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!

Ellen Adkins: Welcome back to another episode of the Circle 31 Podcast. I am your host, Ellen Adkins, and I'm here with my lovely cohost once again, Melissa Taylor.

Melissa Taylor: Hey, Ellen.

Ellen Adkins: Hey, it’s good to be back with you.

Melissa Taylor: So good to be back with you. Three of reading Five Mere Christians. Time flies. Time flies when you are having fun.

Ellen Adkins: This whole month, we are hearing different stories about everyday women who are looking to glorify God in their work.

And today we are back with another wonderful special guest, miss Jess Collazo. That might be a new name for you, but it is not for us.

Melissa Taylor: No.

Ellen Adkins: We know and love her well. Jess. Sure do.

Used to be on staff here at Proverbs 31 Ministries, and she was so gracious to come back to be on the podcast. Jess, welcome.

Jess Collazo: Oh, thank you. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited that you are here as well.

Ellen Adkins: Jess, you used to work for Proverbs 31. You recently moved on to a different position. So, tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, how you got here, how do you spend your days. Tell us everything just. Everything just in, like, two minutes.

Jess Collazo: Right? Yeah. Well, for, obviously, everyone else that doesn't know me, I have two boys, married to my husband for twenty-one years now. Mhmm. Have a dog who we love very much.

Ellen Adkins: What's the dog's name?

Jess Collazo: Sawyer.

Ellen Adkins: Sawyer. It's a good dog name.

Jess Collazo: He's so good.

Yeah. But I am a working girl, and I've always been a working girl. Right? Like, I love my career, my job. It's always been very important to me.

And having to juggle all the different things has always been part of who I am, but I think it's been a lot of the best parts of who I am. So, if you're asking me what I'm doing when I'm spending my days, I'm at work, you know, during the day, eight to four ish. You know? It just depends, you know, the day. And then you catch me leading a PTO meeting or on a baseball field or taking a walk and doing, you know, all of the things and cooking dinner and cleaning a house and everything else that every other woman does, right, all the time.

Ellen Adkins: Right. Yes. Right. Exactly.

Melissa Taylor: Well, Jess, okay.

So just to kinda bring people up to speed. Like Ellen said, you worked at Proverbs in ministry for many years, and now you have moved into a more secular setting. Mhmm. I mean, you walked in the door and we're like, here's the city girl coming from uptown. Yeah.

Yes. Okay. So now that you're not doing official, like, you're not working for a ministry, maybe in ministry every day, how do you now see the Lord using you in your job? It's really easy to see how he uses you when you work for a ministry Mhmm. Because you're working for the Lord.

Right? But what about in a job that, is a little different from that? What is new and different about that?

Jess Collazo: I think the biggest lesson I've been learning from the Lord is I made those distinctions and separations, but he doesn't necessarily make those distinctions and separations.

Melissa Taylor: That's good.

Jess Collazo: And so, I, for a little bit, like, I miss working in ministry, or what is this gonna look like? Because this is just very different. What are my coworkers gonna be like? Because I'm moving in from a space where we're very like-minded to that's not gonna necessarily be the case. And I think what the Lord has been teaching me more than anything is to just be really aware and have really open heart and open eyes, which is no different than my day to day when I worked here.

Mhmm. Because when I worked here, part of my job was our customer experience. Right? Which meant I was gonna encounter different people with different circumstances and going through different issues, and I needed to be able to meet those. But I really just needed to be able to have eyes to see and ears to hear.

And so that's the same thing where I'm at right now. I ask the Lord to make me really aware of who's around me and what's around me so that I can know who do I need to talk to, who do I just need to say hi to, who do I need to make feel welcome today, Who do I need to create space in my day for so that I can allow the holy spirit to use me to be able to reach them? And so, really, it is a lot of what I was doing before. I think I just have to be even more aware about it now and not take for granted the setting that I was in.

Melissa Taylor: Right.

Right. Mhmm. Yeah. That's good. I think we've heard from so many women who struggle to see God at work or for God to use them at work.

Mhmm. Either because they don't know how their coworkers are gonna relate to them or they maybe they're not supposed to talk about their faith at work and things like that. What would you say to them in finding purpose in what they do?

Jess Collazo: It's funny because a lot of my prayer has been in this season. Lord, I don't even wanna be have to say a word, and I just want them to see you.

Mhmm. And I want you to make them curious. And if I am supposed to have a conversation that's a very pointed conversation about my faith Mhmm. And what I believe that it would be a conversation that could start it from their side, not something that I necessarily think I have to be the one to say or proclaim or, you know, make some grand announcement or for something. It's like, no.

How do we keep it simple? And it is how I respond to day-to-day things showing them that I hold myself accountable to someone else? You know? Or am I allowing myself to just live in the moment and say whatever I'm, you know, thinking and just kind of go from there? So, for me, it really is taking that time and praying and asking the holy spirit to let me see the moments because the moments are there.

Right. They are all around. And whether it's just how do you react in a meeting when something didn't go the way you wanted it to go? Mhmm. Or how do you if you see someone, like, off to the side feeling like they don't belong, right, for some reason, how do you bring them into the fold?

