4:13 Podcast: Can I Find the Path to a Joy-Filled Life? With Tara Dew [Episode 325]

Tara Dew: Other pathways that we often try are trying to just rely on ourselves, our giftings, our talents, our experiences, and what we find is that we run ourselves empty and it's not a pathway to finding joy. And so I think we live in a world where people are trying to find joy, they're equating it with happiness, and they're trying to find it in all the wrong ways and these pathways that will lead to dead ends. And I think that's why we're seeing people with outstanding amounts of anxiety or depression or these feelings of just being overwhelmed with life, and it's because we've been looking for joy in the wrong places.

Jennifer Rothschild: When life is crazy or hard or busy or sad, it can just feel like joy is way out of reach for your real life. But it does not have to be that way. Today's guest, author and Bible teacher, Tara Dew, is going to show you three surprising paths to a joy-filled life. They happen to all be from John 15. So if you are willing to take Jesus up on his word, you are going to find that God's pruning, God's presence, and God's commands have the power to deliver a ton of joy to your life. I know you are ready for this, and so am I, and so is KC, so here we go.

KC Wright: Welcome, welcome to the 4:13 Podcast, where practical encouragement and biblical wisdom set you up to live the "I Can" life, because you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.

Now, welcome your host, Jennifer Rothschild.

Jennifer Rothschild: Hey, friends. Me and KC are so glad you are here. Two friends, one topic, and zero stress.

KC Wright: Zero stress.

Jennifer Rothschild: Not one bit at all.

KC Wright: No. Stress, get out of here.

Jennifer Rothschild: It's just our goal to help you be and do more than you feel capable of as you're living, along with us, this "I Can" life of Philippians 4:13. And by the way, Happy Early Thanksgiving.

KC Wright: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: It's coming soon and we are heading into this season of joy. And I don't know about you, KC, but I have friends -- like my nail tech, every time I get my nails done -- she starts asking me, like, in October, "Have you started your Christmas shopping? Have you started?" I get so stressed out. Because no, the answer's always no. Have you started your Christmas shopping?

KC Wright: Me?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

KC Wright: Oh, no.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay, good.

KC Wright: No, no.

Jennifer Rothschild: Thank you.

KC Wright: Have I started my Christmas decorating? Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, yes, of course. That started at Halloween. We all know.

KC Wright: At the strike of midnight --

Jennifer Rothschild: We all know.

KC Wright: -- on Halloween --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

KC Wright: -- boom --

Jennifer Rothschild: Boom.

KC Wright: -- ten Christmas trees, just like that.

Jennifer Rothschild: We all know. Yes, KC, we know.

KC Wright: My spirit man is Buddy the Elf.

Jennifer Rothschild: I know.

KC Wright: Okay.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay. Yes, this is why I didn't ask you about decorating, because you have no self-control when we talk about decorating. Okay. But I'm just glad to know you haven't started shopping yet.

KC Wright: No.

Jennifer Rothschild: And by the way, speaking of Christmas, our friends, you can plan -- if you are in the Houston, Texas, area, I'm going to be there for a big Christmas event on December 5th. And then if you happen to be in Florida, I will be there at The Villages in Orlando on December 13th for a Christmas event. So if you're in those areas, come on. We will have links on the Show Notes so you can find us. But hopefully by then I will have done a little bit of Christmas shopping.

But, KC, I learned something this year.

KC Wright: What? What?

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay. This year I learned about girl math. Do you know what girl math is?

KC Wright: No.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay. Girl math is the way you manipulate numbers to benefit you. So you can go shopping and you -- it's this uncanny ability that women have to justify any purchase, make it actually look like good stewardship. Okay, that's what girl math is.

So let me give you an example. So, like, if I bought a shirt for $20 and I returned it, that means I have 20 new dollars to spend on something else. Okay? It doesn't mean I put it back in the bank.

KC Wright: Oh, that actually makes sense.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right. Or I could take that $20 and I could go to find another shirt. And if I found one on sale, like, for $10, well, then I should get four of them.

