Episode #276: Spacious Places & Small Steps: Catch-Up Convo 2024

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Grit ‘n’ Grace — The Podcast

Episode #276: Spacious Places & Small Steps: 2024 Catch-Up Convo

Cheri Gregory

Hey friend, it’s Cheri Gregory.

And you’re listening to Grit ‘n’ Grace — THE PODCAST that equips you to LOSE who you’re NOT, LOVE who you ARE, live your ONE life well.

Unlike the previous 6 episodes, this one was NOT recorded 14 months ago, and it did not sit on my hard drive gathering dust!

It’s one that Amy and I recorded very recently as a bookend to Episode #270.

That one was our “Catch-Up Convo” for 2023 … and today’s episode is our “Catch-Up Convo” for 2024.

Enjoy!

Cheri Gregory
Well, Amy, here we are again. Amy Carroll, you are a hard habit to break.

Amy Carroll
Oh, glad. I think that’s a good thing, right?

Cheri Gregory
And now all of us who remember Chicago 17 have that song playing in our heads. (You’re welcome!)

And we are here because 14 months ago, we recorded a “Catch-Up Convo” — and that Convo sat on my hard drive and SAT and SAT and SAT. And I’ll be sharing a little bit about what I have recently come to understand about all of that sitting.

But since some of the information that we shared in that Convo, and it was a great Convo, like, I didn’t want to say, Oh, this is so old, I’m just going to delete it, because I just couldn’t bear to. But we thought it would be nice to kind of do a second Catch-Up Convo. That was the 2023 Catch-Up Convo. So this one is being dubbed the 2024 Catch-Up Convo. And part of what we’ll be doing is, well, I’m going to be interrogating you at least about some things that you shared 14 months ago, and just see where you’re at now and how those things are doing. Does that sound okay?

Amy Carroll
It sounds fabulous. I’m really excited to get a chance at redemption. Cheri, you assure me (I haven’t listened) that I didn’t come across as a total “sad sack” in 2023 but, you know.

And I’m glad, because our listeners … nobody needs that.

However, I felt like a total sad sack. I was in a place of true desolation — they talk about consolation and desolation. And I was in a period of maybe extreme, at least for me, yeah, extreme desolation. And wow, and I’m not anymore, and I’m so glad to be able to share that!

Cheri Gregory
Well, I am glad. I am truly glad … and (not but) I do remember how grateful I felt for your candor during that time and the hope that you offered in that episode.

So anybody listening right now: if you haven’t heard our 2023 Catch-Up Convo, please do listen to it. Amy shared just such beautiful gems in that.

And so one of the first things that I do want to ask you is, in that Convo, you said, “I’m starting a whole new venture that I’m not going to talk a lot about yet, because I don’t have a lot to say, but it’s something I know nothing like zero about. And then you said, on my good days, it excites me, and on my bad days, it really sucks.”

So it’s been a full 14 months, and we now want the scoop! Like what was and is that new venture that you knew nothing about 14 months ago … but I’m guessing you know at least a little bit about it now.

Amy Carroll
I know a lot about it now! I still have a lot to learn, but I know a lot. Cheri can see me, so she knows that I have a different backdrop behind me.

14 months ago, Barry and I — but predominantly I am leading this adventure because he said, “Amy, I already have a full-time job. This is all you.” We are on a real estate investing venture.

And just to be clear, in case anybody’s really impressed by that, my first question to my real estate coach was, “How does one do that with no money?”

Cheri Gregory
I love that!

Amy Carroll
And I’ll tell you how one does it with no money. What we have done is we have moved out of the house. It was our family home for 20 years. We raised our kids in it, wow. And I have set it up as a midterm rental — meaning 30 days plus — and we have moved into another house in Holly Springs. It’s a smaller house. We moved in between Thanksgiving and Christmas with no furniture because we left everything at the other house.

Cheri Gregory
Well, that must have been a joy.

