0:06
Hello you guys welcome back to another episode of here now podcast Today’s a very special one because not only do we have a very special guest, but we have a very fun announcement to tell you guys. So, let’s just get right into the episode because I’m super excited to tell you that my mom is my very first guest on my podcast Say hi mom. Hey there, we are super excited because not only have I never had a guest on, I get to do it with my mom for the very first time and we get to be in the same room recording together. So, I guess we’re just going to do an interview style we really don’t know what we’re doing. Do we
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have no idea. No idea at all. So you know I don’t know what we’re doing.
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Well, I figured we just do like a little conversation just kind of get to know us and. Yeah, so I guess
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why don’t we just start off by telling you, your name, first of all, I’m Heather Labatt No. Yes. And I’m Sophia as always.
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This is my mom has been for 20 years almost almost 20 years, crazy, and we’ve been through a lot together for short. And the cool thing is that we are both writers in the digital space, and my mom also has a blog called
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House of love and laughter, which can also be found at Heather labella calm as well.
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Mm hmm links will be down below so you guys can check that out I’ve talked about it a lot on this and shared a lot of posts on my Instagram. But it’s like super cool to have somebody to like relate to, in the digital space and you can also find her on Instagram at House of love and laughter blog. Um, so yeah I guess we can just jump right into the questions and just kind of have a good old conversation. So, the first thing that I wanted to talk about was hearing loss because not only have. Has she raised me with hearing loss but she was also the daughter of somebody who had hearing loss as well. So what was it like to kind of have this like double life of being a mom, and also being a daughter of people with hearing loss.
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So, my mom started to lose her hearing, probably around the time I was 10 or so. And, at least that’s when she identified herself as losing hearing, and for me as a child, I often had to be her ears, when we would do things over the years, when we would be in the supermarket or at a store and I began to understand that she wasn’t hearing things as easily when people would ask her things maybe at a register at a store, and actually even in time started to have to make phone calls for appointments for her for the doctor or if we needed to do any kind of on the telephone kind of conversations, this is before she had a closed caption phone, which we got later in life for her. After you needed 100 we discovered how we could have access to one of those. So it was, it was actually frustrating for me because I didn’t understand why she didn’t want to advocate, excuse me advocate for herself. And maybe that’s probably why I became a little bit more aware of how we need to advocate for you and teach you how to advocate for yourself. And of course in the interim of my being a child and being a mom, I was also a teacher, and was getting my master’s in special ed. And one of the places that I found. I loved the most was working with people who needed some sort of assistive technology and here’s the irony that I ended up knowing how to advocate a lot more for you while you weren’t in the public school system. And I’m sure that they would have done what they needed to do for you. We kept you in a faith based school, because that’s where we felt that would be the best for you and over time I found that that wasn’t always the best environment. But we just kept advocating over the years and what we needed to get done we had audiologists come into our school we had teachers. Receive credits accreditation. Continuing I you know credits for a friend who was teaching at a school of the Deaf to come in and teach the teachers. So we did all kinds of things including when you were over the year starting losing your hearing aid. Each year we would participate in this team. That would help raise funds and awareness for the hospital where you were hearing loss was managed. So, those types of things just kept making you more about others versus yourself and helping you to look outside of yourself and not have this be a disability, rather than a place where you could take your as we always call it gift of hearing loss, and turn it into something that would help others and in the end and in some ways that’s what you’re doing with this now. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t it was. Every doctor’s appointment in the beginning we had maybe every six weeks or so, you. You and I both I mean I know for sure I would end up with migraines as we were approaching those times because the fact that every time we would go, your hearing loss would, you know, would be less than less each time you’re hearing loss. I’m actually your
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hearing would be lost. I’m more and more right
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yeah that’s
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just decline every time we will go back and there was like never an appointment that there wasn’t some sort of change whether it was actual volume loss or clarity, or anything. Yeah, that was, that was a wild ride for sure. And, you know, at this point, like, I have no hearing laughs there’s nothing more to expect from losing it anymore, but because I got cochlear implants What was it like to hear the news that you would need and that I would need an implant, or.
