What if we truly embraced the idea that God designed and created each of us to be who we are? What if we actually believed that God gave us unique talent and gifts meant just for us? Learn to shift your mind and begin to understand what God has just for you in this episode of the allmomdoes Podcast with Julie Lyles Carr.
Listen to “#142 – God Created You To Be You with Jamie Ivey” on Spreaker.
On This Episode:
- Follow Jamie Ivey Online, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
- Order Jamie’s new book “You Be You.”
Transcription:
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:00:02] Welcome to the allmomdoes podcast from allmomdoes. And part of the Christian Parenting Podcast Network family I’m Julie Lyles Carr, your host. I am a mom of eight, a bestselling author. I have a married to my husband, Michael, for quite a while now. And I am so glad that you are here. The allmomdoes podcast is just for you.
It is to speak directly into your life where you are raising those kids. You know, we try to foster that great romantic relationship building up that career and the faith journey you’re on. This is a place where you’re going to find inspiration, information, resources, and community here at the allmomdoes podcast.
Today on the allmomdoes Podcast , fellow Austinite, a friend of mine. Jamie Ivy is back on the podcast. Jamie, thanks so much for being with me today.
Jamie Ivey: [00:00:47] Hey, Julie, thanks for having me back.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:00:49] So Jamie is sort of just, you’ve just, you’re into all kinds of things. Oh, happy hour with Jamie Ivy, which is a podcast, which I’m sure many of my listeners are very familiar with.
You’ve got your, um, you know, happy hour live events, which have been. So cool out on your property with your husband, cooking a lot of stuff. What other things are going on in your world over the last few months? As some things have shut down and your husband’s in ministry and you guys are juggling kids and all the things, how you been what’s going on.
Jamie Ivey: [00:01:19] All of the things will, all of our live events were canceled this year. Just like, I mean, everyone else. So we had no live events, which was sad, cause those are truly some of our most fun things that we do. Uh, my husband, Aaron and I launched a new podcast, uh, the end of August. Yeah. We launched a show called On The Other Side.
And so it’s a new podcast that him and I are hosting together. And so it’s a 12 episode season where we talk to people about what life is like for them on the other side of. Something fill in the blank, whatever that might be. So that’s been a fun project that we’ve been working on together, Jaron quarantine, and then book coming out.
I mean, just. Fun stuff. Yeah. Yeah. How was it for you when things first started shutting down? Because I think for a lot of us who work at home, there were things that didn’t feel all that different. And then there are things that we’ve been kind of startled with, like, Oh yeah, yeah. This is way different.
Yes. I mean, for me personally, I have a tiny house on my property. So I have an office that I go to every day, whether it’s COVID or not. And so there was this sense of. Normalcy a bit in my life as I would walk over to work every day. The strange part of it was, you know, I was, it wasn’t like summer when this early happened in March and I would have to go over and check on the kids.
And at that point, school was just not really nobody’s fault. Nobody knew how to transfer to online school, you know, in a week. Right. And so I was just trying to stay on top of them and work. So the biggest thing for me was just the lack of traveling and events. And so normally I would travel a handful of times a month.
And so that. It shut down immediately. So I was having to figure out, okay, how do I do the things from home? So, yeah, I still work in the same office every day. I’m not at my dining room table. I’m thankful for that so much. And my kids are big, so they’re back in school, but everyone is basically on their own.
Yeah, and they’re doing great. Yeah. Oh, that’s great.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:03:09] I can’t tell you just knowing you’re not all that far down the road from me. How many times I thought about, I wonder if she’d mind, if I just snuck in at night into that little tiny house in her backyard and just had a metal workspace, doesn’t have a hot minute.
Cause we had a bunch of kids come home to shelter in place with us. So we were back up to nine people in the house and I had forgotten Jamie, what it felt like to have almost all the people back in that it’s a lot.
Jamie Ivey: [00:03:35] So many friends who their kids have, you know, flown the nest and got away to college most of the year.
And then they were back and they would tell me it’s awesome. And it’s awful. It’s like, it’s both like, it’s so great. And it’s so difficult. Not because they didn’t love their kids, but because them there, her and her husband were in such a routine. Like it was just like, Oh, wait, we’re not used to having to feed all these people and now you’re back.
