It Starts With Attraction
Revealing secrets on how to become the most attractive you can be Physically, Intellectually, Emotionally and Spiritually (or as us insiders call it...the PIES). Listen to weekly episodes. Join a course or get more info at kimberlybeamholmes.com
It Starts With Attraction
I Was Away From Work For 4 Months... Here's What I Learned
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Can you imagine what transformation awaits you if you simply choose to slow down? In this episode, I invite you to journey with me through my four-month sabbatical, a time that began with resistance and ended with profound personal growth. Inspired by a conversation with Luke LeFevre, his words about the importance of slowing down initially felt daunting. However, embracing this leap of faith led me to reevaluate my life's pace and rediscover inner peace and clarity.
March was a turning point when mental fog and indecision signaled the need for a break. Leaving work was a rollercoaster of exhilaration and fear, filled with worries about my company's fate without me. This sabbatical wasn't just a vacation—it was a complete lifestyle overhaul that shook my identity to the core. Through new routines, intense journaling, and much-needed rest, I faced the challenge of understanding my worth beyond professional success. The first three weeks were especially turbulent, but they laid the foundation for the clarity and peace that followed.
The journey wasn't purely personal—it was deeply spiritual. I explored my life's mission and reconnected with my faith, particularly through the transformative power of Richard Stearns' book, "The Hole in Our Gospel." This spiritual quest led me to contemplate a career devoted to serving the needy, and I even considered a career change. Through prayer, stillness, and thoughtful decision-making, I found a renewed sense of purpose, especially in my work with Marriage Helper. Join me as I share how slowing down and seeking spiritual guidance can lead to life-changing clarity and fulfillment.
Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships
Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 500,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.
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Many of you may not know, but I've actually taken the past four months off of work. Actually, I changed a whole lot about my life over the past four months, and in today's episode, I'm going to share with you why I did that, what I learned from doing that and what I would encourage you to do based on what I learned and based on my experience. Honestly, there's a part of me going into this podcast that is thinking. I don't know why you might care to hear about the past four months of what my life has been like, but here's what I can tell you. Something really amazing happened in me, changes that I did not even imagine, couldn't have planned for myself, and just revelations about the future, like my purpose here on the earth, my future, my family, things about my daily life have changed because I took four months of rest, and so if my story today can help you begin to uncover what might need to change in your life for you to feel more peace, for you to have more time with your family and to not feel like your worth is based on your work, then I hope that my story speaks to you today. Let's dive in to today's episode. Before I went on sabbatical, which many of you may not even know that I did because the show still ran just as it normally did. We actually ended up recording 16 weeks worth of content before I went on sabbatical, so I was a bit frazzled even by the time that I left. But as of here, as of today, sitting here right now, it has been 17 weeks since the last time I've been in this chair or been on your audio, like you may be hearing me on podcasts and, honestly, there's part of me that's like do I even remember how to do this? I had no clue what to wear for today's episode, all of the things. But here is how it all happened, starting at the beginning of this year, I was going through a lot.
Speaker 1:I mean, I had been at Marriage Helper for almost 12 years, for 11 and a half years, and I'd been working really hard during that time. And there came a point in a conversation with actually a guest that we had had on the show, luke Lefevre, when I had him come on and he was talking about journaling and holy work, which was a great episode and we'll absolutely link back to it. But when I asked him at the very beginning of that episode. What is it that you want people to know? And he said two words slow down.
Speaker 1:Now, if you're anything like me, hearing the words slow down kind of make you angry, because either someone's telling you to slow down because they can't keep up with you and they're wanting to pull you back from going too fast for them with you and they're wanting to pull you back from going too fast for them, or they're telling you to slow down because you're making mistakes, you're not doing something right. Slow down, which also isn't awesome to hear. My life I've lived at full speed and in many ways in college, in high school just always wanting to be the best, the smartest, competing in things that I knew I would win at, and that has really been my mindset. So hearing slow down really terrified me. But there came a moment at the beginning of March where I was having a conversation with Luke before the podcast, before we recorded that podcast, and it was in the middle of that conversation. I remember looking at the window we were sitting in the and it was in the middle of that conversation. I remember looking at the window we were sitting in the conference room here in our offices and I looked out the window of that conference room and it hit me like a ton of bricks that I needed a break and if I didn't get that break that I was going to break.
