Podcast

Finding Joy Beyond Rejection. Patty LaRoche

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Unshakable Hope Podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kelly Hall, and this is where we wrestle through faith questions, such as, How do I trust God’s heart when His ways and delays are breaking mine? How can I believe God is good when life doesn’t seem good? My prayer is that God would renew our hope in these conversations, and that each of us would experience the very real power of His presence and love. Hey there, before I drop you into the conversation with my guest, I want to let you know about a cool surprise.

I just discovered a few days ago, starting on October 23rd, which is the day this podcast releases and for the next few days, I don’t know how long my guest’s book, A Little Faith Lift: Finding Joy Beyond Rejection will be offered as an e book on Amazon for only 0. 99. You can use the link in the show notes if you like, but I just didn’t [00:01:00] want you to miss out on this big sale.

So now, moving on. Enjoy the conversation.

Kelly: Welcome friends, you are in for a treat today. Patty LaRoche has written a fabulous book called, A Little Faith Lift, Finding Joy Beyond Rejection.. She asked a question on the back of the book. Do you ever feel like you don’t measure up? And so today we’re going to be talking about her experiences and the hope that she brings to readers who need to discover who they are in Christ.

So, Patty, welcome to the podcast.

Patty: Thank you so much, Kelly. I’m, it’s so exciting to be here. I appreciate this time.

Kelly: Yeah, I’m excited for our time too. Would you tell us about yourself?

Patty: Yes, I’ve spent 20 years writing this book. It started out as a book about sports blunders, because we have raised 5 children, 3 boys, 2 girls, all in the sports world, and [00:02:00] there were just so many funny stories about it.

So the 1st title of this book was: bleach your blunders and fielding fiasco’s, and I spent a few years just kind of compulating some of these stories and then I just hit a dead end. And somehow I switched it to, it’s my pity party, and I’ll cry if I want to. And I went off on that in that world. And then a few years ago, probably about 2 years ago, an 83 year old friend of mine asked me, why don’t you write about your stories of rejection? They’re so funny and things keep happening to you. And you could just make a great book about that. And I started to think, you know what? She’s exactly right. I do have some great stories and it is, and it’s something that I’ve seen in so many of my friends and the older I’ve gotten, Kelly, the more I’ve realized that most people, men and women, both really struggle with this, with comparing themselves to other people and not just being in love with the gift that God has given them, but always desiring some other gift that somebody else has, you know, [00:03:00] they’re not, they’re not pretty enough. They’re not smart enough. They’re not funny enough. They’re not holy enough. I mean, Christians are some of the worst at this in comparing their spiritual lives and thinking, oh, why can’t I be like Vicki or whoever and when I taught high school for 20 years, later on, towards the end of my career, a group of girls came to me and said, Mrs. LaRoche, would you just lead us in a Bible study on how we can draw closer to God? Cause we’re really struggling. And I said, yeah, great. And so we set up this little weekly taco Tuesday kind of thing.

And they would come over and just hang out in my living room. And we started talking about their self-worth and I’ll tell you, Kelly, I was shocked because some of these girls were some of the most beautiful girls in the high school. They were the most talented, the most popular. They had no confidence.

And when they shared that even walking down the hallway caused them so much angst because they were wondering how people were judging them. And I [00:04:00] remember asking them, girls, if you’re thinking you’re being judged. They’re thinking the same thing. So no, nobody fulfills the purpose that God has given them. Because they’re all trying to be somebody else or trying to measure up to somebody else. So I grew up very poor. My father died when I was 8 months old. My mother was pregnant with my younger brother.

I had a brother, a year older than me. And then her relatives who were her help mates to take care of us when they would drive her to the grocery store ’cause she didn’t drive, were killed by a drunk driver. And so she lost her support system.

So my mom worked minimum wage her entire life to raise the three of us. She never dated. She was just all about raising us to be good people and try to get an education and do the best we could. I think I maybe struggled the most with it and probably. Sought the most attention because I was always trying to measure up.

