A Conversation About Humility with Annie Mendrala Transcript

Candace Nassar Well believe it or not, it’s already Easter season. March 31st is the big day. When I think of Easter and the sacrifice Jesus made, I’m always struck by the humility of it, that  the creator of the universe would submit to the father’s will and die a criminal’s death to pay a debt He didn’t owe. All because of his amazing love for us.  So with that in mind we’re going to be talking about humility this month. Why is humility important? Why is it so hard and how can we live it out today? This is part of our new feature, the MomQ Mingle, where Annie Mendrala and I compare truth to trends. So welcome, Annie.  Annie Mendrala Good to see you and listen to you. Candace Nassar Yes, so thanks for being here.  I’m so excited to talk about humility with you today. I know it’s going to be so enlightening. But first why don’t you just tell us a little bit about what you’re doing in the next few weeks? Annie Mendrala I am about to head out on a trip with my dad and my sister. It’s a father daughter trip with my 77 year old father who when asked, “dad where do you want to go?” said, “I want to go to Japan.” My mom is very supportive. She’s going to stay home and watch the dogs and my sister and I are going to get to spend some time with my dad. It’s exciting too because I realize our church is hosting a mission trip to Japan at the end of the year so maybe I’ll be going back to serve the local church. I don’t know Japan’s part of my 2024. So thank you. Candace Nassar Apparently and I’m going to be living vicariously through you because it sounds amazing. So I’m excited for you.  Alright back to humility. My husband always jokes, “I’m such a humble person. That’s what makes me so great” And we all just kind of roll our eyes. But seriously humility is probably the hardest virtue of all to learn because we know that pride, which is the complete opposite of humility, is the root of all sin. We don’t have a clue how much of a hold it has on our hearts because pride is so insidious in our culture.   There’s a quote I’ve heard before and I looked it up to see where it actually came from.  Apparently Rick Warren paraphrased C.S. Lewis on the topic of humility and he said,  “Humility is not thinking less of yourself. But, thinking of yourself, less.  And that sticks with me. I just think it’s so appropriate to keep it top of mind. So let’s talk first about how culture views humility. Annie what would you say? Annie Mendrala I love this question. It’s a good place for us to start to kind of see how our view of humility gets a bias through our cultural lens. I’m sure if we pull a group of random people where we would get a lot of answers.  Here’s a few ways that I was thinking that maybe our culture would value it.  First, the word humility is often associated with the word humiliation embarrassment looking less than. And so nobody in America wants that kind of humility. Then there is the idea that humility implies a lack of wealth or poverty. American culture says pass on that one. The word humility doesn’t really vibe with our merit based society right? Culture, American culture especially, values success, hard work and promotion of the American dream.  Stories that we all love to listen to, how people overcame the odds and now they’re famous for it. We like to illuminate good deeds and we like to bring the cameras in and tell those “humble” stories. Humility is just kind of a hook for marketers and storytellers.  Candace Nassar So true. Annie Mendrala Over the past few years I’ve also heard, read and thought about how we’ve moved from honoring heroes, men and women of integrity, who have overcome, fought and served for others, toward celebrating and elevating our celebrity culture, the famous people. They have become the new heroes and then even celebrities are kind of falling off. We’re moving into following influencers who are really marketing Tiktok videos and Instagram reels that have 3 to 5 seconds of something really funny or a cute outfit.  And we’re putting all our time and attention there. Not that Instagram is a bad thing. I mean we at MomQ use it and it’s a great tool to get information out there. But this idea of humility is not really being influenced in our culture.  We reward behavior that brings attention to us and which is not really the heart of humility and of course I don’t really want to talk about politics. But, the political climate that we live in is all about who’s right and who’s wrong.  And although these political organizations promote partnership with a better quality of life for all: teamwork, integrity and respect I read on one website. Another one said we embrace the ideals of personal responsibility and individualism.  That really struck me. Individualism, that’s very American, but it fails the humility test because humility never elevates the self.  