Speaker 1:I remember feeling in that, not just that very moment, but in that time of my life, very foggy headed, like I couldn't see things clearly, Like I couldn't take in information and make a good decision. It was like I was very indecisive, I didn't know what to do about things. Small problems felt like really big problems, and I'm the kind of person who always lives life for a future vision. It's really easy for me to like get excited about the future and see where things are headed and cast vision for where things are going in the future, but in that time in March of this year, I couldn't see the future. That sounds crazy. It's not like that kind of seeing the future, but like I didn't have a vision for what was next in my life and it all felt very quiet and not in a good way. And so in that conference room I realized I need a break and the thought of it was super exciting and terrifying at the same time.
Speaker 1:I went home that night and I told my husband. I said, rob, I'm thinking about possibly taking a sabbatical. And his first response back was 100% yes, that is exactly what you need to do. That was on a Friday. So over the weekend I began to bargain with myself. I think we were going into the five stages of grief a little bit. I began to bargain with myself and say, okay, I'm just going to take like three weeks off and then come back for a week and do that for a couple of months. And then it turned into okay, well, maybe I'll take two full months off until ultimately it landed on, I'm going to take a full four months. And then it turned into okay, well, maybe I'll take two full months off until ultimately it landed on, I'm going to take a full four months off of work. And this thought absolutely terrified me. In fact, the closer we got so I made that decision at the beginning of March April was going to be the beginning of my sabbatical and the closer that we got to April, the more terrified I became.
Speaker 1:And there were two true fears that I had. The first fear was what if I leave work and everything falls apart, then what? I would have failed. I would have failed the company. I would have failed the company, I would have failed my team, I would have failed our mission. All of it felt very much like it was riding on my shoulders. But my second fear was perhaps the true fear what if I step away and everything works? And everything works. What if they don't need me? What is my purpose? And that was the true question that I didn't know that I was going to end up really struggling with.
Speaker 1:In the first month of my sabbatical, starting in April, I stopped going to work. I changed everything about my life. In fact, you may be sitting there thinking that's really nice that you got to choose on your own accord being able to take time off work, and I understand that my situation is going to have some different implications than yours is. But at the end of the episode I'm going to give you some ideas of how you can do a similar type of thing in your life, no matter what your age, situation, income or anything like that. So just stick around. And I realize that I am very privileged and very blessed that I got to make a decision and make a call that I was going to take four months and not go to work and that it wasn't going to affect my life in any kind of major way, like financially or anything like that. That is a true blessing and I'm extremely aware of that and very grateful for my team that supported me in making this happen.
Speaker 1:But that first month, that first month of April, I woke up on that Monday morning. I didn't have anywhere to be. I didn't have anywhere to go. I changed the gym that I worked out at. I changed even like we still went to the same church, but we stopped volunteering. I really took an assessment, before going on sabbatical, of every obligation and expectation that I had in my life, every routine that I was currently engaged in in my life, and I wanted to change it as much as I could, because I just wanted to put my body and my mind into a different perspective. And so I wanted to stop doing the same old things in my same old routine. I wanted all new things. So I started going to a CrossFit gym, I started doing my morning routine differently. I just had nothing to do and the world was my oyster. And so, while that sounds really exciting to a lot of people, it was actually the most terrifying thing for me. When I woke up that first Monday morning, I felt like I was in a different world, like I felt all out of sorts. Where was my worth if I was not working? I spent a lot of time journaling, reading. I probably read 12 books in my first three months of sabbatical.