I didn’t have the [00:05:00] clothes that my, that everybody in the school had. We didn’t have a car. We didn’t have a television. And I think it just set this thing in me that I have got to do something to be okay. So I just kind of learned to be funny, which really irritated the nuns.

And so that whole school experience was just me being in trouble quite a bit. But then I was able to laugh about so much of it. So that’s kind of been my journey. And then when I married a professional baseball player, it’s just terrible to admit this, but , I obviously loved him a lot, but I thought, gosh, I’m now going to be somebody.

And then I found that that world is just as competitive, the wives are just as much prone to compare, and to have the bigger diamonds, the better cars, the, and we didn’t play when the money was good. So it was, it was just kind of, it’s just been this lifelong struggle until I finally realized when I became a Christian.

I joined a non denominational church, but I [00:06:00] realized that God loves me. And, and he values me. And so when I was able to work with these teenage girls and impart to them that same message of how God is the audience that counts, that’s the bottom line.

You’re never going to measure up to anybody else. And there’s always going to be somebody who’s going to be critical or mean spirited or jealous or just trying to build themselves up by tearing other people down. So that’s the message of the book,

That’s what led me to get real serious about writing it.

Kelly: Yes, it’s a powerful message about finding our identity in Christ. And it’s delivered out of these beautiful stories. And, , Most of them are lighthearted, but there are some that are pretty heart wrenching.

You’ve already mentioned that your husband was a professional baseball player for many years. And that was a place where, again, you experienced some rejection. Can you tell us one of those stories and then share how you went from feeling like a reject to [00:07:00] leading a Bible study for these women?

Patty: Yes. In fact. One of the stories and I I will not name the team, but my husband had been coaching in the minor leagues for several years after he played baseball for 12 years in the big leagues. And so the money wasn’t good. We had 3 small children and he got called up to the big leagues to be a pitching coach.

And we’re so excited because the money was going to be better.. And, , I just thought, gosh, this is just going to be a, it’s going to be kind of refreshing to be at that level of baseball. But what I found was the money had gotten so much better for the players that there was this snobbery there, and I didn’t expect it.

Most of the wives in the minor leagues have been very pleasant. I’d led Bible studies with them. We’d had a great time. And I went to this new organization and. They, they were really snobby and so they were having all these activities and I’d sit in the ballpark and hear them talk about it. And I thought, gosh, you’re not inviting me.

And I’m, I’m really a fun person. If you just give me a chance, but, , as I, I said in my Ted [00:08:00] talk, but, you know, that’s something you can’t stand up and scream at the ballpark, you know, just. Just like me, just like me, because my husband would probably be fired if he had this crazy, crazy wife acting like that.

So I went home that off season and I really struggled with it. And my husband was rehired to go back to the next year. And I thought, Oh my gosh, I’m going to be facing these same women again. I don’t know what I’m going to do. And I, as I prayed about it, God just opened up my heart to say, you were expecting these women to fill your sponge, but why don’t you fill theirs?

Why, why don’t you do something for them? And then I realized I had a couple of things that I did pretty well. I had been a competitive softball player for years and I actually, like I said, had led these Bible studies. And so I thought, why don’t I just try to do that with these wives? So I called Grace.

She was in charge of the baseball wives on that team, and I ran my ideas by her and she was so excited. She said, yes, let’s do that. And and. I’ll order the uniforms. I’ll set up practice schedule. I’ll set up game schedule. We’ll raise money for a battered women’s [00:09:00] shelter and we’ll give you the conference room at the ballpark for your Bible study.

Couldn’t have gone better. So opening night, I, I meet Grace at the ballpark and she introduces me to some of the new wives and then obviously a lot of the older ones too. But this time I ran my ideas by them and they were all on board. They were all so excited. And then she pointed to a wife who wasn’t sitting in the wife’s section.

