A Force To Be Reckoned With
A Force To Be Reckoned With
214. Life Update: Your Coffee Goes Where?!
Have you ever found yourself in a season that feels both exhausting and unexpectedly beautiful?
In our heartfelt reflections on fostering, we explore the emotional journey of welcoming two sweet little ones into our family. We share the joys and challenges of fostering, emphasizing how community support and a shift in perspective through prayer and gratitude have enriched our lives.
Fostering isn’t easy. It comes with lots of unknowns and emotional wrestling. But we’re also learning that the kind of peace that comes with saying “yes” is worth every second. We talk about challenges with mental health and why a shift in perspective can be such a powerful tool in helping us embrace each part of the journey.
Thank you to everyone who’s supported us along the way—whether you’re a foster parent or just curious, your messages mean so much. Join us for a journey packed with humor, inspiration, and a reminder of the profound difference that love and gratitude can make in navigating life’s changes.
Episode Highlights:
- Overcoming caffeine addiction.
- Kid count update.
- Allowing God to shift your perspective.
- The power of discipline.
Links Mentioned in Episode/Find More on A Force to Be Reckoned With:
- Jointheforce.us
- Follow us on Instagram @bethanyadkins
- Find us on Youtube!
This show has been produced by Adkins Media Co.
We are at war and it's not against our neighbors, spouses, children, politicians or whatever else we feel like we're battling against.
Speaker 2:So the questions are who's the fight against, and are we winning or losing? We're the Adkins, and we are a force to be reckoned with.
Speaker 1:Are you ready to?
Speaker 2:join the force. All right, we're here. We are here with a life update.
Speaker 1:You're checking your pulse we're alive, we're alive we're alive and we are live hi everyone.
Speaker 2:We hope. We hope you're doing your well.
Speaker 1:Wow, it's your old pals beth the knee I was about to say hold on a minute. You're gonna let people call you beth only if they've been given special privileges. They know that she, just so everybody knows. She has been upset with me since we've talked about this we dated, did we because I've given everybody?
Speaker 2:unintentional permission to call you beth, because I call you beth yeah, we've talked about this, but honestly, people who are close to me can call me beth, because it's like a term of endearment, it's a nickname, yeah what everybody doesn't know, if they we've. I don't want to repeat no hold on breaking news.
Speaker 2:That everybody doesn't know is that she actually prefers, and and tries at home to make us all call her queen bee yeah, but the best thing themselves if, uh, you know, it's like if you, if you're just talking about me, okay, let's say, you're out of town for work which you have been a lot and you're talking about me and you're calling me Beth. To people it's like Beth. People are like oh, his wife's name is Beth, you might as well call me Bertha.
Speaker 1:That's not even close to the same thing. Beth is more endearing.
Speaker 2:No, it's not. It's only a nickname, but we don't need to stay on that. It's your good old pals. We're here, we're back, we're doing a life update. Bert and Corey, I want to play a quick icebreaker game.
Speaker 1:Oh geez.
Speaker 2:We're just going to do that one game.
Speaker 1:Which one?
Speaker 2:Where on the count of three, we say a word and then we do it again on the count of three and we have to get ourselves to say the same word by the end.
Speaker 1:Any word so we can get on the same wavelength.
Speaker 2:So like we'll say a word and let's say I say beach ball and you say shark, Then the next time we have to try and say a word that relates to both those things. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's going to be wait a minute, so okay.
Speaker 2:So by the end we're saying the same word.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, this is going to be hard, because I have a feeling our first words are going to be way off. Maybe, how funny would it be if it was actually the same on the first word and we were just done.
Speaker 2:That'd be really funny. Okay, ready, one, two, three, beach ball. I said beach ball you said I think we're going to get it.
Speaker 1:Hold on, hold on, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:One, two, three.
Speaker 1:Cookout oh, oh no way Okay.
Speaker 2:One, two, three Cookout, oh oh.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:Okay, one, two, three Bonfire oh.
Speaker 1:Okay, get a little further away.
Speaker 2:One, two, three Summer oh my gosh, we could be here all day. One, two, three Swimming pool.
Speaker 1:You didn't even I didn't even get a word out.
Speaker 2:That was a womp, womp, womp.
Speaker 1:Is that even working?
Speaker 2:Oh, wait that was not fun.
Speaker 1:How do you know where the womp, womp womp was?
Speaker 2:Because I'm a podcaster bro.
