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1: How It All Began
272 Plays4 years ago
In the premiere episode of Normal Goes A Long Way, Jill Devine sits down with Laura Fleetwood and Ryan Pfendler. The role Laura and Ryan play in Jill’s life is one of spiritual mentorship. Jill has asked them to serve as the interviewers on this podcast as they have more knowledge when it comes to topics, events, and opportunities within the world of Christianity. Listen in as you get to know more about Laura and Ryan and how this podcast even came to fruition.
Normal Goes A Long Way Website: https://www.normalgoesalongway.com/
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Normal Goes A Long Way is brought to you by Messiah St. Charles: https://messiahstcharles.org/
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Transcript
Introduction to Jill Devine's Faith Podcast
00:00:00
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.
00:00:24
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.
00:00:41
Speaker
lately
The Message: Starting a Faith Journey
00:00:42
Speaker
I've been saying off mic to my friends and to other people you have to start to start and it's not a genius thing to say but it is very very smart in order to start something you have to start it and it can be very scary and it can be very lonely too at times but
00:01:01
Speaker
Just start and that's the whole point of this episode. I'm Jill Devine. I am your host of this podcast, Normal Goes a Long Way. This is my faith journey. I'm hoping that this will help someone else realize that faith is actually on your side. And so let me set up exactly what this podcast is going to at least start like and look like in the future.
00:01:26
Speaker
I am just the
Meet the Interviewers: Laura and Ryan
00:01:27
Speaker
host. I am here to listen in on some conversations and then take note and then ask some questions. But I am not equipped to do the interviewing. So the two people joining me today are going to be doing the interviewing throughout this podcast. I'd like to introduce Laura Fleetwood and Ryan Finler to the podcast.
00:01:49
Speaker
Thank you for coming on. Yay. This day is here. Thanks for having us. Good to be here. So I will introduce Laura first. Laura is my spiritual mentor. She is someone that by what I'm learning, God's working has become a part of my life to help me figure out some of these questions that I have or some of these doubts that I have.
00:02:15
Speaker
and is really helping make me a disciple, right? Wouldn't that be the best way to say it? Yes. I mean, Jesus said to follow him and to make disciples. And so part of our faith journey, I think, is sharing our faith with others. And he works through those relationships. So I fully believe, yes, that he put us together for a reason. And it's been exciting to watch that spark of faith grow in you. And
00:02:42
Speaker
because I'm not young and hip. I mean, I'm not that old, but Ryan is definitely younger than me. You are my male millennial mentor so that I can be hip with the Jesus talk with the kids. Sure. I've got about three years left of the young hip card. So I'm going to milk as much as I can.
00:03:05
Speaker
All right, so Laura and Ryan, these will be your interviewers. When we have guests on, one of these two will be doing the interviewing and asking the questions that I wouldn't know what to ask, but why are you two the interviewers? Why are you two equipped to do that? So that's what we're going to
Laura's Story: From Corporate to Church
00:03:27
Speaker
talk about now. I want to get a little bit of a background on where you are in life right now.
00:03:33
Speaker
what you do for your job and then we're gonna go back to childhood and kind of talk about that what has led to you where you are now so laura let's start with you what are you doing. Currently professionally that makes you equipped to be one of my interviewers.
00:03:51
Speaker
Well, I said that I was never going to work for a church because a lot of my family members have been pastors and teachers and things like that. So I said that when I was first starting out, and where am I now? Working at a church.
00:04:08
Speaker
It's been interesting to see how God has led me to this point. Right now, I am the director of brand and creative at Messiah St. Charles, which basically means I lead a team of communicators, designers, videographers to do all of the communication things at our church. And I also have my own ministry seeking the still, where I mentor women and girls through crises of
00:04:36
Speaker
faith and dealing with stress and anxiety in their life. So I've got a lot of experience myself dealing with those things and have seen how God has just kind of
00:04:48
Speaker
put me into a position now where I can have more of a voice and more of a mentoring role to others in their faith journey and in their mental health journey.
