When Life Feels Ordinary: How to See God, Find Joy, and Feel Alive Again

What would happen if you started living with childlike faith and wonder?

What would happen if you started seeing that everything is a potential miracle?

We're going to dig in today, and we're going to talk about why delighting in our lives is a key to opening up so much more that God wants for your life.

Welcome to Faith Filled Living, the podcast for women who want to find joy again, grow closer to God, and rediscover the woman he created you to be.

I'm your host, Kristin Fitch.

Each week you'll find encouragement, honest conversations, biblical perspective, and practical tools to help you experience more joy, purpose, and peace in everyday life.

Because the woman God created you to be is still there, and it's never too late to come alive to the life he created you to live.

There's a quote that is often attributed to Albert Einstein that says there are two ways to live.

You can live as if nothing is a miracle, or you can live as if everything is a miracle.

And I think that's truly how God wants us to live.

He wants us to live in expectation that he is present, that he is with us, and that he is waiting for us to partner with him, to both participate in miracles, to be part of miracles, and to be the person that people look to and say, I want what they have.

I want to live that life.

I want to stop living and be and hesitate or worry about if people think I'm being too much or too excited.

Because the honest truth is, I think most of us, somewhere along the way, we were told that we were too much or we were being loud or we had too many opinions or ladies don't, you know, speak about these things.

And I think that is.

That's done us a disservice as people, but as Christians especially.

And so I want to talk about this.

I want to talk about why I think we need to rekindle our delight for the things around us.

We need to step into more whimsy in our lives, and we need to show up with the fruit of the spirit, the gladness, the joy.

And if we don't feel that now, I want to talk about, how do we get to that place?

Okay, so the first thing that I want to share with you is something that artist Rainier Wilde said, which is enthusiasm is a form of courage.

And I believe that's true.

Because when we're excited about something, and when.

Or when we're excited about everything, people notice, right?

It changes us, but it changes other people.

It makes other people braver to say, you know what?

I want to show up.

I don't want to be lukewarm or cool about my faith.

I don't want to be lukewarm about my life.

I don't want to be lukewarm about what I love.

I want to be red hot, on fire for God, for my hobbies, for my family.

Right.

Like, for the experiences that get me excited.

And I don't know about you, but that is what I want to move towards.

And so Rainier Wilde goes on to say, nobody needs a designated person in their life to bring them back down to Earth.

Gravity will do that for them.

Try being delighted.

And today's episode is all about that.

How can we be more delighted by the world, the creations, the people, the food, the beauty that God's created for us?

Because so often we get caught up in, you know, the things of the Bible that says, you know, do this, do this, don't do this.

And I'm not saying those things are not important.

What I'm saying is.

But God also created a world that he wants us to delight in.

That's actually part of what the Sabbath is about.

Of course, it's about rest, and it's about communing with God and with the people we love.

But it's also about taking a day to be renewed, taking a day to be delighted in our lives by the things that we.

When we slow down, we get to enjoy, right?

A slow meal with people we love, a.

A walk with our family, you know, in the neighborhood, at the beach.

It's taking time to read, taking time to ponder God's word.

But this is what we're talking about.

What if every day, though, we.

We showed up looking for the miracles?

What if we showed up looking for the delight that he's already designed into our life, into our world, when we stop focusing on what's not going right?

Okay, so I love what Bob Goff says.

And he says, come alive to who God has made you to be.

Practice walking around, fully awake to yourself.

Take notes, sing songs, laugh a lot, smell the flowers, roll on the grass, write a letter, take a class, make the call.

You guys, how have you done any of those things?

Or list some others?

But when's the last time that you act?

You acted like you did as a child in the best way possible.

Are you holding yourself back and Harding yourself within instead of releasing all of you into the world?

I want to be that person that just laughs out loud for no reason.

I want to be the person that sees my neighbor or somebody that I don't even know in my neighborhood, walking down the street, and I cheer them on, right?

