I Was Smiling ... But I Was Not Okay | Sadie Robertson Huff & Craig Groeschel

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What is a wo that's good fam, happy Wednesday, everyone? I hope you're having a great week, but I can promise you this, it is about to get so much better, because we have, I guess, on today, that is no stranger to anyone. Craig Grishell is on the podcast today, but before I officially introduce him, I have to tell y'all about his new book, he'll, you're hurting mind, and let me read you the subtitle, because everybody needs this.

“Typical hope for anxiety, depression, burnout, and the emotions no one is talking about, that's what we're going to be talking about today, and I'm so thankful for Craig, thank you so much for Pastor Craig for coming back on this podcast.”

Sadie, you know, you're in Christian or two of my favorite people in the whole wide world, I mean, I love you guys so much, you're whole family, you're an example, you're some of the most fun people to be around, some of the most godly people to be around and the wisdom you share is incredible, so it's a real honor to be back with you. Thank you so much. Well, it's very apparent already, by the way, that you're encouraging me, but you guys are the best encourages. I truly, I think about this and I say this all the time, it's, it means so much when someone older than you speaks life and to and faith and believes in you.

Louie and Shelley have been people like that for me, you and Amy have been people like that for me, when you don't necessarily believe it in yourself yet, you haven't really gained the confidence in yourself yet, and then people older than you say, hey, it's not about you, it's about God, and you got doing something special and you keep going, keep preaching, I'll never forget the first time I spoke at passion and I was feeling so insecure, so under qualified, and you came up to me and you spoke so much life into what God was doing in my life and the messes that I preached and you're like,

those analogies were so good and what you pulled out of scripture and it's really cool to hear it from someone who knows scripture so well, just to encourage someone younger, so thank you for being that person, it means a lot. You're easy to encourage, the first time I heard Joe's blown away by the quality and depth of your content, your presentation's fantastic, you're so easy to listen to, you're unbelievably relatable, but the depth of your insights were profound and I told Amy, so I'm going to do whatever I can to get her to preach at our church and we pulled it off and now we're going to pull it off again.

Let's do it, your church is awesome to preach at, if you don't know about great life church, then you haven't heard about you're living under a rock because life church is reaching the nation, reaching the world, truly. So not only just people who go to your church, but your YouTube content posting your sermons is incredible, but I'm really excited to talk about this particular subject, because like you said, it's one that not a lot of people in the church talk about, you actually mentioned in the book that the church should be the place we feel the most comfortable talking about.

“Is that this for some reason it's not? Why is that the case?”

Well, I think it's getting better, at least I hope it is, but I grew up stating the generation where talking about mental health was not, it wasn't even a phrase.

Someone said I have a mental health issue, we would have thought that they were must have been hospitalized in some kind of extreme situation.

And so if you're saved by Jesus, you shouldn't struggle with any kind of mental health issues.

And so people wanting to fit in, and genuinely wanting to please not our God, sometimes they don't want to come in and say yes, my sins have been forgiven and yes, I've been saved, and yet I'm still battling with deep anxiety. And they feel like it's maybe a lack of spiritual discipline or lack of faith when it could be any number of different things.

“So I'm really thankful, I think, that it is improving and we have more work to do, that the church should be the safest place to talk about mental health issues and our struggles and our vulnerabilities and our weaknesses.”

And I want to work with you to do a little part on this amazing podcast to help make that even more so in the years to come. It's great. So I'll be vulnerable from the start. You mentioned passion before we got on and at passion, I shared about my own anxiety.

And I've talked about anxiety a lot. I wrote a book called Live Fearless Years ago. I talked about anxiety, but it's always easier to talk about something when you're like well past it.

And a lot of times when I'm talking about an anxiety attack, I'm talking about years ago, because I haven't struggled that deeply. Recently, with anxiety, besides after I had honey, I went through like a very hard period of like postpartum anxiety. And I want to talk about that. But at passion, it was interesting because it wasn't like, oh, this was years ago, I had anxiety. It was like, you know, this was two nights ago. And to be honest, like, I was having to overcome getting here. You know what I mean? Like, this was making me very anxious to just like come on stage, which didn't share like the depth of that.

But, but I really was struggling. And I was just feeling like so anxious. So overwhelmed had all these thoughts. And it was like, so many different layers to it and some are valid and some are not. And I'm going through all that. And up texting some girls asking if they can pray for me. And then call to friend. We prayed together. She just encouraged me through it. Christian, of course, Christian told me he said, you should have told people I was hunting. And that's why you called your friend. I would have been there for you. I was like, I don't know. Christian was hunting that night. So, of course, when you're alone, you get the thoughts you're having to take care of the three kids. They finally the house was still. And I have this anxiety attack.

And so then two nights later, I'm speaking at passion with like 50,000 young people. And we're talking about sanctification, all this stuff. And I just fell. And I told Ben. I was like, I'm just, I just want you to know, I want to share this, that this happened because I really want students to know. It's okay. If you struggle like that and you have anxiety, like it's okay. It doesn't disqualify you from from showing up and you're showing up and spirit alert is going to get you through it. So just want to be honest and transparent.

