Welcome back to the Promises of God Podcast, Episode number 46. My name is Tracie Rollins. I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me as we learn and take action on God’s promises in life. This month’s series is about the changing seasons of life, and we’re working out of the momentum devotional offered by Bible journaling ministries titled Seasons. You can learn more about Bible journaling with their free 10-day Bible journaling course at BibleJournalingMinistries.com. Today we’re talking about embracing the season you’re in, and our verse is Psalm 30:5. I’ll read that out of the World English Bible. It says for his anger is, but for a moment, his favor is for a lifetime weeping. It may stay for the night, but joy comes in the morning. David writes this song in a season of his life where he wanted to build this temple for God.
He wanted to build the most awesome temple for God, but God said No. And when things don’t go as we planned, when God closes a door, we should continue to praise him. This, this section here, this verse clearly says his favor is for a lifetime and joy comes in the morning. So continue to praise the Lord when he closes the door and then we will move on to a different direction, right Sometimes we think we’re on the right journey or this is what we want to do and God just closes that door and we can sit there and stare at the door for a while and hopefully not for too long, but we can. And um, I think it’s time to move on. I think of God has closed the door in your life. I know he’s closed many doors. I’m so thankful for the doors that he is closed because I think being on the other side of that, that door on a different door, um, it’s neat to kind of look back and say, you know, if I would’ve been given what I was asking for, I would not be the woman I am today.
And so I praise the Lord for all of the doors that he has closed. So instead of complaining about what we can’t do, like David couldn’t build a temple. He wanted to; he provided so many resources for the building of this temple. So he like planted seeds and you know, did his, you know, provided materials provided labor, but he did not get to harvest. He did not get to harvest the fruit of that temple. Like that wasn’t his thing to do. And when we don’t get to do the things that we want to do, um, we do what we can. Right. And that’s what David did. He did what he could and give God all the glory. I find it hard to always find joy in every season. I remember getting a call from my dad on my honeymoon, brand new bride, my grandmother, who was at my wedding just a few days earlier, who I just hugged in love.
I just loved this woman. I was told that she had passed during my honeymoon, and my bride season quickly turned to one of morning, and I grieved the loss of a woman who encouraged me to love Jesus. I just, she was the one that just played the perfect role model for me, maybe not perfect, but she played the role model for me of one that just was so committed to her church and those, and she did love the congregation. She loved to go to George. He loved to be in fellowship with her church. And, um, she just encouraged me to love Jesus. Before she died, um, during my time of prepping for my wedding, I got to sit down with her now and again, and she made me promise her that I would eventually go back to church. Cause at that time I wasn’t going to church, and I promised her I would.
And I made good on that promise years later. But, um, I was comforted in the knowledge that I’d see her in heaven. So I was comforted knowing that she was in heaven. But having her physically missing from my life was devastating for me. I mean, I was on this high of being a bride, brand-new brides with my husband. We were in Maui; we were riding downhill bikes, we were snorkeling. And the next second I get this devastating news about my grandmother, and I packed up, and I went home during my bereavement leave while others were sifting through her belongings and searching for a momento to remember her by. I was the back room of her little three bedroom, one bathroom house. And I was looking at these boxes of cards. He was a card saver. Every card she had was in a box. And I was looking through those cards and staring at the rice fields and the trains that would go by.
And I remember all of the Times that I spent with her, the summers that we got to spend with her, the weekends we got to spend with her occasionally. And I remember being in that backroom staring at the trains as they would go by and the trains are right across, there was a rice field, so it was her house, big rice field, and then trains and the trains would go across the track. And I just remembered all the times that, um, I was with her, I remember her dancing with us as kids. She grabbed my arms, and we’d dance around. She flung me around the room. It was so fun. I remember her eyes lighting up when she, Oh, when we opened up Christmas presents, I remember walking to the little grocery store and my gosh, this grocery store, I don’t even know if they exist anymore, but this one is no longer there.
I had a chance to visit it a few years back, and it’s not, it’s awful now. But back in the day, there’d be this little grocery store, and it had, you know, just the necessities for the small town that we’re in. A small town called Biggs, California. Isn’t that just kind of funny and there would be a butcher there, and you could order like your ground beef. You could order what we call these were um, hot weenies is what we would always order. And um, she get us licorice, and we’d walk back home, and it was just a small town. I still smile anytime I think about it was just small town, slow times with family and just, Ah, just love, love, love. I loved it when we were driving to church or the store. Sometimes we’d have to go to town to a town called Gridley, which isn’t that much more significant than bigs, but it wasn’t in town. So we’d get in her own Lowville, and she would play these eight-track tapes of crystal gale. And I loved listening to Crystal Gayle and the back of her Oldsmobile. These moments. I think you can hear my voice boys fill me with joy, but the tears still run down my face today. I haven’t forgotten her or the seed she planted in my life, and I’m grateful for the seasons that I got to be with her. And as I talk about missing her, I wonder what season your n I hope that you’re in a season of joy and harvest, but if you have days or seasons where the world seems to be against you, maybe you’ve lost a loved one as I have. Maybe your finances haven’t worked out. I’ve been there. I’ve been without income. It is tough. Or perhaps you’ve had to say goodbye to your oldest son like I’ve been telling you about this whole season and just learning how to let go and let our birdies fly.
You’re not alone, Hun. Seasons change. You have one life to live. It’s important for you to surround yourself with those that you love and remember the joys of the past and let them bring a smile to your face even if the tears come because they were there for a wonderful season and be hopeful for the future. Fruit is wonderful, but in order to be trees that bear good fruit, they must start as seeds, seeds covered in dirt longing to break your free and reaching for the light. There’s something waiting for you, something amazing waiting for you. When you embrace the season that you’re in today and you break through the darkness of the dirt and reach for your father this week, take some time to write down what you’re hopeful for. If you feel like you’re hopeless, calling the Lord and ask him to show up in your life.
Ask him to shed light on the darkness of what might be surrounding you. Reach out to those around you and help and ask him to help lift you of whatever it is that you’re struggling with. Ask God to show up in your life and but also look for him. When you ask him for something, you got to stop, and you got to find him. You got to see what it is he’s doing in your life. It could be the smallest flutter of a butterfly wing. That could be your answer. I don’t know, but you gotta look for it. If you’re asking, sometimes God is obvious, and sometimes it’s not obvious. A lot of times I’ll ask them to please be super obvious with me, like hit me over the head, but that might not necessarily be the good thing either. So embracing season, you’re in it.
Thank God for every second of this crazy life that we’re in. You’re not promised tomorrow. Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death, but a free-gift of God is eternal life in Jesus our lord though turn to him, confess your sins and follow his will in your life and you will feel the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. I want to thank you so much for joining me in this series. I cannot wait to talk to you next month as we start a new series here at the Promises of God Podcast. Have a blessed day. Goodbye.
Episode 045: Stop Trying to Control Your Seasons
Welcome back to the Promises of God Podcast, Episode number 45. My name is Tracie Rollins. I want to thank you so much for spending time with me as we learn and take action on God’s promises in life. This one series is about the changing seasons of life, and we’re working out of the momentum devotional offered by Bible journaling ministries titled Seasons. You can learn more about Bible journaling with their free 10-day course at Bible, Julian ministries.com today we’re talking about trying to control the season that you’re in, and our verse is Daniel, Chapter Two verse 21 I’ll read that out of the World English Bible. It says he changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. The first time I realized I had no control was when my son was born at two pounds, 6.4 ounces as a preemie in the ICU.
You see, he was born about almost 11 weeks early. And I tried so hard to keep him inside of me. I tried everything, you know, the doctors put me on bed rest. I arrested, I stay, I didn’t do anything. I laid down on the bed, and it was, you know, awful. Actually to be honest with you, I don’t really like to watch TV much, but when you’re singing in bed, you know, I would read a book, um, and I would watch TV and be completely bored when my husband went to work and I would just sit there in the bed cause I wasn’t allowed to move and I didn’t do anything to move. And when I went to see my doctor on Monday, cause they had released me on Friday, so I could have it wasn’t Monday. No, I don’t remember what day it was.
But I know that I was by myself, so it must have been like they must have released me on Monday and then had me go back in like a couple of days later. I don’t have the calendar in front of me on that, that series of events, but they let me go. I was supposed to see my doctor two days later. I wanted to see my doctor two days later, and they immediately readmitted me to the hospital, flew me in a helicopter to another hospital that had a better an ICU and a few days later I gave birth to my son. I could not keep him in me. I tried so hard. I did everything that the doctors wanted me to do, but I had no control. And that was the first time that I truly understood that I didn’t have control over, that I could do my very best and to play by the rules to do all the good things, to be as healthy as possible.
But it just didn’t happen like he was born early in, in praise God for that because had he been born normally, he probably wouldn’t be alive today. So I do believe that there is a purpose for everything. And I do like to be in control. I’m not going to lie. I loved it. I love to be in control of my life. I don’t want to feel out of control. And I know that God’s in control, but sometimes I want to be in my, I want to control it myself. I’ll be honest; I’m not going to lie. Um, I still struggle with, with control. I try even to control some of the things around me. Now. I’m not like the biggest control freak ever. I have learned over time, especially with the birth of my son, um, who is in control, and that is our Lord.
God is in control, and I know that, but I’m human too, and I am sinful, and I do like to be in control, and I struggle with it honestly. And it’s something that I’m, you know, always working towards. But I do like to be in control of things, and both my boys, they have been dancers for years, and then that’s not something boys normally do in our society. And believe me, they have been teased for it on so many occasions. People have been mean to them, picked on and bullied them all that they work so hard and to use their gifts to encourage, inspire and bring joy to those that they meet and who observe them. They don’t know their lives. But my boys try very hard to inspire people, especially younger boys, to get into the arts. A lot of times, our society will.
I don’t; I don’t think our society lifts people up when, when we do things that are outside the norm, I think we’re getting better at it as a society. I can see that. I think what we’re doing with girls in stem programs are, is fantastic. We don’t have stuff like that for boys, especially as it relates to boys and art. Unfortunately, it’s not there. It’s something that we need to work on as a society. And as you are passionate about doing that, that’s great. In late 2018 saw this massive change in my son. Okay. Cause he had wanted to be a professional dancer at one point in his life. We invested thousands; I’m not kidding you. Thousands of dollars in his dance program and instructors and private lessons and he, he’s outstanding. He’s still good. I’ll be honest with you. He’s an excellent dancer.
