Stronger Together - Episode Description
Join us, Brian and Kayla Sanders, as we welcome the changing seasons! We share our love for the joy of warmer clothes, fall decorations, and ‘spooky movie season’. As we enjoy the aesthetics of autumn, we take a deeper exploration into the concept of ‘freedom in Christ’, using common sense to see what’s good and bad, and living in the light of that. Our goal is to help you live in grace and discernment, and not be bound by rules. Tune in and join us on this journey.
Stronger Together - Transcript
We go together like peas and carrots! The Peas & Carrots Podcast, sharing life from our piece of the vegetable patch with Brian and Kayla Sanders.
0:00:11 – Brian
Welcome to the peas and carrots podcast.
0:00:15 – Kayla
Hi, I’m Kayla … Came in a little strong.
0:00:20 – Brian
I wasn’t prepared for that.
0:00:21 – Kayla
Hi, I’ve had a lot of caffeine.
0:00:25 – Brian
Well, you have been kind of busy lately.
0:00:27 – Kayla
Yeah so. Early days, late nights, yeah.
0:00:32 – Brian
Friday. So what’s up in the world of peas and carrots? I want to just say this Friday my executive assistant came to town, Adam Read.
0:00:41 – Kayla
It was so much fun, it was a surprise.
0:00:42 – Brian
He brought his espresso machine and he brought donuts and. Other snacks. Would you like to tell our listening friends?
0:00:51 – Kayla
You’re really gonna make me share this.
0:00:54 – Brian
I just go how many lattes did you have Friday?
0:00:58 – Kayla
Two and two other cups of coffee, so I’m probably.
0:01:10 You have any donuts?
0:01:14: None of your business
0:01:20 How many donuts to? After about three o’clock she was jacked, she was just after about six weeks of no sugar.
00:01:28 I had a donut with my latte at breakfast and then I confessed that I had a donut that afternoon. I regret all of those decisions because, yeah, but it was really worth it at the time.
0:01:37 – Brian
Yes, but.
0:01:39 – Kayla
I’m gonna go back to no sugar. So hey, fall is, here it is. We woke up to our first cold snap this morning, turned on the heater for five minutes. I know, I swore I wasn’t gonna do it till November, but it was 38 degrees outside, oh man here, oh man needs a little these little warmth I got tickled. You kept saying Are you cold? Is it cold in here to you? And I thought I better get the chill out of the hair. Hair out of the house.
0:02:12 – Brian
Gosh, I swear y’all I Don’t have any hair, just I just get frostbite on top of my head. So I had to upgrade my winter wardrobe.
0:02:25 – Kayla
This is very exciting, you have lost so much weight that your winter wardrobe was just way too big, and so we went through it. A couple of weeks ago, you got rid of things that were just ridiculously too big and we ordered you a bunch of new clothes, which was fun.
0:02:47 – Brian
I don’t know if they were too big or if they were just gangster like old.
0:02:51 – Kayla
They were too big. It is okay to celebrate this, so yeah for all of those who You’ve been celebrating fall, you can come out of hiding. Now it’s October and everyone else is celebrating fall as well. What’s going on? Well, there’s the people who’ve been celebrating fall unofficially 2020.
0:03:13 – Brian
You can come out of hiding, confess that crime.
0:03:17 – Kayla
All of the people who are haters of early celebrators. It’s October, it’s okay.
0:03:25 – Brian
Now you can, free, you can officially freely put out your pumpkins and zip your lattes you have been decorating to your hearts delight. I’m having fun.
0:03:34 – Kayla
We have lots of pumpkins.
0:03:36 – Brian
How many pumpkins are on the front deck?
0:03:37 – Kayla
I don’t know of lost count 12. Probably not that many.
0:03:43 – Brian
Well, maybe okay, I was right.
0:03:46 – Kayla
There’s a bunch of different colored pumpkins and mums and pansies and I’m having a good time, so okay, and Finally along what’s in the world of peas and carrots.
0:03:57 – Brian
This is spooky movie season.
0:03:59 – Kayla
It is now.
0:04:00 – Brian
Let me explain to you.
0:04:01 – Kayla
We need to clarify what spooky movie means for now.
0:04:04 – Brian
We do not watch horror films.
0:04:06 – Kayla
No, I can’t handle it.
0:04:07 – Brian
We do not do that, but for us a spooky movie is something like Hotel Transylvania. We watched that last night, yes, and for us that’s wonderful. I think tonight we’re gonna watch the new Haunted mansion that has Danny DeVito.
