The Tim Ahlman Podcast
The Tim Ahlman Podcast is your go-to resource for inspiring conversations that equip leaders to thrive in every vocation, inside and outside the church. With three primary focuses, this podcast dives deep into:
Leadership: Learn from experts across diverse fields as we explore how their insights can shape and sustain a healthy culture in the local church and beyond. Over 60% of listeners expressed a desire for practical discussions on cultivating thriving environments—and that's exactly what these conversations will deliver.
Learn: Engage in deep theological discussions with scholars who illuminate how Christ is revealed on every page of Scripture. Together, we’ll bridge theology to the realities of a post-Christian America, ensuring practical application for today’s world. This segment aligns closely with the themes of the American Reformation Podcast and resonates with the 60% of you who crave more exploration in this area.
Live: Discover healthy habits that empower leaders in all vocations to become holistically healthy. As followers of Jesus, we’re called to lead not only with faith but also with physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
Join Tim Ahlman as we navigate leadership, learning, and living with purpose, so you can lead with strength, wisdom, and a Christ-centered vision.
The Tim Ahlman Podcast
Brain Science, Self-Care, and the Jesus Way
Kim Marxhausen shares invaluable insights on caring for caregivers, drawing from her personal experience with in-laws who had dementia and her professional background in educational psychology. She explores how brain science, emotional intelligence, and faith-based practices create sustainable patterns for those supporting others through illness or aging.
• Understanding primary vs secondary emotions helps caregivers respond appropriately in stressful situations
• The "superhero syndrome" can trap caregivers in feeling solely responsible for outcomes
• Jesus modeled self-care through retreating for prayer, accepting care from others, and even napping
• Morning routines that include spiritual practices create a foundation for resilience
• Research confirms Bible reading four or more times weekly significantly improves mental health
• The framework "feed your faith, find your fellowship" provides practical wisdom for caregiver wellness
• Reorienting your thinking from being the superhero to doing the small tasks before you relieves pressure
• Looking for people who want to help relieves the burden of trying to do everything alone
Find Kim's book "Weary Joy: The Caregiver's Journey"
I'm remembering the story of Jesus on the beach fixing breakfast for the disciples, and that's one of their last times to have seen Jesus. So you might think that Jesus is thinking okay, I'm going to be ascending into heaven and so this is my last chance to give a little bit more training. No, you know, he's not doing another lecture. He's fixing them breakfast and he took them away from their work of fishing. He's fixing them breakfast and he took them away from their work of fishing. And to me and you can tell me if this is heresy, because I don't have your background in scripture, but to me the message is if you're going to do the work, you got to eat, and then you need to eat healthy, you need to do those kinds of things. And I think he's he telling them too, as you go out into these communities, I'm going to have people there who are going to take care of you. Don't feel guilty about sitting down to a big meal, because they're caring for you, aren't they?
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Tim Allman Podcast. I pray. The joy of Jesus is with you today. He has great joy. He has great delight over you, regardless. This is why I love being in a Lutheran tradition. Regardless and before anything you think, do or say any accolades that come your way, he can't be, jesus can't be any more proud of you and in love with you than he is right now, simply by faith, and today, I hope you're excited for a great conversation with Kim Markshausen. She is an adjunct professor, writer, blogger, speaker. She has her PhD in educational psychology and more than 20 years experience caring for in-laws, and we're going to hear a little bit of that story today. Both of her in-laws experienced dementia, and how do we? This conversation is going to be about caring for the caregiver. She's the author of it Only Takes a Spark and Paper, paint and Print. She's been in the educational space for some time. She has contributed many devotions, she's been in portals of prayer and she's currently working on a book Caring for Students with Autism. How are you doing today, though, kim?
Speaker 1:I'm doing well, thank you. I'm excited to be here, yeah.
Speaker 2:I love it, one of my favorite topics, for sure. This is going to be so much fun. I've been looking forward to it. So let's start with joy. Let's hunt the good stuff. How is Jesus currently giving you joy? How does joy fuel your daily walk with Jesus, Kim?
Speaker 1:I think for my husband and I we have a new sense of joy because Paul just retired after 40 years of working for the university and I can see that God is slowing down my schedule. I don't actually have a job. I usually say I'm chronically unemployed because I go from one contract to the other, but I see God slowing things down and the joy for me is how, when we can set aside that kind of earning your living work for a while now, I can find more joy in the other vocations that God gives me, and one of them, of course, being caring for three people right at the moment, three people who are in their 90s. But just the other day my dad called and said I can't find my sewing kit. I you know I can't get this button sewed on my pants, and so I was able to just drop everything and go over there and do that. And what a spot of joy in my day to spend that little bit of time with my dad.