In fact, he had so many local golf ridges and a university’s suggesting that he should try out for their programs and talked about scholarships and stuff like that. So he was, he was right. He still is good. Um, but in 2018, right before he graduated, so he was graduating in 2019 this year. And at the end of 2018, I just started seeing a change. I started seeing him where instead of attending his extra lessons that were included in our encompassing package, right, with our dance studio that we belong to. If you buy like three classes, you might as well purchase unlimited pass because it’s the, it’s you save money if you, if you buy the unlimited pass. So he had the unlimited pass, and he could go to ballet, and he could go to hip hop, and he could go to jazz. He could do anything that he wanted to, but in the, and he used to, he used to go all the time.
He was a member of their dance program, their competition team. We took them to other states to compete. I mean, he was, he was that good. In fact, both my boys are really good and not to brag, but they are really good, and they really do a light at the room and it’s so fun to see them because it just isn’t something that you see a lot of, especially in as the kids get older, into high school programs. It’s very rare to see a boy do dancing. So it was neat to see him. And at the end of 2018 and I just started seeing a change in my oldest son, he’s stopped going to the extra lessons. He even missed some of his classes, and I started taking on other areas of responsibility in his life, meaning he went and worked for Chick-Filet for a while and took on more hours there so he couldn’t do dance and he just started like drifting away from dance.
So I had a lot of conversations with him. I tried to encourage him to keep dancing. I tried to encourage him to seek the opportunities that he would get in college because we had talked to some campus reps and they were talking about how much they needed boys in the dance program and how, um, scholarships were available for that if he was interested in. So I would, you know, let them know these auditions are coming up there. If you don’t go, you’re going to miss out. And I would try to like encourage him because I, I feel like my kids need to make their choices. I make choices as a parent. They get to make choices as, as a kid. And I don’t want to tell them what to do with their career. I was trying to guide them, and so I was trying to guide him in more of a controlling way than maybe I should’ve.
But you know, the deadlines came in the way. He didn’t apply. He didn’t, Dan, he decided to hang up his dancing shoes. He came to me, and he said, I’m, I want to be in nutrition. I want to become a physician assistant. And I’m not going to dance anymore. And that’s, that’s just what I want to do with my life. And, and I think that his future goal, and I know that will probably change, but I believe that his future goal is reasonable. It’s pretty exciting to see that he would have a goal like that. And if he needs a hang up his dancing shoes so that he can focus on that goal, then I’m going to let him do it. And it was so hard. Oh my gosh. When he told me that, you know, the last performance I would see is him as a senior.
It was hard. It was hard. It was confusing. And it was hard to hear him say that because, for the last few years, he had just really explained like, you know, just how much passion he had for dance. He danced all the time. I mean when he wasn’t, you know, at school or he wasn’t engaged with a video game with a friend who was dancing, you know, and they would, they would go outside and they film videos of them dancing and they’d publish it to things like musically or whatever the apps were or they, he loved dancing and I just thought that he would be dancing into his college time. I thought he would be in the dance program there and maybe do as nutrition as well and then eventually go to become a PA. I’ve, I was trying to figure out a way where he could work it all together in a lot of times I was thinking, why did I spend thousands of dollars on this dance program if he wasn’t going to do it in college. There was a lot, a lot of emotion, a lot of frustration, a lot of curiosity and none of that was like, I didn’t like yell at him. We didn’t have that conversation, but it was a lot of concern. A lot of this is what she said he wanted to do. I understand it’s time to change. I get that. But I don’t want you to have any regrets. And a lot of this as a parent was me telling him, you get the shot right and you’re ready now and people need you now. And if you give up the shot, then you have to be okay with that. And he was okay with it. He was okay with it. And so I just let them go. Like I just let it go. Didn’t matter all of the investment that we had in his dance programs.
I mean honestly, just the investing in the dance programs made him like hugely contributed to the man he is today. I’m so proud of him. I’m so blessed. Excited. We had the resources to be able to spend that on him. We did a lot of sacrificing to allow our kids to dance, a huge amount of sacrifices. But I think that it helped them. It helped them become the men that they are today. And I’m so proud of them. In May of 2019, I just, I got to sit and watch his last performance, and I did not cry. I did not cry. I would cry, but I had come to I think a mature, maybe more mature way of seeing things and realized that what he was doing in his life was exactly what he needed to do and I supported his decision 100%, and so I watched him say goodbye to his friends.
I watched him thank his teachers, and then I watched him hang up his dancing shoes. Dakota’s season of dance wasn’t supposed to last, but it did prepare him for the next stage of his life. The investment in years of lessons didn’t prepare him to dance professionally. Instead, it contributed to the man he is today, and he is so ready for his next season. This week, I want you to ask yourself if you try to control the seasons of life instead of recognizing who is in control and if that sounds depressing and makes you feel like life is meaningless and why even bother, I would encourage you to do a study on the book. It’s a wisdom book called Ecclesiastes, and you can learn more about that in episode 42 of the podcast. If you’ve been struggling to try to control everything in your life and you feel like it’s wearing you down, give it to God. You’re not promised tomorrow. Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the free-gift of God is eternal life in Jesus, our Lord. So turn to Him, confess your sins, and follow his will and your life, and you will feel the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. I am super excited to wrap up the series with you next week as we discuss embracing the season that we’re in and I will talk to you in the next episode of the Promises of God Podcast. Have a blessed day. Good Bye.
Episode 044: Overnight Success Stories Are Lies
Welcome back to the Promises of God Podcast, Episode number 44. My name is Tracie Rollins, and I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me as we learn and take action on God’s promises in our lives. This one series is about the changing seasons of life, and we’re working out of the momentum devotional offered by Bible journaling ministries titled Seasons. You can learn more about Bible journaling would their free 10-day Bible Journaling Course at BibleJournalingMinistries.com. Today we’re talking about overnight successes and of course harvesting, and our verse is Isaiah 9:3, and I read that out of the World English Bible. It says you have multiplied the nation, you have increased their joy, they rejoice it before you according to the joy in harvest. As men rejoice when they divide the plunder. I’ll have to admit I am impatient when it comes to gardening.
I only garden because my husband likes it and I try to engage in activities that he enjoys. I prefer to grow herbs and sprouts that like literally take a few days to sprout and use not the type of Gal that likes to plant tomatoes that could take months to mature and fruit trees that take years to mature. Actually when it comes to purchasing trees, which we have done many times because we’ve had, we’ve moved around a lot in our lives and have always, I’ve always loved planting fruit trees and when it comes actually to go to the nursery to buy those trees, I will pick the ones that already have fruit on them. Even though I know the stress of planting them is going to cause, our fruit to fall or not be good. I like to buy the kind that already have the fruit on them because I don’t have to worry though.
I know that the tree will produce fruit and sometimes actually more often than not, the Teresa have the fruit that I’ve picked in my life and then I’ve planted these trees that have fruit. They take longer to grow than the ones that didn’t. It just drives me nuts. Fruit does not grow overnight. A few years ago I took my kids on a camping trip down to Willcox, Arizona where they have just beautiful orchard of apples, just wonderful apples. Just so good. I took my trees on my kids on a camping trip around. We did a whole tour around Arizona. It was nice, and I even went up to the Grand Canyon and saw that which was fun. Anyways, we started and headed towards Tucson and then pass Wilcox and towards Wilcox actually and stopped at this place called, I think it was Annie’s orchard and she hadn’t even know why I call it a she because I’m not sure if she owns it or not or if it’s a family.
I think it’s a family venture now. We all got to pick apples, so we grabbed our buckets, and we had these, he’s little, oh gosh, they were called apple pickers, I think apple pickers where there’s a, they’re on a pole, and they have these wires attached to them and you basically find the apple that you want on the tree and you grab it with this contraption and then you, it releases the apple and you put it into your basket. I’m not kidding you. It worked like a charm. It was so easy. I could pick the exact apple that I wanted. At the top of the tree. Well, not at the top of the tree because I’m so short, but close, close, closer, maybe halfway through the tree. Anyways, I could graph the apple that I want and just put it in the basket and then I could, after we picked all the apples that we wanted and we had quite a few pounds of apples, we took them to the register and paid for them.
And honestly, I don’t think the price was any cheaper in the store, but it was just so fun to go and harvest these apples and I just loved doing it. It was such a fun experience with my kids. But the reason why I’m telling you this story is that I was so guilty of wanting to harvest without doing the work. Don’t get me wrong. I work hard. I love to work. In fact, I often have to have people that I love in my life tell me to stop working and take a sabbath. I have a goal this month to make one sabbath every week and start incorporating that into my life. I have done this before, but with, with me, sometimes things creep into who it, I usually will choose like a Sunday to do my sabbath, and then I’ll get bored, and I’ll do work because I’m bored.
So I love to do work, but I love to harvest. I love to go pick fruit instead of having to do the work to grow the fruit myself. I am so guilty of doing that. And I mean, aren’t we all kind of a little bit guilty of, of that I mean, maybe we look at people who appear to be overnight successes, right And we just sort of look at them sometimes and be a little envious of, you know, how did they get to be there How come they’re doing all these great things, and I am having struggles. But if you look at overnight success stories, they’re a myth. If you look very closely at an entrepreneur or a singer, artist or someone that you admire, you will find out that they did so many hours of hard work, so many days, years to get to where they want there.
A lot of failures happen in overnight success stories. It’s just so fascinating that we look at people and when you say what happened like I have a friend of mine who I admire and love and she’s 70 pounds lighter today than she was the last time I saw her. And you know, I look at her, and I’m a little envious. I’ll be honest with you, I really would love to lose more weight, and my weight is just not coming off the way I wanted to come off. But I’m also not doing the work that she’s doing. I do, I do work, but I’m, I didn’t do the work that she did. In fact, to get to where she was. She said no to carbohydrates and sugar for a full year. She didn’t eat hardly any fruit. I think at least for the first 50 pounds, she didn’t eat any fruit.
And I love to eat fruit so it’s hard for me not to eat that I can’t do well. I’m not going to say I can’t do what she did, but she, what she did was tough. She had a lot of protein and high-fat diet that’s called the Keto Diet, and she looks amazing, and she’s off of her medication. She’s doing so well, and I look at her, and I go, man, can I do that I really would love to be able to do that, but I’m not exactly there in my life where I’m ready to do that. I’ve, I did try to do the Keto Diet but didn’t stick to it cause then I had sugar and some fruit and that doesn’t work well with the Keto Diet. So I’m not the Keto Diet expert. I promise you do not look over here for that. I am the girl that keeps trying.
And when I fail, I pick myself back up, and I keep trying and you know, I’m just going to keep working on it as hard as I can. But I can’t look at her and say it’s so easy for her cause it’s not, she had to go through the same things that I go through, which is a lot of withdrawal when it comes to sugar and fruit and stuff like that. And she had to go through a hard, hardpoint. But what I find fascinating about any success story, even if I look at other overnight success stories, like you know my pastor, right My pastor, you could look at him, he’s so young and you could say, oh he’s an overnight success story cause he has this, you know, this church that’s thriving and he’s so young and how does he do it Well his overnight success was years of seminary, years of youth ministry, years of cleaning bathrooms and puke off the ground and volunteering.