So I can hear what you’re saying a little bit.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:03:59] Yeah, exactly. It is a really interesting line of parenting. When you have some who have flown or who have gained a certain level of independence, and then you’re all kind of back, uh, you know, trying to figure out who’s going to do which chores. And who left that coffee cup where, you know, it’s all things so true.
We know you get to have the opportunity, whether you’re traveling or not. You certainly have the hearts and the ears of so many women in our culture today. And I know that one of the things that’s been a real passion message for you is encouraging people to truly just. UBU, that’s actually the title of the book, but I know it’s also a heartbeat that you’ve carried for a long time.
What did you start to notice that really made this message start to flame up in your heart? That it was something that needed to be addressed?
Jamie Ivey: [00:04:38] Yeah, you know, I started Julie a handful of years ago, started to notice and not just in other people, I’m not exempt from this by any means. It would come up in my own.
So where I would wonder if I would be more successful if I look like her. And I don’t just mean physically. Um, although that has crossed my mind, but would I be more successful if my podcast was like her, or if I had the same message with her, or if I had the same followers, this followers as her, or sometimes even if I had the same job as her.
And so I saw this kind of. Interesting dynamic we’re women. We’re constantly, I shouldn’t say constantly where I was noticing women wishing they had other gifts, other talents because they viewed those to be better. Uh, and so that’s where this kind of idea of, I want to look at every woman in the face and say you to be you because there’s something really special about you.
And I know that can start to sound really cheesy and churchy, but at the core of it, it’s true because. God gave you Julie certain gifts and talents and passions and influence and voice and power that I don’t have. And so I wanted myself, my friends, my readers, my listeners, to start to really. I guess it boils down to trust that God knew what he was doing when he crafted them and placed them in certain places and gave them certain gifts and talents.
Because the truth of the matter is you were made to be you and you were made to do what God asks you to do. And I founded my own personal life. Then when I started to believe that when I started to really fight comparison and fight envy and fight Discontentment and I continue to fight those things.
But when I started to really. Call those things, what they were, I started to find more satisfaction in success, right. Where I was now that word success, it’s a slippery one, right? Because yeah, we all have so many notions about what that means. And it’s very easy to slide into thinking that it has something to do with financial success or the material goods that you own.
But what are some other forms of this definition of success that you feel are not serving us well today, particularly as women, you know, this definition that we may carry, that’s not serving us well. Yeah. You know, it’s funny because the word success it can make, I would say probably more likely Christian woman feel a little uneasy, like, wait, am I allowed to be successful?
Right. Like, is this okay? Like what does this mean? Yeah. Am I worldly now? Do I not love Jesus and you know, truth be told. I want everything I do to be a success. Like I’m not the kind of person that sets out, whether that’s in my marriage, my parents and my friendship, you know, coaching my kids’ soccer games when they were little, which I don’t do that obviously anymore.
But I used to, I would want to win. Like I’m not going to coach a team to lose a guy, so I wouldn’t be successful. Um, but the work can be difficult because here’s what the problem with success is. Is that usually the. The end game of success, the final white, you will be successful if this happens, it’s a moving target, it’s constantly changing.
And so if we’re going to base success off of the world, says you are successful. If this happens well, what about when you meet that? Well, there’s always another target. It’s always moving. And so, you know, some of the ways is that we desire to be success. To be successful would be in our parenting. Like I sometimes feel like I will be a successful mom if my kids obey me, they follow all my rules, they put their coffee cups up when they’re supposed to, they do their laundry and they faithfully follow Jesus until the day, till the day, that day that we all want that. Right. Like that would be success. But. Well, I think we also have seen if you’re a parent that doesn’t always work out that way.
Like that’s not always how the story goes, whether that be with them following Jesus or just doing their laundry. So another way would be, you know, I want to create this product that sells a lot and makes me a lot of money or I want to success would be getting noticed in my community and being woman of the year or success would be okay, I’m going to be married and have kids before I turned 40.
