felt the same, felt unseen.

[SPEAKER_04]: His story is brief, you've read it a million times and just passed over it.

[SPEAKER_04]: But the way I read it, it's a lesson in seeing a person as Jesus saw them.

[SPEAKER_04]: If you have your Bible with you as stories found in the first chapter of John, verse 35 through 51, if you don't have your Bible at tomorrow morning, if you can just get a cup of coffee first and open your eyes.

[SPEAKER_04]: Read a story and see if you're seeing what I see in it.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus is in the midst of gathering a rag-tad group of 12 men who had become his disciples and then the apostles.

[SPEAKER_04]: The first four, I'll know each other, brothers, friends, in the same hometown, and Philip, one of the first four seeks out his buddy, Nathaniel, and makes a big dramatic declaration in verse 45, he says, Nathaniel, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Joseph.

[SPEAKER_04]: And instead of Nathaniel's saying, wow, that's amazing.

[SPEAKER_04]: I want to meet him.

[SPEAKER_04]: Nathaniel just cuts through the nice cities and gets all blunt and cynical.

[SPEAKER_04]: We all know a few people like that.

[SPEAKER_04]: I love how one commentary put a modern spin on his response.

[SPEAKER_04]: It said Nathaniel's sneered Nazareth.

[SPEAKER_04]: What good thing could ever come from Nazareth?

[SPEAKER_04]: of the town of Nazareth was in Galilee, the wrong side of the tracks, rough, under-educated people, a kind of backward culture.

[SPEAKER_04]: Certainly not cool.

[SPEAKER_04]: What he said wasn't wrong, just rude.

[SPEAKER_04]: Let's keep reading in verse 47.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus saw Nathaniel coming to him and said to him, and pause just a second with me, Jesus is about to say something of Nathaniel, a public statement in front of these other guys.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I believe this really matters in creating a culture of encouragement.

[SPEAKER_04]: In our homes, in our friend groups, in our churches, [SPEAKER_04]: Jesus said of him, here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think the way the new living Bible translation puts it is the clearest.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now, here is a son of Israel, a man of complete integrity.

[SPEAKER_04]: An ethennial is stunned.

[SPEAKER_04]: I suspect that all his life he was different.

[SPEAKER_04]: By now, his friends and his family likely experienced him as kind of a hardened cynic.

[SPEAKER_04]: They could definitely get the honest truth out of Nathaniel, even if that truth was kind of on the edge of fruit.

[SPEAKER_04]: They may have written him off as to negative as a complainer, maybe even insensitive.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I wonder, [SPEAKER_04]: with all the kind of family stuff that we have going on nowadays in the Comer family.

[SPEAKER_04]: Could he have been what we now call neurodiverse?

[SPEAKER_04]: I suspect both of my sons had best friends growing up who looking back now, knowing what I know now, I think, were on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum.

[SPEAKER_04]: Boys like that are often misunderstood written off as rude by those who don't see them.

[SPEAKER_04]: Nathaniel's response is incredulous.

[SPEAKER_04]: How do you know me?

[SPEAKER_04]: He said an asked in verse 48.

[SPEAKER_04]: How do you know me?

[SPEAKER_04]: The word translated know here is the Greek ganosco.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's an active verb, a purposeful verb.

[SPEAKER_04]: It means to learn someone, to know someone is to learn someone, to understand that person.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's also a feeling board.

[SPEAKER_04]: Nathaniel is asking me, asking Jesus, how do you feel me?

[SPEAKER_04]: How do you learn me?

[SPEAKER_04]: How do you get me?

[SPEAKER_04]: How do you experience me when everyone else experiences me as either not enough or way too much?

[SPEAKER_04]: Can you feel his pain?

[SPEAKER_04]: Nathaniel hid behind cynicism.

[SPEAKER_04]: I hid by staying under the radar, not achieving too much, not being noticed.