Speaker 1:I was really struggling with that time of silence and stillness and prayer, which is what I wanted, and going into my sabbatical, I really didn't have any expectation or anticipation. All I knew was that I needed rest. I knew that I needed rest, even though I was terrified to take it During the first three weeks of my sabbatical. Is though I was terrified to take it During the first three weeks of my sabbatical is what I would call the shakeup, and this is where everything that I had put my identity in was completely shaken up. I had started, like I said, at a new CrossFit gym or doing CrossFit. I hadn't done CrossFit in 10 years and, all of a sudden, I was not the person on the leaderboard at the workout classes. I was the one, like, right in the middle, struggling to keep up, struggling to win quote unquote, so to say Like I was definitely surrounded by people who were going harder, stronger and faster than I was. I wasn't used to that In my personal life.
Speaker 1:Of course, I was trying to figure out what my worth was when I wasn't working, and so I was spending a lot of time journaling, as I said before, in prayer, talking to my husband, spending time with my family and actually going into sabbatical. I really felt like the only way that I was going to be able to cope with taking four months off of work would be to travel and like plan a big international vacation, do something to be away from my normal life, and while that isn't necessarily a bad thing and I absolutely love to travel what I ended up finding was my body was craving just being at home, just sleeping, just having nothing to do and allowing a lot of things within me to then well up. It was like when work stopped and those expectations and checking my email and checking Slack and all of those things that were demanded of me on a day-to-day basis, when those began to subside because I wasn't doing any of those things, there were other things that began to well up from within me that I had pushed back or pushed out of my head or swept under the rug, that needed to be dealt with, but I had never given it the time to be dealt with. I actually did a lot of work during that first three weeks of journaling, even about traumatic experiences, just even allowing myself to ask questions of the state of the relationships and the health of the relationships in my life. And I ended up in those first three to four weeks of sabbatical really dealing with some of those hard questions and having some really healing conversations with friends or with family members. That needed to happen years ago, that I was still telling certain stories about in my head, but ending up having that great conversation with those people was able to heal that relationship. But there was this one question that kept coming up. It came up at church, it came up in my small group, it came up in the journaling that I was doing throughout this first three weeks that I call the shakeup, and the question was who was Kimberly before anybody told her differently? And then there was a second thought, because when I really thought about that question and when I really wanted to answer that question, the very first response that came out of me was I wanted to be a missionary.
Speaker 1:In fact, many of you may have heard on previous podcasts that I've talked about, there was an experience that I had when I was six years old, where my family my mom and dad, they were doing these cruises for singles. They would take a group of singles on like once a year on these cruises down to the Caribbean and the singles were able to meet each other and it was kind of this Christian singles cruise thing. And so I was, you know, six years old when we did our first one, and I remember one of our first stops on that cruise was to Honduras, and on that cruise and on that stop my mom and I had spent the whole day just walking the beaches of Honduras picking up seashells. And as we were going to get back on the cruise, there were these three Honduran children all around my age that were selling seashells by the port, and I remember my mom going and buying some of these seashells, which was the craziest thing to me, because one of the things that my mom and I have always loved to do together, especially when I was that age, was go to yard sales. Loved to do together, especially when I was that age, was go to yard sales.
Speaker 1:And so I knew from the good principles that my mother brought me up on that it was important to be frugal, to save money and to get a good deal. And so I saw my mom buying these seashells from these kids that looked a whole lot like me, except they didn't have shoes and they didn't look quite like I did, but like they were, they were kids like I was. My mom was buying these seashells from them and I thought why is she doing that? And so I asked her mom we just spent all day like we have a purse full of seashells. Why did you just buy some? And my parents said to me Kimberly, buy some. And my parents said to me Kimberly, these kids don't have a life like you do. This may be their way of being able to feed themselves and their family tonight, and so we give to them out of our plenty so that they can have what they need.
Speaker 1:And it was such a transition in my mind, a paradigm shift for me. I remember like in that moment, I could see my room at home. I could see how I had my own room, my own closet, with all of these toys. I was never in want for anything. And all of a sudden I realized the world isn't like what I'm used to. It's not. Not everyone has what I have, and maybe that's not okay. Maybe we should do something about that. Maybe I should do something about that.
