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The new year is just about upon us! But how are you prepping for it? How are you making sure you’re growing in the ways God wants you to?
In this podcast, I invite you to think about the ways God may be asking you to reflect on the year you’ve had. I encourage you to have a pen and paper handy so you can jot down what comes up for you.
Why is this a difficult task? I discuss the 3 reasons people don’t reflect, but then the way it’s vitally important if we’re going to be the people God wants us to become.
Don’t go through a difficult season and NOT learn the lessons He wants you to. You’ll just be doomed to repeat that same sad, painful situation.
But when you reflect effectively, it gives you hope, peace and faith that God is going to guide you in the next season as well.
When you go through this exercise you’ll be able to know how you should focus for the new year. I encourage you to spend the time before the new year focusing on what He wants you to.
With that in mind, I’ll be taking 3 weeks off from the podcast so I can focus and listen and plan for 2020. During this time I hope you’ll prep yourself for the new year (feel free to relisten to podcasts you may have missed or wanted to listen to again!).
I’ll speak with you in the New Year! Merry Christmas and God bless!
transcript
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Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. You’re joining me belah rose as I dive deep into the beauty, power and truth about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about. delight your marriage.
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All right, welcome, welcome. Hi, welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. Thank you for joining me. My name is belah rose. And I would love to talk today about this year. I love this time of year, I’m looking out of my window in New York City right now, we are so blessed with a beautiful view. And I see the snow coming down. And the train is going by I’m not sure if you heard it in the distance. But it’s just, it’s so wonderful. Now, I’m not a big fan of the cold weather. That’s not actually why I love this time of year. And if I can admit something that I’m not sure if it’s allowed for any Christian to admit, but my favorite time of year like this is this is one of my favorite times of year. But it’s not because of Christmas. Actually, it’s because of New Years. Because I really love the idea of something really big and important. coming to a close, unknown close, everyone knows it’s ending 2019 Or if you’re listening to the future, maybe 2023 or 2033, or wherever. And then something brand new, starting a new, a new chapter a new opportunity to grow. And it’s not that every day is not a new opportunity it is which I love that perspective too. And I try to have that perspective. But something about the New Year in your guys’s everyone. And it’s like this communal energy of excitement to grow and change. And I love that a lot of times people have tons of health goals in the new year, and they really are gonna go keto, or they’re gonna do paleo, or they’re gonna go to the gym every day, or they’re gonna become a vegetarian, or they’re gonna drop this weight, or there’s all these things. And hey, I more power to you, I think we need to love God with all of our strength, I think that includes loving God in the way that we take care of our body. So I think that’s awesome. Get yourself healthy, good. But when it says that the the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are unseen are eternal. A lot of that I think has to do with who we are in God, how we’re loving Him, who we are, when we’re with him, how do we understand him? What does our quiet time look like? What does our character look like? And so what I try to do in this time before Christmas, and before the new year, is I try to give myself a really good chunk of time to reflect and consider what did I learn this year? How have I grown? In what ways? Am I getting better? And then what are the gaps that I still see that are really, that are definitely there? I think there’s a lot of reasons that we don’t like to reflect. I think one is we don’t give ourselves time. We’re so busy in this time of year, just the holiday parties and the get togethers and the decorating and the places we want to go with the kids and the places we want to go as a family and vacations and on and on and on family visiting, you know plays and so there’s, there’s just so much going on, that we just don’t give ourselves that time to reflect on what has this year been about? How have I grown? What have I learned? In what ways have I changed? What has God done in my life over this past year? So we don’t give ourselves the time. The second thing is I think something about learning and growing requires us to look at the person that we used to be and that’s not always the funnest thing to do. Or the most fun to be more correct, I believe it’s not, it’s not the most fun thing to do, because you’re focusing on the person used to be, which may have looked a mess.