[SPEAKER_04]: I wonder if some of you hide behind overachieving to the point of exhaustion, needing to prove yourselves, or frantic activity because boredom brings up all sorts of feelings of angst and anxiety in you.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus responds to Nathaniel is for all of us.

[SPEAKER_04]: The four Philip called you, when you were under that fig tree, I saw you.

[SPEAKER_04]: The thing that caught Nathaniel had little to do with his location under a fig tree, it was those three remarkable words.

[SPEAKER_04]: I saw you.

[SPEAKER_04]: And now since I'm kind of geeky and I'm not hiding anymore, let's look at that word, saw.

[SPEAKER_04]: It means to perceive, I perceived you to know someone, to experience and this, to pay attention.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus is telling the Daniel that he is paying attention as his eyes on him.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's discovering who he is behind all that cynical bluster everyone else sees.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus pulls Nathaniel out of hiding, redefining his true self for everyone to hear.

[SPEAKER_04]: This was not a quiet conversation in a corner.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's saying it in front of all this group of guys.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is a very big deal, life changing, big deal.

[SPEAKER_04]: cynical, negative, Nathaniel, who was so sure that nothing good could come out of Nazareth, suddenly cries out in this sort of sense of humbled awe, and he says, [SPEAKER_04]: Here's what I want you to see in Nathaniel's story.

[SPEAKER_04]: God sees you.

[SPEAKER_04]: He knows you.

[SPEAKER_04]: He studies you.

[SPEAKER_04]: He sees the girl who hid the woman who tries too hard to please.

[SPEAKER_04]: He sues sees who we really are with the spiritual formation writers call your true self.

[SPEAKER_04]: I love that term, your true self, your beautiful, made in the image of God itself.

[SPEAKER_04]: And he wants to give you, and he wants to give me eyes to see others the way he sees them.

[SPEAKER_04]: We are each made uniquely and beautifully to reflect different aspects of all the aspects of God.

[SPEAKER_04]: Different aspects that no one else except you quite captures that one part of who he is, which is why we need your true self to show up.

[SPEAKER_04]: And yet our culture, even the church culture, tries relentlessly to set a standard of sameness that we expect ourselves and others to live up to, and we disapprove and scow if they don't.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's a Barbie message all over again.

[SPEAKER_04]: But we can stop this.

[SPEAKER_04]: We, these women in this room, we can stop this.

[SPEAKER_04]: We must stop this insistence that there is one right way to be.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm not talking about morality.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is about how we are designed in the image of God in our everyday, two image God in our everyday lives.

[SPEAKER_04]: Our unique pace.

[SPEAKER_04]: I go slow.

[SPEAKER_04]: And the day that I began to embrace the fact that I do not multi-task, I do one person at a time, and Brooke, don't give me the details.

[SPEAKER_04]: Just tell me where to be.

[SPEAKER_04]: I go slow, I do one thing at a time.

[SPEAKER_04]: The minute I began to embrace that that's okay, even though it's not widely approved, it's one of the first days that I began to feel comfortable in my own skin.

[SPEAKER_04]: God made me slow, and his feel likes to quote, what is the movie, cherries the fire, where the runner in the Olympics, maybe this is way too old for you.

[SPEAKER_04]: I says God made me fast for a purpose and when I run fat, when I run, I feel his pleasure.

[SPEAKER_04]: And Phil says, well, Ty, he made you slow for a purpose.

[SPEAKER_04]: And when you go at your pace, you feel his pleasure.

[SPEAKER_04]: Our unique pace, our unique preferences, what makes us laugh and chuckle of what makes us cry.

[SPEAKER_04]: Different ancient, as from each other, in beautiful ways.

[SPEAKER_04]: And yet we admire, nowadays we really admire organized people.

[SPEAKER_04]: Go on my Instagram feed and I follow them all.

[SPEAKER_04]: But we roll our eyes at the friend who is always late, even though the reason she's always late is because she puts relationships above punctuality every time.