Amy Carroll
Oh, it was terrible. It was completely horrible. I promised Barry Carol, I will never choose that timing again, but it was the right thing at the right time. It’s just … it was super. Hard and so and we are going to rinse and repeat, I don’t know, sometime within the next year is that we will then rent this house and move to another house and start over again. And so it’s been really, really hard, but really good. And in the meantime, I meet someone while I was traveling, who, at the end of the trip, she says, “I would like you to come to work for me.” I was like, “Oh, well, that sounds fun.” So I’m doing that now. And so I am working for a company, and I am now kind of officially in charge of this, managing 12 Air BnBs in Chapel Hill and Durham.

Cheri Gregory
Oh, my word!

Amy Carroll
So the learning curve has been super steep. I would say that I still — like last night. I was ridden with anxiety again — but mostly I’m easing into it … doing better and not so anxious, and learning a lot and really enjoying it.

Cheri Gregory
Yeah, no kidding. Except I remember this feels like the Welcome Wagon on major steroids, like I remember you used to do the Welcome Wagon.

Amy Carroll
Yes, it does feel like that. In fact, I said to somebody, “Oh, I’ve never done a public like a customer service job.” And they said, “Didn’t you do the Welcome Wagon?” I did. I did do that. And it is customer service on steroids. And I mean Barry’s … we laugh and cry at the stories, because I see the the whole wide range of humanity responding to Air BnB guests,

Cheri Gregory
And that’s all you’re going to say about that!

Amy Carroll
Indeed.

Cheri Gregory
What are you enjoying most about what you’re doing now?

Amy Carroll
Well, I’m getting to decorate another house, which totally delights me. And so I’m having a great time doing that a little bit at a time, mostly from Facebook Marketplace and thrift stores, you know — we’re doing this all on a budget. But that is actually something that delights me. Like a deal on something beautiful is so much better than just something beautiful to me. So I love that part of it. You know, you and I both, and I’m imagining our listeners too, because of if they like us, they’re probably wired like us. They’re our friends. Is that I’m a lifelong learner, and so learning something new actually has energized me so much.

And you know, Cheri, I’m not writing, and I’m delighted by that fact!

Cheri Gregory
You’re not writing and you’re not ashamed.

Amy Carroll
I don’t miss it one little bit. I’m still speaking, and I still love that. But everything else has kind of gone away and I don’t miss it. I miss my friends in it.

Cheri Gregory
Of course, of course. And that’s 100% okay. There is zero grief coming from me over that. The ability for you to use your love of the quirky in your decorating — like I feel like this does pull from so many aspects that I have known about you over the years, and brings them all together. That’s so cool.

Amy Carroll
It’s been great. The hardest thing has been for me is if you had asked me two years ago, “Do you believe that everyone who follows Jesus is in ministry?” I would have said, “Yes, absolutely.”

But then I stepped away from official and “ministry” or vocational ministry, and oh, my goodness, I realized how deeply in me, that my writing and speaking was part of my identity that I felt pleased God. And what does that look like without it?

I have really had to wrestle with, “Wow, did I quit on God? Am I disappointing him?” And you know, the end, I’ve wrestled and I’m at peace with the answer: “Not one bit. He is not disappointed with me. He is delighted with me.”

And, of course, like every Jesus-follower, I am still doing ministry, it just looks differently now.

Cheri Gregory
Yes, absolutely. Oh, I love that. That’s so helpful. This morning, the small group I work with on Friday mornings, we were immersing ourselves in Psalm 41 and there was a line that you’re reminding me of. It says, “I know that you are pleased with me. And I just thought, what a beautiful thing to know, to have that assurance that God is pleased with you, even if you’re not “doing ministry”.

Amy Carroll
yes, yes, yes, yes. Today, I was talking with a friend earlier today, and she was we were talking about the whole “you are enough” thing —I don’t even want to dive into all the aspects and everything everybody has to say about “you are enough”.

Here’s the scriptural way to say it: “You beloved.”

And the fact that my name actually means that has deeply ministered to me. Have to remind myself when I get in that pit of like, ”Oh, maybe I’m not doing enough or the right things … No, no. Amy Carroll, you are God’s beloved.”

And listener, friend: You are God’s beloved.