Like, that's.

That's how I want to show up.

Babagoff also goes on to say in one of his books that at his house, which is on the water, when I think it's when rowers come by, but maybe boats, too, he throws them candy, like a celebration.

Every time he literally has a bucket of candy.

And it's basically, they throw it like confetti at the boats, and it becomes this whole thing.

But how beautiful of a practice is that?

And what if we all showed up like that?

And Bob also talks about.

I mean, first of all, he's one of the most lovely, whimsical type people, right?

His stories are just mesmerizing because he shows up unafraid to just be whimsical and unique and to delight people.

I think he's talked about sometimes he has little buttons or something that he's given to people, and I forget what they say, but how fun is that, you know?

Or ribbons.

He also says there are 37 recorded miracles in the New Testament still.

I enter each day assuming there's a 38th miracle waiting for me, if I'll fully engage life and people around me with love, honesty, an unreasonable, almost annoying heap of expectation.

And I love that.

And there's two things I had written down in one of my notebooks.

I write things down that I read or that I hear that I want to come back to.

Okay, I guess it's Bob Goff Day, because this is actually something that Bob Goff said as well, and I had written in my notebook.

It's from his book Catching Whimsy.

You may not spring to your feet in your office or classroom today, but the spirit of joy and celebration can become a larger part of your life than it has been.

Let's lead with joy.

Let this be your lasting legacy.

What makes you want to rise to your feet and dance with joy?

And I like something that Pastor Ed Newton said.

It was one of his sermons, but he.

He's talking about that.

Let me think about here.

Jesus said that you're the salt of the earth.

And I think this ties really nicely to showing up in the world, expecting and then being part of miracles.

Showing up in the world and delighting in God's creation and showing up in the world to participate in life and to just, like, literally be childlike.

And he says salt only makes a difference when it touches something.

And he says it's much like faith.

Faith that stays hidden, never changes.

Anything.

God designed your faith for everyday impact and he wants to use where you are already at.

And he says, ask yourself, where is my faith stayed sealed.

Because he reminds us when salt leaves a shaker, that's when meals change and when faith leaves the building, lives change.

But when we tie these two ideas together, one that we actually have to show up right in the world.

We have to participate in life.

And I've talked about that before.

But then if we show up and we, we stop holding ourselves back and we actually show up with the fruit of the spirit bubbling out and over from us, people notice.

And then we get to participate in more of what God wants in our lives.

There is this really old book that I read in college called Mr. Blue.

He doesn't really care about the materialistic things.

He comes into money here and there, and he just spends it, he spends it on other people.

He, He.

He shows up in the world delighting in things.

Like one day he had a friend over, he invited him for dinner on the, on his rooftop.

And I don't even know that he provided food or much, but he invited this, these other gentlemen that he met that had, that had their own little, like, what do you call it?

It's not a band.

It like a procession, right?

Where like instruments and marching.

But like, he just was so delighted.

He was so taken by joy and giddiness that he wanted to share with his friend.

But like, that's what I'm saying is how often do we get so stuck in the details and perfection and.

Well, I don't want to come off this way or that way that we, instead of showing up fully in living color, if you will, we show up in shades of gray.

And in a minute I'm going to share something with you that I think might hit home in this idea.

But the other thing, I read this, I don't know, a couple months ago, but there was some data that says that we're becoming a world or at least a country that's become dull.

In other words, the colors of our homes have gone from, you know, decades and decades ago where they were bright.

I mean, think about it.

Some of it was poor taste, like in the 60s or 70s.

I think some of the carpet, right, was like shag carpets and it was like bright red or you know, mustard yellow.

The bathrooms are powder blue.

So I'm not saying they all looked great, but it's true.

Houses, everything was more colorful.

Even if you look at outfits from those decades, a lot of people were wearing really bold, right?

A little bit of a.

What's that called?

Psychedelic colors.

So I'm not saying we need to do that, but they're showing that now.

