Marian Jordan Ellis joins Julie Lyles Carr on episode #129 of the allmomdoes podcast with her story of redemption and how she is using that story to encourage all of us in our search for identity, hope, and truth!
Listen to “allmomdoes Podcast #129: Marian Jordan Ellis – The Search for Identity” on Spreaker.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:00:00] My guest today is wicked smart with a very interesting backstory. I can’t wait for you to hear from my guest today here on the allmomdoes Podcast. I’m Julie Lyles Carr and the allmomdoes podcast is brought to you by allmomdoes.com and allmomdoes on the socials. It’s a phenomenal place of connection and equipping and encouragement with women who are going through the seasons and stages of life, just like you are. So be sure and check out allmomdoes.com.
Today my guest has had a long time in her adult life where she was single didn’t necessarily think that marriage and parenting might be on the horizon for her. She went through a series of big challenges in her single life.
And when she came into faith, it changed everything. And then there were some more changes that came on the horizon. I can’t wait for you to hear from my amazing friend, Marian Jordan Ellis
Marian, thanks so much for being with me today.
Marian Jordan Ellis: [00:01:05] Well, Hey Julie, thanks for having me.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:01:07] You’re down in San Antonio, I’m in Austin and sometimes we get to see each other. Sometimes we get to go on speaking trips together and things like that. It’s a lot of fun, but you have been in the ministry lane for a very long time and ministering to women for a quite a while. And so unpack first for my listeners, your husband, the kids, and then how you first got into ministry, because your story of your journey into faith is a pretty fascinating one.
Marian Jordan Ellis: [00:01:35] Well, okay, I’m going to break those down into two answers. Currently I do live in San Antonio and I am a stepmom. I call myself a bonus mom. I have two step sons that are, they’re now 16 and. 13 and they are amazing young men. When my husband I’m married to back in 2012, they were just little boys and became a bonus mom and then surprise at, uh, 43 years old.
I gave birth to my daughter, Sydney, who is just a joy and delight. And I, you know, I. You would understand this? I was flying from New York from a speaking event to Kansas for a speaking event. And I was like, man, I feel sick. What is wrong with me? And I diagnosed myself with mano, but by the time I thought, could I be pregnant?
And so on my way to go speak at an event, I bought a pregnancy test. Peed on a stick in a church bathroom, found out I was pregnant five minutes before I walked up to teach the Bible to hundreds of women. I don’t, I don’t recommend that. And so I became a late bloomer, a mom later in life. And, uh, it’s been just such a delight, but it is a young woman’s sport is what I tell women all the time.
It is. You know, there, there’s a reason it’s a young woman’s sport. So that’s who I am currently. I, you know, still do ministry, but, uh, for many years, uh, my life looked very different and ministry. I was a single woman. Um, I really to back up a little bit came to faith in Christ. Um, later in life, I was 25 years old.
And, uh, living in Houston, Texas living kind of what I would call the sex and the city life. I was in PR in corporate America, going to cocktail parties, chasing after everything the world was supposed to make me happy, make me successful, make me anything. And, uh, in that I really was empty. I was striving and running and sleeping with every guy I could meet in a bar.
And in that destruction, um, I realized my need for God. And so, um, at 25 I cried out to the Lord. Um, he redeemed my life and really, I fell head over heels in love with Jesus and part of loving Jesus and you know, being redeemed as you love what God loves. And as I began to grow in my relationship with him, he really broke my heart for women who were still in that place that I used to be, women who were still looking for love in all the wrong places and women that did not know him.
And so, although at that point I was. Uh, beginning to really teach God’s word. My church had put me in a place of leadership as a Bible teacher, I was going to seminary. There was part of me that still had this broken heart for women who would never set foot in the church, women that were still climbing corporate ladder, or, uh, just doing those things that I was doing, trying to find their value and identity.
And I knew that, wow. Um, how are they going to hear? And so. I was doing my seminary studies in Oxford at the time. And the Lord used one of my professors to really just give me a burden, to be the church outside the walls of the church. And so that summer, the Lord really challenged me to write my first book, which ended up being this book called sex in the city uncovered.
And in that I just told my story and my testimony of that search. For life and love and value and identity and how I was looking at all the wrong places. Like those characters from that show Sex in the City. Anyways, the Lord used that to open doors for me to really put on an evangelistic hat. And for about 10 years from about the age of 32 to right before I had my daughter, I traveled the globe doing an evangelistic event called Girls Night Out and sharing with women who would normally never go into the church about Jesus and how all of those things that I was looking for to satisfy my life would only be met in him. And so the Lord was super gracious. We saw about 11,000 women come to Christ during that time.