Well, then the next night, you were there at Pastor Louie, he starts preaching. And that was most vulnerable. I'd ever seen him in a message at passion talking about his own anxiety. And he got to this point in the message and he said, I had to confess to my friends that I'm your pastor and I am a mess. And when he said that,

“something in me just felt so relatable to what I have felt for so long that I just keep showing up and leading, but I feel like a mess sometimes. Why do I still have this anxiety? Why am I still?”

You know, not over as I know the scripture. I quote the scripture. I believe in the word, what it still feels this way at times. And seeing someone like Louie say, it was like, oh, okay, like I'm not the only one. It's okay to have that and still lead. I cried for like two hours. I'll do that worship. I was like, it was just so good. It was a breakthrough for me. So I say all that to say as I, you know, go into this book and hearing you talk about it.

It surprises me, but it shouldn't. You know, it surprises me because I think we're always surprised when a leader admits that they have anxiety, but it shouldn't because we're all human.

What has your journey with anxiety looked like to lead you to a place of writing a book like this? Well, I'll answer that. First, I just want to say that I was so moved when you did that at Pashton, you're in front of 50,000 people and it was so humble and so relatable. And in the same way, Sadie, when you said that I thought, oh my gosh, she deals with that too.

“Like literally I wouldn't think you would. You wouldn't think I would, which is hopefully really comforting for anybody that does battle things, I think that it doesn't make you a bad Christian. It just makes you human.”

And I grew up, you know, I'm a Gen Xer and we were kind of, we were the last key kids. And so we just really looked like had to be tougher. We were kind of raised ourselves. And so admitting to weakness or admitting to pain is something that's just not been a skill of mine at all. And what happened is, you know, we've been in aiming, I've been honored to pass our lectures for 30 years with five years of ministry together before that. So 35 years of ministry.

We, the, the, the, the weren't any like really big emotional walls or barriers. We just always showed up and always kind of had the presence and faithfulness of God.

“And little by little, somewhere along the way, the grind started to wear on me.”

The weight started to feel heavier. And I would just kind of learn to continue, continue, continue, continue. And then one day, Sadie, all I can say is the accumulation of it simply became too much, just too much, too much mentally, too much physically. And I didn't know how to acknowledge that. And I thought there was only one way and that's just through. I didn't know how to stop. I didn't know how to admit it. I didn't even, I didn't even acknowledge it. I just thought there's, you, you will just keep pushing through.

And so what I started to do is I started to say, like, I'm not doing well. And that's about all I could say, I'm, can you pray for me not doing well? And what happened is just like you, at passion, you, you may, maybe had anxiety, we, you did fantastic. You did great. And so I would say I'm not doing well. And then I would preach this sermon. And it would be kind of like last weeks. And I'd say I'm not doing well. And I would go and love on people at church. And it would be about like last week. And so I could function outwardly. But inwardly, I was breaking down. And one of the things that I learned by working with, you know, kind of a world class counselor is that I have a very low emotional expression. And so he had to work with the people around me and just help them to see it.

Whatever Craig says, he's not doing well. Take that as like a level nine warning. It sounds like a level three because I'm not crying. I'm not falling apart. But that was literally the only way I could barely get those words down. And then I just kept thinking that someone was going to hear and someone's going to come to my rescue. And there was no one that could help me until I surrendered and just asked for it and learned to receive it. So it started with, you know, the journey there was a little by little by little. And it kind of came to the point where it was so obvious to me if I didn't do something different that my health was going to go badly. And that's when I reached out and started asking for even asking for a counselor was a hard thing to do. And it started there with an acknowledgement and an asking for help and an willingness to receive help.

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Yeah, asking for help is not a sign of weakness is a sign of wisdom. And I want to just say that to really clearly to your amazing community.

If you're addicted to porn, asking for help is not weakness is wisdom. If you're having anxiety, asking for help is not weakness is wisdom. If you're dealing with depression or you feel suicidal, you feel hopeless asking for help is not a sign of weakness is wisdom. And just give you the courage to step out. And what you did that night, lady, you told us that passion. When you were alone, you didn't want to call anybody. You didn't want to bother anybody. But you did. You invited others in. And you rarely ever heal alone with generally healing community. And that was a really wise thing you did.

it's like, you know, it seems simple to say I called a friend, but that was actually really hard. I did not want to do that. I was like, "I do not want to do this because I, again, I was almost frustrated with myself that I was even back in this spiral of being anxious and all this stuff." And, and also, I was like, "Surely, I can get through this myself." Like, "I'll just, you know, I can pray for myself and I can go read the word and all it's up." And that's true. But also, like you said, it's very hard when you're doing it by yourself. Why not let a friend in? Why not?

Always heal best in community. Always heal best in community. God designed us to need each other.

And the whole language of having a personal relationship with Jesus, that makes sense and it's true. No one can know Jesus for you except for you. But the truth of the matter is when you look at the New Testament, the model is not really a personal relationship with Jesus, it's really a corporate relationship with Jesus, that we experience the presence of God best together. We heal best together. We confess our needs and our sins to one another and pray for each other that we may be healed.