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So that started earlier on, then actually when it occurred. And what does that mean that means that, um, when we were going through some appointments and we thought you were at a place where you’re sort of your status was, what they call status quo like things were okay and you were, you know where we were being managed and just by the lack of communication I’ll just leave it there because you know we things just changed a little bit dramatically at that time we, we were at an appointment and then the next thing I know, the audiologist that we love to carry you through the very beginning stages of this time. She suggested that we start to research it a bit, and then as we did it turned out that without her knowing the people that helped us with the cochlear implant and scheduled a surgery, that was to be, you know, within six months, of course. I remember the very first appointment that we went to with this cochlear implant coordinator I will call her She. She went through, you know, an hour of all this conversation and, you know, blah blah blah and haircare now we have to choose what kind of cochlear implant and to get information from the medical perspective is always hard because nobody wants to make that decision for you as no one should right it’s something you have to really decide what this type of cochlear implant or this manufacturer this what the different gifts of each of those manufacturers would be. And I remember the very, very first questions she asked us after she went through all this, basically, throwing up I will say, of information towards to my work. That’s not cool enough to know that work. I remember looking at your dad and, and we were just, I guess started because only a couple like two weeks before we were thought everything was just sort of static, you know like everything’s okay and we’re managing along, which is never the case because it was like a couple decibels each time you went and we knew that progressive hearing loss was the word which means that it’s going to progress into nothing. At some point, right and we were not ready for a cochlear implant, but the first question she asked was, do you have any questions. Right. And I said, and I started to cry like I do sometimes, and I remember saying, Why am I, or I remember asking her Is this normal for me to be so emotional. And of course, she gave me tissues. And she herself had a child that had cochlear implants and I think they were later in life that he received his two different you know two different appointments. At the time we weren’t sure if you were going to have one or two at the same time. Ironically, she wanted to schedule it for your birthday because you’re around Christmas well it’ll be a perfect time and of course my take was we’re not doing this and timing is going to be everything. Yeah.
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And then we ended up going to that.
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Walk in the spring that we did where we raise money, having the schedule for December coming at us. Mm hmm. Actually we moved it to November, right, because we like there’s no way we’re doing this for your birthday. And while it’s a gift. It was also the weight of having the surgery and just. Anyway, so we went to the walk and we saw the audiologist here or knowing that we’re having this implant, and I had tried to speak to a few moms that had children with implants and I just felt super strong that it wasn’t the right time window you know the next two weeks we go back for an appointment. Our audiologist has no idea that scheduled surgery was for November, and we were talking with her at this appointment for your hearing loss, and she was not happy, because how can the cat How can your medical specialist not even now yeah so needless to say that was a canceled appointment, but we had all the steps because when you get a cochlear implant surgery, it’s not just this hey you’re putting a surgery on and it becomes this team approach, and the speech therapist actually that we worked with gave us a little time she said I think Sophia is quite honestly doing well enough to get through where she doesn’t need it and that I think that was the greatest gift. Our dear friend Amy absolutely hopefully me gets to hear the show now I adore her, even though she’s not in our area anymore. She’s just was gold for us. Absolutely. And that was one of the greatest gifts for us, even though we had this one particular person with his cochlear implant coordinator, that turned out to not be so positive. All of the other people that we surrounded ourselves with during that time were just amazing people that was one of the reasons we would always say, your gift of hearing losses, how would we have ever met these people if we didn’t have this. Yeah, it’s just the gift of struggling right yeah times right
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yeah I mean like that would be, I think that’s hard for a lot of people to hear like Why, what’s the gift and struggling and we talk about that a lot from the faith perspective. But you’re so right like we wouldn’t have met all the people that we do on Facebook and even in person, and there’s just so many connections that God has placed in our life, that without hearing loss like that wouldn’t have been the case at all. So that was all when I was in sixth grade right.