And so when I look at these people that surround me that I just admire, I’m joyful because their harvest is here, but then I have to remind myself that my season of harvest, it won’t come unless I do the work of planting the seeds and all that work is so hard, so hard. I have to nurture the plants; I have to do the work. One of the things that I find fascinating when I look at these overnight success stories, and anybody that I admire is you can always see that there’s this, it almost feels like when you look at them now, when they’re done, or they’re successful, you go, oh gosh, it looks so easy for them. I can tell you right now; it’s not. It’s hard work. They’re continuing to do the hard work, but there’s, I feel like there’s like an inflection point.
There is a starting of the process, which she can be very, very motivated to do and super excited and then you hit a point where it’s like really hard, you know So the motivation is gone, and now there’s a lot of friction. And if you can break through that friction and continue to create healthy habits, you will find success over time, right Over time you have to continue to do the work. You have to continue to do the planting in order to reap the harvest and the reward. But it’s fascinating to see that it’s this pattern of like, you know, good, easy motivation and maybe it’s not easy at the gate, but perhaps you have a lot of strong motivation and willpower to get through it. Then there’s a source of friction. And then there’s this overcoming of that friction and, and the establishment of habits to the success.
And it’s just, it’s fascinating to me that that is the pattern that I see for people that are quote-unquote successful or overnight successes, right They’ve worked so hard, they’ve overcome such friction, and then they create these habits that are, they’re lifelong and as long as they continue their successes, they have these certain habits. So it’s neat to see successful people, and we can look at people, and we can say, oh, I can’t do, or they’re successful, and they’re going to be successful. But I would encourage you not to say that I wouldn’t, I would encourage yourself to not put yourself down, to seek the help that you need to make it to the level that you are. You’re trying to make it to. I have a coach like I pay somebody to tell me what to do, even though I know what to do, I literally will pay somebody to question me sometimes to help stretch me beyond.
That’s why I’m doing the sabbath. I have a coach that says; you must take a break. It’s biblical is she’s a Christian coach. But you know, it’s so funny because we think that we can do these things on our own. And I, if I look at it hindsight in 2020, I say, Gosh, why can I, I should be able to do this on my own. And I think the Lord wants to surround me with people that encourage me. And so in the season of my life, in this particular season of my life, I’m gonna rely on some additional help, and I’m going to pay for it. And that’s just the way it’s going to be so that I can get over some of the things that hold me down and, and don’t bring me closer to God, but pull me away from him.
So I would encourage you to find those people in your life that can encourage you. If this podcast is one of them, I’d like to thank you so much for listening. Please, uh, give us a thumbs up and visit us on our website and the promises of God podcast. We can help you out with our Bible journaling resources if that’s something that you’re interested in. But this week, take some time to write a journal about someone in your life that appears to be an overnight success. Who is it in your life that is an overnight success And if you’re here today, and you feel like the harvest is so far off and you’re ready to really reap the rewards today, you know that harvest is not coming, but you want to the rewards today, I would encourage you to lookup. If you are listening to this audio, I promise you; you’re already blessed.
You have access to the Internet, you have the technology, and that’s more than what so many other people have to give things for what you have and go outside. Go outside, walk outside, feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, dance in the rain, and find a new friend. Pray to God and ask him to show you your blessings and ask him to continue to give you more. Ask Him. He wants to know your heart. He wants to know your desire. So ask him. Tell him he wants to be in a relationship with you, but thank him for the gift of Jesus Christ and open up your heart to the many, many more blessings that he has in store for you. But more importantly, the best blessing is your eternal reward in heaven because you’re not promised tomorrow. Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life and Jesus our Lord.
So turn to Him, confess your sins, and follow his will and your life, and you will feel the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. In our next episode, we’re going to be talking about the need to control the seasons in our lives and the seasons of other people’s lives. So we’re going to talk about control and how to work through that. And I just want to thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Promises of God Podcast. If you haven’t left us a review, please do so. Give us a thumbs up and share with a friend. I hope you have a beautiful day now. Goodbye.
Episode 043: Planting Seeds That You’ll Never Harvest
Welcome back to the Promises of God Podcast, Episode number 43. My name is Tracie Rollins, and I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me as we learn and take action on God’s promises in life. This months series is about the changing seasons of life, and we’re working out at the momentum devotional offered by Bible journaling ministries titled Seasons. You can learn more about Bible journaling with their free 10-day Bible journaling course at BibleJournalingMinistries.com. Today we’re exploring the seasons for planting, and our verse is Galatians 7:9 and I’ll read this out of the World English Bible. It says, don’t be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life. Let us not weary in doing good for we will reap in due season if we don’t give up. I like this verse, but I think that sometimes it can be misused, especially as it relates to prosperity. Sometimes I hear this verse, uh, being thrown around and for whatever a man sows, he will also reap. And so I hear a lot of people saying, if you give all your money away, God will give all your money back to you. If you work hard that you will be very, very rich. And I don’t believe in, that’s precisely what this verse was intending to do it especially as I read verse eight. So as you read verse eight, it says, for he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life.
So what I gathered there, and again, I’m not a theologian. I am not a pastor, and this is just Tracy what I think. So I would always encourage you to open up your Bible and read for yourself. I believe that you should hear what the Holy Spirit is calling to you in your heart and responding accordingly regardless of whoever is preaching to you. Even the most experienced pastor is doing an interpretation of the Bible. So this is just my interpretation. I usually don’t make a lot of interpretations, but this one was just on my mind, and I felt called to kind of dive deep just a little bit into it. So even if we, so here on earth, like let’s say we work hard, it doesn’t mean that we’re going to be rich. If we look at the book of Ecclesiastes, he week, it says for everything there’s a season and a time for PR and a time for every purpose under heaven.
But when we have this self-focused way of thinking, it’s hard to understand why things don’t always balance out. Sometimes we wonder why a corrupt person can be so rich while the one who tries and works hard, struggles to eat every day. Why is one person healthy but another person born sick Why do some people live along, and others don’t I think having a god focused life helps reconcile these issues. At least it does for me. And so when I read this section here, I can’t tell you that if you work hard that you’re going to be rich and that you do everything in your power to be healthy, that you’re never going to get sick. I can’t tell you that the Lord is going to heal you tomorrow as you know because you do all the right things, I don’t know.
But what I can tell you is that if you sow to the spirit, if you sow to the spirit, you will reap eternal life. It’s clear in the word here. So your reward for sure will be in heaven, but you may not feel like is happening today on earth. Again with Ecclesiastes, there’s a time for everything. And yes, we want to reap our rewards. Now we don’t want to necessarily. So sometimes we want to reap the harvest. Sometimes we want to take the harvest. We don’t want to do the work. And even sometimes, when we do the work, we don’t get to reap the harvest. So it can be a little frustrating. But the verse clearly says for he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life.
And that’s a promise. That’s a promise you will reap eternal life. And that is worth more than any dollar, any car, any house, anything that you can have here on this earth. So as you are thinking about this week in the whole section today, we’re talking about not giving up that you should do good to all, you should continue to do good and don’t be weary when you’re doing it. Let us not be weary in doing good for. We will reap in due season, whatever that season is. Maybe it’s not today. Maybe it’s not tomorrow. Maybe it’s when you get to have the opportunity to be in the presence of your Lord. That’s when you’ll reap for sure. That’s when, that’s when all Christians get to reap it. Maybe that is worth focusing on. At least it is for me. Don’t give up. Last year I purchased my sister’s house.
She wanted to downsize it, and it seemed like a pretty good move that could benefit her family and mine. And so in buying her house I had to put my house up for sale, and as the realtor assessed my house, he recommended quite a few improvements including planting alon, and we’re talking about thousands. I know it was well over 10,000 the amount of work that we had to put in this house to sell it. And you wanted us to put in a new lawn because my husband, when we bought that house, he, my husband put so much work into that lawn it, I mean, goodness, it was so beautiful, and it was like a big lawn, and it was huge and he put so much work on it, but eventually he gave up on, I guess after 12 years he was done with it.
So he let it go. It was a little not that awesome. So the realtor says you have to, you know, do something about this lawn because it’s going to ruin the chances of this house selling. And I didn’t want to invest in a new lawn. I mean, I think it was quite a few thousand dollars just for the lawn. I’m telling you to get this house ready. We painted it; we put a new lawn in it, we put new carpet and flooring in it. It was so much work to put this house on the market. And I just wanted to sell it and be on my way. But you know, we listened to the realtor but thousands of dollars into this house, and we planted, right. We planted the lawn; we planted a beautiful home. We planted, you know, nice new carpet. Like it looked amazing.
We clean that thing. Like it looked beautiful and the house sold in a day. It sold in a day. But I didn’t get to read that harvest. I didn’t get to play on that lush, beautiful long we put in there. I didn’t get to smell the beautiful paint and decorated the way I wanted to. I didn’t get to have, you know, the most awesome new carpet. When we bought that house, that house already had old carpet in it, and I left it in there cause we couldn’t afford to replace it. So that time, it was not a good season. Not a season of prosperity for us. And I left that red carpet in there for years. And I finally think I did the master bedroom like two or three years before we sold the house. So I guess I was in there for nine years with a ratty carpet, wanted to change it, couldn’t afford it, so we put it off until we finally could do it ourselves and we, and we eventually ended up doing it ourselves.
I did get to reap that harvest and be with and have lovely new floors for a few years, but some of the things that I have planted, especially with the sell of this new house, I didn’t get to, I didn’t get to reap that harvest. I guess you could argue that we sold the house pretty quickly, which could also argue that we probably undersold that house, but I don’t know, sometimes the seasons for planting, they don’t line up with my plans, but I’ve got to plant them anyways. I’ve got to do what the Lord is calling me to do. I plant seeds in many areas of my life that I don’t expect to reap from. Sometimes it’s intentional, like a, just discussing with my kids. You know, sometimes I’ll plant seeds in their life by saying something or, or suggesting something and that’s intentional.
Right I may never see that that fruit grow, right You could plant seeds all day long, but sometimes you don’t ever see the fruit that your kids, you wish your kids would have, but sometimes you don’t see that fruit. But sometimes it’s the seeds that I plant, they’re scattered, and I have no idea where they land like what I’m talking to you on this podcast. Maybe there’s something that I’ve said that has inspired you or encouraged you. I’ll, I may never know that unless you reach out to me, which you’re welcome to reach out to me on my email or Facebook or however you, however, you want to where Bible, Julian ministries and or you could go to the website, the promises of God, a podcast.com you can reach me there and I would love to hear that. But so many times, I don’t know, like where are the seeds that I’m scattering are landing.
