4:13 Podcast: Can I Find Grit to Show Up When I Want to Shut Down? With Lisa Whittle [Episode 176]

Lisa Whittle: I believe that a way to show up is not trying to muster up some weird bravery, but it's to say, like, you know, "Lord, here I am. I'm still here." You know, if we're breathing, we're listening to this podcast, we're here.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Lisa Whittle: Whatever that looks like. Like, listen -- I marvel that he can do anything with this mess of me, but my hands are open and my heart is willing and I'm here. What can you do with me? And then I think it's, you know, just looking around in your life and saying, "What now? What can I do with what is?"

Jennifer Rothschild: Life is full of hard things: loss, betrayal, disappointment, pain, and anger, just to name a few. In a world that is riddled by these things and still reeling from a global pandemic, we may ask, "How can life really be good?" Well, when author Lisa Whittle lost her beloved dad, she found herself asking the same question, and eventually learning that there is good even in the hard. So if you're fighting the temptation to shut down when life feels hard, Lisa will give you a reason to show up for what God is doing in your life. So on today's 4:13 Podcast, you're going to get a practical roadmap to navigate life when it's not easy and you'll discover God's purpose in the hard good. Good stuff, right? We think so. Let's do it. K.C.

K.C. Wright: Let's get this party started. Welcome to the 4:13 Podcast -- we're so glad you're here -- where practical encouragement and biblical wisdom set you up to live what we call the "I Can" life, because you can truly do all things through Christ who strengthens you. Now, here's your host, Jennifer Rothschild.

Jennifer Rothschild: Hello, our dear people. We're so happy you're with us again. And if this is your first time joining us, welcome. The podcast gets better every time you show up. I'm Jennifer here to help you be and do more than you feel capable of as you live this "I Can" life of Philippians 4:13. And me and K.C., we were just talking about this, that, and nothing, because that's what we do. And so before we get substantial with Lisa, K.C., you have to tell them what you just told me about your visits to urgent care.

K.C. Wright: Okay. Well, I got bit by a spider. I don't know how or when, but I got bit by a spider on my arm. So I went into the doctor, urgent care, and they gave me some pill. "Take two of these for ten days." And, man, I don't know what that was, but it knocked it out.

Jennifer Rothschild: But it wasn't just a normal spider, was it?

K.C. Wright: No. It was a brown recluse.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay. See, like that is so serious.

K.C. Wright: Well, yeah. And then I had friends sowing fear into my heart saying that this is a big deal, giving me other stories of people who actually have been amputated because -- I mean, spider bites are nothing to play with.

Jennifer Rothschild: No, it's nothing to mess around with.

K.C. Wright: No. Okay. Well, then it wasn't but about two weeks later, got bit by another spider on my stomach. And again, these spiders are having me for a midnight snack. I don't know what the deal was. Well, I refused, absolutely refused to go back to the doctor. Well, one good thing -- because I like to be positive. One good thing that came out of COVID -- and just one -- was you can now see a doctor over the computer.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, that's true. Telemedicine.

K.C. Wright: So I did it for the first time. Where a nurse checks you in online, and then you wait for about four minutes and all of a sudden there's a doctor in my office.

Jennifer Rothschild: And so did you, like, lift your shirt and show them your belly?

K.C. Wright: Well, yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

K.C. Wright: That's exactly what happened. And so he said, "What's going on?" I tell him the story. I made him laugh. I said, "This is my third spider bite in one year and I've yet to become Spider-Man." He kind of chuckled. He said, "Let me look at it." And I lifted up the side of my shirt and his face -- this is radio, so I'm just going to try to paint the picture. It was, "Ohhh." I'm like, this isn't good when the doctor does that.

Jennifer Rothschild: No.

K.C. Wright: Aren't you supposed to have, you know, a face of faith and like, "Hey, we're going to get this right"?

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

K.C. Wright: But he went, "Ohhh."

Jennifer Rothschild: Ohhh.