Speaker 1:I cried all the way up the dock and peer up to back onto the ship because I couldn't wrap my mind around what I had just experienced. But I knew in that moment I wanted to give those kids everything I had. That's who Kimberly was before anyone told her differently. But then life happened. Life happened where I felt the need to compete, where I felt the need to prove my worth, where I felt the need to succeed in whatever I did. And so, along the way, it felt like two Kimberleys began to emerge. There was the Kimberly that just wanted to give everything that she had and wanted to be a missionary. And then there was the Kimberly that wanted to meet other people's expectations and do what she thought was expected of her to do.
Speaker 1:So when I originally was going to college, I wanted to study missions because I wanted to be a missionary. But there were voices in my life that said you don't want to do that. You see, if you major in missions, then where? Where's your future going to be? What are you actually going to do with that? That's never actually going to make money, and so I ended up not doing that. I ended up studying psychology, I ended up getting married in the middle of college and moving to Korea. All things that are amazing things and I never would have planned them, and, of course, I believe they are part of the story that God had created, but that God was painting and creating for me.
Speaker 1:But at the end of the day, I was sitting in my house in April struggling with this true like, felt like an identity crisis, which truly was like, did I miss my calling? Because I wanted to be a missionary, and I ended up letting the world tell me otherwise. And so one of the things that Luke Lefevre, who was on the podcast, had encouraged me to do and really what I was trying to like center myself around during sabbatical is where is God pulling me? Where is God leading me to next, wanting me to do next? Like God, please just speak to me and help me understand what it is you want me to do. And during this shakeup is where I finally got to the point and again, all of this was just happening. In three weeks of not working, I finally got to the point of like God, all of it is yours and I'm willing to give up any of it. I'm willing to give up my work, I'm willing to give up my podcast, I'm willing to give up whatever. I just want to do what you want me to do. And so it was right.
Speaker 1:After that that I journaling one morning, and after my journaling I just—about this kind of stuff. And after my journaling I just sat there and I said, god, what is it you want me to do next? And then I actually just sat there in stillness and silence, and the very next thought that came into my mind was read the book the Hole in Our Gospel, and this book is by Richard Stearns. He was the CEO of World Vision for 20 years, which is an amazing nonprofit with 40,000 team members worldwide that do amazing work in helping lift people out of poverty and so many different things. This book had been sitting upstairs in a closet, tucked far away, for four years. Four years earlier, my uncle had recommended that I read this book and I just never did. And so, out of nowhere, that thought came to me and I was like, okay, so I wrote it down in my journal Like I need to read the book the Hole in Our Gospel. And this was just right at the end of April.
Speaker 1:So I went upstairs, I got that book and I had nothing to do. Kids were at school. I was like I'm just going to three pages in that every single page was convicting me in a new and a different way. Because, you see, for the past 11 and a half years, kimberly has been very focused on growing a company, a great company that does amazing things. But Kimberly had kind of lost sight of that question that I had been struggling with, of what I felt like God had actually called me to do, to be a missionary. And so this entered into the next part of my sabbatical, which I call the settling.
Speaker 1:As I was going through this book and reading it and just highlighting it in every page, convicting me in a new way, I got to the point where, through the book, it was just encouraging everyone who reads it to think about where the true hole in our gospel is, which is that the gospel is very clear in telling us that we are to feed the hungry, defend the cause of the poor. In fact, there was a specific verse in this book from Jeremiah 22, 16, that really tore me up for a good long while, and in that verse it's talking about different kings that Israel had had, and it's talking about King Josiah and how he was a great king. But the king that came into place after him spent all of his time and all of this money and wealth to just build these cedar palaces that no one was going to use, to create these huge banquet halls that no one was going to sit in, that no one was going to eat from. He took all of these profits and all of this money and spent it on himself. And Jeremiah 22, 16 picks up there and he says or it says Jeremiah says, in remembering King Josiah, he defended the cause of the poor and the needy.