KC Wright: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right? Because that's good stewardship.

KC Wright: A hundred percent.

Jennifer Rothschild: Or let's say I am shopping online. Maybe if you spend $30, then you get free shipping?

KC Wright: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, then, of course.

KC Wright: You just save money.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right. Even if what I needed was $20, I need to buy something else just to save money on free shipping.

But here's my favorite one. Okay? Like, really when you think about it, anything under $5 should be free. Really. You know, you can just consider it free. So, like, if there's this purse that I want -- and there was this year. This is how I did this. There was this purse I wanted. It was $100. I could not justify it. Okay. But I was like, well, if I carry that purse 25 times, then that is $4 a carry, which makes it under $5, which is free. I got a free purse. That's girl math right there.

KC Wright: Okay, listen. We need to get her some help and keep her from Amazon.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, right? I am so empowered. So Christmas shopping is going to be fun this year.

KC Wright: Oh, goodness.

Jennifer Rothschild: F-u-n. Okay.

Anyway, but you know what's really funny is I have this new Bible study coming out, which I will tell you more about in the coming weeks. But big shout-out, it's coming in January, so just a little while from now. You can pre-order it now. It's called "Heaven: When Faith Becomes Sight." And I actually talk about girl math. And you'll just have to see how that applies to numbering our days in light of eternity. But you can go to jenniferothschild.com/Heaven to learn more. And, of course, we'll have a link on the Show Notes and I'll tell you more about it.

But today we are not talking about heaven. We are talking about joy.

KC Wright: Come on now.

Jennifer Rothschild: So let's talk about joy with Tara Dew.

KC Wright: Tara Dew is an author and Bible teacher who married her high school sweetheart, Dr. Jamie Dew, who happens to be the current president of the New Orleans Baptist Theological -- Theological --

Jennifer Rothschild: Theological.

KC Wright: -- Seminary.

Jennifer Rothschild: You got it.

KC Wright: Please take that out.

Jennifer Rothschild: It takes two of us. No, let's keep it.

KC Wright: Oh, shoot.

Jennifer Rothschild: Keep going.

KC Wright: Together they have two sets of twins, Natalie and Nathan and Samuel and Samantha.

Jennifer Rothschild: Isn't that amazing?

KC Wright: Double blessings.

Jennifer Rothschild: I know.

KC Wright: What in the world? I've never even heard of that.

Jennifer Rothschild: I know. It's very cool.

KC Wright: Okay. Tara loves spending time with her family, trying out new restaurants in New Orleans, and teaching women to know and love the Word. She is the director of Thrive, a ministry wives certificate program, as well as a Professor of Ministry to Women.

All right. Are you ready?

Jennifer Rothschild: We are ready.

KC Wright: Settle in.

Jennifer Rothschild: Let's do it.

KC Wright: Settle in. Here is Tara and Jennifer.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right, Tara. I'm super happy you're with us today, and we're going to talk about your paths to joy. But before we talk about the actual paths that lead to joy, I think we need to start with the paths that don't. Okay? Because a lot of us find ourselves on those paths. So what are those paths that we think are going to lead us to joy, and why are they actually dead ends?

Tara Dew: Well, I think a common mistake is that we find -- or we try to find our joy in just our circumstances. And that is a dead end every time because happiness and joy are not the same thing. And a certain passing pleasure of a circumstance might bring happiness for a little bit, but it is not a long-lasting joy. And so if you are seeking to find joy in a pedicure or a massage or an easy day at work or if kids are behaving, unfortunately that's just not a true pathway that will lead to joy, because it's temporal. It doesn't last.

Other pathways that we often try are trying to just rely on ourselves, our giftings, our talents, our experiences, and what we find is that we run ourselves empty and it's not a pathway to finding joy. And so I think we live in a world where people are trying to find joy, they're equating it with happiness, and they're trying to find it in all the wrong ways and these pathways that will lead to dead ends. And I think that's why we're seeing people with outstanding amounts of anxiety or depression or these feelings of just being overwhelmed with life, and it's because we've been looking for joy in the wrong places.

