Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 03, 2023


Ep 883 ｜ Should Christians Do MLMs？ ｜ Q&A


Episode Stats

Length

32 minutes

Words per Minute

181.4369

Word Count

5,869

Sentence Count

445

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Have I lost friends because of my beliefs? Which cities are on my travel bucket list?
00:00:08.080 What do I think about MLMs? Also a hilarious would you rather? All on today's episode of
00:00:16.020 Relatable, which is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com. Use
00:00:20.820 promo code Allie at checkout. That's goodranchers.com, code Allie.
00:00:30.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. All right, we've got another Q&A for you today. A variety of
00:00:40.380 questions as always, some more serious than others. Thanks so much for submitting these.
00:00:46.460 All right, one of the questions is what are your favorite recipes? So one of my resolutions or goals
00:00:53.080 at the beginning of the year was to be more creative and more intentional, if you will,
00:00:59.280 about what I cook for dinner. I would say since my husband and I got married, it's just been
00:01:04.520 a meat and two sides. So we would do chicken, we would do beef, we would do turkey, arrange it in
00:01:10.240 some very simple way, and then have maybe one starch and one vegetable when we were super healthy. We
00:01:16.540 should probably go back to this. When we first got married, it was always two vegetables. It was
00:01:20.560 always like carrots and then squash and then like ground turkey. Gross. And yet we didn't care.
00:01:28.560 That's what we ate. And so we've basically done something like that for the past seven or so
00:01:36.340 years. But this year I was like, you know what? I want to get a little bit more creative. And so
00:01:41.160 I got a couple cookbooks. I got a defined dish cookbook. This person has a ton of followers
00:01:47.080 because she does a lot of, I don't do Whole30, but Whole30 type recipes, healthier recipes,
00:01:54.480 swaps. Like she has a lot of kid recipes that she swaps clean ingredients for, like chicken nuggets,
00:02:00.060 like grain-free chicken nuggets or something like that. And so I decided that I was going to follow
00:02:04.680 some recipes in her cookbook. Also, I follow Half-Baked Harvest. I follow a lot of different
00:02:10.640 recipe people, a lot of different, I don't know, food influencers on Instagram. And I try to take some
00:02:19.060 of their recipes. And so I do that. I will follow recipes. The problem is for me is that I have
00:02:25.400 untreated attention deficit disorder and have my whole life. So when I read a recipe and they're
00:02:31.660 like, this is so simple, you will be able to do this in 35 minutes. I'm like, okay, well, two hours
00:02:38.820 later, I am still waiting for it to finish. So that is because, I mean, that's because of a lot of
00:02:44.880 things. That's because like, while you're cooking, you never have your undivided attention on what
00:02:49.120 you're actually doing in the kitchen, because you've got your kids asking you a million questions
00:02:53.040 and, you know, pulling your attention in different directions. And plus all the other things that I'm
00:02:57.800 like trying to do on cooking, like answer messages, whatever it is. And so it takes me a long time to
00:03:05.060 follow actual recipes. So I don't do it as much as I was doing it at the beginning of the year because
00:03:11.740 of that, because I'm like, who has time for that? So now I've kind of taken inspiration from like
00:03:16.080 a fine dish, half-baked harvest. And I've, I've decided that there are some recipes that I will
00:03:21.800 just put on rotation and that I will make as easy as possible. So one thing that I do probably once a
00:03:28.480 week is make tacos or you can make quesadillas. It's basically the same thing. Just depends on how
00:03:33.900 you like mush the tortilla down and cut it. But I will take the siete, which is grain-free. It's a grain-free
00:03:40.720 brand tortillas. So whether that's almond flour or kasava flour, is that how you pronounce that?