Ryan's Path: Youth Ministry and Faith
00:04:58
Speaker
So I don't know if that qualifies me, but that is where I am. I will say that even though the three of us know each other, this is not about the church that we know each other from or work from. This is just how we can
00:05:15
Speaker
have that connection and have that one-on-one talk. So I wanted to say that before I introduced Ryan to talk about his professional life, because we do, all three of us work together. So Ryan, talk about what you do professionally. Yeah, so I'm the student minister at Messiah, and it's funny you said that, Laura, you never saw yourself working for a church.
00:05:37
Speaker
I, a year before I worked at Messiah said, I'm never living in the Midwest. I'm never doing youth ministry and something else. All the things I said I never do, I'm now doing. So it's just funny how you stumble into those things that you didn't expect that you would, and yet you feel, oh, this is like, I'm in my zone here doing it. And I would never have thought that until I got here.
00:06:02
Speaker
So student ministry involves sixth through 12th grade in our church. So once you hit your teens, I am the minister for you, basically. I spent a lot of time with teenagers. Yes. And you know what? When I first started, I was 23 here and I felt I could lean on, like I get the stuff that they're into. Like they're not that far away from me, right? Our seniors were like five years younger than me at the time. So I'm like, great.
00:06:27
Speaker
I can still be cool, still be into it and get it. I left that zone about a year or two ago and I'm trying to mentally deal with that. Go on, perfect example, go on your Instagram feed and see how many Bass Pro Shop hassler are. I don't understand why it's a cool thing. I don't want to get the trend. It's some TikTok thing. And I'm just like, okay, I gotta get one now because I'm trying to
00:06:53
Speaker
be in with the kids. And there was a day that I didn't have to Google what things meant to try to be cool with them. Now, now I have to. So it's an interesting cross section of.
00:07:06
Speaker
I get to be kind of the young person on staff and yet not really be young anymore. And then working with these young people, when I first started, I'm like, I'm never going to be the guy that is like, I don't get what they're into. And I'm like, OK, please, someone tell me what this is all about. Do they see that or do they feel that or do they? Is that just more in your head? Probably my head. I can put on a good show.
00:07:30
Speaker
Let's start with you, Ryan, as far as your background. Did you grow up in a church? Did you have faith conversations from the minute you can remember as a child? Walk me through that.
00:07:46
Speaker
Uh, I grew up in the church, grew up in the Lutheran church. I was so Lutheran. I put a Bible on a guy's locker once. Cause I thought that was a good thing to do. Uh, it didn't work by the way, but I was really, really a churchy kid. Like you loved it. I loved it. And no, I used to say, honestly, part of the reason I didn't want to go to youth ministry is because growing up I'm like, Oh, youth ministry, like that's too shallow. I need the deep stuff.
00:08:15
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So you weren't the average kid? No, I was a nerd. Yeah, so I grew up in the church.
00:08:23
Speaker
I got confirmed in the Lutheran church. It's funny though, 16 years old, I had three things I wanted to do with my life. I thought I was going to become a historian, a politician, or join the military. None of those things are what I want to do now. No shit on them. I love history still. Politics are interesting. Love the military, but those are not things that I'd want to do anymore. And then at 16, I went to Europe where on this trip for some reason felt led to like,
00:08:53
Speaker
If you've ever been to Europe, lots of beautiful churches, lots of beautiful places. I'm like, I'm gonna just pray in all these churches and see what happens. So like every time we walk by these old 500,000 year old cathedrals, I just be like, let's go pray in them. The last one we went to, St. Peter's in Rome, St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican fell on my knees and was like, okay, Lord, you wanna use me in ministry and I'm gonna give my life to you for this.
00:09:20
Speaker
I could point you to the pillar. If you looked at a picture of like pointing to the pillar where I fell on my knees, it was really weird. I like wept for 10, 15 minutes. My teacher had to come like grab my shoulder and be like, Hey man, it's time to go. We had dinner, you know? And it was very weird because that's not, I was not an emotionally
00:09:39
Speaker
When it came to faith, I didn't really have a very emotional faith in that moment. It was such an emotionally powerful moment. It really was the Holy Spirit calling me into this line of work. Let me interrupt. Was the trip a faith-based trip? No.
Transition and Growth in Faith
00:09:56
Speaker
Okay. Second question. Was the going by the churches, I'm going to pray, like,
00:10:04
Speaker
You know how some people will just go to a church and pray just because they're there? Like, was it something that you would normally practice in your everyday life? Or was it just like, oh, it's a church. I should pray.
00:10:15
Speaker
No, and well, you know, I'm remembering it's interesting you say that there was a grad party I went to that summer where this adult leader at our church, who was just like a volunteer, told me like, you should think about a job in ministry because you have this presence about you. Those were his words. And I was like, whatever, dude, I pass it off. It did not crack the top three at that point.
00:10:43
Speaker
In fact, I probably thought I remember later reflecting on what he said and being like, Oh, I'm, I'm not good enough to be a ministry. I'm too simple, not this great person. So it's not for me, but my prayer life at the time, I would not normally just go to my church and just pray willy nilly. I would not just go to my church and pray like that. You know, it was, it was a different, different kind of thing.
00:11:10
Speaker
the school you went, or the high school you went to, was that a private Christian school? Public. Okay, so then after high school, you go to Rome, you have this experience, so then what's next? So I go to a Christian college called Concordia University, Texas, and I'm there to study Christian education. How'd you know about this place? It's Lutheran. Okay. And there was, honestly,
00:11:38
Speaker
It probably was on a map in our youth room growing up. There was this map of where all the schools were. And I'm like, cool, there's one in Texas. I know I want to go into ministry. I have family in Texas. Let's check it out. That was the whole thought behind it. I have family an hour and a half away. There's one there. Let's see it.
00:11:56
Speaker
Cause they're all over, correct? Yeah, mostly in the Midwest. Okay. Me being from the East coast, there was one in New York eight hours away. It was irrelevant that it was, you know, so far away, didn't make a difference. And so I looked at the Texas one toward the campus, loved it and ended up there. Didn't, I don't think I toured any other schools. And was that a place that increased your faith?
00:12:22
Speaker
Yes, I, you know, when I walked into those doors, I probably would never want to work at a church like Messiah. I would have said if you don't tuck your shirt into your khaki pants on a Sunday morning, you're not doing church right. Wow. So.
00:12:37
Speaker
Okay, I'm gonna come back to you. Laura, same question. Did you grow up in the church? Is it something you knew from an early on age? Yes, I did grow up in the church. Again, Lutheran my whole life. My grandfather was a Lutheran pastor. My uncle was a Lutheran pastor. My parents ended up being Lutheran.
00:12:58
Speaker
school teachers. And I don't ever remember a time when I did not know God and did not know Jesus and did not have faith as part of the backdrop of our life. We prayed before meals, we prayed at dinner time, went to church every Sunday, Sunday school, the whole thing. And yet, I think, you know, I always knew that Jesus
00:13:28
Speaker
was my Lord for my eternity. Like I knew I'd be going to heaven, but I didn't know him as the Lord of my everyday life until much, much later in adulthood. So you went to a Christian school growing up.
00:13:44
Speaker
I actually didn't go, no, because we moved a lot. And so I went to almost all public schools, except for half of my eighth grade year, we moved to a place where my parents ended up staying. So all my sisters, I'm one of four girls. My sisters went through Lutheran grade school, but I didn't because we didn't have that when we lived in other places.
00:14:08
Speaker
And then what about high school? High school, I was at a public high school. Went to a public university, Eastern Illinois University. Studied finance and French. Had no thought at all of going into ministry as a career. Not once did it even like cross my mind as a possibility.
00:14:31
Speaker
So then what led you, obviously we see Ryan, he's like on track. Like he, once he got to college, he knew that that's what he wanted to do. And then that led to where he is now, but with you, totally different, totally different. And that's how I know that it was God's plan because I never consciously pursued that path. So I went into corporate America. I worked for two fortune 500 companies.
00:15:01
Speaker
For a decade, I traveled the world. I was climbing the ladder. I was the quintessential female doing the corporate thing, getting the promotions, doing that whole lifestyle. And that's what I wanted. I really enjoyed that and I learned a lot about leadership.
00:15:18
Speaker
how to get things done, made a lot of great connections. But something changed when my daughters were born and I no longer wanted that lifestyle of the high pressure and stress and also the travel because I traveled a lot for work.
00:15:37
Speaker
So my pastor at the time who was at Messiah, because we were attending Messiah as members, tapped me on the shoulder one Sunday and said, hey, you do market research. Would you facilitate some focus groups for us? And of course, I was delighted. Of course, I'll do that. Well, that kind of whet my appetite for the possibility of using what I had learned in the corporate world for the benefit
00:16:06
Speaker
of the church. Like that had never even occurred to me that that kind of role might be needed in the church, because I always thought of church work as just like pastors and school teachers. Yeah, but Messiah was growing and was a large enough church where they needed a lot of that structure and
00:16:29
Speaker
communication help that I had been doing in the corporate world to grow the church. So that was fascinating to me. So you got to remember at the same time I'm having kids and wanting a more flexible work-life balance. So I ended up working part-time for Messiah, which then transitioned into a time when I just stayed home with my kids, which was rough because I was making more money in the corporate world than my husband.
00:16:58
Speaker
I left, we had to sell a car. Like we literally were making, barely making ends meet. I wouldn't trade that for the world. Cause I was home with my girls for two years. But after that came back to Messiah and started working full time in communications. So it was not, for me, it wasn't a path that I chose. It was more like one just appeared. Does that make sense? Yes.
00:17:26
Speaker
And it just felt natural and it just felt right. Almost like it wasn't a choice. Like it was like God saying, okay, here's what's next.
00:17:36
Speaker
your girls, they went to private Christian school all throughout grade school. Correct. Which what led you to that decision since you didn't do that yourself? So that was that was a challenge. That was a hard decision to make because we have amazing public schools out here. And I also thought about homeschooling them, which now I think back and I just kind of shake my head at myself. What was I thinking?
00:18:04
Speaker
I knew that regardless of what education route we chose that the most important thing to me was that Justin and I as parents were very involved in their education and that they would be taught the emotional intelligence and the leadership skills beyond academics that would set them up for success in the world because
00:18:32
Speaker
you know academics to me they're going to learn academics right but it's that that foundational layer of which has a lot to do with faith for our family of knowing who you are that you're a created child of god of knowing who god created you to be and having your school and your teachers celebrate that and call out your uniqueness
00:18:57
Speaker
because that is why God created you for some unique purpose. And I saw Messiah as being the best way for them on a daily basis to get the education they needed, but also to have the more foundational truths taught to them and modeled for them so that they would be prepared for whatever life throws at them.
00:19:18
Speaker
This is not an episode about what's better, private or public? No, because my girls are in public high school now. For me, this is why I'm asking these questions. As I grew up in a public school, I
00:19:34
Speaker
think that there were some things that were said when I was in high school about private schools that made me not against them, but I'm like, why? Why would people pay to send their kids to a private school when I hear all these things that are happening? And then as I became older and not even a parent, just older and hearing some other things about now parents sending kids there,
00:20:01
Speaker
This, I guess I have had definitely some judgment and then now my girls are in early childhood at Messiah at a Christian private school and there are still things that I wrestle with but faith is very important to our family which is why we are considering having them continue through eighth grade there.
00:20:24
Speaker
But I guess what intrigues me, and this is going to go back to the college thing with you, Ryan, going to Concordia, like I wrote down Concordia versus traditional college. Do you still party? Question mark. Because I think that that is part of this faith journey that I'm on with this podcast is that we're normal people. And so
00:20:51
Speaker
Is there this expectation or were things set up differently? In other words, did you have a normal college experience, Ryan, at a Christian college? Yeah. So yeah, it's funny. The guy was in high school. I would have not liked the guy who came to college. Did we party? Yes. Was it fun? Yes. And I remember there's a point. So you mentioned there was this trajectory of my life where I seemed very direct and I'm going to pursue ministry and that's the whole,
00:21:20
Speaker
whole goal of my life, the whole goal of my future. Then I get to college, right? This dweeb, this nerd. I haven't heard that word in a long time. Is that millennial? I don't know really the definition of it, but if it is defined as anything, that's the kind of guy it was in high school. I get out of high school, I get to college, and I start experimenting with the fun and freedom of young adulthood.
00:21:47
Speaker
And I realized, hey, you know those things that I used to get mad at my classmates for in high school? They're actually pretty fun. These house parties, pretty fun. Drinking, pretty fun. And I started seeing myself as someone who wanted to become more like that. I wanted to go down this path of let's party a little more. Let's get a little rowdy. I looked at some of the
00:22:12
Speaker
Christian classmates of my school and I'm like, all they wanna do is drink milk and watch Disney movies on the weekend. I wanna do something else. I wanna go down to UT, break into a fraternity party and have a great time. And so that course created a tension in my heart of, is this thing in ministry, this future ministry, is this really still what I wanna do?
00:22:33
Speaker
Because part of that story of what happened in Rome, that spiritual calling, I remember feeling very alone, very lonely at that point in my life. I remember thinking, I don't know who around me loves me. I knew my family did. But I remember thinking, I don't know who really loves me, but I know God loves me for who I am.
00:22:54
Speaker
Well, then I get to college and I start making a bunch of friends and I start dating girls and I start having a good time. And I'm like, Hey, that kid, that lonely kid who felt called into ministry, that's not who I am anymore. And I can go out and make friends in all these different places. I call my mom my sophomore year and I said, I think I'm going to transfer. I'm going to move back home to North Carolina, transfer to state school, study business, join a frat, do that whole thing. Cause that seemed fun and exciting and awesome. And I'm like,
00:23:24
Speaker
I can now be that guy. So that was a time of definite wrestling. Probably was a year and a half, two years of me being like the fact that I'm not this kid I was at 16 who felt called it a ministry because I'm not that kid anymore. Does that mean this is still where I'm supposed to go? And so I wanted that traditional college experience. I wanted the tailgating before football game. I wanted all that stuff.
00:23:47
Speaker
I felt worried that maybe I'd be hindered by what I wanted to do with my future. I remember I went to college at UT and lied and said I was a business major, you know, just so I could be get away with more, right? If I said I was studying ministry, they'd be like, well, what are you doing here, dude? Well, so I just tried to have my foot in both worlds.
00:24:08
Speaker
So wait a minute, did you stay at Concordia or did? Yes, I did. So I've been living this kind of double life. I fell at the top of my game, had a girlfriend, felt like I was kind of popular, really enjoying that life. Well, then I go to another church service at this church in the city. In fact, the morning after this house party I had thrown, someone invites me to go to church with them. And I remember sitting in that service, there's a church called the Austin Stone.
00:24:34
Speaker
And something about the sermon, I don't know if it was something the pastor said or if it was just words from God himself. He's like, hey, dude, like you're living two lives, either pick me or move on. Cause you've been living with one foot in each of these worlds for a very long time and it's time for you to pick. And I felt very convicted. I'm like, okay.
00:24:55
Speaker
It's time to make a decision, right? You've been talking this game about wanting to go to the public school, wanting to go study business, go join a frat. You've been talking about that for forever, but never actually making any moves on it. What do you want to do with your life? Do you want to leave this life of ministry and the accountability that faith brings with it? Do you want to leave that behind you or not? And I left that church service saying, okay, it's, I don't want to abandon my faith. I don't want to leave God.
00:25:25
Speaker
I want the life that I can see that has God in it. And so made some changes to my life. I found a group of guys where I said, Hey, I have these struggles and these desires and these sinful things I want to do. And I found other guys and I said, Hey, like,
00:25:44
Speaker
I said, Hey, you sin and you still believe in God. Can we get together every week and talk about that? And so we did that became kind of my core group of really close friends, guys. I could confide in and say, Hey, I have these selfish, sinful things that I want to do. And yet I love Jesus. And we just walk through life together.
00:26:05
Speaker
What's interesting to me, it's not like you went from a, and this is preconceived idea or judgment, I guess, you're sheltered in a private school.
Role of Faith in Personal Growth
00:26:17
Speaker
That's kind of what people automatically think, that you're sheltered in a private school and then you get to college and go crazy. You did the opposite. Like you were in a public school and you went to a Christian college
00:26:32
Speaker
And something that you were talking about, we do have this idea of what a traditional college experience is. And I was asking those questions for my own curiosity. I didn't have a traditional college experience as far as I started at a community college. And then I went to a local university. I've never lived on campus.
00:26:58
Speaker
I mean, I would go and visit friends and we do all those things, but I did not have that everyday life. And so I guess that's one of the things I just want to know what it's like. You hear how it is. You know, you see all these things. So it made me think not there isn't a traditional or expected college
00:27:22
Speaker
their space to sin anywhere you go. Right. And then you were saying the same thing that you were, went into Concordia and then you start, you were like, I want the traditional college experience, but what is that?
00:27:36
Speaker
We have ideas and assumptions. Yeah, I saw my brother. He was at North Carolina State. I saw some of the things he was doing, and I'm like, I want to do a little more of that. Yeah, you can find that space. Wherever. Wherever. And so that is a misconception that people have about Christian colleges. To me,
00:27:55
Speaker
my conception of private school growing up was that's where the privileged kids got to go to get good drugs. So yeah, I didn't have a I knew nothing, you know, this whole private school world, really didn't know much about it. Then I go to a private college. And yeah, there's, there's space to live however you want to in that kind of environment.
00:28:18
Speaker
Well, my assumption on my friends that went to private high school, I didn't really know anybody in K through eighth, but if you went to a private high school, it was like, why are your parents paying that money? Because you're still doing the bad things that we're doing. You're doing the exact same things that we're doing and you should get your money back.
00:28:39
Speaker
Laura, did you notice a difference with your family dynamics with your sisters going to a private Christian school versus you not? And I'm thinking more along the lines of their attitudes or their beliefs or anything like that. No, I think for us,
00:29:01
Speaker
It was all family, you know, like we were raised in the same family with those foundational beliefs and practices and that that's what made the biggest difference.
00:29:14
Speaker
So when you were in high school and you were in college, how much were you turning to God and relying on your faith? Or did you feel like there was a little bit of a dip? I'd say there was a dip in terms of like the formal practices of Christianity. So for example, in high school, I didn't go to church because I wanted to.
00:29:41
Speaker
Right I did because it was expected of me in college. I didn't really go to church at all unless I was home, but not when I was on campus and As far as like my personal practices look
00:29:57
Speaker
I've always prayed. That has always been with me. But as far as reading the Bible or anything like that, I definitely did not do that in high school and college. And I drank.
00:30:13
Speaker
I drank in high school. I was in a sorority in college. I think that's a whole misconception, too, that you can't be a Christian if you are engaging in that kind of thing. Because certainly, my faith was strong, regardless. So that'll be an interesting topic for us to explore later on in the podcast, is some of that misconception about, oh, you have to be a good girl. My maiden name was Harm.
00:30:42
Speaker
Laura Harm. So I had on the back of my high school t-shirt, it said, Harmful? Harmless? What do you think? It was like these two, you know, two personas, the angel kid who was always teacher's pet and went to church on Sundays, hung over half the time in high school, you know, singing in the choir loft, because I had been out partying the night before.
00:31:10
Speaker
This is exactly what someone like me needs and somebody that's listening because there are these assumptions that when you grow up, that's why I was asking so many questions about growing up because when you grow up with the faith and being in the church, you still were doing the things that I was doing and I didn't grow up in the church.
00:31:36
Speaker
I don't know if that's good or bad, but it makes me feel better about this journey to know that I didn't miss out on something. I mean, it's never too late to form a relationship with God ever. And you've never done too many wrong things or, you know, gone down too many dark paths. He's always there to meet all of us. And we're all the same in that we're all messed up on the inside.
00:32:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think the big question is, what do you do once you realize that this isn't what you want to keep doing? I have a good friend of mine, one of my best friends. They have this saying in AA. He went through AA for a while and we talk about all the time. They say progress, not perfection.
00:32:23
Speaker
Now, this is a few things to that, right? No one's perfect. You can't expect to be perfect. You just want to make progress day by day by day, right? I may be struggling with this now, but today I'm just going to confront it and not deal with it and not do this bad thing I shouldn't be doing today.
00:32:42
Speaker
But it's progress, not standing still, right? What do you do with your life once you discover, hey, I want to live differently? And it's kind of like a two steps forward, one step back. I think is not like this perfect upward trajectory towards perfection. It is a, I've made some progress and oh, I slipped up again and yeah. Yeah. And for me, spirituality, like it always has to begin in your inner world, your inner self.
00:33:11
Speaker
So the impact that that God has on your life starts on the inside and then it flows out into your behavior as you grow more and learn more and experience him more. And that looks different for everybody because everybody has a different
00:33:32
Speaker
view of God and I think it takes, sometimes it takes life, you know, to cause you to start to ask some of those questions that you're asking now. Like, is there something bigger than me? You know, was I made for a purpose?
00:33:50
Speaker
Who really is in control? You know, all of the big questions. And it's just interesting to hear when those questions start to impact different people. Because there's not one story. Everybody has their own story.
00:34:03
Speaker
As we wrap up, there is a question that I want to ask if there's one thing on this journey of this podcast and we have no idea where this podcast is going to go. We have an idea and we have some thoughts written down, but
00:34:23
Speaker
In this journey for me and in this journey for someone else who's listening, is there one thing that you would like to say right now for hope or for what you want me or somebody else to know and to understand?
00:34:46
Speaker
that younger version of myself was someone who thought faith was about being right. So following Jesus, being a Christian, oh, that's the right way to live. And then there's a wrong way to live, but that's what faith was for me. It wasn't until I wrestled with my own sins and my own struggles that I realized, oh, faith is about being right. Christianity isn't about right versus wrong. It's about grace and love from God.
00:35:10
Speaker
The one thing that I want listeners to know and you to know, Jill, is that we were created as physical, emotional, spiritual beings. And so often we live only in the physical and the emotional. And we don't think about the spiritual.
Inclusivity in Faith
00:35:33
Speaker
And that creates a void.
00:35:35
Speaker
creates a void that we try to fill with all kinds of things. Everybody's different. And God is always here. He has always been with you, even if you don't know Him or believe in Him. And by the way, if you don't believe in God, keep listening. This is for people who are in all phases of their faith, because these are good questions for anybody to be asking. But I want you to know that
00:36:05
Speaker
Who God is, we will never fully understand on this side of heaven. We keep trying to. We will never fully understand it. But what He said to us through Jesus as being the most important things to know about Him,
00:36:23
Speaker
is that He loves us, and we are to love Him back, and that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, love the other people in this world. And over and over and over again, the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who is God and man, so He is the only human form of divinity that we can look to, right? He practiced that. If you look at who He is,
00:36:52
Speaker
walked with, who he invited to be with him on this journey. It was not the picture perfect people of the world. It was not the people in the churches. It was not. It was everybody was on the fringes. They were rebels and rabbles and, you know, like what we would consider the least of who we think would be a godly person. And yet the only human example we have of God on this earth
00:37:20
Speaker
That's who he chose. And I think that that has such an important foundation when you start talking about faith, is that it is for everyone. Everyone. No exceptions. And it is a journey. And so I'm excited to watch your journey unfold in this podcast. And I'm excited to see what God's going to do for all of the listeners.
00:37:49
Speaker
Well, thank you both for being a part of my journey and then helping others. I'm excited to see who you interview and what we're going to learn and what we're going to talk about.
00:38:05
Speaker
It's going to be fun. It's definitely going to be a journey. It is. I can't wait. It's going to be an adventure. It most certainly will be an adventure, that's for
Closing and Teasers for Upcoming Episodes
00:38:14
Speaker
sure. And you can follow the adventure online, normalgozalongway.com, also on our social media, Instagram, and Facebook, at normalgozalongway.
00:38:23
Speaker
So this episode was completely dedicated to why Laura and Ryan are playing an important role in my faith journey and what they're going to do moving forward as far as the different guests that we have on and how they maybe have helped you in your faith journey.
00:38:41
Speaker
But our next episode, that's going to be my story. You're going to hear where I am in my faith right now, how I got to where I am, the questions that I have, the doubts, the concerns, the fear. We'll start to unravel it all in our next episode. And here's a little sneak peek of what you're going to hear. Does that kind of like give you a pit in your stomach a little bit?
00:39:08
Speaker
So it's kind of like if you accept Jesus into your life, then it's okay for you to go anytime. Yes. What are the tears for? Because I think about, I don't want to leave my girls. And people talk about how it's so glorious in heaven.
00:39:29
Speaker
I'm sure it is, but they're going to be sad. Well, I hope they're sad. It's a hard truth to understand that all we know here on Earth is like just the first chapter of our eternal life, because what you're experiencing now is what you know, right?