Transcript
Speaker: The following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production. Christianity has become known for judgy people, strange words, ancient stories, confusing rules, and a members -only mindset. This is why I stayed away from the church for so long, but it's not supposed to be that way. I'm Jill Devine, a former radio personality with three tattoos, a love for a good tequila, and who's never read the entire Bible.
Speaker: Yet here I am hosting a podcast about faith. The Normal Goes Along Way podcast is your home for real conversations with real people using real language about how faith and real life intersect. Welcome to the conversation.
Speaker: Hi there, I'm Jill Levine and I want to thank you for tuning into this episode. It's going to be a little different than past episodes. It's kind of a very short and sweet episode to set up what I hope will be very interesting for you in our next episodes that we will be launching.
Speaker: So I've been thinking a lot about the next generation conversations that we had, not only with Hannah Lang, and of course I was very intrigued by that conversation with her because I have a three and a five -year -old. But then going in with Ryan Finler and talking about middle and high school students, you can hear all of these episodes. They are all available right now for you wherever you'd like to listen to this podcast.
Speaker: What I realized, and Ryan and I just talked about this in our most recent episode, the high schoolers blew me away. And I started thinking about how something that I always say to myself with work and with my personal life is you can never have too many tools in your toolbox. And some people might think, well,
Speaker: If you have too many tools, it can be overwhelming and why try to get a tool for the future that you don't need right now. And I'm just one of those people that like to soak it all in and be prepared. So with that, I started thinking about parenting and specifically parenting through a faith lens.
Speaker: And how do you do that? I mean, you can't just always say, well, it's okay because God's got you. Or can you? I think that I know for me, and again, I'm
Speaker: an adult that has a lot of questions about faith and a lot of questions about scripture, and I know I'm not alone, but I know for me, I don't necessarily feel this complete comfort when someone says, don't worry, give it to God. God's got this, turn to God.
Speaker: That's a practice that I am trying and try to do daily with prayer and devotion and scripture. But I can't necessarily say that that always helps me. But then I think about parenting. And, you know, if my child comes to me with something,
Speaker: I don't think that it's necessarily always the answer to say it's okay because God's got you. I don't know if that makes sense. That's how I'm feeling. And that's what I was trying to explain to some coworkers. And we were talking through it like, okay, wait a minute. This is perfect conversation to back up the next generation conversations that we had, all those episodes.
Speaker: And it started the wheels turning and it was like, okay, well, wait a minute. We need to have some parenting episodes, like how you navigate.
Speaker: hard questions, how you navigate just general life transitions, you know, potty training to asking why people die to making tough decisions about going away to college or do I go to college? And it's like, wait a minute. Now, how do I add the faith component in those conversations? And I don't know.
Speaker: Like besides saying, God's got you, and I just admitted to you that that is not something that makes me feel entirely comforted. What do I do? What do I say? I'm guessing that, and I will ask people like Hannah and Laura, I'm guessing it's okay to not talk about God all the time. I'm not sure.
Speaker: I'm just feeling that this is something that needs to be discussed. I'm totally rambling. That's why we're going to keep it short because I could keep rambling on and on and on and on and on.
Speaker: I just feel like this is something that parents may not be equipped with, including myself. How do you have the tough conversations through a faith lens? How do you have just everyday normal conversations through a faith lens? I don't know, and that's what I want to find out. And I'm also asking you, like, what are your questions? What do you wanna know as a parent? I mean, if you,
Speaker: have a great suggestion on how you talk about death with your child, how you talk about sex with your child, how you talk about dating with your child, how you talk about kindness with your child and you do it through the faith lens, let me know. Or if you're like me and you think, how do I have a conversation about
Speaker: Hmm. I don't know bullying or a conversation about
Speaker: being on the playground and being alone and wanting to make friends and how you do that and then you also bring in your faith because that's super important to you, please tell me. I, again, I want all the tools in my toolbox. I wanna hear what you have to say. I wanna know what your questions are because I'm sure they're my same questions or they're questions I haven't thought of, but I definitely wanna know. And you can get those questions
Speaker: or comments to me, you can email me directly hello at gildavine .com. You can go to normalgoasalongway .com. You can go to Instagram or Facebook at normalgoasalongway. Say something through there. You can remain anonymous. You cannot remain anonymous. It's up to you. I just wanna hear from you. I also just want to make sure that
Speaker: I'm equipping myself with as much as I possibly can to help my kids and to help them know and understand how much they are loved by God. And I think also it's gonna help me a little bit more. I am growing in my relationship and my walk with God, but I could always use some help. So I hope that you will chime in and contribute
Speaker: and be on the lookout because that's what we're going to tackle next. All of these parenting situations and we're going to do it through that faith lens, like looking at it through faith. So I appreciate you and I appreciate your support of normal goes a long way and thank you.