00:03:48.100 And you put some oil on a pan and you warm, you warm it up, you warm up the tortilla,
00:03:55.720 you put cheese on it. This is what I do. I go ahead and I put cheese on it and then you fill it. You
00:04:00.600 take it off the pan and then you fill it with whatever you want to, whether that's the ground
00:04:04.420 beef that you just browned or whether that's fajita chicken. I get all this stuff from Good Ranchers
00:04:08.560 and I put it in the taco and then I usually make guacamole on my own, which is super,
00:04:15.760 super easy. It takes like two seconds and then maybe some pico de gallo, which I like the pre-mixed
00:04:20.160 kind from Kroger and maybe some more cheese or some sour cream. Some people do nonfat or
00:04:26.880 not nonfat Greek yogurt, plain Greek yogurt is what I was going to say. And whatever else you want on the
00:04:32.320 top. And you can spice the meat to your liking and all that good stuff. Now that legitimately takes
00:04:37.340 about 15 minutes. Browning beef is so easy. So I like to use beef rather than chicken because
00:04:43.040 chicken just takes a little bit longer. But that is one recipe that I always do. Also, I like making
00:04:49.240 pasta with olive oil, goat cheese, usually some kind of like mixture of spices. And then I really like
00:04:56.940 the provincial blend of frozen vegetables from Whole Foods. And after you cook that on the stovetop,
00:05:04.480 which takes like four minutes, you put that in your pasta and then you add some chicken. You can
00:05:08.560 also add some pesto to that. So I'm all about easy. I also really love carbs. I don't always do
00:05:14.860 grain free. Sometimes I do grain free. So sometimes I'll do like chickpea noodles or something like
00:05:20.780 that. Yeah. Tacos, pasta. I like sweet potatoes, regular potatoes. I'll make some mashed potatoes
00:05:30.380 sometimes. Chicken, steak. My husband is the one who makes the steak. I'm not very good at making
00:05:35.580 steak. He's really good at that. So I don't know if that helps you at all. The taco recipe I hope
00:05:40.960 comes in handy because it's so easy. I'm all for ease. I really would like the preparation to take
00:05:46.700 under 45 minutes. Otherwise, I just get so distracted. All right. Next question. What is the strangest
00:05:52.120 pro-choice encounter you've ever had? I've probably had several bizarre ones in my DMs,
00:05:59.820 just people not making good arguments and then getting really emotional when you just logically
00:06:04.900 kind of push back on them or ask them questions, call you an extremist or a fascist, you know,
00:06:09.740 just name call, things like that. And it really comes from a place of insecurity. But maybe the most
00:06:14.760 bizarre was probably when I had Brandon Robertson on this show who considers himself a progressive,
00:06:20.420 pro-LGBTQ, pro-choice pastor and him simply not being able to say that a baby is actually a human,
00:06:31.120 a baby inside the womb before the arbitrary number of 24 weeks, but him being completely unable and
00:06:38.100 unwilling to actually logically and scientifically back up that argument and just seeing the stubbornness
00:06:46.840 and going around in circles. And again, just the flimsiness of that argument. Actually, you know,
00:06:53.240 I don't even know if that's the most bizarre. Maybe the strangest was probably when I was
00:06:57.440 testifying before Congress in 2019 as the only pro-life witness. I was sitting next to an abortionist and
00:07:04.900 these other so-called reproductive rights activists. And I was going back and forth with
00:07:10.440 some Democratic legislators. And I was, I was nervous about this beforehand. I don't get nervous
00:07:16.160 about speaking in front of people, but I'd never spoken in front of Congress before. And you're
00:07:20.020 thinking, okay, yeah, I don't like these Democrats. I don't believe what they believe, but they're going
00:07:24.900 to have more sophisticated arguments. They're going to be difficult to go up against. And it was only
00:07:30.580 difficult because they don't let you talk. It's not difficult because any of these Democrats
00:07:34.080 actually had a sophisticated argument. I actually realized that all of them are on the same level
00:07:40.980 of argumentation when it comes to abortion as your average Twitter troll. Like they're not smarter.
