Living on Mission: How to Find Fulfillment and Serve God with Purpose with Audrey Rendlesbacher

Sam.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Living, the podcast that equips you to live well spiritually, emotionally, physically, and purposefully.

Each week, we'll dive into conversations and biblical truths to help you strengthen your faith, pursue meaningful work, care for your whole self, and live in line with what matters most.

Hi.

Today on the podcast, I'd like to welcome our guest, Audrey Rendlesbacher.

She's the author of the Mission Driven Life discover and fulfill your unique contribution to the world.

And she's also the founder of the Mission Driven mom and the creator of the MDM Academy, as well as Mission Driven mom podcast.

And I'm excited because what she did in creating this book and then her academy is she.

She really looked at lots of people and wanted to answer the question, what makes great men and women great?

And so we're going to talk about that, and we're going to talk about how do we understand what we look at for our life mission and why that should matter to us.

So, Audrey, welcome to the show.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Absolutely.

Can you tell us a little bit about just what life's looked like for you and sort of what you're working on now?

We may get into more details, but I'll give you the broad overview.

I have six kids.

Boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl is how they came.

So that was kind of magical.

Most of them are grown and gone, but have a couple at home still.

And the reason that we call it the Mission Driven mom, even though the book is the Mission Driven Life, is because I feel like life Mission is a little more complicated for moms.

There's some added layers there of having to care for yourself while you care for others in a very.

I mean, in all the ways, you know, those little babies will die if we don't give them everything.

And so it's.

It's.

There's an added layer of difficulty and complication for moms.

But I'm just like probably so many of your listeners.

I was very stuck.

I was thought I should, you know, in a situation where on the surface it looked like I should be happy.

You know, I'd wanted to marry, I'd wanted to have kids, blah, blah, blah.

But so many struggles, financial and addiction and, you know, raising kids and extended family.

And I knew of some people who were doing things that they were calling mission.

I was reading about some people.

A huge catalyst was reading the Hiding Place for me, and just that word of mission kept coming up and I couldn't find good resources on it.

I didn't quite really I knew I didn't really understand what it was.

I didn't know why people were making so many huge sacrifices in the name of mission.

And then some of them just didn't seem to work.

And then you have the people who do things they're calling mission, but then they're actually taking advantage of people.

So there were all these layers of complications.

So I just.

In a desire to become more like the Ten Boom family from the hiding place and in a desire to uplevel my life and learn how to get it in better order, I just went on a search by studying all the people that I really admired and looked up to.

Yeah, so good.

So yeah, why don't you start with that?

Because obviously there's probably different things may be conjured up in people's minds when we talk about mission or life mission.

So do you want to explain to us how are you defining life mission and how that might be or not different than life purpose?

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

You know, there's a really famous awesome book, the Purpose Driven Life.

And he used the, you know, and there's nothing wrong with the word purpose.

It's a wonderful word.

And I specifically wanted to understand this concept of mission because I heard so many people using that particular word.

But when I actually got to definitions, when I actually looked it up in some dictionaries, it was fascinating that they actually are.

They actually do really mean different things.

So purpose talks about, you know, having like a vision and living intentionally, but it says specifically in, in the dictionaries that I reference that it's something that is self assigned.

So you decide when you have a life purpose.

It's you deciding, this is what I think I want to do.

And of course having a life purpose is important.

It's way better than not having one.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

I'm not criticizing it at all.

What I'm saying is when you look up the definition of a mission, and of course, you know, we've all probably watched at least one of Tom Cruise's movies and you know, here's your mission.

If should you choose to accept it, you know, Mission Impossible movies, it's that kind of idea.

A mission is something that's assigned by a higher source.

It is something that it's a need that you may not even have seen, that you may not even have realized you could fill or do anything about.

But it comes with a rich context, it comes with support and all of the resources that are needed to accomplish whatever that mission is.

It's intensely Important.

It's always in the service of other people and it always leans into our particular gifts and talents and abilities where we are, what we can do and matches those particular abilities in the time and place in which we are.

So it just mission, I just feel like, is fuller.

