Hey there and welcome back to the True Grit Podcast.

I am your host, Rachel Grit, and this is the first installment in a brand new series I'm doing that is just voice notes.

The idea is to kind of be a little more informal, kind of.

The idea is for it to sound like I'm just sending you a voice note because we're friends, because that's.

I just.

I love sending voice notes.

I love receiving voice notes.

It's just such a fun, authentic method of communication.

And so, yeah, this is my very first voice note podcast episode.

So I've been seeing some stuff online where people, specifically, you know, women with ADHD who are really trying to connect with Jesus, are struggling with summer months, particularly when school is part of your routine, whether you're in school, whether you have kids who are in school, whether you're a teacher.

When summer hits, a lot of our routine kind of tends to go out the window.

And so I wanted to talk about that because that's something that I'm actually experiencing right now as well.

Now, there's a couple different reasons for that.

Yes, my kids are out of school now.

My situation's a little different than a lot of people's.

I have three kiddos on two different custody schedules.

I have one biological son and then two step kiddos.

And so sometimes my husband and I have one kid, sometimes there's two kids in our house, sometimes there's three, and sometimes there are zero kids.

So we already have a bit of a crazy schedule going on.

And now that school is out, I have found, like many people that I have seen online talking about this.

I've seen a lot of people saying that their routine, particularly any routine or rhythm built up around faith, tends to suffer in the summer months or as soon as school goes away.

And I want to validate you, number one, if that is something you are experiencing, you are in no way, shape or form alone.

There are so many people wrestling with the, like, lack of routine.

Basically structure that we had goes poof overnight.

And then it's just kind of a free for all.

There's now a lot of time to fill, which somehow makes things more chaotic.

And number two, there is a culprit here that we can do something about.

And it has actually nothing to do with routine, with rhythm, with, you know, making sure that you are operating in a way that you feel like you're giving Jesus your all.

Like, there's so much shame built up around that.

And that shame is ultimately the culprit.

And there's something that we can do about it.

So that's what I wanted to talk to you about in this little voice.

No podcast episode.

So there's, like I said, there's.

There's a couple different reasons for things to be crazy at any given point.

Whatever you are dealing with in your life right now, there is.

Your capacity is going to change depending on the day and depending on the season.

Right now we actually just had to put down our dog.

She was relatively young, she was only a year and a half, and she just became dangerous.

We think the vet thinks that there was some neurological problems going on and it was heartbreaking.

We had tried absolutely everything.

We had tried training her, we had tried medication, we had tried finding her a new home with someone who was experienced with rehabbing dogs.

We had tried shelters, breed specific rescues.

We had tried absolutely everything we could to help her.

And it, it was just a situation where no amount of effort was going to be able to fix her.

And a little bit of backstory on me.

I was injured in a dog fight a little over a year ago.

I ended up needing stitches and that that dog was involved in the fight.

Her name was Ranger and she was a mini Aussie.

She was really, really sweet.

And so we think that there was something in that fight that happened that impacted her brain and per.

Some structural issues with her brain as well.

And so I have a bit of fear surrounding dogs now.

That was the second time that I had been bitten while breaking up a fight, but the first time that I actually needed stitches.

And so the process of trying to manage Ranger and her extreme aggression and her behavior problems and her fear took a really serious toll on me.

And so now put her down about two weeks ago now and my body has just crashed as a result.

And so as a result of all of that, I have been really struggling with maintaining the faith rhythm that I had built up.

And this is something that I have worked really hard on.

Routine is not something that comes easily to me.

If you have adhd, you can probably relate that structure, you thrive on it.

But it's like a straight jacket, which can be a big old pain in the butt.

And so having this really emotional time happen with our sweet pup, like, she was so sweet with us, but anything, anyone, any animal she was unfamiliar with, she would.

It was a really strong reaction, it was a really aggressive reaction.

It was a really violent reaction.

And so we just, you know, she was eventually going to hurt someone.

And so dealing with all of that put my body into fight or flight quite a bit.

And so in conjunction with School ending and routine changing, that happening.

So my point is there's always going to be things happening in our lives.

And we're kind of told by society, well, okay, bad things happen all the time.

You have to kind of push through.

Just because you're having a hard time doesn't mean you can take your foot off the gas.

And that is just completely wrong.

You know, research shows how much of a toll stress takes on our bodies.