More homes, they're all white or all gray, shades of gray and white.

And so what's happening?

And I'm not saying you have to color your house with crazy colored carpets and things, but what I am saying is we're losing our creativity a bit.

We're losing our individuality, because that's become what they're pushing, right?

Like, oh, everything should be neutral.

And then it looks good.

And look, I like a calm room, and that can have a lot of neutrals.

But let's not forget to put ourselves into it, right?

Like, in other words, have the things that you delight in in your room, in your home, in your life.

Wear the things that you love, even if they're not popular or on trend.

So what I'm saying is, let's stop trying to conform to what the world tells us.

Looks good or is popular or is the way to act.

And let's start looking at the example that Jesus lived.

Let's start looking at how, if we showed up exactly how God made us and the things we enjoy, that we show the world more of what it means to be a Christian.

And along this.

This idea is, I left something that G.K. chesterton said, and he said, and the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a role in order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

And I love that visual, right?

I want to be part of that.

Do you?

I want to be part of give.

Having room to give good things or letting good things run wild, right?

I want to be part of that.

I want to sign up and say, yes, like, find me the people that are like that, and I want to go do life with them.

Right?

I want to be the person that says, even though the world seems so out of control and there's all these looming things that are uncertain.

Yes.

I don't mean let's bury our heads in the sand, but what I do mean is, how do we still show up in that dullness and say, you know what?

I am still going to show up with the joy and the gladness and the peace that the Holy Spirit has given me?

There's also something I like.

That poet Victoria Erickson says it's just a good reminder, I think she says, every morning you rise.

I want you to remember this.

There are amazing things to be part of and fight for and feel.

Because the world will unlock hundreds of doors when you give this day all the courage, love and intensity you can.

I think that's so good.

So I shared this on a post at some point, or, I'm sorry, in a summary at some point in Instagram.

And I just want to share this little snippet with you because this is what I hope for each of us.

I hope you step into your day with an openness and the excitement of a 5 year old.

Get curious.

Ask questions.

Find a dirt path or a tree house.

Walk barefoot.

Linger over lunch.

Call a friend.

Give a compliment.

Smile for no reason, but you're alive.

Find something that delights you.

Pray.

Listen for God's whispers.

Friends, I could go on all day and give examples.

Buy yourself flowers.

Brighten up your rim.

So, I mean, in my office, I have the top of my wall above the chair rail is a.

Like a. I don't know if you'd call it like a.

It's not a buttery yellow.

It's like a richer yellow.

And I love it because it makes me happy.

It's a happy color.

It's an unexpected color, but it's all white.

Now, my chase is not white.

It's like a really small print of some sort of animal.

I mean the fabric.

But in the room I have plants and I have fun things and I have art supplies that are colorful and I have really bright art behind me.

I have beautiful books on my bookshelves, but I also have little hints of whimsy.

Right.

Like I said, I have art supplies.

So I have bright colored pencils and little containers.

I have a globe that has sand and seashells in it because I love the beach and I live near the beach, so it's just things like that.

I have pops of color from the plants and different things.

But why am I saying all that?

Because we should delight in our spaces.

We should delight in our lives.

You should wear things that make you feel good or happy.

Put on a necklace that maybe your grandmother gave you or a ring.

Like these things matter.

And I think sometimes we skip past all these things in our lives and we just move on to our to do list and we move on to all the things that have to get done.

But I'm telling you, it's when we slow down and we Start being grateful.

And we.

We give a nod to the things that came before, the things that light us up.

We give a nod to God and just how creative he is.

I've talked about this many times over the years on the podcast, but I do a micro gratitude practice, meaning that throughout the day, I just, in my mind, say it.

You know, I don't usually say it out loud, but, I mean, I have.

But I'll just be like, God, how did you come up, like, the taste of basil, the smell of basil.

It's amazing.

Herbs are amazing.

I love them in my food.