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I remember when I really got clarity that I was a controlling wife, thanks to Laura Doyle. For those of you who are struggling with being controlling, I think Laura Doyle does a really great job of clarifying what that looks like and how to change it in her book, The surrendered wife, I think it’s a wonderful book. But anyway, through that book, it helped me to like, Wow, I did not realize how controlling I am. And of course, it’s not a Christian book, just so you know. And so there’s elements of it that I, that I don’t necessarily recommend, but there’s elements of it that are like, wow, I had no idea that fear was driving this controlling behavior that I had with my husband, and it affected my intimacy, like whoa, really did. Anyway, when I recognize that and change that, even now, when my husband and I will reflect sometimes on how I used to be, it’s still a little painful, there’s still a twinge of, Oh, I was that woman in the checkout line arguing with you about some silly thing that happened three days before, and everyone. Maybe they’re not looking, but they’re pretending not to hear. And meanwhile, my husband’s extremely embarrassed at the disrespect and the correction and the rude demeanor I had in public. So it still makes me cringe, it still makes me feel like ah, who was that woman. And so when I reflect on how I’ve grown, and what I’ve learned, sometimes there’s this element of I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to look again, at that person I used to be. One thing I try to invite people I work with, to do is a phrase that I think God gave me is to not be shackled by mistakes, but to be empowered by growth. To not be shackled by mistakes, but to be empowered by growth. So when you look at the mistakes, you give them a real good look. They should empower you. Because you’re not who you used to be. And that’s a good thing. But if you don’t spend the time to look at it, you won’t grow. You’ll think that there’s no, there’s no issue with how things were because you don’t want to look hard enough at it. And another thing is, you probably want to apologize to those who were hurt by you. And that’s important, you can’t just assume changing your behavior is enough. If you want the other person to be healed, you need to apologize. So even though that’s a yucky and messy and embarrassed, maybe humiliating feeling, but there was another person affected by this. And just by changing your behavior is not is not going to cut it. You have to apologize, you don’t have to confess your sin to be healed. So yeah, so I think the reflections, you need to make the time for number two, you need to, as I’ve talked about, you need to recognize that it’s actually a good thing. Growth is a good thing. It’s not another opportunity for you to be embarrassed of the bad choices you made in the past. It’s a good thing to realize, wow, look where God has brought me. And then I think the final thing is it’s discipline, discipline. It’s a discipline, you have to decide that. If I’m growing, it’s valuable for me to spend some time reflecting and wrestling with what God wants to teach me. See, we go through hard seasons, we all do. You have gone through hard seasons in your life and probably you can pick out times in this past year, whatever year it was, that were hard and if you don’t reflect and really wrestle with it and recognize what was God teaching me in this, what did he want me to understand? What mistake did I make that there was a reason and there was Lesson there. And that’s discipline. Because we don’t necessarily grow automatically, just because we’re going through hard seasons doesn’t mean we’re going to grow from them. It can.
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But you have to spend the time reflecting, and thinking things through. We’ve all met people who are much older than ourselves, and the wisdom is not there. And the question is why they’ve had more time on this earth than me? Well, there’s plenty of reasons. One is they’re probably wiser at other things, then, then certain things then you so so that’s one thing. And in terms of, we all have our different strengths and different opportunities, those kinds of things. So that’s one. But another thing is often, some people don’t spend the time to reflect and to recognize their errors. And that’s definitely I can point the finger at myself so often, it truly is a discipline. It’s like working out, are you spending the time to reflect and wrestle with what God is teaching you in the seasons? Where has he grown you? What has he shown you? When I used to be a project manager, I would finish out a project and we would do a lessons learned call with everyone involved in the project. And so everyone’s point of view came together. And we talked through the project, we talked through soup to nuts, A to Z, how things went, what did we learn? How can we apply it to the next project? I think that’s a fantastic thing to do in your life. What are the biggest projects you took on this year? How did they go? What would you have done differently? How were your relationships this year? What would you have done differently? These are all opportunities to grow. One thing that I do is when I finish out a client, whether we’re working one on one, or whatever, we do a season reflection call with them where I talk through, you know, how was their opportunity of growth? What was their changes? Like? How was it for them? And I personally do that I personally think about how was I as a coach? Did I support them the best? What were some