Speaker 2:I love that so much. You know when you're in a season of life like I'm in right now I got three high schoolers and you know the schedules, the events and then kind of helping to lead a church and things. My day is so ridiculously scheduled when I'm in, you know, and it's annoying.
Speaker 2:I've actually I mean it is what it is but I actually, you know you run hard. God made me a certain way. I'm definitely driven and I'm really looking forward right now. Kim, full transparency for a sabbatical I'm taking for 10 weeks this summer Every seven years. Our congregation gives that and I'm actually exploring with our team what does it look like Now? Maybe certain ministry leaders can't always take 10 weeks for this or that, but what would it look like for us to get a wider rhythm of rest for our team? The cool thing about the Valley is kind of everybody rests in June and July Things kind of come to a screeching halt because it's hellaciously hot outside, it's 120 and people just kind of flee, flee the Valley. So there's a little bit of like rest and reset time that takes place in our in our summer. But as I'm coming out of my sabbatical and even looking at my calendar, my calendar would give people maybe PTSD that I've ever been in a season, a season like this.
Speaker 2:For me it's just one day, one moment, one, one conversation at a time. That's the only way I can kind of function. But even even coming out of my sabbatical I'm looking forward to developing a little bit better margin in my days. And this is around kind of boundaries. It's saying we can talk around this or that because I get invited into a lot of conversations around, not just things at our church but in the wider church and getting better, I think, at saying no or just not yet into some of those conversations just so I can be a good husband and father.
Speaker 2:Go ahead, Kim.
Speaker 1:You need to have that white space in your calendar White space. You don't have white space in your calendar right now. But I also think of a great phrase a friend taught me when somebody's asking me to do something, and that's to say my heart says yes, but my calendar says no, it's a nice way of saying that's an important thing, but because it's important, I can't do that for you right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm figuring that out, kim. I'm a work in progress, but nonetheless, the reason I like podcasts is it just is a set aside time to hear stories and then release the people and the stories to the Lord in their respective contexts and to say, oh yeah. As I think back after this conversation, I'm sure your name will come to me as I look at your reading and what you've as I read your books. I just pray for, pray for Kim, and and, and you do the same for me.
Speaker 2:And then I can release that person into the caring love of Christ and community in their respective context.
Speaker 1:Isn't that good to not have to be God for people.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 1:How can we survive without it?
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. So let's get into your story a bit. What led you to write Weary Joy in 2019? And I think, man, I put a timestamp, I'm 2019. Little did we know what we would be walking into, why we'd need that Weary Joy perspective heading into the COVID season. So tell the story about writing Weary Joy.
Speaker 1:Well, the first reason that I wrote it is pretty typical and that is because there's a need. I haven't actually been a caregiver since I was extremely young, but I took up caregiving for my in-laws when I wasn't even 40 yet, so I kept looking for resources and I didn't find them. I think quite often when an individual has a crisis, like they have a diagnosis or an accident or a stroke, our concern is for that person. And when we know they have someone caring for them, we've kind of ticked off a box in our brain and so we just don't go that next step and look at that caregiver too, you know, because we're focused on the person who's receiving care.
Speaker 1:But as I was caring for especially my in-laws, I got the urge to jot down stories and I would write them down. And I didn't analyze them at that time. I just wrote them down because I thought this is something I want to remember. And so, when I was getting my degree in cognition and development and I'm learning more about how we think and I'm learning more about how our emotions impact how we think and the decisions that we make, to look back at that stories and say now I know why my brain said, that's an important story, and so that's why in the book, each chapter doesn't start with a problem. Each chapter starts with a story, it starts with a shared experience, and then we move into an explanation for it, and then we move into God's grace, because we need to hear that all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, I love that. So could we go deeper? Just put a pin in that, because I want to come back to the story. And what is it about the brain? You talk about how we think and then how emotions are connected to, and this is, I mean, joy, is the fuel for a brain that that move, or a body that moves out in connection and community with, with other people. We definitely, we definitely know that. And so what is the interconnection between how we think, emotions and story? Could you draw a through line between those three points of view as it relates to psychology?
Speaker 1:Well, we can't really learn anything without emotions, and that was something that was really blew my mind when I first came to understand it. And the reason is because everything we learn gets encoded in our brain with the emotions that we're feeling at that moment. And so when we go back and read over a story, your brain is setting electrical light to those neural pathways that connect to that story. But the neural pathways move on and connect to emotions you were feeling at that time and connect to other times when you felt that way, and that's a shortcut for our brain to be able to pull up resources for us then to be able to analyze that story or to be able to make a decision. It's all really connected and it's just so beautiful the way God designed it.
Speaker 2:Hmm, it really is. Sometimes I've wondered if, because we're now I come from a Lutheran background, lutheran Lutheran background, lutheran background, lutheran background the story of kind of the stoic German Lutheran and we're more reserved generally and we can even theologically justify, I would say, squelching our emotions because we don't want to become overly emotional, because then somehow that show of emotion, especially as it relates to our faith, is us climbing some kind of emotional ladder to get closer to God and any kind of interconnection there. I got my thoughts. I'd love to hear yours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I mean first of all, if you read the Psalms, you find emotions, for sure.
Speaker 2:All over the place.
Speaker 1:And you find a lot of emotions and you find the really hard emotions too. But what's happening in the brain is, as you start to make a decision or as you're experiencing something, your brain chooses the emotion that it feels is most appropriate and that's coming from deep down in the brain, the amygdala and the hippocampus, and so that first emotion tends to be the right one because it hasn't gone through our prefrontal cortex. We haven't thought about it. But if that emotion is uncomfortable and that's what you're talking about, about repressing those emotions if being afraid or being angry is uncomfortable, our brain picks up a secondary emotion, and that can be a problem. So, as children of God, we need to follow the dictates of the lament psalms and admit to those scary emotions and sit in them and explain them to God and then give that emotion up to God, and that's how we can deal with those really strong emotions. But we need them.
Speaker 2:Well, Dan, you brought up a term that I don't think I've wrestled with Secondary emotions. Secondary emotions and I think I know where you're going there and why only giving into, I would say, or recognizing, identifying, speaking secondary emotions is unhelpful. Could you go deeper on why just leading from secondary emotions is unhelpful?
Speaker 1:That's interesting to me because one of the first times I talked in a public setting about primary and secondary emotions, I was talking about care doing, and when I was done, I found myself surrounded by a ring of pastors which as a commissioned worker does make me a little nervous One at a time, but a whole ring of them and they all said to me we need to hear more about primary and secondary emotions. And that is so true for anybody who does caring, whether you're the pastor or a teacher or DCE. That secondary emotion really messes us up because it's not appropriate. And when we're caring for someone, we need to recognize that that's a secondary emotion and move them back into the primary emotion. So here's an example.
Speaker 1:I'm going to use COVID. I hope I don't get myself in trouble because it might still be too soon, but most of us reacted to COVID with an amount of fear. And that was an appropriate reaction, because a global pandemic is a scary thing. Now we don't want to stay in fear. We want to lament that fear to God and let God be in control. But I saw too many people who turn that fear into anger. And then is their response appropriate, because what you do in anger is not the kind of stuff that's going to help you make wise decisions in what is a fearful situation where God is in control. But we see that I saw it as a teacher all the time too a parent really angry about something they heard about in class when in reality they were afraid, and so if I could let their anger spin out and then I could speak to their fear, we could make a difference in the situation.
Speaker 2:Hey, I'm trying to pull a book up right now. I read so many books and get recommended so many books. There's four, and I'll use your language four primary emotions and that a lot of other emotions gather around these four poles. Two of them are positive, two of them are negative and they work against or with one another or counter to one another. So it's fear. The opposite of fear is love, kind of an opening response. Fear is a kind of closing in on ourselves response. Shame, anger can often be connected to fear. And then the other kind of negative emotion is pride, kind of the puffing up, look at me. And the opposite of pride is obviously humility. Have you heard those kind of four and a lot of our other emotions are going to somehow orient around those, those four primary emotions. Have you done any work there, kim?
Speaker 1:Well, we in psychology we typically talk about the primary emotions and then the more nuanced emotions, and so if I'm talking to teachers, for instance, about teaching children self-regulation, in the process we need to bring them out of the really big emotions and help them to learn a more nuanced. So if you're angry, maybe what you really feel is frustrated, but I like what you're talking about because you're setting up some opposites and so it feels like you might be able to go from anger into love with the right kind of care, or fear into openness with the right kind of care, and I think that's important to pay attention to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's. There's so much that we can talk about. The last question, and then we'll get into a little bit more of the nuances of your book is what's fascinating to you about the brain? It sounds like you've done some brain. You know the prefrontal cortex. I mean our goal is to move from the amygdala fight, flight, freeze, fawn those are four F words that then lead us toward connection and joy, kind of fuels, toward kind of curiosity. Prefrontal cortex, curiosity, connection, et cetera, Anything more. That's kind of blowing your mind, if you will, regarding brain science today, Kim.