But I'll just, you know, I'll just be delighted, but also just in awe and in thankfulness, right?

Just, just like, thanking God for, like, everything that he's created.

Just how good people are, you know, like my friends or my family.

And so I think that's the other thing.

We delight by choosing to be grateful, choosing to see all the little things that actually are actually more important than often we give space for these things.

So I want to share with you part of a page from the book the Gift of Change by Marianne Williamson.

So in this particular area, she's talking about, she's talking about somebody that literally chooses to show up delighting in life, right?

And in wonder.

Okay, let me see here.

She says the more we live, the more capacity we have to see how much life is beautiful.

I'm sorry, how much of life is beautiful?

There are things that touch my heart now.

Lovers holding hands, small children laughing that I barely noticed in days gone by.

And I think that's maybe the first thing I have to say to you is like, maybe write that down.

Like, what are you.

What are you noticing that just fills you up?

Or that makes you, you know, a little bit happier, that makes you smile from afar or nearby, or can you think of nothing?

Right?

So that might be your first exercises.

Take a day.

Take a week and start noticing.

Writing in your phone notes, like, what?

Kind of, like, helped you have a little smile, right?

A little.

A little chuckle, because I do that too.

I honestly, I reminisce when I see little kids with their moms and they're just like the sweetest little things, especially little boys, because that's what I had.

And, like, my heart just goes a little pitter patter because that age was so good.

And I just think, like, oh, that mom, you know, might be busy in her life right now, but, oh, she just doesn't even know, like, what a gift it is, right?

Okay.

So she goes on Marianne to say, Let me see if I can where I should start.

She said, okay, I have a friend who worked for a middle aged rock star, and he told me a story about an experience that he once had.

He says, I had been complaining that after a certain point in my life, it's hard to get excited about a lot of things that used to seem glamorous and fun.

My friend said, let me tell you about a trip I took with John to Minneapolis.

And I hope you guys listen into this because this is exactly what I'm talking about.

Okay?

So the guy goes on to say, her friend says to her, we were going there to see a Springsteen concert, and John rented a private jet to fly us from New York.

Three of us who worked for him piled into the limo and were driving to the airport when one of John's friends called on the phone.

John exclaimed to him, oh, Ben, you should be here.

We're having so much fun.

We're in a stretch limo and we're going off in a jet to the Springsteen concert.

John was like an excited little boy studying the traveler's guide to find a great restaurant in Minneapolis, excited about this trip as though it were the coolest thing in the world.

The point, of course, is that John has been in hundreds, if not thousands of private jets.

He has been to hundreds, if not thousands of rock concerts, including his own.

And a stretch limo to him is like a normal car to the rest of us.

He travels the world like it's in his own backyard.

And yet here he was studying the travel guide as though Minneapolis were some exotic destination.

Apparently, everywhere John goes is exciting to him because he hasn't lost the capacity for joy.

That's big, guys.

Okay.

She goes on to write, boredom is not his frame of mind.

So then it makes more sense why he's so excited, so exciting to the rest of us.

He generates fun.

He's not waiting for the world to provide it.

He carries it with him.

It's an emotional and mental habit he has cultivated.

My father had it.

I never saw him bored.

And that, I think, is because he wasn't looking for the world to entertain him, which is precisely why it always did.

Okay, and then she just says, hold on, let me see.

She says, the excitement isn't out there.

It's in here, in all of us, when it is what we consciously choose to see.

Right?

And so the first question is, what are we noticing?

Which I already mentioned.

And then the second one is, what are we seeing?

How are we showing up in life?

Like, are we showing up with Delight and joy or are we showing up?

Like, everything's kinda.

And I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to be the person.

I want to be the oh, my God, that's so good person, right?

Like, I want to be excited.

I went to dinner with girlfriends last night and I had this delicious.

It was a seasonal ravioli, but honestly, I took a picture of it.

It was beautiful.

It was these ravioli stuffed with.

Gosh, I'm trying to think what they said.