some really great things I did as as their coach as their supporter, and encourager, and all these things. What were some things I could have done better on? How should I prepared better? How could they have gotten more out of my work? What was where could I have improved as, as my part of the puzzle? Right, and obviously, there’s boundaries to that, you know, I can’t drive the boat for them, right, they’ve got to drive their own boat, but I can, I can be a better coach, in every situation, there’s growth opportunity, and we need to be looking for that. So number one, make the time number two, recognize it’s going to be worth the uncomfortable feelings, it’s, it’s worth being empowered by the growth. And number three, it is a discipline, it is a discipline to really look at it. So here’s what I want to invite you to do is to do some, some really practical reflections. So the first one, if you have your journal Open, sometimes people listen to this while they’re commuting to work or from or doing all sorts of errands and stuff. So I get it. But maybe what you’ll want to do is at least pause this and say it out loud. So you’ve articulated it at least. But yeah, this might be a really good exercise for you to actually write out to get the most value out of this exercise. But anyway, in this year, again, if you’re listening to this, in the future, this may be an audio that you’ll want to listen to every year. So you have something that you actually reflect on every year. But the first question I want you to answer is what have I learned? Now that’s a giant question. So let’s break it up into categories. I like to think about the first greatest commandment Love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind with all your strength. So let’s break that up. How have I What have I learned in loving Lord my God with all my heart? What have I learned in loving Lord my God with all my heart? What does that mean? So a heart is emotions, feelings. That includes what’s causing those emotions. Maybe you started working with a therapist, and you knew you needed to for a long time. And you started that. I think that included what you learned through that process. What did you learn in,
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in learning to deal with emotions? Or how to respond to emotions? Or what to do instead of responding to certain things in certain ways, all of that? So what did I learn? In loving God with all my heart? The next one is what did I learn in loving God with all my soul? So soul, I believe, includes personality, I believe that also includes your desires, your goals, your inclinations, even the who you take yourself to be. So what did I learn in that? So maybe you learned more boundaries? Maybe you learn to say no, maybe you learned to have your quiet time with God. There’s all sorts of things. So what I learned in loving God with all my soul, what did I learn in loving God with all my mind? So these are maybe books that you’ve read that helped you to understand truths about God, maybe these are Bible studies you went to or you started yourself, because you couldn’t find a Bible study. So you’re like, Okay, I’m going to start it with me. And one other person, I did that recently. And so now, me and one other person are doing our Bible study. And God willing, more will come. But if not, it’s going great, because we’ve got the Bible, and it’s really great. The next thing is, how do I love the Lord my God with all my strength? And I talked about that just a moment ago, but that includes how you’ve done it physically? What has your physical routines been? Like? Maybe morning and night routines? sleeping, eating drinking water? What How have you grown this year? What have you learned? The next one is loving your neighbor as yourself. So that includes your marriage, that’s the first neighbor, hopefully, right next to you on the side of the bed. What have you learned? So? What does that meant? Has intimacy grown for you both? Or has it? Have you learned more about yourself and intimacy? Have you kept boundaries around your intimacy and your thought life and not gone towards pornography or crushes with people that have been around you? Or have you learned that you can deal with emotions around intimacy in a certain way that’s more healthy? Or have you learned things from my podcast that has grown you around intimacy and thinking through how you’ve served your spouse and how you’ve loved them? Have you loved them? Well, what have you learned around all that? How have you grown? The next one is your kids, if you have kids, that’s, you know, they’re in your charge? Those are? Those are the people, the people that the children that God wants you to steward? How have you disciple them? How have you grown in that? Next one is the next closest relationship that might mean you being a son or daughter to your parents? Or a brother or sister to your siblings? How is that relationship? And how have you learned and grown in that? And then maybe that’s maybe the one after that is your ministry? So everyone’s ministry is different? Maybe that looks like a official 501 C three, ministry, where you’ve got the cross on the the logo, and it’s very clearly defined as a Christian organization. Or maybe it’s your work life and the people at work that see you every single day. What does it look like loving the people that you love and are in your care? That when you get to heaven? God’s gonna be like, so I put these people in your assignment? How did you do? So? Be really honest with yourself and think through how did i What did I learn and grow in, in this area? With the people that I’m supposed to love? Maybe you’re a pastor, there’s lots of pastors that listen to this. Thank God. I’m super honored if you listen, it’s just wonderful. Anyone who listens, I’m super honored. But those of you that reach out to him, he’s a lot. But yeah, so how have you loved those people? How have you grown in that in love in that way? And then other relationships in your life? Maybe your physical neighbors, the people, you having contact with even strangers? Oh my gosh, I had a very strange interaction with somebody the other day