Speaker 1:You were going too fast. My brain doesn't work that fast.
Speaker 2:Well then you need to give yourself some coffee, or maybe you I quit coffee. No, I'm not quitting coffee, I'm not reliant like you are. We're not going to do another round of that. That was dumb, right, okay? So, speaking of coffee, we're going to give you guys a life update and I will have you know. I've been sober from caffeine since September 2nd, and it is October 30th, so it's almost been two months.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What'd you replace it with?
Speaker 2:First. So it's almost been two months, wow yeah. What'd you replace it with First? Nothing, just tears in a cup.
Speaker 1:No, the tears in a cup were the rest of us. It was our tears in a cup.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it was miserable for the first. I don't know how long has it been? 60 days. So for those of you that don't know, I am a caffeine addict, like not only do we drink a lot of very strong coffee, french press.
Speaker 1:Don't say we.
Speaker 2:You make it.
Speaker 1:I don't drink a lot of coffee.
Speaker 2:Well, you would make it I didn't mean to say a lot Like I would start the day with a real strong French press like drinking the gasoline black. And then usually by like 10 am, I'd have an energy drink and then sometimes another coffee and then the evening like maybe another energy drink.
Speaker 1:No wonder our budgets have been better.
Speaker 2:That was usually the honestly. Honestly, that was usually like a maximum there's no money in the bank, but at a minimum I would have like a maximum.
Speaker 2:there's no money in the bank, but at a minimum I would have like a coffee and one other caffeine source I didn't realize it was that bad yeah I wasn't with you during all this yeah, but honestly, that kind of has to do with the episode which we're going to talk more about, which is like the power of perspective shift and just like my mental state over the last couple years caffeine.
Speaker 2:Caffeine played a huge role in that, because I honestly thought which we'll get back to this because we got to give a life update. But like without, apart from caffeine, I was just like a zombie and couldn't socialize. And yeah, it just it was like it was a crutch for me where I was like, well, at least I can be a nice person if I have caffeine, which proved to be true at first, because when I gave it up, it was really hard and it I had a really bad headache, a lot of withdrawal symptoms but not as bad as remember how bad I felt, but the very first time I gave caffeine up this was like five years ago now I legit had withdrawal symptoms like convulsing, throwing up on the floor.
Speaker 2:It was really bad.
Speaker 1:So we'll get back to that, but anyway, your caffeine addiction has been so bad you've even used it as an enema. I can't even deny that wow, drinking it's not enough, guys confirm nor deny that better absorption to the animal.
Speaker 2:If that is true. If it is, it was only due to medical recommendation by my provider.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, moving on.
Speaker 2:Have you seen those reels where the husband and wife are running like they're criminals and it's like like the wife's running and the husband's recording and he's like suspect says or?
Speaker 1:I just saw mom and son do it. I didn't know.
Speaker 2:This is the first time I saw it they're like bashing each other, like you're trying to describe the suspect yeah suspect has a receding hairline oh my gosh like that. Yeah, you just got me there dude.
Speaker 1:The one I saw it was a mom and son. He was probably like eight or nine years old and she was giving him some stuff and then it ended because he was like, yeah, suspect you got no man I think she was like what? And she, like, grabbed the phone. You're grounded yeah, it ended it's funny, okay.
Speaker 2:So anyway, we did not mean to take this long of a break again you know so, but the last time we talked I don't even remember what- our last life update our kid count what our kid count was. So yeah, berries oh no, this is not all right with a kid. Count, cory, how many kids do we have right?
Speaker 1:now I feel like Will Ferrell. How many kids, Five. I had to think.
Speaker 2:Okay, we've got five kids, so we shared the episodes with Julia. Thank you guys for listening. I talked about that last week, so I won't stay on it too long, but I was so glad that she came on. Things are going great with them. They still on their home, they're doing great. We had, um, what like a month, two months, three months, march, april, may with just our kids oh yeah, and then in june yeah, so like four months, and then, um, in July, it feels like I don't even remember this happening.
Speaker 2:It was so much life has happened. But in July I think it was July 2nd we got a call we might have talked about this for a little baby boy. He's still with us. He's four months old now Crazy. And we're calling him Crew Huge. Yeah, because there's too many initials there's just too many initials and stuff, so we've given him the name crew.