And so we confess to God individually for forgiveness, but we have to get festive people for healing.

“And there's a difference. So it's a, you did that and that's what I had to do.”

And I just want to, you know, stay there for a moment because I know that there are people listing right now that feel like they should get through it alone, have to get through it alone, can get through it alone.

Maybe you can, and I don't want to talk someone out of that.

But in most cases, you'll heal faster and better in community than you will alone. Yeah, that's a thing. It's so much faster. Like I was shocked by how after I called my friend. And, you know, you, you overthink even what you're going to say. You're like, what am I going to say when I call, you know, I already feel emotional or anxious, so it's not going to come out clearly, but you just lean into that. Lean into the uncomfortableness of it for a minute. And she just let me talk. So I just shared all the different things.

And then she went through, which is actually really sweet because my counselor does this, and she did it too. And she's not a counselor, but I think it was just like the next best thing to say. Because my counselor will say, okay, well, what if that does happen? You know, and then you break it down all the way to like, okay, what if that is true? And if that does happen, then Jesus is still good. And he's still on the throne.

He's not like, you know, yes. And so that's kind of what my friend did to me. So let's break it down. That could happen. All right. Now what? Let's get to like, truth of it. We're so good. And then she prayed over me, and then whenever I hung up the phone, I opened Psalm 91 because that's just been like a go to for me in anxious times.

And I made it personal. Like you said, I was like, all right, I have them up my friends. And now I'm making this personal and praying these words over my life and over my situation. And it prompted me, Psalms and I went prompted me for what to say in my own specific situation too.

“That's what the Bible can do for you too through prayer.”

Like, it's really nice to pray the Psalms because you're praying these words that are someone else's, but they relate to you so much. And then it also prompts you to bring in what your own struggle with, knowing that like, it's the same God who is meeting these people. So that was extremely helpful for me. And I love, I love what you're saying. Like as clear as it can be, if this is what you're struggling with, it is not weakness, it is wisdom.

And you'll be amazed too. The more you open up to other people, how other people, thank you for breaking the ice for me now to say that I'm also struggling, you know. One thing that my counselor did that was really surprising to me is he brought my whole team, family and team and to work with him together. And if you get imagined, so I've got my assistant.

I've got a couple of the pastors that I've served with for years. I've got my closest friends. I've got Amy, even a couple of my kids. And and said to them, here's how we're going to work together in community.

Basically to protect me from myself because I'll work myself in the ground and increase from ground rules.

And so it was in and we created language that we could understand all the way down to learning how do we best recover. What happens is sometimes when people get overwhelmed, we think that we need, we need rest. And sometimes we do need rest, but sometimes we don't need to just rest, but we need to be a little bit be refilled. And so how we rest, what we do can be life-giving to us or not. Sometimes you can go on a three-day vacation and come back more tired than you did before, whatever.

“And so anyway, it's just the whole idea of having people working with me together to get better is so important.”

And you did that and again, I keep saying that a lot, but it is really, I feel like there's someone out there that needs to hear that is bring a team in together. The body of Christ to help you heal. Yeah. I love what you said to you about like you were hoping someone would notice and say something like somebody will catch it.

Somebody will say something. Rest you me.

Somebody will say it. Yeah.

“And even so next up for their after passion, I get off stage.”

And you know, I share in front of people all the time and you might think like, oh, you're always vulnerable in front of people.

So why was that hard, you know, but it's still hard and that one was so fresh. And I was like currently overcoming the anxiety while I'm like in front of everybody. And so anyways, after Christy was just like, great job with that was awesome. And then we go back to the hotel and I was like super in my head and he looks at me. He's like, are you okay?

And I'm like, no, I'm like totally overthinking that whole thing. And I was just like, I feel so that was so vulnerable. I'm like, I just got so mad about it. And this was good, but I don't have, I didn't have social media downloaded. So everything was off.

There was a first passion in our friends and family didn't come to because of the kids and all the different things. And it was like, I didn't have any like immediate feedback. So it's just me and the Lord and my anxious thoughts. And what was cool though is Christian was like so sweet. He's like, I really wouldn't have thought that that that would of that you that you would be over thinking that because it was great.

And then, you know, we were able to have a really good open conversation.

But it was a good reminder that like, I wouldn't have thought my husband knows that. But even my husband who knows me and loves me is my best friend. I still have to say it. You know, it's like, no one's coming to the rescue. Not everyone can like, you know, intercept your thoughts or hear it when you say,

I'm fine, I'm fine. It's like you have to be honest.

“You have to come for a be honest, be vulnerable.”

Allow other people to speak into it. And so I love that you push that in your book. It's so good. One thing though. This is kind of contrary to the community thing.

I mean, not contrary. It's all the same. But you said this and I thought this was so good. You said you had the biggest influence on you. Mm-hmm.

Is that in my say in that quote, right? 100% yes. Well, no one talks to you more than you do. Yeah. Talk a little bit about that because there's on one hand you need someone to speak in and you need other people.