True godly humility elevates God alone. And so I’m pretty sure humility, while it sounds great on a resume, is something we are failing at in our culture because we’re in a “me first” society.  If you get in my way of accomplishing my goals, get out of my way. That’s kind of where I see culture and humility these days right. Candace Nassar Yeah, and I really like what you said, “Humility never elevates self.” That’s so countercultural. So countercultural because we think of ourselves as so important. I mean we’re just self-absorbed people and I don’t know about you but how often are your thoughts occupied by yourself, like thoughts of yourself. I mean it’s a huge struggle.  Annie Mendrala All day long. Candace Nassar It’s just a natural bent for us. It’s our fallen nature. So let’s talk about some of the phrases that are out there that emphasize self and deemphasize humility. I think of things like. “If I don’t take care of myself, who will?” That’s a big one. Annie Mendrala The Nike slogan always comes to my mind.  Just do it!  Like you said, it’s all about you. That has nothing to do with anyone but you. Yes, your truth whatever you believe is true is true to your truth. Candace Nassar You can be whoever and whatever you want and you know it’s all about self- sufficiency and this is actually pride and arrogance. And it’s just like you said.  It’s leaving God out of the picture.  We often think of humility as low self-esteem, right? But ultimately low self-esteem is really still pride because we’re still focused on ourselves. The bottom line is it’s not about us. If we are comparing ourselves to others asking, “What do others think of me?” and seeking the approval of others, our actions can be self-motivated. These are all things that focus on self and come from pride. Annie Mendrala And I think on what you said how we equate humility with low self-esteem. It goes back to that quote by C.S. Lewis where we’re really not esteeming ourselves,  we’re just esteeming God above ourselves.  And esteeming ourselves in a sense, less, so that somebody can get ahead of us. You know when we only esteem ourselves we become the highest. It’s our way or no way right? We know best. But to have true Godly, Christian like character and humility we have to esteem God above ourselves.  Which doesn’t mean not caring for yourself!  I Just can’t emphasize that enough. I think that people who don’t have a biblical worldview tend to see christianity as this because we do have words like die to yourself. Candace Nassar Right. Annie Mendrala There is just a fuller meaning to that that we have to unpack with scripture.  Candace Nassar Right? And we’re gonna get to that for sure. So it’s a great point. Thinking of ourselves less. Ok so let’s talk about how the bible views humility. It says in the bible that God gives grace to the humble. Jesus begins his very first public sermon with blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God. I looked it up and the Greek word for poor does not mean materially poor. That’s not what it means.  It means someone who recognizes they’re spiritually bankrupt and in desperate need of God’s help. So let’s talk more about biblical humility.  Annie Mendrala I’d love to. I think that’s so true that the beginning of the sermon on the mount he says blessed are the poor. And of course in our American contemporary lens we hear the word poor and we think of wealth, monetary wealth. And really it’s a spiritual depravity. It’s a spiritual bankruptcy that we have,  an emptiness.  So when we look up humility in the bible, I was doing some research and I realized for the first time that really humility, the word humility, isn’t necessarily used. It is kind of when God lays out the law for Moses, for the priests and for the Israelites when he’s talking about the feasts and the festivals that they’re to celebrate.  It comes to the day of atonement, which happens once a year, it’s known as Yom Kippur today. It was the sacrifice made to atone for sins for a whole year. And it said and I was going to read it. It says, “So on this tenth month, the tenth day of the seventh month is the day of atonement.” The lord instructs Moses to hold a sacred assembly and practice self-denial. The Hebrew word here is to practice humbling your soul. Candace Nassar Ah. Annie Mendrala And you were to present the food offering to the lord.  It says on this particular day, you’re not to do any work for it is a day to make atonement for yourselves before the Lord your God. And then he also says, it’s a conditional clause here, if you don’t practice self-denial this humble state of your soul on this exact day then you’re going to be cut off from the people.  