0:04:21 – Kayla
It’s a Disney thing, you chose that one.
0:04:23 – Brian
Yeah. So when you hear us talk about spooky movies, we’re basically talking Disney’s PG version.
0:04:29 – Kayla
Yeah, we’re watching kids kids stuff.
0:04:31 – Brian
Okay, charlie Brown, we don’t do the Halloween or Friday the 13th type stuff.
0:04:37 – Kayla
I can’t do that stuff. More power to you if you enjoy that.
0:04:41 – Brian
So I need to sleep. I don’t need to have nightmares, I mean that could be a good good question too, Like what’s your favorite spooky movie? Yeah, that’d be fun.
0:04:50 – Kayla
We can now listen.
0:04:51 – Brian
Please don’t put in something like the nun or the ring or something like that, because we’re not watching that. I can’t handle that I have nightmares, but I’m looking forward to it. Good times and and you have a pumpkin coffee mug now.
0:05:04 – Kayla
I do I.
0:05:06 – Brian
Mean, you’re all in, I’m all in. I mean, she’s even wearing a little orange sweater today. She has on a little green jacket.
0:05:13 – Kayla
Fall is my time.
0:05:15 – Brian
Yeah, here we are.
0:05:18 – Kayla
So you and I have been. I want to set the stage here. You and I have been talking about something for several weeks now, and I want to Say this first of all. There are often topics that we bring to this podcast that are life experiences for us, or things that we are learning ourselves, or perhaps even things that We’ve been sitting with, and so a frame of reference for this is we never want any of our listeners to walk away feeling like you’re either being preached to or you’re being condemned for something we are simply sharing with you perhaps how God’s working on our heart, or maybe it’s something that we want to just challenge all of us to think a little deeper. So, with that said, this topic is something that you and I have been taking a Kind of a step back and giving it some thought, and it deals with freedoms in Christ.
0:06:28 – Brian
And for some of you you’re going to go.
0:06:29 – Kayla
What in the world does that mean?
0:06:31 – Brian
Okay, so freedom in Christ. Let me say what this means. There are laws, and then there are binding of consciousness and freedom. For example, scripture says that thou shalt not kill.
0:06:46 – Kayla
That’s a law, that’s a law Okay, and we’re never going to say that’s okay.
0:06:50 – Brian
Correct, okay. Yet there’s freedom there for, like self-defense, times of war, stuff like that, and there are certain topics that have come across our desk or across our lives that I think deserves a little bit of discussion. So let me say this our conversation is not meant to bind you. Yeah it’s not meant to put you in a straight jacket. It’s meant to help you live in grace and not live by rules and maybe show some grace.
Well, there’s that. We’ve told the story before. I’ll start here. When we worked at the seminary down in New Orleans, we hadn’t even been married a year. Hadn’t been married a year, we had. It was Halloween and we had these little bitty pumpkins out on our front step and we lived in this apartment complex. It was enclosed and we had decorations. And we came home one day.
0:07:53 – Kayla
We had painted fun goofy faces on these pumpkins.
0:07:58 – Brian
And we came home one day and somebody had smashed in these pumpkins and ripped our decorations down. And it had to be somebody who lived, Because it was a gated community. It had to be somebody who was in seminary.
0:08:11 – Kayla
Yeah.
0:08:12 – Brian
That kind of stuff. And so I was like, well, this is awkward. So what did? What did we do? We went back out and bought two more pumpkins and bought more decorations, put them up, and I heard. We were home and about a week later I heard some rustling open up the door and there’s this fella who lives two doors down and he’s about to grab all of our decorations and he says you are sinning, you are worshiping Satan by putting these pumpkins out.
Repent and get saved. And I remember all I said is have you lost your mind? See, for me, scripture doesn’t condemn having fun. Now let me say this we do not do the whole death thing. We don’t do the whole ghost and the witches and all that kind of stuff. We don’t do that. But we do fun and we just like to have fun. There’s freedom in Christ there. Paul even said that it’s up to you as to whether you celebrate certain holidays and new moons and stuff like that. In his time that would be festivals and celebrations. So he left it up to your own personal freedom in Christ to do that.
0:09:23 – Kayla
And for me, one of the things that I absolutely love doing every single year is pulling out our camp chairs and our Halloween bowl, filling it with candy and sitting outside and getting to give candy to our neighbor kids and community kids that come through our neighborhood, Because what better way to get to interact with our neighbors than to get a good kick out of their adorable kids costumes and just chat with them for a few minutes. We get to catch up. What would I be losing if I chose not to participate in that? And again, we’re not saying you must have a bowl of candy and you must sit at your front door on Halloween. This is where there’s freedom for you to decide what works and doesn’t work for you.