Even the other day where I prayed for this woman in the parking lot had never met her before and just felt the Holy Spirit calling on me to pray for her. And so I did with her, and I just don’t know like what happened to that or maybe when I’ve paid for somebody behind me in the, in the McDonald’s parking drive-through or paid for someone’s meal at a restaurant, or gave the waiter an extra tip because somebody ripped them off or whatever. I don’t know what happens to those seeds, and I don’t always get to see the fruit of the hard work or the food of the seeds that I scattered, but I learned to let that go. My job here on earth is to do with the Holy Spirit calls on my heart to do and regardless of whether or not I get to reap the harvest of whatever seed that is sown, I will do what the Holy Spirit calls me to do.
I will do what God has me to do, and that takes a lot of discernment. It takes a lot of mistakes that I’ve made and experiences in life and perseverance. Sometimes I can get tired, and I suspect sometimes you can get tired, but the Lord says, do not be weary when you’re doing good. Just do good. So this week take some time to write your journal about how you can continue sewing even when you’re tired or when you don’t expect to reap the harvest. If you’re here today and you’re tired, maybe you so all the time and you feel like you never get to harvest or maybe you’ve harvested a lot lately, but the pool of your career and the things of this world have you feeling disconnected from God. Call on God. Talk to him. He wants to be in a relationship with you. He wants to love on you.
He wants to be with you during the hard seasons and the fun and exciting seasons. Don’t leave him out of either. Bring him along for all of it cause he wants to be there with you and he wants to have a relationship because he loves you so much. You’re not promised tomorrow. Don’t put this off. Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death, but a free of God is eternal life in Jesus, our Lord. So turn to him, confess your sins and follow his will in your life and you will feel the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. In our next episode, we’re going to talk about overnight successes and the season of harvest, and so I cannot wait to speak to you about that in the next episode, but today I want to thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Promises of God Podcast. You have a blessed day. Goodbye.
Episode 042: Adjusting to The Changing Seasons of Life
Welcome back to The Promises of God Podcast, Episode number 42. My name is Tracie Rollins, and I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me as we learn and take action on God’s promises in life. This months series is about changing seasons of life, and we’re working at it, the momentum devotional offered by Bible journaling ministries titled Seasons. You can learn more about Bible journaling with our free 10-day course at BibleJournalingMinistries.com. Today we’re exploring the purpose behind each season of our life. Our verse is Ecclesiastes 3:1, but I’m going to read the entire section to you. It says for everything.
There is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born in a time to die, a time to plant in a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down in a time to build up, a time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing a time to seek and a time to lose. A time to keep in a time to cast away, a time to tear and a time to sow. A time to keep silent and a time to speak. A time to love in a time to hate. A time for war in a time for peace. What season are you in What time are you in, For me, I’m in a season of missing and adjusting to kids. Starting to leave the house. Last month, my oldest son went off to college, and things are different here. They’ve changed my youngest boys busy with school, but I can see a noticeable difference in him as he learns to adapt to life without his brother. His brother, his bedroom is actually across the hall from him. I’ve asked him if he wants to move into his brother’s room, but he said no, he likes his room, so he’s going to stay in his room, but things are quieter in a family of three instead of a family on foreign.
I began to miss the days of the time when they were little, and those were days of playing in the park, playdates, endless football practice, first dance recitals, and parent-teacher conferences. I was exhausted, overworked, and busy to the point of passing out when my head hit the pillow every night, and that season is gone. It’s past. And even now, my youngest son rarely has a parent-teacher conference, and he certainly doesn’t want me stalking him at his dance practice at school. Going through these seasons is both thrilling and exhausting. They’re easy, and they’re hard. You’re filled with purpose and disappointment, full of joy and sadness, but the journey doesn’t stop because I will it to. I can’t freeze time. I can’t go back in time. I can’t pray for more time. I have to be in a season and take what God has for me while giving my best to those who surround me. I love the book of Ecclesiastes is because initially, actually when I first was reading the Bible, Ecclesiastes was a little depressing to me. It, it, I mean, I wrestled with a question that the teacher wrestles within the book of Ecclesiastes is with, you know, the meaningless meaning lists, the newness of life, essentially asked the question, how do you know life is meaningful amid the circumstances which nothing makes sense? Our life can sometimes make absolutely no sense, and we can wrestle with these questions, but the book itself, Ecclesiastes, he’s deconstructs all the ways we find meaning and purpose in life apart from God.
And so as you read that book If you take the time to read that book, I hope that you will see that deconstruction and that ultimately I find that the teacher focuses on you enjoying the season that you’re in and not worrying like you don’t have to worry about your prosperity. You don’t have to worry about your career moves. You don’t have to worry about all these things because they’re quote-unquote meaningless. Right. I think there are parts in the Ecclesiastes where you can; you can feel like, boy, they shouldn’t do anything. That’s just a, you know, it’s a, it’s a book where it’s like, you know, nothing that you do today will matter in years from now. It’s a little depressing, which is why it was a hard book for me to learn to love, but as I continued to read it more and more, I started to find places in there where it helps me with my journey.
If you remember our last few episodes, we were talking about living life and in our first episode of that Stair, that series we talked about, is your career killing you And for me, I am the type of person that just always wants to achieve. I get so much delight in, you know, checking the box or I’ll write down things on my planner to check them off. I love to achieve things, but that doesn’t matter. And I love that Ecclesias stage reminds me of the things that are important in life. It reminds me of that God is the most important, um, person in my life. That Jesus came here for my sins and he loves me unconditionally and that I should be here from my friends when they need my family and me. And that’s what’s important. To go outside and breathe the fresh air, to see the beautiful sun against my skin, to see the birds flying and listen to the sound as they chirp in the morning. I walked to see the kids playing in the street, to see the rain come down and feel it on my skin. All these wonderful things that God provides every day. I can be joyful. And today, even if the season I’m going through is missing the season I’m going through could be, you know, a little bit sad because I don’t have my oldest son with me right in my house anymore and I have to learn to live without him. And I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal if you don’t have kids. I know it sure doesn’t sound like a big deal. In fact, for some people, they’re joyful when their kids leave. But for me, my heart is broken, and I’m missing my and I am missing my son. So I will be joyful in this season. I will choose to be joyful in the season.
And reading the book of Ecclesiastes helps remind me that the time is short, right And there’s a time for everything. There’s a time to be born, and there’s a time to die. There’s a time for planting. There’s a time for harvesting. This is just a season of life. And if I can learn to adjust with it, if I can learn to seek his will in each moment of my life, Lord, will he be glorified or God be glorified in every action that I take today, Lord, that he would just be delighted in the way I, I go about my days and would the joy even in the seasons that aren’t like the most exciting seasons of my life. So if you’re in a season of missing or if you’re in a season of joy, that is amazing. If you’re in a season where maybe you’ve also had to say goodbye to your son or daughter as I go out and venture into the world, or perhaps you’ve said goodbye to someone recently who’ve passed, or maybe you’ve said hello to New People as you’ve started a new job, our seasons in life change and we need to be joyful in each and every one of them.
But remember that God always provides and we need to be joyful in the season that we’re in with the things that God has provided. So this week, take some time to write a journal about the season that you’re currently in. If you’re here today and you’re struggling with the season that you’re in, you might be wishing that it could be over them over. Maybe you are struggling with some health issues. Perhaps you’re struggling with finances, and you just wished the season could be over. Call on God, and he will come alongside you. You are not promised tomorrow and do not put this off. Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the free-gift of God is eternal life and Jesus our Lord. So turn to Him, confess your sins and follow his will in your life, and you will feel the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. I want to thank you so much for tuning in today, and I’m excited to talk to you more about the different seasons. We’ll talk about the seasons of planting. We’ll talk about seasons of harvesting, all kinds of fun, fun discussions on seasons of life and working together as we transition in and out of different seasons of our life this month. So I’m looking forward to seeing you in the next episode of the Promises of God Podcast. I hope you have a very blessed day. Goodbye.
Episode 041: Live an Abundant Life
Welcome back to the Promises of God Podcast, Episode number 41 my name is Tracie Rollins, and I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me as we learn and take action on God’s promises in life. This months series is about living life, and we’re working out of the momentum devotional offered by Bible Journaling Ministries titled Live Life. You can learn more about Bible journaling with their free 10-day Bible journaling course at BibleJournalingMinistries.com. Today we’re talking about living a full life. In our verse is John 10:10, I’ll read this out of the world English Bible. It says, the thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life and I have it abundantly. In March of 2018, I tripped and fractured my Tibia that is right below my knee. It’s pretty hard to fracture a trip Tibia, so I feel like I must have put an extreme amount of pressure on it.
Plus I’m a little bit heavy on top so that extreme pressure on my leg probably caused that fracture for six weeks. I hobbled around on crutches until the fracture healed, and when the orthopedic surgeon told me to walk on it, it was still painful. My knee was very unstable, and I wondered how I would be able to walk the many, many miles we had planned on her trip to Ireland in the next few weeks. It was too expensive to cancel and forgo the trip. I didn’t want to cancel it anyways. Again, I, I try to plan my vacations a year in advance. I know that doesn’t always work out for people. For us, we’ve been pretty successful in doing it, and it’s given us an ability to save for the vacation and pay cash when we could. Um, 100% of the time we pay cash. So we do for total transparency. I do charge charges on my credit card and then pay them off immediately and that just kind of helps us get extra bonuses and things from our cash back cards. So that’s just another little strategy I use to save money anyways.
There are different, and there are people that don’t believe that you should do that by the way they, they um, especially if you have a hard time with credit cards and you can’t pay them off and then yeah, no matter, no amount of rewards is going to help with that. Just important to pay that off. Anyways, my doctor then recommended that I use a brace and a cane during the trip so I, I got one in this brace. I’m not kidding you. It’s full, was a full-length brace like it was, it was intense, and I had to wear that on a trip. I wore that for almost, I want to say so march up until my surgery, which was in January of 2019 that’s like nine months that I wore that brace and used a cane to help me. But anyways, I use, I was able to use the brace and a cane.
I want to hobble around the airports, and I think there was only one connection that I needed to get someone to bus me from one location to the other because the connection was too tight and I couldn’t hobble fast essentially enough. So praise the Lord for, for people that will help you and get you from one destination to another, so you don’t miss your flight. I climbed many castle staircases in Ireland. It was an amazing trip. I just had so much fun. We crossed rickety bridges. I hobbled down long, winding, long winding path. These were long. It was a long walk. It has very been full but beautiful at the same time. I have many memories of this trip, and they believe that God was glorified through all weed. So many, so many good memories and family. Nice family time there. I didn’t have to go on a trip to Ireland.