Then he goes on and basically this idea of atonement, because they had all these feasts, was a fast. This was a day to deny yourself of something to humble yourself to not eat food, to not do work.  And the really cool thing in this is that we know as Christians who atones for our sin. Jesus, he died for us. He was the ultimate sacrifice so we don’t have to do this ritual sacrifice yearly anymore. But that sacrifice on that day of atonement, not working, meant the Israelites were not doing anything to earn this atonement for their sins.   Just like in Ephesians 2:8-9, says “Whereby we are saved by grace through faith. There’s nothing we can do so that we can’t boast.” There’s no boasting in the atonement on the cross. There was no boasting on that day of atonement. It was all God doing the work and it came from the people humbling their souls and getting to a place of recognizing what God was doing,  not what they were doing.  Again, it goes back to that esteem issue right? Again, in our merit-based culture, we want to take the credit for our atonement in a sense but we can’t. I love that that starts off scripture way back in leviticus way back at the beginning. God was showing us the picture that he was the doer. He’s the one to be elevated. Not us.  Candace Nassar Wow, that’s so good Annie. I didn’t really realize that. One of the things that I think of when you’re talking about atonement and that day is just that self-examination too. And I think that that’s so important for humility. Psalm 139:  search me, try me, see what wicked ways are within me. When we can do that and recognize our need for him, that really kicks pride out the door, if we can do that right. Annie Mendrala Yeah, well and I never really saw it either. I didn’t realize until I was really digging in, that they were called to the fast on that day and I don’t know about you if you’ve ever fasted. But, fasting definitely elevates our needs and our desires and our wants. So they’re saying that day was a day that they were to give up something.  But in that giving up they actually were gaining something and that’s what humility is. The true posture of humility is not about giving up just to gain nothing. It’s actually about giving up and we gain a lot from humility. I know we’re going to talk more about that. But without humility, unless we go to the place where we lose everything, God can’t give us everything he has ready to give us. Candace Nassar Amen all right. So let’s just real quickly I want to talk about what biblical humility is not. And we’ve already kind of alluded to this but let’s just get into it a little bit more. You were saying our biblical view, I mean the cultural view of humility so often is that we have a lack of confidence or are beating ourselves up or something like that. I looked on Got Questions, one of my favorite websites and they said “Being humble does not mean that we neglect our own needs or uphold no boundaries. Rather humility is having an accurate estimation of one’s self wherein we think of ourselves less often.” So there we go again with thinking of ourselves less. But what I want to kind of highlight is the fact that we don’t need to beat ourselves up and sometimes when we do that that’s actually pride as well. So why don’t you kind of talk about that. Annie Mendrala So true. So true. Right the people that say, “Well,  I’m not prideful. I just sit in the back and I don’t need anything.” But you know, that’s pride as well, saying I don’t need anything, because you do need something. Candace Nassar That’s right where God created us to need other people and community and him. Annie Mendrala And really we need him right? So when I think I’m the big shot. I’m the bossy boots in the room or I’m the one that just retreats and wants nothing, I think there has to be balance. But yeah I was thinking about this as we were talking about humility. It came to my mind in Matthew 6 when Jesus is teaching the sermon on the mount and all that he’s telling the disciples about how to behave, and he says don’t practice your righteousness to be seen by them, right? He says, don’t give to the poor and don’t let your left hand know what your right hand’s doing. What does he mean? He says that so what you’re giving may be in secret. It’s your father who sees those things in secret. So this idea of doing things as an act of worship for God, not so that we can promote ourselves in the eyes of man but so that we can humble ourselves in the secret in the inner parts of our lives with God. So humility is not putting ourselves out there to be seen by all. It’s actually getting in a quiet place with God so that he can see us and we can see him.  He wants us to bring things to him and he wants us to use our gifts and our talents for his glory and for his service.  But he wants that to be with a posture of “I’m doing this for the approval of God, not for man. “ And so humility is not about being seen by others.  