K.C. Wright: And so anyway, again two pills a day, ten days, and knocked it out.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow, K.C.

K.C. Wright: So I'm sleeping now in a cocoon, fully dressed, wrapped in bubble wrap.

Jennifer Rothschild: In bubble wrap.

K.C. Wright: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: Man. But I will commend you, I have noticed an increase in your spidey- senses. I have.

K.C. Wright: Spider-Man, Spider-Man does everything a spider can.

Jennifer Rothschild: A spider can. Yes. Okay. Well, all right. So that has nothing to do with wanting to show up when you want to shut down.

K.C. Wright: No.

Jennifer Rothschild: But I'm just saying to you, if I kept getting brown recluse spider bites, I'd be kind of like -- yeah, wanting to shut down.

K.C. Wright: Well, I am going to tell you that I don't like sideshow distractions. I like -- I'm a force, I like to get things done. I have a To Do list. And these things are distractions that annoy you.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

K.C. Wright: And so honestly, I can relate, because there were times where, man, I don't need this.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

K.C. Wright: I want to just give up.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

K.C. Wright: But I'm always reminded of that Scripture that says, "To everything there's a season, a time to laugh, a time to cry," and you know the rest of it, it goes on. But there's never a season to quit.

Jennifer Rothschild: Amen.

K.C. Wright: I remind myself there's no season to quit. Keep swimming.

Jennifer Rothschild: Keep swimming. Yep, it's biblical. Dory was biblical.

K.C. Wright: That's right.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right. Speaking of biblical, Lisa Whittle is. And you're going to love this conversation. So let's keep moving.

K.C. Wright: Lisa Whittle is the author of eight books, and she's the creator and host of the Jesus Over Everything podcast. Can I just insert how much I love that title? She's a bold, bottom-line kind of girl who has done master's work in marriage and family counseling, advocated for Compassion International, and been featured on lots of media outlets throughout the years. She and her family live in beautiful North Carolina. She's talking to Jennifer today about her book, "The Hard Good: Showing Up for God to Work in You When All You Want to Do is Shut Down." So settle in. Here comes some encouragement for your heart.

Jennifer Rothschild: So, Lisa, you had something really wreck your heart in 2017, a very big loss, and it caused you to wrestle with this concept that something can be hard and good at the same time. So tell us about what happened and how it informed your new book, "The Hard Good."

Lisa Whittle: Yes. Well, my father went to heaven. And I think anybody who has lost someone they love, be it a parent, be it a spouse, be a child God forbid, it changes you. It changes things inside you. It shifts things. And so in my case, it caused me to look at things like, "Who are you outside of who your father was?" There were a lot of legacy DNA pieces floating around in there for me because people had always said things like, you know, "You're so much like your dad in this way," or, "I see this same thread," or whatever the case may be. He and I were extraordinarily close, so -- you know, but he was a complicated person and also went through some massive ministry falls. And so for me, it was really sorting through that, Jennifer, and it was God saying, "Lisa, what are you going to do with all you know?" And it wasn't like I felt like God was asking me to be more busy -- because I was certainly already that -- but it was like you have had this front row seat to what it looks like to watch someone who has incredible Kingdom gifts, but also wrestle in such a profound way that God's transformational process has often been thwarted and you've watched that. Now, what are you going to do with that? What are you going to do with what you know about your own life, of things that I've wanted to do in you, but you've run away? And God just worked in me in a very interesting way, we'll say, through my grief of that loss, and that informed a lot of this book.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, and even though your details are different, I mean, I know -- like, as I'm listening, I'm identifying -- we all are -- because we all have different triggers and different situations in life that can trigger that same sense of, oh, my gosh, this is hard.

Lisa Whittle: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: And like you even said, sometimes the instinct is to run away, but what you're describing is you ran toward it. And I guess probably that's the only way you get to experience the good and the hard, is if you're willing to face it.