But on the other hand, you do have to be responsible for the thoughts that you're having and how you're shaping your own life. Absolutely, and it you're right. It all plays together and all overlaps. And so the community around you shapes you more than you can ever imagine. And then you've almost got like a community in your head.

The voices in your head. And sometimes you can be talking to yourself and telling yourself the truth about the word of God. Another times fear gets into your brain or the voices of self-doubt or self hatred. So that battle in your mind is so strong.

“I've always said, say, the direction of your life is determined by your by your thoughts.”

If you, you know, wherever your thoughts are strongest, that's where they're going to take you. And so I've done, you know, just a ton of study on this and working with Dr. C and others. And this is not going to be a new to your community. But whenever you think of thought, it's easier to think that thought again. You're literally creating neural pathways in your brain.

And so when, if you sit there and say, say, that was no good. You're embarrassed yourself. That was pathetic. They're not going to like you. You're embarrassed yourself.

How could you be so dumb to share that on stage? That starts to create neural pathways of self-loathing talk. If instead, you say, the spirit prompted me. I obeyed God. I took a risk because I love people.

I honor God by sharing the truth of what he's doing in my life. The inner creating neural pathways toward truth.

And so what I had to do in my own thought life is recognizing, here's what I was saying.

Literally in my own mind has gone, I can't do it all. I don't have what it takes. I'm never going to get it all done. It got so bad saying it's hard for me to say out loud. But I started to think this job is going to kill me.

I literally thought this job is going to kill me. It's going to be too much to come to kill me. And those thoughts were in my mind over and over and over again. Those were self-defeating thoughts. I realized from the enemy. And so very clearly what is scripture say that the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world.

We have powerful spiritual weapons. And so what do we do? We take every thought captive and make it a beat into Christ. And so what I started to do is every single time I'd have a thought contrary to the truth of God is I would capture that thought. And like write it down on a piece of paper or type it in my phone and say, this is the thought that's not true.

And then I would replace it with what the truth of the word of God says. And I would say these things over and over again. Like literally, I bet you I said it five hundred times for God is not giving me a spirit of fear. But a power and a sound mind for my God has not. And I'd say I'd emphasize different words for his not giving me a spirit of fear.

For my God is not giving me a spirit of fear. But of power and over and over and over again. So I'm literally retraining my mind. And that's, you know, neuroscience was say that's replacing new neural pathways. The Bible would call it renew in your mind.

Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world. Don't think the thoughts of the lower form of this world.

Let the word of God or near mind. And so it's really like an exercise.

“I like working out with your husband because he's beast in the gym.”

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And that's how you do that. You actually have to intercept your thought, writing it down helps, saying it out loud helps. And then replace the thought with the truth. And I love that because I've said that verse over myself so many times.

“And I think I used to throw a scripture on it almost like a band.”

Like, "Okay, if I say this, then it'll help."

No, it's not just saying it's believing, it's really putting it on.

I say this to my daughter all the time, my little to-year-old. She's learning how to speak English. So we're learning some lessons right now because she doesn't fully understand context. And so I'll say to her, "Are you listening?" And then she says, "Listening."

And then she says, "I did it." And I'm like, "No, it's not saying the word. It's doing the action." So then I'll say, "Jump." And then she jumps.

They say, "You didn't say, "Jump, you jumped." And so I've been teaching her that. Well, then the other night, I said, "Haven, are you listening?" And then she says, "I'm listening." And then honey looked at her, "My four-year-old."

And she said, "Haven." It's not saying the word it's doing the action. There you go. There you go. Yes.

I'm parenting my four-year-old to get this good. And I'm teaching it to my two-year-old. But I thought man in the same way it's true for a scripture. It's not just saying it. It's doing it.

It's not just saying it. It's living it. I have not been given a spirit of fear. But want a power, love, and a sound line. And you talk about this.

I want to make sure I say it right. But although I thought is valid, it's not complete. And I want to talk a little bit about that because that's the thing with sometimes as fear. People have said to me whenever I've said a struggle with anxiety.

And they mean, "Well, it's like when someone comes up to you." And I do know how many times the Bible says, "Do not be afraid." You're like, "Yes, I do. I still struggle with fear." Or when people say fear is just false evidence appearing real.

And what I've struggle with is, a lot of times fear is false evidence appearing real. But sometimes fear is real evidence that is scary because we do live in a scary world. Absolutely.

“So how do you take thoughts that are valid, but not let them own you?”

Great question. A lot of times I think in Christianity we think, "Well, if our emotion isn't exactly line up with the God's word, our emotion is wrong or bad." Our emotions are actually very, very real. God created us as emotional beings.

So I read this somewhere else. Someone said, "Jesus experienced 39 emotions in the Bible." So maybe that's true or maybe more maybe less. But we all have emotions just because we feel something doesn't mean that we have to follow our feelings.

We want to acknowledge them. We don't have to necessarily follow them. A couple of tools that I learned. One of them is just naming it. Saying it out loud gives you permission to believe that God has power over it.