That would mean successful, or I’m going to have this huge audience. That would be successful. But what I started noticing is are those things actually the end game of success, like what happens to the woman? Who’s not married by 40? What happens to the parents who pour their lives out for their children and then one of them decides I don’t want to follow Jesus or what happens to the woman who never gets noticed in her community, but she faithfully serves every single day at her kid’s elementary school. And so I started to think, okay, what if we, instead of desiring success, which is. Um, what I think we want, we want to be successful.
What if we changed our mind shift and our mindset and what if we shifted to, I want to be faithful. So I’m going to desire to be a faithful parent versus a successful parent. I’m going to desire to be a faithful woman in my community versus a successful woman in my community, or I’m going to desire to be a faithful podcaster rather than a successful podcaster.
Now it doesn’t. To me personally, it doesn’t negate that I want to work hard. I’m like I work hard every day. I like working hard, but it helps me go, you know what, at the end of the day, No matter what happens with my kids, my marriage, my community, my kids’ school, my podcasts, my books, I can sleep well, knowing that I have been faithful to what God’s asked me to do.
And I think that when we have that shift in our minds, Julie, it takes some pressure off. It goes, right. Oh, okay. So Julie’s faithfulness looks different than mine. Right on some levels, like there are some common faithfulness about following God, for sure. But in your job, yeah. Your parenting and your career, that’s going to be different than me.
You know, God has put specific things in your life that he’s not put in mine. So. That has been a huge help for me in going, you know what, God, I think what you really want for me is you want my faithfulness, you want my heart. Instead of me constantly chasing what the world says, what equals success.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:10:21] Right. And you know, it’s right there in the word forest. Well done. Good and faithful servant, not well done good and successful servants. Right. Right there for us. If we look for it. Yeah. You know, Jamie, I think in the arc that has been my mothering career, which is spanned a long way because of eight kids and the distance between when the oldest of the youngest, I have to tell you when I started my parenting, when I started in my adult world, I was primarily just dealing with immediate peers around me.
And so sure I would go over to a girlfriend’s house and her house would be so much cuter than mine. So much cleaner than mine, which is always still the truth today. Right. But, you know, I. I w I was exposed to it occasionally. And when I looked at what other people were doing in their careers at that time, I was exposed to it occasionally now with the advent of social media, with the way that we are all connected by phone and not even on social media, but just the ability to text each other, to see images of each other, to see what’s going on in our world. I think that this notion of taking it a hard hit, when we feel like we’re not measuring up to something that looks like success is even more exacerbated by the fact that the comparison model is so much more immediately available, right. I used to get Saturn home and better homes and gardens once a month by mail.
That was the time where I could beat myself up once a month. Now, anytime I open a platform or I go searching for a recipe on Pinterest, you know, it’s just fascinating how often comparison is coming up. So how can women combat that? Because it’s so systemic now in the way that we live as women to always have these comparison points, even when they’re not, there is something that’s meant to be cruel or meant to make us feel less than a lot of times, there’s something supposed to be a help.
How do we combat that?
Jamie Ivey: [00:12:07] Well, I think one of the things that you mentioned I think is so true is that this is not new because of social media, you know, but you and I both grew up in an era with no social media and we battled it all the time. You know, how does she have that new outfit at school or whatever it might be.
So it’s nothing new, but I agree with you that we’re living in a day and age where it feels like you cannot even go five minutes without seeing something. Here’s what I, um, liked to encourage women with. And, and I’ll talk, I’ll speak specifically with Instagram, cause it’s my favorite social media. And so, um, it’s where I hang out the most is just what I enjoy the most is I have to constantly remind myself that what I’m seeing is not the entire picture.
Right. And so. I mean, I think we all know that you’re listening. You’re like, of course it’s not the entire picture, but we don’t always choose to believe that in the moment. Um, I’ll use this example, this, we just went through COVID we were talking about it. Well, we’re still in COVID. And, and this quarantine season at my house, there were some particular difficult seasons with my husband, Aaron and I maybe more difficult than we’ve seen in 20 years.
It was just a lot of circumstances. I mean, it was just difficult. Right, right. But here’s what I never put on social media. I never put on social media, a picture of me, like mad at my husband and saying how much he was bothering me that day. I didn’t do that because that’s not what people do on social media.