It's more beautiful, more meaningful, more robust.

And of course from the perspective of, of being, of women, of faith, it's especially beautiful because we know that God has the whole picture.

You know, he understands all the moving parts.

I mean his scope of understanding and ability to see and connect things is, you know, course just will never get there.

And so we can't always know what might be needed, but he always will.

And he knows us better than we even know ourselves and he knows what others around us need.

So anyway, it, rather than it being like a. I'm sitting with myself and I'm kind of deciding this is where I want to go.

It's, it's me sitting with God and me striving better to listen and to lean on him and to engage in a partnership and knowing and trusting that he has my best interests in mind and other people's best interests in mind and this is going to be a win, win endeavor and that he is going to back me with all the support and resources that I need to be successful.

Yes, you said that so well, so thank you for that.

Yeah, I mean it makes so much sense, right, that you and many other contexts also call it mission.

And obviously we know lots of people that are in the mission mission field or they get.

And obviously you're not just talking about that type of mission because you know, other ways I hear similar things described as kind of like stepping into our God sized dreams, you know, but that can be a little bit cloudy as well, I guess.

Right.

Because you know, once again, is it your dream?

Is it God's dream?

But so I, you know, I love the idea of a life mission.

Like you said, when we're partnering with God and yeah, he's going to bring the pieces together.

He's going to bring the people and the resources we need together.

So that's so powerful.

So, so okay, so tell me about this though.

Like you said, your, your core focus is women and especially moms, because you know, we're both moms, so we understand the demands and the needs of everybody around us that we're most likely daily helping to fulfill.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what would you say, like where, where do you find women at?

You know, you even said yourself you felt stuck, you were just kind of Like, I know there's more for me, I know I'm probably being called into more, but I'm wondering, how do I get from what my day looks like today to stepping into maybe this bigger calling?

So.

Oh, that's a, that's a lot of questions.

What we find is that there's a lot of really good, faith filled, conscientious women out there.

And I was actually talking to somebody about this earlier today.

We live in a time that kind of has not existed.

So we're in this space where we're not doing the strictly traditional thing anymore.

Like, women don't just have to stay at home.

They don't.

They're not cut off from education and opportunities.

But for conscientious intentional moms, the balancing act of their own development and then not leaving their family behind is very difficult to find.

And so what ends up happening when, when a mom is really trying to be a good intentional mom is that she just kind of shelves herself and sometimes she does damage to herself because she's so neglectful of her real needs.

And what ends up happening in that case is that then she's really kind of no good for anybody.

And she's.

But, but what's so hard is that it's all born of the very best intentions.

She really wants to be a great mom.

She really wants to give her children everything.

I had a. I was at an event recently and there was an attorney there, a young attorney, Maybe he was 30ish or something, and he had a young family.

He told me he had a wife and a couple children at home and he had done everything he could to provide a space where she could be a full time mom to these little ones.

And that had been their dream and they had worked hard to get there.

But she was really struggling to get out of bed in the morning, even though life was good.

And then she's feeling incredibly guilty about the fact that she knows she has this loving, wonderful, committed, you know, attorney husband who's providing for her and she has these beautiful children in her home.

And it's just this.

So it's such a.

It can become for some of these moms, just a place of emotional torment.

Like I'm blaming my husband, but I feel guilty about that and I'm blaming my kids or I'm blaming God, but I feel guilty about that.

So I'll just blame the person in the room who seems to not be able to figure it out, and that's me.

And one of the reasons that's happening is because the world is still telling her, you can have it all.

Like if you don't have it all right now, that's your fault.

And she just does not know how to navigate that.

And it is so confusing and overwhelming.

It's so hard to know where to start.

Yeah, I agree with you.

I mean, so many women I've talked to, they're either in that place where, like you said, they just put themselves or a dream or a calling or something they love doing or that this possible mission that's kind of swirling around, but they haven't quite, you know, understood it yet.

And they put it on pause or they hold, put it on hold.

Or you talk to women that are in the next stage who their kids are getting older or have moved, you know, are old enough to move out, but now they think, I don't know, is it too late?

Can I really start something new?