And it was just, um, you know, an amazing season of life. And really it’s been in the last, you know, more of like, four or five years that the Lord has called me more to local church ministry, more to put on my hat as discipling women and teaching them the word and growing them up, uh, to be, you know, strong followers of Christ.
And so today ministry looks more like for me for doing women’s conferences, but I teach locally in San Antonio and we more discipleship of women than it did for years, which was more evangelistic.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:06:17] You know, Marian, it brings up something interesting to me. I hear a lot of women who, because of their past, they think it disqualifies them from being able to minister to women. So did you have a season where maybe you felt like that? Like, Oh my goodness. How could I ever have anything to say to somebody because of the things that are in my past, or how do you recommend somebody reframe that, that they don’t think that’s what disqualifies them. And maybe the very thing that actually gives them the most believable voice sometimes to somebody who’s walking a similar path.
Marian Jordan Ellis: [00:06:48] I absolutely think that I think all believers are called into ministry. I think if you are in Christ, then God has equipped us with spiritual gifts. And Jesus gave every one of us the same commission to go make disciples.
But we also have the same enemy and I, for many seasons of life, the enemy wanted me to, uh, to try to be that perfect. Christian girl, you know, I would always come compare myself to these girls that had the spotless resumes and they had lived for God and they were, you know, in my mind I was doing the comparison game of man.
I haven’t lived for Jesus the way they did. So I can’t be used by God. And it was really me coming to discern the difference between the voice of shame and the voice of truth. And the enemy was using my past to shame me and condemn me and say, because of these things, you can’t be a messenger. And it was really as I began to learn how to walk in the Holy spirit and hearing the voice of God that I realized, actually God was calling me to be a messenger, to be an ambassador, to speak up.
Right. Because I could relate to the women who were in those places. I did know what it felt like to try to find your identity in those things and how Christ alone could meet that. And so I had to come to a place where I could discern the difference between those voices. And understanding that that voice of shame was not coming from the Lord because he had forgiven those things.
He had redeemed those things and he would take even, you know, scripture talks about God is able to transform and redeem things that were utter darkness, even to redeem those for his glory. And, um, that’s one of the reasons, you know, the name of my ministry is this redeemed life is because God’s a beautiful ability to take our mess and to make it a masterpiece to take what, you know, the enemy had so intended for evil and to transform it for God’s glory. And so, um, I would say to any woman listening, you know, your story has value and you know what you’ve walked through. Sure. You may have walked through them hard times to things that were done to you, or even things that you did yourself, but when God has redeemed, that that is something that can showcase his glory even more. And you are going to be better relate to someone that is walking through that than anyone else.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:09:07] How can we discern when we’re ready for that transition. And by that, I mean this, so for example, you know, that a couple of my girls have they’re differently abled in some ways. And I knew early on, pretty early on when all those diagnoses came, that I wanted to do something to help people. I knew that, but I was also just a little too raw. Just then, like, it took some time to get some, some curing of that.
And by curing, I don’t mean curing like, Oh, you know, and then there are differently abled issues went away. No, they didn’t. I mean, the kind of curing where you were at the place where you can bring flavor to a conversation, not just a lot of the hurt or things that you’re still experiencing. So how can we know when we’re ready to step into being really to a place where we’re healed enough to really do some good and where we might see some caution lights that maybe we’re still processing, you know, maybe we’re just trying to process in front of other people. How do we know?
Marian Jordan Ellis: [00:10:04] You know, I will meet with young women, especially who they’re brand new to faith, and they’re ready to go and take a platform and, and I will have to cost them, you know, the Lord has to do a work in us.
Um, there’s some sanctification that needs to happen in us before we are ready to do certain places in ministry. For example, My story of coming out of really some darkness and some deep sin. Um, the Lord did not call me to go and be an evangelist in that before I was walking in victory from those sins.
And before my feet were really planted in the truth of the gospel. And so I think there would be some caution, even, you know, scripture talks about don’t put it a young believer in a place of leadership too soon. And so I would say the way we would know when you’re ready. A couple of things. Are we sensing, um, A call and the spirit from people in the body of Christ, for example, um, do people in positions of leadership start looking to you and saying, Hey, we would like for you to share on this, this topic, uh, we think you have a calling in this area because in my situation, God really began to confirm callings through the body of Christ. My pastors would begin to ask me to teach, or other people would ask me to speak on the subject. And although there was trepidation in me and there was fear, um, I knew the Lord was using the body of Christ to raise me up to do something. And I, then I had to get over the fear or get over the shame or whatever, but he was using the voice of the body of Christ.