Speaker 1:Is that not what it means to know me? Is that not what it means to know me? Of course that's what it means to know God, to see someone outside of ourselves in need and to proactively go and meet those needs, instead of building little kingdoms for ourselves, instead of keeping and storing up treasures here on earth just for us. And so, with that verse in mind, I continue reading the book, I continue reading my Bible. And then a second verse just grasps my heart, and it's a verse in Corinthians, where it says out of their plenty or, out of your plenty, give to those in need. So, out of their plenty or out of your plenty, give to those in need so that, out of their plenty, they can give to you. The goal is equality and in that verse, in context, paul is writing a letter to the churches in Corinth and saying, like hey, there's other churches that are in need right now and you all have extra, so why don't you give to them so that they can get good and on their feet, and then, when they have plenty, they'll give back to you. That's the way it's supposed to work. The goal is equality.
Speaker 1:And so, thinking about this in the bigger picture of the world and how so many people live on less than $4 a day, and thinking back to my own time in India, thinking back to the time of mission trips that I had been on in the past, thinking about my own children and where they had come from and what their life might have been like if we hadn't have been called, and God knit our family together Like all of these things were just ravaging my mind, to the point where I literally began applying for jobs at World Vision. I don't know that the team at Marriage Helper wants to hear that. But I was like maybe this is what God is calling me to. And I literally got to the point in the application process where it told me to upload a resume and I was like I don't know how to write a resume for everything that I've done over the past 11 years, like I couldn't even figure out how to describe what I did or what I could do. At that point I was like, okay, god, I don't think this is you. I think that, like, ultimately, ultimately, I think I just need to put this aside and just wait for you to guide me.
Speaker 1:So I began to wrestle with the question God, what do I have in plenty that we can give to others in need, that I can give to others in need? And this led into the next part, which I will call the symphony. Why the symphony? Because it was like all of a sudden, just like in a symphony where there's an orchestra, where there's tons of different instruments playing and all of them on their own can play one piece, but when they all come together is when it's the most beautiful and where everything ultimately falls into place and you can hear and see where it's headed. That's what ultimately began to happen, because it was in that moment that I began to realize it's saving marriages.
Speaker 1:My parents started an amazing organization that I have been working with for 12 years, that has been blessed and, by the grace of God, given away to save marriages and it's worked. It's worked for 25 years, mostly here in America, although we definitely have international clients that come through. But, like, this is what I have, this is what has been entrusted to me, and I never actually like going into sabbatical. If I'm going to be completely honest, for that first three weeks where I wasn't working and I was struggling with my identity and like really felt like my worth was in my work, there was a part of me that resented marriage helper, because I felt like I had given a lot of my heart and soul into it and like I had missed what God was calling me to do in being a missionary. I realize now that's 100% not it. It was part of the symphony, like this was part of one section, like the brass section of the symphony that for the past 12 years I've been working on and I've been giving my life to, and God was in the middle during the sabbatical, like intentionally removing me from it so that I could see it all differently and I do. And so it was during the next two months of my sabbatical two and a half months that God began to put this on my heart of like.
Speaker 1:Saving marriages is so important, not just in America but around the world, and so I began to, as a good researcher, enter into. And so I began to, as a good researcher, enter into these conversations with other pastors all over the world, from India to Kenya, haiti, some here in America, and I just started asking them questions. Tell me what marriage is like in your culture. What are the things that you're struggling with? Where do you need help? How can I help you? And with every conversation, it became even more clear that every single culture marriage is important.
Speaker 1:It's important in Africa, in India, in places that are still living in poverty, because where there aren't strong marriages that are still living in poverty, because where there aren't strong marriages, there end up being single moms who have to make a decision whether they're going to send their children to school, to get an education or to feed them, and it keeps those cultures stuck in poverty. But when there are two people, when there's a mom and a dad, a husband and a wife. They're able to provide more financial security, more stability for the children, so that the children can get an education and eat. Marriage is actually an incredibly important component of lifting people out of poverty, and we know that that's even true here in America, because after people get a divorce, 40% of women fall below the poverty line after they experience divorce. It shouldn't be this way and it doesn't have to be this way, and so, through these conversations that I was having with these pastors, all of them were saying, yes, we need help here, even the pastor I spoke to in India. He said you'll find that India actually has one of the lowest divorce rates in the entire world, but that doesn't mean that the marriages are happy and children are suffering because of it.