I can't remember because something had.

It had.

Anyways, let me explain.

It had this beautiful tomato cream sauce on each gorgeous, huge ravioli.

And they were stuffed.

But then on top of it was some sauteed, like arugula in a multitude of things.

And then on top of the raviolis and the sauce was drizzled balsamic.

It was delicious.

It was beautiful, right?

Like, the first thing that I noticed was its beauty.

And that's the point, right?

Like, it delighted me.

I was like, I'm going to spend, you know, I spent a good amount of money on dinner last night because I had wine, I had dinner, I added the scallops.

It was just me.

So I wasn't.

We weren't paying for my husband and I to go to eat.

So I was like, okay, I don't have been out with ladies in a while and, you know, we're at a nice restaurant.

So I spent the extra money.

But the point is, is I.

It was delicious.

But the first thing was my senses were that it was beautiful.

It wasn't just like a heap of pasta.

It was.

Each piece was placed, like, specifically.

And so they were just touching.

They were not overlapping.

It wasn't just like somebody scooped pasta onto a plate.

And yes, when you're at a nicer restaurant and you're paying a bit more money, you hope that the experience is a bit better.

But you see what I'm saying?

Like, I was.

I had capacity for joy to.

To love that moment, to, like, take it in before I just started cutting into it, not thinking about what I was about to eat.

So, you know, that's the thing, is how do we get to be more childlike in our joy and in our wonder?

Because God designed us as creative creatures, right?

He is the master creator.

He made us to use.

Like, first of all, we're human, right?

We have imaginations and we are designed to use our imagination, our creativity, both to problem solve and figure things out, but also to create beautiful things in the world to be part of Beautiful things.

So there's a book called Wonder Switch by.

Let's see.

I don't see the first name, but it's Harris iii.

So anyways, I was just trying to see if it showed me a name.

I'm sorry.

Nope.

It just says, here's the third.

Okay.

But it's.

It's really cool.

But basically it's explaining that so many of us have turned off our wonder switches, meaning that we are going through the world with this switch turned off.

So I want to read you two things from his book.

Wonder is like that light switch.

Having the wonder switch on leads to a healthy form of curiosity that is connected to dreaming, innovation, and creativity.

The Wonder Switch is also.

I'm sorry.

The Wonder switch also controls how you use your imagination.

It doesn't affect whether you use it because your imagination was at work while you sat in the dark.

Wonder simply changes what you use your imagination for.

Everything you want and then some is on the other side of turning the wonder Switch back on.

But what if your wonder switch stays off?

What's the cost?

The stakes are high.

Without Wonder, your life is ruled by cynicism, stress, worry, and anxiety.

Research shows that your lifespan will likely be shorter, too.

Maybe you feel unmoved by this information because you feel apathetic or complacent, but I believe there's still hope.

And then he goes on to say, the reality is, for most, most of us is that life, the art of living it, is an ongoing journey of the wonder switch being turned on in awe.

Then he says, later we settle and we allow the wonder that was crushed in us to crush the wonder of those around us.

So example of this, maybe too simple of an example is I did a talk some years ago, and one of the things I shared, three different things.

But one of the things was that we don't want to put out or try to box in someone's creativity or just their expression.

And this often happens with children.

If I gave you a picture, an outline of a horse, and I gave it to a room full of kids, and I just said, okay, color your horse.

The children will color it multicolored, rainbow red.

They might color outside the lines.

But the tendency towards a lot of adults is to go and guide the kids, if you were helping one of them to say, oh, well, what color is a horse?

Isn't a horse brown or black?

And to say, oh, well, stay inside the lines.

Because we've been conditioned, right?

We've been conditioned out of our creative instinct.

We've been conditioned to do what someone directed us to do, or we've been conditioned to stay inside the lines, both in our drawings and in our expression and in our lives.

The.

Well, I took this path because it was responsible.