So if you're feeling anxious and you say it to a friend or you said, "I am feeling anxious."

That's actually acknowledging what you feel. And if you acknowledge what you feel for some reason that triggers your brain to feel like you can have power over, a guy can have power over it. And then the exercise you alluded to earlier is like so, so good. If we were talking and the reason I know this is because my counselor's done this with me

and I do it before. If you're saying I'm nervous about something, I'd say, "What do you nervous about?" Say, "Well, I'm going to get up there and I'm not going to do a good job." Okay.

“If you get up there and don't do a good job, what's going to happen?”

Well, I'm going to feel bad about it. So is Christian going to still love you? Yes. Are your kids going to still love you? Yes.

Are you still a good mom? And so if you feel bad about it, what's going to happen next? Well, I might slip into depression. Okay. Where is God in your depression?

And so literally, like if you go through all of your fears, worst case scenario and address them, where do you stand? At the end of the day, you're kind of find yourself falling back to. If you truly know who God is, if you understand, truly his character and his goodness, you're going to say,

God is still good, God is still faithful, God is still with me. God is still full of grace. He's when I'm weak, he's strong. When I'm in a place that I want to be, he's working in all things to bring about good to those who love and are called according to his purpose.

And ultimately, if I die, well, it's better to be with him than it is to be here anyway.

And so if you walk through all of the what is and they can be real, you see the goodness of God. Another thing I try to do, say, I'm often like, well, what if this bad thing happens? What if this other bad thing happens?

Another thing you can say is, what if it doesn't?

“What if what if God shows up and answers his prayer?”

And it's when I look back, a really powerful tool I have that's been a game changer is I have a five-year journal and it's the reason I like it, that one is you only write a few sentences a day because I'm not very good at real, like great journals. But on today's date, I can look back last year and see the same thing that happened on that specific

don't-to-day date. Two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, five years ago.

And I could always see what I see.

Sadie is the vast majority of the things that I was so afraid of never happened. And when they do happen in the moment, I think this is going to be bad, whereas God, why do you let me down? But after a period of two or three years, I can see the hand of God in his faithfulness in it. Even in the things that I'd never would have wanted and never had chosen,

I can see that I got to know God in a more intimate way. You would have never wanted to go through severe anxiety two nights before speaking at passion. And the way you got to know God through that pain is a little bit more intimate than you would have before. That's true. And you helped me and you helped 50,000 other people all in the middle of something you would not have chosen.

That's how good our God is. That's so true. That's so good.

“I think that's why when Louie shared that, it made me cry for two reasons.”

I felt like, well, okay, if you can overcome that and do that, then I can do that. And then it kind of hit me because I was overthinking, like I said, then I before. I was like, maybe when I shared that, it had the same effect in someone's life as it is for me right now as Louie saying that. And I was like, okay, God, like, thank you. Then it's worth it.

Then thank you for allowing me to go through that and fumble my words on stage to be transparent and honest. And you just said, and you can't overcome it. So that's so important as you believe you can because some people don't think they can. Sometimes we start what it was a little bit scary, Sadie. Sometimes we start to create our identity around our vulnerabilities.

You know, you're like, I have anxiety. I've been diagnosed with this and I try to try to help people see you are not your diagnosis that is not who you are. And that's a temporary. And you also said earlier, Sadie, you said, you hadn't battle with anxiety like you did in the past as much. And so if you look at the trajectory of your last five years,

maybe five years ago, anxiety was more of a ongoing problem. It's less of that today, meaning we are not absolute beings. We are fleshly people, vulnerable to temptation, fighting against the principles of powers of this world.

And that means that we don't always get, you're emotional.

You had maybe some anxiety or depression after having a baby. Who's fault was that? Well, your hormones were out of whack. Super normal. You didn't do anything wrong. Your body was doing what God designed it to do, normalizing after a traumatic burden experience.

And so that's part of it. And what we want to do is we want to look at the trajectory of our lives. Sometimes the low valley points, which I had a very scary low valley. That's now part of my story that helped me find the way up to the mountain again.

But it's a journey, healing is a journey. It's rarely a moment.

It can be, but it rarely is a moment. And you can get better and then fall back a little bit and get better and fall back a little bit. And that's part of it. Every step of the way, I guess what you need. You need the presence of Jesus with you.

And that's the beauty of the problems. Is it teaches us that we cannot get through it on our own. We need him and we need his people.

“And so that's why you can consider it all joy.”

It's great, reach that last five minutes. I've changed someone's life. They can hear that that you can find healing and you can overcome it. At a moment, that was really cool in my journey with anxiety a couple of years ago. So, you know, when we moved back to Louisiana,

I was going back to the doctors I used to go to as far as just like your primary care. And I'm like finding my dentist again and finding all of our new things. And you know, they hand you the paper like, is this also accurate? Change anything, your address, or this or that? And I'm going through it.

And I had marked on there that like I have anxiety like years before before I left. And then I was like, I don't, that doesn't mark my life anymore. I can take that off and it was really a cool thing because at the time, whenever I would mark that on my doctor papers, it was to say, this affects my health and I know it does.

And this is a consuming thing in my life. And now I'm like, no, I get anxious because I'm a human. I get anxious because there are real fears in the world. But that doesn't hover over my identity. That doesn't hover over my lives.

“That isn't changing my health or anything like that.”

And it was just a really cool thing in overcoming it. I was like, wow. And again, it wasn't like, oh, that's when I was healed. And this is when that happened. It was a daily, you know, surrender to the Lord and allow him to meet me where I was at.

But that was so cool. I love what you just said about not identifying that. Easter is such a sweet season for families. But if you're a parent, you know it can also bring up some really big questions like, why did Jesus have to die?

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I love knowing that while we're watching this show, there are not only being entertained, but they're also learning Jesus in a way that they can carry with them as they grow. This is just the early stages of them really getting to understand who Jesus is and it's so cool. We have loved every special that Mino has done.

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“I think it's John five when Jesus comes across a guy that this been struggling.”

He can't walk for 39 years 30 something years. And Jesus asked the guy, you know, he's a do you want to be well, which is an interesting question because someone was helping the guy every day by the pool. And the guy to answer like, do you want to be well or do you identify with your problem? And what's interesting is when I started working with Dr. C.

What I call an about 18 months into it. I started to see signs of really significant improvement. And that's when I started to ask him like, you know, how are we going to know when this is actually working? And is it possible? And what I love is that you genuinely have made progress.

You had to set back, but you've made so much progress and you can be well. And I want people to hear that. You can overcome. You can overcome anxiety. You can.

It may take doctors. It may take medicine. It may take prayer. It may take the word of God. It may take community.

It may take renewing your mind. It may take calcium. You can overcome depression. You can overcome hopelessness. You can overcome anger.

You can. You can forgive with someone did to you that was horrific. And you think it's unforgivable with the help of the grace of Jesus. You can forgive as you've been forgiven. And so if someone's stuck right now and feeling there is no way out.

There's always a way out with Jesus.

There's always a way out. Don't give up. You can be well. Do you want to?

Yes. So good. I love it. You wrote it with your doctor too.

“Because I think that that just adds such an amazing element.”

Because like you said, sometimes it's reading the Bible. It's finding your faith in also. There is counselors. And there are like scientific things that are helpful. I remember going to Dr. Aiman was who helped me.

I've had him on the podcast several times. And he was like, okay, let's just get super practical.

When you get anxious, what's the first thing you do?

And I was like, oh, I grabbed my hands. And he's like, well, why don't instead of like, get not anxious and grab your hands. Go run your hands under warm water. And just see if that like trains your body to go, hey,

I'm okay. I'm good. And for like a good solid six months to a year, when I would get anxious, that was just a super simple practical start towards stopping

and anxiety attack. And it always helped. And so it's amazing how little things like that that doctors can give you a perspective that, you know, it lines up with scripture.

It's how God created our bodies, but they know it in a way that learning to take a deep breath. Yeah. I'll try to do this. I'll try to breathe in and I breathe out with a truth of God.

Whenever I feel coming up, I breathe out. Okay, God. And I think of the truth, and I breathe out and say,

this is the truth of God. Just literally deep breath. And that's another very practical thing. I may try to wash my hands in hot water if I get anxious.

Yeah, I'll try it. It helps because why he told me was,

which I'm like always cold.

And he's like, when your hands are going to when you're cold, what do you do? Like, kind of start shaking. Yeah. Well, it mimics what you do when you feel anxious.

You shake. Because, you know, when you, if you have anxiety attacks, you might understand like you start shaking. Like your heart starts racing.

And he's like, so sometimes your body is telling your mind your anxious, but you're really just cold. Yeah.

And so that was like really helpful for me because I couldn't discern the two because I was so constantly anxious at that time in my life that I needed to know when, hey,

just because you're shaking doesn't mean something bad to happen. Right.

“Doesn't mean you need to be anxious about anything”

in this room or situation. You're just cold. You know what I said? It was like good things like that. You couldn't discover that on your own either

because you, you know, you might know God's word on your own, but you might not be getting enough sleep. Your hormones may be out of whack.

You may be, you're diet may not be great. Exercise may help. Like literally, you're getting outside and walking.

And not walking. You know what I've learned is walking super valuable. Walking outside is even better. Walking outside with somebody

is even better. One of the best things for your mental health is walking. But better is walking outside. But better is walking outside with somebody.

Little bit of things like that. Great. Do you know you gave us that advice? You gave Christiana that advice when we came and visited y'all.

And Christiana and I try to go and walk every single day to go outside. And it is like our favorite part of the day with our kids just being outside walking. And we don't do it every day.

Whether, you know, all the different things that get in your way. But that is like top priority for us. Marriage advice. Marriage advice.

Walk together. It is great. Here's why. You know, just a little bit of the reason why. Outside, no ceiling sky.

It opens you up. You have time to talk about things. You wouldn't talk about elsewhere. Your kids aren't climbing all over you. You don't leave your phone behind.