She was up by herself. And I was so emboldened and, and empowered and thrilled that this was going to be a great year. And so the girl’s name was Sharon and Grace said, well, Sharon’s up there and she pointed her out. And so I walked up there and I knelt beside Sharon. She was at the end of the row. And I said, are you sharing?

And she said, what’s your point? And all of a sudden I was just. Kind of frozen. And I said, my point, my point, I said, Oh, you think I’m a fan and I’m trying to bug you. No, no, no. I’m not a fan. My husband’s the pitching coach on the team. And she said, so what is your point? And she said it [00:10:00] loudly. And I could hear, I could feel the fans looking at me and all of a sudden,

I felt like I was back in 7th grade when I walked across the dance floor and ask a guy named Flote to dance with me. And he told me no, and he and all of his friends started laughing. And all of a sudden, I was back there on that dance floor and reliving just every moment of, oh, my gosh, the things that have happened where I’ve been so rejected.

And then I realized I’m not going to give her the power to do this to me. I’m just not. And I, I stood up and I said, you know, I’m so sorry I bothered you. I, I’m just starting a Bible study and a softball team for the wives. And I thought maybe you’d want to join, but I can tell you’re not interested.

Sorry, I bothered you. And I turned and I walked away and in about three steps and over my shoulder. I heard her say, I’d love to join. And I thought: over my dead body, you’re not a nice person. You’re not fun like I am. And I thought, well, you can’t really tell [00:11:00] somebody they can’t come to a Bible study. Anyway, she ended up being such a neat gal.

She was a great softball player. She was our third baseman. She would dive for balls and not care if she broke her nails and, and my kind of player, she wouldn’t miss a Bible study. But a few weeks in, I just had to deal with it. And I kind of took her aside after one of the Bible studies. And I said, Sharon, I got to talk to you about something.

I said, what was, what was it? What was going on in your head? The way you treated me at the ballpark, trying to embarrass me in front of all those fans. And you did a real good job of it. And she said, we came from a team where they were not nice to black people. She was black. And I decided that if we ever went to another team, the first white person that talked to me was going to pay for it. And you were that person.

But you know, Kelly, it was a great lesson for me. And I talk about it all the time that, and it’s not my quote, whoever said it was so spot on, hurting people hurt people. [00:12:00] And this was a hurting person. I hadn’t done anything wrong. And I think sometimes we accept that rejection and allow it to make us feel bad about ourselves, but sometimes it’s not us at all. I mean, sometimes it is. We have lessons to learn. Sometimes maybe we have behaviors that are annoying, but in this case, it was a perfect example of just a hurting person hurting somebody else. And we became really good friends. She was just the neatest gal.

So anyway, that’s, that’s one of my stories that came out of the baseball world. Yes.

Kelly: Yeah. So how can you offer us hope in situations like that, , how does God offer us hope in his word, ,

Patty: God does not waste opportunities, God loves us. All day long, no matter what happens to us. He wraps his loving arms around us and says you are valuable. You are a one of a kind masterpiece to me.

And so you have a choice. If you live for me, you’re going to live in [00:13:00] abundant joy. Or if not, you’re going to allow these circumstances to determine your value, but that’s not how you were created. And I have given you gifts, and I have given you a special touch. And I want you to understand that my, my mercies are new every morning for you and for everybody you meet.

And I just think sometimes we forget what a buffet he has set before us for life. And we starve ourselves because we just don’t accept how much he loves us. And the more I started reading scripture and realizing that, oh my gosh, I will never be loved by anybody like I will be by God. And I will be disappointed by everyone.

And I’m going to disappoint everyone I meet, but not God. Because he is all loving and, and that’s his, that was his message for Sharon and it was just so cool to watch her grow in this [00:14:00] Bible study to see her worth and realize that we’re all in the same boat. We are all loved unconditionally. It’s not about what we say or what we do, and there’s no love like his and that he gave us his son to take care of all this crud that we kind of have to wade through this muck and mire that we wade through in life.