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in that day I was just like, whoa, Bella, look at your character. So what happened was, my mom came to visit was really great. She parked in a parking garage, because you know, street parking, New York City, not the best. So anyway, she parked in a parking garage, you don’t find out the amount that you have to pay until they come and calculate how many hours you’ve been there with your car. And so he calculated it, and my mom had just taken money out of the ATM, so she could pay for it. And it was like, it was like, you know, the total, and $3. And it was like, Whoa, uh, you know, she had just 20s from the ATM. So she gave it to him. And he was like, Well, I, you know, I need the $3. And he doesn’t have any change. And he was frustrated us for not having changed it. It was like, well, there was no way for us to know what, what the money would have been like before we got there. So how would we know what change to bring? And there was no sign that said you needed exact change? And what are we going to go do? How are we going to go get the change? So I just responded to him in a very, like, negative way. very negative. And I was shocked. I was you know, I felt indignant at the moment. And then within half a second, I was like, the Holy Spirit was just like, Whoa, that was ridiculous. So I apologize to him. Because it’s not like, he had a great day being up all night watching these cars at a 24 hour parking garage. Like it’s not like, you know, he’s enjoying a spa. And he has every reason to have this sunshiny wonderful attitude. I needed to have compassion on him and recognition and tried to see how we could sort this out. And in any case, it was really, you know, as good I apologize to him. I apologize to my mom, I just was like, how am I here talking to you and do I am day in day out about character. And then this is what happens. Now, I didn’t give the enemy a foothold to condemn me. And shame me about this and make me discouraged and all those things, but it did like shake me of like, okay, let’s be much more concerted, consistent here. No hypocrisy, you know that God just wants my, my character, he wants my knee to love people, regardless, how can I do that? How can I be a witness to my own mom about that. And anyway, the good news is, when you apologize, that’s immediate, that’s an immediate thing that, you know, shows the humility and the, and the repentance and all those things. So hopefully, that’s an encouragement to you that when you do, you know, just need to put your foot in your mouth immediately. You can apologize right away. But yeah, that, you know, how have you learned in those ways? What is that bringing up for you, as you’re thinking about each of these different roles in your life? How have you learned how have you grown? So I got the opportunity, or I made the opportunity right, to, to do some of this work this morning. And I definitely have more work to do. But one thing that in a more open ended question of what have I learned? Well, the value of slowing down, and the importance of not being impulsive, because every time that I notice, I’m impulsive, I generally realize that I haven’t thought things through I didn’t spend all the effort and time thinking something through. And and that’s a big deal. That’s a really big deal. So slowing down, and the value of my time alone with God, I can never I never can get that anywhere any other way. It has to be me and God, I can’t distract myself out of the importance of my relationship with God, it’s never gonna go away. You know, ultimately, it’s going to be me and him face to face in eternity. You know, at the judgement, Judgement Day. It’s gonna be me and him. You know, he’s a good father who loves me. But he he has an assignment for me. He has the talents he’s given me. Right, if you’re familiar with the parable of the talents,
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like he has plans for us in this earth. Now, you don’t want to view him as this harsh taskmaster as the gentleman who was only given one talent. Because if you view him that way, Then it’s going to discourage you that you, you can’t even do anything. And so you should just bury the one talent. Rather than those that were given the 10 talents, they know that they, they recognize the value of what they were given. And they recognize that they could do something with this, that God wants them to do. What he wants them to do in this. And so I just want to encourage you that, you know, this reflecting opportunity that you have before the new year, or even several days after the new year, or any time of the year, whenever you listen to this, you can always start over. But give yourself the time to really reflect. For me it, it needs to happen before the new year, that’s when the energy and the excitement is there. That’s when I like it the most. Or I also do this process right before my birthday. Because it’s a new year for me. So anyway, what this process does is then inform what your goal should