Lisa Whittle: Well, absolutely true. The interesting thing about grief -- so the interesting thing about when you go through a particular grief -- in my case, like, the loss of my father -- is that that is the moment, the precious opportunity, because that's when we cling to God, right? So in my case, I'd like to say I was just super noble, super spiritual, I just turned to God. No. Like, he was what I had, right? So I got still. And there's this line in "Jesus Over Everything," Jennifer -- that was the book that I wrote before this -- that says this one thing. It's a question really. What if we don't know the good stuff because we haven't sat still long enough for Jesus to get us there. And that really is what "The Hard Good" is all about. It's sort of that one question, which is really a question for myself that caused me to dive into this even more. I know the Lord purposed for me to carry that message out next in "The Hard Good." And so it is, it's about the road to spiritual transformation and those feelings that can become Godlike in our life, versus where they need to be, that sort of gauge that can thwart us in that process for Kingdom usability.

Jennifer Rothschild: I like that -- in the phrase, the quote from "Jesus Over Everything," because we don't sit still long enough. Okay. So let's just do that here on the podcast, people, let's just sit still for a moment and let's just begin this process. A little bit of nitty gritty here. Okay? Because in your book, you help readers through ten hard good circumstances. So I'd like you just to touch on a couple of them, or a few of them, and tell us how we can find the good in each of them.

Lisa Whittle: Yeah. And here's the interesting thing, Jennifer, is -- I want to say this first of all. When people hear the title of the book, they think automatically, well, this is a pain-to-purpose book, so Lisa is going to talk about her deepest grief for losing her father and then we're going to talk about grieving and how we can have purpose in that. There is certainly a chapter on making peace with your life when it's brought loss. That's a hard good thing. But that's not the only hard good thing. Because we go through things every day in our everyday life that are not just enormous hard things that happen to us, where life might want to break us -- right? -- but things that are within our own souls that are character -- transformational character-building things like accepting something that you wish were something different. Right?

Jennifer Rothschild: That's hard.

Lisa Whittle: I mean, how many of us -- there's something that we have, this one thing that we're like, "If only," or, "What if?" And so we want to somehow go back and put those pieces back together. And they're what I call the stifling what-ifs. And they usually center around, "What if I," "What if they," and, "What if God." Right? What if they hadn't made that decision that altered my life forever? Because a lot of times decisions are made without our permission.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Lisa Whittle: And so we spend time in the what-ifs instead of the what-nows and the what-is, and that's where I believe you can have good when you begin to move from those stifling what-ifs. And then what about cheering for someone else when they get what you want. Right? That's super hard --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Lisa Whittle: -- you know. And so you may look at that and say, "Well, that's not on the same scale as losing someone that you love." I would agree. But, one, we're not comparing -- this is not the Hard Olympics-- right? -- so we're not doing that. Because hard is hard. We all deal with hard. The other thing, Jennifer, is if you have ever watched someone get something that you really desperately want, something that you have also worked really hard for, or maybe if you're a justice-driven person like me, feel like you, quote/unquote, deserve the gross -the gross word, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Lisa Whittle: To watch someone else get that in front of your very eyes, look, that is character building for you to say, "I'm going to choose generosity over jealousy." And what I've learned in my life is we have the ability, by the power of God within us, to in that moment say, "No, I'm going to choose to be generous." And it is a choice. And it has transformed my life because that beast many times in my life, that beast of jealousy, that beast of envy, that beast of even bitterness over not getting chosen, has threatened to come over my life. And God has convinced me in those moments. Thank the Lord there's a few times in my life I've listened to him, and in those moments when I've chosen that generosity, Jennifer, it has changed me, and it has become something that has become hard that has turned into the good, and praise God for it. So those kinds of things, doing something God wants, even when it disappoints others. And what happens when we do that -- because, listen, everybody's always got an opinion about what we should or shouldn't do. And sometimes those people are people that love us. They want our best. But God knows. And so as we obey God, what happens is we rise in the confidence to make decisions, even when they're not popular decisions. And so I talk about all those kinds of things in the book, really important hard good things.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, and they're everyday things. But as you began our conversation, you were talking about a huge hard thing, like the loss of your dad. And, yes, on the heart scale, they all feel differently. But like you already said, hard is hard. And it's the daily hards that sometimes take us down if we don't learn that redemptive process of making them into the good that exists. But I was thinking as you shared that, Lisa, if we're going to actually be able to do that, to redefine good, to turn the heart into good, and if we're going to continue to just show up and face the hard, then we have to figure out how to deal with our emotions. And I love in your book that you make a great distinction of how to do it, because you explain the difference between managed feelings and bossy emotions. So tell us about that.

