Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:03):
It's the Perry and Shawna podcast on the real life
journey with you, reminding you that you are ABBA's beloved
child and that Jesus has called you into his massive
mission to heal the world.
S2 (00:18):
God is our protector. When I was four years old,
the neighbor boy, he was about 12 years old. He
poured gasoline on me. He was planning to light me
on fire. And I know that is insane. And I
know it's crazy. And I just rattled it off. Here's
the thing. I did get away. And I remember thinking
after it happened. Ooh, my dad is gonna come for you.
(00:40):
He's gonna march down the street. He's going to, you know,
rip you a new one, is what I thought. But
that didn't happen. And I was four years old, so
I might not even know all the details of what
went down. But as far as what I knew, that
didn't happen. And I felt like I wasn't defended. I
felt like I wasn't protected, and I think that's where
this lie entered into my life. You know, Shauna, you
(01:02):
need to protect and defend yourself. Nobody else is going
to do that for you. And I believe that lie
about God that he was not going to defend me. Michelle,
why is it so important to our sense of security
to know that God is our protector?
S3 (01:18):
I think because it allows us to have a relationship
with God that builds trust in our lives. And I
think sometimes he protects through our experience of joining him
in prayer. And then we experience that. I am joining
him in prayer right now. I have a son who
has never played football, and I know that sounds strange
because I'm from Texas, but he is going to be
(01:40):
15 this summer and he has decided we are part of.
We're partial homeschool, partial private school, Christian school, and he
is going to play six man football. And so I'm
just he's teaching me the positions because I've forgotten them
from high school football in my day. And so I'm
having to lean in to God as is protector and
really experience that relationship. I have a daughter going off
(02:02):
to college in the fall and graduating this year, and
again having to trust God to protect her as she
is not close to me anymore. I cannot mama bear
her anymore. So I think building this relationship. But you know,
I think God's Word, learning God's Word can be such
a protection over our lives. And that's something that I
really encourage kids I counsel in my office to experience,
(02:26):
is to learn God's Word so they can make wiser
choices by not only learning to trust him, but also,
as we've written about in this devotional, that we're going
to talk about a little bit this morning, um, that
we can actually change the way we think and how
we feel, and that creates emotional protection over our lives.
S2 (02:46):
We're talking with Michelle Niedert this morning. She's a Christian counselor,
speaker and an author. She has co-authored Strong and secure
100 devotions for Young Women. And I got to tell you,
I have one of your books here on my desk.
And as I was peeking through it, there's a section
in there growing stronger where you literally give like, okay,
(03:06):
this is what God says about this. Now, what are
you going to do about it? I love that there's
action steps for us. I mean, this book is written
for young women and I don't fit that category, but
I'm actually really excited about holding on to this and
doing these devotions. What was it in you that made
you decide? I want to give some action steps in this.
S3 (03:27):
Well, my heart is that there are so many young
people struggling today. We know the national statistics regarding mental health.
They're out there all the time. And I get to
see that, unfortunately, every day with my team of 12
counselors in a counseling center. And so I wanted to
think about there are parents who can't afford it. There
are kids who aren't going to go. How could we
(03:49):
help kids learn to experience God in a way that
helps heal them, helps grow them? Kind of. As a
Christian life coach sometimes helps just encourage them and you
talk a lot about healthy rhythms. I think Shauna in
those healthy rhythms. And so I wanted to create something
that was kind of like boots on the ground. And
since I can't, you know, I mean, I'm only one
(04:10):
person and there's only 12 of us. We wanted to
move behind beyond those eight walls, and this was a
way to do it, is to put that growing stronger
in there, and to help kids who think Scripture is
not relevant today because it was written so many years
ago to see it lived out in action in their lives,
because I think sometimes they hear sermons, and if they
just sit in church and they're not involved and they
(04:31):
don't understand that living experience of the word. So we
wanted to make it as living as possible for them.
S2 (04:42):
Well, if you ask me, the greatest benefit of walking
with God is the peace that he offers to my heart.
To your heart. He stills my anxious heart just like
he's still the the waters in the storm with the disciples.
But for me, it's been a really slow, steady work
that has happened over decades. Let's be honest, when I
was a teenager and all throughout my 20s, I just
(05:03):
was so, so, so, so anxious. And Michel, that was
before cell phones and social media.
S3 (05:10):
You know, that has changed things in a way, and
it hasn't because the same struggles are occurring, but they're
just magnified today for our young people because what has
happened is what do we do? When we were young,
we compare ourselves to others. But it was the girl
sitting at the desk beside us. And as we've got
kids at home, schools, all different random schools, as you
(05:31):
and I were talking about earlier, um, now when we've
got social media, they are so tempted to grab on
to the world view of self, and that is that
I am valuable based on my performance, my appearance, who
likes me and what I own. And God's worldview is
so different that we are valued. And we talk about
(05:53):
this in the book by how we were created. The
purpose God has for us in our lives, and being
part of a family of God. And that gives us
a very different value structure.
S2 (06:03):
We're talking with Michelle Niedert. She's a Christian counselor, speaker,
and author. She's the co-author of Strong and Secure 100
devotions for Young Women. I love how you're going after
really just revealing to these young women that are going
to be in the pages of this book, The Father,
heart of God. Why was it so important to you
(06:24):
that you speak the father heart of God over young women?
S3 (06:28):
Well, this was really a passion project for myself and
my co-author, a Proverbs 31 writer, Lynn Cowell, because we
struggled with our own earthly fathers and our earthly fathers
aren't perfect, and some people have great earthly fathers that
I meet in the counseling office or in the world,
and some have ones like mine or even harder fathers.
My dad was a Christian man. He was a leader
(06:51):
in the church. He became the head of mission, aviation,
fellowship and pastoral development. In his last couple of decades
of life here on Earth. But my dad had a
temper and he would say very hurtful things, a temper,
to the point that I had true anxiety and hyper arousal.
Just wondering. I almost said that wrong hyper arousal by, um,
(07:11):
what he would do as he came home. We didn't
know if we were going to meet a happy dad
or and a fun dad, or, and a godly dad,
or kind of an angry dad where you could never
please him. And so when I learned about the father
heart of God and our heavenly father, whose love is
so different, there was no can you do more? Oh,
(07:33):
raise the bar higher to him. It changed my life
and it gave me a peace that I didn't have before.
And that peace changed everything in my life. It changed
the way I sat by myself. It changed the way
I interacted with people. It even changed the way long
term I interacted with my own father as I matured
(07:54):
in age. And so we just had such a passion
to we thought, I work with women all the time
in their 50s, and they're learning this and they're beginning
to develop this relationship. What if we gave this to
the young people? What if young women and men had
a sense of the father, heart of God, and they
were in their 20s like I was?
S2 (08:17):
God is our provider, Jehovah Jireh, you know, there's the
big areas of life. There's home, there's work, there's social.
In one of those key areas. I'm facing some pretty
big uncertainty, and I love having a plan. You know
that Shauna likes having a plan. I want to know
what to expect. But right now I just can't. I don't,
and that's real. But at the same time, Michelle, I
(08:38):
know that. I know that I know that God is
going to provide for me no matter what. And honestly,
that is my anchor right now.
S3 (08:47):
And that is hard. I think that is so hard
for young women and the youth of today as they
are looking at. Will I ever be able to afford
a house? Does a college degree make a difference for me?
So many questions that they have that I interact with
them on, whether I'm on a stage or at a
youth group or event type thing, or whether they're in
my office and they're even struggling. Will God provide friends
(09:09):
for me? Will God provide a way for me to
provide for myself as I go out into this world?
And it is this process that we all go through
and we're go through, I think, and regrow through. I
kind of.
S2 (09:23):
There you go.
S3 (09:26):
Just establishing this sense of knowing that he's the source
of whatever it is we really need and whether that
is right now. I have a niece, she's in her
early 20s, and this book is obviously targeted towards her.
And this woman feels called to be a mother. And
there is no man in the picture right now. And
that is hard. That is hard. And so experiencing God
(09:48):
as father and a companion to her, um, as she
is working in the world and wanting and experiencing loneliness.
You know, in a way she hasn't before. And she
was in a college dorm before that. She was surrounded
by her friends, and now she's living in one because
it's cheaper. One of my sister's friends homes, which I
think is a great idea. Don't don't move them back
to your home. Sometimes they don't grow the way out themselves,
(10:11):
the way up that way, but move them in somewhere
else and let them landlord them kind of. And she is,
you know, just learning to really experience God as provider
in her life emotionally, socially, spiritually, as a companion and
then also financially as the source of a brand new job. Actually,
she was in a ministry job and it was just
(10:32):
burning her out. We do in the church sometimes really
kind of use and abuse our interns. I hope if
you're around one, you will be kind to them and
maybe bring them a snack or a Starbucks card, um,
because they're working hard for very little. Right? And yeah, so.
S2 (10:48):
We're talking with Michelle Niedert this morning. She's a Christian counselor,
a speaker, and an author, and she's the co-author of
Strong and Secure Its 100 devotions for Young Women. I
think our timing is so perfect for having this conversation
right now, Michele, because it's graduation season, it's a time
of transition for so many young people, whether that's a
transition from middle school into high school or high school,
(11:11):
into college or college, into, you know, the big unknown,
what's next? And heading out into the world. There's a
lot of question marks for our young women in front
of them. And what is your hope for them as
they get their hands on strong and secure?
S3 (11:26):
They would seek God for the answers, that they would
experience the fatherhood of God, and that that that they
have an opportunity to just really tap into a source spiritually,
that people who don't know God do not have because
he is omniscient. He knows it all. He's omnipresent. He's
always with them. And if they can experience those aspects
(11:46):
of the father, I think it can give them just
a sense of peace and him as provider that could
change the way they walk in this world and impact others.
S2 (11:59):
God is right here. He's right here, right now. When
I graduated from high school, so 18 years old, I
had a private voice coach that I had studied with
for seven years, and he was very precious to me.
We had a pretty sweet little friendship, but he gave
me a graduation present that was a book. It's called
The Precious Present. It's a story about a young boy
(12:22):
who's seeking wisdom from this older sage about life. And
the wise old man tells him all he needs to
do is receive the precious present. And so this boy
is like seeking everywhere for this gift. He's looking for
this box. He's trying to find the thing that the
wise old man is telling him about. But the gift
he's referring to is actually this present moment. And that
(12:44):
book made such a huge impression on me, and I
have come to learn, you know, even though that made
a huge impression on me at the time, I've come
to learn it's really recognizing God's presence in the present moment.
And it just has completely changed my life. And I know, Michelle,
that for you, this is one of the the five
(13:05):
main takeaways that you want your readers from strong and
Secure to come away with, for the young women is
to understand God's presence with us.
S3 (13:14):
Yes, because it means they're never alone. No matter where
they are or what they're doing. And they can tap
into that. It's funny, I read it about the same time.
Another little book called The Practice of the Presence of
God by Brother Lawrence, and realized I could practice God's
presence when I'm washing dishes, when I'm driving in a car,
no matter what I'm doing and the presence of God can.
(13:37):
It says in Psalms that he's the lifter of our heads,
and he can be the lifter of our heads and
our souls, and just the comforter in in times when
we're not feeling well. But it's interesting that you mentioned
what that allegory meant, because in counseling in psychology, there's this, um,
one of the treatment interventions is called DBT, which is
dialectical behavioral therapy. And the first component of that is mindfulness.
(14:00):
And the idea is that when we look at the past,
we're going to experience maybe some guilt or some frustration, um,
or some longing of what could have been. And then
when we look at the future, we can get really
caught into a lot of anxiety about what might be.
But when we practice being in the presence, it brings
stillness to our lives. And so I think that can
(14:21):
just make a huge difference in the way we operate
in this world and especially, um, how we even operate
and model that if we're older towards young people and
then we can encourage them to do the same. One
of my favorite ways to practice the presence is with
younger kids. I will give them a little heart stone
and encourage them to put that in their pocket, to
(14:43):
remind them that whether they're going to school, whether they're
going to football or whatever they're doing, that God is
always with them, and they can just touch that heart
to remind them. It's just a practical way to do that.
And I kind of I think my steering wheel might
be like that.
S4 (14:56):
For me.
S3 (14:57):
When I was in college. Um, you know, you're in
a dorm with a lot of women, and so I
would escape into my car. It was kind of my sanctuary.
I kind of do that as a mom still today
in the target pickup line. I'm not lying or Walmart
or wherever I am, but there's just something about grabbing
my steering wheel sometimes that reminds me. Not only that,
I want God to take the wheel of my life,
(15:17):
you know, with me joining him in that, but also
that it just reminds me of his presence, that he's
there with me at all times.
S4 (15:24):
Mhm.
S2 (15:24):
We're talking with Michelle Miller, Michelle Neidert, she's a Christian counselor,
she's a speaker and she is a co-author of the
book Strong and Secure. It's 100 devotions for Young Women. Michelle,
I had a moment. I mean, this was in the
last year, maybe even in the last six months I
was driving. I was late to Bible study. I had
(15:47):
had a very upsetting conversation. Um, and I was a mess.
And so I called a friend and I was like,
I am not going to make it there on time.
I lead the Bible study. I was like, I need
you to get there. I know I have the key.
You can't get into the building, but if you could
just be there to greet people, blah, blah, blah. And she, um,
she said, where are you right now? And I was like,
I'm driving. And she goes, I know, but where are
you specifically? And I was like, I'm on M-37, you know?
(16:10):
And she's like, um, are you hot? Are you cold?
I was like, I was like, I'm, I'm fine, I'm fine. Temperature.
And she's like, do you have a mint? Do you
have a mint? You can put it in your mouth.
And I didn't realize until afterwards that she was grounding me.
She was saying to me in her own way, you know,
I want you to see. I want you to taste.
I want you to feel. I want you to know
(16:32):
where you are right now, to ground you in this moment,
which is a counseling practice. It's a therapy practice, right?
To help you to stay in the right here, right now.
S3 (16:43):
Absolutely is. In fact, it is. A lot of times
when I ask parents or parents ask me, how can
I connect better with my kids, whether they're adults, whether
they're little? And that is the thing that parents often aren't,
even though they're right. There is present, present in mind
with their child. And so I encourage them. What do
you see? What do you smell? What do you hear?
Kind of ground yourself in that moment so that the
(17:05):
thoughts of the to do list and you know, whether
the room is a mess and all those things will
fade away. So you can really focus on being present.
And let me tell you, as you know, I'm dealing
with a senior graduating. Those moments all of a sudden
are becoming less and less and more and more precious.
And so I think it's really important and it's hard sometimes.
I was at my nephew's ball game, and I caught
(17:26):
myself planning the graduation party and kind of had to
say to myself, okay, let's be here.
S4 (17:31):
Yes.
S3 (17:32):
And not work on what we need to work on.
S2 (17:36):
God is doing a new thing. I don't know if
new things get you excited or if they completely freak
you out. I think I'm a little bit of a
combination of both.
S5 (17:46):
I'm a freak out.
S2 (17:47):
Yeah. You don't like the first timers?
S5 (17:49):
Nope.
S2 (17:49):
Yeah. When I first started my job here, that was
almost seven years ago, which is kind of wild to
think about, but I had never worked in radio before.
I'd actually never been in a radio studio before until
my interview, and everything was brand new to me. Brand
new building, brand new people, new craft, new exposure, just
opening up and talking about what God was teaching me.
(18:10):
It just felt so incredibly personal and vulnerable because it is.
And every event that we went to for the first time,
I was like, man, I don't know. I don't know
what to expect. I don't know what this is exactly
going to look like. And I kind of I was
it was exciting. But I also kind of spent a
lot of time wishing that first year away and longing
(18:31):
for the next time, because the next time I'll know
what to expect. The next time I'll do better. But
the unknown can be pretty scary, but it can be
exciting at the same time. And I think May is
a month of transition for a lot of folks. Maybe
you're graduating this month from high school into college or college,
(18:51):
into the great unknown, the adventure of life and adulting.
But this is a season of letting go and stepping
into what is yet to be. When I think of transitions,
I think about like a trapeze artist that's swinging through
the air. They've got Ahold of one bar and there's
another bar coming at them. There's definitely a timing situation there.
(19:12):
You feel like you're flying through the air into the unknown.
But just like that, trapeze artist has got to let
go of the bar that brings them there to take
hold of the next bar and to go to new places.
There's there's a grabbing on to, which is super exciting,
but there's also a letting go of otherwise you just
are stuck in midair, not moving. We don't want you
(19:37):
to be stuck in midair. So there's there's a letting
go that needs to happen. Isaiah 4318 and 19 says,
forget the former. Things do not dwell on the past. See,
I'm doing a new thing now. It springs up. Do
you not perceive it? I'm making a way in the
wilderness and streams in the wasteland. The thing about transitions
(19:57):
and everything being shaky and uncertain is that God is
so certain. God is rock solid. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. And he had a plan for you before
time even began. And he's the one who's doing the
new thing that I find so much comfort in that
this isn't random, you know, it's not just maybe for you,
(20:21):
it's just a whole bunch of question marks hanging out
in front of you. But God knows there's no question
marks for him. He knows. So the same one who
created you with the personality that you have and the
gifts that that you have and the preferences that you have,
he made you to be in this intimate relationship with
him because he just loves you that much. And he's
the one who's making a way for you in the
(20:44):
new places that he's taking you to. He's providing for
you in fresh and beautiful ways. Lifegiving ways for your soul.
So as you transition, maybe graduate, maybe move off to
college or start a new career, whatever season that you're
being promoted to today, keep your eyes on God so
that you can perceive it. You can actually see the
(21:06):
new and beautiful things that he is up to in
your life. And it's okay. You can let go of
the old and grab on to him.
S1 (21:17):
Thanks for letting Mary and Shawna walk the real life
journey with you. The content from the podcast comes from
their live show Harry and Shawna Mornings on 89.3 Moody Radio,
Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reach out to us by texting 800
968 8930. And please subscribe.