Jennifer Rothschild: You know, you are -- I'm resonating with everything you're saying, because not only do I see it around me, but I have also taken those kind of paths, right?

Tara Dew: That's exactly right.

Jennifer Rothschild: So we've all been there. And one of the things I've realized in the last many years is, you know, self never satisfies self.

Tara Dew: No.

Jennifer Rothschild: Like, if that's our pathway, oh, give me the next buzz or give me the next sense of significance, ultimately it will lead to dissatisfaction because we are not made to satisfy ourselves ultimately. And so thankfully in your book you're going to talk about these paths to joy. And I want us to go through them, yet one more question before we talk through the path -- okay? -- is this. Because you base them on John 15. So why is it important that we understand the metaphor that are in John 15 before we actually dive in to study those verses and understand these pathways?

Tara Dew: Well, it's important because Jesus often taught in metaphors. And in John 15, Jesus is teaching us how to have true joy. He says in verse 11, this joy that is overflowing, it is so complete, it is so full, it is so rich that it's splashing out of our lives onto everybody else. But he uses a metaphor to teach us how to have that joy. And if we don't understand the metaphor, then we're not going to understand these pathways that he's talking about.

And if we put ourselves in the context of his listeners of that day, they lived in an agricultural society. They lived in a society that was familiar with gardening and agriculture and farming and vineyards. But in 21st Century America, we're pretty far removed from that, a lot of us, and so if we're not careful -- we have a hard time knowing what he's talking about if we don't understand the metaphor he's using. And a metaphor is really just an illustration using something that we should know about to teach us something that we don't know a lot about. And so Jesus was using gardening, that they knew about, to explain something that they didn't know about, and that's the relationship between him and his followers and how we can have joy. And so we have to put ourselves in that context and learn about this agricultural metaphor in order to really understand these pathways to finding joy.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay, I love this, Tara, because that's what you do in the book. And so for those of us who are city dwellers and, you know, Starbucks is our thing we're most acquainted with, this is going to be super helpful. And it's really very life-giving too. It's a very nourishing metaphor that Jesus gives us. So let's start with, then -- let's get on these paths. Okay?

So one pathway you discuss is pruning. And if someone is not a gardener -- first of all, we need to know what that is. But also, how are pruning and removing, you know, limbs or blossoms, how are those different to a gardener, and how does God's pruning, like, actually lead to joy?

Tara Dew: That's right. So Jesus begins in John 15:1 by saying that his Father is the Gardener -- or some translations will say the Vine Dresser -- and that he removes the branches that are dead, but prunes the branches that have borne fruit so that they will bear more fruit. And as I researched this, I learned that pruning is actually a removal of branches that are lanky or superfluous or extra. They're not branches that are dead, they're not branches that have broken off or done something bad. I mean, the gardener will remove those too, but it's for a different purpose. He throws those into the fire and they're burned.

But if a branch has gotten too lanky, too overstretched, too extra, the roots cannot support that, and so it will end up not bearing fruit. So a good gardener knows with intention and wisdom and purpose where to cut a plant back, where to prune that branch back so that there will be more branches that will come from that place and more fruit that will come.

Now, when we think about our lives, we often can look back and say, oh, I saw where I was maybe too overstretched or I was too overcommitted, maybe in finances or maybe in our time and our calendar, our energy, our resources, and we can look back and we can see how that wasn't sustainable. We could not keep going if we kept growing out of control like that. And God in his kindness, because he is a good Father to us, he is a good Gardener, he knows exactly where to prune our lives back so that we will bear more fruit.