I could have canceled some of it and received some of the money back, but I didn’t want to. It was worth it for me to hobble along to experience all the pain that I did, to enjoy the moments that I was able to enjoy with my family and to see such a beautiful country that I had never seen before. I had a choice. Do I want to live my life abundantly? Do I want to live my life in all wonder and service to our Lord, and to show these things to my kids and be a part of it with them? And to see items that God has created and appreciate them and to thank him for His Majesty and glory? Or do I want to talk in my bed and cry because my leg doesn’t work, or it doesn’t go right, or it’s painful, etc.
Right. There are so many things that I can do in my life that it’s easy not to do, not to live life. It’s easy to isolate ourselves and for me, I mean that’s a that’s an easy thing for me to do. I work at home so I can isolate myself pretty quickly. I don’t have to go out. I can sit here and talk on this microphone to you all day long and um, I don’t have to experience anything. I can sit here. I can get onto youtube and watch youtube or Netflix or Hulu or HBO or whatever I can, and I can do all these things here in my house. I could isolate myself from the rest of this world, but that’s not living an abundant life. That’s not what God would have me to do. Right So today I get up, I walk, I walk, and I keep walking, and I keep building up the strength in my leg and it, it works amazing.
Now I, it is so awesome. The first time I went to walk, I could only walk. It was like a miracle to walk to the stop sign that was, I mean, I could probably count the steps. Maybe they were a hundred I’m not sure. Maybe they were 80, I don’t remember, but there’s literally from my house to the stop sign is not very far, and it was amazing in the miracle to be able to do that in the next day. I would try a little bit further and try a little bit further and try a little bit further. Now I’m like at, and I think over 4,000 steps every morning just in that one walk. I try to get 10,000 steps in a day. So I’m always trying to work and get better at it and, and have, um, the strength in my legs and to appreciate and thank God for the ability to move and not be limited by my thoughts and not be limited by what other people tell me.
But to listen to the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit calls and to ask God for healing, to ask God for whatever it is in my life like the go on my knees and ask him because he wants to ride wonderful things to his children. And yeah, maybe wonderful things aren’t exactly what I think wonderful things should be. Or maybe you know they’re not exactly what you want or what you’ve asked God for. But he is going to provide to you the things in your life that you should have the items in your life that grow closer, that grow you closer to him, the things in your life that serve him, the things in your life that help you to live that abundant life. So this week, take some time to write your journal, what it means for you to have an abundant life. If you’re here today and you feel like something’s missing in your life, I encourage you to find God.
Like our verse says, Jesus came so that you could have life and have it abundantly. I have found abundant life in Jesus Christ, and I hope that you will too. If you’re here today and you feel like you’ve just gotten the short end of the stick, that you, your life is not abundant, that you’re just stuck, and you don’t know what to do. Present your request to God. You are not promised tomorrow. Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus, our Lord. So you need to turn to him. You need to confess your sins. You need to follow his will in your life, and you will feel the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. I hope that if you are stuck in a rut or you feel like you’ve gotten the short end of the stick, that you will present your requests to God. And I pray that he would give you abundant life, that he would open your eyes to see the things that he’s provided today in your life and also in the future. Thank you so much for tuning in as we talk about living an amazing life, just living life that God has for us, and I cannot wait to talk to you about our next series. In the next Episode of the Promises of God Podcast, I hope you have a wonderful week. Goodbye. Thanks for listening to the promises of God podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Bible Journaling Ministries where thousands of women grow in the word creatively. It’s your free 10-day course for other ministries and other episodes resources at ThePromisesofGodPodcast.Com.
Episode 040: Do You Need a Vacation From Your Vacation?
Welcome back to the Promises of God Podcast, Episode number 40 my name is Tracie Rollins, and I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me as we learn and take action on God’s promises in life. This months series is about living life, and we’re working out of the momentum devotional offered by Bible Journaling Ministries titled Live Life. You can learn more about Bible journaling with their free 10-day Bible journaling course at BibleJournalingMinistries.com today we’re reminding ourselves about the importance of rest. In our verse is Hebrews 4:9 and I’ll read that end of the world English Bible. It says, there remains, therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Look up is the most frequent phase phrase I hear from the Holy Spirit. It’s his way of telling me to pay attention and put the pen down. I am guilty of not prioritizing rest and stillness, and I have to write no workday in my planner on Sunday.
Rest is something the Holy Spirit is working on with me. It is something that I have to, as odd as it sounds, prioritize. I have to remember that it’s time to shut the computer off and should visit my kids, to visit my husband and, to maybe make dinner and take a break. Rest appears in the Bible at least 144 versus depending on the translation that you use, and it’s often referred to as Sabbath, which means to rest from labor. The first account of rest is in Genesis 2: 2, and again, I’ll read that out of the world English Bible. It says on the seventh day, God finished his work, which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work, which he had done.
When God finished creating the heavens and the earth, he rested. Rest is also included in the 10 Commandments in Exodus Chapter 20 verses eight through 11, and again, I’ll read this out of the world English Bible, and it says, remembers the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. You shall labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to Yahweh. Your God. You shall not do any work in it. You nor your son, nor your daughter, your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your livestock, nor your stranger who is within your gates for in six days, yellow made heaven and earth the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, Yali blessed the Sabbath Day and made it holy. Rest is included multiple times in the new testament. Rest is more important than I make it out to be.
Sometimes vacations are too busy. So I need a vacation from my vacation or rest from my rest. I can often, especially when the kids were younger, we would go to places like Disneyland, and we would go, go, go, go, go, like constantly going. And then at the end of the day, you know, we would pack up all of our stuff. Like maybe we went to Disneyland for a day or two days or even Disney world where there are multiple parks. And we would go, go, go, go, go. And then at the end of it all, we would come to our room at the end of the day and crash and fall, right to sleep. And then we’d get up, and we would do it again the next day. And then the next day, I remember when the Harry Potter world opened up at it, I think it was universal studios, I think is where that was. And I think that was the first or second year it opened.
And we were so excited because it was, we had planned to Florida trip to go to Florida and, and check out Disney world. And so we added universal studios to that trip as well. And again, we must have stood in line to ride the Harry Potter rides so many times, like back and forth, continuing back and forth and just had a blast. But at the end of the day, we were so exhausted and then at the end of whatever, I think it was five, six days that we were there, and we got on a plane, headed back to Arizona and came home and were exhausted. And then we got up and went to work the next day, and the kids got up and went. I think they were at daycare at that time. I’m not, I can’t remember exactly what we were doing, but we would get up and do whatever the next thing was.
So we would always be on the go, and our vacations were so exhausting, and eventually, I found out that I started to do this thing called time-sharing, which I know a lot of people, I know there are huge influencers that say time sharing is not the way to go. For someone like me. It’s not natural to take a vacation. It’s not natural to go take time off. That has to be forced to do it. A timeshare is an amazing thing. Now, first of all, I would never recommend buying a timeshare from, uh, the original timeshare people who are selling it. I would always recommend buying on the second-hand market, like through eBay. If you’re going to buy a one-bit beach, be sure you want one before you get one because it’s a lot of money that you have to pay.
It’s not expensive. Usually, for the timeshare on the resale market, it’s not that expensive. Like sometimes you can get them for a dollar. I think from the time show that I have now, I spent 1500 on it, and it included like two years worth of vacation points because the person hadn’t used it. And that’s the thing about timeshares. If people don’t use them, then they end up wasting money and spending money annually for things that they’re not going to do. But for me, I don’t like to waste money. So getting into this timeshare that I’m in that I bought on the resale market for maybe 10% of what the original person paid for. It allows me and my family to go on a vacation and stay in a little studio that has a kitchen and a laundry room in it and also has sometimes I can upgrade and get a bedroom or two bedrooms.
Lately, we’ve been doing two bedrooms now that the kids are more significant, so I have to either wait a year to do that or figure it out. I figured it out, but once I discovered us, I bought this timeshare. We started going to the beach because the beach is I think six to eight hours from my house in Arizona, so we go to California, and this timeshare was one that was across the street from the beach. So I think my annual fee on the timeshare is like, it’s less than $800 I think it might be 750 it was a lot cheaper when I first got it, but they raised their prices over time, but still for like 750 blocks. I get a week on the beach and like a one bedroom or studio depending on, depending on the location. So the first time I did that, we as the whole family, we packed up, and I did this thing called like trading into a timeshare.
Like I traded with somebody else in his program called RCI, which I don’t even do anymore, but I did at the time, and I traded in, and we went to show up for our timeshare, and they didn’t have any room for us. So they gave, they overbooked the timeshare. And I was so disappointed because that particular timeshare was right on the beach and we were looking forward to it. But what they did was they comped us two weeks. So they gave us our current week and then they gave me two free weeks at a different location. That was a few miles away. But still it came at, it was such a blessing because it came at a time in her life where we didn’t have any money, and it was hard to, to even save enough money to be able to take that trip. You know, because of we, every quarter I would pay for the timeshare and of our out of our dollars.
And that was our vacation. It was, you know, can I take a family to afford to the beach for less than a thousand dollars. That was kind of like the plan every year. If I could do, that would be great. They ended up comping us two weeks plus Disneyland tickets. So it was amazing. We were able to go and um, go on this beach vacation and the Disneyland tickets, I can’t remember if we went that time or if we, we save them for the next time. I don’t remember all of the details, but we went to the beach. It was the first kind of time we were supposed to go to the beach, and we spent the entire week at the beach. Like literally we sat at the beach and played football on the beach and played Frisbee on the beach and play on the waves and swam. And then we’d go back to our apartment, or I guess the timeshare, whatever you want to call it.
And we would sit down as a family, and maybe we’d play games, or maybe we would go, they would have like little places for kids to play and little activities and things for them to do and we would do that with them and we just, it was so nice to take time off and just rest and enjoy it. It wasn’t, we weren’t going from one place to one place to one place to one place. It was we were at the beach, and we’re just going to enjoy being at the beach, and I would read a book, and it would be nice, and we didn’t have to worry about things. And what was great about the timeshare is that I could do the laundry while was there and I know that’s not resting, but hey, you know, when you’re just kind of hanging out watching TV, I could do the laundry and then not have to come home and do the laundry.