And then they question themselves because for so long they've paused some parts of themselves or something that they maybe felt pulled to.

That's why they had this yearning or this wanting, right.

To figure out why isn't just my current life fulfilling me deeply in every way.

And so tell us a little bit how understanding and really getting our life mission, right?

And then kind of connecting with ourselves, knowing, you know, connecting with God deeper and all these things helps us to find that fulfillment, I think that so many of us are looking for that we might have put on pause.

Yeah, yeah.

So one of the, one of the paradigms that I really try to challenge because our audience is predominantly God fearing, most of the women that we worked with align with us there.

And often they're, you know, faith, often they're like church going women.

Like, often they're, you know, they do read scripture, they do pray, like, and that's what I talk about in Law one, right?

Like, we need to establish a divine center.

We need to be willing to accept the fact that God designed us a certain way.

There are certain objective truths.

We need to align ourselves with those.

Okay, that's great.

And these women feel like they've done that.

But then when it comes to law too, and loving themselves, then things really start to break down because there's a lot of wrong and bad information around concepts like self love and self care that are just, I mean, at best they're just not helpful.

And so these women have these needs they don't realize that are not being met.

I mean, one of the ones that comes up often in our academy is just mental needs.

You know, many of them haven't learned much since college.

Even if they read stuff or watch stuff online, it doesn't really nurture their true mental capacities.

Sometimes they don't have the social life.

Sometimes their emotional needs aren't being netted.

They're not being honest about their emotional needs.

So we address all of that and help them better understand.

And I do talk about this for a little bit in the book.

There's these three principles of loving yourself that really need to be addressed.

One of these is the self care.

So that's recognizing and meeting our real needs.

When we do that, we start to come alive again.

You know, we have sufficient rest.

We've drank, we've had some water to drink.

We've moved our bodies so that they're functioning better.

We've made it a priority to be with girlfriends or to manage our emotions better.

You know, we cannot let our emotions rule our lives, things like that, and they just start to come alive.

And that's such a great example for their kids.

Oh, my goodness.

I mean, all of this is just.

It matters so much that they see us doing this for ourselves.

And then the next one is self management.

That is where we really kind of work on leading ourselves first before we really try to lead others.

That, however well we can lead ourselves is really going to bleed into how well we're leading others.

And we need to treat ourselves properly.

We need to get ourselves out of victim and drama.

We need to stop being in self deception and we need to learn good.

I mean, we talk about forgiveness as a spiritual principle, but it's also just an emotional mental health principle.

So these are all things that we can do to better lead ourselves and manage our hearts and our minds.

And then the last one is self discovery.

One of the things I kept thinking about when you were asking the question was, you know, what's going on with these moms?

I mean, sometimes we find that, yeah, maybe there's something that they shelved, but.

But a lot of the time it's like, but I don't actually know what I'm good at.

I don't actually think I'm very talented.

I don't really know what I would do.

And even if I did, like, how can sewing matter in the grand scheme of things?

How can gardening matter in the grand scheme of, like, how would that be a mission?

How could that make a difference?

Actually address some of these on my podcast sometimes and talk about people who did just those things.

And it really made a huge difference.

You just don't know where it can take you when you have a lens of mission on it.

So that's a big place where, you know, for some women, it's like, oh, you know, loving myself.

That's not.

But, you know, Jesus taught, and he's not the only, you know, I mean, there are plenty of other great leaders throughout time who have said kind of the same thing.

I mean, we even find it in Chinese history that we need to love others as we love ourselves.

Like that's the command, love others as you love yourself.

So we're not.

God's not telling us, don't love yourself.

So that's the other side of it.

Right.

It's like, no, no, no.

If I ignore myself, that's the best way to be a good mom.

No, because that's a.

There's a correlation in that relationship that you need to love yourself better to love others better.

So.

Absolutely.

And you're right, there are definitely women in both.

Both or together?

Both things.

Absolutely.

I talked to a lot of women in that camp too, where, like you say, they don't.

They either don't know what they really feel pulled towards or they don't really see how their gifts and talents align with this.