Speaker 1:Well, I taught a class on positive psychology and so I'm guessing that some of the books you've read are in that topic area and that's a whole new aspect of psychology. That's really fascinating. But when you keep talking about joy and we can connect that with gratitude and one of the benefits of that is that it really opens up our thinking so that we are paying attention to more things and there's more possibilities, and so that would be in contrast to what we do in fight or flight, when we narrow some things down to focus on a particular thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's really good there is so much there.
Speaker 2:There is so much, and the only way this is a little bit of family systems theory as well the only way I can get to the prefrontal cortex, because life is scary, there are threats, right, and I could go to, I may. I need to recognize in high stress situations am I? Do I fight, do I freeze, do I flee, do I fawn and kind of? That's a new one for me. I kind of acquiesce, I lose my individuality and I'll just allow this is this is the abused lover kind of paradigm, right, and I'm just going to kind of stay in that. I'm not going to draw the boundary, I'm going to just find whatever, but I'm shut down emotionally. So what is my kind of primary go-to when I'm facing adversity, struggle, the difficult conversation, et cetera. We need to know ourselves better there.
Speaker 2:But what gets us to our prefrontal cortex? Our two primary emotions in my experience is joy, which is curiosity. What's out there, even in and through the difficult conversation that I'm having, the threat that comes outside of me man, I know God because your track record is perfect I know on the other side of this is going to be learning and hope and growth. The other primary emotion is what Jesus brings in the locked upper room. Right? I like to think of my heart. It's locked up in sin, closed in on myself, and Jesus enters into the locked upper room of my heart and he says peace, be with you, peace, be with you. It's going to be okay, right? Anything more about peace?
Speaker 1:Well, I like how you're talking about the prefrontal cortex, because if those emotions go too quickly to the prefrontal cortex, that's when we start to make mistakes. But if, on those big emotions, those fight, flight or freeze emotions, if we stop and go to gratitude to God, that's going to move us more into joy because we look at what has God done for us already and that's what the Psalms teach us over and over again. So now, if I've moved myself into gratitude and joy, now I can go to the prefrontal cortex and I've got God along with me, helping me to hopefully make better decisions.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen, all right. So the second part of this conversation so pumped for this is self-care. Every caregiver needs a caregiver. Say more about why this is so and I guess, being a pastor, I am grateful. This is not a perfect community by any stretch. You know, we got, we got areas of growth and um, but one area that my faith community is really, really striving in, I would say thriving in, is this sense of mutual care. Uh, that that I am, while I am the senior pastor, we don't even use that. I'm one of the pastors here.
Speaker 2:I'm not, I'm not set up like as the Bible and you know, and some people can say it's kind of lonely at the at the top.
Speaker 2:That's not something, that's not even anything that's kind of in our world. While there is order and structure, relationally there's a, there's a flatness, I guess, to the community I find myself in. That gives me a lot of well, I can have wild days and there can be a lot of other things going on in my day, but I realize Christ and the community are taking care of that and so I can just kind of be where I am and that's a huge. So I'm speaking as a caregiver who feels cared for Kim. I guess that's how I'm landing that and I just want that so much for everyone else. And if anyone else has heard me over the years talk about leadership development, it really there's a selfish component because there's a shared nature for the ministry. It's not just me, it's Christ, and then it's us carrying out the ministry. So say more about why it's so necessary for leaders like me to have those that are caring for me.
Speaker 1:It's so important because of the position that you're in. But that's even analogous to somebody who's caring for a parent, or a spouse too, because you're taking on a new leadership role. When I started taking care of my parents, now suddenly I'm parenting my parents, so that's a new leadership role. When I started taking care of my parents, now suddenly I'm parenting my parents, so that's a new leadership role. And so I can't just look at what are the things that they need me to do. I need to think about how do I make sure I'm in a position where I can do that. When I talk to caregivers, I talk about the two things that you can do to benefit your caregiving, and one of them is feed your faith, and the other one is find your fellowship. And so I'll talk, especially if you're you know you think that dementia may be in your future, for you or for a spouse, or something. You want to feed your faith, because those neural pathways need to be strong, those Bible verses, the creed, the Lord's prayer, that needs to be strong, and it tends to stay with someone way past their being able to understand other things. And so that shared faith is important, but it's important for you too, so that when you panic your brain doesn't go to what can I do about it. Your brain goes to what has God already done about it. But the one that we don't think of so much is that find your fellowship one, find your group of people. Now I'm involved in a small group at my church. I absolutely love small groups. I could do 50 minutes for you on psychologically why that's important. But you don't need it because you're doing that in your congregation too. But in that small group we're not just developing the secular understanding of fellowship.
Speaker 1:My mind always goes to one of the five Greek words that I know. My mind always goes to koinonia, that really intimate kind of relationship. And that's the relationship. Okay, in the Bible I think of Moses and his father-in-law. There's Jethro coming to visit and the first thing Jethro does is he listens when Moses tells him about everything God did, and then Jethro watches Moses go through a day and then Jethro has that kind of intimate relationship with Moses where he can say this is not good, and that's his response this is not good what you have set up here. It's going to wear you out, it's not going to work.
Speaker 1:And isn't that what a caregiver needs. First and foremost. When I've talked to really successful pastors like you who are balancing so many different things, almost always they say there's someone out there who is a caregiver for me, or there's something like a congregation saying, yes, you need a sabbatical, you need this because you've got to be cared for. And I love the way you do ministry at your church, the flattening out of the hierarchy too, because you're not only equipping your members to do ministry, you're making it possible for you to be the leader and to have the vision and to move things forward, because you're not in charge of every little thing. Yeah and this whole speaking applies, I think, to caregiving that I have to let go of some things and let other people do it for me so that I can be there for the person that needs my care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, there's so much there. Some people are better at things than I'm like I have not been. I'm not God, I can't be all things for all people. And there are people just speaking about caregiving, because I've done hundreds of funerals, I've sat with people in their later moments and I'm good. I'm good in those. I can say I'm good.
Speaker 2:But there are people in our community who are great at it and for a variety of reasons, they maybe have a little bit more time and I just feel so and they've been trained. You know there's more. They probably had more training than than I've even had in those Steven ministry et cetera, and and and so like my conscience is 100% clean. I like I'm at peace with the fact that we've got a spiritual care team, pastor Michael Hyden. He's our associate pastor here, partner pastor and and he's he's better at it than I am and he's training up a team we got like 20, this is so, so cool. There's like 25 people on our spiritual care team who are getting ongoing training, who are connecting with all of our homebound and those that are in the hospital. If you're in the hospital, it's like day like that team is gonna be, kind of overwhelming maybe.
Speaker 2:So there's like an army of people who are there and then if you're long-term needing long-term care, there's so there's like an army of people who are there and then if you're long term needing long term care, there's someone from our community that's reaching out within a personal connection phone call every single week for that brother or sister in Christ and there's no possible way I could do like that's a full time job like just doing that Right.
Speaker 1:So it would be a full time job for two pastors Exactly Large church like yours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would be a full-time job for two pastors at a large church like yours, yeah, so I feel so good that there are people who are just better at that part of the ministry. You think of the early church, right as they started to put together the structure and that was early on the call of the deacons waiting on tables taking care of widows and those that are sick. Right, they were raising up deacons. The apostles were doing that so that they could focus on time in the world. It didn't mean that, well, I don't have time for you, right, I can't sit with you, I can't be, no, no, no, no, no, it's just, it would be better if we raised up other servants and the wider role of deacon was all the other things that are necessary as the faith community starts to take shape. The systems, the structure, the homebound care, all of the inter, like the apostles that appeared by the Spirit's power, obviously were very wise at raising up other leaders.
Speaker 2:Anything more to say? And there may be pastors that are listening to this and they're like, oh, my goodness, that takes a lot of work. Well, I'll give you the one, the 30. If you can train someone up there's a lot of research into this it's a one to 30 minute rule. If you can train up someone, spend 30 minutes with them to take one minute away from you and you can move that out with math. That exponentially frees you up over over time.
Speaker 2:Uh, but a lot of I think a lot of leaders just struggle with that means I'm going to have to spend time. No, no, no. You're creating time for you to do the things that you've been put on planet earth to do into the future. If you just invest in in those who are in your church and I'll land the plane with this, Kim, I think in all of our churches there are women and men who are saying I'd like to help. I don't know exactly how I could help, but I'd like to help. Anything more to say about pastors and other leaders equipping the saints based on their gifting, Because that's where we're kind of orienting right now.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to look at this idea of what kind of mindset you have when you're a leader, because I spoke with teachers especially quite a bit about this post-COVID and leaders are on the forefront. So anytime there's a change or a crisis, you're in there thinking first what needs to be done and teachers felt that then during COVID too. But what happens in our brain and this is a gift that God built into our brain I'm thinking first what needs to be done, and teachers felt that. Then during COVID too. But what happens to in our brain and this is a gift that God built into our brain we go into what I call superhero syndrome and the brain changes enough to be able to pull up into your memory all the other times when you've been through something difficult and who are the people that have helped you and what are the emotions that were helpful in those situations. It all comes forward Now. The benefit of that is that it gives you confidence to just do what you need to do.