And then there’s also the inner promptings of the Holy spirit. I think women need to learn to recognize. And for example, you know, ministry doesn’t have to be on a global scale ministry doesn’t have to have a blog or a podcast ministry can be woman to woman. And so as you’re ministering and praying for someone that God has put a word on your heart, that is from your experience or from what you have gleaned from scripture as walking through it, you know, you can present that.
And if it’s received it’s received. And that’s just confirmation from the Lord that what he’s doing in new as being blessed to be fruitful in other people’s lives.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:12:18] Yeah, I do think we get into that trap of thinking if it’s not big, if it’s not something that has all the accoutrements with it, is it still really ministry?
And I think it hampers people and understanding how powerful it can be. Just even be really kind to the person who’s checking you out at the grocery store and making sure they’re having a good day, you know, and just speaking something over them. If that’s something that God drops in your heart, it all counts as ministry.
And I love that you are encouraging people to pay attention to that. I think it’s so important now. So you’ve had this very fascinating life progression because you kind of had the wild life and then you went into ministry and strongly as a single woman to other women. And then God brought this amazing guy into your life but he also came with an accessory pack in the form of two sons. So when you became a stepmom after having been single for a long time and all of that, you didn’t just get married, you got married into an immediate family. What was that like? What are some of the lessons that you want to pay it forward to a woman who may find herself in similar shoes?
Marian Jordan Ellis: [00:13:21] You know, I tell especially young women a lot, God writes the best stories. He absolutely does. And when I was single, there was such a longing to be married and I would vacillate between contentment and Christ and also having this longing for that thing that I felt like I was creative for was to be a wife and a mom.
And so I wrestled with that and, um, but I wrestled with it in a sense of trusting God’s timing and trusting. His sovereignty and entrusting my life to him. Uh, but part of that, I was always praying, God do not give me what I want. Give me your best. And he finally brought Justin into my life and we married.
I understood that in God’s goodness, sovereignty and timing, part of his best was bringing me a whole family at once. I was 38 when we got married. And so all of my friend group and my peer group, they had gotten married in their mid twenties, early thirties, and their kids were now seven, eight, nine, 10 years old.
And I had been in all of their weddings and hosted all the bridal showers. And what was funny was my new kids were the same age. And it was like, God had just fast forwarded all of this time. You know, he had redeemed that time. And so, you know, I joke and tell people that I went on my honeymoon and I came back and the next day I did carpool, so my you know, my, my introduction to motherhood was fast and, um, I had to learn how to walk in the Spirit because my life had been real easy before I woke up. When I wanted to, I did what I wanted to, I fixed my, you know, I fixed the meals the way I want it. And so overnight I, there was no learning curve. I had to jump in and be a mom.
And thankfully I had two really sweet boys to learn on, but, um, it’s, it was just a different way to learn how to walk in the Spirit and to walk in Jesus, his grace, because now I’m dealing with an ex-wife, I’m dealing with all the stuff that comes with blended families. And for me, it was just a deeper level of sanctification that the Lord wanted to do in me.
And to learn how to take all these things I’ve been learning about who Jesus is, where my identity is found, uh, what it looks like to walk in the spirit and now do it in this very trying, uh, situation that just happened overnight. And so it’s definitely been something that the Lord refined me in, but also taught me how to love in, new ways.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:16:01] How did you work through the place where, you know, we have these expected stories we think are going to happen in our lives. So we have this place where the way the wedding is supposed to go, the way the courtship is supposed to go the way it’s supposed to look for the first three to five years after you first get married, those kinds of things.
And, you know, We’re in a season right now with the coronavirus crisis that’s going on. We have people, who’ve put all this effort into their weddings, and now those weddings are being put off or they’re having to opt for a backyard wedding. We have kids who aren’t going to be going to prom the way they were supposed to this year for their senior years, we have graduates. Who’ve worked so hard for their degrees and they’re not going to have, they’re not going to be able to matriculate the way that they thought they were. And that expectation is not going to be met. So. Your story still has such incredible value and beauty and love to it.
But it’s not the typical story that maybe a lot of people would think they had to have or expected to have. How do we get to a place where we can sort of uncouple the expectation of what a story should look like and embrace the story that God does have for us, you know, to the prayer that you had, which was don’t give me what I want give me what’s best. Maybe what’s best is not going to look like the story that everybody thinks they want. How do we untangle that?