Maybe where God's calling them, you know, into this mission.

Or like you said, they just discount things that they might now call hobbies or that they just enjoy, do you know, doing on the side.

They don't realize that actually that might be something that is actually going to help them in the future, you know, or be connected to their mission.

So.

Yeah, I love that you brought that up as well.

Yeah.

So what would you say?

I mean, how would you explain to us?

Because as you just said, some women don't really understand their gifts.

And I know one of the things right.

In understanding our life mission is, is really getting to know our gifts.

So what would you just share with us about if someone's listening to this and they're like, I. I mean, I know some things I'm good at, but I really don't know how I could use those.

Right.

For God's kingdom, if you will.

Yeah.

What would you say to that?

So there's probably two parts to that.

The first would just be the self discovery.

We do a lot of that in our academy with different assessments and tests and things like that.

One really fun place to start is with Cure from the Common Life by Max Lucado.

He will verify everything that I have said and talk about how we are divinely designed and that you do have missions and they are, you know, are not going to maybe necessarily think that, that they might be what they are.

And then he has a bunch of exercises in the back.

He uses the acronym STORY to walk you through a process where you evaluate your past.

You look at key stories and elements and things that have happened to you and you evaluate common themes.

And it's actually quite helpful for women that have lived very long and have very much life experience that activity.

Very helpful.

You can also do.

Jordan Peterson has a self authoring program and he has past and present and authoring.

Super inexpensive to go buy that if you wanted to do all three of them or past authoring in conjunction with his book.

There's, there's other.

I could tell you some other resources.

You know, Strengths Finder is a really helpful one.

So there's lots of things that you can do to just learn more about yourself.

And one of the things that happens when women get active about doing this is that it helps them reframe.

Like in Strengths Finder, there's, I've had millions of people take that test and I think there's 32 or something like that different kind of strengths that we have that we would never think of as strengths.

One of them just, just come comes to mind because a friend of mine did it and she, she was a student.

We became friends anyway.

One of her five biggest strengths was competitiveness and she never, she always thought of that as a weakness.

Like that's holding me back.

That's a problem.

One of the things that we do with the women that we work with, whether it's the podcast or the academy or whatever we talk often about, we're, we're going to be strengths focused.

You are good enough, conscientious enough woman.

I don't need to beat you over the head with your weaknesses.

You're good enough at doing that to yourself.

So let's just focus on what your strengths actually are.

And believe me, as you pursue your strengths, your weaknesses will show up.

You'll have plenty of opportunities to work on those.

But you know, when this woman saw that being competitive was a strength and she started to learn and read about that and think about how that could be an asset in her family and her personal life, in her attempts to bless others in her community, it was really, really, it was, it was beautiful.

It's beautiful to watch people learn to have a deeper level of self acceptance and to see things that they've been battling or that they think thought were a problem actually come forward and be a strength.

So that would be one thing I would say if there's something already that you know, you love to do, then go talk to God about who needs it.

You know, I.

We had a woman in our program.

After you go through the three levels, you can do a mission project and then graduate.

And one of our graduates did a.

She was a seamstress and, and she realized that girls in her area had completely lost the skill.

They just didn't even know how to do basic sewing.

And so she paired her love of, of sewing with a need in her community.

And then she layered that with service work by building.

They, they learned to sew, I think hygiene pads for people like, like women in Africa or things like that.

And so it was this multi layered, beautiful experience where all of these people's lives were blessed.

Just because she likes to sew and knows how to use a sewing machine.

Well.

And as soon as you put on that lens of mission and you remember that you're called to serve God's children, then, then everything all of a sudden this thing that you just like to do a minute ago becomes a place where you can reflect God's love.

Mother Teresa said, and this is the, the first quote in my book that our mission is to convey God's love.

So that's the ultimate.

That's ultimately what we're doing.

And of course, the more outward looking we are, the more joy we.

We give ourselves access to.

So those are some things that women could start with.

Yeah, I love that.

Yes.

Thank you for sharing that.

It's a wonderful story about the woman, the seamstress.

Yeah.

And it show it so well.

Illustrates exactly what you said.