Speaker 1:The disadvantage of it? Because any gift God gives us, we find a way to turn into a sin, don't we? The disadvantage is we stay stuck in that mode and we think, yeah, I got this, this is about me, or this can't be done unless I do it. But in reality, when we look at our vocations, whether it's me thinking about caring for others or you thinking about your primary vocation as a pastor, we're not doing it.
Speaker 1:The solution comes from God. We just do the work he sets before us, and he can choose to set that work in front of someone in your congregation just as much as he sets it in front of you. And so if God can make that happen through you, god can make it happen through someone in your congregation too, and that person just needs your support most of the time. To know that the pastor said I can move into this area and here's the training the church is providing for me. I really think we need to think about that more. I mean because we just we can't be a one man show or a two man show in our congregations.
Speaker 2:Well, if there was ever anyone who had the right to do the superhero thing, it was Jesus. And Jesus didn't even do the superhero thing. I mean, obviously, he was a superhero that perfectly fulfilled the law, died our death on the cross, bodily rose again. But in the midst of Jesus' ministry, he invites 12, and there's more than 12. There are women, and then there's the 70. There's plenty of others to walk with him and see how he did it, watch his rhythms of rest, to work, to experience Jesus sending out the 12, sending out the 70, jesus even giving the disciples. I'm thinking of two different stories. You go, heal him. Well, we can't heal him in Jesus. Oh, you have little faith.
Speaker 1:Or feeding the five you give them something to eat, like.
Speaker 2:Jesus actually invited people into ministry life with him, and I think oftentimes we that we'd separate the humanity of Jesus from the divinity of Jesus, and I guess that's helpful. But the divine man is is giving us a model and example for how to do life dependent upon the will of father, and then arms open wide to experience the highs and the lows, the joys and the sorrows of intimate life with others, all for the sake of multiplying them after his ascension by the Spirit's power to do the exact same thing. I have to believe that in the early church, beyond the epistles, etc. They're going back to oh, look at Jesus. He gave us permission to do this, but he also gave us permission to develop other people based on their gifting to do it. That is the Jesus way.
Speaker 2:And to land this plane, I think for too long, I think in the LCMS, I think we've become imbalanced, and it's in unhealthy ways, toward the office of holy ministry, and I don't just say that because I think other people should be preaching or teaching or administering the sacrament. It's not even about that, and so that could be our primary focus and then all of the other things that the body of Christ needs to be healthy and to be mobilized for mission would be lived out. Anything more to say about the self-care of Jesus that led him to mobilize his disciples for mission there?
Speaker 1:Kim of Jesus that led him to mobilize his disciples for mission there. Kim Well, one of my favorite questions that you sent to me was about Jesus and his rhythm of self-care.
Speaker 1:It's my favorite question because it made me go. Oh, I've never thought of that before, but you know, I'm thinking in particular of three stories, and this one, the first one goes along with what you said about equipping people, and this one the first one goes along with what you said about equipping people. But I'm remembering the story of Jesus on the beach fixing breakfast for the disciples, and that's one of their last times to have seen Jesus. So you might think that Jesus is thinking okay, I'm going to be ascending into heaven and so this is my last chance to give a little bit more training. No, you know, he's not doing another lecture, he's fixing them breakfast and he took them away from their work of fishing.
Speaker 1:And to me and you can tell me if this is heresy, because I don't have your background in scripture, but to me the message is if you're going to do the work you got to eat is if you're going to do the work, you got to eat and you need to eat healthy, you need to do those kinds of things. And I think he's telling them too as you go out into these communities, I'm going to have people there who are going to take care of you. Don't feel guilty about sitting down to a big meal, because they're caring for you, aren't they? And then I, you know, I Can we pause on that, kim? I want your two more stories. Because they're caring for you, aren't they? And then I, you know, I also think. Can we pause on that, kim?
