Season 2, Episode 27: Enjoy this Best of Peas & Carrots Episode! Stronger Together

We go together like Peas & Carrots! The Peas & Carrots Podcast, sharing life from our piece of the vegetable patch Brian and Kayla Sanders.

 

0:00:11 – Kayla

Welcome to the Peas & Carrots Podcast!

 

I’m Brian and I’m Kayla and Welcome to ye olde podcast. Hello British. It up in here. Fund raising starts Monday for us.

 

0:00:26 – Kayla

Yes.

 

0:00:27 – Brian

You excited.

 

0:00:28 – Kayla

I am. Because it’s such a fun time. We get to spend more time with our teams, we get to spend more time with our listeners, and I just love getting to watch Everyone come together, worship God with their money, give God artificially of both their time and their resources both our teams and our donors and it’s just it’s. It’s fun. We get to spend time with Each other more than we do in a normal week. I get to see my team shine. They get to work more closely with all of our local station teams, and so it’s just a great opportunity. I don’t so much love the 4 am starts. I think there should only be one four o’clock and in the evening.

 

0:01:23 – Brian

It’s one. One shouldn’t come around the morning right.

 

I like fundraising because I get to see you and the team, I get a front row seat, see you and the team Be used by God and to be stretched by God to do amazing things. So I I absolutely love that. Speaking of fundraising season, par’s fundraising season lasts for about five weeks. So so because we have five different stations, we have five different brands Now, so like three stations will look, will have their fundraiser in the first two weeks and then there’s a gap week where we give everybody you know like you can rest.

 

Get caught up, get caught up, and then the second two weeks. Like we have two other stations that will fundraise. Well, guess what the Sanders are doing in that gap week this year?

 

0:02:11 – Kayla

losing our minds.

 

0:02:12 – Brian

Yeah, because our floors are being redone. They’re, they’re.

 

0:02:16 – Kayla

Replacing all of the floors?

 

0:02:17 – Brian

Yeah, they’re coming out kind of out, taking that by the carpet and putting in wood flooring. So Are we gonna have a place to sleep?

 

0:02:24 – Kayla

Sure Stay tuned.

 

0:02:30 – Brian

So we’re trying to eat a little bit healthier we are Knowing that.

 

0:02:35 – Kayla

wait a minute, do you?

 

0:02:36 – Brian

hear the excitement, oh yeah.

 

0:02:41 – Kayla

Well, you know, it hits different these long days at this age than it did 20 years ago. So I’m starting to realize I have to take better care of myself. But there are days, like today, for example, when I started the day saying I’m gonna eat a very healthy lunch and it ended up being pizza.

 

0:03:02 – Brian

I didn’t eat pizza, by the way show off. I had hummus you did. It was wonderful.

 

0:03:10 – Kayla

So was my pizza.

 

0:03:12 – Brian

No, you weird pizza oh.

 

0:03:14 – Kayla

Here we go.

 

0:03:16 – Brian

Her pizza had tomatoes and cheese on it extra cheese it’s. Well, that’s just. There’s no meat, there’s no veggie. That’s why it’s my pizza. It’s weird. I guess tomatoes a bit. Actually it’s a fruit. But we digress we digress hey, so some other news.

 

0:03:34 – Kayla

What have?

 

0:03:34 – Brian

you been enjoying. Oh, I love Monday Night Football now on ESPN 2 with Peyton and Eli. It is Some of the greatest television you’ll ever see, because you can see these two world-class quarterbacks Analyze the game. It’s hilarious and they have guests and they razz on each other. It’s just great. I love Monday Night Football.

 

0:03:57 – Kayla

Yeah.

 

0:03:59 – Brian

This podcast gonna take quite a little turn here. Mental health I’ll let you Take the baton at this point.

 

0:04:10 – Kayla

Okay, I’m thinking back to the Olympics and I’ve been thinking a lot about this from that moment forward. It blew my mind to watch the world’s reaction to Simone Biles taking a step back.

 

Hmm and Accepting that she could not do what she loved to do Because it was dangerous for her, because her, her mind, was in a place that it would not allow her. Basically, if I understood it correctly, her brain was not in sync with her body and so she was not safely able to do all the flips and jumps and she was very brave, in my opinion, to share that she needed to take care of herself mentally. Reading some of the backlash to that it’s ridiculous.

 

I just I can’t fathom some of what people felt they had the right to say, but it left me reminded of some truths about mental health, which is no one gets to speak ultimately to your mental health but you and for someone who has had a front row seat to this, as I have, I have people in my life who have struggled with mental health for a long time and it has an ugly side and a scary side. I think we have become too comfortable with trying to tell everyone else how they should navigate their struggle, so I want to be really careful even in that. But I think you would even agree that mental health, no matter who you are, it’s something you’re going to wrestle with at some point in your life.