Cheri Gregory
So good, so good. Okay, well, the next thing I wanted to follow up on with you is, even though I know you kind of felt like you were in a really, really hard place when we last recorded, you had two really powerful things that God was speaking to your heart.

You said that God was reminding you to seek before you strategize and to do what delights you.

So I was just curious, how have these continued to play out in your life since then?

Amy Carroll
One of the things that I mentioned is that I knew that God wanted me to start seeking Him in more of the small things — to be more dependent on him.

Well, you know, he’s got such a sense of humor, because now switching into this lane where I know absolutely nothing, I can’t do anything but be dependent on Him!

I have to seek before I strategize. I don’t even understand the strategies yet. I mean, I’m starting to, you know, following all the people and doing all the things. But really it has forced me to do what I needed to do. And that’s always uncomfortable, and it’s always good. So that’s kind of where I am with the seek before you strategize.

It’s really the “Do what delights you” that has just been God’s voice in my head since the last time we talked. I mean, “Do what delights you … Do what delights you.”

And then I was also thinking about a piece of that beach retreat that I didn’t share in the last episode that we did, but he really spoke to me through Psalm 18, and it’s verse 19, and I know this is one of your favorites, too. “He brought me out into a spacious place, and he rescued me because he delighted in me.”

That was just one of the verses that he used on that beach retreat to really minister to me. And it was a promise. He said, “I am bringing you into a spacious place.”

And the weird thing about spacious places is that they seem empty and echoey …

Cheri Gregory
yes!

Amy Carroll
… it sounds great until you’re in a big, empty room by yourself.

He kept saying to me, “It’s gonna feel empty and echoey. But I’m there. I’m there with you in this spacious place.

And when I look back on some of the places that I came out of during that time of desolation, there were good things about those spaces. But they were very restrictive spaces for me … for different reasons, some of them neutral and some of them not so good.

And you know, the further you walk out of those spaces, the more you can tell the truth about those spaces, and the good things that happened there and the damage that happened there.

And I just feel like, God has — He has rescued me.

He pulled me out of some really restrictive places that, to be clear, I chose to stay in for maybe too long. And he pulled me and rescued me out of those restrictive spaces, and he has put me in these open spaces. So can I tell you a story about my new church?

Cheri Gregory
Please! Yes. All ears!

Amy Carroll
So my new church, I was surprised to find out what denomination I am in now. So it wasn’t what I thought it was, which is funny. So we’re going to a Four Square Church. (Although just don’t see that much denominationalism, I thought we were in a non-denominational church for like, a year before I found out it was not, so anyway.)

So recently, I was invited to do a writing project. So I am writing a little — a writing project for my church. And one day I opened my email and my writing project was attached. It was sent to the whole church. It did not have my name on it. It was not the biggest project or the most widespread project I’ve ever done, maybe a 200 people, not like a million when I used to write devotions.

But Cheri, I sat at my desk and I laughed and I cried. I mean, I had the most visceral reaction of joy, like I just felt it before I could think about it. So I’m laughing and crying. And then I started thinking, like, “Why am I having such a big reaction?”

I mean, had three books published, including one with Cheri Gregory. I mean, you know … And I’ve had my devotions go to a millions of people, and I’ve had a devotion and a study Bible, and I’ve had, I mean, like a lot of things that the world will look at and consider big. Why does this make me feel more joy than any of that?”

Cheri Gregory
Do tell!

Amy Carroll
Because nobody even questioned that it was from a woman. I’m just saying. I’m going there a little. Nobody even questioned it. I wrote it. Staff looked at it. They loved it. They sent it to the whole church.

I was like: This is a spacious place.

Whereas before there would have been 20 meetings whether they could send something from a woman to the whole church.

I’m just saying … anyway.

Cheri Gregory
You know, of course, Psalm, 18:19, it’s my life, verse and I resonate with the idea that spacious can feel empty,. And it’s so easy for some of us who have the doer personality to want to cram it full again, because what do you do with emptiness? That feels like failure!

But what I’m hearing you describe is breathing room, my friend. Like you can breathe, you can exhale. (Not to do a shameless promotion for the book you wrote with Cheri Gregory!)