Right.

Of the.

When those three things come together, looking out for how we can serve others.

Right.

And reflect God's love.

Something that we're already either good at or really enjoy doing.

And then also where's the need?

You know, so it's so good and just, just asking those questions.

Right.

And sometimes we do need to shift perspective.

We need to see a new framework.

We need to hear these conversations or join a community.

Right.

That's going to help us do those things.

Yeah.

So yeah.

So what else would you just share with us about encouraging women to live a mission driven life?

I want to take a moment real quick to also let you know that if you haven't already, you can download my Reignite youe Passion Workbook absolutely free on my website, KristinFitch.com but it's exactly the type of thing we're talking about in today's episode.

How can we step into the things that God's already given Us, our abilities, our hobbies, our interests.

How can we step into new things?

How can we unearth those things and then start to ask questions about how we use those things in the world so that we can step into more purpose?

We can step into the mission that we're being called into.

So head over to KristenFitch.com and grab that workbook and get started today.

Okay, let's jump back into the rest of today's episode.

Well, the first thing is that there, if.

If you're willing to be used, God's going to use you.

Yeah.

So.

So you need to stop doubting yourself.

You need to stop putting yourself down.

You need to stop assuming you don't have anything to give.

Have you ever read the book A Wrinkle in Time?

A long time ago, yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I don't know if you remember the story at all, but we.

It's one of the family read alouds that we have in the Academy because I think it so beautifully portrays this particular message.

And if, if some of you haven't read it and you want to go, the movie's not very good.

But the book is phenomenal and there's some really important principles in it.

But one in particular is it's basically the story of this awkward teenage girl named Meg.

Her husband is.

I mean, her father is like super high up in government circles and this really brilliant scientist, blah, blah, blah, and he.

He has to go off on these trips and do things.

Well, this last time that he went, he didn't come home.

And he's been gone for a year, year and a half or more.

And the mom is also kind of a brilliant scientist and she's just trying to navigate the family.

And Meg feels so stupid, so ugly, so awkward.

She just doesn't feel like she has any redeeming qualities at all.

And we find her at the beginning of this story in this complex situation.

And then.

And she has this younger brother and they just love each other and she's kind of his caretaker.

And anyway, they, these, these witches come along and they head out on this adventure and they find themselves on this planet and they are taken basically to where their father has been.

He's involved in these missions to other planets and they find themselves on this planet.

But the, but the core message of this whole book, this whole story, is that Meg doesn't have any talents, she thinks, but what she does have is a perfect love for her brother.

And it's by virtue of the fact that she loves her brother so perfectly that she's able to save him.

And so I guess part of my message to moms would be, yeah, go find out what you're great at.

Go develop your gifts and talents, like all of those things matter.

But also recognize that God wants to use you, that you were divinely made, and that you have a lot to offer, way more than you think you do, and just stop selling yourself short.

And then I would layer on top of that the fact that you are setting an example every day.

And you need to look more honestly at what example you're setting.

Your, your example of womanhood, motherhood, adulthood, it really, really matters.

And if you want your children to believe that they are divinely made and that God has missions and works for them, then you need to demonstrate that through your example and bring them with you.

So I say all the time, like, whatever, like, teach them to sew along with all the other girls in the neighborhood or help them, let them help you get it all prepped and mail it off.

And then, you know, just there you can bring them along on what, no matter what work you're involved in.

Yeah, I know, I love that.

And you know, you hear so often that people that have started a business or maybe a ministry or doing some sort of mission work, they do bring their kids along, right?

Like they let their kids help.

And even when my, my mom, when we were growing up had a business, it wasn't a, it wasn't a mission driven, specific business, but she always had us help, right?

Like, she'd be like, oh, I'll pay you to put the letters and the envelopes.

And.

But we were participating, so we were learning.

We were seeing.

Right.

How she was doing that.

And so of course, if it's even more so that it's going to serve others, you know, that's even more powerful.

So one thing that I love that you talk about is, well, they're your last two, I guess you call them laws.

But one is being bold and executing, right.

I think you say courageously, but also doing it again and again so it can tell us about that.