It was just nice. Now again, I don’t recommend timeshares to everybody. It’s not for everybody. It is something that I like to use because it forces me to go on vacation. I can do it economically now. I mean to get even a week in California for under a grant is amazing and do a beach vacation for under $1,000 is amazing. So maybe there are cheaper ways to do it like camping or, or um, our being and all that stuff. That’s great too. I think those are great things to do as well. I, for me at this time in my life, having a PR, being the person that doesn’t like to take vacations, that doesn’t like to do that. This doesn’t naturally take breaks or naturally take vacations. Having the timeshare just really helped me out. So to each his own and I just really, really enjoy it.
For me, my family, it works well for us and what I’m trying to say is that sometimes we can go on vacation and then we’d come back. We need a vacation from your vacation. And so I have to work on it. And I wonder if that’s something that other people or even you have to work on as well. I don’t know. I’m curious to know. So this week, take some time to write a journal about what you do when it’s time to rest. Do you fill it up with activities and do go, go, go, go. Next thing, next thing, next thing, right Or do you sit and maybe read a book or maybe watch your kids or your family or your dog and enjoy your surroundings If you’re here today and you’re tired from the business of life, I encourage you to rest in God.
Ask him to, to fill you with the Holy Spirit and find your rest there. If you know God and you feel that the business of life has got you out of whack, and maybe you’re prioritizing things that don’t matter, call on God and ask him to help you prioritize so that you can find their rest in each and every day. You’re not promised tomorrow, so don’t put this off. Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus, our Lord. So turn to him, confess your sins, and follow his will in your life, and you will feel the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. Thank you so much for tuning in today, and I’ll see you in the next episode of the promises of God. Goodbye. Thanks for listening to the promises of God podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Bible Journaling Ministries where thousands of women grow in the word creatively. It’s your free 10-day course for other ministries and other episodes resources at ThePromisesofGodPodcast.Com.
Episode 039: What Are You Running Away From?
Welcome back to the Promises of God Podcast, Episode number 39 my name is Tracie Rollins, and I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me as we learn and take action on God’s promises in life. This months series is about living life, and we’re working out of the momentum devotional offered by Bible Journaling Ministries titled Live Life. You can learn more about Bible journaling with their free 10-day Bible journaling course at BibleJournalingMinistries.com. The thing that we might be running away from our verse is Isaiah 32:8 and I’ll read this out of the world English Bible it says, but the Nobel devices noble things and he will continue in nipple things. I’m going to read the entire section out of Isaiah 32, and the NIV version says, see, a King will reign in his righteousness and rulers were a world with justice.
Each one will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm like streams of water in the desert, and the shadow of a great walk in a thirsty land than the eyes of those who will see will no longer be closed. And the ears of those who hear will listen. The fearful heart will know and understand, and the stammering tongue will be fluent in clear. No longer will the fill be called noble, nor the Scoundrel. Be highly respected for fulls speak folly, their hearts, our beds on evil. They practice in godliness and spread error concerning the Lord the Hungary. They leave Auntie in front of the Thursday. They withhold water scoundrels, and she’s wicked methods. They make up evil schemes to destroy the poor would lies even when the plea of the needy is, but the Nobel makes Nobel plans, and by noble deeds, they stand.
I love this whole section because it starts to get me excited about our kingdom in heaven and helps me look forward to something that is just super and amazing and towards something beautiful instead of escaping things in my current life. I was watching a commercial the other day about escaping life and having fun, fun on this cruise line. These passengers were gambling. They were dancing, and they were swimming and jumping off the diving board and just having so much fun being entertained. There were games and shows. It just looked like so much fun. But then I got to thinking because the whole was about escaping your life and going on this cruise. And I start to think about the characters in the commercial, like what were they escaping from Are they running from a job they hate. Perhaps they’re trying to forget about debt that’s been piling up for years, and maybe they want to escape their responsibilities in life after much thought, it occurred to me that escape isn’t what I, what I desire.
I’d rather run towards something than away from it. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had days where I’ve wanted to quit my job. I remember just sobbing in the bathroom after I was humiliated by my boss is completely humiliated. After she was done humiliating me, I got up and walked out of her office, and the tears just started coming down my face and I just, I literally ran to the bathroom and closed myself in the stall and just let them fall. I was so miserable being in that particular career and work smart work situation. Not only was it an hour drive to work and an hour drive home, but it was like I could never do enough. Everything that I gave was just never enough, and I was taught performing. It wasn’t like I was, I, I was, you know, progressing in my career, but it just was never enough for anybody and it just, it was so hard.
I just wanted to get out of it. And I remember after that day I wanted to quit. Like right away. I just wanted to go to HR. I put my notice in and just quit. But I didn’t. I waited through the day, and once a day was over, I got my car. I drove back home and came home and talked to my husband. Of course, my husband’s so supportive. I mean, we couldn’t afford for me to quit, but he was like, quit your job right now. You don’t have to go back. We’ll make it work. And we always make it work. You know we don’t, we can downsize life. It’s not like we need to have; each kid doesn’t need to have their bedroom. I mean, we can downsize life if we need to and we can get rid of a car and go to one car.
We’ve been, we’ve had one car in our family before. We don’t need two vehicles and just amazing that he is so supportive and he was ready for when equipped quit. But I said, no, I’m not going to quit. I’m going to look on the internet to find out how to quit my job the right way because I didn’t want to throw in the towel. I had never just quit a job without having another job before I quit — the other job. I’ve always had a job and then quit. But this time I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t planning on quitting for another job. I wanted to quit, but I wanted to do it the right way. So I looked up on the internet, how to quit a job in this book came up, it was called quitter, and it’s a book by John, and I read that book in like, I don’t that very same day.
It’s like I read that book, downloaded it, read it, and it changed my life because it, he mentioned that, you know, just you have to be where you are and do the best you can in a way that honors God where you are and then take steps to get out of that situation. You don’t have to stay there. Now if you’re in an abusive career like I was, or an abusive relationship with anything or anybody, um, you don’t have to stay. You don’t have to stay. You can make plans to get out right away. You don’t have to stay. There are plenty of places you could go to get help. I could have gone to HR to get help. I didn’t have to, and I didn’t have to stay. I didn’t have to be isolated. It was a choice. I should’ve gone to HR, and I should have talked to them, but I didn’t.
And Yeah, I kind of wish I did, but I, I think that my path and my journey as it is right now, very happy with how it’s turned out so far, even though it’s been tough. And some of the decisions that I’ve made haven’t been good decisions, but you know, it’s all about the journey in life and lessons and learning and growing and being sanctified and just part of life. So anyway, I planned my exit after reading that book and started working on the next steps. So immediately I got my resume up to speed. I started putting feelers out for new jobs, and this time, I was going to find a job so much closer to me, my house. And actually, I ended up finding a job that was 15 minutes from my house to my seat. It was amazing and got to spend a lot more time seeing my kids grow up, which was so important to me and a better educational experience.
But going to that job also, I was in an abusive situation with another boss there. He ended up getting fired because he was abusive to multiple people. But, um, again, if you’re in a situation where someone is rude to you, you need to stand up. And in that situation I was, I think that I had learned so much about my previous job and being abused by that boss, that I wasn’t going to allow it to happen again. And so when I went into the new work situation and had a boss that was verbally abusing me and yelling at me loud so that, I mean, like just yelling at me till I’d cried, um, I wasn’t going to take it anymore. So in that situation, he was on the phone with me, and he was yelling at me for some reason, and everybody turned around because we were in a cubicle environment where everyone could hear him, yell at me through the phone. And I ended up telling him to calm down and that he can, if he wasn’t going to talk to me in a respectful manner, he could just, he could not be talking to me, and I’m going to hang up the phone.
After that call, I did see my department head and was there with my resignation and telling him I wasn’t going to take this anymore. This isn’t what I signed up for. And I’d rather not have a job than listen to someone and be abused by someone here at this work environment. It turns out I wasn’t the only one that he had done this too in the past. And eventually he was let go, and I was under a new manager who I adored, um, went on to work on it for another amazing woman in that job as well. So there are brighter tunnels, and you don’t have to ever, ever be abused by anybody. So don’t necessarily run away, but face it and use the help that is around you and that you can receive to lift you. I, there were so many times that I could have reached out for help in one of my circumstances, and I didn’t in the next time it happened.
I did. And it was a fantastic turnout, and I got to experience amazing things in that career and loved it. And had I let him bully me, then maybe I wouldn’t have experienced all those great things. Maybe I would’ve run away from that job and never have met the beautiful woman that I got to meet and have those relationships that I still have today with some of those amazing women. So just kind of food for thought and thoughts about not, not running away and standing, standing your ground, planning for a better exit, planning for something better in your future. So when I talk about vacations, as we’ve been talking about the last few episodes about taking breaks and enjoying holidays and even today where I was talking about the cruise line, add vacations, they aren’t about running away from anything. They’re not about running away from your family or work or responsibilities or your, for your life.
They really should be planned to minimize the impact on people around you, and that is impacted by when you leave, right So maybe you have a work environment that requires you to work in teams. A, your vacation should be planned so that you don’t just throw your work onto other people, that it’s planned in that if there is work that they have to pick up, that they are able to pick it up or that your work can continue as you leave. So, I mean, it’s not like you get up and leave you, you plan for that time and maybe during that time you take on less of a workload, maybe perhaps up to your vacation, maybe you work a little bit longer, but so that you can take some time off. There have been times that I’ve had to do that and don’t necessarily think that that’s the best way to do things.
But even in the ministry, if I want to take a vacation, I still have work to do. So I plan all that and work a little extra so that I can take that time off. So think about it, minimize the impact of the work environment. And you also know when you have vacations planned, where you’re going and when you’re going to be back. And if you’re like me, you may even want to play in your mini vacations. If you’re like me and your head’s down on work and love what you do, um, or even if you hate what you do and you are really that committed to your career and your work. It’s important to take these mini vacations. They are often known as breaks throughout your day. So I would encourage you to do that and to think about that as not as an escape or running away from your work or running away from something but rather a break to have something better to run towards.
Maybe a healthier you like during your break. If you are taking a break for your health, perhaps that is a, a thought of maybe running towards better health for yourself. So this week take some time to write or journal about the thing that you’re trying to escape from. And instead of thinking about it as an escape, can you think of it as running towards something better and make a plan to get there And if you’re here today and you’re running away from something in your life, I encourage you to run towards God. Ask him to remove that fear in your life and then listen as the Holy Spirit guides you. If you’re a child of God, but you feel like you want to escape the life that you’re in. Column, the Holy Spirit, to help you fight this battle, to give you direction and discernment to make that next step, to take that next small step to get you towards something better instead of running away from something that you’re escaping from. You’re not promised tomorrow, so don’t put this off from. And Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus our Lord. So turn to him, confess your sins, and follow his wall and your life, and you will feel the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. I want to thank you so much for tuning in today, and I’ll see you in the next Episode of the Promises of God Podcast. Goodbye. Thanks for listening to the promises of God podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Bible Journaling Ministries where thousands of women grow in the word creatively. It’s your free 10-day course for other ministries and other episodes resources at ThePromisesofGodPodcast.Com.
Episode 038: Experiencing Adventure in Everyday Moments
Welcome back to the Promises of God Podcast, Episode number 39 my name is Tracie Rollins, and I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me as we learn and take action on God’s promises in life. This months series is about living life, and we’re working out of the momentum devotional offered by Bible Journaling Ministries titled Live Life. You can learn more about Bible journaling with their free 10-day Bible journaling course at BibleJournalingMinistries.com. The thing that we might be running away from our verse is Isaiah 32:8 and I’ll read this out of the world English Bible it says, but the Nobel devices noble things and he will continue in nipple things. I’m going to read the entire section out of Isaiah 32, and the NIV version says, see, a King will reign in his righteousness and rulers were a world with justice.
Each one will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm like streams of water in the desert, and the shadow of a great walk in a thirsty land than the eyes of those who will see will no longer be closed. And the ears of those who hear will listen. The fearful heart will know and understand, and the stammering tongue will be fluent in clear. No longer will the fill be called noble, nor the Scoundrel. Be highly respected for fulls speak folly, their hearts, our beds on evil. They practice in godliness and spread error concerning the Lord the Hungary. They leave Auntie in front of the Thursday. They withhold water scoundrels, and she’s wicked methods. They make up evil schemes to destroy the poor would lies even when the plea of the needy is, but the Nobel makes Nobel plans, and by noble deeds, they stand.
I love this whole section because it starts to get me excited about our kingdom in heaven and helps me look forward to something that is just super and amazing and towards something beautiful instead of escaping things in my current life. I was watching a commercial the other day about escaping life and having fun, fun on this cruise line. These passengers were gambling. They were dancing, and they were swimming and jumping off the diving board and just having so much fun being entertained. There were games and shows. It just looked like so much fun. But then I got to thinking because the whole was about escaping your life and going on this cruise. And I start to think about the characters in the commercial, like what were they escaping from Are they running from a job they hate. Perhaps they’re trying to forget about debt that’s been piling up for years, and maybe they want to escape their responsibilities in life after much thought, it occurred to me that escape isn’t what I, what I desire.
I’d rather run towards something than away from it. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had days where I’ve wanted to quit my job. I remember just sobbing in the bathroom after I was humiliated by my boss is completely humiliated. After she was done humiliating me, I got up and walked out of her office, and the tears just started coming down my face and I just, I literally ran to the bathroom and closed myself in the stall and just let them fall. I was so miserable being in that particular career and work smart work situation. Not only was it an hour drive to work and an hour drive home, but it was like I could never do enough. Everything that I gave was just never enough, and I was taught performing. It wasn’t like I was, I, I was, you know, progressing in my career, but it just was never enough for anybody and it just, it was so hard.
I just wanted to get out of it. And I remember after that day I wanted to quit. Like right away. I just wanted to go to HR. I put my notice in and just quit. But I didn’t. I waited through the day, and once a day was over, I got my car. I drove back home and came home and talked to my husband. Of course, my husband’s so supportive. I mean, we couldn’t afford for me to quit, but he was like, quit your job right now. You don’t have to go back. We’ll make it work. And we always make it work. You know we don’t, we can downsize life. It’s not like we need to have; each kid doesn’t need to have their bedroom. I mean, we can downsize life if we need to and we can get rid of a car and go to one car.
We’ve been, we’ve had one car in our family before. We don’t need two vehicles and just amazing that he is so supportive and he was ready for when equipped quit. But I said, no, I’m not going to quit. I’m going to look on the internet to find out how to quit my job the right way because I didn’t want to throw in the towel. I had never just quit a job without having another job before I quit — the other job. I’ve always had a job and then quit. But this time I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t planning on quitting for another job. I wanted to quit, but I wanted to do it the right way. So I looked up on the internet, how to quit a job in this book came up, it was called quitter, and it’s a book by John, and I read that book in like, I don’t that very same day.
It’s like I read that book, downloaded it, read it, and it changed my life because it, he mentioned that, you know, just you have to be where you are and do the best you can in a way that honors God where you are and then take steps to get out of that situation. You don’t have to stay there. Now if you’re in an abusive career like I was, or an abusive relationship with anything or anybody, um, you don’t have to stay. You don’t have to stay. You can make plans to get out right away. You don’t have to stay. There are plenty of places you could go to get help. I could have gone to HR to get help. I didn’t have to, and I didn’t have to stay. I didn’t have to be isolated. It was a choice. I should’ve gone to HR, and I should have talked to them, but I didn’t.
And Yeah, I kind of wish I did, but I, I think that my path and my journey as it is right now, very happy with how it’s turned out so far, even though it’s been tough. And some of the decisions that I’ve made haven’t been good decisions, but you know, it’s all about the journey in life and lessons and learning and growing and being sanctified and just part of life. So anyway, I planned my exit after reading that book and started working on the next steps. So immediately I got my resume up to speed. I started putting feelers out for new jobs, and this time, I was going to find a job so much closer to me, my house. And actually, I ended up finding a job that was 15 minutes from my house to my seat. It was amazing and got to spend a lot more time seeing my kids grow up, which was so important to me and a better educational experience.
But going to that job also, I was in an abusive situation with another boss there. He ended up getting fired because he was abusive to multiple people. But, um, again, if you’re in a situation where someone is rude to you, you need to stand up. And in that situation I was, I think that I had learned so much about my previous job and being abused by that boss, that I wasn’t going to allow it to happen again. And so when I went into the new work situation and had a boss that was verbally abusing me and yelling at me loud so that, I mean, like just yelling at me till I’d cried, um, I wasn’t going to take it anymore. So in that situation, he was on the phone with me, and he was yelling at me for some reason, and everybody turned around because we were in a cubicle environment where everyone could hear him, yell at me through the phone. And I ended up telling him to calm down and that he can, if he wasn’t going to talk to me in a respectful manner, he could just, he could not be talking to me, and I’m going to hang up the phone.
After that call, I did see my department head and was there with my resignation and telling him I wasn’t going to take this anymore. This isn’t what I signed up for. And I’d rather not have a job than listen to someone and be abused by someone here at this work environment. It turns out I wasn’t the only one that he had done this too in the past. And eventually he was let go, and I was under a new manager who I adored, um, went on to work on it for another amazing woman in that job as well. So there are brighter tunnels, and you don’t have to ever, ever be abused by anybody. So don’t necessarily run away, but face it and use the help that is around you and that you can receive to lift you. I, there were so many times that I could have reached out for help in one of my circumstances, and I didn’t in the next time it happened.
I did. And it was a fantastic turnout, and I got to experience amazing things in that career and loved it. And had I let him bully me, then maybe I wouldn’t have experienced all those great things. Maybe I would’ve run away from that job and never have met the beautiful woman that I got to meet and have those relationships that I still have today with some of those amazing women. So just kind of food for thought and thoughts about not, not running away and standing, standing your ground, planning for a better exit, planning for something better in your future. So when I talk about vacations, as we’ve been talking about the last few episodes about taking breaks and enjoying holidays and even today where I was talking about the cruise line, add vacations, they aren’t about running away from anything. They’re not about running away from your family or work or responsibilities or your, for your life.
They really should be planned to minimize the impact on people around you, and that is impacted by when you leave, right So maybe you have a work environment that requires you to work in teams. A, your vacation should be planned so that you don’t just throw your work onto other people, that it’s planned in that if there is work that they have to pick up, that they are able to pick it up or that your work can continue as you leave. So, I mean, it’s not like you get up and leave you, you plan for that time and maybe during that time you take on less of a workload, maybe perhaps up to your vacation, maybe you work a little bit longer, but so that you can take some time off. There have been times that I’ve had to do that and don’t necessarily think that that’s the best way to do things.
But even in the ministry, if I want to take a vacation, I still have work to do. So I plan all that and work a little extra so that I can take that time off. So think about it, minimize the impact of the work environment. And you also know when you have vacations planned, where you’re going and when you’re going to be back. And if you’re like me, you may even want to play in your mini vacations. If you’re like me and your head’s down on work and love what you do, um, or even if you hate what you do and you are really that committed to your career and your work. It’s important to take these mini vacations. They are often known as breaks throughout your day. So I would encourage you to do that and to think about that as not as an escape or running away from your work or running away from something but rather a break to have something better to run towards.
Maybe a healthier you like during your break. If you are taking a break for your health, perhaps that is a, a thought of maybe running towards better health for yourself. So this week take some time to write or journal about the thing that you’re trying to escape from. And instead of thinking about it as an escape, can you think of it as running towards something better and make a plan to get there And if you’re here today and you’re running away from something in your life, I encourage you to run towards God. Ask him to remove that fear in your life and then listen as the Holy Spirit guides you. If you’re a child of God, but you feel like you want to escape the life that you’re in. Column, the Holy Spirit, to help you fight this battle, to give you direction and discernment to make that next step, to take that next small step to get you towards something better instead of running away from something that you’re escaping from. You’re not promised tomorrow, so don’t put this off from. And Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus our Lord. So turn to him, confess your sins, and follow his wall and your life, and you will feel the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. I want to thank you so much for tuning in today, and I’ll see you in the next Episode of the Promises of God Podcast. Goodbye. Thanks for listening to the promises of God podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Bible Journaling Ministries where thousands of women grow in the word creatively. It’s your free 10-day course for other ministries and other episodes resources at ThePromisesofGodPodcast.Com.
Episode 037: Is Your Career Killing You?
Welcome back to the Promises of God Podcast, Episode number 37 my name is Tracie Rollins, and I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me as we learn and take action on God’s promises in life. This months series is about living life, and we’re working out of the momentum devotional offered by Bible Journaling Ministries titled Live Life. You can learn more about Bible journaling with our free 10-day Bible journaling course at BibleJournalingMinistries.com. Today we’re focused on our relationship with work, is your career killing you? Our verse for today Is 1 Corinthians 2:11 and it says, for who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him even so, no one knows the things of God except God’s spirit. There were many times in my career where I would leave for work in the darkness very, very early, early in the morning, so dark, and then I would return late at night, and it was also dark.
I would spend 80 hours at work a week. It just really wore on me. I would wake up in the morning and head into work, and it would be dark, and I’d come home, and it’d be dark. I would miss the sun entirely. What’s sad about that is that I live in Arizona, so the sun is shining more often. Really. Then it’s not shining, and it’s really kind of sad. I would forget to take vacations. I was allotted a certain amount of hours for vacation every year, and I wouldn’t take him. I wouldn’t take breaks. I would work through the day, and I just was so heavily focused on my career and moving to the next level. It really got me into really a bad health situation currently that I still struggle with today, and that is obesity and exhaustion and even isolation.