But for me no, I’m not about the witchcraft, I’m not about I get it. Some of these holidays have some roots that perhaps we don’t want to drill down on, but I can see it as a way to be neighborly and to have a good time and to do something that gives back to my community.
0:10:37 – Brian
Just remember that Christ redeems and so, therefore, as he redeems us, he can redeem certain traditions, he can redeem certain holidays, he can redeem certain functions you can still attend, you can still have fun.
0:10:53 – Kayla
You just don’t have to honor. Well, what’s funny to me? Okay, I’m going to go there and I’m sorry, we don’t want to call it a Halloween festival or we will call it a trunk or treat or a fall festival. The only difference is what we’re naming it.
So I think we might want to take a hard look at what we’re. What Hills were dying on Another one, and I’m trying to be gentle with this it is not on me to legislate whether someone should drink or not. Now we’re Presbyterian, so let’s just say that up front.
0:11:34 – Brian
And listen we just at the time of this recording we just left church, probably 15 minutes, yeah, 15, 20 minutes ago. And even during the sermon this morning our pastor talked about alcohol and he said scripture never condemns alcohol.
0:11:53 – Kayla
He said it condemns drunkenness and that was part of the text today. That was part of the text.
0:11:58 – Brian
So if this offends you, I’m sorry, or maybe I shouldn’t be, but here’s the deal. Simply because taking something to the extreme is a sin Doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it where like scripture allows. Now, for example, I don’t drink alcohol except during Lord supper at church Once a month, and you get a symbol. You know right, that’s it. And so here’s the deal is that we are experts at being against anything and we can write massive volumes of books building a case against something. Why not allow scripture to speak where it speaks and allow it to speak there? Now, if you have a family history of like abusing alcohol, stay away from it. Use some comments. That’s what freedom in Christ is using common sense, seeing what’s good, seeing what’s bad and then living in the light of that.
0:13:02 – Kayla
Well, you know that I do police myself because I come from a long line of family that did not handle alcohol well, and I’m trying to be gracious in how I say that there is a history of alcoholism in my family. So I tend to stay away from that as a choice. There are other considerations. I know that if I were to be going to dinner with a friend who is a recovering alcoholic or who this could cause them to stumble, then I’m not going to sit there and order a bottle of wine or have a drink because I don’t want to put them. And again, I think even scripture references this Don’t do things that will cause your brother to stumble. At the same time, I’m not going to sit there and make a snap judgment of someone.
If we are in a group and we are at dinner and someone else at the table chooses to order a drink, now I might intervene if they’re getting drunk and making a scene, but if a fellow patron is choosing to have a drink, that’s between them and God. It’s not for me to sit there and be their moral compass in that moment. As a society, we seem to be putting more of our faith in the works than we are in what Christ did for us. It’s as if we feel like we’ve got to check all these boxes. Well, I did this this week. I didn’t do this, I did this, I did this, I did this, I did this, but this person did this, this and this.
0:14:45 – Brian
Makes us feel better about ourselves, because this person did X, y, z.
0:14:49 – Kayla
But it also makes it seem as if we are earning anything and we’re not. So that is something. Another thing that I y’all be knows me. I have a love, hate, hate, hate relationship with social media as it is, but if I have to read one more time on social media things like this well, you can show up for your kids ball game on Saturday, then why can’t you be in church on Sunday? Get part of that leaves anybody feeling that they are going to be safe if they come sit next to us in that pew or in that row of seats at church.
0:15:35 – Brian
All that is just guilt and manipulation.
0:15:37 – Kayla
And if they’re already sitting with their own level of shame, what part of that type of rhetoric is going to leave anyone in a place where they feel safe to come into a church and bring whatever baggage they’re carrying with them, if we’ve already made a snap judgment, because they’re either there or they’re not there, and maybe it’s as simple as they did not have to work on Saturday, but they did on Sunday, and I know there are those that would say, well, there are churches that worship on Saturday. I’m not gonna go there, I’m not gonna nitpick and I just wish we would step back, all of us, and see how these air quote rules that we’re making are hurting the church and her ability to witness.
0:16:33 – Brian
They’re hurting people.
0:16:34 – Kayla
They are hurting people.
0:16:36 – Brian
So let me say this Brian used to do that exact thing. I mean and I confess that I come from a very ultra fundamental background Okay, so I am that guy. I am no longer that person. I’m going to be more of a let me say this be welcoming.