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That was like sixth grade Yes. And so, as the eighth grade year came in, you were having a lot of struggles academically in seventh grade just trying to get the support you needed, and you know everyone doing the best they could. We, you know, there’s no shame in any of this, it’s just now trying to get people to help, where they need to. But eighth grade was coming you knew you were starting High School and all of the pieces were lined up where whenever we needed to make the decision, it was time. And so, you asked about how was that for me knowing that you would have an implant. I remember in sixth grade starting to look up. What does it sound like to have a color. Well that’s kind of funny because how do people know what that sounds like because unless they’ve been someone without sound, or with sound and then, which you weren’t you were somebody who had something. And then it was taken away
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and I think like, very few that would like not have been deaf from birth, that got an implant right so
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babies don’t have any understanding of what sound was like before. Yeah, you had an understanding as you were a dancer and you played music musical instruments and ya know the flute you loved music I mean there were so many things that I think weighed on me thinking how, how is this going to play out for you. Mm hmm. And I remember hearing that very first simulation of what a hearing loss or, I’m sorry what cochlear implant sounds like, yeah, which I think you should put that
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down yeah check in the show notes for that too. It’s pretty fascinating.
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And those things scared me thinking how but but the fact is is, does it scare you more than having no sound. Yeah, and I know there’s some debate inside of the world of hearing loss and everyone needs to do what is right for their family, and, to be quite honest, I think the greatest gift and waiting was that we gave you the choice because in your body. It was your. It was your life to be lived. And over time, we tried to make you have the ability to decide things for yourself and to have access to things, you know, over time, that would allow you to improve. You know your life in hearing loss world. Yeah, and that included, you know, you need to go in there and you need to write letters to teachers, you need to email your teachers, and yes, mama bear had to step in. Yeah, absolutely. From the teacher perspective, I would want the parents to teach me things I’ll remember, I’ll never forget one of the teachers that you had starting High School, who was a great gift when you had organized a meeting for your freshman year of high school in a school that didn’t turn out to be the right place for you but in the beginning where they all gathered and the guidance counselor was a huge asset for you, but this one teacher said wow you’re teaching me so much what you know and I remember at that meeting getting emotional thinking, wow, for the first time somebody’s looking at you for what you can teach them. I mean that’s just such a humble approach for parents who struggle with any kind of child who has a ability that’s different than others.
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And there’s so many kids as a special ed teacher there’s so many things that people struggle with right
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yeah I mean it’s crazy that like I even did a thesis paper in junior year of high school. On the impact of kids being in a mainstream school with disability is and the amount of people that are not receiving the support that they could get or, you know, need to get is just through the roof. Yes, and it’s like it’s, it’s kind of sad, but that’s where the education piece like you say comes in, and the advocacy for yourself and kind of having that pair, like I did step in for you when you couldn’t like use your own voice to speak up because I was young, like I didn’t start losing my hearing I was eight, and even through middle school when I probably could have spoken up, it was all still new to me. And so that’s where the piece of you having a mom with hearing loss, you kind of knew that journey going into having a kid with hearing loss to,
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sure, probably made it easier and more difficult. Yes, I saw the words of it for people, you know, because you know, in so many ways operate out of our wounds. So, as a wound for men, so probably made me become a little more fierce, in a way, so did the point of being a teacher, because I worked with students that were. I don’t even know what the proper term is today but they were more severe and they needed life skills and they couldn’t even be a voice for themselves but yeah, I always admired the moms that would come in and they would, you know, want to speak up for their kids because their kids needed what they needed. And the world is I genuinely believe that, even the professionals that we encountered that were not always doing exactly what we had needed them to do did what they could to try their best. Yeah, yeah. And the ones that often said, I’ll do whatever I can. Even if it doesn’t work right like we’re never going to be perfect that that humility is where I think there’s always room for growth and people can always find that they’re accepted. And so,
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yeah. It worked. It worked. I mean, we got through many schools, many years of schooling, and even like getting to college, and I talked a lot about that in the past like couple months and stuff. If of having to leave a college after my first week, because of not having any accommodation. So, from like a parent’s perspective, what was it like, because I’ve had to make that decision on my own like I consulted you guys but the actual doing of it was kind of on me. So what was it like to kind of process through all of that me coming home and taking the semester off.
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So
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I think that I saw red flags going into it that
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as again as a parent, and as a professional that there were some places where things could have been a bit different.