00:07:46.840 They're not more well-spoken. They don't have better logic. They don't have different facts to back
00:07:51.560 themselves up. They don't have a more sound or consistent moral compass. I mean, the same silly
00:07:56.780 things that you hear from randos on Facebook about why abortion is okay, you hear from Democrats in
00:08:03.360 Congress. And so I don't know if that comforts you. It kind of comforted me, at least in the moment,
00:08:08.420 because I was nervous until they started talking. Then I was like, oh, you are actually dumb when it
00:08:14.320 comes to this. And I'm not intimidated by you at all. But it kind of makes you sad. I mean,
00:08:19.120 these are the people that we've elected. These are supposed to be our moral and intellectual
00:08:23.700 betters. And they literally can't come up with a coherent argument for the thing that they say that
00:08:29.760 they must champion at all costs. It's wild. It's really sad. And I would like to have a formidable
00:08:36.620 opponent on this. Like I would like to have an interesting debate, an interesting discussion
00:08:41.180 with someone who will actually challenge the arguments intellectually and philosophically.
00:08:45.860 I have not met that yet. And I guess that's bizarre to me, just the willingness to hold on to a
00:08:52.720 position that is morally and logically untenable. So there's that. Okay, here's a good would you rather.
00:08:58.820 Would you rather have avocados for hands? I don't know if this is cut open or just like
00:09:09.200 avocados as they are. Avocados for hands or trade brains with Joe Biden.
00:09:17.820 Okay, if I, okay, here's the thing. Here's the thing. If I traded brains with Joe Biden,
00:09:22.600 does that mean that I am really president? Does that mean that my brain
00:09:27.900 goes into Joe Biden's brain? And his body remains president, but he is thinking like a based person.
00:09:36.280 Like he actually has good ideas. And he can talk and he is pushing policies that are
00:09:41.300 much better for the country than the ones that he's pushing right now. So if I basically take if I am
00:09:47.840 becoming if by trading brains with Joe Biden, like the country is getting me as president.
00:09:53.920 Okay, that would, it would be really weird. It would really freak me out to be in Joe Biden's body.
00:10:01.300 But it that's a sacrifice I'd be willing to make for the good of the country.
00:10:06.540 Now, I feel really bad for my family that now they have like a 90 year old civil war veteran in their
00:10:15.340 home. I feel bad for my husband, that he is now in one way or another married to Joe Biden.
00:10:24.020 But again, thinking about the future of the world, not that I ever want to be president. I think
00:10:29.760 there, there's about 1 million and one people in America that would be better for the job than me,
00:10:36.220 maybe not a million, less than that, but a significant number. But if it's me or Joe Biden,
00:10:41.700 it's definitely me, that's a better pick. So I don't know, I might want I don't want to have Joe
00:10:46.980 Biden's brain, I would love for Joe Biden to have my brain. So yeah, I definitely don't want avocados
00:10:54.820 for hands though. So there's there's that. Have I lost friends because of my beliefs?
00:11:12.500 So hard to find other conservative millennials. Yes, I agree. That's part of why I named this podcast.
00:11:18.320 What I did not because it's relatable for everyone or even close to a majority of people,
00:11:23.740 but because it's relatable for the people that I want to reach people like me, people who are
00:11:27.760 thinking through issues the way that I am and need to realize that we're not crazy and that we're not
00:11:32.360 alone. I have lost friends and it has not been because and this is typical with conservatives and
00:11:40.040 progressives, not it's not always this way, but it tends to be this way. It's not because of me.
00:11:45.360 It's not because I let go of their relationship or I said something that was rude or I said I can't
00:11:50.420 tolerate you as a friend anymore because we don't believe the same things. It's because they felt
00:11:56.260 that way, whether it was because of Trump or whether it's really the one that I'm thinking of
00:12:01.720 was because of abortion. Someone that was in my wedding who decided to make her her opinions about
00:12:11.420 my opinions or my stance on abortion public for no reason. And when I reached out to this person
00:12:18.260 privately to say, you know, you can talk to me. You can talk to me about these disagreements. I
00:12:23.220 never heard from that person again, ever. And looking back, I now there there were signs like
00:12:30.440 in call like this person was not a very nice or kind person at all. And actually, like our friendship
00:12:37.560 was fraught with with her kind of, I don't know, antics, resentment, not being a good friend.