[SPEAKER_04]: We call women who accomplish this a lot amazing and don't even notice the woman who is quietly endured hardship, but still shows up.

[SPEAKER_04]: We follow people based on their particular passion and overlook the mother who is working a job she does not love, because there are bills that just have to get paid.

[SPEAKER_04]: Or the woman whose Prince Charmy has lost his charm.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yet she stays faithful, fully committed even when the rest of her life can feel some days like a prison sentence, and somehow she's joyful.

[SPEAKER_04]: Those are heros, the real heroes.

[SPEAKER_04]: If we will ask God to open our eyes, the eyes of our heart to see each other, we will see beauty.

[SPEAKER_04]: We will see God in the women around us.

[SPEAKER_04]: Romans 12 tends to be devoted to one another and brotherly love, sisterly love, give preference to one another in honor.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's what he wants us to do.

[SPEAKER_04]: In the margin of my Bible, it says, [SPEAKER_04]: That's our job with each other.

[SPEAKER_04]: And here's the crazy thing that I have discovered, personally, when we stop judging each other or even stop admiring each other through eyes of envy.

[SPEAKER_04]: By that I mean, I wish I was like her, I should be like her, I ought to be like her.

[SPEAKER_04]: We actually begin to value ourselves.

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't really understand how that works except that maybe Jesus handed out it when he told this, judge not less you be judged.

[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe somehow in our judging others, we actually begin to condemn ourselves.

[SPEAKER_04]: When we practice the art of seeing each other's unique beauty, we begin to value our own.

[SPEAKER_04]: Instead of focusing on all of our inadequacies, scolding ourselves when we don't do things right, all the ways we don't measure up, we dare to begin to notice some things that we actually like about ourselves.

[SPEAKER_04]: And when we began to learn to see our people as Jesus sees them, something magnificent happens, we began to see our children, not as the difficult child in that stage of life that they are.

[SPEAKER_04]: They'd get to see a glimpse of what Nathaniel said, saw that he is the son of God.

[SPEAKER_04]: Our people, our friends, our kids, my husband, my daughter-in-laws, your mother-in-law, they all come out of hiding when you see them.

[SPEAKER_04]: God sees us at our worst and believes the best of us.

[SPEAKER_04]: When you say what you see out loud, or you write it in a card, or you tell others in their presence, just like Jesus did with Nathaniel, that person is given the courage they needed to come out of hiding, and to be calm, allow themselves to be who they were made by God to be.

[SPEAKER_04]: And that creates a culture of encouragement.

[SPEAKER_04]: Notice I said, say what you see out loud.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's so hard, isn't it?

[SPEAKER_04]: It's like embarrassing, I still get kind of hot and sweaty when I think I need to say what I see outside.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's the third thing we need.

[SPEAKER_04]: We need to learn the language of encouragement.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because this is the part that mom just mentioned where we get to verbalize to the other person, what we see.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's where we show them that we see them.

[SPEAKER_03]: And this is a huge area of weakness for me, or maybe to the optimist in the room.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is a huge opportunity for growth.

[SPEAKER_03]: This past school year, I'd been trying to help our son Duke, who had been being homeschooled, get ready for high school.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I was starting to just feel the rising pressure of all the things that I needed to make sure that he knew and knew how to do without my help.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'd given him, like, super clear, instructions for a writing assignment, and I came into his room to check on his work, and I looked it all over, and let's just say he did not understand the assignment.

[SPEAKER_03]: He'd miss some pretty major things that were supposed to be included, and unbeknownst to him, all of my inner scripts were going off.

[SPEAKER_03]: I haven't done a good enough job teaching him.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's going to fail his writing classes.

[SPEAKER_03]: What if he never learns to be a hard worker?

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, all the like guilt and shame stuff that we swim in is moms.

[SPEAKER_03]: And in that moment, I did not see him.

[SPEAKER_03]: I saw all of my own fears.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I immediately started to point out to him all the things that he missed, you know, to help him.