But I’m hearing margin. I’m hearing elbow room, where you can stretch out and learn and grow and you can take those risks of change and growth and trying new things you literally knew nothing about and surrendering to God, because it sounds like failure isn’t nearly as big a deal as it might have been for you 14 months ago. Am I off-base here?

Amy Carroll
I think I’m in spaces where I don’t have to prove myself.

Cheri Gregory
I love it.

Amy Carroll
I guess that’s the way I can say it. I don’t feel the need to prove myself. And I don’t have others around me asking me to prove myself.

Cheri Gregory
Okay, we’re just going to rub that in right here — the whole experience of not having to prove yourself. So so good.

Amy Carroll
Well, all right, that’s a lot of talking about Amy Carroll. Cheri Gregory, tell us all the things.

Cheri Gregory
Well, thank you so much for kind of wrapping around and giving us this view of where you are now. I mean, it is powerful for me, and I’m hoping for our friends who are listening, that if they listen to these episodes in close proximity, it’ll give them some hope — that when we go through these seasons that they don’t last forever.

That sense of desolation is the sense that God is distant. It’s not that He is distant, but it’s the sense that He’s distant …

Amy Carroll
yes

Cheri Gregory
… and that is hard.

Knowing that you’re at this, this sweet place where He continues to invite you to do what delights you is just beautiful.

And it has given me a lot of hope over the last year, because 14 months ago, when we were recording, I rather proudly said, “Yes, I feel like I have breathing room!” And I had all these plans.

And within a week of recording that episode, our family went into a major crisis.

I’m not going to go into the details right now, Annemarie has given me permission to share that what ultimately happened is she received a diagnosis of severe OCD.

And walking through this with her, two things that I will say is, first of all, in her sharing some of what was going on in her mind, because for her, one of the ways it exhibited was very intrusive thinking and thoughts, and I mean just the profound suffering I witnessed in her was just … there are no words for it. And for our listeners who may have experienced this themselves or they love someone who does, I have a whole new understanding and compassion for this.

And also we’ve been able to talk more about it, now that she feels like she’s on the other side of the major crisis, this is something she’s going to be living with. But we’ve had lots of really interesting conversations that start like, ”So Mom, do you think anybody else in our family might have OCD? Do you think there’s any other obsessions or compulsions in the family?”

And it’s almost gotten to the point of being funny Amy. How could we be so blind? You know, so many times I’ll be driving down the road and I’ll think of something from my childhood that I used to think was normal, and I’m like, ”Oh my goodness, I’ll bet you most, I’ll bet you most kids didn’t do that when they were growing up.”

And so the thing that has been really redemptive for me ¬— and I’m starting this journey of looking at things differently — you know, this whole diagnosis of being a perfectionist and choosing to be a perfectionist and wanting to just be a self-centered show-off and show everybody else up? I’m not going to go in depth right now, but I’m going to be looking at some of the perfectionism — especially those incredible grades that I got in school, and taking the geometry test, not once, not twice, but three times to make sure I got 100% when I was in eighth grade — like the apple did not fall far from the tree. And it’s given us some new language and some new ways of having conversations as a family.

Because it turns out — no surprise! — that it’s not just the two of us in this family. There are many, many, many generations in which this sort of thing shows up. And so without in any way wanting to minimize how hard it was — and how I would have done anything to protect her and prevent her from having to go through that — at the stage we’re at now, it is shedding light and giving hope and giving new names for things that I thought were all my fault, that I thought I brought upon myself and that I did because I had a need to be self-centered and show off.

And so finding these kinds of things out has been one more example of the gentleness of Jesus and His grace in our lives. And my apologies for bringing you to tears —that was not my goal.

Amy Carroll
This is so beautiful, though, because just to pause in the moment of the of seeing the gentleness of Jesus in suffering and through suffering, this is so, so very powerful, I think, for any of us in any situation where we are suffering to see that God is doing something good, despite — and in — our deep pain.

Cheri Gregory
Yeah, absolutely.
Amy Carroll
A very loving father.