But oftentimes when we're going through those seasons of pruning, all we can see is what we're losing. All we can see are the branches that have now fallen off of our lives. And it's sad, and it hurts, and it's painful. But Jesus often reminds us, "Trust me. I am doing a new thing." Right? He is not one that wants us just to be left on our own, growing wildly and out of control. He is a good Father to us, and he is a good Gardener, and in his love and in his wisdom and in his purpose and intention, he knows where our lives need to be pruned back because he knows it will be for our good. And then we will have more joy because we have roots that can now sustain a healthy plant that's growing. And so I know in my life, I've seen so many examples of this, and I do have more joy now as a result of his pruning.

Jennifer Rothschild: I love that you brought out the point that then the roots can support.

Tara Dew: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: Otherwise, we're -- yeah, we can't carry our own weight.

Tara Dew: No. That's exactly right.

Jennifer Rothschild: It's so interesting.

I'm curious, Tara, if -- how do we know what is the Lord's kindness in pruning us, and what is maybe a loss that's just a result of our own sin or rebellion or -- how do we know what's discipline? Do you have a way of knowing the differences in those things?

Tara Dew: I think in my life -- you know, the Bible says he disciplines those he loves. And so sometimes his pruning is discipline for us. Maybe we have done something that is a sinful habit or a sinful pattern where he makes a drastic cut in our life to set us back on the right path. And that discipline, though it's painful at the time, it is for our good.

Other times we have done nothing wrong, right? We are just living our life and circumstances happen. I think COVID is the perfect example of this, right? We're just minding our own way -- right? -- living our lives, and all of a sudden the whole world shuts down. It was nothing that we caused, it was nothing that was created. But when we look back, churches used that time to maybe stop doing ministries that were not important to their mission anymore. Or our calendars, we were able to re-evaluate. Oh, my goodness, do I need to keep doing this? Or maybe we looked at our finances and thought, you know what, I have just gotten too out of control with my spending. Let me use this time to reshape and refine.

And so I think we can look in our circumstances and say, was I in sin or disobedience that caused God's discipline or is God using this circumstance to discipline me in ways where I haven't been disciplined? And the latter is really what that pruning is. It's not that you've done anything wrong, it's just that maybe God removed a relationship or a material possession or a job or a circumstance that was causing you to rely on yourself more than him. And he is after our dependence on him. And so when we begin to make idols of things in our lives, sometimes that discipline is because of a sin, and other times it's that he's reminding us where our true joy comes from. You know what? Our true joy is not found in a full calendar or an overstretched pocketbook or relationships that don't satisfy him. And when we see those things that are being pruned away, if it creates us to be more dependent on him and have a heart and a posture where he is the most important thing in our lives, then that's a life that pleases him.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. And that's where the joy is. As Tara-Leigh Cobble would say --

Tara Dew: That's right.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- that's where the joy is.

Tara Dew: That's right.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right. Now, Tara, let's go to another pathway, then, as we're making our way through John 15. You say that another pathway is this -- I won't phrase it like you do necessarily. But it's trusting in the promise of God's presence and just remaining or abiding in his presence. So what are some practical ways that we can do this, and what do you base that on?

Tara Dew: Yes. So John 15:4-8, Jesus reminds us that he is our Vine and we're his branches, and apart from him we can do nothing. And so I want -- I often think about this image. Because in our backyard of our home in North Carolina, we had this beautiful wisteria vine. And we were having to prune it back because it was starting to take over the backyard. And as we cut off the branches, they fell to the wayside. They were cut off from their life source, and they soon turned brown and died. But the branches that stayed connected to that wisteria vine grew the most beautiful purple flowers and green leaves.

And so often we, as his followers, disconnect ourselves from the power and the strength and the presence of our vine, trying to do things on our own strength. And we're going to be like those branches that are just cut off and died, because if we don't stay connected to him, then we don't have joy in this life. And so he says eight times in those verses, "Remain with me." "Remain with me." "Stay with me." And other translations will say abide or dwell. It's all the same concept.

But I think sometimes in our English, we miss what the listeners of that day would have heard. You know, they didn't have ways to bold or italicize or make the font bigger in their Bibles. But they would be listening to this message, and anything that was important, Jesus repeated. And so if we were to just pull out those eight words, it would sound like this: Remain, remain, remain, remain, remain, remain, remain, remain.