 

0:06:17 – Brian

Well, I, how do I want to say it? Well, I’ll just say it the week that we learned that dad had cancer, I reached out to a Christian therapist and I’ve been going to see a therapist now for nearly for over three years. That’s the first time I’ve ever admitted that to anybody publicly besides you, ms Kayla, because I started experiencing Lincoln called it. I had to get a Lincoln reference there. Lincoln called it melancholy, but waves of depression. So, and I had to learn how to set up boundaries in certain relationships. I had to learn how to cope with loss and I also had to learn how to deal with anxiety.

 

Being a leader, there’s a lot of anxiety. I had to learn how to deal with isolation because and we’ll talk more about this, I think, in an, in an upcoming podcast but being a leader can be very isolating and people don’t want to interact with you and that’s not me saying oh well, it was me. That’s just a fact, it’s truth, it’s true. Yeah, I’m not going to do you because you’re married to me. So, as a result, you get isolated. So I’ve been, so I’ve been, so I’ve been going to see a therapist now for about three years. Has it been helpful. Yes, am I scared to like admit this on a podcast? Yes, because there’s a stigma that like comes with that, because people start to say, well, if he just buck up, if he would just be stronger, you know well, he’s just a weak man. Well, I don’t think Lincoln struggled with it. I wouldn’t call him weak. No, churchill had it. Does anybody want to call Winston Churchill week?

 

0:08:24 – Kayla

No best of luck.

 

0:08:26 – Brian

You know best of luck. So. But there is this, and I was sitting in a church one day I’m not going to say which church, but it’s been a number of years back and a woman in that church, we were in a class. She admitted that like she was having some, some depression struggles and that she took medication. The person leading the class said well, you should just pray more. And I just.

 

0:08:52 – Kayla

Yeah, I wanted to speak to that. I think that’s wrong. There’s a real danger in looking at someone and first of all deciding that there’s really nothing wrong with them, that they should just snap out of it or they should see. This is the one that always gets me. Well, you should just see how good your life is when you are in a tunnel. You can’t see outside of that tunnel. And I will say this I think for a lot of people in ministry, this is a source of shame.

 

0:09:30 – Brian

Yes.

 

0:09:31 – Kayla

And I’ve known many pastors who’ve walked away from ministry because they’ve had to sit with this shame of well, I didn’t have enough faith, or I wasn’t in the Word enough, or, and more recently, I’ve heard horrible stories of lives lost because people they couldn’t carry it anymore. So I think for all of us it’s good to remember that there are two sides to this struggle. There’s the one struggling, who we need to give the freedom to find whatever help they need, and there’s the others walking alongside the one that’s struggling, and even that comes with its own needs. I know that at times I’ve had to really step back in this journey. Not, I’m not necessarily speaking of with you because, no, I’m going to walk side by side with you, be Because there are other people there are other situations in our life that you have to know what boundaries you need or what care you need to take of both them and yourself.

 

So and I mean we’re barely scraping the surface on this we’re not by any means professional counselors.

 

0:10:48 – Brian

No, I mean, I’m not a professional counselor, I’m not a professional therapist. Let me say this and it’s okay to love Jesus and have a therapist. Those two things do not have to oppose one another, amen. And there was a book written 20, 30 years ago called Our Sufficiency in Christ, and the author of that book was basically trying to say that Jesus should be your everything and that there’s no help found elsewhere. Well, there’s a flaw in that thinking, and it’s this is that all truth is God’s truth. God calls certain people to be therapists and he gives them that ability to help you see things in yourself.

 

0:11:33 – Kayla

And we live in a broken world and we are broken.

 

0:11:37 – Brian

Let me say this we live in a world that’s on fire. It’s a dumpster fire. It’s beyond broken. We have put it in the dumpster, we have poured charcoal lighter on it and we’ve lit the match. And so my take, this is this what I’d say to you If you’re overwhelmed, if you realize that you have depression, if you realize that there are certain things that are going on, go see somebody, go and talk to somebody. Now let me say this I’ve never had suicidal thoughts. I’ve thought about going to a buffet and like eating everything on it. That is how I would try and cope, and that’s not resulted well for me, because I’m a very large man, so I’m, so I’m trying to learn all these things. Am I in a better place mentally? Yes, do I still have waves of depression, waves of like melancholy? Yes, yes, I will still get down and don’t be trite and say this well, just well, just give it to God. This is my answer. What do you think I’m doing by going to talk to somebody?

 

0:13:00 – Kayla

Yeah.