He also says in those verses he talks about don’t be like the hypocrites right? Don’t be hypocritical. Don’t do something outwardly and not have the same internal heart. We have to have congruence in our spirits if we’re really going to be humble. We can look humble but are we humble? We have to check it out, test it. Jesus called him out: Don’t be a hypocrite. Don’t be like them. He said God sees what’s in the heart. Candace Nassar Ah. Annie Mendrala Right? When God called David to be King and Samuel searched looking through all these brothers he didn’t see anybody and God says, hey man looks at outward appearance but I’m looking at the heart. So the heart of humility is an internal state. It’s not an outward appearance. Candace Nassar Yes. Annie Mendrala It doesn’t boast of the self at all. So I love the part in Matthew, it says whenever you fast.  So fasting is an interesting thing and back then he said don’t be gloomy like the hypocrites. They disfigure their faces and they make it obvious to people and it’s like, don’t make a big show of your spiritual disciplines. You know don’t show up with your bible everywhere I go and say look at me. I’m so good I read my bible every morning or I’m starving, I’ve been fasting for weeks. You know, whatever. And it’s not that we can’t share those things because I think it’s important to share our spiritual disciplines with one another but out of a desire to build the body of Christ. For me to share with you so you can be encouraged to do the same so that together we can honor the father, not so that Annie can be seen as oh she’s so good. Candace Nassar Yeah, that’s really good. So yeah, so that makes me wonder more about how Jesus modeled humility and so we already started talking about the cross right?  And how certainly, he humbled himself to the point of death. He left the glory of heaven, came to earth and humbled himself to pay a debt He didn’t owe. Which you know that’s an incredible thing in of itself that the creator would become incarnate. Because He knew that we could never become perfect like him, He became like us. So that’s one amazing thing is the way that Jesus considered others more important than himself. You were saying earlier how people think Christians are a little crazy when we say things like that. But let’s talk about what that means. How did Jesus do that? Annie Mendrala Yeah, well Philippians 2 is a go to verse on this. What kind of attitude did Christ have? What did he demonstrate on earth? It says he existed in the form of God but he didn’t consider equality with God something to be grasped, to be clung on to. Instead he emptied himself. Here’s that word that people go, what does that mean? He emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant and taking on the likeness of humanity. This first is indicating that Christ didn’t allow his position as God, his power, his authority as God, to take advantage of others or to advantage himself over others. He actually intentionally sought to let go of those things so that others could be elevated to demonstrate love to save humanity.  So God, Jesus remained God fully that never changed. He didn’t empty the nature of god; it actually, the verse says he took on the likeness of humanity. He didn’t take on the exactness of humanity because he did not take on the sin nature, but he took on the form of a man, of a human so that he could take the penalty of our sin. And so we learned from his example that despite what we’re capable of, what we can do in our state of humility like Christ. We’ve got to choose to take on the heart of a servant, the one to wash someone’s feet. Candace Nassar Yes, I mean is that not just the ultimate example that the creator of the universe got on his knees and washed the feet of his disciples. We know that that is something that only the lowest servant would do. Annie Mendrala Not only did he wash the disciples feet who were his friends, he washed Judas’s feet, his betrayer. He knew. So for us to say well Christians just serve christians, no. Candace Nassar Yeah, that’s what always gets me. Annie Mendrala In Christianity we serve all mankind because every person has infinite worth and value and it’s up to God to judge the hearts of men not us. It’s up to us in our hearts to submit and humble ourselves to model what he modeled. He died for people who hated him and we’re to do the same in the sense to love others like that. So we see that humility is a choice. It’s not natural like you said and it’s an intentional choice.  Candace Nassar So what are the results of a life that lacks humility? Let’s think about that. Annie Mendrala This is a really great question because what we know is that the opposite of humility is pride.  