Cheri Gregory
100% and just to give another illustration of that, earlier this year — my father has had a number of heart related incidents. He has congestive heart failure. He has had a couple of heart surgeries. And it is an absolute miracle that he’s still with us at 92 and I’m so grateful.

I had gone down to visit him earlier this year, and I’ll try to keep a longer story short, but I was there for about two weeks, and it was good. I got to spend a lot of time with him. I stayed at the house with him and his wife, Grace. And also, it was very intense to spend that much time with family and away from my home. And Daniel and Jonathan came down so that we were all able to visit. And I had gone to Starbucks to pick up my standard drink —a tall extra whip Mocha — and I had ordered it ahead because we were on a very short time schedule. I walked in to get my drink, but it wasn’t there, but my cell phone said it was ready.

I had ordered it at the wrong store, and it was at a store 10 minutes away. And the remaining perfectionism in my brain started worrying, and I’m like, “I can’t believe you made such … “ And what am I going to do? Am I going to drive down there, and am I going to go get it? No, that’ll waste the time. And we want to spend this time with Daddy, because we only had, like, a 30 minute window.

So I made the really quick decision to order another one, to waste the money. I started walking to the car, and as I consciously chose not to beat myself up, this thought came to my mind, ”You must be so very tired to have made a mistake like that.”

And it came up without me trying … and for me, it was, again, that gentleness of Jesus, this voice of self-compassion. My definition of self compassion is “embracing God’s grace for myself” because for so much of my life it’s been, “You get compassion. You get compassion. You get compassion. I get the Inner Critic bashing me relentlessly!”

And to have that voice of compassion, ”You must be so very tired to have made a mistake like that” for that to be one of the first things that came out without any effort was just so much evidence of the transformation that God has been working in my life. To really understand the self-compassion is not about me at all. The only thing that makes it about me is that I’m realizing I’m receiving His grace instead of holding it at bay until I deserve it or I’ve proven my worth.

But to realize, no: I can just receive it fully.

Does that mean I’m now going to spend the rest of my life wasting money on mochas? No, as a matter of fact, it does not.

But it means that in that moment, I didn’t need to add extra burdens and extra weight at a time that I was already tired.

And that journey towards self-compassion being a norm has been incredibly rewarding. And it’s really starting to bear fruits — like these automatic fruits, where it’s no longer a [case of] ”Oh, I have to stop bashing on myself. And now I have to remember and look up the definition of self-compassion. And now remind myself to do that.”

It’s kind of like you were describing doing what delights you is becoming more normal, more natural — because you have the room to do it. I feel like that’s what’s happening with self-compassion. And I have to say, I’m loving it.

Cheri Gregory
I used to be so suspicious of self-compassion because it has the word “self” in it, and you know what that means. And no, no, the focus is compassion. The focus is that God is the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort. And that we can live in that. “In Him we live and move and have our being …” And HE is our source of comfort and safety.

Amy Carroll
Well, that, well, that definition sets us all free. Cheri, so thank you so much for that. Because for self-compassion to be to receive God’s grace, the thing that we believe for everybody else but ourselves …

Cheri Gregory
Exactly

Amy Carroll
… it is the biblical way so therefore the correct way of looking at it. Fantastic.

Cheri Gregory
Okay, and now, now for Cheri’s latest thing. You ready for nerdy girl?

Amy Carroll
Always.

Cheri Gregory
All right, so I want to tell you — and our friends who are listening — about something I just learned about, like two weeks ago, and it is called a Vicarious Mastery Experience.

Amy Carroll
I like the sound of it. Instead of the School of Hard Knocks?

Cheri Gregory
Exactly, exactly.

Amy Carroll
It’s the alternative school to the School of Hard Knocks!

Cheri Gregory
It is! I love that so incredibly much!

So they did this research at kind of like a summer camp location that was set up to do research, and they bring in a bunch of eight year olds to 16 year olds, and unbeknownst to the kids, beforehand they had divided them into two groups, and one group was shown a short video of somebody successfully climbing a rock wall. It was not an instructional video. It was just a video where they observed somebody climbing this rock wall.