Lisa Whittle: Yeah. And this is super important, Jennifer, because I think there are these camps that say, you know, don't worry about your feelings at all. Which is ridiculous, because feelings are God-given, emotions are God-given, or we would be created as robots. We'd have a To Do list, we would go through life with no feelings at all. Well, that's not the way God created us. He created us with emotions. Or we have this other camp that just says -- and this is very prevalent in culture right now -- that says do whatever you feel.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Lisa Whittle: If you feel it, do it. And what has happened is these God-given emotions, that are so important to let us know what is happening, quote/unquote, like underneath the hood. Right? So they're giving us important information. They are gauges. They're meant to be gauges that give us important information that tell us what's happening inside our heart, inside our soul, things that need to be taken care of. Instead, they've had this -- turned into this sort of God-like status in our life. And so where God is to be in charge of managing those emotions that he has created us with -- so he's the genius, so he knows how our emotions best operate and best work, and the Holy Spirit is the one to be in charge of those in our life. We have elevated our feelings to a God-like status, and thus they've become an idol. And so what's happened is -- no wonder we have walked away from so many relationships that have become broken. Right? No wonder those relationships have become broken by maybe our own words or by our own moments where we've lashed out. And, Jennifer, I can just speak from my own experience here. Anytime that I have allowed an emotion or feeling to overtake me in a moment, I have walked away with a sense of regret, which has then led to shame over the way that I've behaved. And sometimes that relationship has never been the same. Sometimes I have lived with this overwhelming nagging feeling that then Satan has used to bog me down and I haven't been able to be as effective for the Kingdom. And so it's for our benefit that we allow the Holy Spirit to manage these feelings rather than let these bossy emotions control us. And I give an example in my Chapter 3 of the book, which is "Showing Up When You Want to Shut Down." Which is obviously a very hard thing, but a very good thing, where I talk about an instance that I really wanted to shut down in a moment. My emotions and my feelings were overtaking me because something was going on in a situation. And instead of denying that the feeling was there -- first of all, I'm not a great actress. I can't do that anyway. Or letting my -- just words fly in that moment, what I really wanted to say, what I really wanted to do, I allowed God to take over my body and let -- and manage those emotions. And later that night when I went to bed, I cried myself to sleep, and he and I did work. So what I'm suggesting is a deferment to where you and God can do the work. Or you can go to a counselor's office and you can sort through those feelings where it's an appropriate place. And so I talk all about that. And signs and what to look for and how to show up when you want to shut down and things like that, we talk about that in the book.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, you're just speaking all of our language. You know, I actually -- a friend texted me -- she was visiting family -- and she texted me from the location where she was, because we had talked about her visit there a couple of years ago. She was so nervous to go because of conflicting relationships and how it never ended well. Right?

Lisa Whittle: Sure.

Jennifer Rothschild: And so this morning she texted me and she said, "I'm in such and such place, but please pray for me." And I said, "I'm sitting right here at the table where we talked about this a few years ago, and I just want to remind you of one thing: your feelings are not your boss. Jesus is your boss, and you listen to him." Feel your feelings, but you listen to him. Because we do what you just described. Our feelings are so powerful that they can become the boss of us. But I love the distinction between managing them through the supervision of the Holy Spirit and doing the work with Jesus later, versus just letting them boss you around and ruin everything. Because they do, they ruin everything.

