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: Hey there, everybody. It is great to be back with you again. I'm Kendra, and this is my co-host, Ellen. Ellen say hi.

Ellen Adkins: Hi.

Kendra LeGrand: And we want to welcome you to the podcast that's for girls who love to read and aren't afraid to tackle the hard stuff. Would you say that's true, Ellen?

Ellen Adkins: Oh, I would definitely say that's true, Kendra. We are not afraid to tackle hard things over here.

Kendra LeGrand: We aren’t, and we're so glad that you are here, as we have those conversations, with us. So let me kind of get us oriented to where we are today. We are reading part two of Relaxed by Megan Fate Marshman, which covers chapters three through five, and I could not wait to record this episode. And if you could see my book you could see me underlining and even writing to the side like need to talk about it.

Ellen Adkins: It is a well-loved book. I'll say that.

Kendra LeGrand: It is a well-loved book but I needed to talk to someone about what Megan shares in chapter four. Okay. So let me give some background in case somebody hasn't read yet, which is totally fine. There's a lot of grace here for where you are in reading. And so Megan, she shares a story about her late husband Randy, and in case you don't know this, Megan lost her husband in 2021 to a heart attack. And she tells a story about him and how he worked in the ER as a nurse, and she was connecting how Randy's patients felt very confident in who Randy was because of his education, because of his profession, because of his skill set, and Megan writes they, meaning Randy's patients, needed external confidence from someone who understood something about what was happening. And when I first read that, I was like okay that is great when that person is living and breathing and like physically with you, that you have confidence in this person. But what if that someone is God and God can feel very distant and very silent because He's not physically with us, right?

And so what do we do in that time? So, Ellen, do you have like a story? Do you connect with that? Help me with my frazzleness when it comes to this quote.

Ellen Adkins: Yes, no, I think that's so good because I do think that especially as Christians there are times in which God feels distant or silent, and when I think about my life, I can think about a time in which, man, it just really felt like I didn't know what God was doing and He felt very distant. So transport yourself back, okay? Oh, okay. The year is 2020. April 2020. Okay.

To be specific. April 2020. Yeah, anything crazy happening during that time? You could say. So I had just moved to Charlotte kind of right at the very beginning of the COVID pandemic, and I was living in a new city. And I had moved to be a part of a church plant and at the time I had given up what really felt like a dream job to be able to come and be a part of this church plant. And I was working what did not feel like a dream job at the time and just really felt like I didn't know what God was doing or what was going on, and I just was, I would love to say that I handled that with like grace and poise but the reality, I hate to say it, Kendra, is that I was a bit of a brat. Okay, but that's relatable.

Kendra LeGrand: Yeah. But how were you a brat?

Ellen Adkins: So great question. Probably a lot of ways but most specifically, I feel like I just walked around with like a general disposition of like distrust toward God. Okay. And just, yeah, like just not believing in His faithfulness in any way and just kind of sitting in like a “woe is me” type feeling. Yeah.

Kendra LeGrand: Yeah. Okay. And you're a pretty like jovial person. Yeah. The fact that you're probably a little more like somber, maybe some anger with stemming or —

Ellen Adkins: some bitterness, frustration, all of those great, all those great things.

Kendra LeGrand: Yes, that makes you a brat.

Ellen Adkins: Yeah, okay. Exactly. So that's ... I was just like not I think responding super faithfully. But in that, I feel like if I can go back and talk to myself back then, I wish that I would have been a lot quicker to recognize God's faithfulness. Because the thing is that God was being faithful to me even when I was not recognizing His faithfulness toward me. So He was present and He was working even though I at the time was pretty blind to what was going on.

Kendra LeGrand: Yeah, yeah. And I think that's great. I mean hindsight is always 20-20. And so of course it's nice to say that I would be quicker to recognize God's faithfulness. But do you have any, now that you're obviously a few years removed from that, we are in 20 ... we're recording this in 2024; this is going to go live in 2025. And so would you say how are you now better at that? At recognizing God's faithfulness now?

Ellen Adkins: Well, I do feel like now, I mean, again, like I said, over four years removed from that time, almost five at this point, I feel like I have just become more aware of God's presence in my life.

And because I saw Him be faithful time and time again, I do see my heart becoming quicker to do that. And one of the ways that I think is really cool is watching God work in the lives of other people. And so, yeah, because I mean, you see God's faithfulness, sometimes it can be so easy to see how God is working in somebody else's life. And it can actually tune your heart to be more aware of how He's working in your own life as well.

Kendra LeGrand: Oh, that's so good. And I also like, this is kind of how to do with what you said, but I like journaling, when I see God move in my own life, or when somebody calls it out in my own life, that way, when I get to those places of where maybe I'm a little bit of a brunel, I can go back to my journals and see like, okay, God has come through for me before; I need to believe and stand firm in that the fact that He will come through again, because that is who He is.

Ellen Adkins: Did you know I've started journaling? You have? Yes, I have started journaling, and it's made like a huge difference because that is such a way to look back.

Kendra LeGrand: Like try the hand of God. Yeah, exactly. Oh, one of my favorite things to do is to go to a bookstore. I'm thinking of Barnes & Noble because they're the Mecca of bookstores. And I love looking at their journals, and I love buying a journal, and I love starting to journal, but I get so mad at myself when I feel like I mess up a page or scratch out a word or I don't write as nicely as like the other pages. And so I just need to get over it, but I do think journaling is a great way to do that.

Ellen Adkins: You're right.

Kendra LeGrand: All right, so we have come to the end of our time together, but don't worry, we are back again next week with some more Book Club chat. And before we go our separate ways, we want to spend the last few minutes going to God, which Megan, the author of Relaxed, is so good at helping us do. And so what you're going to do, Ellen, or so we've talked about, is at the ... on page 58, there's the “Go to God” section, and Megan really leads us through a guided prayer, which we do think, if you have time, definitely do that.

Answer the questions that she leads you through. But Ellen is actually going to use kind of that format and pray over us as we end our time together. So, Ellen, I'm going to let you take it away.

Ellen Adkins: God, thank You that You are present with us today. As we go throughout a week and work through this guided prayer, would You draw to our minds ways in which You have been faithful to us and help us to be aware and pay attention to You, who You are — not worried about anything. And so I pray that we would not lean on our own understanding this week, but that we would focus on You and what You may bring to our heart as we work through this prayer. Thank you. Yeah, thank You that we can lean on You in all things. Amen.

Kendra LeGrand: Amen. All right, so here's what we'd love for you guys to do. One, continue to read the book. We would love for you to continue to read Relaxed. And then also, we don't want you to miss out on all the fun things happening. So you can go to our show notes, find all the links that you need, all the things that you need, and hey, we'll be back with you again next week. All right, so, Ellen, talk to you later. All right, talk to you later. Bye.