Speaker 2:It has nothing to do with his actual name. You would don't try to read between the lines, because there's no correlation. That's just the name that we like. So, um, but he's so sweet and doing really well and, um, if you see us in real life, you've seen him. A lot of you guys have gotten hold of him. Some of you guys never will because you don't live anywhere near us and we don't.
Speaker 1:I don't even know who you are, who you?
Speaker 2:are, and that's okay, but we wish we did, and yeah, it's been great. And then what do we want to say?
Speaker 1:I was just going to say he's so healthy and happy. And I'm shocked right now at how big he is, because when we got him he was what? 5 pounds 14 ounces, and he just was so tiny and skinny he looked like a skeleton. Yeah, and now he's like Chunky and thriving. Yeah, and long.
Speaker 2:He's like tall, yeah, and now he's like chunky and thriving, yeah, and long. He's like tall, yeah, crazy. So he's great. We love him so much and I mean we can't share too much about the case, but it's there's not a ton of movement on it. So we have just kind of talked about well, what does the future of foster care look like with us? We will be talking about it more and I actually decided over on Instagram. If you are interested in the foster care stuff. When I post about foster care on Instagram it's like so, so well received. I mean, my reels about foster care they get a lot of traction. I've gotten so many messages from people I don't even know if I've told you because we don't ever talk, but like I've gotten probably like 30 to 40 messages from the wrong hand
Speaker 2:all like across the nation, just like sharing their different cases and their different scenarios. Actually, that just made me think I was mess. I dropped, dropped the ball. Really, I'm really bad on messages, um, but this one woman in particular I need to reach back out to her because she had kind of like a pivotal meeting coming up that just passed.
Speaker 2:And man, um, if you are here from on the podcast from some of those social media posts, first of all, thank you for listening, and if you're one of the foster parents I've been messaging with, thank you for what you do and all that to say. I think it's much as I don't want to, because social media is just like a job and I do enjoy it, but it's just like one more thing. I think I do need to share more just like day in the life stuff about our foster care journey, because there have been so many questions and like just so much reception with it that if you want more of that, I'll probably do that, maybe if I have time on instagram. I know I say that, but that's my goal for right now. So, um, anyway, then this past week, cory was in Texas. Was that your third trip or second trip?
Speaker 1:this time.
Speaker 2:Because your third one's coming up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'll be passed by the time this comes out, but yeah.
Speaker 1:On Thursday, I mean yeah, I'm driving home from the airport Been gone for four days Get a call from old Beth and I was like hey, the county just called and there's a baby girl. And at first honestly, I was like no, I can't do this right now, I'm tired. I just got home from a trip and I was telling her, like we're about to and we're going to talk about this, we're about to enter a little bit of a slower season and all that, and she kind of felt a little more convicted, obviously, than I did.
Speaker 2:It's just so hard to say no to kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're like like well, what if we just tell the county, like if there's nobody else?
Speaker 1:because when they had called they said we would be willing to take, like, even if you can do short term yeah and I'm like well yeah, so she was like well, I can do anything for for a couple of days, yeah, and I was like, what are we talking about here? A couple days she's like maybe like two weeks, and I'm like, oh man, I'm like, all right, well, yeah, just tell you can tell them that if we, if they, if they can't find anybody else, then we'll, we'll take her for a short term, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you called back and well, actually, yeah, I called back and then I forgot to tell you that the baby was coming. Remember, you were home and we were hanging out in the living room and I was like, oh, they should be here soon. You're like, who should be here soon? And I was like the baby. And you're like, you didn't tell me she was coming. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah. So I called back and they're so sweet, they never pressure us in.
Speaker 2:But we also know how desperate they are, because our Hope Bridge team was just serving the county a couple of weeks ago and it's just really bad. It's really really bad, you guys. There's like not enough workers, there's not enough families, there are kids in really unsafe situations, and so let this be just another nudge to get you to do something. But I called and I just said my husband's really not on board. So it might be like a good idea if you said he would be willing to do short term, but it might be a good idea for you guys to find another family who would be willing to do long term off the bat, because for us it's just going to be short term and then she's going to end up getting moved.
Speaker 2:And she just was like, yeah, yeah, we don't have anyone else, so could you just give us like two weeks? And I was like, yeah, sure, so, um, we, she was two days old, two or three, I forget but um, and she's here and she's so sweet, um. And so we just decided, this weekend, while she was with us, she came Thursday and we were talking and we just decided what do we decide, babe?
Speaker 1:We decided that she can stay. Yeah, for as long as they need. Yeah, and I think I don't know. Are we going to talk about perspective?