Because that's kind of the point is we are given many assignments from God.

Right.

Some are small, little teeny things, not mission necessarily level, but then, you know, we may build something or be part of something, but then another week or month or year or season and we're going to possibly be called into something else.

And so how do we be on the lookout for that so that we do keep saying yes to these things?

Yeah, there's some really good examples in the book of the 10.

Boom.

Family.

Multiple family members doing these things.

They're such a great example.

It's really kind of cool to watch.

Nothing you learn is wasted, and no talent you develop is.

Is wasted.

God can put anything to good use.

And if you feel, you know, like you'd really just love to learn the guitar, then just, please do it.

And you'll find that that ends up being a blessing to you, to your family and beyond.

And, you know, you.

It.

It can be as simple as just asking.

Like, sometimes people know things they'd like to try.

Sometimes they need guidance.

And I address both of those issues in the book as well, of, like, what do you do if you immediately feel like, this is the call, this is what I need to do?

Or if you don't feel that, and then how can you recognize, maybe this is the next step I need to take?

But I believe that God really likes to make it not too hard for us and that often it's just us resisting an impulse and telling ourselves that it's dumb or not important or we can't afford it or whatever it is, us just making excuses about it.

So a lot of times when you're talking about hearing the call and courageously executing, sometimes it's just hearing it.

Sometimes it's just seeing it as a call instead of pushing it aside and telling, you know, ask yourself, if I did this thing, how could it bless me?

How could it bless my family?

And how could it bless my community?

And when you answer those questions, you'll find that when you just put on.

When you see your.

When you see your life and your activities as a blessing to others, then all of that will change.

And it does take courage, because sometimes other people don't think it's a great idea or they give you pushback or whatever the case might be.

But, yeah, there's all sorts of.

I mean, a really good, simple example we can all relate to is George Washington.

So was it George Washington's mission to become a surveyor?

Or was it his mission to run the things to the Indian camp during the French and Indian War?

Or was it his mission to serve in local government?

Or was it his mission to head up the armies in the Revolutionary War?

Or was it his call to be a president or what?

You know, yes.

The answer is just yes.

They were all building onto other things.

And each thing that he learned and each call he said yes to opened up the door to the next thing.

And motherhood is a very important call, and you should do it with earnestness and Intention and, And.

And love and virtue.

But I think part of mothering is being on your own journey too, and modeling the kind of life you'd like your children to have when they're adults.

Absolutely.

I so agree with you.

And one.

That was beautifully said.

So thank you.

You know, and I. I think it's just too.

It's that we do.

We kind of push things off or go.

But really, God, it's always been said, you know, it's.

We take our faith and then it's action.

Right?

It's faith plus action or.

Or taking a step forward.

Right.

So whether it's an inkling or we're not sure, maybe you think, oh, I really love to learn about that subject, but you blow it off and don't get it in the bookstore.

Whatever.

The thing is, like you said, like, oh, I've really wanted to learn to play an instrument, but I'm a bit too busy.

Well, there's a reason you're having that interest, that desire, because God is.

That's.

It's not of interest to every mom, every woman.

My interests are different than your interest.

I like reading Christian authors.

Guess what?

Most of my friends don't.

And I don't mean that.

Some do.

But you're saying, like, my interests are unique to me.

Yes.

I geek out on certain things that my friends do not geek out on.

Well, that is a clue for me that I should keep digging into that.

Right.

I mean, I mean, obviously we're not talking about, like, crazy simple things.

We're talking about things of, like, interest or could benefit me.

Like, I love learning about naturopathic, holistic, herbal things.

Well, guess what?

That benefits me, that benefits my family, and that at some point could benefit others.

Right.

Because I'm learning, I'm educating myself about natural ways for us to be healthier.

And so once again, I could say, oh, that's.

Why does that matter?

Well, to me, it matters because I have an interest in it and I also see the benefit of it.

And so instead of pushing it off, I say, oh, I'm gonna.

I'm gonna keep digging into this as I have time because I have this real curiosity about it, you know, Now I might not be on a big mission for that.

Exactly.