But it’s not the way he wants us to live.

Kelly: Amen. Yes, that is so powerful. You talk in your book about the disease to please and perfectionism and that often is one of the traps that we face as we’re trying to walk out the truth of our identity in Christ.

And so. I know so many people struggle with this. What would you say to somebody who needs to be rescued from this struggle? When you talk to those high school girls, you communicated so much truth to them. What do you want people to take away from this book?

Patty: I know it wasn’t Thomas Jefferson. I can’t remember [00:15:00] now. He said comparison is the thief of joy. And I want people to understand that. That there’s no one like them I want them to accept the gifts that God has given them, work to develop those gifts instead of always looking at somebody else.

But perfectionism, I think, is a particularly difficult sin. Because it puts you on the throne and anytime you put you on the throne and your needs on the throne, God can’t be there because you pushed him off and you’ve set yourself up there up on that throne. And that’s such a dangerous place to be Kelly, because.

We, we aren’t God. And as long as we try to play that game or make everything look so perfect, because it’s not a perfect world, and we live in a fallen world.

That’s not at all how God has wired us. And so we just have to sit back sometimes and say, okay, God, what do you want me to do to show people how amazing you are, how much you have given me [00:16:00] the ability in my case to laugh at myself. And I really do believe that’s a gift that most perfectionists don’t have, because I can, and I’ve always been able to do that.

Kelly: That is a gift that it is a gift to be able to laugh at yourself. Yes. Yes. Don’t take yourself so seriously. God’s got you. You experienced something so humiliating once when you were on the team bus, you felt so good about yourself.

And then there was a disaster but how were you able to recover your worth in Christ? So tell that story.

Patty: Well, that’s actually way before I knew Christ. I had not been a believer for very long when that happened, maybe four or five years.

So that was not a funny story until years later when I was able to really revisit that. But at the time, Oh, I was, I was mortified. Yes. My husband was on the New York Yankees at the time and they were in the playoffs and we were on a bus [00:17:00] trip.

We had flown to Oakland and my best friend Kathy lived out there. She had joined me for this trip and we were being bused to the Oakland baseball stadium. And so I had really, really long hair at the time. And so when we got on the bus, I turned and I said something to Kathy, , who was getting on the bus behind me.

Now, the players were on the bus who were on the disabled list. The stockholders were on the bus and all the VIPs of the New York Yankees. And I really had tried to dress up that day. It was a really big thing to be in the stands for the playoffs because they would announce the wives and they would show them on television and all of the wives had talked about it.

I didn’t have a lot of really nice clothes because I had three young boys, but I did have this one outfit that made me feel really pretty. And I got on the bus and I turned to say something to Kathy. And I started feeling this pressure on my hair and I started smelling this smoke and I thought, oh my gosh, the bus is on fire.

But then I realized it was not the bus. My hair [00:18:00] had gotten sucked into the fan on the dashboard of the, this New York Yankees bus, and I was being pulled into this back bend as my hair was just getting sautéed.

It was awful. And the poor bus driver just sat there and Kathy’s yelling and he doesn’t know what to do.

It took them 30 minutes. They had to bring somebody on with a screwdriver to, you know, disassemble the fan and my hair was completely chopped off. Bucky Dent, , he’s pretty famous ballplayer was on the disabled list.

He was on the bus I didn’t know how awful I looked until I went into the bathroom at Oakland Stadium and realized I had very short hair now. And Bucky Dent walked into the clubhouse and told all the New York Yankees, especially my husband. Oh, you can’t believe what happened to your wife today.

And so that all of a sudden I’m sitting in the stands. I don’t know why I just didn’t go back to the hotel because I looked awful and all of a sudden, all these New York Yankees, their heads just pop out of the dugout to stare at me.

And then there’s Dave and you can just see, he’s just horrified [00:19:00] because he’s got this wife with these little, you know, alfalfa sprouts, red hair.