Well, my parents pushed me towards this profession because it was a good paying job, it was a respected job.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those things, but what I am saying is, did you actually choose?

Did you envision yourself doing that work?

Or do you dream about, if only things were different, you would want to do something else?

Maybe something with your hands, Maybe you want.

You would rather just have, like, sell stuff at the farmer's market, you know, I don't know, but I think too often we.

We are put in the box more and more from teachers, it could be from parents, from society, from messages that we're told.

And all of that tamps down our instinct to be creative and expressive, to say what it is we really want.

But all of this takes a toll on us.

All of that keeps us from living fully, delighted by this world.

And this isn't to say that we won't go through circumstances or hard things.

It's to say that even in the midst of all that, we can show up and say, God, I am going to have to figure out what you want me to learn here or God, I know that even in the midst of this, this hard, hard thing, even in the midst of that, I know you're here, I know you're present, and I know something good is in the works, whether that's for you or someone else.

And God uses the hard things we go through later, maybe not today, maybe you won't know it today, but eventually he uses the hard things.

Because we might be able to relate to other people, we might be able to hold someone when they're walking through something similar to what we've walked through.

But if we never experienced it ourselves, we're never going to be able to relate in the same way.

I've interviewed pastors before and other people who.

They've walked through, like, severe depression or they've walked through losing, you know, someone or whatever it might be.

But as much as they didn't want to go through the thing, who does?

They were able to have a different level of empathy for the people that they work with or that they counsel or do you see what I'm saying?

So, like, it doesn't mean that we chose it or that God chose that.

It means that all of it does get used for God's purpose, right?

Like the longer purpose I don't mean in this, this moment, because bad things do still happen in the world, right?

In our own lives or hard things.

But the idea today, though, is how do we start chipping away that layer of protection we've put around ourselves so that we won't get hurt, so that someone won't say, what is up with you?

You're acting so weird.

Or do you know what I mean?

We're so many of us, we're so concerned about what other people will think that we are missing so much that God wants for us beyond how we're living.

There is something that I've been wanting to do for a while.

I haven't done it yet, and I've seen that there's other people that have done this.

But, like, I want to get analog, right?

Like, I want to do hand invitations and drop them at some friends houses and invite them over for a backyard, like, a little intimate dinner party.

But, like, in other words, I want to do something that there's unexpected and that would bring us delight, and that isn't just the norm.

Like, I just text them and be like, hey, are you free?

How boring is that?

And, yes, I do that.

But what I'm saying is, how can we show up and it be something different?

I was actually just reading, and in my little book I was telling you about, where I write things down, I have a little bit of notes on a first five devotional that was about being bold.

It says, lord, give me boldness.

It was by Victoria Rioliani.

And basically, the scripture that they were looking at is Acts 4, 29, which says, and now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.

And then she kind of dissects boldness and says the Greek word for it is parisia, which means fearless confidence and cheerful courage.

Or it can also be translated as, like, plainly, right?

Like, like, just speak the word plainly.

But obviously, fearless confidence and cheerful courage.

This is kind of what we're talking about today.

Because what we're saying is, if we don't worry about what the world thinks, if we don't worry about what our parents or anyone else thinks about how we're showing up, right?

That we want to be more childlike in our faith and our wonder and in our love and our releasing and letting go of hurt and letting go of, like, grudges and bitterness, all these things that the Bible tells us to do.

But when we do that, when we show up in fearless confidence and cheerful courage, we show up more Christlike and we show up and we're going to have a bigger, richer, fuller life.

And then she says he still calls each of us to move courageously in community.

The Holy Spirit may be encouraging you to pray boldly for someone to offer hospitality or to lead a Bible study, whatever the calling is.

May we pray for the fearless confidence to follow the Lord in word and deed.

And look, I get today that I'm speaking about wonder and delight and whimsy, which I do think all of us should show up a little more that way.

But at the end of the day, what I'm really saying is what this speaks to, which is let's be confident in showing up in awe of God's creation, in awe of God's people, all people in his image.