[SPEAKER_03]: But as I did that, his face just began to think.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was like I'd taken a needle and just stuck it right into a balloon.

[SPEAKER_03]: He'd deflated.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was starting to get a clue as I looked at his face and I said, buddy, I know that you wanted me to be able to come in here and just tell you you did an incredible job and tell you specifically everything he did well.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know you're disappointed that I couldn't say all those things and I will never forget he looked right in my eyes.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said, mom, you never say that kind of stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: With the people I'm closest to, it is so easy for me to verbalize what I see wrong.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe all the ways that they could improve.

[SPEAKER_03]: Really, it comes from a place of love, but it does not feel like that to the person that's receiving it.

[SPEAKER_03]: It takes work and energy for me to verbalize the good things that I see.

[SPEAKER_03]: Brooklyn often say to me, you got any nice things you're thinking about me in there that you'd like to say.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I don't say enough, and he has a really big need for encouragement.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can see where our conflict arises, but so often, our posture towards each other as women is one of silence.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's really not often that we have harsh and condescending words, although sometimes it is.

[SPEAKER_03]: More often than not, we just don't say enough.

[SPEAKER_03]: Which reinforces the notion that many of us are already prone to believe that we are in fact too much or somehow we're not enough all at the same time.

[SPEAKER_03]: Proverbs says that death and life are in the power of the tongue.

[SPEAKER_03]: Our words are not neutral.

[SPEAKER_03]: Proverbs also says that pleasant words are a honeycomb sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

[SPEAKER_03]: Neuroscience tells us that words of encouragement give us instant dopamine.

[SPEAKER_03]: They literally impact our brain and our whole person.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think God was on to something when he made us like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think the enemy knows what he's doing to try to stop us from being able to create this current encouraging atmosphere.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's the author of lies and we can bat him with words of truth, especially words of truth over each other.

[SPEAKER_03]: We do that by speaking life over people as mom talked about.

[SPEAKER_03]: But as we learn this language of encouragement, it's important that we learn to be specific and not global.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's pretty easy to say big global statements, like you are amazing.

[SPEAKER_03]: Are you incredible or I don't know how you do it?

[SPEAKER_03]: Anyone ever said those things to you?

[SPEAKER_03]: or maybe you've said those things to others regularly, I know I have.

[SPEAKER_03]: But when someone says that to you, I'm curious.

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you feel deeply seen and known when they say that to you?

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe you feel like a little bit of encouragement, but I don't feel deeply seen and known when they say that.

[SPEAKER_03]: When we were in the thick of health struggles with our daughter and I was learning to be a special needs mom and completely drowning on the inside, I would often hear statements like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: From good-hearted, well-meaning women, they really were well-meaning.

[SPEAKER_03]: They would regularly say, I don't know how you do it, you're super mom.

[SPEAKER_03]: They meant to encourage, I know that they did, but I walked away from those statements feeling the opposite of scene.

[SPEAKER_03]: I felt very unseen because I wasn't amazing.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'd been given an impossible set of circumstances.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was living most parents nightmare.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was getting up every day and facing the horrible reality because I was a mom and I loved my daughter.

[SPEAKER_03]: All of you would have done the exact same thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I was so deeply sad, it brings tears to my eyes with eight years ago.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, what have been so much more encouraging and helpful?

[SPEAKER_03]: What have been just more specific words?

[SPEAKER_03]: What my soul needed, what would have been healing to my bones during that time, would have been something like what your facing, no mother should ever have to face.

[SPEAKER_03]: It didn't impossible load and I see you rising to the challenge and not crumbling.

[SPEAKER_03]: That would have made me feel so seen and it would have made me feel like people were in it with me.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I tell you that because our language matters.

[SPEAKER_03]: So as we practice this in a minute because you better believe we're not letting you out of here without practicing it on each other.