Speaker 2:I want your two more stories. I love this this is so fascinating. That is the story of Jesus' restoration of Peter after Peter's denied him three times. You know, it's the Lord, it's the Lord. They jump in, jesus is waiting for them and it says they didn't say anything, they knew it was the Lord. There was like this kind of I think Jesus is just kind of smiling. They're like is it you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's you, you know, but he didn't have to Before it's even stopped.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, he didn't have to say much of anything and he was just taking care of their first article needs God as creator, providing sustenance from his creation. That has to be that breakfast. I would love to be just one who gets to look. I want to talk to Peter. What was that whole experience like, hanging out with a risen Jesus? And then final thing is it relates to mobilizing for mission. Right, jesus says feed my sheep, feed my sheep, do you love me? Do you love me? Peter says you know I love. He doesn't just say yeah, I love you, you love me. No, no, no. He gives them this higher call, this higher vision that would be ratified at Pentecost as the Holy Spirit descended. So, so good, love that story, so much it's.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm thinking about Jesus giving himself respite care, because respite care is a big thing we talk about in caregiving and it's so discouraging to me how hard it can be to get caregivers to accept someone else coming in and taking care of their loved ones so they can have that rest, they can have that respite. So how does Jesus do respite care? Well, he's a caregiver for everybody, so his only way of doing that is to go off alone to pray, to pull himself away from all those needs. If you can imagine Jesus walking on the earth and every person he looks at, he knows the need, the deep need of that person. He has to get away and that's so very important that we get away. Just like it's important for you to get away in a sabbatical, it's important for us to get away from that work, to have rest and to refocus our minds on Jesus so that when we come back into that work, we're doing it for Jesus and not for anything else. So I think that's a good one too.
Speaker 2:I love that. And they end up. They keep pursuing him like the.
Speaker 1:Christians.
Speaker 2:There's so many times in the gospels where, where did you go, jesus? Where'd you go? And she's like you can kind of sit. I went to spend time with the father. I'd invite you to go do the same. And then I think of his last time of prayer, the night he was betrayed. You know he just wants to spend time with the father and he also wants to spend time in prayer with his followers. Could you not watch and pray? You know you're willing, but the flesh is weak, right, and he recognizes their humanity and ultimately surrenders himself to the will of the father and to the presence of the father, who would be with him through death to life. But I love that he had to want to get away. Jesus constantly was getting away.
Speaker 1:So, kim, last story, that really helps us as we think of self-care. And this Bible story is my favorite as a former kindergarten teacher that Jesus napping in the boat when the storm comes in. But if we look at it from the viewpoint of a caregiver, jesus gets into the boat. He's exhausted, but he knows what's coming. And if he's thinking, well, they can't get along without me, he would say to himself I'm not going to sleep, I better stay awake. So when the disciples are afraid, I can comfort them. Yada, yada, yada. But he doesn't. He says I'm going to sleep, my father is in charge, I'm going to sleep. And when the disciples wake him up, they're in a state of terror. See what they, what they were able to experience, to go from terror to complete faith and trust that Jesus could stop that storm. But Jesus didn't push off sleep, he knew that that rest was important too.
Speaker 2:I love that, don't you care? We're embarrassing. They say that to Jesus, don't you care? Or I think of Mary and Martha, don't you care?
Speaker 1:It's like where is you heard my brother was sick and you didn't come. Yeah, didn't come.
Speaker 2:Right, don't you care? Yeah, he obviously cares and he wants us to care for us as he, as Jesus in his flesh cared for, cared for himself to set those rhythms of rest. Self-care is not, is not selfish. Um, talk about this an awful lot. Let's go into how you start your day on the morning, own the day.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of us just get up into our days, especially if you're like me and your days are going to be really full. I don't think we go to bed early enough, nor do I think we're waking up early enough to set our day right, and for me it looks like I'm not going to go through the whole thing because it's kind of quite comprehensive. I'm slightly neurotic in terms of my mornings, kim, but I'm very, very disciplined in terms of water and stretching and some of my supplements that I take to kind of start the day, and I do intermittent fasting, so I don't eat, especially when I'm working between. I only eat between noon and six. So the digestion system brain being your brain, the second brain is obviously your gut, and so just making sure everything's kind of working well as we start our morning. So anything more to say about how we set good rhythms, habits, to shape our mornings, kim.
Speaker 1:I think the key word there is rhythms to do that, because I'm a dedicated night owl, like my father was. My father taught at Concordia in Nebraska and he agreed to be head of the math and science department because he could set his own schedule and not have to come in until chapel time. So that's how dedicated we are to being a night owl. But I married a dedicated morning larch and so that's part of our transition right now is that it used to be he was up really early and then he would leave for work and I could have my slow beginning, and now I find myself changing and getting up earlier.