And instead of calling it pride, calling it a lack of humility kind of changes the lens that we’re talking from. Because really, what we’re talking about is pride. That’s again, in our culture pride is a good thing right? Take pride in your work, take pride in your kids, take pride in whatever. But you know we throw pride around very casually. Pride is really a lack of humility. So the results, since humility is the gateway to a life surrendered to Christ, a lack of humility basically is the gateway to hell.  Because in the Garden with Adam and Eve, what happened? Well, originally Satan and his followers fell out of heaven because they wanted to be like God and elevated themselves and that’s why they got cast out. Again,  in the garden Adam and Eve decided they would choose what they thought better over God.  And that is when sin came into the world and they lost it. So Andrew Murray in his book, Humility, says that pride really is the gateway to hell. It sounds kind of rough but the reality is a lack of humility is the root of sin. Candace Nassar Well and you know, sorry to interrupt but I’m just thinking about something.   Humility is the first thing that a Christian has to have.  When we humble ourselves to receive salvation, we recognize that we can’t save ourselves. That we can never be perfect and holy like God and so we have to acknowledge our sin and receive Christ as our savior. So the very first thing we do is humble ourselves to that point and then it’s a battle from then on to maintain that posture of humility. Annie Mendrala Absolutely right? So humility is a state that we enter into, that relationship with Christ.  So to lack humility honestly means that we are not humbling ourselves under God. We’re making ourselves in charge which will lead to anxiety because we’re always going to anticipate the future and we’re gonna try to control it.  Because we’re not trusting in God, we’re trusting in ourselves. So we always have to anticipate what’s next.  And then what happens? I just taught on this. Anxiety always gives birth to depression because the longer we remain dependent on ourselves, the darker the hole becomes. We just we continue to try to control that future outcome and we all know that our frailty, our sin and  Candace Nassar Ah, been there. Annie Mendrala The finite state of our being can never achieve what we’re trying on our own.  Then ultimately depression leads to hopelessness, this lack of joy because pride has deceived us into thinking we had control. Annie Mendrala And humility brings us to the place where we get that control is an illusion. That only God has control and so if we never reach that state of humility, hopelessness is permanent. It is permanent. It is a pathway to eternity apart from God. But when we get to the place of hope, then we find freedom. That’s where we find life and so lacking humility leads to death but gaining humility turns us to life. Candace Nassar Yeah, and so in Andrew Murray’s book which was sort of the backdrop for this whole podcast, just an incredible little book. Not an easy read I wouldn’t say but incredibly convicting and good. He talks about how humility is connected to happiness and I think that’s really the core to me of the difference between how the world views humility and how the bible does.  Because we would never connect those two I don’t think in our flesh.  Humility is connected to happiness? How does that even work? So why don’t you elaborate on that. Annie Mendrala Yeah, well he did. At some point in the book, he talks about how what we’re rooted in is what is what grows from us. So when we’re rooted in humility we get connected to this happiness. Which really, that happiness is not dependent on our circumstance. But really, it’s connected to joy despite our circumstances.  He starts the chapter with 2nd Corinthians, I will boast gladly about my weakness so that Christ’s power may rest on me. And he says this is why for Christ’s sake I delight in weakness for when I’m weak then I’m strong.  Humility brings us to the place of just letting go of that control, that need to be the blessed controller overall things and then we find great joy. And delighting in our weakness because that is the opportunity for us to receive the strength that God has wants to give us. Candace Nassar And instead of trying to tell ourselves that we don’t have any limitations and that we can be everything out there, God is saying no. I’ve created you with certain strengths and certain weaknesses. I will make you strong in your weaknesses. Annie Mendrala Yes, yes. Candace Nassar But you can give that over to me, you don’t have to try to be something. You’re not something I didn’t create you to be. Annie Mendrala Yeah, it’s like when Jesus said you know take my yoke, don’t take the yoke that the world’s giving you. They’re putting all kinds of burdens on you, especially back in the day when there were all kinds of laws and expectations. He says my yoke is easy. My burden is light. You know he says he has a humble heart that he wants to provide for us abundantly. But, until we surrender we won’t receive it.  