 

0:13:01 – Brian

I’m trying to do that is. Does that make sense? Is it personal?

 

0:13:05 – Kayla

No, because, well, I’m gonna get more personal. Then. I am gripped with anxiety in certain seasons and, for me, therapy helped me to figure out that that effective ways of dealing with that were to get outdoors, I need to go for a walk, I need to Get moving, I need to breathe some fresh air. I’ve also learned that for me, journaling is very helpful. It helps me to like put on paper what’s stuck in my head, the ticker tape that’s just running on endless like constant real. That doesn’t necessarily translate the same for for you, and that’s great. What is helpful in admitting that you aren’t okay? Because here’s the bottom line it is okay to not be okay. Yes, for you, when you reached out and said I, I need a life Support, whatever, I’m seeing the image and I’m not coming up with the word it’s like preserve.

 

There we go. Preserver. When you did that, you were connected with someone who has been amazing at helping you to see the things that are helpful tools to you that help you to walk back when you find yourself going into a dark place. So that’s the value in realizing what you’re facing personally. And, and just again, I think we would both beg you, do not believe the voice that says, oh you, you can get through this. Just pray more, read more. Those are good things, do those things.

 

0:14:45 – Brian

You should do, those things.

 

0:14:47 – Kayla

But don’t be afraid to reach out for help and for me as a leader.

 

0:14:52 – Brian

Let me just say this I Can go talk to my therapist about anything. Yeah and it stays with that. Therapist Most of my friends work for me hmm, yeah, that could get awkward that could get awkward. So I can’t talk to them about stuff, so I can go to my therapist and just unload here’s this, here’s that. Here’s what I’m stressed about. This here, this here, this here. Does it mean that I’m broken? Yes, does it mean that Jesus is working in me? Yes, and that’s what I find beautiful in all this amen.

 

So fall, you love fall. As a matter of fact, let me just go on record here this evening when we get off work, where are we going?

 

0:15:44 – Kayla

To nobody’s surprise, we’re going to target to buy what? A full-size skeleton.

 

0:15:52 – Brian

I think pictures forthcoming where you gonna put him in my office at work because when you enter Miss Kayla’s wing, like her, we have an extra. Yes, yes, well, they have an extra desk, but there’s also like this little welcome area that has like a love seat, coffee table.

 

0:16:07 – Kayla

We’re gonna have all sorts of fun.

 

0:16:09 – Brian

Yeah, I’m sure that the skeleton is gonna. So you love fall.

 

0:16:13 – Kayla

I do all. The holidays are coming.

 

0:16:15 – Brian

Okay, what’s your favorite? Oh?

 

0:16:19 – Kayla

That’s hard For various reasons. Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now I have a confession I love Thanksgiving. If someone else is cooking, you’re a great cook. Oh my gosh. There was the year with the turkey, but we’ll talk about that later.

 

0:16:36 – Speaker 1

I.

 

0:16:37 – Brian

Love for God to take to take the jibblers out and it kept having a fluid when we cook it, so I thought the thing was raw and it was a pretty dry turkey. But there’s a lot of gravy that things. Oh, we did so you like.

 

0:16:50 – Kayla

I love Christmas. I love everything about Christmas.

 

0:16:53 – Brian

I Used to love Christmas.

 

0:16:57 – Kayla

Yeah, my favorite holiday.

 

0:16:59 – Brian

My mom. I say that that my favorite holiday would be Thanksgiving, because it’s simple Christmas to me. Is all this hype For one day? No see okay, I want to explain why Christmas is special. Yeah but now I love Christmas music and I love the decorations.

 

0:17:21 – Kayla

It’s just all this build up and then it’s over but Christmas is not one day, if if you consider advent season and that is why Christmas is special to me only in, like the last five years have I Embraced advent the way I probably should have many, many years ago. But I think Christmas is also more difficult for us, admittedly so without Dad, because we have great memories of Christmas’s past and we would go to Nackadish and I’ll let you share what he?

 

0:17:57 – Brian

declared every year. Nackadish is a town in Louisiana that has a famous thing called the Nackadish Christmas Festival and they put up hundreds of thousands of Christmas lights and it’s beautiful.

 

0:18:06 – Kayla

It’s featured in Steel Magnolias.

 

0:18:08 – Brian

Yes, if you’ve seen that movie, then the Christmas Festival is what we’d always go to, and us and Mom and Dad and our friends the Murrays and their kids, we’d all pile up and go down there and Dad would always tell us you get two ooze and two oz and that’s it, that’s it. And so that was all. That was just hilarious.

 

0:18:29 – Kayla

It was fun.

