Circle 31 Podcast

Note: Please note that the text below is an uncorrected transcript of the audio captured for this podcast. We pray the Lord uses these words to bless you as you seek Him!

Kendra LeGrand: All right, everybody, this is the first ever episode of the Circle 31 Podcast. I know, give it up. Clap, clap, clap. We are so excited. My name is Kendra and I'm with my co-host, Ellen Adkins. Ellen, how are you doing today?

Ellen Adkins: I'm doing great. How are you doing, Kendra?

Kendra: I'm doing just fine. And so let me tell you, we are talking all about the book Relaxed. We just started reading it February 1. And Relaxed is by a gal named Megan Fate Marshman, who is to my left if you can see her in the studio. Megan, how are you doing?

Megan Fate Marshman: Oh, wow. I'm on the very first podcast ever.

Kendra: You're the inaugural guest. It is a big deal.

Megan: Everyone should try saying “inaugural.”

Kendra: Oh yeah, did I say it right?

Megan: There's another word I said. You crushed it. No, but everyone listening in. Just give it a try.

Kendra: Inaugural. Nope, I can't do that. I'll get back to you. All right, so I want to ask a few questions because Book Club is more fun when you have girls to talk about the book with, okay? And so if you're listening in the car or maybe you're cleaning the house or something, answer these in your head as well. They're pretty easy. Ellen, what are you loving this week?

Ellen: Okay, I have recently discovered Mediterranean bowls.

Kendra: Oh, really? You just recently discovered those, huh?

Ellen: I had never had it before, like those restaurants where it's like the fast-casual.

Kendra: No, I know. You eat them a lot. They're awful and ripe. Yeah, and so I've determined how to make them at home. Oh, cucumber. Oh, cucumber. Yeah. Saving money. Saving money. Megan, what are you loving this week? It's the first week of February if that helps put in context what you're loving.

Megan: Okay, unfortunately, I'm going to take like that. Like, we're having so much fun, I'm just going to turn left down seriously. Oh, you can turn left. And here's what I'm loving. My boys. Disciplining these problem kids and all that. Discipline is actually like that great opportunity to disciple image bearers that I have in my home and it's like such a beautiful thing. So honestly, I feel like I read that quote and I was like, wait, wait, you're right. So for the very first time, I think I'm actually enjoying the full picture even realizing discipline is not just this like poo poo bummer moment and I'm so angry and I'm at my worst, you're at your worst. It's isn't working to like, whoa, I love them enough to come alongside them and not let them be alone in their bad and like love them there.

I am loving loving them in their bad because I get a taste of what it feels like for God to love me. So there's my thing, and we can make a right turn back to the fun.

Ellen: That's so much better than a Mediterranean bowl.

Kendra: My goodness. How do you feel? I think that's there's a good tension there.

Ellen: I mean, there's fun things —

Megan: — to love and then there's hard things to love, but it all makes life. There has to be both. Loving and laughing and that's a friend of mine who's a wonderful mom. I said, like, what's your big thing in parenting? She goes, laughing with my kids. Then suddenly we have this built in trust where I can have those deep meaningful things. So give me all the Mediterranean bowls so that when we get to the point of discipline, my kids are eating one and loving the opportunity to grow.

Kendra: Yeah, we will bring that together. Yeah, that was good. Okay. Well, I'm loving it's a right turn, but my birthday is Valentine's Day. Fun fact. And so I love just I love Valentine's Day decor. So that's me with the pregnant pause.

Megan: Okay, everybody. Nobody asked you because literally nobody asked you. All right. But I love that you love it. Yeah. And this is humbling. And I love that. No, no, no, I love that about you is your love for that.

Kendra: Thank you guys. All right. This is where we get real. That's right. We talk about real things here at Circle 31 Podcast. All right. And then last question and then we'll get into what we got today is if you're bringing a snack to book club, what's your go to snack? Go, Ellen. Oh, goodness.

Ellen: Mediterranean Bowl. Build your own. That would be a lot of space. No, just a simple baked good, like a cookie. Okay.

Kendra: One cookie to share among three.

Megan: A group of cookies. Okay. That's nice. I always go with like the kids nice because everyone makes all the gourmet things, but I'm like, oh, give me all the like Goldfish. Oh, yeah. I just bring the kids next maybe even the cheese balls. Oh, no one wants to eat. And here's an interesting question back at you.