Marian Jordan Ellis: [00:17:20] I’m still untangling that because every day from releasing a book in the middle of the, you know, COVID-19 I had a speaking calendar that was filled, I think in my heart, what the Lord has done is a surrender to the fact that he is good and he is sovereign and he is on his throne. Otherwise the control freak in me will lose her lid when life does not go as I planned. And so, um, the part of me that can release control and go, God is not surprised by this. He saw this coming. He knew what was happening. It doesn’t mean his, the causation, but he is also my father, he is on his throne and in. That whatever season I’m surprised in, I have to go, my God was not surprised in this. And there’s a piece that floods my heart when I’m transferring the source of my hope, from what I can manage and control and transferring it to the Lord who I already know is in control and is my source of hope.
And so I think of the transfer for myself to him. And in that posture of surrender is where I find peace. And, you know, I can look back at over every season of different things that the Lord has allowed me to walk through. And when I do surrender and when I do come to an acknowledgement of who she is in the situation, I’ll probably have to tell myself every single day that who is my God.
Is he good? Is he sovereign? Is he capable? Is he able, does he have this? He’s got this. And so when I do that, there’s a posture of surrender that happens in my soul where the anxiety lessons, where the need to control everything around me lessons, because I’m submitting control to the one that actually has it.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:19:09] I love that, you know, you alluded to it earlier, you are in the midst of doing book launches and all kinds of things in the middle of this. And for listeners to know, you know, these book launches and all this stuff, they’re planned months ahead. And they’re all these events that go around it and all these ideas of what it’s all going to look like.
And then it’s. It’s kind of different when you’re having to do it in this format in a way that’s really, really different. But I love the heartbeat of the Bible study that you have coming out right now, which is about how women evaluate their worth and understand their worth. And, you know, I mean, Marian, I’m sure you have, I’ve seen a lot of conversation and different things surrounding this idea of a woman’s worth and our value as daughters of God. We know that. But at the same time, I still think we don’t know it. Like, what do you notice when it comes to women really understanding who they are in Christ, that it’s tough for us to get sometimes where we really struggle at times to completely understand what God’s intent is for us when it comes to our value to him.
Marian Jordan Ellis: [00:20:05] I don’t think we recognize that there is such a war over this. No. If you think about it, first of all, we, as women, we deal with the temptation to find our worth or value. When we say those words, what we’re really saying is our identity. We’re always tempted to find our identity in something external and, you know, growing up, it could be how we look.
It could be how, how popular we are. It could be our family status. There are a host of different things that we are. Looking to find that word value and identity N now those things typically are external things. They could be, you know, your GPA or whatever. And those when you’re younger or easily identify as we get older, here’s the thing.
Those things tend to shift. And I love one time I read a quote and, um, Have you ever seen the movie Mean Girls?
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:20:57] I haven’t, I’m one of those weird people. I have not seen it. I’ve seen outtakes. I’ve seen scenes. I need to sit down and watch the whole thing. I haven’t done that.
Marian Jordan Ellis: [00:21:04] It was based on a book called Queen Bees and Wannabes, and it was about girl culture and how women tend to compete with each other, for what they find their identity in.
And so in the book, she said this fascinating line and she said, women compete over the thing that they think will give them a seat in the life raft. I’ll say that again, we compete over the thing that we think will give us a seat in the life raft. So what are we looking to that we think brings us security?
What are we looking to that we think if I have that, then I’m okay. And so, you know, whatever a woman’s age is, she’s 15 or 55. There’s something in us that we think. Gives us that core security. Now, as a teenager, it’s like how pretty I am, or do I have the best prom day? But as a woman gets older, that shifts and here’s what happens to us as mothers, as moms, we shift that security from ourselves to our kids and we look to have our identity, our worth our value. But what it’s really is, is our security is my kid. The smartest. Is my kid, the prettiest is my kid. Are they securing my place in life raft? The reason I speak on these things is because I struggled so deeply with them.
I struggled with rejection and finding my identity. I had a really difficult childhood. Um, Julie and those deep places of wounding, what the enemy told me was I was worthless. I was unlovable and who I was was a mistake. And so as a nonbeliever, what I tried to do was find a validation that gave me a different way to value myself based on something the world said, like how I looked or if a guy thought I was beautiful or if I was successful.
But when I came to Christ, I found a new identity that I was loved. Not because of anything I did or how I looked or how I performed. I was loved simply because of the voice of truth and what Jesus had said. And so the freedom that comes from that as I don’t have to find a life raft to find my security, my security is secure because of who Jesus is and what he has done.