Although I do share that kind of content online, you know, on.

On the podcast.

Yeah, but.

But I do believe it's gonna develop into something in the future, you know, that is mission oriented.

And so, yeah, I think that's really the thing is just, I. I also think it's keeping building ourselves up and putting things into us that are going to inspire and encourage us.

Much like you talking about reading the greats and of course, looking at what was the through lines, what were the principles, you know, just like, you know, scripturally.

But when we do that, like for me, listening to amazing podcasts, reading great books, going and having conversations with interesting people, that gets me more excited that, that, like, lets me reignite that passion, those interests in me.

And like you said, it, it lights a fire in us.

And God wants us to be on fire, right?

He wants us to be.

He wants us to be fully ourselves because he made us uniquely as we are.

And we have to keep encouraging women to do that and encourage each other to do that.

Yes.

I mean, when you were talking about the naturopath stuff, I was just sitting here thinking, you know, I have, I've.

I have several sisters, actually, that have studied that, but one in particular that lives near me, she's now taking formal classes to get formal certification.

But she has taught me so much about how to live healthier and she would never think, oh, I'm doing this for Audrey, you know, but actually, her passion and her willingness to pursue that passion and share what she learns with me has been a huge blessing in my life.

I'm a lot healthier because I reach out to her and ask questions and she shares what she knows.

And it's really just, it's.

It's having a perspective about all of these things that is.

I don't know, I don't know why we do it, but we.

So many women just downplay their strengths, their gifts, their contributions, how much they mean to the people around them, what kind of positive impact that they're having, and if we would just simply recognize.

I have a quote that I love up on my, on my wall.

It says something like, the dream that you hold inside yourself is the most noble part of you.

And, you know, I tell women, assume God planted it.

If it's good and true and beautiful and it's worthy of your life energy, why would you, why would you assume that it's there to be fought, to be pushed aside?

You know, yeah, good.

Good will come of it.

And so a mission driven life is, yes, there are projects that we do.

And frankly, most of the time it's only in retrospect that we would say, oh, yes, but sometimes, you know, but if we, whatever we're feeling called to do, like when we say that word, like, I feel like I should listen to that, pay attention to that, and see that as mission Because a mission driven life is a certain way of living.

It's a, it's a, it's like holding your life out as a gift to God and others.

You know, it's like saying, I hope that I leave this world a little bit better place.

Yes.

And what happens when you do that properly?

When it's not like you're beating yourself down and thinking terrible about yourself?

When you see yourself also as a child of God and also someone who's loved and has infinite worth and matters, then it's just like now you've opened yourself up to the greatest possible opportunities for meaning and joy.

Yeah.

That's really what you're doing is saying, okay, all this beating up that I'm doing and all of this, you know, holding all of my ideas at arm's length and putting off those things that I'm feeling I should be doing for myself and for my family, I'm just not going to do that anymore.

Just going to step into it.

I'm going to trust that God's going to show me the way.

Yeah, absolutely.

And like you said, I mean, gardening and you know, showing your kids or your neighbors or whoever it is how to, whatever it is you do.

Right.

Whether you can or you're a great cook or it doesn't have to be always out in the world or across the world.

Right.

Having a mission.

Your mission really may be right now, being at home, you know, whether you have a, a separate thing that you do as well or whether it's that much like your sister, she's, you know, using that knowledge, she learns and she's allowing other people to not have to do all of that same research, but to benefit from her interest.

Right.

Because.

But it meets your criteria, you know, not yours only.

But.

Yeah.

Which is, does it serve me?

Does it serve my family and does it serve others?

And so I think if most of us did look at, from that lens at things, we could start feeling more confident about the things we're doing, the things we want to spend time on and realize that it isn't selfish, you know, because I think that's where a lot of it comes from is we think if I take time for me, even if I'm learning something, we think, but, but that's about me.

But it's never only about us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And when you, when you love yourself properly, there's a big difference between self love and self mastery and self indulgence.

So I'm not talking about self love as self indulgence.

I'm talking about self love as self mastery.

When you love yourself properly, the way that you would love your child, you are loving a child of God.