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For
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for your experience to know that you would have had this you know the support that you needed. I do think that if
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if certain things were set in place, from the beginning, like academically for you. Your experience could have been could have been so much different. Okay, obviously that makes a lot of sense but what, what does that mean, sometimes things are not going to go well, right and and I think there were definitely some responses that I received that why didn’t you let her try harder or why didn’t you, of course, but after this is now freshman year in college. We’ve already had, you go through three years of, I’m sorry three different school experiences in high school. So, and then you know struggles through elementary school I think at that point we were fully understanding that it was not set up for success. It was set up for failure, meaning we had met with, you know, the disability coordinator and things were promised, then you moved in and even just the physical layout of your room was not set up for safety. Yeah, in many areas, including the bathroom which, you know, there’s there’s obviously a dignity issue in there where you’re in the shower and you can’t hear and things were asked, and they were promised and then they didn’t get met and. So from the parent side of course my concern is your safety and safety and a fire, experience, which the school had a year before, and safety from the personal dignity space. But when you made the decision, you would ask for us to help make the decision for you but we couldn’t do that I would never be a fair thing for us to unless absolutely there was, you know, just a situation where I would have to pull the plug but I think that, you know, you knew what you needed to do. And, you know your dad and I were walking that night because we were just trying to process it all and you sent me a letter of how you were going to withdraw from the school and quoting the Americans with Disability Act, all the way up to the president of the school which obviously we taught you how to be an advocate. Yeah, and it broke my heart because we were very excited for you to venture out into the world. But again, we learned from these things and I think you did, and was I afraid of you taking time off. Absolutely not. We did try to find a place for you to go right away as you left that. But that was there. We that that situation we found out was becoming more of us forcing a situation that was because we believe that that was the inside of the box such decision. We have to go to school now. Yeah, yeah, until the one day we were on our way to drive to the school to make that deposit of a local college. And I remember looking at you thinking, Okay, this is not gonna go well. Yeah, and this was not my decision to make it was yours and I just knew with the look of despair on your face, I, and this is where parenting. Humility comes in that our things are not always about us, they’re about the kids that we’re raising to find the voice inside of them and if I didn’t listen to you. Mm hmm. What kind of parent Am I if I’m not listening to what your needs are and what your where your heart is at that moment and you were dealing with some pretty big things. And some of that is really that one life slowed down a little bit, you needed to just heal from all of the all the other years of people saying no to you. Yeah, and not being willing to help you where you needed to be.
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Yeah, so I finally finally had to say yes to myself, you had to say yes to yourself, and kind of take that time off, and heal and process and kind of let things fall into place, how they needed to be right. And I feel like without that like I obviously wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you and. And the cool thing is is that after taking a semester off we both decided to go back to school at the same place. So we got to school in the same school, same semester and kind of experience college together, you know, for the first time in what 25 years for you, and
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holy moly, middle of a pandemic.
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That was for sure tough, but yeah like I just feel like things kind of worked out in a way that they were supposed to all along, I mean just cut into that, in the moment. And I’m obviously forever grateful. I love genuinely where I am, and to be in a school that has faith. At its core, and I’m sure you feel the same way, it’s just getting to experience that. Just wholehearted like love for God and for for faith in all things theology, which was going to be my next question was about faith it’s obviously very rooted in both of our writings, but more, more so yours and mine. So what what’s, what’s it like to write from a place of faith, given your own faith journey from the past.
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What’s it like to write about faith. Sometimes I feel like I need to stop, always writing about. Yeah, I don’t mean that to be funny. Yeah, I guess I’ve always written about faith in my journals forever. Um, I feel like after taking a theology classes that I’m taking. I want to write more, but I also don’t want to write in a place that overwhelms people from a theological doctrinal approach, so it’s sometimes I have to scale it back Yeah. Because I’m not writing an academic paper on my blog, right. So, I think that was a challenge all through the spring when I was writing I felt like I sometimes was, am I writing for the paper that I need to write or am I writing on a blog. Yeah, right, that way. Excuse me, so I grew up in a home where my mom talked about God and she prayed and she read the Bible. She. I guess my dad believed in God, he talked about him but he didn’t go to church, and there’s no place of judgment here it’s just information, share. When I was little, we had a little school that would or, I’m sorry, a little church that was real close to us that we could walk to and I wanted to go, and we found a way to get there and try to go to whatever little Bible classes during the week, you know, some of it was I just sometimes wanted to get out of the house and find the world, and see where I needed to be. I believe that kind of had a little bit of a god moment and that 10 years old is when I at a baptist church I wanted to be baptized because I was not as an infant or as a child. And then, about four years later I started Catholic. Girls School for just the three years of high school, and it changed things because I began to see how I wanted to
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become Catholic and
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and faith was important, and I really if you look back in all of my journals, it was definitely the will of God and everything in decisions, not every time. Lord knows. I got some confessions confession. But, and I looked at families around me that I treasure and the way that their family walked in faith was foundational, and. And even today when I look at certain families I could name a couple of them right now but I won’t call them out but we’ll send this to them and just let them know, this is about them and a little gift to them that their families, lose faith, and if it’s rooted deeply, then I think challenges in life become easier to to navigate. Right. Yeah, and I think that maybe that was why, in the year that you had your first cochlear implant. Mm hmm. I, same day I’m walking through the hospital with a ruptured two ligaments ruptured in my foot.