So you have one coming your way. What do you do with the cheesy hands? I lick my fingers. Okay. That's you — think that's obvious for everybody. What about you, Ellen? Lick your fingers?

Kendra: What do you do? You wash your hands. Some people wash their hands. Some people rub it on their pants. I rub them on my pants. Everybody. Yeah. You're wearing black pants. I'm sure that would look good.

Mine typically becomes the cheese balls pants. And don't quote me on that. All right. Well, we'll definitely talk about that in Circle 31 Book Club because we want to know what kind of people we have reading the books with us.

All right. So this is the first episode ever and we're reading part one of Relaxed by Megan and we're discussing chapters one and two for a few minutes and right off the bat, that Megan, you remind us that Jesus was never in a hurry to get where he needs to go. And to kick us off, I thought it'd be great if we took one communal deep breath to help relax ourselves. Okay. So let's go ahead and breathe in and breathe out. All right. And I want to I want to read something you said on page 19 Megan. You said the first step in your journey of becoming more relaxed, more like Christ is to go to him with everything. And so while I think that is so true and I believe it, sometimes it's hard to actually live out. And so what is the benefit of me sharing my thoughts and my feelings and my worries with God when he already knows all of that? So what's the benefit?

Megan: I think what it is is you actually can grow and trust. And so here's an example. Let's say, well, here's real examples. So something terrible happened in my family almost four years ago. My husband went to heaven, freak heart attack. And let's say that you, you and everyone listening already knew that.

I don't need to share it. You guys can assume that's hard. You can assume raising two little boys would be near impossible at times for them to be involved in sports. You can imagine, right? And you already know because you can imagine. So I don't need to share it with you. I'm not going to share. But the minute I bring it up in this podcast. What am I doing?

I'm trusting you with the fact that it's really hard and the fact that really, like, death is awful. And it's a robber of so much that's good. It was never what God intended. See what happened? See what's happening is, you already knew all of that, but there's a difference between me trusting you with it. And I think similarly what God wants is relationship. And we know that's why Jesus went to the cross on our behalf, to take everything that would keep us from him. He rose from his religion, and I remember the way I spoke to him. from the dead to prove he can make dead things alive, us and the wages of our sin is death.

He wants to bring us life and life eternal not just forever in heaven but here on earth now but he wants relationship and the beauty is is you don't have to do anything alone. And I'll say it in a really surprising way that I think might be helpful. Psalm 139 is kind of like one of the token women's conference passages, because in there you got the, do you know, you are fearful. Oh, and wonderfully made.

Oh, I know it full. It's such a beautiful book. And if you study that passage, what you find is all the “omni” characteristics of God. Omnipresent, he's everywhere. Omniscient, he knows everything. And then, you know, he's omniscient, he's all-powerful. He can do absolutely anything.

If you read that whole thing, it's a really lovey-dovey passage, especially in women's groups. In fact, I've actually done a Bible study where we split men and women, and it was funny. The women come back like, “He knows me. That's so sweet.” And the men come back and they're like, “So he knows everything, huh?” Like it was just a funny difference, right?

But here's why I think both are true. Both responses are appropriate because if you read Psalm 139, which I encourage you to, there's a couple verses that most people skip. And it's this: away from me, you are bloodthirsty. (v. 19) And it's in of this “fearfully and wonderfully made” psalm. And in studying the passage, at my seminary, I came to find the way, this is actually, what's called an imprecatory psalm. It's an anger psalm. The whole thing. Yes.

Why are we talking about God knowing everything? It's like David is going, “You already know how bad. You already know the evil. If I try to get away from you, I can't. You know it full well. If I go to the depths, you're there. If I go to the heavens, you're there. You're everywhere, you know me.” And he even says, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (v. 14). That includes the anger he's feeling that God already knows. And finally, the crux of the entire psalm is not the lovey dovey “I'm known.” It's the “I'm so known, you already know, I can share it all.” And so, to answer your question: It’s because you don't have to do anything alone. And he already knows, and he knows more than you ever will what it's doing to you. And he wants to be with you, not to leave you there, but to transform you there.

Kendra: That's so good.

Megan: So good. Ellen, what do you got for us?