It's easy to forget that.

And you are living a mission driven life because you're putting your home in order.

You're planting your family on good, solid principles.

You're getting your finances in order, you're repairing things in your marriage.

All of that is good and true and beautiful.

God would have you do that.

And when your life is in order, he can use you in bigger and bigger ways.

I just know that this path works not just because I studied all these people, but we've worked with hundreds of students at this point and they go out and do.

I mean, person after.

I just interviewed another woman this last week, one of our graduates, and she was just, she just helped found a charter school in her area.

And she was like, I would never in my wildest dreams five or ten years ago thought that I would be able to do something like that.

And it was all the baby steps leading up to that.

Little tiny pieces, little tiny actions that increased confidence and built relationships.

And anyway, so it's really beautiful to watch.

I promise everyone listening has beautiful, meaningful, important contributions.

And I love how, I love how Max Lucado says it.

He says, because he says if you're not you, the world misses out because you don't know.

It's like, it's like It's a Wonderful Life movie.

You know, George, whatever his last name is, would have never, you know, the reverberating impact of his one simple life.

He never would have guessed.

Never would have guessed.

And you just don't know the reverberating impact of you offering yourself to the Lord and then getting busy working on loving yourself and loving truth and loving humanity in a larger way.

It will lead you to, to, to really beautiful things.

Yeah.

Okay, first of all, you said that just perfect.

We could have ended just right there.

But, you know, I think the last kind of main thing is, I think the point is, is us doing that, showing up to realize that our gifts and our talents and our interests allow us to do those things.

Right.

To serve.

You know who we just talked about all the different areas.

Yeah.

That's creating.

It's creating for future generations.

It's creating legacy.

Right.

And so I think sometimes we think, oh, it's just this thing.

But I mean, there's so many stories.

I mean, there's of course stories in the Bible, but then some of the pastors and people I like reading, like Mark Patterson, he talks about you know, people planting seeds, well, they were trees that will never produce in their lifetime.

They planted them for two or three generations ahead.

So once again, that person was serving themselves, knowing that they were standing in truth and standing God's truth, then they were serving the generations to come.

So they were blessing people in the future by what they did now.

And so I think sometimes we forget, like, what I'm doing, what I'm teaching my children, how I'm the example.

I'm showing them, working to charter a school, whatever the thing is, right.

So care items for people in Africa.

You're blessing somebody you'll never even know.

You bless, you are.

You're showing the example to people around you, whether you have children or whether it's people in your community.

But we don't really.

Like you said, we do not understand the ripple that happens by us being present and saying, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

So good.

Okay.

Any last words of encouragement you want to share with the listeners?

I would just say you are so much more gifted and capable and beautiful than you can imagine, and you don't see who you can eventually become.

And if you'll just show up willing, if you'll just offer yourself, you will start to feel and know little tiny bits of action that you can take.

And it might start very simple.

It might be like you just need to get your home better organized.

Like, that's the first step for you, if you will see that as one tiny step in a long, beautiful journey.

And that each time you adopt a principle and you strive to live according to it, you align yourself better with God and he'll be better able to use you.

And everything that you learn, every step that you take is more opportunity for you to.

To bless the lives of others.

It's.

It really is that simple.

It's.

It's not, you know, it's not a magic pill.

You don't need to be somebody else.

You are irreplaceable where you are.

And you deserve, and your family deserves for you to be.

For you to be honest about how gifted you are and who you can become.

And to start to.

To stop making excuses and just start doing it.

Just start acting.

Just do the thing.

Just.

I'm sure everyone listening right now has something in the back of their mind.

I should probably do that.

Just go do it.

Yeah, just listen to it.

Just do it.

Just take the step.

Just do the thing, and then the next step will come.

That's right.

Oh, I love it.

Okay, so my last question to you is, what is fueling you now in this season, whether it's your faith or just something that's just filling your soul with joy or whatever.

Well, if you enjoyed today's episode, if you could leave a rating review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, it helps the show get discovered by more people so that we can continue to uplift and encourage people in their faith journey as well as all of the other parts of their lives.