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God bless us.
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We were a mess. Oh yeah, in our in our, in our I say ours if it was my hospital room to the hospital room we were in was, you know, lavender and frankincense up and and the nurses would come in and say why does it smell so good in here. We’re working through our essential oil love starting weight before that. But yeah, we were really mixing up our game then. And then at the end of that six months. We thought things were ready to just kind of change, turn, turn a different page because you were now homeschooling for that, that semester because we moved you out of that school. And, or your sister fell and broke her jaw. So there we are seven more weeks of yeah otter craziness, and frankincense on her face and COPPA eba and by the law, but seriously and faith. I mean, yeah, yeah. How else do you get through. Yeah. And then,
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yeah, right. What would it have been like, if we didn’t have faith, absolutely, cuz he just like I feel like, yeah, we would not have had been able to get through that any other way, because just the outreach of people praying for us and asking for prayers and stuff it just, it made a world of difference for us. And if we can tell you all the little God winks as people call them. Yeah, just things along the way.
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Just the novena for. Oh yeah, for you. That, that was started and finished exactly on the day with the support of so many amazing people and just even with Olivia’s falling and breaking her jaw and, you know, how when she fell and she was kind of out of it, she remembers seeing an angel say to her, I, you know, how do you explain this to a kid that now you’re going to be wired shot for seven weeks, you’re not going to be able to eat like normal and this is the kid who loves to cook and loves to eat, especially steak especially. Yeah, I remember her saying she woke up a couple days, you know after the surgery that she had her three hour surgery saying, I remember seeing an angel saying to me God saved me from something bigger. That, how do you not just lean into sometimes the struggles are not what we want. But they turn out to be something that brings
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great gift. Absolutely, it’s, yeah, that was a wild ride for sure. That was a crazy year. But, I mean, I feel like even. Up until now, like, even through all this pandemic time as we call it, like what it’s like. There’s no other way to live, other than just being faithful and kind of just trusting in the planet today. And, yeah, it’s just it’s crazy because our wild minds could go in all these different places, because it just is such a human thing to doubt. And just like not trust and fear and fear for sure that’s been, that’s been a big, big thing that we’re seeing is just the fear, and just not living and in hope right and in peace and all those other words that go with that.
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And certainly doesn’t mean that we’re perfect on any of those things, because we’ve kind of lost her mind a little bit yesterday mom here. No, but just for a moment and then you know humility comes in and says, okay, we know what’s happening here this is where the enemy steps in and wants to try and take our peace. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
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Yeah, I know. It’s crazy so I’m glad that you talked about your faith journey as well so now we’re, we’re Catholic people. Gotta love that. But it’s cool because you have kind of both experiences of seeing like the Catholic from the outside but now actually living it as well. So I guess like what are some of your favorite aspects of being Catholic,
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so many good ones. Feel like
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the sacramental life embraces that it brings you know, going to, you know, the Eucharist. You know, going to mass which obviously has been a little bit trickier now for the last few months with not being able to have the access that we would normally have to it and I definitely think that that has been a challenge. Especially given. You know the, this time two years ago when my dad was sick we were going to mass regularly. During the week even.
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And
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I think that it’s it’s when when there’s so much heaviness in the world. For me, even going to adoration and sitting in church, you know, in the presence of Jesus, it just feels a little bit more like a place where I can find some peace, and it’s been a challenge to not have that, you know, even though we can go back now but it’s sort of just still a little bit different, you know, and obviously the things happening surrounding the church, and some of the sad things happening with some of the churches burning down and statues being.