be in the next year. Because it helps you to see like, Whoa, there are some gaps in my character that I need to be addressing. And so what I have done is list out the things that I’ve learned. And then on the other side, write out character gaps. So this one with the car parking garage man, character gap is impatience, or feeling like someone else should be taking responsibility for what’s theirs. I think that’s true. But how do I say it? How do I do that in a loving way? How can I pause? What’s my priority to support others, there’s so many aspects of that that really had I slowed down and not been rushing, I would have been able to see, I would have been able to see so often we rush. And that makes us act in ways that are completely outside of our values. And we just live like that. And we don’t love well, because we’re rushing, that is not a good excuse. So yeah, so character gaps on the left you what you’ve learned on the right, another part of the page you write out what as you’re, as you’re writing out the things you’ve learned, right out what are some of the goals that you might want in the new year. Now, hopefully, you’ve already done the work of figuring out longer term life goals. If not, that’s definitely something that you’ll want to be thinking about. But you know, God also changes those, as we live our lives, he tweaks those, he impacts those, he helps us to know what’s first, second or third. Luckily, by God’s grace, life is long. And so you have decades to, quote, accomplish the things that you’ve set out to accomplish. So, gaps and character, big, big deals, so definitely have that as prime priority. Before let’s say write a book or you know, learn another language or these other things like your character is huge. And it’s going to impact the effect that you have on on the world. And I think another thing I want to say is the fact that you we all want to impact the world, right? We all want to do something big for God. That’s that’s kind of what people want. Nowadays in our, in our culture, I guess. I remember spending some time with God, not too long ago. And I just remember having this dialogue with him and being like Lord, in Your Kingdom, I just want to be sweeping the streets. I just want to be sweeping the street, the one street you have picked out for me, that’s what I want to be doing. When I was in India, many years ago, they had just recently outlawed the caste system. And what that is, is you’ve got the upper class people the sorry upper caste people, which include the Brahmins, which are like the priests, and generally it was even the lighter skinned Indians, and eventually and it was all by
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her hereditary what family you were born into, but because they believe in Hinduism, it would all be about where you were born into because their belief system is based on your past life determines your current life. So obviously you must have been good in your past life to be born into an upper caste family. But then those who are in the lower caste, it’s the same way they must have done bad things in their past life. So now in this life, their lower caste. And so they even have so far that it’s the untouchables, which means people can’t even touch them, because they, that’s their, their lowest caste. And then even below that is the unlockables, which would come out at night, as no one could even look on them. They were so low in terms of their cast, kind of like class here, but their cast. And something about that memory of the way that they had. Now, obviously, I haven’t been back in years, but were kept up on the culture. But even when it was outlawed, that was still a big part of their culture, because it had been around for so long. And it was supported by the popular religion. So maybe it’s officially not allowed. But unofficially, there’s still definite aspects of that in the culture. If there’s any Indians that are listening, I would love to be corrected by that. So feel free if you’d like to email me belah at delight your marriage.com It’s a beautiful, beautiful country, in so many ways. I love the Indian people. But just like any culture, we have our, our sad realities. And I think that’s, that’s one in there’s so, but I remember I was thinking about this while I was praying to God, and I was just like, Lord, I want to just be that person that comes out in the middle of the night and, and sweeps the streets, one of those unlockables in your kingdom, like, I don’t need, I don’t need anyone to hear my voice or see my face, or I just want your work to be done through me. I just want to get my street swept. And it was very inspiring. There were a couple of years that I cleaned houses. As a college educated woman, I cleaned houses because of just certain circumstances, that was the best fit for us at the at the time. And it was very humbling, because, you know, I’m working in people’s homes, you know, they’ve got really great stuff in there. And I’m just cleaning their house. And it was amazing, because I was able to actually use that time in a beautiful way. Some of my favorite books I’ve ever read, I actually listened to while I’m vacuuming carpets and cleaning, you know, dust bunnies, from under sofas, and washing laundry, and all of these things, but it was a really important season in my life. And God taught me a lot washing, you know, cleaning toilets, and just this, this was the work I was supposed to
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do. And I was happy doing it. And it was even a lot of exercise. It was good exercise. So God really did a lot.