And so if you were to look at our life, you would think, Oh, you wouldn’t know that now don’t hear me say like, Oh, we’re just fake online. No, not at all, but we get to control what we put out. And so that’s on me, but here’s, what’s on me also is that every time I open up your Instagram, Julie, it’s on me. To not believe that what I’m seeing is the entire story well, and if you ever see my house cleaning, know that’s not the entire story when we’re looking through, you know, uh, all of these images, everything that we see, we need to remember and appreciate what we’re seeing.
If there’s a message there, if there’s a beautiful photography, whatever it might be, we can appreciate it for what it is, but. We cannot build our entire narrative of that person’s life based on that photo, because we’re missing the entire life. The second thing I really, and so that’s on me and there have been, there have been seasons and times where I’ve unfollowed people because my heart needs a check.
They’re not doing anything wrong. Cause it’s their own social media. They can do whatever the heck they want with it. The second thing I have found that has been a help for me is to make sure I am investing in real life friendships. Um, I cannot express to you how difficult it is for me to fight comparison.
And Discontentment when I’m isolated and alone. And the only communication I have is with people online. Um, we were meant for community. We were meant to have people speaking into our lives. We were meant to have. Conversations with people. And so if I’m forgoing those real life, and again, we’re in a different seat, we’re in a difficult season where what I’m saying has been difficult, but if I’m forgoing those moments of sitting across the table from someone feeling their arm on my shoulder, as they tell me that they love me and that there’s something wrong with me, that I’m going to be okay and all that.
And the God loves me, all those things. When we miss out on those things, it’s way more easier for us to believe that our life is second best and that they must have it better. But when we’re engaging in those conversations with real life friends is when we get to see like, Oh, this is your, this is real life.
You know, because although I didn’t put any of that on social media that my husband, I might’ve had like the biggest fight of our marriage and the middle COVID, you know, who I did tell my girlfriends girlfriends. Yeah. Yes. And so that is where I think that it is on us as consumers, uh, to realize that if we’re going to be women who consume social media, we need to also be very wise in our ideas of knowing that a we’re not seeing the whole story and B we need real life friendships that are going to fulfill the things in us that we think we’re getting from social media, because they can’t fulfill that. They can’t fulfill the communication, they can’t fulfill the community. The love. Now I’ve met plenty of people that are friends of mine today through social media, but they can’t give me what a real life friendship.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:16:16] Can do absolutely. And I love that you bring up this idea of just finding some release sometimes to do this reset, to say, okay, I probably need to go through and unfollow some stuff.
Not because anybody’s done anything wrong, consider it like a juice fast, you know, sometimes you just emotionally from a soul point, need to take a moment and. We’re realize how much some of those things are speaking into your life and you don’t even really it’s, you thought you were there just for the entertainment or the inspiration, but it can begin chipping away.
You’re so right. And so to be able to do that little, you know, decluttering a little bit, and then go back, you know, I’ve definitely had seasons, same that you said where I’ve had to just kind of let some things go and not for any reason that somebody offended me or anything else, but just, okay. I just need to take a break and I’ve been able to go back in and appreciate it in a new way, in a way that doesn’t seem to be so finger pointing toward myself.
And of course, one pointing the finger at myself, but you know, breaks that. Yeah. Now where there’s this buzzword along with success and that buzzword is influence. And I think that word, coming from the background I did and everything else were success was really the word that got hit a lot. You know, you want to be successful in your grades.
You want to be successful in your career. And the whole yuppie message that was very much part of the environment in which I grew up. I, you know, we didn’t talk about influence really that much. We talked about success, but yeah, now there is a whole generation of women who have been raised if you will, under the moniker of having influence and that word in and of itself has also shifted very much to be something that is very much attached to the social media platforms, but it also means a lot of other things. How do you define this idea of influence and where have we gotten off on the wrong path with some of the ways that we tend to understand influence, particularly within the context of social platforms.
Jamie Ivey: [00:18:11] Yeah. I mean, I think influence is any time and listen, I wish I had Webster’s dictionary right here in front of me, but I think it would be any time where you are making an impact or on someone’s life. And so for me, I look at my own personal life and you may look at me and go, Oh, well, you have a lot of influence because you have this many social media followers, or you have written books, or you have a podcast that gets this many downloads.