Speaker 1:yeah, we'll get there because I feel like you can talk about it now yeah, for me I had a perspective shift on myself and, like, just reflecting back, my initial instinct was selfishness, honestly, and, um, I kind of masqueraded it in protecting our family a little bit, just cause things have been. We've had just, I mean, the last two years. We had a lot going on and we've been tired and I was just looking at it I was like, oh man, we're about to enter a little bit of a slower season for the first time in a while and I just wanted to keep it, and but my heart was pulled by God and I started praying.
Speaker 2:There's so much slowness in snuggling a little tiny baby. Look guys, if you're on Instagram, Opus, pull this clip. This is, this is her. I can't show you her.
Speaker 1:Did you say Opus?
Speaker 2:That's where we make the reels. Cause it just look, there's so much slowness in slowing down and snuggling a sweet little baby that needs a bath really bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess that's one thing is that allow God to shift your perspective, because I made my initial reaction and decision. I didn't consult with God on it at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was just like like no, this is not what I want right now, and and like go ahead I'm just gonna say, and then praying about it, you know, god shifted my perspective. Like, dude, I didn't, I didn't call you to be you know, uh, I don't know, I didn't call you to not do this Like you're in it, you're, you re-upped your licensure. I didn't have you do that to, just you know, take it easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And there's such a need out there and it just it pulls on your heart and we can't, as individual families uh, individual foster families especially we can't save every kid and we can't take every kid, but we can take one or two, you know so right now we have a four month old and a newborn and it's honestly been so good.
Speaker 2:It's fine, like it's. Is it a lot of work? Yes, are we crazy, duh? You guys know that, but it's so good. And, um, I do, I don't. I don't know why, but like we were going to bed a couple nights before you had left and I was like so what's our plan? Like, are we taking another placement? Are we going to be done? Do you remember that?
Speaker 2:no, but I probably said no yeah, and you were like, no, we're not taking another placement, like we're about to be slowing down and honestly, after this, like if crew stays then we might just be done, you know. And then, sure enough, that was, um, all out the window and I don't know. I just felt like sometimes god prepares your heart a little bit. It was like not on my radar at all, but then I happened to stay home from work the day that the county called they didn't call me till like one or two in the afternoon and I was just like I need to be home and I need to get my house in order and get in good spot. And then it was like I was being prepared for the baby to come and it was just I was just remember thinking, oh, we have such a slow evening and Corey's going to be home and it's going to be so restful and I really don't have any like pressing to do's, it's going to be so nice.
Speaker 2:And I actually was going through baby clothes that day and just thinking like kind of not conversing with God, but just like reflecting, because I had remembered your conversation previously in the week about, well, we might be done with four and we've talked a lot about like will we have more biological kids, which we're not going to, and um, like all of that, and just no, we won't. And I was putting baby clothes away and just thinking like oh, I never, you know, I'm never gonna give the wear these baby clothes again or these baby baby girl clothes again. I should get them gathered up and take them over to my sister and like not sad about it, but just like this is crazy, like it's just we're just like ending an era and I always wanted twins and was just like thinking about that. And I never you know I sure you do know you remember like every pregnancy Prayed for twins, right, every single one.
Speaker 1:I mean, and honestly at least, that me was selfishly like a two for one special you know, yeah, and I was like how fun would it be to have twins.
Speaker 2:But then I was just thinking about that, like, well, you know, I never got twins, but I don't know. It's just like I felt a lot of peace about like OK, well, this chapter could be over, you know. And then I don't know.
Speaker 1:And this is the closest thing to twins.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for real.
Speaker 1:That we would ever have. At this point. It's biologically impossible.
Speaker 2:They're four months apart To have babies four months apart. Yeah, so, anyway, we just wrapped up on football season. That was a really fun season. We had a great team, we had great coaches, it was great and yeah so.
Speaker 1:And we're about to finish up basketball season, at least for Liberty and for me coaching.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And Carter's entering middle school.
Speaker 2:I know it's crazy. Life is just weird around here. So anyway, talking about, like our main topic and also wrap up for the last like section of the podcast, I am on day 60, something of 75 hard, I'm hanging on by a thread wow, is this the first time you've mentioned this on the cast?
Speaker 1:yeah, on the pod.
Speaker 2:I'm on day 70, so I got 5 days left. 70. I got 6 days left, including today and.