Kelly: Oh, Patty, my heart just aches for you.

I want to go back into that bus and just wrap my arms around you and say, I am so sorry.

But if you could go back in time, with the wisdom of the Lord that you have now. And stand beside your younger self on that bus. What would you say to her?

Patty: I would say this does not define you. This is not of eternal significance. It doesn’t matter. It’s just another story that people will remember. And they did. It was a story that was retold for years afterwards, but it became a great story because I think it, it allowed other people to see you can survive something so humiliating in front of the New York Yankees of all things.

And you’re still loved. I was still loved by my husband. , I was still loved by my kids, although they thought I looked kind of freaky when I returned from that trip. But most of all,[00:20:00] you know, I mean, God allowed that to happen. He didn’t purpose it, but he knew that was going to be part of my life story.

And it’s ended up being a great one because all those stories that we’re willing to be transparent about, give other people license to say, Oh my gosh, I think I’ve been through some tough stuff, but that was much more embarrassing than anything I’ve dealt with. And she survived and she can laugh about it.

Like what we cannot allow these. To define us because God’s purpose is so much greater than a hair in the fan story. Yeah, I would say you’re okay. You’re okay. There’s not going to be anything eternal that’s going to come from this, except maybe you’re going to be able to give other people the ability to laugh.

And I think that’s sadly missing now, , so that’s kind of one of the reasons I wanted to write the book because I think we just need to have some opportunities to look at maybe my stories and say, she’s still able to move on and understand how precious she is to God. And I [00:21:00] need to be able to do the same.

Kelly: So, yes, you tell a lot of biblical stories in your book, that just reminds me so much that, I am loved. I’m not defined by my failures. My humiliation, I’ll get over it. The Lord loves me. Every morning when I get out of bed, he is smiling over us. He is rejoicing over us .He’s absolutely delighted to spend time with us.

Patty: Yes.

Kelly: Perfectionists do live with this feeling of I’m a disappointment, but when we can take hold of the truth that in God’s eyes, there’s nothing we can do that will diminish his love for us. And, I think too the end of Romans where it says nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from God’s love.

And that is such a gift.

Patty: Because we’re not wired that way because we love so conditionally and we love based on performance. I think it’s a very difficult concept to think that he loves me no matter what I do.

That [00:22:00] his love as a father is so much greater than any love that we can begin to understand. But if we get ahold of that, then these disappointments or these setbacks or these little trials, they’re just part of life and they help define us. We all have a journey and sometimes our journey takes us in a very different direction than we hope for.

But, my son does a lot of work in the sex trafficking industry and yesterday I actually spoke at a church about his mission and what he does, and I think there is a rejection that is so heinous, but his whole job and his team’s job is to recover these women so they know who they are in Christ and the stories that are so amazing.

You can even be at that level of rejection. And still, when you meet Jesus and you understand. How precious you are and how loved you are, that , there’s nothing that can separate us from the love of God, and sometimes I think we pull ourselves away, but he certainly [00:23:00] doesn’t.

He’s always in our corner. He’s our head cheerleader and rooting for us and wanting us to just understand how loved we are and find that joy that he wants us to have.

Kelly: Absolutely. Well, , you were a teacher for many years. What was it you were teaching?

Patty: Speech and debate and forensics and theater. So I got all those subjects. All intended to increase the confidence of my students. But, it’s really hard sometimes when you see them have such little confidence and it’s just 1 step at a time to try to get them to believe in themselves and believe in their talents

Kelly: well, at one point you had them give speeches and, you included a couple of those speeches in your book initially people were more superficial in their speeches, but there was one girl that so changed the atmosphere in that room with her story, that many of those people came back and they said, I want to do mine over.

I want to tell the deeper truth. And it was a powerful [00:24:00] story. So I’m wondering if you can just share that and how God communicated his love through that space.

Patty: This was a little gal. They’re juniors in high school, and they have to take speech.