Ellen: I have a question for you, Megan. Okay, so at the end of each chapter of your book, you have a section called “Go to God.” And it really helps us live out, live out everything that you're saying. And we're gonna walk through some of the “Go to God” activities on future podcasts. But I'd be curious to hear from you. What are some other everyday things that can help us remember to go to God?

Megan: Yes. So I like to put positive triggers in my life. I think “trigger” gets a real bad rap, because it's like, obviously triggering to trauma.

Ellen: To trauma. Good point.

Megan: But what I did is I actually created a lot of intentional ones, because I wanna remember God, but I know how forgetful I am. Here's one. I live in California, and I do something that most Californians don't. Are you ready? I stop at stop signs. Friends, I come to a complete and a full stop.

Kendra: Oh, well that's very safe of you. Thank you. You're not doing the California role.

Megan: But here's why, exactly. It's named after us. The reason is because I read a John Mark Comer book about the ruthless elimination of hurry, and I wanted to not live like that, but I knew that I'd read the book like it and move on and forget. And so what I created was just this little thing, I'm going, I'm gonna stop at stop signs. And each time I do, if someone's in my car, I'm gonna look them in the eyes. And because most my kids get my attention when they're in trouble, but I wanna look them in the eyes and give my attention when I just wanna delight in them.

So stop signs help me do that. When I floss, I pray for my friends. When I get in an elevator, I specifically will pray Romans chapter 12.

And these are mine, you're welcome to steal them, by all means. When I press my coffee button in the morning, that reminds me to pray a certain prayer. When I'm laying down with my second son, it triggers me to do an exam throughout the day.

Basically, I think they're like, what do I want? And how can I remember? And so I've just created these types of triggers to constantly do life with God, and I'll tell everyone, as I'm listing these off, I'm like, wow, this kind of sounds burdensome. It's not, it just helps me remember that I'm not doing everything alone.

Kendra: One of our authors we worked with, her name's Alicia Britt Chole, she talked about living with God in the plural, meaning that you do everything with God. So you're not just going to get your nails done, you're going to get your nails done with God. You're not just cooking dinner, you're cooking dinner with God. And so like your triggers, incorporating God, which he's already with us in those everyday moments, just so you're intentionally talking or going back to him.

Ellen: And I love how it integrates just everyday things that you're already doing, because I think for a lot of us, the last thing we need is another thing in our to-do list, especially when the to-do list is long enough as it is. And so I love how you can infuse those moments into your everyday life.

Megan: Yeah, it just makes life more intentional. It's like, I'm gonna be getting in that elevator, and I can either prepare my heart or I can jump on my phone and feel a little bit more overwhelmed by everything I'm not. Or I can prepare my heart. So that Romans chapter 12 is, “Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy ...” (NIV). So sometimes I'll just think about God's mercy. Or his grace, great, how about this one?

This one blew me away recently. The definition of grace is unmerited favor. And our culture doesn't understand this, because we're used to merited favor. If you're good at sports, you get merited favor of money. If you're good at writing books, then you are merited favor of more speaking events. If you do a good job, if you perform, you get something and that is the craziest part of the gospel of grace is you do not deserve everything you have in Christ Jesus, but you are given more than you can ever imagine.

That's grace. And I wanna have that in view more often than me feeling the pressure to be everything for everybody or to get on social media and be clever or whatever pressures I feel. So what I try to do is create again, like we've talked about, rhythms that just make me conscious and present because like we talked about earlier in the podcast of the very first podcast ever, that Jesus was just wildly interruptible. It's like he, yes, he was on his way, but the Samaritan woman's story that we know and love is because he didn't just go around the problem. He was just walking straight through, and that's where, and I'll say this, probably some of the most beautiful moments of Jesus were when he was interrupted. We think interruptions are a distraction to the brand, but I wonder if they're the point.

Kendra: Ooh, I could sit with that for a long time and just really think through that. But just like your goal in writing this book, Megan, is to help us go to God. That's what we hope to do in Circle 31.

And so God does care about the details of our lives and he cares about what's happening in the mundane moments as well. And so I don't know about you, but I can't wait to chat more about what we're reading in Relaxed on Circle 31. And so a little reminder for us, as we say around here, good things happen when you grow. And we have a feeling there are some good things in store for us. So we'll be back again next week with another podcast, but Megan, you're not gonna be on it, but you will be on the last one. So everyone get ready for Episode 4. Megan's gonna be back, and we'll talk to you guys next week. See you then.