And especially for guys. And he wants to talk because he wants to be face to face. And I have the, you know, that kind of stuff. And it's harder for some man. It's harder for me because that just seems to

intense. Guys tend to do things really well side by side.

“That's why we like to play sports together.”

We like to be side by side. So you're walking side by side outside. You're talking about things and guess what? We have it. Like literally,

I think we solved every big. Um, Um, Merrill issue walking outside. Uh, every vision we had.

We hashed out together outside. Every parenting issue. We talked about walking together outside. Doesn't have to be that for everybody. But it's an easy tool that, uh,

that it gives us time to process together. Um, That, That thanks great. And great.

I'm so happy to be married. It has helped us. So we were super thankful for that advice. Um, That was one of the reasons I've been so excited about you being back on the podcast because I can think of so many pieces of advice that you've said to me over the years that we've implemented that you don't even know because you just said it to us in passing or we saw each other backstage or you said it even on my podcast that we've actually taken.

Like you when you talked about, like, pre-deciding or pre-determining like what you're going to do and what's valuable to you so you can make decisions later. That, that literally came to play yesterday in my life, uh, someone said don't get me an answer now and I threw something at me and I said, I actually can't give you an answer now because I'm pretty decided what I was going to say about that. So I love your advice.

Um, When they do want to ask you because you talk about burnout in the book and burnout is a topic that, um, obviously a lot of people are talking about because a lot of people are experiencing it and feeling it. Um, One thing I find like so inspiring by you is that you and Amy both emails,

Ministry of Marriage, like you're 30 years into this church and life church. Like a long, javity. Five years ministry beforehand.

35 years of this amazing.

Your marriage. How long have you been married? 35 years. Yeah. 35 years of marriage and ministry.

All the kids, all the things.

So like there's just been so much like that is a lot of life to live until leading to do it well.

“Um, you talk about experiencing burnout and the midst of that.”

And I ask my question is like when you go through a season. I know in your book. I'm like 18 month journey of the burnout or a period where it's like really long, but you're still having to be the leader. Like you're still in front of people. How do you, how do you come out of that?

When do you know it's time that actually need to take a break and when do you fight through it? Like you said, I can just keep doing and keep doing it Sunday. When do you take a break? When do you keep going and how do you come out of times like that? It's a great question.

So I would say that most leaders who are going to experience burnout for the generally their type A, their drivers. And so when do you take a break? I would say sooner rather than later. I remember whenever we started low and I had all the what ifs, what ifs, what if it isn't where I need to be. And looking back, I can see so clearly that God had his hand in the whole thing.

Starting something new is exciting, but it's also very scary.

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to think I'm going to work and work and work and then I'm going to take a break when I need it. What I learned to do is not work. Not to take a break after the work, but actually to take a rest before the work. And it's totally different mindset. Even if it's the same, you know, four days off.

Is I used to think I'll take four days after the work is a reward. What I'm doing now is I'm actually saying this is kind of like the type. I'm actually going to take four days off now. This is going to prepare me for what's to come. So it's not the reward of what I've already done, but it's also preparation for what is to come.

And all time off is not created equal. So you could take a three or four, you could take 10 days off somewhere and come back exhausted. One of the things we did is we worked really, really hard to determine what are the things that are most replenishing to us. And we've discovered it's kind of embarrassing. But we go to the same place every single year.

We've been there for 25 years. I thought we were boring, but didn't realize we're actually smart because I like rhythm. I like routine. I like the mountains. I like that time with Amy.

And going to a place is predictable for me is more replenishing than going to a place that's new. Other people that be the exact opposite, they're going to want to go someplace completely new. Every single time and they need to be able to acknowledge that. Going to a big city like New York City is going to be horrible for me because there's too much stimulation. I need I go so hard so fast all the time.

What I need is God's creation and I need slow. I need running water. I need the cool crisp air. I need to hear the bird sing. Depending on the type of work you do, you wanted to determine the type of recovery that you have.

Then also for me, I had no real hobby so I pretty much did work served my family and that I would work out. But that was just more of a rhythm and routine not not a hobby. And so it was kind of embarrassing that my counselor said once you come up with,

“I think he said like 30 or 35 ideas of things that would be crazy.”

That would feel dangerous to you and adrenaline producing. And I came up with a short list. I tried to only to I tried two new things and I stuck with both of them.

And it's crazy how I told him like I paid you all this money all this time and basically you may maybe get a hobby and that saved my life.

Actually it's kind of true because for me I need something that would disconnect my mind. And it couldn't be gardening because it's too slow.

And so that was a thrilling way for me to come out of in pastoral life.

You're always kind of being pastoral.

Loving kind patient and that gave me permission to go back to kind of my roots. I got let's do something dangerous. Let's do something adrenaline producing. And I can't remember your question. I just sort of rambling.

“No, this is great. I'll sum up burnout. Like when do you need to create?”

No, you need it. When can you keep going now? And then, you know, I would say sooner rather than later. If you don't start taking some rhythms now, then what's going to happen is you'll pay later. You don't want to fall apart. Almost, almost every leader, I know like Louie, the top producing leaders over 30 year period.