And that is total freedom. It has changed my entire life because now it’s not a striving. It’s not a performing, I’m not putting the pressure on my daughter or my step sons to validate me or make me feel like I’m someone because Jesus has already told me who I am.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:23:37] How do we keep that pure? And by that, I mean, this, you know, for some of us, our story is we were raised in the church and we may have had childhoods that, while not perfect, were not of the ilk of what you experienced and yet. Sometimes our sense of identity and worth has gotten really confused simply by being within the culture of the church, that we may have received a message that we had to be this, that, or the other. And as long as we avoided this list and we accomplished all of this list, then we had identity and value.
So, you know, there’s the woman out there who came from a really rough background and discovered this really beautiful identity in Christ and, and has been able to walk that out in a way that’s so powerful. And then there may be the woman out there who’s like, I’ve known Jesus practically my whole life and I’m still struggling with this. Even within the context of my faith community, how do we keep it pure? Where it really is the place of what God intends and not all the messages we can get, even from those who are trying to be well intentioned.
Marian Jordan Ellis: [00:24:36] Yeah, I would say, I think we need to recognize that there’s always a root of temptation. And the enemy always wants to tempt us to find worth value, identity, whatever it is outside of Christ and whether it’s being the good Christian girl or whether it’s being the perfect ministry leader or whether it’s being miss America, we’re all going to be tempted. And I think once we recognize that this issue is still an issue of temptation, it’s being tempted to say that who I am, my significance, my work is found in something other than what Jesus has accomplished. And when we do that, the enemy wants to pull us back into a place of striving, our competing or are jealousy or comparison. And when we begin to discern and recognize, this is a temptation here, and you know, we come back to scriptures where Paul says things like I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me that we understand this life that we’re living as believers.
That we are living a life where we’re hidden in Christ and everything is to this point, a spotlight to him and to shine a light on his glory. And so when we do that, what it does is it takes the eyes off yourself. And what the enemy always wants to do is put our eyes back on ourselves and then we either feel shame cause we haven’t measured up or we feel pride because we think we’re better than someone else. And when I am walking in wisdom, I go, I’m not going to play your game. I’m not going to compare myself with my sister, Julie and go, wow. I’m not as smart as she is, or I haven’t been as successful because he’s just wanting me.
To look at myself, which has taken my eyes off Jesus. And he wants to have me competing with you. And all that’s doing is playing in a scheme. And so once I recognize all of this is a temptation from him, then I can put my eyes back on Jesus and go, you have defined who I am. You. I have said, I am the beloved.
You have said what my worth is that I was worth dying for. You have said, you, you are the voice of truth. And so what that does is it gives me freedom. It gives me the ability to love others well, but I also have to know this is a daily temptation, right? And a daily temptation for all women, whether or not you, I mean, if you’re a mother or not, we are all facing this daily temptation to find our identity or what we’re calling the life raft and something other than Christ.
And what’s funny is you, I mean, the temptations changed. You know, 20 years ago, my life raft after may have been a cute boy in a bar, right. You know, today it might be how many speaking engagements do I have, you know, and the enemy doesn’t change. But when I recognize that’s a temptation. For me to find my love and find my worth in something other than Jesus.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:27:33] I love that. And I love the notion that, you know, I think Jesus has sent a customized life raft for each of us. Like there’s no, there’s no elbowing. There’s no need to feel like, you know, there’s not room. He’s already, he’s already figured that out for us and how and how he wants to interact with us and who we’re supposed to be in him.
Well, Marion and I love you dearly. I’m so excited for my listeners to get to know you and thank you so much for all you do to minister, to women in various seasons of life and how you are so transparent and vulnerable with the things you’ve walked through, the things you’re walking through currently, the things you’re trying to figure out, the things that you’ve learned.
Thank you for your generosity to an entire generation of women.
Marian Jordan Ellis: [00:28:13] Well, thank you, Julie. You’re so inspiring and your wisdom is just contagious. I’ll put you on in the kitchen and listen to you all day.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:28:23] You’re the best, big, so much for being with us. Head on over to the show notes. That’s where you’ll find all of the links and all the extra information that are so lovingly put together every week by Rebecca, our content coordinator. She’s amazing. Also a big round of applause to Donna she’s our producer. She helps get all of this audio out to you each and every week for the podcast. Be sure and check out allmomdoes.com, both the blog and the socials. You’ll find all kinds of amazing resources and encouragement and community there.
So be sure and check out all that at allmomdoes.com And I want to hear from you so head over to Instagram. I’m Julie Lyles Carr there. I’m Julie Lyles Carr on all the socials, but I particularly hang out at Instagram and I would love to get to chat with you there. Please leave a five star rating and review and subscribe to the allmomdoes podcast.
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