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What’s the word but just destroyed
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made on clean I think in some ways there’s just been sad. One of my favorite things I love about the Catholic faith is the saints, and I quote them often. I think the thing that I didn’t know there’s two things and of course Mary, obviously our lesson mother, and being Baptist Protestant, whatever, you know line of thinking. I think I was always, you know, taught differently about Mary. And it’s, you know, I can’t sit here and give you the apologetics one at all, Sophia could do it I’m still learning. But I can say that she was Jesus’s mother. Yeah. And, you know, we don’t idolize we revere her, and we’re grateful for the human of who she was. And it’s just without, it’s just so beautiful. I really is and the saints and what we can learn from them, and the beauty of it is so many of the saints, were so many imperfect humans and. And the beauty that they teach us, you know we’re not idolizing them where you learn from them. Yeah, yeah, they’re saints on earth that we see today that I think the same about but they haven’t just been labeled as a official saint.
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Yeah, yeah, I mean they’re just our role models, because they were just like us and yet they made a big event, for sure. That’s awesome. I think the saints are super cool because they drop these little things in your life sometimes and st st stocking as we call it. Yeah, for sure yeah I just think the relationship with those people. It’s kind of just like that middle ground person between you and God, and especially their patient of something, you know, St. Francis desales is the teacher’s aide of hearing loss and he would drop little things around times of my surgery and just all these all these really really cool thing so that’s awesome, I, I think being Catholic is super cool. And
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you just have to have the eyes to see it I think and sometimes we don’t really realize, you know, it’s just God winks at the same like brother, they’re spiritual brothers and sisters to us right yeah,
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absolutely. So that’s, that’s super cool. I think I’m trying to see our notes if there’s anything else
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that I want to cover. But I guess I’m
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just what are you up to, what are you up to now, what are you working on.
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Partly I’m working on trying to figure out what your sisters are going to be doing for homeschools curriculum come September. Mm hmm. So in the midst of all of the craziness over the last few years, one of the reasons we
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decided to homeschool was because they needed to just reset. Yeah,
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I guess, as,
35:09
especially for Isabel the youngest. She came into this world and, you know, and in only a few months later was the beginning of your hearing loss journey so this these kiddos have always been, you know, carseat carried you know stroller with Legos under it snacks and our sitting in the Children’s Hospital that we, you know, went to frequently. And it’s it’s a big thing for kids to have siblings that go through journeys like that, were they, and I think Billy, I believe, part of the reason why you the four of you are so closest because you’ve managed life that way and having to be a little more compassionate for each other and recognizing that, you know, sometimes, unfortunately, one child yourself needed a little bit extra, and likewise when Olivia fell and broke her jaw, she needed a little extra yeah and when he in would struggle with some of the things that he had going on same thing and, yeah. Same for Isabel. And I think some of that hit them. After all of it was peaceful. Yeah, you had your second surgery, two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. In May, and then my dad had his heart attack. And then, in and out of the hospital for 12 weeks and then this coming. 17th will be two years that he passed away, and while you were managing your IT Training you’re hearing in the with the new cochlear implant on the other side. We were working through spending a lot of time at the hospital or at least I was back and forth, and also supporting my mom who has MS, and my family with, you know, just trying to get through those days, unfortunately that were very difficult. And of course, as far as kids came along. Your dad did the best he could while he also worked, and yeah, I think that once that all calmed down and you know that first six months after he passed away and we did all this stuff to get my mom settled in her independent care and their house sold and cleaned out and all those things that you step back and go whoa what were the last two years ago. Yeah, for sure. I think, Olivia and Isabel just needed to step away from school, and just take a rest. That doesn’t mean that we didn’t do schoolwork. That just means that we did it on a more peaceful timeframe. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, then they wanted to do stay home that was for half a semester last year, and then this past year they chose to stay home for one more year, and we questioned it back and forth about many things and, and some of the gifts that came out of it, even with this time of the great pause the pandemic time. Yeah, we see that all the things that we worried about and questioned as to whether or not we should go back, kind of got canceled and and changed and altered and whatever so it just goes to show you that we are not in control, and we can’t stress about and worry about things that are out of our control. And sometimes making your world smaller, and not making your worries about things of the world. We talk about that a lot. We do things of the world that that distract us from doing the good that we can do as humans in the way that God created us to be. And
38:44
we can
38:47
just take a break and that’s what they did again this year and now we’re fairly certain with things being still not certain for September, we’re probably going to stay home and it’s just a matter of getting all the curriculum together. Yeah, so that’s one thing that’s number one. Number two, I’m still blogging intermittently, yeah. As much as I can write long form. I do I write a lot every day on, I write a lot I’m trying to write a book. And I’m, I write on Instagram, a couple times a week, I go through spurts where I do it for many days. This is my world. And then I take a break because I need rest. Just my brain works I can be fired up for days and have all kinds of great things as a creative. Yeah. And then I need to rest because I my creative brain is always going.