Speaker 1:It reminded me of years ago when I interviewed Dr David Matsumoto and the research that he had done but that the government had asked him to do in the Middle East to identify and determine what could end terrorism. And he did all of this research and ultimately, what they found was that if you want to end terrorism, it has to start within the home, because it's in the home that people learn to love or they learn to hate. Marriage is the answer, and it doesn't mean that marriage makes people whole. That's not true. People can have amazing lives that never get married and do a lot of great things. When we look at a family unit, when we look at culture, when we look at what can actually begin to change culture for the better, we know it has to start with the family unit, and the family unit cannot be strong unless the marriage is strong.
Speaker 1:It all became so clear to me that what I needed to do was take Marriage Helper Global, and this was the drive, this was the desire. It was yes, god did put on my heart when I was six years old to want to be a missionary. For this reason, all of it has worked together, and so I guess now is a good time to tell all of you that that's what Marriage Helper is going to be doing, and more will be coming out on that in the future. But we are using the profits of Marriage Helper to fund what we're calling MH Global, where we're going into the developing economies around the world and teaching them teaching pastors that are doing good work there, that are already doing great work in those communities how to save marriages in their communities, and I could not be more excited about it and I could not be more excited about it. But what's even more amazing when I step back and I look at the past four months, is that none of that would have happened.
Speaker 1:I never I up or figured out on my own, and I definitely couldn't have done it in my day-to-day demands of the life that I was living before April. I couldn't. There was no space, there was no mental space for me to process and work through so many things, and there were so many things that I had to work through before I even could mentally consider the fact that any of this was possible. I had to work through my own identity, where my own sense of self-worth was who God had actually called me to be. I had to struggle through the anger that I had about certain things and have healing conversations with people in order to feel free. And then, in that freedom, I was able to dream, I was able to be still, I was able to hear from God in a way that I hadn't in, maybe ever, but definitely in the past 12 years. God brought it all, all, all together, and I never once would have pictured it. I mean to the point where my mindset, with everything that I'm involved in now and everything that the companies are involved in here at Marriage Helper, it's like the goal is missions, because I know that's what God called me to do. But I had forgotten that. I had forgotten it along the way, because the stress, the busyness, the demands of life can make things muddy. That's why the settling needed to happen. That's why the settling needed to happen.
Speaker 1:One of my friends told me before going on sabbatical it's like you are in a jar that's been shaken up and it has a bunch of mud and water in it, a bunch of sand and water, and when it's all shaken up because the demands of life are crazy, you can't see through it. It's not until you can put it down and give it time for everything to settle that you can see clearly through the jar. And that is exactly the way that I feel. That's exactly the way I feel I was able to take time for things to settle and now I see so clearly. And now I see so clearly, I'm energized.
Speaker 1:I remember in my first three weeks of sabbatical I was talking with one of my friends and I said if Jesus says that his yoke is easy and his burden is light, then he's got to make this easier for me, because everything that I had felt like I had been carrying in my life at work and in other places in my life felt very heavy in that moment and I can say with 100% confidence I feel like the yoke is easy and the burden is light. It doesn't mean that there's not obstacles. It doesn't mean that I still don't have moments of like. I don't actually know what to do here. But here's how I've changed over the past four months and I am not at all perfect or where I can be, but I am so much different and in my time I want to be able to put my thoughts on paper and journal. I'm actually thinking things through. I'm not the kind of person like before.
Speaker 1:It was like make a quick decision, move on, and one of the things that I have found myself saying so much since being back from sabbatical has been I want to do this thoughtfully, not quickly. Let's think through this. How is this going to affect X, y and Z? Can we all come back to remembering our mission of how we want to save 750 million marriages around the world and how our profits of Marriage Helper are going to fund our global work. Like that is 100% what my focus is and I see the vision. I see things I couldn't have seen before because the past few months changed me and I didn't go through a course, I didn't go to a workshop. I didn't like all of those things in life are great, but this was free, with the caveat of I did take time off of work. Like this was just something that I had many people who were encouraging me, who were there for me, but ultimately I sat, I journaled, I prayed and I spent time with God.