0:16:56 – Kayla
Yeah.
0:16:57 – Brian
Don’t be judging.
0:16:58 – Kayla
Now. We’re not giving you a pass to never be in church. For us, church is important. And it’s where community is formed, it’s where Christ is worshiped. It has a strong place in your life.
0:17:11 – Brian
And the Lord commanded.
0:17:12 – Kayla
But I don’t think the Bible speaks to being there 52 weeks out of the year for morning church, evening church, Wednesday night church. It’s our own interpretation that we’ve brought to it.
0:17:25 – Brian
So what we want to offer you is a little bit of freedom in Christ, and that don’t build walls, where scripture is often silent. Instead, practice wisdom, have some freedom in Christ and be welcoming and be loving and be kind. You will attract more people than if you stand on a street corner and you just scream and you condemn people. That’s just us. So I want to end with this.
0:17:58 – Kayla
I remember being in a church when I was in high school that we had a very big youth group and it was a wonderful community that I was a part of. We had a girl that came to our youth group one night and she was not dressed appropriately. You can use your imagination as to how she was dressed. There was a lot of revealing elements to her outfit and there was a choice that could have been made in that moment. The other girls in our youth group could have ridiculed her. They could have made her feel like an outsider because she wasn’t dressed like everyone else and she didn’t comport herself like the other girls.
But instead it was a rare moment that I was actually proud of our group that after a few weeks of coming, I noticed her outfit started to change and I noticed that the word she was using started to change, and it wasn’t anything that any one of us could take credit for. It was that she started her own faith journey Because, rather than being shamed for not dressing the way we dressed or carrying herself the way we carried ourselves, she saw it, lived out so Graciously and we welcomed her and invited her to come back and it just sort of happened over time that it became important to her. She was convicted by the choice of outfits that she wore to church, or the words that she was using. Why not, let’s let Christ do the work, instead of us trying to force the issue ourselves, and that’s pushing people away more than we are welcoming them in and with that, ladies and gentlemen, I think that that topic’s been handled.
0:20:06 – Brian
What encouragement Do you give to other people that you should probably give to yourself? And then you propose this question, and it’s a little heavy for me but what Encouragement do you often give to other people that you might need to give to yourself? I want to start with you, miss. There’s only a pole of us, like who has me?
0:20:29 – Kayla
I was gonna say I might go start with here, all right I saw this on. I Think it was on the today show. I saw them talking about this and one of the one of the show hosts was admitting that she’s very negative in how she speaks to herself and that for this month she’s going to work really hard to only speak positive to herself. And One of mine is that I will instantly compliment someone else on some element of them, but I pick myself apart mercilessly.
0:21:11 – Brian
And God forbid somebody compliment you.
0:21:14 – Kayla
It’s so uncomfortable. Yeah, so I’m really drilling down on. Every morning when I’m brushing my teeth. I’m now asking myself what is one good attribute about yourself, and I need to speak it rather than Gosh that hair is gray or gosh. There’s more wrinkles than there were last week or beautiful, but we all do it to ourselves, and so that’s the first one, I admit is when I look in the mirror. What speech can I Attribute to something positive instead of zeroing in on the negative?
0:21:55 – Brian
my turn mm-hmm. I Spend a lot of my time believing in others and telling them that I believe in them, when I hide the fact that I don’t believe in myself. Hmm, I consider myself a failure in so many different areas of my life. Because Now I’m allowed. Look, you just said over and shared yours. I’m allowed to share mine, okay so.
0:22:27 – Kayla
It was a little sassy, but go ahead.
0:22:31 – Brian
We’ve been married 30 years. You’re used to this, so for me, though, but I don’t. I don’t believe in myself I don’t. That’s why I try so hard, that’s why I push so hard on certain things, that’s why I strive to accomplish stuff, because I do not believe in me at all. I see myself as just a. I’m gonna use a very, just a dumb ball of Fat, that’s. I mean, if that’s as honest as I can be.
And Well, I am not gonna shy away from saying that that’s wrong, but okay so, but what I need to do is to slow down and Say things to myself like Brian, you can do this, you have talent, you have skill, you’re needed. Yeah, okay.
So that would be my big thing, that I should encourage myself on is that I need to believe in myself Just a little bit, and I saw a great quote the other day that said if you can believe in Santa Claus for the first eight years of your life, then you can believe in yourself for five minutes. So another one of mine would be we got to share two.
0:23:47 – Kayla
I said I Would be we’re gonna share two.