And as I think about that, I think about how so often the things of this world are glittery and shiny and they direct our eyes off of our God. And if we're not careful, we begin to seek those rather than seeking him. And he says to us, If you are my follower, remain with me. Stay with me. Don't let the things of this earth distract you and pull you away. You stay with me. And that word "abide" that we know so well in Christian circles, we don't use it a lot in our everyday language, but it just means to stay in the same house with, to dwell with that person, to abode with that person. And we know from COVID what it means to be on a stay-at-home order. And I feel like Jesus is telling us in this passage, You're in a stay-at-home order with me. You need to dwell with me, right? Don't leave this house, because I am your joy, and my presence with you is what will satisfy the deepest part of your heart.

And so I often like to say, y'all, our eyes are powerful. What we are looking at is where our mind and our hearts will go. And this is why Scripture will say, "Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfector of your faith." Right? Turn your eyes upon Jesus. I love that from the hymn. Right? Look into the mountains. Where does your help come from? You know, our eyes are powerful. And so I ask women often, when I have a chance to teach this passage, like, where are your eyes? Oftentimes I've heard that we will pick up our cell phones over 2,000 times in a day.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, my. Wow.

Tara Dew: And let me tell you, social media is not where your joy is.

Jennifer Rothschild: No, it's not.

Tara Dew: Right?

Your phone, with the news outlets and all the things that are happening, that is not where your joy is. But so often we go through our days and we don't even pick up our Bibles. We say we don't have time, but this is -- bottom line is we have time for the things that are important to us, right? If we have time to pick up our cell phone over 2,000 times a day, can't we spend five times with our God who loves us so much, or five minutes?

And so I think it's really important if we want to practice this stay-at-home order, if we want to practice the presence of God, then my number one suggestion is fix your eyes on him. Make sure that you are meditating on his Word, thinking on his Word. And so one thing I love to do is just -- after I spend time with him in the morning, I love to write a verse on a Post-It note and stick it where I can see it often so that I'm just thinking about those words all day long.

I also love to just sing worship music. Have worship music playing as you're doing the laundry, have it playing as you're cooking dinner, right? Have it playing as you're putting on your make-up in the morning, just so that you're constantly putting your mind and your heart on your God who loves you so much.

And in the second part of the book where I really talk about his presence -- he says often, "Remain in my love." And I think that's really a key because -- when we're little girls, we sing the song Jesus Loves Me This I Know. But then we get older, and I think sometimes we forget that simple truth that is life changing. Jesus loves you and Jesus loves me. And if we truly remain in that posture of love, then the things of this earth are going to grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

And so do whatever you can to fix your eyes on him, remain in his love, and dwell with your God.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's so beautiful, Tara, and so practical too. Because I had an interesting experience several months ago -- first of all, I'm an avid audiobook listener. And I will listen to a lot of fiction, because for me it's very helpful -- like, it's a mental vacation, right?

Tara Dew: Yes, yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: So I love listening to fiction. Well, I took up this challenge to listen to Scripture, to read the whole Bible in 90 days. And so that's about an hour a day, with my audio app anyway, on 1.5 speed. I mean, it's not too fast, but, you know, it's just a little faster. Anyway...

All right. So my point is this. I had to displace some of my fiction vacation in order to get in an hour on the Bible a day. But what I would do is I would disperse it often. You know, I'd do 30 minutes in the morning when I'm having breakfast, I'd do 30 minutes at lunch, I'd do 30 minutes on the treadmill, I'd -- whatever. I would just disperse it throughout the day.

But what I found myself doing is wondering, hmm -- like when I was in the Old Testament, hmm, I wonder what Joseph's doing right now. Hmm, I wonder where Miriam is. You know what I mean? Because I had so attached to being -- sheltering with these people, you know, to being at home with them.