39:42
It’s always on.
39:43
It’s always on you know, I do it because if I’m not creating by writing as I’m looking at this piece of furniture near here we’re going to go finish painting. I’m painting, or I’m decorating or I’m hosting small groups right now very small groups of very few people that come over but we like to have people in our house.
Okay, let me say, so
just talking about creating. And then, saying the other two things I’m working on are a devotional oh yeah that one that would be for kids younger, probably middle school to high school age to companion with one for moms, and I’m working on that now, and I’m also working on this series called love lives here which I began to
spark, I guess, over
time, guess the, maybe in May, and then some, you know, harder times hit the world and I felt like I needed to just step back and write, rather than share at that time. And so, when the time is right, it will come together and you’ll be able to find that on my website there’s a spot where you can sign up for the love lives here series. And the idea behind that is, what do you do to foster love in your heart. But it starts at home, right. So, the things that you do to set your heart from a place of love, so that you can see others the way that God sees others. Hmm. And when we start to look at people that way and start to look at life from that set of eyes, it actually makes us see people with a little bit more compassion and a little bit more of understanding that it’s it’s a really hard thing to do but when you look at people from their wounds, you know. Oh, and that and not everybody’s able to do that right because everybody comes from a different makeup of their personality and their temperament right. Some people can. They’re very. I don’t want to get, I don’t want to get psychological I feel some of us are deep feelers and when you can see things from that perspective, and you can set that out in the world, so that others can feel that it makes it easier to see others, and both sides of a story right yeah and all sides of the story, if you will, and it’s it’s a good way to set your place in your home, you know, before you leave your house before you get up in the morning when you, you know, start your day. How am I seeing others the way that God sees them whenever I have a challenge with something or somebody. My best way to think about that is God helped me to see them the way that you do. Yeah, because we. It’s not easy for us to do that because we come out with, well they believe this they believe this or they’re well, let’s look at it from all sides, you know and maybe it helps us to see things in a more kind of compassionate way. Yeah,
yeah. Cuz no matter what they’re still children’s God, we all have that one thing in common, you know, whether they’re on the other side of the world or they believe something different like we’re all, we’re all united in that one right belief that they’re all children of God, they’re all fearfully and wonderfully made. So,
yeah,
I think that’s all the questions that I have, is there anything else you want to talk about while we’re here. No, I mean I’m sure you’ll be back for sure you’ll be back. We’re not going anywhere.
But if there’s anything off, you want to cover so anything else you
have to say,
No, thanks. So I mean, the only thing is make sure you check out all the links that we have down below. We’ll link the implant simulation thing and all of your links, they’re always on there anyway but Right, well make sure they’re bolded this time. But yeah, make sure you guys come over and join our Psalm 139 14 ministries Facebook group. It’s a place where you guys can have a conversation like we just did, and connect and see here, and love the Lord, as we say. So I guess without further ado, this is probably the longest episode I’ve ever had. I’m so sorry. No, I love it and it’s the first guest interview that I’ve had, which is amazing, so be on the lookout in the future for more surprise guests coming on. So thank you guys so much for listening. Thank you mom for coming on and just chatting about everything. As we usually do anyway.
Yeah, other stations around the table,
yeah Oh yeah, as we said breaking bread together breaking bread. Yeah. So thank you guys so much for listening. And I guess we’ll see you guys back next week. Thank you, my friend,
Bye!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai