Kristy 0:06

Welcome to Unshaken, the podcast where unwavering faith meets real life. I'm Kristy, and together with my husband Tony, we dive into authentic conversations, offering biblical insights and sharing stories that inspire resilience, especially for families navigating the unique challenges of disabilities. Join us each week as we explore faith family and the journeys that keep us grounded in Christ. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Let's stand firm together.

Tony 0:39

Welcome to another episode of Unshaken. My name is Tony, and I'm here with my lovely wife, Kristy. Tonight, let's just start with a question that might be painful for some of us. Have you ever sat quietly and thought my family would be better off if I were more steady than I am? As a husband and a father, this kind of shame rarely announces itself in a in a loud way. It's usually one of those things that creeps into your mind when you're all all alone, or when you're up at night at 2 a.m. and you can't go to sleep, or you're in the shower, or something like that. So many things that like you replay in your mind and you wish you would have done differently, or that can just turn into an endless loop that just really starts to preach to you, and that's really not where God wants us to be. And this is where a lot of us men and women can sometimes get trapped. We don't just grieve a momentary failure, we start building our identity around it. We stop saying that one moment was wrong, and we start saying, This is all I am. Maybe you thought I keep messing this up, I'm letting people down. Maybe I'm failing in my family. Today we want to talk to the person that's carrying this privately and quietly through a loop of self-accusation. A second question, maybe a better question. What if the inner verdict is not telling you the truth? Scripture that we're gonna hang on to tonight, we've actually got two of them for you. First one is probably very familiar to a lot of us. Comes from Romans uh chapter 8, verse 1, which says, There is therefore no now no condemnation for those who aren in Christ Jesus. The thing that we have to understand is that it's not about being soft on sin, because that's not what Paul was about. This verse is actually very strong on grace. It's not that what went wrong doesn't matter. It's that for those of us that are in Christ, condemnation doesn't get the final word. We don't have to live in those moments of failure over and over and over again. The other piece of scripture that we have for you tonight is Psalms 103, verses 13 and 14. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him, for he knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust. Even though Psalm 103 says that God remembers that we are dust, it's not scripture talking down to us, it's scripture reminding us how well and how intimately God knows each of us, he knows our limits, he knows how we were formed because he was the one that did it, and because he knows, he responds with compassion, not disgust. When we do something wrong, there should be conviction, but there shouldn't be condemnation because conviction calls us towards the truth that condemnation crushes us under a repeated accusation.

Kristy 4:18

So I think to take that a little bit farther, I like to think of it like there's this sort of inner courtroom within us. And unfortunately, within that courtroom, sometimes we tend to be the judge and the jury, and the defendant had no chance in that courtroom. I have felt this, right? I'm thinking of one time in particular, just a really extended season where I felt like I was doing the best I could and I knew it wasn't enough. I knew I was letting people down at every spot. You know what I mean? I was letting down my kids, I was letting down my employer, I was letting down my husband. I was just spread too thin. Even now, there are times where I cycle that in my head. Like there's just something in me that just replays those mistakes. Like we all have seen like the memes about, you know, it's 2 a.m. and you're thinking about that time that you like wet your pants in first grade, or we just torture ourselves with with these mistakes and places where we feel like we could have done better. You know, same thing happens, we compare ourselves to others. But I think turning one hard moment or even a series or a season of hard moments into a lifelong sentence, like that's not fair in the life of a Christian who's doing the best they can to live like Jesus. And that's not that that sort of feeling, that haunting feeling of just that we were wrong, that we hurt someone, that we made this mistake, that's not from God. That's not what he has for us. Like that comes from somewhere else. I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't think about it. You know what I mean? Like if we should make a mistake and we should think about it, give it its due and learn the lesson. Um, self-awareness is a healthy thing. We need to know, we need to pay attention to those things. But self-condemnation or just self-flagellation, punishment, that's just that's corrosive. It tears things apart. That's never going to be a productive thing. For me, the question becomes how do we know when what we're listening to is conviction and it's a righteous thing, or what we're listening to is is accusation and just that sort of repeated, unfair, unkind way that we treat ourselves that that God does not He doesn't support that.

Tony 6:41

I think that conviction is very specific and it's tied to a specific moment in time, but it's also redemptive because conviction points out the mistake, it allows for an opportunity to make it right in whatever way that we can. It it tells us the truth so that we can repent and we can go back and we can try to fix it as as best we can. Accusation is just it's sweeping and it's extreme and it's hopeless.

Kristy 7:19

It shrinks us. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. I feel like the way I would say it is that conviction gives us a pivot point, and um accusation just makes us feel smaller and smaller and smaller until there's nothing left.

Tony 7:33

I I fully agree. Accusation, it doesn't lead towards anything um that's good, and it certainly doesn't lead towards our father who is wanting to wrap his arms around us and forgive us as we make mistakes. I mean, it says in scripture that he is quick to forgive when we turn back towards him. And that's what conviction does. It it gives us, like Kristy said, it gives us a pivot point so that we can turn back towards the Father and say, you know what, I'm sorry. I want to learn from this, I want to do better. And our Father is quick to show us the compassion and his mercy and his love, and is quick to forgive us in those moments. Accusation, it just drives us away from him, it pushes us further and further because somehow, some way, accusation makes us think that he no longer loves us, or the people that are around us that do love us no longer love us. It's one of those things that we truly have to fight through. These are failing moments. This is not a failed lifetime. That distinction is important because repentance says I did something wrong and I'm going to try to do better. Condemnation says, I am wrong. So instead of us thinking I handled that situation badly, what the enemy tries to do is the enemy tries to convince me that no, you didn't just handle that situation badly, you're a bad husband, you're a bad father. So it's not that in that moment I was impatient with my wife or with one of my kids or or with a coworker or a friend or whatever. But rather, the enemy says, I'm unsafe to be around. I'm I'm a hothead, you know, so I'm I'm not safe, I'm dangerous. So shame creeps in in in those moments because it takes a real moment in time and then lies about the size of it, because instead of it just being a moment where something went wrong, the enemy does everything that he can to convince us that it's a lifetime issue. And when we repent, we're it's it's honest, but it also stays anchored in the truth. Sin is not who we are, it's just a moment versus an entire lifetime.

Kristy 10:21

I don't think I could put that better. You know, I think we kind of talked about this on another episode. We kind of touched on it. There's was a long season of my life where all I could think, like every day I thought this, I am a bad mom. Like I'm a bad mother. And I'm not. I'm a good mother. I love my kids. Like I am a good mother. I've raised incredible adults with, you know, with the support of this guy over here. Our family had a tough season. And in hindsight, I honestly don't know what I would do differently. I just know that I, you know, I let my kids down. I don't have a time machine, right? There's nothing I can do to go back and, you know, fix anything, whatever. I can learn from it. Like that, the the only thing left to do with that situation in our families past is to learn from it, to not put myself again in a situation where I'm going to be spread that thin and know that, you know, that the people that I love the most that I'm doing it for, you know, are are gonna suffer like that. And truly, I think that is the only redemptive thing to do. That's the only thing that's left that has any value at all. It's taken me a long time. It's taken me years, you know, to get to a place where where I can even get past I'm a bad mom. Like if that used to be the thing that came to me and it it would stay. I couldn't dismiss it. Like I carried it with me like a cloak, like a heavy shroud. It was just like crushing. And for what? What did that accomplish? That's not how God loves me. He doesn't love me in a way where I'm going to carry something so very heavy when it's already been forgiven, you know? What I can say is that difficult times, difficult situations, when we're under pressure, I think that can distort our perspective. It can really skew the way that we look at something. And it makes, it just makes a situation or an incident or uh, you know, one time when I raised my voice or I slammed a door, or, you know, or, you know, I worked tons of overtime for six months because my family needed the funding, or, you know, whatever it was, like pressure in those moments where we're not regulated, we're tired, we're hungry, we're stressed, or seasons, you know, long, it's extended periods of of life where we're just under a lot of pressure. Um, you know, we have a lot of commitments, a lot of priorities, competing priorities. Any kind of pressure like that, I think, really does skew the way that we look at any of these things. I think it causes us to oversee and over-feel and over-emphasize the negatives. And it causes us to be really minimizing and dismissive of the positives. It's just um like pressure is not a great thing, you know. It's the like, you don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry, don't make decisions and in at two in the morning, write it down on a little pad of paper and go back to sleep. Anytime we're in a sub-optimal headspace, any kind of situation that's pressure laden is just gonna be um, it's just gonna be heavier. Exhaustion is it is not a trustworthy narrator of your story. Like you want to tell that story from a place of clear-headedness and with prayer arming you with the knowledge that God is with you and He's if if you've repented, He's forgiven. So then who are you to continue to hold on to that and hold it against yourself? If you find yourself ruminating on a situation where you are not proud of your actions or your choices or your words or whatever happened, look around and just see, you know, I'm maybe feeling tired. Have I already had a bad day? Because those situations, those sub-optimal circumstances can cause us to take a situation that was just a temporary struggle, recast it as a permanent truth, as an extended situation or a part of our identity, even. And that's way too harsh.

Tony 14:45

One of the things that that comes to mind with this is a story, Kristy, that you actually shared, I think on one of our very first episodes, you were talking about farmers and how, like, when they first harvest decisions. Talk about that story again.

Kristy 15:08

So, in that situation where you know the harvest has just happened and people have um, you know, they have enough, they have resources, they have a surplus. They're able to make good decisions about saving and about tomorrow when they have that plenty and they know that it's gonna be around for, you know, for a while, they don't go all out and just like blow it on, you know, whatever junk. They like they actually make good, responsible, you know, fiscal decisions. The situation is very, it's like on its head in time, like right before the harvest, when when the resources are really slim, when there's not much there. And this carries to any, you know, to any situation where you're strapped for resources, you're worried, you're stressed. All you can feel is how much that's just painful now. Like that, it hurts you now. When you do get something, the tendency is to squander it. You go and do something that brings immediate comfort, immediate peace or satisfaction or whatever, because in that head space where resources are scarce, we're thinking about today. It's only when we have enough around us that we're able to say, I'm okay for today. What about what's going to happen, you know, in the future? Tony, I think that's a great example. It's when we're in that headspace where we've got resources and we're able to see a reasonable path to the future and really to shepherd resources and to make thoughtful decision decisions about the future, we're just in a much better headspace. When we're in that right now mentality that comes with exhaustion, scarce resources, not having enough money, or not having enough of, you know, whatever it is that brings us peace and comfort, that's when we make those decisions that benefit us in the moment, make us feel some kind of momentary win, and then leave us feeling regretful later on.

Tony 17:11

Having said all of that, because there's a solid principle in that, if you are here and you're listening to this and you're living paycheck to paycheck, you know, this is not about like shaming you because you are living paycheck to paycheck. We get that, we've been there. The overall mental state, when it's Tuesday before that Friday payday, and you're at that point where there's not much left in the cupboard, it can get hard. As much as we can, we need to be more mindful when we're in those states.

Kristy 17:48

That's the time when we need to take a big pic, like to intentionally break free of that, of the way it feels, and actually bring some cognition and and think about a bigger picture, because it might seem like it's that those three days to payday is, you know, we're not sure how we're gonna make that. That just seems un undoable in this moment. But when we look at the bigger picture beyond Friday, beyond how the power bill is gonna be paid by the 15th or whatever it is, and we think about the God who loves us and who blesses us and all of the riches and resources that we have as his children and in his love, I feel like it just changes everything. It changes your entire mindset to be, think about how saturated we are in his love and in his blessings. We have each other and we have him. You know, we have our education, we have our health, we have our, you know, fill in the blank, whatever it is. Those times when we are, when you catch yourself in that loop of being particularly hard on yourself, maybe open that picture window up and just, you know, move beyond the difficulty of the moment. Because I would almost promise you that if you're in one of those places where you're just kind of stagnating in that bad feeling about yourself, about whatever the issue was, whatever you did or didn't do, I would almost promise you that if you take that look inside, you're in a moment of scarcity somehow, whether it's sleep or a financial situation, like there's some something there. Broaden that perspective. Think about what you do have and why you do have it, and and what else he gives, what else he's willing to give you, what else he's already given for all of us.

Tony 19:35

In the spirit of broadening perspective, let's think about this question. What might your family actually need from you in these moments?

Kristy 19:47

I can tell you that my kids don't need their mom to have her hair just so. And they don't care if their mom looks picture perfect for whatever situation. They don't care if there's dishes in the sink. What they need is a mom who will sit on the couch with them and put her arms around them and bring them in and ask, tell me about your day. I see you, kid. You know, what was what was the best thing that happened to you today? What was the worst thing that happened to you today? Tell me, who did you have lunch with? Tony is so good about mornings. And I am the opposite. You know, we're running late. Gosh, when my kids were little, you know, get your shoes on. Well, I don't know where my shoes are. You know, my sister's looking at me, my sister licked me, like whatever it was. Like, oh, I just really struggled with mornings. And so many times I would lose my cool. I would yell or I would government name one of my kids, you know, first, middle, last. As soon as they got out of the car. Like, I just felt like the worst mother in the world. I'm like, I now have caused that kid to go into a place without me, do hard things all day, to have stress, take tests. And I did not send them off with the overwhelming love of their mother that they deserve. Like Tony never does that. Doesn't matter how annoying we are or what happens, he like he keeps that in check and he always sends all of us off, like in such a positive way. And that has so much value. But all of this to save, when I do lose it like that, I need to repair it. That's what my kids need. They need me to say, hey, this morning when it was so hectic, I was rude. I, you know, I should never have acted like that. And I'm so sorry. And I will try so much harder tomorrow to not do that again. They need our humility, they need our repentance, they need our example in those things. They need our steadiness to the extent that we can give it. And when they do things, when they make mistakes just like we do, they need to know that our love never wavered. Because I guarantee when we do those things, their love for us does not waver. It doesn't. And in a situation where we've raised kids who kind of get it right, if you handle it the right way, consistently, even though you still make mistakes, your kids will come to see it as, gosh, mom's having a hard morning. They take on that filter because they know this is out of character. So they don't usually act like a lunatic. And so they meet it with empathy. What a gift is that? You know what I mean? We see it, right? Our kids are, we all know what a tired, stressed, crying kiddo sounds like. How many of us haven't picked up that kid and been like, oh, honey, like, I know you're hungry. Let's get you a snack. Let's get you cleaned up. You're going to feel so much better. It's that that we need to model for our kids. When it's our own behavior, we need to meet it that way with, you know, the apology and an explanation. And when they mess up, we need to meet it that way with just love and grace and forgiveness. And we need to say the words. It's one thing to kind of let things go, our kids, our kids, whatever, but we need to say it. We need to say, you know what? I bet that's not what you meant to say. I think you're having a hard moment. It seems like you're stressed. Why don't we talk about that? Give them the words, give them the framework. That's what they need. You know, they need a toolkit to navigate the world. I think our mistakes can be the genesis of that for our kids to use with us and beyond.

Tony 23:26

At the end of the day, one of the key words that we have with Unshaken is the word resilience. We have that for a reason, because perfect people don't build strong families. Repairing people do. When you repair things, you're adding to the resilience that you have as a family. Kristy gives me a lot of credit in in the mornings, and I do try to send those that I love off in a good mental place, but I have my bad mornings too. An example that comes to mind for me, and I'm I still feel some kind of way with this, but I woke up on the wrong side of the bed one morning for no good reason. I just snapped at Kristy. There was no good reason for it. Just stomping around and just completely not myself. When I finally was able to get myself under control, I knew it the instant that it happened. God smacked me upside my head and was like, dude, what are you doing? The moment that I was able to to get myself back to where I needed to be, I I sat down, Kristy at the end of our bed, and I put my arms around her and I said, I'm sorry and I just prayed for her that she would have a good day, but I also prayed that God would help me to be a better husband. And I called out exactly what happened that morning. I wanted to to just stay present. I didn't want to hide, I didn't want to like pretend like it didn't happen. I wanted to come back to her in as humble a way as possible, offer a sincere apology, try to be calm in that moment and not disappear in a cycle of shame that wasn't going to do anything. But rather stay present with her to repair what I had done and try to do the best I could to repair what was strained that morning because I wanted to make what I had done right, but I wanted to model what we should do when we're in those moments.