Speaker 1:There was a line in the book the Hole in Our Gospel. There was a sentence in that book that when I started reading it, I remember sitting in my sunroom in this big egg-looking chair that we have in my sunroom. I remember sitting there and I read this sentence and I can't remember it verbatim. But Richard Stearns, who's the author of the Hole in Our Gospel, he had worked at a fine china company before being called to go work at World Vision and he was making a lot of money at this fine china company it was Lenox, fine China and he kept resisting this call to go and work at World Vision and he was like God, send me anywhere but to the poor, which is always where God does his best work. And so he wrote this sentence about his first like he had been at Lenox, fine China, and he didn't know that during those next 60 days his life would be fundamentally different. And he would find himself 60 days later, after being this top executive at Lenox to being in Africa sitting with orphans.
Speaker 1:And he wrote this sentence and he said I didn't realize just how fundamentally God would change my life within 60 days. And I highlighted that and I underlined it and this was before anything had come Like I was still like what is my identity if I am not working and responding to an email? Like that is where my mind was. And I remember highlighting that sentence and underlining it and journaling about it and telling my husband about it. And I said, rob, I want that about it. And I said, rob, I want that, I want my life to be fundamentally different in the next 60 days, to where I look back and I'm like it was only God. And I remember praying about that, like I wrote it down in my journal and I was like God, change my life in the next 60 days and knowing that he would, but also having this fear of like but what if I'm still stuck in this mindset of just like trying to find my way but trusting him with either outcome? And it's funny to me I haven't actually remembered that until now. So it's funny to me to be able to like think back and say, okay, maybe it's a little more than 60 days, but during 60 days God fundamentally did a huge work in my life and he can for you too, and he can for you too.
Speaker 1:I know I've spent a lot of time talking about my journey and maybe this has helped you in some way. Again, like part of me entering into this podcast was like, why are people even gonna care? This was my journey over the past four months and I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it's gonna. I hope that it has a positive impact in some way. But here's ultimately why I hope it matters to you. It's not what God did in my life over the past four months that matters. It's more so that it's a testimony that that's what God does for all of us when we seek him, and I know that he can do that for you Find the stillness I so resisted slowing down. I so resisted slowing down.
Speaker 1:There was a post that came up on my Facebook memories yesterday of nine years ago, and it was this post of when my husband and I lived in Texas and he had booked a three-day weekend for us to go to South Padre Island as a surprise. And I remember when he, like, woke me up that morning and told me I was so mad at him he was trying to take me on a surprise vacation to South Padre Island, and I was like Rob, I have to work. I went, probably like metaphorically, throwing a temper tantrum the whole time. But that is how ingrained I have been for the past 12 years in basically being a workaholic. Like my identity has 100% been in my work, and I didn't understand it until I didn't have it, and I also understand that it was voluntary. Like I wasn't fired, I didn't lose my chance to be able to come back, and so I am sure that I would have processed things differently too if that had happened. Like, ultimately, I was safe because I knew I was going to be able to come back to Marriage Helper.
Speaker 1:Now there was still the very real fear that no one at Marriage Helper would want me to come back and that everyone would be like no, we're good, like we don't really need you anymore. And that's more where my fear was probably more than anything. And so there was a work that was done, and still continues to be done, of like it's not really what other people think of me or need of me. But, god, where do you want me, where are you calling me, even when it's uncomfortable, even when I don't see the full way forward. But if I can just have a blurry vision of it, then God, like I'm here for it. So what is that for you? What do you need to do or stop doing in order to make the time to be with God and hear from him for what he wants you to do? Because when you're stuck in the mundaneness, the busy schedules, the in and out routines that you're just so used to doing, it's hard to hear something new, because we're just expecting to hear what we've always heard. That's kind of a way that I would put it, for me at least.
Speaker 1:So I changed everything, including my morning routine. I haven't even gone into the fact that there was a huge marital I wouldn't say issue, but during the sabbatical, say, issue. But during the sabbatical Rob, my husband, he even like there was a point where he had expressed to me some of his like, some resentments that he had towards me that he hadn't realized until we had had the time to really talk about it on sabbatical. And part of it I'll tell you. It wasn't, it was all of it. I'll tell you exactly what it was.