I see all these people who are so good at For lack of a better word Homemaking. They, they cook these gourmet meals and they just seem to have this skill at effortlessly decorating and all these things. No comment over there, but I do not consider myself a gourmet chef. I just I really struggle in this, and so what I have found the cheat for me is I have found the things that I am good at cooking, and Accepting that that’s okay. I love to bake. I’m a really good baker and there are like three dishes that I have mastered.
I’m not meant to be excellent at everything, so instead of drilling down on well, I wish I was better at this I’m going to start affirming myself in the things about our home that you have always complimented, that it is a warm and inviting place. It may not look like something out of better homes and gardens and it may not look like something out of Martha Stewart’s you know Back garden, but I always want to just stay centered there, that if people feel welcome and that our home feels warm and cozy, then the rest of it doesn’t matter. So, rather than zeroing in on the negative things that I wish I could emulate, that’s probably a whole nother podcast episode because it trends to my I don’t want to say envy, because that’s really not what it is, but it’s my wanting to compare rather than be comfortable in who I am and what I’m meant to do.
0:25:39 – Brian
So I think I, I think you, have a burden, like me, to be the best at everything.
0:25:43 – Kayla
That, no matter what it is, it should be probably so, when nobody can be comfortable in that anyway.
0:25:49 – Brian
So yeah, all right, my last one would be this you think you’re only sharing too.
0:25:55 – Kayla
Okay, yeah, yes, for sake of time. Yeah.
0:25:58 – Brian
I get it. I’m not everybody’s cup of tea and I don’t have to be.
0:26:03 – Kayla
Well, amen, I mean you’re mine. Let me clarify that Okay.
0:26:07 – Brian
But and this might be a future podcast, I’m not there yet, just to say that, but I have certain mental conditions. Let me say that, try and be kind.
That makes me want to be accepted by everybody and makes me want to make everybody happy and to keep the room happy and to keep everybody calm and to please everybody. And I’m coming out of that, yeah, and I don’t have to be everybody’s cup of tea. Now I’m going to be kind and gracious, but I can’t make everybody happy all the time. That’s a big one for me, because that’s very, because if you’re happy and if you’re at peace, this sounds and this is part of my dysfunction is it makes me feel loved but you know, what’s most important is being happy with yourself.
Well so that’s the positive. You need to speak. I’m leaving here and going to get ice cream what’s that?
0:27:08 – Kayla
So yeah anyway, and I mean we could go, we could go on and on with this, but our question for you as we wrap up the segment what are the things that you trend towards the negative about yourself, and yet you so easily see this in a positive way in other people? It is so easy for me to find something just like that that I can compliment or draw out about someone else, and yet I am so hard to do that for myself, and that was the takeaway for me from this today show segment Powerful, powerful stuff.
0:27:48 – Brian
All right, all right, I got to get back to something happy. Hey, you can win, you can win.
0:27:56 – Kayla
Think of ice cream.
0:27:57 – Brian
I don’t drink alcohol, but I might start. That’s a joke, it’s a joke, okay, hey, by the way, you could win a free peas and carrots coffee mug and a pack of stickers. Y’all the stickers are so cute, they really are, hey, all you have to do is go to our website, which is the peas and carrots podcastcom. That’s right, peasandcarrotspodcastcom. When you get there, click on the trivia button Okay, and answer this week’s question.
0:28:25 – Kayla
What is your favorite spooky movie? Oh, now. Please do not roll up in here with less than they can say whatever they want to. We may not watch your spooky ring If that’s their favorite the Pope’s exorcist. This is their favorite spooky movie. Now we may not watch it. Oh well, here we go. Here we go, go listen to the first segment.
0:28:49 – Brian
There you go. So anyway, the first. You know it’s the first two people to go to our website. Answer the question correctly You’ll win a peas and carrots coffee mug and a pack of stickers and that website again peasandcarrotspodcastcom. And when you get there, you click on the trivia. There you go. All right, hey, search the peas and carrots podcast wherever you get your podcast, or visit our website, which we just said peasandcarrotspodcastcom.
0:29:13 – Kayla
And when you do don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Just search for the peas and carrots podcast.
0:29:21 – Brian
Spooky movie day, yay.
0:29:24 – Narrator
For more about the peas and carrots podcast and to reach out to Brian and Kayla, visit peasandcarrotspodcastcom. Laughter with good friends, no matter how bumpy the road gets. That’s what’s waiting for you with every episode of another great podcast quirks, bumps and bruises with melody and candy. Subscribe today, wherever you listen.