Transcript
Megan Ashley (0:00)
Foreign. What's up, you guys? Welcome back to another episode of In Totality. I'm your host, Megan Ashley. I'm so happy you are back. And we are here is me, Jay, and Jordan. We are just, you know, kicking it in the. In the. This literally used to be my dining room, and now it has become the room like your grandma's house. That room that nobody goes into. Nobody darkens the doorstep, the door, the. What is this called? Door post. The doorway or door post of this room. Nobody comes in here unless it's a podcast day, but we're in here. Jordan is being ornery. Jay is on his laptop. We're just in here on a random. What day is today? What's today? Wednesday. On a random Wednesday, it's my kids last day of school. Um, and so this is going to be the last moments of quiet for the rest of the summer. And so we are just soaking it in as we prepare for the kids to be on summer break. So all the parents. I'm praying for us. You know, I. I really am. I'm praying for us. We go through this every. It seems like truly, it's like, how did summer hit this fast? And how is it the last day of school and I'm all ready. I can't wait till the first day of school. I cannot wait till they go back. But no, seriously, I'm gonna enjoy a summer with the kids and we're gonna have a good time praying for all you parents out there. They are gonna eat you out of a house and home. The kids are getting ready to eat up all your groceries. And so, yeah, I'm just praying for us today. I wanted to talk to you guys about something that I've experienced in the last couple weeks just out of complete vulnerability and transparency. Because y' all know that's. That's what we do over here, right? I. I feel like I'm always coming to you with, like, a story about how, like, the Holy Spirit is like, yeah, get it together, tighten up. But truthfully, honestly, I. I feel like this is the Christian life. Like, at this point, this is the Christian life. It's like, yes, you're joy all the things, but I feel like I am constantly being refined and pruned and disciplined in all the things. So, yeah, I just kind of wanted to talk to you guys about what I've experienced and what I'm kind of coming to the conclusion of in my Christian walk now. You guys know I'm really, really big on being a serious Christian. I'm really Big on being serious about your faith, because I believe what the Lord did for us is extremely serious. And so I believe that the only proper response, right, in light of Romans 12, right, is your reasonable service is to give your body as a living sacrifice. And to me, that sounds very serious. And so, anyway, this last couple of weeks have just been extremely challenging. And sometimes I'm kind of hesitant about talking about this because there are. There is a. There. There's nuance to suffering, right? And I feel like there. There are so many people that feel like once you're in Christ, you don't need to suffer, and there. And there isn't suffering and, you know, you don't have to suffer and all the other things. But then when I. The more Bible I read, especially in the New Testament, the more I. I see suffering, I see Paul talk about suffering, I see James talk about it, I see Peter talk about, like, I see so much suffering, even Christ talks about it. And so, yeah, sometimes I'm a little hesitant about leaning into that a lot because I feel like that's a lot. Not a lot of my content, but I feel like I talk about that a lot, but I'm learning that, yeah, I'm just gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna, like, shy away from it. I am gonna talk about it. And lately, you know, I have experienced a unique type of challenge. In the last, I don't know, probably six to eight weeks, I have experienced a level of challenges that have frustrated me to a point that I cannot even. I can't even describe. And in life, I feel like, just in my personal context, as a. As a single mom, you know, divorced, learning how to be an entrepreneur on my own, I do very well administratively for other people, but I am not great doing things for myself and managing all the things. And so, you know, there. It. Life has felt like a lot. Making decisions. You know, life just simple life decisions. Where are my kids going to go to school? Where am I going to live? Should I get a new car? Should I. Should I buy it? Should I lease it? Should I do this? Should I do that? Where to invest money, where to do, like, all of those things. And it feels like in the last six to eight weeks, so many decisions I've had to make, like, now or so many things that have caused me to have to make decisions. And let me just tell y' all, the last six months, I've been into three car accidents. Three. My car was in the shop for, like, two months. My. I had a rental car for over A month? No, my car was in the shop for a month. Maybe. I don't know. It was a really long time. I had a rental car. In the rental car, I get into a. I didn't get into the accident. A deer literally runs into the car and so the rental car is damaged. Then I had another. It was just like one thing after another after another. On top of all of that, I have two relational conflict things. And they weren't, they, they weren't necessarily conflicts, but you know how like a person that you used to have a relationship with, and I'm not talking about romantic, I'm just talking about a person that you used to be in community with. A person that you used to talk, you know, have some sort of rapport.