Kristy 25:48

So I'm sorry, honey, you had can I just hop in for a minute? Okay, so you guys, I wanna I wanna be so clear. We did not talk about this. Like I did not know that Tony was gonna talk about that. Tony, look over here. I remember sitting at the end of the bed and I remember your hands and I remember the prayer, but I don't have any memory of the yelling or the whatever it was that happened. I have like I have no memory of that. If that helps you, if it helps your heart and you guys, like just as an example, like whatever the bad stuff is that he's carrying around, I have no, I was the one, I guess, that was wronged, and I don't remember it.

Tony 26:30

I honestly I I don't remember why I was in a bad mood. I just remember that I woke up and I just was not in a good mood. And that that doesn't happen to me often. It was important for me to sit Kristy down, to put my arms around her, and number one, say sorry, but then number two, just pray with her because I also not only wanted to say sorry to her, but I wanted to say sorry to God because this is one of God's children. I wanted to say sorry to God for not treating one of his children the way that he expects me to treat her. When we extend grace and and Kristy is extending grace to me all the time, Grace doesn't make us passive. Grace is also not permission to stay stuck in whatever hamster wheel that we find ourselves in. Grace should give us the fuel to take responsibility for whatever has happened and be able to speak the truth, to make the changes that need to be made. And when we are making those changes, it's about breaking the patterns that are that are there. But the the biggest thing is to continue to show up for those that you love and for those that love you. Grace is not about lowering responsibility, it makes responsibility actionable so that we can actually do something and go forward in a way that there's growth and resilience because of the responsibility that's ultimately taken. Grace is not about lowering standards or lowering the bar, it's about God meeting us in a place where there's mercy so that we can face the truth without running away like Jonah, but rather grace gives us the room so that we can produce productive actions. That's the difference between conviction and condemnation. When we extend that grace, condemnation is broken because we know, okay, this is a moment, this is not a lifetime. And we're able to say, This is not who I am, this is just a bad moment that happened, and here's how I'm going to change going forward.

Kristy 29:11

Grace ends the like the forward momentum of the bad thing. So if I hurt Tony, say something rude or snap or whatever, I tend to be a little snappish sometimes. As soon as it comes out of my mouth, I'm already like regretting it and feeling horrible and whatever. When Tony says, it's okay, Kristy, I get it. You had a rough day, like it's okay. I forgive you. It's, you know, it's like it didn't happen. So all that stream of negativity in me stops right then, right? Or it should, because he I he's the one that got hurt and he has forgiven it. You know, God has forgiven it, Tony has forgiven it. For me, I think what grace then does is free up all that fretting and feeling guilty and ashamed and all of that bandwidth that's tied up with negativity. It frees it up now to fix it. Okay. So, okay, Kristy, he forgave you. He knows you had a bad day, he knows you're stressed. Go fix it. Go improve your attitude, go take a walk, you know, walk off some of the stress or make some cookies or do something that chills you out and just give it some thought. Like, don't put yourself in this situation again. It gives you, I think it frees up the bandwidth for you to make that change in a momentary way, but also in a big picture way. Like, wow, I can really now reflect on this in a healthy way. When I come home cross from work, I need to sort that out in the car. You know, I mean, I need to not walk in the house with that. And if I do, I need to guard it, you know, until I can get free of it on my own, but I need to not spew that acid on my family. Like, grace does free us up. It's not permission to just walk away from it. Oh, good, Tony's not mad anymore. Like, you know, but it does free up that energy, you know, to be productive and and to to uh make amends and to make a better path forward.