00:12:47.800 And so I probably should have known better and had better discernment. And so maybe it's in some
00:12:52.060 ways the Lord protecting me, but I won't pretend like that wasn't hurtful. And there I mean, there
00:12:56.540 have been other friends over the years, even people who consider themselves conservative, who decided
00:13:01.100 that they were going to like veer to the left when it came to the George Floyd stuff. And again,
00:13:07.560 it wasn't me that decided, hey, I can't be friends with you. But these people making public
00:13:12.220 disagreements known. And then when I tried to talk to them privately, refusing to do so. So it hasn't
00:13:18.160 been a lot. I'll say that hasn't been a lot, but it's been a couple. It's been a few. And every time it
00:13:22.840 happens, of course, it hurts, especially when you make an effort to kind of humble yourself and talk to
00:13:27.820 that person and to build a bridge and they just refuse, it makes you really wonder, okay, were
00:13:32.760 we ever really friends? And so some of you have been there, not just with friends, but also with
00:13:36.980 family members. And it sucks. Like it's really hard. I mean, it's hard to feel that kind of
00:13:43.080 rejection. Even if like you weren't that close to the person, it's really hard to feel rejection over
00:13:48.180 the things that you believe, especially those of you who maybe you were raised pro-choice or progressive
00:13:52.620 and you've become conservative or you became a Christian and the people who are not Christians in your
00:13:57.340 life, they really reject you. That hurts. But remember that, I mean, we do serve a God who
00:14:03.620 became flesh and was rejected here on earth. And at the end of the day, if we're standing up for the
00:14:09.640 life of babies inside the womb, if we're standing up for the biblical and biological definition of
00:14:15.640 gender and for women's rights based on that biblical and biological definition, like if we are standing up
00:14:21.860 for what God calls marriage, if we are standing up for those things, those are not really
00:14:26.760 political issues. Those are biblical issues. And so what they're mad at is us being Christians,
00:14:32.560 not necessarily our politics, not all the issues. But when it comes to those big ones that tend to be
00:14:38.060 the wedges in our relationship, it's really not because of your politics. It's actually just because
00:14:43.880 of your Christianity. And if that's the case, if what you're standing for is biblically good and true,
00:14:50.560 then we have someone we can relate to in Christ who was rejected here on earth, who faced that kind
00:14:57.400 of betrayal, even from a friend who spent days upon days with him, who saw the most intimate parts of
00:15:03.960 his life, meaning Judas. And so he can sympathize with our weaknesses and with our pain there.
00:15:11.360 If the world hates us, it's because the world hated Jesus first. So just keep that in mind. And I'm not
00:15:18.740 saying all criticism because of your politics is the same as Jesus being rejected. But again,
00:15:22.720 I'm talking about standing for the things that are biblical, which very often we are. Being rejected
00:15:27.960 for that, as much as it hurts, is absolutely worth it. And the people who are rejecting you because of
00:15:33.440 that, it's because they're lost. But I'm also hopeful because I get a lot of people who reach out to me
00:15:40.280 and are like, I did not like your podcast at first. I actually hate listened to your podcast,
00:15:44.820 or a friend shared your podcast, and I begrudgingly listened. And I didn't like anything
00:15:48.780 that you had to say. It rubbed me the wrong way. Or I didn't agree with you on abortion or whatever
00:15:54.600 it is. But these other things happened in my life, or I became a Christian, or things changed,
00:15:59.860 or over time, whatever it is. And they come back and humbly say, you know, I actually think that
00:16:04.940 you're right about this now. And I always appreciate that. So don't think that those people are written
00:16:10.240 off forever, that you're always going to be at odds with them, they may change their heart and
00:16:15.200 mind. God may do that. And maybe a conversation that you had with them at some point may be something
00:16:20.820 that planted a seed. You just never know. Okay, let's see. Thoughts on MLMs and the Christian
00:16:29.580 women who sell their products. So I actually did a whole episode on this, and we'll link it in the
00:16:35.000 description. Because I did it a couple years ago, or a few years ago, maybe in 2020. And here's the
00:16:43.080 thing with MLMs, is that I'm very familiar with MLMs. I do not have necessarily anything against
00:16:51.900 multi-level marketing in general. I think a lot of multi-level marketing is a pyramid scheme. So you're
00:17:01.720 just, I always think of that scene in the office where Jim has to show Michael that the business
00:17:08.580 plan that he has is actually a pyramid scheme by actually drawing a triangle around Michael's lesson.