Speaker 1:I had been selfish 100%. I was so focused on my work and my morning routine, which was like two to three hours before I went on sabbatical, that I just left him Like he was just home with the kids. So I was like, well, he'll take him to school, he'll pick him up, I'll just depend on Rob. And he had taken that on and he had done it up until sabbatical without ever complaining and did it because he wanted to help. But there was a time during the sabbatical where it kind of like a light switched for him and he was like, wait a minute, why are you never here? And that was a huge like. I wasn't even aware of how unaware I was and how focused I was on working and preparing myself for work and winding down for work, of how it had affected my husband and my kids, and so we were able to have difficult conversations and healing conversations and work through that together and I ultimately ended up deciding I'm going to do things different.
Speaker 1:Coming back from sabbatical, I'm taking my kids to school every day. Do things different. Coming back from sabbatical, I'm taking my kids to school every day. I'm changing my morning routine because it had been very focused on me and not on my family. So I even have a different perspective there of like everything I go into it's how is this affecting my family? How can I make sure I have time with my family, how can I make sure that there's margin there? And if it's going to affect being with my kids or being with my husband, then I'm going to have to start saying no to things, including going to certain conferences and things like that. I mean, ultimately, it's like those things, at the end of the day, really don't matter as much as making sure I'm here for my kids and my husband, or if I am going to go, how do I take them with me. And so so many things changed for me, including my perspective during taking that time off, and ultimately I'm so glad. I'm so glad that that time allowed issues to arise that my husband and I could work through together. Now we're on the same page, like we thought we were on the same page earlier and things were good, but this would have festered into being a bigger problem years down the road. So I'm just so thankful that we were able to walk through that and wrestle through that and get to a point of compromise to where all of the needs of the family and of each of us were being met.
Speaker 1:All of that to say what is it you need to change in your life? Maybe it's you need a different job. Maybe it's you need to take your vacation, like actually take your one or two or three weeks completely off work and do something different with your life during that time. That doesn't mean you have to go on vacation, but maybe it's that you are intentional about rest, journaling, prayer, seeking what God might have for you in your future, prayer seeking what God might have for you in your future. Maybe you work up to going on something of a sabbatical where you save up all of your vacation and you take it all at one time so that you can have a bigger quantity of time off to have this rest and to have the relaxation. Or maybe it's simply that you change what your obligations and social expectations are for a season of your life. Maybe, instead of having 18 kids, sports that you're having to run back and forth to, maybe you all intentionally, as a family, take a semester off of sports so that you can be together, so that you can have more time for stillness.
Speaker 1:Where are you frazzled? Where are there things in your life that aren't serving you well anymore, but you're just continuing to go through the hustle and the grind. Maybe that's one of your opportunities, of something that you can say no to, or at least know for right now to, so that you can find some of these moments of, or at least know for right now, too, so that you can find some of these moments of stillness. Or maybe it's that you do have a job that you don't feel like is the one that God has called you to, and it's draining you, and it doesn't feel easy or light. It feels draining and hard. And maybe it's not just that you need to take time off. Maybe it's that you need to explore what a new career option could be. That's okay. You're not married to your job. You're only married to your spouse, if you're married, and that's your only thing that you have to be obligated to, have to be obligated to Everything else you can change. The question is, are you willing to?
Speaker 1:Because it is hard, rest is hard and I haven't learned this completely. When I took the mental time off of work, as I said, I changed where I worked out, I started doing CrossFit and I put my body through a bunch of exercise and hard work and now I'm learning the lesson. So it was like during sabbatical, I allowed my mind and my heart and my soul to rest, but not my body, and now I'm currently nursing three different injuries to where I can't do anything. That involves pressing any kind of bar over my head, and I just have to laugh about it because it's like Kimberly you still haven't fully learned what it means to choose rest before rest chooses you. You still like when you slow down in some areas of your life, you still try and ramp up in others. I'm still a work in progress, but for you, what do you need to do different so that you can begin living the life that God has fully called you to? Until next week, stay strong.
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