Tony 31:13

I think all of this points to your story is not finished. We're not done yet. We've got, you know, so many examples in the Bible of people screwing up one moment and still being used by God in powerful ways. I mean, look at Peter, you know, denies Christ for Peter three times, realizes it, and sees everything that that goes on after the rooster crows, and yet Jesus comes back and says, Peter, do you love me? And Peter answers, You know I love you. Jesus does it three times so that Peter can feel those three mistakes and those three denials being cancelled out in a way. Other examples, David, my gosh, how many times did David fall and screw up and make mistakes? And yet David is called a man after God's own heart. No one here is is perfect. There is one who was perfect, and that was Jesus. That's it. Everyone else, we have our own flaws, and God works through each and every one of us to build homes, to build lives, to build glory for his kingdom. We need to embrace that. We need to embrace the fact that sometimes the progress of our life is not a straight line. Sometimes it's a very crooked line, and that's okay.

Kristy 32:50

I think it's real, you know. I think when think about your person, your spouse, your partner, your girlfriend, whatever, your boyfriend, and think about when you first met that person and how like you guys were on your best behavior and you never wanted to um, you know, you didn't want to appear selfish or um rude or you know, it just we were we're always on that best behavior. We're just careful, right? I'm not saying that there's anything necessarily like inauthentic there, but what it is is incomplete. It's only when we interact in a super authentic, real way, like we're gonna mess up because we're human, we're gonna do dumb things and make mistakes and hurt each other, and then we're gonna fix it. Psychology tells us that we're the hardest on the people that we love the most because we know that we can fix it. You know, if you if you pop off on a stranger, they're not gonna necessarily forgive you. But if you pop off on your person, you know, they're they're going to, they're gonna see you through loving eyes and you're gonna be able to fix that. And I think that in that reality, in that authenticity and that real life stuff, that's where we learn really the truth about each other. Like that's when we know, you know, how a person will respond in adversity or how, you know, how fast does grace come. I just have so much empathy for Peter. It makes me want to cry thinking about Peter because he did love Jesus so much. Like with his whole self, he loved Jesus and he made a really bad mistake. And he didn't just do it once, he did it three times in one like hot minute, like right there all together. And you gotta know that he hated himself for that. Like, I mean, I can't even imagine, but I get it because I am flashed in the pan, hotheaded like that sometimes. And I understand that self-loathing that comes momentarily when you do that. The strength of the bond and the strength of the relationship and the strength of the future together with that person is forged in those moments when you repent, when you apologize, when you make amends, when the other person forgives you and and shows you that grace, like that's when like real stuff is forged. And that's how you go forward in partnership. You know, I'm not saying it's a good thing, um, but I'm saying it's an unavoidable thing, you know, to have these moments where we fall short, especially with the people that that we love the most, that we least want to disappoint. But God uses that and uh, you know, and we can too in those connective, real moments. Like that's when you learn something about your person, and that's always gonna be a good thing.

Tony 35:40

Kristy, I I want you to to close us. But before we close, there's something that I want to say directly to all the dads out there. We are called to be the leaders of our families. Your family does not need a superhero version of you. They need the real you, the one that is submitted to Christ, the one that is willing to repent, the one that is willing to grow, the one that is willing to stay present because shame is gonna whisper in our ears that disappearing would help, getting away would help, avoiding things would help. But grace says stay in the room and keep loving well, stay present, stay in the moment, be able to model what it is to be present because it is so easy, almost too easy to run away. But our families need us for my brothers out there. Don't try to be the superhero, just be the man that God has called you to be.

Kristy 36:58

Alright, friends, as we remember that your worst moment is absolutely not the truest thing about you. Let's pray, Lord, for all of us tonight who carry shame or embarrassment or who have, who continue to struggle with that. Please just bring truth where we can make change, where we need to do better. Please show that to us. Give us conviction and give us the strength to do the work that it takes to go better forward in a better way. And give us the grace to forgive each other when we um when we make mistakes and to just to know that we can trust that forgiveness and grace and love because those are all gifts from you. Guide our steps and guide our, you know, our actions and our words and help protect us, help us to be the best versions of ourselves that we can and help us to uh with every day and and every hour become more like you and behave more in the ways that you would have us behave, and that would make you proud of us. We thank you for every blessing that you give us, and we ask all of these things in your son's beautiful name, and we love you. Amen.

Tony 38:19

Amen. Thank you so much, guys. Hope you guys have a great day and a great rest of your week, and we'll see you next time.

Kristy 38:26

Bye, friends.