Almost all of them have a burnout breakdown story.

I was really proud that I did not, and then I did. And I'm disappointed that I did, and the reason I did is because I didn't better equip myself on the front end to know how to recover. All rest is not created equally. You have to do what helps you recover and replenish and refill. If you just need to not be taken out, but you need things that refill you replenish you. And that's going to be the right people, the right places, the right rhythms.

And then what my counselor helped me do is say, we're not going to slow you down at all. Like you got created, you're run hard. We're just going to help you run hard healthy. And that's, that meant so much to me is it's not all about slowing down. We're not going to rewire our lives to be like someone else. We're going to who got created us to be.

We're just going to do it in a healthy way. That's really good. My mom told me that one time because I was like just saying that I needed a break and all this stuff and I did. And, but it was funny what she said. She said, but even if you have one, you're not going to be still. And I was like, well, that's true because that's just not who I am. You shouldn't be. You should go.

And it's not. And you don't just move it yourself. Let's replace it too. Yes. Exactly. And I think that's the thing when you think all rest is equal. Well, rest looks like this for her. So I'm going to try this.

And then I would just that would drive me crazy. Like, no, I still want to go and do, but that's a restful to me and that's replenishing. But then also, you know, Christian was saying, oh, we should go on a ski trip on like with three kids. I'd come back exhausted. You know, so it's like what exactly is for your marriage.

“And for your marriage, you have to work to find out what works for both of you.”

Totally. And so sometime it might be a two day trip that's really for Amy. It's a bed and breakfast where we're reading and I'm bored and she's happy. Another time is it's it's I'm doing a flying lessons and she's painting and we're going and then and then there's something for both of us. So you kind of want to really create that kind of dialogue of what's best for you in a marriage.

What's best for me and in trying to do both of those and what's best for us. And you have to have, you probably have to have a little bit of all those categories to really be successful. I love that. I love that. I love how to like you can do that in such simple ways. Like your walk can be moments of rest within the day. Like for me, I try to look at it like, okay, I might not get that.

I can't go in a week vacation right now. I can't go do some of but I can do that for an hour. I could do that tomorrow. I could change up the schedule for the weekend. You know, you can do things more practical and tangible to now because if you think, Oh, one day I'll take a break that one day is probably not going to come unless you actually start planning for or you just say, Okay, today's today. I'm going to shift things a little bit to take a mental break.

Those things are important and it's cool to in a marriage for those who are married to like, help each other in that. Like, Christian can see that when it's time for me.

“Hey, you should have taken your friends and played Masha on like, that would be fun. Turn your brain off.”

You know, or I'm like, hey, you should go hunting like that would be great in the morning. Just to sit in creation because I know that's for him and they're synced together. So I love that advice. This is so good. Gosh, there's so much good. I'm trying to make sure I didn't miss anything that I wrote down that I want to talk about, but I really think we hit it all. I'm really thankful for your work that you put into this.

There's so many amazing practical and challenging things, but also your vulnerability that you put into it.

Because again, seeing someone like you be so vulnerable and share how you overcome these things is extremely helpful to people like me and everyone listening. And so thank you very much. A little piece of trivia on it is actually wrote this book several years ago. So I wrote it right on the front back on the backside of my challenges. And then I put it on the shelf. I tried to write it in the most raw state that I could. And then I was not going to put it out for public use until I sat on it for a few years.

One is I just wanted to kind of formalize my thoughts, but I went back through it to see how much of it would I change from the raw state. And I almost made no changes. And I just tried to let it be speak for as real as it was. And so yeah, did write it in that state of vulnerability and kept almost all of it.

But I wanted to put it down there when it was fresh kind of like what you did.

And I think there's so much healing in that. And so to your community, I want to say you're smart for learning from Sadie because she really is a godly person who seeks God.

And I just want to give you the courage driving thought from the book is that you're only as strong as you are honest.

“And you have to be honest. If you're hurting, there's no shame in it.”

If you're battling with fear, anxiety, depression, anger, burnout, there's no shame in it. You can you can open up to the right people in the right community, find the right church. It's going to love you through it, call out to God.

“You can yell at God if you don't understand, bring the right people into your voice, get professional help if you need it.”

Learn God's word and healing is possible. It's not only possible, but God's designed you, his word is community to help you heal. And so if you're going through something, I pray that just through Sadie's story through mine.

“Through the word of God, you find hope and you do find healing and we'll celebrate that with you.”

It's God is good and it will celebrate us working your life. It's incredible. Amen. Amen. That's great. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Sadie. This was amazing. I'm always encouraged and always take away my next steps after I taught to you.

Thank you. Well, look forward to seeing you guys again. Look forward to another workout with Christian and we are cheering you guys on. You have three kids. We have six. So if you keep going, if you double it, you will be there with us. We need to come visit you all at three and get advice before we go to six. We'll come visit do work and we'll all the things. Bring them on. We'd love to have you any time. That would be great. We all are the best. Have the best rest of your day.

Okay. Thanks much. Love to you. Bye bye.