Speaker 2:I will just say so. We're talking about perspective shift in this episode and the last year or two I have struggled more than ever with and I hate to sound so millennial, but like with my mental health and I like we obviously went through a lot with the cases, but I don't think that that's it. Like I'm not generally a super anxious person, but over the last couple years I have been like really anxious and just not mentally in a good spot, um, like more negative and anxious and pessimistic. Pessimistic and like I mean it's been bad. I haven't talked about it here at all, but like there have been nights where I'm like in bed and I don't want to say having an anxiety attack, but I don't know what else it would be when you feel like I don't know, it's just hasn't been good at all and yeah, when I look over there and you're over there like convulsing.
Speaker 2:I'm not convulsing, no, but just like I'm just not an anxious person generally. And so to even be like, feeling like my heart's racing at night and like I'm breathing heavy and feeling like doomsday is every day, like I can't even get up and it's just not like me but even with all that, how do you just fall asleep on a dime?
Speaker 1:I'll be over there in like mid sentence and you're just like so in like january, february this year something happened and I was like, okay, just talking over me Making your sleep noises. All my friends who have sleepovers with us.
Speaker 2:I'm like who are you?
Speaker 1:talking to.
Speaker 2:I don't do that that much anymore, are you?
Speaker 1:joking. Oh, you do it every time, dude, I don't think that's ever going to go away. Every night, every night.
Speaker 2:And it's not. Huh, it's right, stop, you're throwing me under the bus this episode and we gotta get. We gotta get this thing wrapped up. But anyway, all that to say, I just there have been like some really really dark points, especially early part of this year, and I was like I honestly I started going to a counselor. It did help, but then I stopped going. I don't even know if it helped, it's just something.
Speaker 1:I gave up coffee and everything was fine.
Speaker 2:No, truly, I just think that we like, for some people, with food and health stuff, it makes their stomachs hurt. For some people it makes their I don't even know like get rashes. But for me, I've just really realized that the way that I'm like eating and sleeping and taking care of my body, like more than anything, my brain is just so sensitive and I see it in our kids too like their hyperactivity with, you know, foods. They're just super sensitive to that stuff. And so when I was just I was just feeling so out of control, not like myself, like a miserable shell of a human, like not showing up good as a mom and uh or in work, and just feeling like I want to give up every day. I was like something has to change, and so that I did eventually start 75 hard, a lot later than I should have, and so, like for you, you do it to get ripped and and to be like in really good shape and yeah, obviously I would love to do that and I have lost weight on this.
Speaker 1:That's not why I do it.
Speaker 2:OK, whatever, I have lost weight on this. But really, more than anything, I just needed something to cling to every day, like, okay, I need to get up, I need to get moving, I need to walk, I need to read.
Speaker 2:I need to be in my Bible and praying. So anyway, all this to say um. So during this time, I started doing a Bible study with my good friend Lisa. We're studying Revelation. But something I've also been just convicted about over the last year or so is that and we've talked about this before you and I are both terrible at this.
Speaker 2:We know scripture stories, we know scripture concepts, we know what the Bible says, but to actually have you know how, when you're younger, you would do memory verses yeah, to like quote it with the, with the reference I really just want to be more diligent about that, and also I think that we we forget the power that those things have on our brain and our mentality and like how much truth there is in scripture with everyday life, whereas if we just had those in a library of like file in our brain, what a difference that would make.
Speaker 2:And so I, one that I've been working on memorizing actually, lisa and I are memorizing it together. I mean, I know this verse and I talk about it to the kids all the time, because you know they come home with struggles at school or they're focusing on the negative stuff or they can't. They have challenges with sports or a test or something, and it's like no, you need to think about what is true, what is noble, what is good, and I would always say that, but I didn't like no, no, no the verse.
Speaker 1:Actual verse.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, anyway, I've been working on memorizing it and I just it's Philippians 4, 4 through 8. And what, Whatever, I'm not looking. That's what I was wondering, whatever is, true, whatever is noble, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever. Well, this might be a different version Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. Think of those things.
Speaker 1:Nailed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, did I.
Speaker 2:Yeah, was it the right version? Yeah, but I would like to have the whole four through eight down, which is rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all. I got to work on that. The Lord is near.