And yes, that is all an influence in my life. 100%. I don’t take any of those things lightly, but I also remember that I have the greatest probably influence and impact that I might make would be in my home. And. I am. I know I am not one of the women that subscribed to like the greatest calling on a woman’s life is motherhood.
Um, I don’t believe that to be true with anything in me. Um, I believe that I am, I am so thankful that God, you know, that he chose me to be the mom of my four kids. There are plenty of women in my life who will never be, you know, mothers in that sense in their home. And they are very Godly and they are very much changing the world.
And so I look at my house though, and go. I’m influencing four people every single day with my life, with my words, with my actions, going back to that phenomenon that I started recently seeing was. When I talked about how women were looking around and going, if I could just be like her, I could be successful and satisfied.
A lot of that has been like, if I could just have that many people who are quote unquote, listening to me, whatever that might be. And I really, I really, really, really think that we are underestimating the power that our influence it has on the people that are right around us. I’ve had a lot of women say to me, you know, I think that God could really use me if I had a Bible study that was written, or I think I could really use me if I had this much.
Followers on social media. And my constant thought when I hear that is what about the people God has already been placed in your life? Like what about those people? Do they not matter? And I have, I have found myself sometimes encouraging people, going, imagine, looking at the people that you have influenced over, whether that’s your children, whether that’s your fifth grade classroom, whether that is your 200 Instagram followers, whether that is the women in your neighborhood, whatever, whoever you have contact with.
You have influence over them, you have influence. And I always encourage them. I said, imagine looking at those people in the eyes and saying, Hey, I think you’re great, but I, you don’t matter that much because I’m really holding out for bigger and better or. God, I see that you would given me these children this classroom, this environment, this job, this neighborhood, this church, whatever that might be.
Thanks. But no thanks because I really, really would rather have the influence that Julie has. And I think that when you have to actually say those words out loud, you go out, that kind of hurts. Remind me. Yeah, you might think, Oh, I didn’t really mean that. And I’m like, but you actually are saying that when you say.
I will have influence when this happens is you go looking around and going, I don’t have any influence. Now. What about the people? And so influence. I mean, it’s a big word because we see like, Oh, she’s an influencer or their, their influence is large because they have this many numbers attached to the people that are influencing.
And again, those might all be true statements. I mean, you know, I have plenty of friends who they would say, here’s my job. I’m an influencer. I’m like, that’s awesome. And I have plenty of friends who have, you know, Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of followers on social media, but it. When we really boil it down, we’re all influencers of some way or another.
And if you’re a follower of Jesus, you have a great influence for the gospel, every place that you go. And I think we can’t forget that, that God actually has entrusted us as followers of him to go out, to go take the gospel to the ends of the world. That’s influence, that’s influence everywhere that you do, that you were influencing someone.
And so the truth is God has granted all of us influence. And the question is just. What are we going to do with the influence he’s given us. Right, right.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:22:13] Now you have some cautionary tales to talk about when we don’t fully embrace our unique giftings. And of course, many of us who have been in the word or been in church or have had a faith walk.
We hear that, you know, God uniquely gifts. Each of us has a unique calling on each of our lives, but we still, I mean, I’m going to raise hands. You know, if you’ve ever done a spiritual assessment, gifts assessment, and you kind of throw the curve cause you really, you really would like to have this particular gift.
And it seems like if maybe you answered the question in this way, then you would be able to kind of throw the curve and ended up in the gifting by that assessment that you really would prefer to. So, yeah, danger when we don’t rest in, first of all, when we might not even know what our calling or gifting is, those can be really broad terms.
But if we have. I have an inkling of what it is, what happens when we begin to veer away from that or retrying to grab hold of something. That really was not the thing that God gifted us to do.
Jamie Ivey: [00:23:14] Yeah, I think it’s difficult because those are also these words that we’re trying to think of. What’s my calling, what’s my giftings. What am I here for? Um, there’s a parable that Jesus talks about the parable of the talents, where a master leaves and he has three servants and he gives one of them a certain amount, which is the largest amount. Yeah. Is another one, a medium amount. And then he gives the last one, one. And so. By looking out this parable, you think, well, he must love this one.