Right. And being a new person, I haven't even hit my ninety days where I'm at in the moment. But that is one of the things that that is important because you wanna see the people around you, and you want them to feel just as comfortable with you as you wanna feel with them. Because there's always that angst when you're starting something new or even when you've been in it and depending on where someone is with their faith. Right?

If they're newer to their faith and they've been in this setting for a long time and it's okay. Well, how do are they gonna view me now? Honestly, it's just you need to be looking at an audience of one. And if you're pleasing that audience of one, everyone else will be able to see it too. Right.

Melissa Taylor: Yeah. That's so good. Yeah. It's like you're almost letting God speak for you. Mhmm.

Do you know what I mean? Like, through you, just in the way that you show up being intentional to have a good attitude or to notice somebody or take the time to slow down and talk to somebody Mhmm. Not be in such a hurry and things like that. And I think we underestimate those moments and what purpose there is in those moments.

Jess Collazo: Well and when you're in an office with people, the purpose is to connect with people.

Mhmm. And so those moments to pause and not just go to the next task or go to the next meeting and stop by someone's desk or some stop by someone's cubicle and have a moment to say, hi. How are you? And where they realize that wow. They matter because you took your time to go say hi to this person.

That speaks so much volume. Right. And then one of my life verses is that I've always held on to is do everything as if you're doing it onto the Lord. Mhmm. So how do you work?

Are you diligent in your work? Are you on time with your things? Right? Because all of that speaks to the character of who you are and to your faith and what you believe in because people notice all those little things. And like I said, I mean, I've worked in jobs before.

It's not my first time being in a secular setting. I was in a secular setting before, I was at Proverbs. And funny enough, I had transitioned out of my role. They had not had my replacement yet. They hired my replacement.

I was training them virtually, meaning I never was in a room with this person. And they started going through a really difficult time, and I just sent them a simple email to say, my thoughts are with you. And their response was, I know you're a woman of faith, and I'm really appreciate that. Mhmm. And that only came about.

We only had business conversations. I never talked about my faith, but it truly was this Lord speaking through me Right. Because I would just tell people, be available. And if you make yourself available, the Lord's gonna do it. Right.

Melissa Taylor: Yeah. Right. What would you say to the woman who struggles with her identity? Like, she finds her identity in her she wraps that into her identity, her work, what she does.

Jess Collazo: Hi.

It's me. For the longest time, I'm I am such an achiever. Right? I'm an overachiever in in in a lot of senses, and I would find my worth and my value to be in that. So, I had to perform in my mind.

I had to perform in order to be seen and to be loved and to be acknowledged. And I really did wrap myself up in being the best employee possible, being the best coworker possible so that I can be viewed as a good you know, being a good person or, you know, something like that, and so that I can feel accomplished. Right. Because that's the thing. It's all about feelings and understanding and checking our feelings.

Right? And why do I need to feel accomplished? Because the accomplishments are before me. Right? Why do I need others to look at me with such high regard?

And I had to wrestle through that a lot over the years to really be able to say, okay. What are the gifts that God has given me, and how do I execute those gifts for him? And I'm talking basic things. Right? Like, I'm not talking the big spiritual gifts.

Right? But I'm really great at administration. Mhmm. I'm really great at creating processes and operations. I'm an operations girl through and through.

Right? Yeah. I'm gonna walk into a situation, walk into a place, and I'm gonna see how it is functioning, how can it be better, what do I need to do. Well, that's a gift because not everyone can do that. Right.

And if I position myself in a place where I know, okay. This is something that the lord has given me. I'm using the gifts that he's given me, but my ultimate purpose is to bring him glory, then I don't have to wrap myself up into my identity of being the overachiever, highly regarded person that can just take care of it all. And we're thankful I'm thankful that people do view me in those ways. But especially if you're in a secular setting, somebody's not gonna like you.

Mhmm. Somebody might take the way you work really offensively because it's they're projecting something. There's so many different scenarios that we can probably talk through with that. And so, if I position myself and ask myself the question constantly, am I doing this for the lord and for him to get glory, or am I doing it for me to get glory? That usually level sets the whole wrapping myself in my identity of work.

Melissa Taylor: That's great.

Ellen Adkins: That's so good, Jess. I, I just know that this is gonna speak to a lot of people in our audience, and it's, interesting. We've been recording podcasts all day, and I'll tell you that is a common theme in so many women's stories is that learning that your identity is not wrapped up Mhmm. In what you do for God.

So, I think this is just such a helpful reminder, and I'm really thankful for your wisdom. And it's just so good having you back. I I've missed you. And when you're talking about, like, I'm an operations girl, I'm like, man, she is gifted in the administration.

Melissa Taylor: We all know that.

Ellen Adkins: We know that and have experienced it. So, you are truly a gift, and we're thankful that you're here. And, guys, we will see you again next week for another episode of the Circle 31 Podcast. We cannot wait for you to tune in with us. Bye.