Candace Nassar Right? And so really, that’s how we can be happy and what humility is because we’re content. We’re content wherever God has us knowing that whatever it is we’re going through, He’s working it for our good.  Annie Mendrala Yes, yes. Candace Nassar We are surrendering and accepting and leaning into that and being teachable instead of fighting it and asking why. We can find that contentment and it all comes down to just being humble and surrendering right? Annie Mendrala Yeah I love that and there’s a quote I wrote in the front of my book because it really stuck out to me. Jesus lost nothing by giving all he had to God, right? He didn’t lose anything. We have nothing to give but only what we receive right? Jesus modeled giving everything so that God could be glorified. And what had happened after Jesus gave everything? God exalted his name above all names and every knee will bow at his name in the end.  He went down and then Wow! God put him higher than everyone and not that we are not going higher than everyone. Candace Nassar Yes  Annie Mendrala But, we get to participate in that return of Christ. As we go low, Jesus is glorified.   So that’s kind of that model. We have nothing to lose, nothing to lose by giving it all away because what we get back is so much greater and. Candace Nassar That’s so good Annie. So as we start to wrap up here, what has God shown you personally in the last year about humility? Annie Mendrala Yeah, wow well, he’s been teaching me a lot my whole life cause definitely pride has been my greatest struggle. I’m kind of a “know it all”. I tend to think it’s my way or no other way and God has really been teaching me about listening. I heard a sermon years ago and he said that pride was basically a sin that God really hates. It’s kind of at the top of the list of things that he hates. And I thought oh gosh, well that’s not who I want to be so we started working on me.   I was thinking back to 2021. We had a big ice storm and all the tree branches broke everywhere. So there were results that were seen and results that were unseen. Those tree limbs broke, which was visible, but a lot of the trees were also decaying and dying on the inside. A year later in 2022 we noticed one of our trees was dying and we cut it down. And that big forty foot tree opened and allowed the sunlight to come in on a patch of grass that was never receiving sun for 15 years.   The next summer last year we noticed this abundant plush grass had grown because the light had come in. And God started revealing to me, “Annie, until you let me rip down your pride, and I mean rip it down with some major axes and chisels, a painful process; I can’t let my light shine into you so that you can really grow and experience the fullness that you want out of a relationship with me. Not until I break that. So in my marriage he definitely brought the jackhammers in and started breaking it down. We were at a place where honestly the end of our marriage was imminent. It was. We were not doing well. God allowed an intervention. And He put the desire in Mike’s and my heart to work on our marriage. By humbling myself and surrendering, which was so scary because I had to trust God, I realized I hadn’t been trusting him because my pride was trying to control everything.  That’s another podcast.  God has given me what now is my year of jubilee. I’m 49.  I realize that that is the year of jubilee the Israelites celebrated. After the forty ninth year, they would celebrate where all the prisoners were set free. All the slaves were released. Candace Nassar Oh. Annie Mendrala All debts were forgiven and all property returned to the original owners. It was a year to just be released from bondage and to have a year of rest.  I feel like this past year has been a release of bondage, a release , a time of rest and I’m so excited just to become a woman of humility in my year of jubilee.  It’s such a thing to celebrate! And I’m excited to see what God has available because now that I’ve allowed the light of truth to come in, God is just abundantly growing things in me that I never really thought was possible, especially in my marriage. Candace Nassar That’s so precious Annie I and you know even just in the year and a half or so that I’ve known you, I’ve seen that light just get brighter and brighter in you and I’m encouraged by that. And I mean all of us who are married. Certainly, that’s the most difficult relationship because it’s right in front of us at all times and certainly a place to work on humility.  