Lisa Whittle: They do. And I think you -- just think about your own life. Right? You think about your own situation and those moments. We all have those. We can pull them out. We have a memory of at least one time where either we've done that or someone's done that to us and things have never been the same. Or look, just look at culture. It's like -- you know, just look at what's happened in all the debates that are going on and the way things are fractured and all of -- you know, we don't have to look very far. Look at social media. It is symptomatic of what's happening with the way that feelings have become an idol in our culture. And listen, we know the truth. We know that God created us to have feelings and emotions and be healthy, and we can live better than this. And so it just makes me excited to talk about things that I know that Satan wants to trick us into and also just deceive us into believing this lie that we can't be better than that moment. And listen, Jennifer, for so much of my life -- I'm telling you, for so much of my life I believed that I was only going to just be this Lisa. I just thought like, well, this is what I'm -- this is just who I am. Right? I'm just going to be the person that just always says things when I feel them. Or, you know, sometimes I'm just going to speak out of turn. Because I am a passionate, you know, person who is not short on opinion and doesn't mind stepping into something and saying something strong. But I have learned that I really love the Lisa much more that is controlled by the power of the Holy Spirit, because that Lisa says things that are directed by him and have much more Kingdom usability and I don't have to mop up near as much. That's the honest truth. I still carry a mop with me just in case.

Jennifer Rothschild: Just in case?

Lisa Whittle: Yeah. 'Cause I sometimes still need it, let's get that clear. But, yeah, I mean, it's a big difference, Jennifer. I'm talking about things that I literally live in my own life.

Jennifer Rothschild: I love that. That is so encouraging. So let me ask then, this new Lisa, some advice. What advice would you give to the person who's listening right now and she just feels worn out, she's tired of the battle, she's ready to shut down, mostly because the pandemic has just done nothing but bang her and the fatigue is just phenomenal. So how can her response to the hard of the last year and a half-ish, whatever it's been, almost two years, be used for good?

Lisa Whittle: Well, the pandemic has been hard. I think it's sometimes just important to say that. And I also think that it is important to know that God is not surprised by this pandemic. I just think sometimes because we weren't expecting it, that we think -- we lump God in that category and we're like, "What are we all going to do, God?" and we include God in that. And God was not surprised. He's never surprised. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. I cling to that verse all the time. And, Jennifer, I think it's really important that we have this great balance of not having these major demands on ourselves, that showing up for our life after something hard, like a pandemic, means this checklist and this perfectionism and this, oh, I've got to be, like, now super on and I've got to be the strong one. I mean, I take that role in my family and with my friends all the time, I'm often the strong one. But strong people, we have an expiration date on that as well.

Jennifer Rothschild: Amen.

Lisa Whittle: And so -- you know, we're not here to be the hero. Let's not get this mixed up. There's no mom that's the hero, there's no wife that's the hero, there's no husband that's the hero. God is the hero. And we are here in a role to bring honor and glory to him, our purpose is set to go and make disciples and -- you know, so we're here to say, "God, how can I be Kingdom usable?" And I believe that a way to show up is not trying to muster up some weird bravery, but it's to say, like, you know, "Lord, here I am. I am still here." You know, If we're breathing, we're listening to this podcast, we're here.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Lisa Whittle: Whatever that looks like, like listen -- I marvel that he can do anything with this mess of me. But my hands are open, and my heart is willing, and I'm here, "What can you do with me?" And then I think it's just looking around in your life and saying, "What now? What can I do with what is?" And not what was, not what if, but what is, and walking in that today. And the commitment to presence. The commitment to presence, Jennifer, is really powerful, and the willing heart. And, boy, God can do a lot with that, right? I mean, just can do a lot.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. Well, one of the things she said reminded me -- a while back I had a conversation with Christy Nockels, and I remember her saying that when she would wake up in the morning, she would ask something like -- she kind of rephrased her life from, "Okay, what can I build today?" to, "What do you want to build in me?" And that's kind of what you're talking about. And I appreciate that. It takes the pressure off of us. And I think for those like you described -- you're a strong woman, there's a lot of strong women listening -- we do feel the pressure, but God is the hero. That's a good word, Lisa. I appreciate it, especially coming from someone like you, who I know you have fought hard to really understand and live out that truth given your natural strength. All right, let me ask you this last question.