So then the first day at this camp place —and again, the kids don’t know that some of them have seen the video, and some of them haven’t seen the video — they are told that their task for the day is to climb a rock wall.

Now, it’s not the identical one, but it’s very similar to the one that some of the kids had seen this video of.

What they were trying to do is test and see if, having observed through video somebody climbing a rock wall, would that have an impact on the confidence of the kids who had seen it?

And you can probably guess from your own lived experience the answer was yes: the kids who had seen somebody do this, they were more successful, they tried harder, made more attempts, and overall made more progress at doing this than the kids who had not seen the video.

The takeaway is that a Vicarious Mastery Experience is when you gain confidence to do something by either watching someone else do it or hearing about someone else do it.

And I just thought to myself, “Oh, my goodness, this is what we’ve been doing for years, as speakers … as podcasters when we share our stories!”

You know the little story I just shared with you about going to the Starbucks and having that moment of compassion for myself and thinking “You must be so very tired to have made a mistake like that”? Well, I’ve shared that with other people … I’ve written a blog post about it … and they’ve told me now they think about that when they make a mistake. And instead of beating themselves up, they substitute in, “You must be so very tired to have made a mistake like that.” And so that little story became a Vicarious Mastery Experience for them.

Now I shared this with a group last week … we had spent time in Psalm 40.

And then I realized Psalm 40:9-10, say, “I proclaim your saving acts in the great assembly. I do not seal my lips, Lord, as you know. I do not hide your righteousness in my heart. I speak of your faithfulness and your saving help. I do not conceal your love and your faithfulness from the great assembly.”

And it occurred to me: when we give our testimonies, when we share what God is doing in our lives, then we are, in a sense, providing a Vicarious Mastery Experience for other people — especially when the focus is on what He is doing.

If we are doing it out of a need to “prove our worth” or maybe I think back to the hardened perfectionism days: probably the focus was more on me, me, me.

But when we are sharing the story of the gentleness of Jesus in our everyday lives, we may be providing others a Vicarious Mastery Experience without ever having the slightest idea that we’re doing it.

So that is why I’m so excited about Vicarious Mastery Experiences.

(And I will use that phrase three more times in this podcast episode if I can.)

Amy Carroll
Well, this is such a fantastic concept that we can watch other people — and I’m processing all the ways that that has been true in my life.

So for example, and I’ll just do a shout out to Rachel, but Rachel Swanson is my real estate coach. And Rachel used to be a speaker and writer. God has put us together, and so it’s a wonderful thing. She loves the Lord. But more than our coaching calls, although those have been really important. I follow her on Instagram, and she just tells the story of what she’s doing with houses and things like that. And I watch her, and I have been like, “If Rachel can do it, I can do it!”

That’s the feeling, right? If they can do it, then I can do it. Absolutely. I love that idea, and

Cheri Gregory
I’m going to do more research on this. Because what I think happens, what I believe happens, is it starts laying down neural networks. I think it starts laying a foundation and it’s like being pre-loaded and kind of, you know, pre-ready to do something, rather than coming into a situation cold. So, yeah. Vicarious Mastery Experience. There: I got it in one more time.

Amy Carroll
I love it. So can I share a final story?

So this whole idea of ministry and what ministry is, and what ministry is for me, and God reshaping that as I do what delights me in this house?

So over the winter, I would look out my front windows and I saw this kid who was walking home every day from school dancing. So every day he had his ear pods in, dancing down the sidewalk home from school. And it just made me smile every single day. And I got so I actually looked for him and watched for him so that I could see this like joyful dance home from school.

So during the spring, I was out walking Bella one day, and here comes this kid, and I’ll just call him Lawrence. He’s walking down the street. At this point, he’s not dancing, probably because he knows I’m watching him. But I walked by him, and I was like, “Hey, you don’t know me, but you made me happy every day this winter.” And he was like, “What?” And I said, “Well, I’m in the we just moved into that house, and I love watching you dance home. Are you part of the dance team at school or something?” He’s like, “I am!” you know. And so we got to talking. And so Lawrence and I have struck up a friendship, and he has shared some really deep, hard things with me about, the things he faces in his life.