It's toxic for us.

Stress is poison for.

And it's something that we do not need to be putting on ourselves.

And so whether you are struggling with your faith rhythm, your faith routine, your faith habits, whatever you want to call it, beating yourself over the head is going to do absolutely nothing but make things so much worse.

Because no one has ever truly changed their heart and their mind and been nurtured into change as a result of shame.

Whether that shame is coming from society, whether that's coming from people in your life, whether that's coming from that voice in your head, we all tend to, unless we do something about it, our self talk can be absolutely atrocious.

And so what I want to encourage you today with is identifying that cycle of shame and breaking it.

Because, you know, we do not serve a God of confusion.

We do not serve a God of shame.

We serve a God who loves nurturing his people into what he created them to be.

How Jesus operates with sinners, every single time that I have seen, and I really want to go back and do a study on every single time Jesus interacts with someone that society had designated as an outcast or a sinner and see how he interacts with them compared to the Pharisees.

Every time Jesus interacts with a sinner, it's coming from a place of compassion.

It's coming from a place of meeting their need.

Yes, he absolutely calls them to righteousness, which is hugely important.

But number one, he meets their needs first.

He connects with them first.

He begins with nurturing.

And then number two, his version of righteousness is what matters.

And when you look back at the original text, the closest we can get to approximating the original meaning of the term righteousness is right relationship with God and others.

It is not your actions aligning perfectly with every single statute.

It is right relationship with God, right relationship with others.

And when that's the foundation, when your heart is in the proper posture, when that is the foundation, then actions flow out of that.

We kind of tend to get it backwards in society.

We tend to go, okay, you have to get your actions in line and then hope that the heart will follow when we reverse that, when we actually go to the root of the issue, the heart of the issue first, that's so much more effective.

So today, what I want you to do, break out your journal, go for a walk, and think about these prompts.

However you best process things and think about things, that's what I want you to do.

But take some time today and ask God, where am I putting pressure on myself that is not from you?

Where am I holding myself to standards that are not following the path you have for me?

And then find one little tiny step that you can do to have a touch point with God.

Little tiny touch points that leave the door open for something more.

For curiosity is one of the absolute best tips that I have for faith, especially in seasons like the one I'm in right now, where my schedule is changing, going through a lot emotionally, there's so many things up in the air, there's so much chaos.

Having little touch points with God is so incredibly helpful.

And for me, what that looks like most of the time is I have the YouVersion app on my phone.

A lot of Bible apps do this, where there's a verse of the day.

And so my bare minimum routine, especially if I have no energy, no spoons, no executive function, whatever you want to call it, is the bare minimum activity I'll take is over opening the YouVersion app and just reading the verse of the day.

It's so simple, it takes 10 to 15 seconds.

And often what I find myself doing is being intrigued, wanting to read the rest of the chapter.

Maybe I'll end up doing some digging on the original text, on the context.

Maybe I'll pull up a podcast episode.

The Bible Project is one of my absolute favorite podcasts and is really fantastic for historical context, societal context, context, all of that.

And then I end up opening, to borrow this term from Stranger Things, a curiosity door.

You open a curiosity door and then it's this organic desire to learn more, this desire to dig deeper instead of me bashing myself over the head, going, well, I should do this, I should spend time with God, I should do this, I should do that.

I talk a lot about how should is absolute poison to our faith.

And so being able to build those doors that can kind of lead to something more or that can just serve as a single simple touch point to get us interfacing with God is so important and so, so effective.

And so I hope that that is encouraging for you.

If you have any thoughts on that, I would love to hear them.

You can always shoot me an email rachelachelgrit.com and I'd love to hear from you, but yeah.

So that is it for this very first voice note podcast.

Epis.

I would love to have you subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on.

Make sure to give the show five stars.

That helps me reach more people.

I also created a really simple resource that'll take one hour of your time.

If you are struggling with having a lot of chaos on your brain, the noise in your life and in your brain just kind of drowning out your ability to connect with God, I created a it's free, a guided journal.

It's called One Hour to Quiet the Noise.

That'll help you kind of find the biggest sources of noise in your life and make a plan one teeny tiny step at a time to eliminate them by asking God what he thinks about it.

Because really, at the end of the day, that's what matters.

So you can find that a link to that in the show notes and I really hope to see you in the next one.

Have a great day and you are so loved.

Bye.