Lisa Whittle: Okay.

Jennifer Rothschild: You've made it super clear through all that you've explained, and very practically, so that we can do hard things. We can do this, right? You've made it super clear. But I want to know the bottom line -- for the person who's listening, who's getting super motivated right now and they're saying, Okay, I got enough hard stuff in my life, I'm ready to redeem, I'm ready to experience the good, I'm ready to manage my emotions instead of letting them boss me around. So give us the final how. What's the how? Where do they start?

Lisa Whittle: I love that person, because that's often me, right? We have the best intentions and we're ready and we're taking that step and -- boy, we're so human. Because if they're like me, that one thing can go wrong in their day and then we're like, "Oh, just kidding. I'm not ready to do it," you know.

Jennifer Rothschild: Exactly. Yes.

Lisa Whittle: I want to say to that person, "I love that you want to show up, and I want to just say I want to show up with you." And what that looks like may be a little bit different for you than for me, but I think -- it's kind of just what I just said, which is I want us to have the commitment to presence, to not only be with God, which is the way that we get better in all regards in this life. I will never ever believe anything different, because I have tried so many methods. And I know it to be true, that as I dive more deeply into the Jesus that has been the only sure thing in my entire life, that he has been the one that has healed me from the inside out from any church wound I've ever had, from any relational wound that I've ever had, from any of my own insecurities -- and there have been so many. And even as I journey on as an imperfect, broken person, it is Jesus still that is the healer of my soul. And so I would just say, commit to be with God, commit to learn everything you can learn about Him, not in a knowledge sort of way, but in a way that says, I know you are my help and my hope and I know you are the one that will be the one to help me when I'm jealous or help me when I don't want to wait or help me when I face a deep grief that I never saw coming. And I want us to do this very simply and I want us just to show up today in whatever way that looks like, with our hands open and a simple prayer that says, God, I'm showing up today. And I'm showing up and I know that you will meet me here, and I expect it and I love you. Something very simple. It doesn't even have to be those words. But, Jennifer, that may sound simple, but that's really the way that I've known to get better.

K.C. Wright: Just show up. There's the word of the Lord for you today.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, just show up.

K.C. Wright: Because when you do, you will find Jesus is there waiting to be your help. He is your hope. Jesus is the healer of your soul. So as Lisa said, commit to be with him. Learn, not just acknowledge, not just in knowledge, but as a father and friend, learn who he is. This was such a great conversation. And this is a great book and we want you to get one.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yep, we sure do.

K.C. Wright: In fact, we want you to win one. So go to Jennifer's Insta profile @jennrothschild to enter to win Lisa's book right now, "The Hard Good." And we can connect you to her book at the show notes by simply logging on, 413podcast.com/176. And there you will find lots of great passages and quotes from her book as well.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yep. Love it. And her podcast will connect you there too. Okay? So show up, our people. That's our bottom line: Show up. Remember that your feelings, they are not the boss of you. You can manage your emotions through the power of the Holy Spirit, because you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. I can.

K.C. Wright: I can.

Jennifer and K.C.: And you can.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes, you can.

K.C. Wright: And a little reminder... Your reviews mean a lot to us.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes, thank you for your reviews.

K.C. Wright: Hey, guess what? We've got 800 reviews.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, 803. But who's counting?

K.C. Wright: We are.

Jennifer Rothschild: We are. Every single one.

K.C. Wright: But they're kind reviews.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

K.C. Wright: So sweet.

Jennifer Rothschild: And they're encouraging.

K.C. Wright: They are.

Jennifer Rothschild: Not just to us, but to each other, to all the other 4:13ers. And thanks.

K.C. Wright: Thank you so much. We love you.