And now, on occasion, he comes and sits on the porch with me. And the last time he was talking to me about some church things, and I said, “Where’s Jesus in all this for you?” And so we got to have a really good conversation.

And I walked inside, and I was like, “Now see, that was ministry.”

Cheri Gregory
Yes, ma’am.

Amy Carroll
If I had been writing it at my desk, or spending 20,000 hours at church like I previously, I would have never met the kid that danced on his way home from school.

And you know, I just think that these small moments — these things that nobody sees — these are the things that are the deepest ministry. And we have to be available for them, yeah, or they don’t happen.

And the Lord just reminded me, like, “If you if you weren’t living a slower life, if you hadn’t moved into the smaller house with a million problems, you know, then that connection would not be there.”

And that is ministry.

Cheri Gregory
Absolutely, you know, you’re reminding me of the the cliche we hear in the world, which is, “Go big or go home!”

And my motto became, “Start small and show up.” And then it shifted to “Stay small and show up.”

And so you’re speaking directly to my heart here.

All right, well, I want to wrap us up here by just talking a little bit about what we are doing here today, 14 months after recording our Catch-Up Convo in 2023.

One of the things was that we did want to kind of give you one more update here, since that last one sat on my hard drive for 14 months.

I also wanted to just share a little insight here into why it sat. Yes, life got hard, and when life gets hard, it’s really easy to shelve things because life is hard.

But recently, I hired a podcasting consultant, and I spent some time with her last week, and one of the things I realized Amy — and I’m also sharing this with our listeners — is that one of the reasons those files sat there is because I have been feeling disloyal to Amy and to the Grit ‘n’ Grace brand and to our listeners about moving forward. And I’ve also been afraid, honestly, of being a disappointment to our listeners.

Once those came to light, and I was like, “Oh, okay: disloyalty and disappointment! No wonder they gathered dust!”

But these are normal parts of change, right? Like these things are going to happen when we change.

So, I just want to acknowledge that, first of all, that’s one of the reasons they sat there, because I couldn’t figure that out on my own. And I couldn’t deal with what I didn’t know was actually happening under the surface.

So now that I’m aware, we’re moving forward here. And so I want to acknowledge that what Grit ‘n’ Grace looks like and sounds like moving forward may not actually end up being for everyone. And that’s okay.

So, the next episode after this one is going to be solo. It’s going to be just me, and I’ll be sharing my vision for moving forward.

These episodes have been a little series of transitional episodes. And Amy, I’m so grateful that you came along for the ride here!

Amy Carroll
I was hoping you were going to mention that you’d invite me back every once in a while.

Cheri Gregory
Okay!

Amy Carroll
You know, I’m here for it.

And I will be listening to every Cheri Gregory episode. Just so our friends know like this is a hard parting, because Cheri and I have talked about we miss the regular connection … But we are friends forever, forever and ever.

And I don’t know if Cheri Gregory has a bigger fan than me. And so I will be listening to every episode, and I bet our listeners will too.

Cheri Gregory
I will not make a snarky response of how I now have the Michael W. Smith song “Friends are Friends Forever” running though my head now … because that would ruin the moment …

Amy Carroll
That does show that we are “women of a certain age” … !

Cheri Gregory

We hope you’ve enjoyed Episode #276 of Grit ‘n’ Grace — THE PODCAST!

Check out the webpage for this week’s episode at https://GritNGraceTHEPODCAST.com/episode276

There you’ll find a transcript of this episode, along with links to any resources we mentioned.

Now I just want to give you a heads-up:

There won’t be a new episode next week, as I’ll be traveling to the West Coast Christian Writers’ Conference where I’ll be teaching a couple of workshops and staying in an Air BnB with several of my coaching clients!

So be sure to tune in on November 12th, when I’ll be back with my first solo episode to share what you can expect from Grit ‘n’ Grace — THE PODCAST moving forward.

For today, grow your grit …

… embrace God’s grace …

… Remember that you are God’s beloved

and He has a spacious place for YOU.