So how can we then in closing become more humble. What’s the process? So you’re saying when you let the light in, you allowed God to chisel all that stuff away. That’s not fun. It’s hard. It hurts but it’s like you said, but God is going to exalt that right when we surrender that. Can you just give us some practical thoughts about how we can become more humble? Annie Mendrala I think it starts with prayer and I think you mentioned earlier that prayer.  Oh Lord search me and know me, test me, reveal any wrong thinking and any anxious way in me. Prayer is the key. When we come to prayer, we put ourselves in the hands of our loving God, if we really want him to speak to us.  He says you don’t have because you didn’t ask. So we’ve got to go and we’ve got to say, God would you give me humility? And be brave enough and courageous enough to ask him because he wants that for us. He’s going to give us things like that when we ask for it.  Be willing to listen to those around you. I’ve had to listen to some hard things spoken by other people about the way they experience me and that has been really humbling. And actually exciting because I’m like now that I know I actually can do something different.  Because living deceived wasn’t helping me I can tell you that. So listen to those around you.  I would also say just cease striving. Cease trying to work for everything, to earn approval of man and the approval of god. Give that up. I love the verse be still and know that I’m God. It means put your hands down. Put your hands down and stop trying. I am God. We have to let go even when we’re right, We have to let go. We have to let go, shut our mouth and put a guard over it. Candace Nassar Right? That’s so good. Annie Mendrala God, you can do all things without me. You don’t need me but you want me, you want a relationship with me above all things and so I don’t know there’s so much more we could say but. Candace Nassar Yeah, I think about how you said you’re listening to what people are saying and you’re thinking about others right? And there are all kinds of ways that we can serve those around us as we’re changing our mindset from ourselves to others. We were talking about thinking about how Jesus did that, right?  So what are some things that we can do to help us think about others more? Annie Mendrala Yeah, that is the key because we’re not called to a personal or a relationship with God that is separate from the body of Christ. We’re called to community. And so if we’re only thinking about ourselves, our pride has us only thinking about ourselves. So we start thinking about others along with ourselves, we build that beautiful community. I thought about that verse in Ephesians 4:29.  It was one of the first verses I memorized that says, “Let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth but only what’s good for building someone up; so that it gives grace to those who hear.  If we think about what we’re saying, that helps what we’re saying be beneficial to the listener. Ask ourselves, is this building up others, or am I trying to build myself up over them. Right? So the way we talk to one another needs to be helpful and beneficial. And honestly there are some conversations we need to just not have because the listener is not ready for it.  We need to trust God with our kids. Right? We need to pray for those opportunities to speak truth into them but also that God is the one that does the hard work. You know we’re the workers, but he’s the harvester. He’s the grower. He does all the work. We’re just the vessels that he pours into and we pour out. Candace Nassar Yes, and I’m excited to tell our listeners that in a couple weeks I’m going to be talking with Matt Peacock who runs or founded Partners in Hope and that ministry is all about serving others. So it’ll be a great springboard from this conversation to how we can serve others in very practical ways. So that’ll be good. So. Annie Mendrala You know we were talking about that. In one of the groups, a mentor mom was talking with her group and said, “One way we can change our perspective on life is to serve others.  Because once we get out of our heads, out of our prideful thinking and start looking at others, everything changes.  I can’t wait to hear that one.  Candace Nassar Yeah, it’s gonna be good. It’s gonna be good, all right? Well Annie thanks so much. This has been a fantastic conversation and I am just really appreciative. Would you mind closing us in prayer. Annie Mendrala I would love to.  Father, we are so humbled. We really are God. We’re humbled at your feet right now. We’re so grateful for the cross. And not just the cross but your resurrection, that you’ve died to give us life. God, help us to experience life abundantly in the days ahead. Help us to learn from the past and embrace our sin in a way that we can release it and then grow and abide in you. We love you. In Jesus name I pray, Amen. Candace Nassar Amen. h