Like I didn’t go out with my friends whenever they were going out to lunch. I would just be like; I got to get this project done. Like that’s how I was and when I was lead projects. I would lead as a leader that was so focused on getting the results, and you could tell that if you were on one of my teams, you would know that you had a deliverable and that deliverable was to do exactly when it was due, and if you miss that, we would have a discussion. It wasn’t like it wasn’t fun. It was just really a very focused, focused person that I was and that’s great. I’m not saying it’s not okay to be focused. I know that my focus was not healthy, and I was so into my job and not into anything much else than that. I was focused on moving up in my career, and one time I heard the Holy Spirit like I was in my cubicle at the time.
I worked in a manufacturing facility, and I had a cubicle with that was surrounded by hundreds of other cubicles. The Holy Spirit spoke to me. He said, look up, and it wasn’t audible, but it was something within my, my soul that I heard. And I looked up, and I stood up, and I glanced across the hundreds of cubicles that were around me, and I was alone. There was nobody there. It was completely silent. So I got up, I walked out of my cubicle and walk to the window to look at it, the parking lot, and there were just a few cars left in the parking lot, and it was completely dark. I had worked the entire day at my desk and never noticed that the whole company pretty much had gone home for the day. I was alone in an office that was completely silent. So I walked back to my computer, and I shut it off, turn off the light, and I headed home.
And at that moment I was utterly deflated like it was, I didn’t know what had happened. What, where did everyone go nobody stopped to say goodbye. Nobody stopped to check in to see if I was ready to go home and walk out the door with them. Well, that’s kind of what happens when you isolate yourself, and you focus. At least for me, it was just focused on my career. When people ask you to go out to lunch or when they asked me to go out to lunch, eventually they stopped asking because I never went when they asked if I was ready to leave for the day so they could walk out with me. I always said no, I still had work than I wanted to get done. And so they stopped asking and when they walk to the gym too, and we had a gym on site, so let me literally, you didn’t have to leave. We had food on site, hit the gym onsite, hit everything on site, so he didn’t have to leave. And this was before I had children too. So when they were going to work out at the gym, they had maybe once asked me or twice asked me, and I always said no. So they stopped asking. It was a very lonely, lonely time for me. Even my manager at the time, he was really into the gym so that he would stop by often. Like he would stop by, he had like his cube was two doors down from mine and he would stop by and say, Hey Rollins, I’m going to the gym. They want to go. And I’d be like, no, I have to prepare for this meeting, or I have to prepare for the speech I’m giving. And it wasn’t like I was, I wasn’t high up on the career ladder.
I was an engineer, and I was in responsible for toolsets. And I took that very seriously in these toolsets were multimillion dollars. They weren’t just like, you know, a wrench or a hammer. They were multimillion-dollar machines. So I took my career very, very seriously to the extent that it ruined my health, my friendships, my relationships, and was killing me. So after I heard the Holy Spirit tell me to wake up, I turn everything off, started walking to my car and realized, and at the time there were no, we had desk phones, there were no cell phones. I didn’t have a cellular phone. I had a pager, and my husband hadn’t paged me. Cause know he knew where I was. I was at work. That’s where I was always at work. So I walked down. You had got past the security guards because, of course, this place was guarded and, went to get in my car.
And as I drove home, just this feeling washed over me about just how much my job was killing me. And I was allowing that I was lying my job to kill me. And I was the instigator of it killing me because I was so focused on it. And I started thinking about what would life be different Like how would life be different if I wasn’t always so focused on my job And so I went home, and I talked to my husband, and I apologize, obviously again for being late to come home. And I would, um, sit down with him and ask him, what can we do Can, can we, can we go on vacation And before that, my vacations were on the weekend so that I would end work after like an 80-hour long week. I know it’s intense. It was so fierce. And then I would get my car with my husband, and we go travel for two hours to see my parents and his parents.
And we do like this thing where we would visit everyone’s house. We’ve used it at my parents’ house, and we visit his parent’s house, and we’d stay a day at each, and then we get in the car and come home. And then we would do that multiple weekends. And then we would go to my sisters who lived four hours away the next weekend. And we go there, and we’d stay there for the weekend, and we’d come home. And my life was so exhausting. It was completely exhausting. So when I asked my husband if we could take a week off where we just went on vacation, just he and I in at the time we had uh, an Rv, a recreational vehicle that was in storage that I had purchased from my parents and we never used it. It was, we paid, I think it was $50 a month to store it and we never used it.
And so I asked him if we could plan a vacation. And so we did, we planned a vacation to Colorado in this RV. We had dogs, so we took the dogs too. It was so fun. And during that time I never got one page from anybody and it a pager for those of you who are familiar with it. Was this a little black device that I would wear on my pant pocket. And if they needed me in the factory, they were supposed to text, not text where they were supposed to call that number. And then they would leave. They would leave their number so that I could call that number back. So that was the pager back then. And nobody paged me. Nobody contacted me at all for any reason. And it was the first time that I realized that I could take a break and that the factory wasn’t going to shut down because I wasn’t there and that my projects weren’t going to go, you know, go to the the garbage because I wasn’t like driving them so hard, and it was amazing.
I came back after that vacation more refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to go. I had better ideas, and I was more productive. I realized how much taking that break meant in terms of even my goal at that time, which was hugely focused on my career. So taking that break helps me with my career. And I started then incorporating that break more and more. And then I incorporated more breaks. So I would then go to my boss and asked him if he wanted to go work out together. And it was always funny that when sometimes I’d ask him to go work out, he’d be like, no, I’m prepping for a meeting. And so it was almost the opposite way. But eventually, we got to work out together sometimes, but not often. I would decide that I would take that break and I would start to go to the gym, and every day, five days a week, I would do my best to get to the gym.
I still have always had problems with taking a lunch break in terms of like getting away from the computer and meeting with people, but I do try to do that. I do meet with people in my life here a couple of times a month where we take a break and can have fellowship together with coffee or lunch or something like that. But taking a break from my career, that first time was so transformative to me and ever since then by implementing breaks, vacations, taking time off it, it has strengthened my marriage. It’s strengthened my family, my family has. We have such good communication. We’ve experienced so many different things together that have been amazing and sometimes scary in terms of some of the things that we’ve done. And I’m just so glad that I finally heard the Holy Spirit when he prompted me to look up and take a break.
Don’t always have your head down because your career is killing you and you need to take a break and get up and see the world and see all the wonderful things that God has created. So that is my story in terms of remembering to look up and, and, and take a break. And sometimes we can think about vacations, and we say, oh, I can’t take time off. I’m too important at my job. Or I’m the CEO of my company, and I can’t take a break off it because if I do, then no one’s going to run my business. Um, or if I own an Etsy shop, I can’t take a break because if I leave, I can’t have anyone to ship out my materials. Or some people won’t order from me if I’m gone for two weeks. Or if your work is being a mother to young children, I can’t take a break because there’s no one to watch my kids or I can’t afford a babysitter.
We have so many things that we kind of build up in terms of the walls that we don’t want to break. Right. We brought, we built up these walls and the excuses that that’s really what they are. I know, I understand that. You know, sometimes you could say that, oh, I don’t have any money so I can’t go. Right. And that’s a real thing. That’s not, and I’m not saying that’s an excuse. That’s not valid. I mean, have been through a lot of times in my life where I had zero money and even after I took, this was even after I realized that I needed to take breaks. There have been times in my life where we’ve had $0 million, and for our vacation, we put the small kids in our car or little kids at the time. They were a super tiny little three-year-old and five-year-olds, little guys and loaded them up in the car.
We went to the park, the local park and we, there’s a little fishing pond there, and we fished, and that was our vacation. It was free for them cause they didn’t have to pay for it. We didn’t have to pay for their license in Arizona, your children that are under a certain age; they don’t have to have a license. So they would fish, and dad would have a license. So he would fish and I wouldn’t fish cause I didn’t have a license and I didn’t have the $12 to pay for it. But I still had a vacation with my kids, and I still had fun with them. And even as a mother, a young mother comes in, and there were times where I just needed a break, and my husband would come home, and I would hand him the baby, and I would walk around the block and for the 30 minutes I had a break.
I had a vacation, and I didn’t want to just run away from it all. I got a chance to have that little vacation. So vacation is I have to belong. It doesn’t have to be, you know, could be anywhere, 10-15 minutes, just a break, a little mini vacations. You could have those, it doesn’t have to be anything big, but I would encourage you to play in them, especially if you are like me, very focused, on your work, trying to do your best for the Lord, trying to do your best for your family. Just trying to make life work. So this week, take some time to write or journal about your relationship with your work. Is it healthy or is what you’re doing killing you if it’s not healthy, what is one thing that you can do to change that Don’t think about what it is that your boss can do or your kids can do, or your friends can do.
Think about one thing that you can do. You’re in control of you. So maybe it is to take that little mini-vacation, that little 10-15 minute break or maybe a 30-minute workout at your job. Or perhaps you can swap some time with somebody and you each take half an hour break for yourself. There are so many different creative ways you can come up with to think about how you can take that break and how you can have that vacation, especially if the Holy Spirit is calling you to look up and experience life and see the wonderful things that God has for you. And if you’re here today and you’re frustrated with your career, and you’re wondering what living life truly means, I encourage you to check up the Bible and learn about this amazing man named Jesus who in John 10:10 says, the thief only comes to steal, kill and destroy.
And I came that they may have life and they may have it abundantly. If you’re happy in your career, that is awesome that maybe you feel like your relationship with work is a bit off. I encourage you to seek God and ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate an area or an area in your life that you need to pay close attention to them. Maybe you’re overweight, and you could use a break in the middle of the day to take care of your body. Maybe your marriage is struggling, and you diff and you focus on work as a kind of a way to escape it all and get away, but perhaps this day, take 10 minutes to text your spouse and let him know how much you love him and how important he is to you. You’re not promised tomorrow, so don’t put this off. Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus, our Lord. So turn to him, confess your sins, and follow his will in your life, and you will feel the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. I want to thank you for tuning in today. I’m so excited to talk to you about, about living life this month, really experiencing the things that God has for you and I can’t wait to talk to you in the next episode of the Promises of God. Goodbye. Thanks for listening to the promises of God podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Bible Journaling Ministries where thousands of women grow in the word creatively. It’s your free 10-day course for other ministries and other episodes resources at ThePromisesofGodPodcast.Com.