Speaker 1:I'm hopefully not out of guilt, but I also have to have certain things that I do before I ask myself to do a thinking thing do before I ask myself to do a thinking thing because I am out of a rhythm for where my body wants to be. And so I go through those things yes, my exercises, the water drinking that I need to do, taking my vitamins, fixing my caffeine for the day, but then I like before I start any work. But then I like before I start any work, my first thing needs to be my Bible reading and my prayer time, it just centers me for the day, and my favorite is the Today's Light Bible. I've done a lot of different Bible reading programs, but this is one from CPH from a long time ago and I'm on my fifth time through. It's a three year journey through the Bible, but each section that you read starts with that opening thought and ends with a short devotion, and I just love that.
Speaker 2:That's so good. There's a lot of research right now, kim I don't know if you know this around Bible reading and wellness, that I think if it's four or more times a week, you're in the word. Your mental health is exponentially increased. So why would we be surprised I mean, we shouldn't be surprised that when the word of God works in us it changes absolutely everything heart, body, mind, spirit. We're more alive. We get to our prefrontal cortex through our dysfunctional emotions. Why? Because we realize I love your faith and fellowship. We realize we're held by the God of the universe who will never leave us nor forsake us. So, no matter what the challenges come in this day, I trust his promises. Like I want to orient the start of my day, obviously throughout the day, but when I start the day orienting on God's promises, man, it's so, so much better. Any more observations around being in the word and its benefits, Kim?
Speaker 1:Well, it's interesting that you mentioned research on that, because there is really a whole branch of psychology that studies people of faith. It's huge, and even doing my dissertation at a public university, nobody blinked an eye when I brought that aspect into my dissertation too. It's very strong. It comes up again and again and again, and I think what we were talking about before, about the idea of joy and how joy opens up your mind I think that's one of the key things. I can read scripture, and I might be reading a really down and dirty story from the Old Testament, but I know the end of the story and so it always brings me to joy. So why wouldn't that make you healthier? It's going to make you think of healthier things to do. It's going to make you feel better. It's going to counteract depressive thoughts. All of those things come together like that and it's just, it's a joy for me to read about that and say, huh, I like that. The secular world has discovered something God put in place a long time ago. Yeah, amen, yeah.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. Well, this is. We're just about at time. This time has flown by so fast. This has been one of my most fun podcasts, and not that every podcast isn't fun, but this I don't know. I've just been juiced getting to talk to you, kim. You're a gift to the body of Christ. Final word for those who may be in your season I got a number of friends right now who are caring for my pastor friend is caring for his father-in-law as he moves into hospice care right now.
Speaker 2:So praying for the Sutherland family. What word of care and hope perseverance, would you offer to those that are caring for aging parents or in-laws, Kim?
Speaker 1:You know, for me it would be what I try to do every day, which is to reorient my brain Instead of thinking I'm becoming this person's superhero and I need to do everything. I need to rewrite that and remember that the big things are being taken care of by God and I need to do the little things in front of me. And just a quick story. I was trying to get a loved one onto Medicaid and it was a five-month process, which was one frustrating thing after the other, and then I finally had a case worker call me and say we're starting all over again, and I said I cannot even. I can't even, I'm going to have to call you next week.
Speaker 1:By Monday, I had five letters in the mail telling me that someone at the Department of Health and Human Services had enrolled this person in Medicaid. So, in spite of all of my frustration and my feeling like this is to me, god already took care of it. And the second thing I would say is look for those people. Look for those people who can help you, especially if you are a church worker and you're, you know, a teacher used to being on their own in the classroom, a pastor oh my goodness, this is all on me. Look for people who can help you. The people in your community want to help you so good.
Speaker 2:Well, this has been awesome, Kim. Listener, pick up Weary Joy. It's an excellent, excellent read. Thank you for that work. And if people want to follow you and your upcoming work, Kim, how can they do so?
Speaker 1:Well, my website is kimmarkselsonnet, so that's the easiest way to get a hold of me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so good, so good. This is the Tim Allman Podcast. Sharon is caring. Please go to YouTube if you haven't subscribed there. That really really helps get the algorithm up so that more people find these hope-filled, joy-filled podcasts like this. Kim, you're a gift to me, our families, we go back a ways, so thanks for staying connected and looking forward to the next time.
Speaker 2:There's so many other things we're going to have to have you back on. There's so many other things regarding positive psychology that we could have gone into, but that will be for another day. Another time and I'm so grateful for you. Please, please, share this with someone who needs hope and joy. It is the fuel for a relationship with the God of the universe and relationship with others created in his image. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day. Thanks so much, kim.
Speaker 1:Thank you.