The most who got the most, and this one over here must be the worst. And the parable goes that the master leaves. And when he comes back, the one who got the most talents, the most money in that point, um, He doubled it. So he comes back and he’s like, here’s what you gave me. Plus the extra and the masters, like, well done.
I’m going to trust you with more, the middle guy that got the middle Mount comes back and says, here’s what you gave me. Plus I doubled it. And he says, well done, I’m going to trust you with more. And then the last guy comes back and he goes, um, I didn’t. Do anything. I buried it. I did nothing with what you gave me and the, the, the, the scriptures are pretty like harsh.
The manager says to that guy and I was like, Oh gosh, pretty rough. But the point in the story, if we’re going to look at the parable that Jesus told was God would be the master. And we, as followers of Jesus would be his servants is that it’s not a Mount. It’s not, it’s not about the quantity that each one of them got the story.
Isn’t like, Oh, the guy that got 10. Was it had the best giftings and the guy that got five that’s. Okay. And the guy that got one was the least know each man, God, that what the master soft fit for him. And then it was about what did they do with it? And so to me, it makes me go okay, Sometimes I wish I had a better gift of evangelism.
You know what I think of some of my friends and I’m like, ah, they could just like, they could tell a tree about Jesus and that tree would somehow want to follow him, you know? And so I’m like, Oh, and I’m not saying I get a pass on telling anyone about Jesus by any means, but it’s a clear gift that my friend has been given.
And. You know, all joking aside, I have to look and go, I need to really trust. So the gifts that God has given me, they matter for me and he wants me to use use them. And so the trouble becomes what if that friend who has a great gift of evangelism looks at me, it goes, man, I wish I could sit and listen to people, share their stories and then help them get them out to a platform.
And they started to think, I guess I might not be good enough. Well, that’s not true. No one would say that we would all look at her and be like, no, but you’re the best. You’re the best evangelists that we know go and use your gift. That’s what God is saying to us. He’s like saying, Hey, I’ve given you talents, gifts, purpose, power, influence, right where you are, do, do well with what I’ve given you. Because when you do that, when I’m using my gifts and my friend with evangelism is using hers and we’re each like just killing it in our lives. Like, yes, yes, yes. We’re following what God wants for us. Those are the times I feel the most satisfied. The times I feel the most unsatisfied is when I’m looking at my friend with the gift of evangelism, feeling like God must’ve forgotten about me because I can’t do what she can do.
Um, But the times where I am the most satisfied is when I can look at my friend, but the gift of evangelism and I can cheer her on like crazy and I can go, God was so awesome when he gave you that gift, because look what you’re doing for the kingdom. And then she can look at me and go like, God was so awesome when he gave you that gift, because look what you’re doing for the kingdom.
And so I think that the struggle with it is when we’re always comparing or wishing we had something else’s. We don’t ever live in the, in the fullness of what God’s given us, because we’re constantly looking around at what someone else has. You know, this is a silly example, but we’re in the middle of planning, a birthday party for one of my kids and Julie, when do we stop having birthday parties?
I told all my kids, this is the last time, like, I’m not doing another birthday party. Next time you have a birthday, you can invite a friend out to dinner. Like I’m not doing this anymore. So, um, because we’re not big birthday party people anyway. Yeah. I have some friends over we’ll like throw some pizza burgers out.
I’ll get a bunch of sodas and yeah. Then you’ll, I dunno, do whatever you want. So anyhow, we’re in the middle. And I’ve, I’ve seen him a few times reference other birthday parties he’s been to and thinking it’s not going to be as fun as that one because they had this or whatever it means, but instead he’s missing the fact that we just put up a volleyball net in the backyard and I bought all these water balloon.
Like the things that we have for that party are going to be a lot of fun. Right. But he’s looking around and thinking if only we had this then it would be a fun birthday party. And I was telling him, I was like, but you’re missing what we do have right here. Like we have this. And so I was thinking about that this morning.