Right.

We were all designed in his image.

Let's be in awe of that.

He made us with imaginations and to create.

And so I think at the end of the day though, yes, we're to show up and serve and be people in love that, you know, serve others and we also put forth love in the world.

Yes, it's more than that.

But what I'm saying is.

So yes, if some of this today seems a little bit too much for you, like really I'm going to be more whimsical or more childlike like, no, I'm not.

That's okay.

I'm not saying we all are going to go around and be more like Bob Goff, but some of us are going to be that.

But what I'm saying is, even if the delight is in your heart and you're not outwardly, you know, bolting out in song in the grocery store, like what Mark Batterson says in Chase the Lion.

He says it.

It's so easy to become a, create a creature of habit, isn't it?

We go through the routine day after day and before we know it, we're just going through the motions.

Don't settle, settle for status quo.

For that matter, don't settle down at all ever.

But he's basically saying that we should live our lives in a way that they're, it's worth telling stories about.

In other words, we need to show up, right?

We need to get in the game.

We need to, you know, go after the God given dream.

We need to show up in life.

We need to be willing to be bold and courageous and a little bit whimsical.

So as we wrap up, I just want to share this idea with you.

And I've read several different versions of this recently, but basically it's don't speak into your life what you don't want.

And I did.

I know I did an episode recently a little bit about that idea.

But here's what I didn't share last time.

There's basically this story, or, like I said, different versions of going around where someone goes to dinner and they say the waiter asked them what they want, and they say, well, I don't know, but I know I don't want.

Fill in the blank.

Like, let's just say I don't want a steak.

And the waiter comes back later and asks again.

And then the person basically is like, well, I still haven't decided, but just not the beef.

But I don't know what.

Well, eventually, if you keep telling the waiter what you don't want, especially, let's say if you're in a group of people so he's taking everybody's order and then he's thinking himself, well, I think that person told me what they wanted.

Like, let's imagine this is a restaurant where they don't write it down, right?

They're just remembering it in their thoughts, or they're.

They're just, you know, cataloging.

Cataloging it.

Well, what ends up happening sometimes is the waiter will put in beef for that person because the only thing that they have to connect to the person was the thing that they said they didn't want because they never told them what they actually wanted.

But that is how our life can be sometimes.

We don't want to go through life.

Like I said, the last episode was about mindset, and also my last email is about mindset and about our thoughts and how important they are.

But we want to start focusing on what it is we do want in our lives.

We want to focus on the things we're moving towards instead of speaking, you know, like the thing we don't want.

And so this is much like today's example.

If we show up in the world, delighted.

If we show up in the world, like, you know what?

Today's going to be a good day.

It doesn't mean it will be without bumps or without getting stuck in traffic.

But what it does mean is, you know what?

But I can appreciate that if I'm stuck in traffic, maybe I'll finish listening to a podcast or an audiobook, or maybe I have a great conversation with, you know, my.

If I'm picking my kid up.

I mean, mine are older, so I'm not having to do that.

But you see what I'm saying?

So, like, it's how we start looking at our life.

It's how we start looking at what's around us.

It's how we start framing what it is.

For instance, one of our sons just moved away.

I've talked about that a little bit.

And he just got his first, like, real job after college.

And of course, it's sad, because he's a lot further than I ever expected any of my kids to be, at least right now.

But I waited about a month, or just a little bit over a month before I started cleaning up his room.

Because if I'm being honest, he only packed, like, the current things he wanted.

He didn't pack, you know, all the stuff, which is fine, but it was a disaster.

His room was a disaster.

So I went through everything.

I got rid of stuff that wouldn't fit him or work anymore.

And then I, you know, put his stuff all in bins, and now I've made it into a room.

If he comes home, it looks nice and tidy, or if, you know, other people come.

It's a.

It's a guest room again, so.