 

0:18:32 – Brian

I also like Halloween. I think it’s fun.

 

0:18:35 – Kayla

You do, but we had an interesting Halloween one year.

 

0:18:39 – Brian

We.

 

0:18:40 – Kayla

I thought you and a neighbor were gonna Okay so we lived on New Orleans Seminary.

 

0:18:46 – Brian

We had just gotten married and we lived in this apartment complex that the seminary owned. It was just seminary employees and seminary students, that kind of stuff. So we bought these two very small pumpkins and put them outside of our door. Now this is an apartment complex.

 

0:19:04 – Kayla

We’d painted them with silly faces.

 

0:19:07 – Brian

Yes, that kind of stuff. So we had come home, everything was fine. Well, we hear this little commotion and I’m like, well, I wonder what that is. So I was doing something. About 10 minutes later I opened up the door and our pumpkins are smashed. I mean, there is pumpkin gunk all over our door. They’ve been smashed. I’m like what is going on. So we go to back at the time we shopped at a place called Windixie the beef people and it’s amazing what the brain remembers.

 

Yes, isn’t it? And so we bought two more, put them out there. And then we heard about two days later we were home and we heard this kick open up the door and there is our neighbor who lives two doors down from us and he is in the process of smashing our pumpkins. I’m like what are you doing? He says this is a sin of God. You’re inviting Satan into your home by having these pumpkins out here. And I never forget. I just said have you lost your mind? I said you think the devil, you don’t think he’s worried about these two little pumpkins when he could go influence a world leader to start a war? You’re really worried about these two pumpkins out here. I said these are our pumpkins, it’s our apartment, leave us alone. And I slammed the door. I mean it’s just crazy. So I got to admit we went and bought like a paper skeleton put on the door just to spite him. That is my heart.

 

0:20:36 – Kayla

That is my heart. I’d forgotten that part.

 

0:20:39 – Brian

Yes, we did so.

 

0:20:42 – Kayla

Yeah, yeah, I think.

 

0:20:44 – Brian

And then you have where you searched for the perfect gift.

 

0:20:47 – Kayla

Yeah, there was the year that I was going to say. I think a memory that stands out for me is my brothers and I wanted to make Christmas very special for my mom, because it was the first Christmas in several years that all of us were going to be together, and she gave us a list of ideas of things she wanted. Well, we secretly decided we’re going to get everything on this list. It was crazy, but we were determined, we were going to pull it off. Well, some of you will remember this particular year. It was the year that the KitchenAid stand mixers had become very popular and they were also very hard to find $200 and $300.

 

0:21:28 – Brian

Yeah For a mixer.

 

0:21:30 – Kayla

Yeah Well, we had decided we were going to make this happen I think we were on like our fifth store and it also needed to be a particular color because you know where we’re going?

 

0:21:41 – Brian

This is your brother’s doing this.

 

0:21:43 – Kayla

Yeah, it was me and my brothers, and you have to picture that I’m like 5’4″ and my brothers are 6’2″, 6’3″. Well, I go one direction, they go the other, and we are just determined that we’re going to find this mixer in this particular store. It is as if it was in slow motion. We end up on the same aisle just by happenstance. And they said that they saw me lock eyes with a box. There was the mixer. They saw me lock eyes with a woman coming the other way and they said that my feet didn’t even touch ground.

 

0:22:24 – Brian

Did you run to the mixer?

 

0:22:25 – Kayla

I ran to the mixer. I ran, grabbed it up. I probably owe an apology to that woman to this day if that’s like her dream gift that year. I’m so sorry, but it was my mom’s dream gift and I needed to make her happy. So I clutch the mixer, go sprinting back the other way and then, out of the corner of my eye, I see these two tall people, and they are just doubled over, killing themselves, laughing.

 

0:22:53 – Brian

Here’s the lesson Don’t get between. Miss Paylor and her item on a particular row in a store. Is that correct? Got that?

 

0:23:01 – Kayla

right, I have a store, yeah.

 

0:23:02 – Brian

Mixer chocolate.

 

0:23:06 – Kayla

Good advice.

 

0:23:06 – Brian

Good advice.

 

0:23:07 – Kayla

Yeah.

 

0:23:08 – Brian

Anyway, hey, you can subscribe to the Peas and Carrots podcast on Apple, google or wherever you get your podcast.

 

0:23:14 – Kayla

Or you can contact us at peasandcarrotspodcastcom, or on Facebook, just search for Peas and Carrots podcast.

 

0:23:21 – Brian

No mixer sold here.

 

0:23:23 – Narrator

For more about the Peas and Carrots podcast and to reach out to Brian and Kayla, visit peasandcarrotspodcastcom.