I was like, we do that all the time with God as we look around and we think if I had that, I think I’d feel good about myself. And then God’s like, look what you do have, like, you have exactly what you do need. And so that was kind of a roundabout way of talking about how yeah. We, uh, we wish for something different than we have, and we miss out on what we actually have that’s in front of us.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:28:11] And I think it’s so important to bring this up as women and particularly as moms, because that’s generally the population that listens to this podcast. You know, I think the less that we are centered and content with who God created us to be, our kids are watching that. And what that says to them is almost a permissiveness toward discontent for who they are at it I’d love this because I think that your book You Be You, it’s almost like the mama corollary. If you will, the woman corollary to a book that I did called Raising An Original, which was about really letting your kids be who they are and this, this tide that runs both ways, right? If we are wanting to communicate to our kids, that they should be Holy and fully and deeply who God created them to be, but we are not modeling that what kind of message are we sending them? And so how do you think that, you know, women in general, but moms in particular, what are some of the terms and things we can look out for like the birthday party verbiage that are speaking discontent to our kids that can have a really deep ripple effect if we’re not paying attention to the fact that the embedded message is I’m not enough. I don’t like who God made me. And that gives you permission to think you’re not enough. And you don’t like how God made you.
Jamie Ivey: [00:29:22] Yeah. I mean, it is just so difficult. I mean, we’re both, I don’t, I don’t want to give your way. Your age away, Julie, but you know, I’m in my forties and I’m a little ahead of the curve of you baby. Okay. So we’re, we’re in, you know, the later half of our, of our years, and we’re talking about things that we as women struggle with. And so the idea, if we were to think that our teenagers are not struggling with this would be just that would be ignorant of us to think that and be naive, you know, it’d be all of those things and so when we think about the things we’re dealing with, we have to look around and be like, man, our kids are dealing with this so much and they don’t have the maturity, they don’t have the wisdom. They don’t have as much time with Jesus to kind of handle these things. I mean, I told someone that I was like, I turned 40 and all of a sudden I was like, I don’t care what people think about me. Like, I’m just like, okay, whatever. And like teenagers don’t feel that, you know, and rightly so we remember that when we’re that age, one of the things I think. That I really love encouraging moms with is to be diligent with your social media with your kids. And what I mean by that is I am the weird mom who follows all of my kids’ friends. And I could care less if they’re like, mom, please. Yes, I am. I will follow all of your people. And I do not care cause, uh, you know, it’s just, who cares. They can be like, Oh, you know, Jamie, Mrs. Ivey is following me. I’m like, yes I am. Um, and here’s what I see. Is, I see a lot of young girls really, really craving attention and putting that out in scandalous ways on the internet and oftentimes, and I’m not, I’m not a blamer. I’m not, I mean, my kids have, we still have struggles over here. Let me tell you that. But oftentimes I wonder where’s where is the mom or the dad looking at that and seeing what their kids are putting up online. Because when I see a girl put up, you know, this scandalous photo and she’s 14, I think to myself, and then I see the comments of all the other girls. You’re so beautiful. I wish I looked like you. I mean, on and on and on. And I think to myself, we’re breeding more or insecurity inside of our teenagers by making them think that if you can put a photo up online and get. 200 likes and 50 comments that you are liked and you are loved. And that is how they’re feeling love.
And, you know, let’s not think as adults that we don’t understand that because we just deal with it differently, you know? Right, right. Um, and so I think, I just want to always encourage parents that you have the right to, to look and monitor at what your kids are posting online. Um, Because you’re the parent and you get to speak into that and you get to look at that.
And so I hope that I might be on a soap box here just from a conversation I had recently with one of my kids. And, um, but I think that that is what I’ve been thinking about recently is how do we instill into our, our, our young women and our young boys that the likes and the comments and the affirmation that they receive online. It’s not actually real, like it’s it can’t fulfill that hole that A, we know only God can fulfill and then B that you could actually speak into as a parent or as a friend. Um, that’s kind of where I’m thinking these days, let’s, let’s model something different for our teenagers, uh, of helping them to understand that, that you aren’t more loved and liked based on the likes and comments that you get on your social media for something that is kind of inappropriate. Right? Right.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:32:46] And even, even for those posts that maybe don’t trend into the scandalous, but again, young women that the likes and the followings they’re getting based on their appearance because you know, you know, Jamie given our age, we know things start sliding. Sliding is a good word, sliding, sliding gravity.