00:17:16.140 But I think a lot of them are pyramid schemes. And a lot of them just make the people at the top very
00:17:21.820 rich. And they exploit working class and poor people by saying, you're going to gain financial
00:17:29.480 freedom, you're going to get all of this stuff. And really, they can't attain the goals that they
00:17:35.860 say that they'll be able to reach easily. And meanwhile, they're buying the products or doing
00:17:40.600 the things that are just making the people who are already in the business who are at the top of
00:17:44.360 the business richer. I don't think that's every multi-level marketing business, though. And I don't
00:17:50.860 think that all or even the majority of people who are a part of multi-level marketing companies
00:17:55.700 are these conniving, manipulative people. I do know people who engage in multi-level marketing
00:18:01.940 who have been able to make extra income for their family, who have gained some kind of
00:18:06.280 some more stability or financial freedom from selling makeup or selling products, whatever it
00:18:11.700 is, in multi-level marketing companies. So I don't think it's innately sinful. I don't think it's
00:18:16.300 satanic or anything like that. I think the hatred of all MLMs is kind of unreasonable in a lot of ways
00:18:22.300 and really misplaced. I do think that there are wrong and dangerous MLMs that function kind of
00:18:27.840 like a cult and certainly a pyramid scheme. I also think that there is a wrong way to share about your
00:18:34.040 business. And I think that's really what rubs people the wrong way. When someone reaches out to
00:18:38.820 them and the person reaching out pretends to be doing it in a relational way, pretends to be doing
00:18:44.680 it in a caring way, tries to build a relationship and a friendship with that person with the express
00:18:51.100 purpose of trying to get them to buy a product or try to get them to join their business. That is
00:18:58.620 always going to damage that relationship. Now, if it just comes up organically, or I think if you're
00:19:05.220 just outright and you're like, I think you would really enjoy this product, you should check it out.
00:19:09.260 I think that's honest. I think it is actually a lie. It is actually very deceitful. I do think it is
00:19:14.520 simple to pretend to be building a relationship with someone when really the only reason you're
00:19:21.540 doing that is to try to make money off of them. That's wrong. And I do think that happens really
00:19:28.060 with any kind of sales, but certainly with multi-level marketing. There was actually a few
00:19:33.260 years ago. So we were new to the area. We joined a church. There was a young couple who came up to us.
00:19:38.820 They were very outgoing. They were very sweet. We were like, my husband and I, so before we had kids and
00:19:43.500 we were looking for a Christian community, we were like, oh my gosh, this is the Lord. This is like,
00:19:47.040 he's bringing this couple into our lives. It's so sweet. And they were so, they were so nice. They
00:19:51.380 would reach out to us. And then we kind of stopped hearing from them. Actually, I don't remember if it
00:19:56.240 was because we didn't go back to that church, but, or what, what happened? I think maybe we got together
00:20:00.960 with them once, but a couple of weeks later, um, she, she called me the one, the, the girl in the
00:20:08.800 couple called me and she was like, Hey, I just wanted to see how you're doing. Like,
00:20:13.180 how can I be praying for you? Like, oh, this is awesome. This is random. But I'm still like
00:20:17.140 talking to her about my life. And then all of a sudden, like her husband comes on the phone
00:20:22.500 and they start selling me on their multi-level marketing company. And I'm like, oh, I thought
00:20:28.960 that this wasn't, I thought you cared. Like, I thought that you were reaching out to me because
00:20:33.100 you wanted to be friends with me. And the Lord had put you on my, on your heart or put me on your
00:20:37.800 heart or something. But really you're just trying to recruit us into your business. We never talked to them
00:20:42.560 again. Totally rubbed us the wrong way. And I'm someone who like is okay with that kind of hustle
00:20:48.400 and things like that, as long as it's honest, but that was dishonest. That was wrong. That was almost
00:20:53.300 a form of emotional and spiritual manipulation, which I think can exist in some of these MLMs.
00:20:58.540 So that's what I'll say. I don't think multi-level marketing is innately simple. I think that there
00:21:03.580 is a way to do it that can be good for your family, that can be wise, that can be glorifying to the
00:21:08.780 Lord, that can maybe even be helpful in your friendships and building community. I think
00:21:12.440 there's a way to do it that is really selfish and really manipulative and really wrong. Maybe
00:21:18.320 like all things, but I do think that there is more of a temptation, more of a propensity towards that
00:21:25.260 in multi-level marketing. So I'm not saying avoid it at all costs. I'm just saying be careful.
00:21:38.780 But cities are on your bucket travel list. So I studied abroad in Scotland in college. And so I
00:21:52.760 got to travel a lot of Europe then, but crazily enough, I think because I thought I'm close to
00:21:58.120 Ireland, I'll definitely visit it at some point in the five months that I'm over here. And then I never
00:22:03.280 did. So I would love to go to Northern Ireland. I would love to go to Ireland. I would love for my
00:22:07.720 husband and I to do that one day. I know it's beautiful. And even the cities, I would love to
00:22:12.800 go there. So I want to go to Belfast. I want to do like a C.S. Lewis tour in Belfast. I would love
00:22:18.080 to go to Dublin, but I'd also love to just go to the other parts of Ireland that are really beautiful.
00:22:23.240 I'd love to go back to Scotland. I love Edinburgh. Love Edinburgh, Scotland. I would love to go back
00:22:28.740 there, take my husband there, but I'd also love to go back to the Scottish Highlands. I've always
00:22:32.600 wanted to go to Greece. I've never been to Greece. I've always wanted to do that. There are different parts
00:22:37.440 cities of Italy that I would like to go to. I went to several cities in Italy when I was over in
00:22:44.400 Europe, but there are others that I would like to go to. I've never been to, I know you said cities,
00:22:51.120 but now I'm thinking of countries. Australia and New Zealand. My husband's been there. I've never
00:22:56.460 been there. So lots of places I would like to go. I'm sorry, but I really don't have a desire to go to
00:23:00.560 Asia. I just don't. I never have. My husband has been to China. He spent like two weeks in China
00:23:05.480 in college. I'm not sure that he would say he necessarily recommends it, although I know a lot
00:23:10.540 of you have traveled there and you've liked it. That's just not really on my bucket list. So lots
00:23:14.880 of places. There are lots of places in the United States I actually haven't been. I don't think I've
00:23:18.820 ever been to Oregon. So maybe there. Some city there. I'm not Portland. I don't think that I've ever
00:23:27.000 been to Alaska. Have I ever been to the Dakotas? I don't think so. I don't like the cold. So there
00:23:35.440 is a limited time during the year that I would ever go to these places. So yeah, I've actually
00:23:41.260 never been to Chicago either. I'm sure that there are fun parts of Chicago that I would like to go to.