But she sat, in the back row, and she always had her head down. She had no confidence. I’ll just call her Susan. So they had to write a eulogy every year and typically, they wrote funny eulogies. They were saying goodbye to the tooth fairy or to their G. I. Joe toys or something like that. Some of them wrote about their dad that was in the penitentiary and how abandoned they felt by him.

This gal came to me. And she said, is it okay if I invite another teacher to sit in? The teacher she really trusted and loved. It was the art teacher. Could I invite her to come and sit in on the speech? I said, absolutely. Whatever helps you get through it. Because I know how difficult public speaking is, especially for unconfident teenagers. And so she stood up at the front of the class. I did not know what [00:25:00] to expect. And she said, this is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life. And her lips started quivering and I’m in the back of the room critiquing, of course. And then she starts in on how she wanted to be a little dancer when she was little, and she dreamed of being a dancer.

And she had all these dreams that were destroyed by her grandfather, who, as it turned out, she reveals in her story was molesting her from the time she was 3 till the time she was 13. Now she’s 17 at this point and I did not expect to hear this. None of us did. And she was very graphic in her description.

You read it right? Kelly. You saw that she wrote things that no one had ever heard, I don’t think, not from a classmate. And you could just even the football players in the room. All of a sudden, they you just saw them start to cry and try not [00:26:00] to. And I was a wreck. . By the time she was done with this speech, I was crying so hard ,I couldn’t even write a note on it. But at the end of her talk, revealing that she was saying goodbye to the power that her grandpa had tried to destroy in her and she was going to dance again and she all of a sudden, and that’s that was the purpose of the eulogy, you know, that we’re getting over something and we’re moving on to something better.

And I was pretty vocal about Jesus in the classroom. I’m sure I’d be fired now if I. Did what I did back then, but everybody knew about my faith and where I stood. And all of a sudden it was just so spontaneous. Everybody got out of their seat. And there were probably 20 to 30 kids in the classroom and walked down to Susan.

And put their arms around her and they couldn’t stop crying and then they all went back to their seats. And I said, , I really want to visit with you and when class is over and she said, fine. [00:27:00] And then students started saying,

Is it okay if I rewrite my speech and she empowered them to understand how important it is that we become transparent sometimes and we stop playing games with things that have happened. And I know 1 of the football players went back and. Rewrote his speech about the three concussions that he had had.

And when he finally was told that he could no longer play football and his best friend, the quarterback was in that classroom and he started sobbing. And after that, after he gave that speech, which was a few days later, the quarterback stayed in the room on his knees by his desk. He couldn’t stop crying. And he said, he’s my best friend. And I never knew the pain he went through and I wasn’t there for him.

But I did keep. Susan in my classroom after that day. And I said to her, I have to report this because You were raped by your grandfather and she said, well, he’s dead and I said, I’m [00:28:00] sorry. I’m so grieved, but I still want you to talk to our school counselor about this. And she did. She had, she ended up with a great relationship with the school counselor. So it was a lot of healing that happened. But anyway, that was her story, but it totally transformed the dynamic of the classroom and totally and totally changed the way people looked at the down and out, the uncool, we all realized everybody had a story. Yeah. And so it was a huge bonding for those kids and a great life lesson for all of us.

Kelly: Yes. That was so amazing to me that she told the truth and , I mean, the Holy Spirit must have been moving in a mighty powerful way in that classroom, but it frees us when we tell the truth.

And so many of us hide, we hide behind the rejections that we’ve experienced. We ignore them. We stuff them. We think they don’t matter. And we, try to just pretend we’re not feeling all of this pain, but when she [00:29:00] told the truth, I cannot believe she had the courage to do that is so amazing. And she was just marking the space in time.

No longer am I going to be held in bondage to the evil that happened to me. And to the dreams that were stolen from me, I am going to walk in what is true about who I am in Christ. I believe that’s what was happening. And then and I’m going to live the life that God has called me to live. I’m going to live in his abundance.