And, and I want, I hope that when my kids leave my house and the ones who’ve already launched and the ones who are on their way, I hope that they have. I’ve given them something to hang on to that is better and more tenacious than just the physical condition of their body moving forward, because that’s not going to last either.
And again, it’s only accelerated, there’s only more jet fuel in it simply because of the volume of response that you get in the social media platforms. And of course the primary thing we’re talking about today, we’re talking about the places about knowing how to be yourself, knowing how to live in contentment for who God called you to be.
But it is a place that I think is dragging a lot of people of faith into lanes that keep them from feeling like they can actually be their most authentic self. And that keep them from feeling that deep sense of contentment that God created me to be who I am. He delights over me. He sings over me. Do I have stuff I need to clean up and do?
Of course, but it is not a mistake I’m here and it’s not a mistake that he designed me to be this way. You know, part of what I think we’re pushing now that’s also kind of interesting is this extroversion extroversion. That’s not really an extroversion in a sense, like everybody needs to be good at jumping on social media and having things to say, or everybody needs to be good on that.
Zoom is they’re having their meeting in that camera and yet. God created introverts too. You know, that’s really not your jam, knowing that it’s all right to live in that zone. I think sometimes we send a message that it’s not okay to be someone who doesn’t want the spotlight all the time, that somehow that’s less successful or that is less of being an influencer. What do you find with those people in your world that, you know, they don’t, they don’t want the spotlight and yet sometimes we almost spotlight shame them.
Jamie Ivey: [00:34:44] Well, I think too, that goes of where we make. We make certain gifts and we’ll speak in within like the churches that we make certain good jobs or gifts and say that they’re the better ones. So the best people are the ones that you see on stage or the best people are the worship leaders and the pastors. Those are the ones that like they’re on varsity. Everybody else, JV, man, if you like, don’t even like seeing people and you like doing admin stuff at your house. Huh? Lame gift. That’s what we think.
Right. And I like, well, that is so unfair to anyone who will never stand on a stage. And most people, you know, it’s always like, it’s always a weird place for me to speak about because I do that thing, you know? Right. And, but, but the thing is this, this is how God’s gifted me. And so if I weren’t, if I didn’t do this, I would be living in disobedience for what he’s asked me to do.
Right. But let me tell you, I’m not any better than the person who’s running this sound and running the slides at the back of the church. Right. Because they’re doing what God asks them to do as well. So it goes back to us going, okay, are we going to label some things as best, better? Good. Okay. Not that good, because I think that’s where it gets us in a little bit of a tricky situation, because then someone who is, you know, who likes the gifts that are, are behind closed doors, the ones that aren’t out in front.
They start to think. I feel really satisfied, but now I’m wondering if I should be doing something else because this seems kind of lame. And so I think that we need to do a really good job. And I hope I did this in this book as well as the really good job of really saying, Hey, we want you to live out your calling.
Like we want you to live out your gifts because the way the body of the church flourishes is whenever one’s doing their own thing, you know? And yeah, we use that illustration in the Bible. It’s there. Paul says about how we need all parts of the body, you know, we’d ever, we need every part. And so if the church was just operating with the mouth, we would be losing a lot of part of our functioning body.
Right. And so that is how we need to look at the people who bring things to the table in our churches as well, um, not the literal table, but just to the conversation and to the church and to the help is that every single thing matters like your gift matters, and this would not happen without you.
Absolutely. Well, Jamie Ivey, it’s always so great to have time with you. Just love you girl. Thanks so much for being on today, and I’m glad you’re surviving over there at your house with all the things much. Check out our show notes, where you can connect with our guests and find out more. Do me a favor and subscribe and share the podcast wherever you get your podcasts from and leave a five star rating and review. It helps get the word out about the podcast. And I thank you so much. Connect with me particularly over on Instagram. I love me the grams. I’m Julie Lyles Carr over there. I’m so thankful to interact with listeners each week. I just love it.
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