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He showed me a lot. He taught me a lot during that season. And I think that I want to encourage you that if you’re in a season where it feels like you’re in the, what they call, I just learned about this. Shout out to my new friend who might be listening. But anyway, she taught me about this, but the the Bethlehem season of David’s life where he was the shepherd, and all he was doing was watching the sheep. You know, he was growing in God he was he was spending time with God he was growing in his confidence as well. Like he killed the lion and, you know, protected his sheep from wild animals and you know, other people that wanted to take his sheep and all sorts of things. You know, he was but he was he was living a hard life. Living with sheep out in the wilderness is not an easy thing to do. So if that’s what your year has been like, or where you are right now, I want to encourage you and help you to think about that God actually he’s doing that he’s got a purpose for you in that season because a David not had that season of growth in God and strengthening in God. Him then becoming this, this character of fame when he conquered David, sorry, when he conquered Goliath, and even being anointed king, even though he knew there were better things in his life, that time of smallness and faithfulness for David was so important for him to do the rest of what God wanted him to do. So, so yeah, I want to encourage you that I want to encourage you to have a conversation with God that am I supposed to have a small season? Right now? Maybe my season right now is the smallness is the diligence is the faithfulness of being that stay at home mom and in teaching my children, what it looks like to be wise and loving and kind and diligent and faithful, and loving, and firm and have boundaries and all these things. Even though that’s extremely difficult work. But is that the smallness of the season that God’s asking of you right now. Or maybe it’s just drudging it out in a very difficult job. Or maybe it’s focusing on this small startup that is in your heart to birth, or ministry that you’re going to be doing part time maybe for a while, even though it’s taxing on you. And there’s time commitment, and there’s all of these things, maybe it’s taking on a foster child or adopting, or all sorts of ways that God wants. And that’s going to be a lot of work, and it’s going to be hard. But understanding what is his season for you? You know, your goals should definitely, definitely, definitely be informed by God’s heart and what he wants, if you don’t be like the people of this land, the people of the world that their goals are about fame and fortune. Okay? When the whole world but lose your own soul, that’s not what this is about. So I want to challenge you to have that kind of posture of your heart, to just be the one that sweeps the street that you have been assigned to do what God wants you to do, regardless of everything else. And I felt in that moment when I was praying to God, like what that looks like for me, because we do have our separate assignments, we cannot compare ourselves to others. And that’s a gap in my own character that I wrote down. It’s comparison. That’s something I need to focus on, to root out to ask God to help me with because that is envy. I mean, that’s literally just equivalent to adultery and murder. The 10 commandment makes it very clear that envy and comparison is not okay. Because he has a specific assignment for each of us. So what is mine look like? What does sweeping my street in the kingdom of heaven?