Speaker 2:Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things, and so I mean that entire, and so I mean that entire. That's like amazing, just like so rich. You know, from beginning to end, to rejoice in the Lord always, to be gentle, to remember that the Lord is near. Don't be anxious, but instead pray and petition. You know all of it. It's just such good reminders, even what we were talking about last week, and I think that we forget not only the power of those things, but the scripture. That is so true and we just need to have like ingrained in our hearts and our minds and it really does make such a big difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I feel like I know I do this. I even forget about this, about some things, whether it's big or small, and that forget about this about some things, whether it's big or small, and that's part of that perspective shift too is like last night I've just been, my mind is full of so many thoughts and I was feeling weighed down by something and it let me like I was irritable. It just put me in a bad mood. I was not nice to Carter and I was not nice to Carter, and then I was not nice to you, and then you and I went on a walk and I was just like, well, I went outside for a minute and I was just letting my thoughts kind of run their course, and then I was praying, and then you and I went on, went on a walk and I just I said I went on a walk and I just I said to his like sometimes I feel like I just forget that God has a plan and that he's there and he's doing a work.
Speaker 1:And just shifting my perspective to remember that and praying to him about it, just put me in a different headspace with it, right? Just put me in a different headspace with it, right, because at the end of the day, no matter what's going on, no matter how hard things are or crazy, or if it's a big thing, or even if it's a small thing, like, god's got a plan and if you pray to him and seek him, he will give you that peace and he will help steer your thoughts back to a better place and it gives you the sense of relief and peace that he's gonna. If you, you know you're doing your due diligence with everything, but then he's, he's got it handled yeah, I, I love that and I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2:Um, the last thing with this verse is like you know how, at night, if you can't sleep, you you tell your kids, oh, we'll count sheep. And so I just started thinking about this verse more, which I haven't implemented this with the kids yet, but I've been doing it with myself. As I've been trying to memorize this verse and I actually did it this morning I've been getting up, doing my walk and getting in our freezing cold swimming pool it's 48 degrees right now and as I'm like walking in the pool, I'm going through like, okay, whatever is true, what is true? Okay, god is on the throne and he is sovereign and he's above it all. Whatever is noble. And then I'll name something noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable. I'll like name something in each of those categories and there's eight things and it takes like two or three minutes and it's just like just one of those things, like it's the same thing as writing down your blessing you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:But I think that that's a practice we can do with ourselves and we can also do it with our kids. You know, when our kids are struggling, like going down that trail of thought and just needing to shift their perspective, it's just an anchor point to get them to cling to, because it is such a tricky thing the power of our minds. We can go down, like you said on the walk last night, like we can go down such a slippery slope, and that's like very real the enemy. He causes confusion, he wants to make us doubt and he loves when we do those things and so we have to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your mind can go to some scary places and start finding things and nitpicking at things and weaving around to intertwine things.
Speaker 2:It's kind of wild and he wants nothing more than for us to continue to bite at those things, Because that's when our marriages are at risk and our friendships. We start questioning things in our friendships and it's a very, very dangerous place to go.
Speaker 1:Two things I want to say. One, when you were saying the counting the sheep thing, I was picturing like, oh, you're telling the kids to watch. Oh, here goes the noble sheep, here goes the true sheep, here goes the pure sheep, whatever. That's what I was thinking. But the other thing I was going to say when you were talking about this is I saw I was listening to the podcast recently and I love when, like it's cool when science like comes around to backing and finding you know God's, finding the Bible and God's virtue and finding you know God's, finding the Bible and God's virtue.
Speaker 1:But they were talking about how they did some study or something. I think they like hooked people up to some machine that measured like your brain waves and stuff and they showed that if you are grateful, so if you're like something crazy is going on, something bad in your mind is going to a bad place, but then you go back to being thinking of things that you're grateful for, that gratitude and negativity can't inhabit your brain at the same time. Like they can show that even with your brain waves, I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. So if you find yourself in a negative place, if you can somehow start thinking of things you're grateful for and start going through a gratitude thing like that. Then you can get rid of the negative negativity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really cool. I know it's very, very cool how science backs those things. So, anyway, all that to say that's what's going on in our lives. Right now we're focusing on the power of perspective shifts and and no coffee and cold coffee oh my gosh. So basically strip away everything that makes you happy, that you cling to, that you look forward to, and then surrender it all, cry and then turn to jesus and jump in 48 degree water yeah, and then you're like oh, I've literally been stripped of everything.
Speaker 2:They're going to ever make me happy and I'm still alive, so I'm going to be okay.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:We hope that you guys have a good week and we will talk to you next week. Bye.