Tara Dew: Yes, yes, yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: And so same when I got in the New Testament. I was like, oh, Jesus is about -- he's in the temple. He's about to heal the guy with leprosy. You know what I mean? I just --

Tara Dew: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: And so what I'm trying to say is it became for me this surprising, surprising way to remain in the love of Jesus, to abide with him.

Tara Dew: I love that.

Jennifer Rothschild: Now, I'm not saying everybody needs to do an hour a day. And I get it. You know, I was specifically trying to just go front to back as a challenge in 90 days. And I'm so glad I did it. It was a wonderful experience.

But my point is this. When you were mentioning reading the Word and meditating, even if it's just on one verse, his Word is so alive that it becomes the way that we remain with him.

Tara Dew: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: And I just -- I love that you brought that -- and it can be as intense as an hour a day, and it can be as simple as one verse on a Post-It note on your fridge.

Tara Dew: That's exactly right. You know, and the Bible describes itself like food. I mean, it talks about it as our daily bread, our manna. You know it says his words are sweeter than honey to our mouth. And, you know, Jennifer, I've never missed a meal. I like food.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yep.

Tara Dew: But yet so often we think, oh, I don't need to eat from God's Word today. But that's a lie from the devil. We have got to be nourished by his Word, just like we would our food.

And I was just at a friend's house who has cows in her backyard from this pasture in this nearby farm this weekend. I was watching them because they were just chewing that grass over and over and over. And I was thinking that's actually what it should look like as Christians. We need to consume God's Word and then chew on it all day long, getting as much as we can out of it.

And as you were talking about you thinking about what's Joseph doing, what's Miriam doing, what's Jesus doing, it's like you were kind of chewing that cud throughout the day, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Tara Dew: Your mind was just on it. And so whatever analogy works for you. But eat it like your daily food. Chew on it, right? Take it in like your breath of your life, because that's what his words are to us. And that's what it means to remain in his presence, and we'll find true joy there.

Jennifer Rothschild: Such good words. Okay, good words.

All right. So let's head to the third pathway then.

Tara Dew: Okay.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right. So you say that the third pathway is just sticking with what God says or, as you put it, persevering in God's commands. So talk to us about obedience, which is a word that some people get intimidated by. But how does that connect to joy?

Tara Dew: Yes. Well, as a good teacher, I wanted to use alliteration to hopefully help people remember, right? Pruning, presence, and perseverance. And I used the word perseverance for that last part because Jesus says, "If you remain in me, then you will keep my commands." And then he says, "And my command is this: Love one another."

Now, those three words are hard because -- some people we love really naturally, right? I mean, the moment they put my twin babies in my arms, I just loved them with this overwhelming natural love. But we all have people in our lives that are not easy to love. And Jesus didn't say love one another when you feel like it, or love one another when it comes naturally, or love one another when you've had a good day. He just says, "If you remain in my love, you're going to keep my commands, and my command is that you will then love one another." And those three words can be so difficult, and so that's why I added that perseverance on the front, because perseverance is just keeping on keeping on, sticking with it even when it's hard.

And I'll tell you, we don't like doing hard things. Our human nature is that we want to take the easy route, right? It's easier to cancel that person, it's easier to avoid that person, it's easier to just let them go from our life. But Jesus says, "Love one another." And when we think about his love for us, y'all, he loved me when I was really difficult and hard to love. He loved me when I was a sinner, right? And I still am a sinner. He loved me when I was running away from him in disobedience, and yet his love was so selfless and so sacrificial that he gave his life for me.

And then he says, "If I've loved you that way, then you will love other people that way." And I think this is where remaining with him, staying connected with him is key, because we need to let his love flow through us to other people. Because this is really a supernatural thing that he's calling us to. It is not in our flesh to love the way he's calling us to. But if we remain with him and if we let his love radically transform our hearts and then flow through us to a world that needs it so desperately, then we're participating really in a miracle, because this world is looking for love in all the wrong places.