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look like? While I’m here on earth? What is that actually? About my little street in the middle of the night? Where no one’s watching? What should that be? What should yours be? So do this spend the time doing your reflections? What have I learned? How have I grown in loving the Lord? Oh, my God, with all my heart, with all my soul with all my strength with all my mind? How have I learned how Have I grown in loving my neighbor as myself? That includes my wife, my kids, my ministry, my workplace and beyond? And then what is the season I’m moving into? What are the goals of that season? What should they be, and really giving God the opportunity to speak to you slowing down having time this is not a 20 minute exercise, it should start that way. Don’t feel like you have to spend three hours doing this you can if that’s the way your mind works, but for me, I like to jot things down. You know, start something, develop it a little bit. Then the next time as my mind and heart and prayers kind of been percolating on it. Come back. Think about it some more. Just let this process be iterative. And so now it’s I’m recording this mid December. You’ve got a whole nother couple of weeks. To get this accomplished before January 1, and I want to encourage you give yourself a time limit of when you want to really have this document accomplished. And have yourself set up for that. That time, but what I encourage you to do is invite others to think about this with you. Easiest thing to do, excuse me is to, for them this podcast episode, and ask them to see if they wanted to do this exercise. And then after you guys can come together and talk about it. And, and one thing that I do is I always talk about it with my husband. This is an exercise I do. It’s not one that he does, but it’s one that I do. And I always love to get his insight and his feedback. And you know, he, we talk about these things together, but not necessarily is he doing his own thing like this. And that’s because we’re different. We’re different. If you’re listening to this, and this is resonating with you, then maybe this is what God is wanting you to do.
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So yeah, but having that accountability, someone who’s involved in your life and who you’re meant to meet. You know, God didn’t leave us on this earth alone. Jesus left his disciples together. He wanted them to be a church. He didn’t say Go, go do this by yourself. He never did that. He only sent them at least two by two. So I would invite you to find another person that you can share this kind of stuff with, and talk about it, pray about it. Maybe meet right after you listen to this, and then go away, do your thing over the next couple of weeks meet again, think about this as what this is where I am. This is the this is the small street, I feel like God wants me to be cleaning in the middle of the night. Over this next quarter, in 20, the very next the next season coming up in my life. Alright, well God bless you. Thank you for listening. Let me pray for you. Father, I pray in Jesus name for the person that’s listening. God you have brought them through a lot this year. Maybe many of the things no one even knows aside from them. I ask Lord in Jesus name that this process of reflecting would be a process of growing in you of becoming closer to you becoming more like you seen their life through your eyes. God, thank you for your love, that you are edifying and changing us day by day. Thank you that you do not condemn us. Lord, it’s your kindness that leads us to repentance. So I pray in Jesus name that as they’re reflecting and spending this time that you would give them the grace to really see what you see. And I pray that any nugget from this conversation that you need them to remember is what they would remember. And Holy Spirit, just wipe away anything that wasn’t for them. That didn’t matter. That was just my absent minded thought, or misinterpretation of my thought, or my own misinterpretation of your word or understanding Scott, and I pray that what would stay with them God is what your Holy Spirit wanted. Or even just the memories that it conjured up, or the thoughts that conjured up in them that were completely separate from the things I said that God, you can take my meager and small words, and you can make it large in their life of what you want it to be, Lord, that You would get all the praise and glory in this season, Father, that we would turn our eyes to towards you for many, many different reasons. We love you. Amen. Alrighty, wonderful. Well, something I should have mentioned at the beginning, but I am actually taking a three week leave from dy M. Basically, to do this kind of work. To prep for the new year. I’ve got several different pursuits of learnings and growth. And I have some really cool content coming for you in the new year. But I want to make sure I’m recharged. I want to have rest. But I also want to have time to read specific books and go through specific things that are important, I think, to the next season in my work with you. And so I won’t be posting another podcast until probably mid January, something like that. So anyway, I want to give you that time to do this kind of work. There’s plenty of podcasts for you to listen to that. Maybe you haven’t gotten to yet or maybe you’ve wanted to listen to a second time and you just haven’t. So you’ve got Got a couple weeks to go back and listen. But no matter what, thank you so much for being a listener this year. It’s just incredible. It’s incredible. So many of you have shared this podcast. I’m so honored. I’m so so grateful. And I do pray that it would bring you closer to the Lord Jesus, that it would help you to walk closer with him that would help you to love other people better and more, and to grow closer to your spouse to understand the way intimacy is according to God’s will. So yeah, thank you. It’s been a wonderful it’s been amazing year. In so many ways, it’s been hard in so many ways. It’s also been incredible in so many ways. Will God bless you and I look forward to talking to you in the new year. Goodbye. Take care, love, Love you