00:23:48.560 Parts that I would also not like to go to. So it seems. So yeah, that's what I would say. I'm
00:23:56.020 definitely like a city gal. As much as I would like to be some kind of rural cow milking,
00:24:03.580 chicken raising, egg plucking, cabbage raising gal, I'm just really not. I'm really a suburb girl.
00:24:10.400 I love the suburbs, but I'm closer to being a city girl than I am like a farm girl. As much as I
00:24:17.500 imagine that I would like to be that, the truth is I will be absolutely useless in an apocalypse.
00:24:22.920 And that's just the truth of it. Okay, a couple more questions. How do I personally deal with
00:24:29.860 anxiety being online so much? So if you look at my Twitter timeline, I am compared to other people
00:24:39.140 in my industry, I am not on Twitter very much. I don't tweet very much. I mean, I would say most
00:24:44.100 people who do what I do, especially in conservative media, tweet, I don't know, 10 to 20 times a day.
00:24:50.040 At least I just can't stomach it. I just can't be on Twitter that much. I get on there when I want to
00:24:57.460 know, okay, what's happening? What are people saying about this particular subject? So I will
00:25:01.660 scroll on Twitter. I'll tweet maybe once a day. Sometimes it's like three times a week. Sometimes
00:25:07.240 I'm just like taking a hiatus. Instagram is in general more lighthearted content, although there's
00:25:14.880 plenty of stuff to make us mad there. I'm not going to say that social media doesn't give me any
00:25:20.120 anxiety. It does. Certainly if I get like certain kinds of messages or comments, I start just like
00:25:24.560 worrying not about backlash, but just about like safety and things like that. And so of course,
00:25:30.100 there's some anxiety that comes with that. But I really do limit the intake of news online. I also
00:25:38.320 follow on Instagram, like a lot of totally non-political, non-news accounts. And I also,
00:25:44.780 when I talk to my friends, so I'm like a voice message fiend. My friends and I, we have a lot of
00:25:51.320 voice messages, a lot of video messages that we send. We're talking about life. Like we're talking
00:25:56.180 about motherhood. We're talking about what's going on in the day to day. We're talking about our
00:26:00.480 spiritual lives, our personal problems. We're not talking about politics. Same thing with my husband
00:26:04.900 to me for the most part. He doesn't have Twitter. He's not on social media. And so I think it's that
00:26:10.720 I have so much normalcy in my life. I've never wanted to live in LA or DC or New York. Like I go
00:26:20.900 to a normal church. I have normal friends. I mean like non-political, non-media. And that's most of what
00:26:27.660 I focus my day on. And so I do have to talk about this and think about this stuff a lot. I mean,
00:26:33.260 preparing for the podcast is a lot. And of course, I have to talk and think about this stuff. But I
00:26:37.460 think I just work really hard to balance it with a lot of normalcy and a lot of just of the mundane
00:26:45.380 and the ordinary and focusing on those. Like my prayers are centered on like what's going on in
00:26:51.380 my friends' lives, in my family's life, in my life. It's typically not always thinking about the
00:26:56.660 state of the world. And so, yeah, but I can definitely be an anxious person. So I have to be careful
00:27:02.560 about it. Yeah, I have to balance it. And then also just trust in the total and complete
00:27:08.800 sovereignty of God and doing the next right thing. That's really all you can do.
00:27:15.960 What type of, okay, maybe one or two more questions. What type of workout is your favorite?
00:27:21.760 High intensity interval training, orange theory type, walking, running strength, etc. Interesting
00:27:28.000 question. I've done all different types. I got in shape when I was in college. And I definitely have
00:27:35.340 not been committed to working out as much over the past four years. I used to be like super
00:27:39.920 in shape and I loved CrossFit. I did orange theory for a little bit. Don't like it. I've never liked it
00:27:46.040 because I don't like running. But that's why I liked CrossFit and CrossFit type workouts because it was
00:27:50.720 such a variety and you are moving. But I really fell in love with bar classes in 2013. And I've been
00:27:58.020 doing that on and off. I did cycling for a little bit. I actually did do running for do running. I
00:28:02.780 actually ran for a little bit. I ran a half marathon in college. But I love bar classes. I'm not saying
00:28:09.600 that it is the superior type of workout. Objectively, I think that you can burn more calories and probably
00:28:15.400 build more strength doing other things. Certainly, I was a lot stronger when I was doing CrossFit.