And as Christians, we have agape love. We have a love that has come from our God when we didn't deserve it, when we were not lovable, when we were sinners. And when we're able to love people with that same kind of love -- and this is something that I think we need to pray for. God, help me see them the way you see them. God, help me to love them the way you have loved me. God, give me eyes to see that they are an image bearer made in the image of God. And for me in my life, it has caused me to pray that prayer every day and then see how he answers it through his Holy Spirit.

And I think this is the beautiful thing of John 15, is we really see the whole Trinity here in our joy. God the Father is our Gardener who prunes us, Jesus is our vine that we stay connected with, and the Holy Spirit is the one flowing through us to produce this fruit. Love, joy, peace, patience, right? The fruit of the spirit from Galatians 5. So we see this beautiful picture of the Trinity in our joy.

And it's really something that we don't just white-knuckle it and try harder to do, Jennifer, it's something that we allow him to do through us. And I think that is the key to joy. Because then when we're able to love others through a selfless love that's sacrificial, that's unhuman -- right? -- then we see, oh, this is where the joy is. This is joy, serving and loving other people the way my God has loved me.

KC Wright: Jesus is where the joy is for sure. Actually, you know, there's a Scripture that says he was anointed with the oil of gladness more than all of his companions.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

KC Wright: You know why I know he was happy? Because kids loved him.

Jennifer Rothschild: Aw. They don't love grumpy people.

KC Wright: They don't. They don't like mean people.

So we abide with him, Jesus, who is joy. We remain in him. It's all about him. We love our Jesus. And didn't you love how she pulled out the connection to the Trinity in those verses? I thought that was so cool. Anyway...

We are giving one of Tara's books away right now, so go to Jennifer's Insta @jennrothschild. Or you can also go to the Show Notes at 413podcast.com/325 to enter to win. And you can also read the transcript of this entire conversation. Hey, you might win.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

KC Wright: Someone's going to win. Might as well be you. It could be an early Christmas gift for you, or you can give it to somebody and then use the money -- girl math -- you saved to get coffee.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay, KC, that was --

KC Wright: Was that girl math?

Jennifer Rothschild: That was girl math for sure. Well done.

KC Wright: Okay.

Jennifer Rothschild: By the way, Tara does include questions at the end of each chapter -- and they are really short chapters -- so this could be a great book club for you. So meet your people at coffee with that money you save and do a book club there and discuss it. Because, y'all, we need each other.

All right. As Tara said, stay at home with Jesus. Shelter in place with him. Remain in him. You can because you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. I can.

KC Wright: I can.

Jennifer Rothschild: And you can.

KC Wright: Now, I know this is called girl math, but there's some dude math going on --

Jennifer Rothschild: What's that?

KC Wright: -- with my desire for shoes --

Jennifer Rothschild: Shoes.

KC Wright: -- which is -- I get from you.

By the way, Kenzie, who does the social media here, she did the funniest thing --

Jennifer Rothschild: Did you see that this past summer?

KC Wright: -- on your shoes?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes. On Instagram.

KC Wright: It was so cute. I laughed so loud because -- I was, like, actually in a quiet space in the moment, and there was this reel that came up of Jennifer walking with all of her different shoes. Because this girl's got style. And even today, while we're recording this, you all should see the sneakers she's rocking.

Jennifer Rothschild: They are so fun.

KC Wright: And I'm telling you, we can never have enough shoes.

Jennifer Rothschild: No. You got to walk. You need shoes.

KC Wright: And this has also rubbed off on my daughter, Elianna, because now she's asking for shoes. And I'm like, "Elly, I just bought you a pair." And she's like, "Yeah. Well, you have an entire closet full of shoes --

Jennifer Rothschild: Exactly.

KC Wright: -- and you don't wear them." And I go, "I know."

Jennifer Rothschild: See, shoes --

KC Wright: But what's with us and shoes?

Jennifer Rothschild: Shoes always fit. Even though the jeans size changes, the shoes always fit.

KC Wright: They spark joy. And there's some good girl math right there.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's some really good girl math.

KC Wright: You always need shoes.