It just blew me away.

Patty: Yes, me too. Me too. I did not expect it. But then, interestingly, I taught more than one speech class and other students were hearing about it from their classmates. And then they too, came and said, asked me if they could change their stories. They made them a lot more, , just a lot more real. And there was just such a healing in that.

The Holy Spirit totally totally controlled [00:30:00] everything that happened in that classroom that day. Yeah, I mean, I mean, it was, it was the most powerful movement of how when, when God is directing us to do something and especially somebody like Susan, who had no confidence. And afterwards, for a long time afterwards, she would just come and come to visit in my classroom.

And we would talk even after she graduated from that class. I was constantly building her up and just saying, do you understand what you did that day? Do you understand how much you change lives and how you were the. Initiator of something so powerful that needed to happen because God wanted those people to tell their stories.

The lesson was so strong to stop looking at people for their appearance or their weird little behaviors and mannerisms and understand that those weird behaviors and mannerisms come probably because of something that’s happened. It was one of the most [00:31:00] powerful things I ever saw in the classroom.

Kelly: Yeah, that, that was amazing. So the book made me laugh and that made me cry. but I love it when the Holy Spirit breaks into those wounded places and brings beauty out of the ashes.

Patty: Yes,

Kelly: so another thing that I found so insightful is you say when we say yes to fear, we say no to joy and immediately when I read that, I realized that is so darn true. That is so true. How can we find our way out of the fear trap?

Patty: I’ll tell you, I’ve seen more of it in the last couple of years because of COVID, I think than I’ve ever seen in my life. And I have so many people that I know who continue to live in fear.

I just always try to talk about what’s the end that you want here. What is the end? And of course, for Christians, it’s to spend eternity with Christ. That’s the end goal of all of us.

But we have all kinds of fears, we, [00:32:00] of course, fear a snake, but we fear rejection. That’s one of the, actually that’s moved ahead of the fear of public speaking, the fear of rejection. And so, again, it just goes back to this anytime where we’re living with a sense of I need to worry about something, or I need to be afraid of something when scripture is so clear that we’re not to worry and we are not to fear.

We are to have confidence in who we are in Christ. And we’re to allow him to govern our words and our actions and our thoughts. And once we do that. We realize that, you know what, I can’t control, I can’t control all the stuff that happens around me, certainly couldn’t control COVID, certainly can’t control the behaviors of some other people, that we just have to at some point say, I just am going to choose God over this, I’m going to say wherever I am, whatever situation I’m in, I’m going to let him be the one that’s governing the way this plays out

But yeah, but fear is a very, very real thing now. And I have people who are so [00:33:00] fearful. I’ve met them who are afraid to actually leave their house. Some of this stuff is way over my head. I’m not a psychologist. , but I do know that that living in fear is so destructive. , a waste of our time and our energy.

Kelly: Patty, you explain that one of the rejection traps we can fall into is needing to be validated by anyone other than God. And so I know it’s a common temptation that many of us face. What kind of hope or direction would you offer to someone who is struggling with that?

Patty: I think far too many of us and I did for a long time know about God, but don’t know God and don’t have that personal relationship

so when we don’t know him, it’s impossible. I think for us to understand how loved we are by him. And the only way we get to know him is to spend time with him, to spend time in prayer, talking to him, and then listening, and it’s very hard for [00:34:00] me to be quiet before God, just to listen and to quiet my mind.

When we don’t give him the time. I think we fail to understand how much we are loved. And it’s easy for me to say, those are little cliches. I get it. Oh, we’re loved by God so much and blah, blah, blah. But to really know this, understand the sacrifice that he has paid for us to spend eternity with him.

That God so loved us that he did that, and I think we have these platitudes and these words, but we have to give him time in the word and in prayer and then all day long. Just turning everything over to him. God, how are you directing me now? What do you want me to say? Now to this person? How am I supposed to exemplify your love to these people? I’m meeting in the gas station or whatever, just that it’s a constant filter.