00:28:20.040 But I love it. And I think it's important to love your workout if you can because you'll just do it
00:28:26.660 more. The best type of workout is the one that you will actually do. So if you will go on a walk,
00:28:32.040 go on a walk. If you will cycle, cycle. If you will wake up early to go to CrossFit or to go to orange
00:28:37.740 theory or to go to a bar class, then that's the one that you should do. And yeah, I don't know if I'll
00:28:45.100 always do it. I do kind of see myself in the future going back to like a CrossFit type thing,
00:28:50.260 maybe when I'm done having kids one day. I don't know. I love the competitive nature
00:28:54.320 of CrossFit. I don't like all of the stuff. Like I'm not going to do all of the Olympic lifts. I'm
00:29:01.720 just not. I am going to modify and I'm not going to feel a bit of shame or embarrassment about that
00:29:07.680 at all because it just doesn't help me in life to know how to do a snatch. I don't want to. I don't
00:29:14.440 want to. I don't want the shoulder mobility that requires. But I really liked the intensity of it
00:29:21.400 and the competitiveness of it. I do kind of miss that. But I love the variety and the fun that comes
00:29:30.220 with bar classes. So yeah, that's what I would say. That's what I would say. I hate rowing,
00:29:35.120 I hate running. So if I can avoid those two things, I'm good. All right. Last question.
00:29:40.880 What is your secular guilty pleasure? I don't have guilty pleasures. I don't think that I'm guilty
00:29:50.860 for any of the things that I enjoy because secular isn't sinful necessarily. The whole earth is the
00:29:59.480 Lord's and everything therein. There are things that are sinful, of course, but that isn't just
00:30:04.080 because something is not explicitly Christian. Does it mean that it's not glorifying the Lord
00:30:08.380 or that it's not the Lord's? I was just reading, as I'm recording this, a secular book called Hannah
00:30:17.240 Coulter. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. I mean, it's as slow as molasses, but it's a sweet book.
00:30:23.320 It's not necessarily about Christianity or necessarily about a Christian testimony,
00:30:27.940 but it is certainly a book with uplifting themes that champions Christian virtues. It even has a
00:30:34.680 couple of Bible verses in there. And so I read a lot of books like that. I read a lot of books that
00:30:38.900 are not explicitly Christian. I would say almost every book that I read, especially that's a fiction
00:30:43.760 book, is not explicitly Christian. And I love reading. I love fictional books. I love Christian
00:30:49.180 books too. I love nonfiction books, but I think fictional books, of course, those that are not
00:30:54.320 smutty and glorifying sin and all of that. I think that they help your creativity. I think that
00:31:00.880 they help you become a better writer, a better thinker. And of course, I love comedy. I love
00:31:06.540 TV. That's not Christian. And of course, there are some things in it that are not glorifying
00:31:13.300 necessarily, like The Office. I mean, they're going to have some off-color jokes. They're going to say
00:31:17.420 some things that aren't necessarily found in the Bible, but are funny. And I do think as adults,
00:31:23.440 we can kind of filter those things out. Same thing with a lot of Curb Your Enthusiasm. My husband and
00:31:28.640 I just love comedy. But you do have to kind of be discerning what you are ingesting in your mind.
00:31:34.860 And I'm all for it. If you say, I don't want anything that is not explicitly Christian, I think
00:31:39.940 that's great. But I do think that there's a lot of joy and just fun to be found in all kinds of
00:31:46.760 forms of entertainment, whether or not it's explicitly Christian. So I don't feel guilty
00:31:50.560 about that. All right. That's all we have time for today. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you
00:31:55.600 soon.
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