[SPEAKER_03]: I want you to be asking God for specific words, specific language, specific qualities you see in the women to your right and to your left.

[SPEAKER_03]: And instead of more talking about what this looks like, I want to show you, because most of us learn best by having a chance to see and then do.

[SPEAKER_03]: And because I most certainly need more practice, Megan Albertazzi, where are you?

[SPEAKER_03]: Where are you?

[SPEAKER_03]: Flouder.

[SPEAKER_03]: All the way back there?

[SPEAKER_03]: Megan, I'm sorry to embarrass you.

[SPEAKER_03]: But you are a woman of great courage.

[SPEAKER_03]: You did not come from a home that really knew anything about Jesus, and yet you are courageously offering your two boys what you never had, what your parents just couldn't give you.

[SPEAKER_03]: You are blazing entirely new trails.

[SPEAKER_03]: You are diving headfirst into your own pain and your own story so that you can give your boys, you can give your family, you can give your husband a different story than you had.

[SPEAKER_03]: Man, that takes so much courage and so much help from the Holy Spirit and you get up every day and you do that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you're a really good friend.

[SPEAKER_03]: You are always looking for ways to see people and encourage people and offer help and offer care.

[SPEAKER_03]: You've been texting Mom and I for weeks of specific things that you're praying for.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're a really, really good friend.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm so thankful for your presence in my life, your presence in our community.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm really sorry that I embarrassed you by calling you out.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm glad you sat in the back row and not a friend.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that is just a small taste of what we all need to practice.

[SPEAKER_03]: You use your words and you are prompting from the spirit.

[SPEAKER_03]: Your ways of seeing people is not going to look like me.

[SPEAKER_03]: It needs to look like you, but we can all learn this language together.

[SPEAKER_03]: We all know the truth that languages are a little bit harder to learn later in life, but they're not impossible, but we also know that languages are really, really easy for children to learn, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: By you learning to love people in this way, your children get to grow up with this language being spoken on a regular basis.

[SPEAKER_03]: To them, it will feel like second nature.

[SPEAKER_03]: What a gift that you can not only give your own relationships, you benefit from it, but that you can give your kids future relationships and the community that they will be a part of someday.

[SPEAKER_04]: What is it that Barbie said?

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman, tie herself into knots so that people will like us.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think we, as women filled with the spirit of God himself, the ultimate encourager, can stop that cycle.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think we, those of us in this room, can create a culture of encouragement.

[SPEAKER_04]: And what might seem unlikely that one group of women could make a high impact change on our culture like that.

[SPEAKER_04]: But Jesus radically changed the world with 12 disciples, 12 close friends who he intentionally chose to do life with.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus influenced a few, who influenced a few, [SPEAKER_04]: change the world.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, what if we change the world this weekend?

[SPEAKER_04]: What if each of you spent this weekend practicing everything we just talked about?

[SPEAKER_04]: What if we practice on purpose, push past our shyness, and the awkwardness of it, and we practice the language of encouragement on each other first.

[SPEAKER_04]: What if we actually said all the good things we see in each other?

[SPEAKER_04]: And we trust it, God with all those insecurities and those relational needs, all that fear, that what if it isn't reciprocated?

[SPEAKER_04]: What if it just falls silent?

[SPEAKER_04]: And then what if we didn't stop after the weekend is over?

[SPEAKER_04]: What if you kept doing it with each other, with the other women to back home, with your children, [SPEAKER_04]: What if he responded over time and with trust that you really mean it?

[SPEAKER_04]: And he leaned into becoming what you say you see him becoming his true self?

[SPEAKER_04]: What if instead of critiquing each other, we started bringing courage to each other?

[SPEAKER_04]: That's what Barbie was longing for.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's what your husband is longing for.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's what each of your children are longing for, whether they're three or 13 or 33.

[SPEAKER_04]: That is what you are longing for.

[SPEAKER_04]: It is certainly I know what Elizabeth and I are both longing for.