Kelly: Absolutely.

Patty: . He gave you a one of a kind DNA. You know, he has his mark on you. You are so incredibly special to him. [00:35:00] I have so much more than I need to learn about my value in God and, these are easy words to say, but we’re just marked with, an eternal stamp on us instead of just the day in day out grind that sometimes I think we fall into those traps,

Kelly: yes. You include the story of Samuel when he was sent by God to Jesse’s family to anoint the next king. And I’m wondering if you could just give us a summary of that story and explain what it had to do with rejection.

Patty: Well, I kind of do it with a little bit of humor he’s gone to choose the next king and he’s told to go to Jesse’s house. And I just picture all of these brothers kind of pumped that he’s going to come and make this decision.

And one by one, they walk in front of him and then God says, no. Nope, and he keeps saying it and saying it. And my sons are very competitive, very competitive. So I always put myself in the shoes of these boys. And I just can see my boys would have been [00:36:00] whacking each other on the head,  Because they weren’t getting chosen or laughing at the one that hadn’t been chosen.

But then in the end, , there’s none of you. None of you are it. There’s this guy out playing a harp taking care of the sheep. Kind of the, obviously the reject and he says, well bring him in. And then he’s the one. And there’s obviously a lot of jealousy with the brothers because when David goes, as they’re starting to battle Goliath, the Philistines, you know, he shows up just to kind of ask some questions and they turn on him.

They’re so jealous of him. And yet he was the one chosen by God.  God is such a God of surprises. And you never should look at anybody and judge them because their giftedness could be so far off the charts for what God wants to do in our lives through them.

So that was kind of the same thing with David.

Kelly: Yes. Right? That’s a perfect story for healing experiences of rejection. We’re reminded that the Lord doesn’t look on the outward appearance. What good news is that? I’m so grateful. [00:37:00] God looks on the heart.

That’s a hugely comforting message. I love that Jesus welcomes the outcast and moves toward those that society rejects. He chose disciples that were sort of misfits. He chose that Samaritan woman at the well, the one who had been rejected so many times in her life, married five times, now living with someone who wasn’t her husband, and yet she was chosen by God.

Jesus set up a meeting with her and she became the first. evangelist, a female evangelist at that, to the Samaritan nation. I love that God accomplishes hugely impossible things through the most unlikely.

Patty: yeah, Bible’s full of those stories and they’re just the best.

Kelly: They are the best. Our girls have experienced so much rejection in their lives because of their special needs because we moved a lot.

And it’s so heartbreaking. But they’re very sensitive to other people’s [00:38:00] wounds. And they move toward those who are hurting. They look for those who are on the outsides and they move toward them. I love that about their hearts. I was drawn to your book because of the message of dealing with rejection. I’ve carried shame because of my girl’s rejection. And we’ve all had to find healing in the Lord. I enjoyed this book, Patty, and I was able to laugh at the humorous stories and view our stories of rejection in a lighter way and from an eternal perspective.

Can you tell us how people can get in touch with you and how they can find your book?

Patty: Yes. The name of the book is a little faith lift. F A I T H, Finding Joy Beyond Rejection, and it’s on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, and my website is www. alittlefaithlift. com. They can order it through that, and just please, if you read it, leave a review. I’m finding that’s key, I guess, to book sales. This is all kind of new to me. But I pray that you read it and blessed and [00:39:00] that you understand how valuable you are.

It’s really important that people learn to stand up for people that are hurting or that are being made fun of or being bullied or whatever. I just pray that they read the book and maybe are a little emboldened to do just that. once they find out who they are in Christ,

Kelly: yes. Thank you so much. Patty. I really enjoyed having you today.

Patty: Thank you so much. You have a great day.

Kelly: Thanks for listening to the Unshakable Hope Podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe and leave a review. To continue the conversation and for free resources, be sure to visit me at kellyhall. org. Thanks so much.