But it was like, honestly, when I was going in there before, it was so defeating because I was just like, ugh, this room is so overwhelming.

Oh, this room is terrible.

I mean, it was not usable, but little by little, I just said, you know what?

No, this week I'm gonna.

I'm gonna organize it.

So I did, and it looked so much better.

But we hadn't painted that wall in many, many years.

And so it really needed new paint, and it needed a.

A different color, because it's been that since the kids were little.

So we painted it.

And I get that this might seem like I'm kind of going off, you know, in some other direction, but my point was, instead of just, like, letting it be a thorn in my side, I was like, you know what?

I want it to be xyz.

And it wasn't there yet.

But I didn't keep saying to myself, like, oh, I'm never going to get through this stuff.

This room's never going to look good.

I just was like, you know what?

I need to organize everything and clean the room up.

So I did it, and then I was like, okay, it needs to be painted.

So then I went and bought the paint, and then I'm.

We planned a night to paint.

So my point is, I just took action, right?

I showed up instead of hemming and hauling about.

Literally, what a disaster.

I mean, it looked like a tornado had gone off in there of just stuff.

It was crazy.

But that's my point is like, how do we show up in our lives like that?

Like, just tackle the thing or see the upside in the thing.

And I'm not saying sugarcoat everything or, or wear rose colored glasses.

That's not the point.

But don't focus so much on that you got a splinter that you, you don't actually go take the splinter out of your hand or you don't realize, oh, well, it'll heal, right?

Like, go to the future of.

Yes, okay, maybe you got a splinter in your finger, but it's not for forever, you know what I'm saying?

So that's what I'm trying to get at is let's show up differently in our lives.

Let's stop being so serious.

Because honestly, what are we gaining from that?

We don't need to be other people's judge.

What people need more of is they need love and they need acceptance and grace.

And honestly, they need a little bit more delight and fun in their lives as we do, as our kids do.

Most of our kids already know, oh, if I, if I don't toe the line, oh, I'm going to get in trouble.

And I'm not saying that they're not right.

I mean, it depends what it is, but there's a place for, like, what is your kid going to remember?

Well, let's let them remember something lovely in the good and the fun memories.

I remember reading something years ago and it was a story that basically I think the mom asked her kids when they were grown, like, oh, you know, what's like a memory or whatever that you remember?

And one of the things that the son said, the grown son now to the mom was, you know, when I was home and I didn't feel well, you would, I think, set up in the dining room like a little meal for him when he felt better, you know, and he and she made it special.

But in other words, that's like delighting.

Like, use your china on a Tuesday, invite your friend over for no reason at all.

Like, go explore another town.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Like, just go put your feet in the sand because you want to, not because it's convenient.

Make what tastes delicious even though you're like, you know what, maybe it's not good for my waistline.

And I'm not saying eat it every night, but do things you enjoy because when you show up joyful in the world, it's apparent, it's obvious.

It literally exudes out of you from the inside out.

And that is what I'M trying to say today to your, to you and to myself is let's show up and be someone more like that.

All right, so if you haven't already, I would love for you to go to my website, KristinFitch.com, go to my workbooks page, and you can grab and grab one of my free workbooks.

There's three in particular that I'm thinking of that you might enjoy if this repos, if this episode resonated with you.

The first one is Reignite your passion Workbook.

The second is Joy Camp Summer, but it's really you can do it anytime.

It was just called that for the summer, but it's really just a Weekly.

There's like 10 different areas where you can literally put more joy into your life by these little things that you can do, which is it's really great and it's a really good visual reminder, so I think you'd love that.

And the third is, if you haven't grabbed it already, there's Joyful Living Devotional.

So if you just want to get, you know, in the word a little bit more and have just a little bit of time to write down some things in that workbook or that devotional, that's a great one, too.

So go over, grab those.

And then you'll also get my Faith Friday emails, which I send most weeks as well.

So as usual, I can't wait to see you back here next week, and I hope you have a beautiful week.

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.