Graceful Change: How Jesus's Growth Inspires Us Today

Show Notes

Navigating the often tumultuous waters of transition can feel daunting, especially when it seems like life is pulling you in two different directions. Tamara K Anderson and Sid Winward delve into this theme through the lens of Luke 2:40 and 52, where the growth of Jesus is highlighted as a model for our own journeys. The conversation revolves around the notion of growth not being a passive experience, but rather an active choice that involves embracing change with grace. Sid shares her personal experiences with transitions, emphasizing the importance of recognizing the divine purpose behind these changes and how they lead to spiritual and personal growth. Both hosts encourage listeners to reflect on their own transitions, suggesting that these moments can be opportunities for increased wisdom and deeper connections with God and others.

The discussion also touches on the emotional challenges that come with leaving one phase of life for another. Sid's poignant story of losing a child serves as a powerful reminder that even the hardest transitions can lead to profound growth and understanding. The hosts emphasize the importance of seeking God’s grace during these times, reminding listeners that they are never alone in their struggles. Tamara and Sid invite listeners to engage with scripture, using it as a tool to navigate their own lives, encouraging them to see challenges as catalysts for growth rather than obstacles. By the end of their conversation, the message is clear: embracing transitions with faith can lead to unexpected blessings and a richer understanding of one’s purpose in life.

Takeaways

• Periods of change or transition in life can be challenging, but they are also opportunities for growth.
• Seeking God's grace can help us navigate through the difficulties of life's transitions.
• Setting goals based on how we can serve others can lead to greater fulfillment.
• Embracing change with an open heart allows us to discover new passions and joys.
• Remembering the importance of relationships can shift our focus from tasks to people.
• Growth is not just a personal journey; it impacts generations that come after us.

Links referenced in this episode

• womenwarriorsoflight.com

Today's Hosts & Guests

Tamara K. Anderson @tamarakanderson

Tamara, founder of Women Warriors of Light, is a dynamic speaker, award winning author, and a podcaster. She is driven by her Christian faith to inspire faith in Jesus Christ. Alongside her husband, Justin, she navigates the joys and challenges of parenting four children with autism, ADHD, and mental health hurdles. You can find out more about Tamara on her website: https://www.tamarakanderson.com/

Sid Winward @gmasidney

Sidney Winward, affectionately known as Grandma Lovey Dovey to her 34 descendants, is a storyteller, published writer, award-winning artist, and soon-to-be podcaster. Passionate about learning, creating, and uplifting others, Sid delights in meeting new people and recognizing the divine gifts within them. Through her work, she joyfully assists Jesus Christ in gathering, teaching, and spreading love, affirming that everyone is known, loved, and needed.

Transcript

Tamara K Anderson

00:00:00.800 - 00:00:29.790

Are you at a transition point in your life where you're kind of in between two things? Or maybe you're in limbo and you're like, what do I do with this God? I don't know what I'm doing.

Help me to know how to fill the gap in between this activity that I've been doing and the next one. If you've ever been there or if you're there.

Right now we have some amazing Bible verses from the life of Jesus Christ that I think will be very, very meaningful to you. So stay tuned.

Host

00:00:31.730 - 00:01:08.100

Welcome to Bible Women in Bathrobes, the podcast where faith meets comfort.

Join us Tuesday morning as the gals from Women warriors of Light and their guests don bathrobes and dive into the inspiring stories of women in the Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ. From Esther's bravery to the Sermon on the Mount, we explore it all with warmth, laughter, sisterhood and maybe even a few sleepy eyed moments.

Tune in live or at your leisure as we learn lessons from scripture which empower women today.

Tamara K Anderson

00:01:13.200 - 00:01:33.262

Hello and welcome to another episode of Bible Women in Bathrobes. I'm your host, Tamara Kay Anderson. And joining me today is someone new. We have to start off this new year and bring in a few new friendly faces.

And I am so excited to introduce you to a good friend of mine, Sid Winward. Sid, thanks for being here today.

Sid Winward

00:01:33.446 - 00:01:35.210

Well, thank you for having me.

Tamara K Anderson

00:01:35.590 - 00:02:29.616

And I gotta tell you a little bit about Sid because she's amazing.

Sid Winward, affectionately known as Grandma Lovey dovey to her 34 descendants, is a storyteller, a published writer, award winning artist, and soon to be podcaster. She is passionate about learning, creating and uplifting others. Sid delights in meeting new people and recognizing the divine gifts within them.

Through her work, she joyfully assists Jesus Christ in gathering, teaching and spreading love, affirming that everyone is known, loved and needed. And I'm so excited to have her on the show today. And what's interesting is one of the things Sid specializes in is transitions.

And I it's not by chance that she's on this podcast today, even though it might have seemed by chance. But, but we're excited to talk about some transitioning times, right Sid?

Sid Winward

00:02:29.808 - 00:02:32.304

Yes, yes, I have a few.

Tamara K Anderson

00:02:32.472 - 00:04:38.468

Oh yes, right. We've all through been through a few transitions. I'm sure we'll be sharing stories of those right along these with these verses today. So here we are.

It's a new year and we are kicking it off. We've kind of been talking about the voices of the Nativity, the people who've surrounding it.

As we finish this last year and, and now we're kicking off this new year and we are hitting some transitions in our story of Jesus Christ. And I only thought it was appropriate that we kind of address these transitions.

So we are going to be in Luke chapter two, and we, we're going to talk about two particular verses. One is Luke chapter two, verse 40, and one is Luke chapter two, verse 52. And these are kind of book ends on.

We have one verse coming after the story of Anna witnessing Jesus Christ at the temple. And then we know that his family fled to Egypt, but that's in a totally different book that's in Matthew.

And now we're coming back to Luke and we have this one verse of transition before we find Jesus at the temple, which we'll talk about this coming week. And, and then at the end of Jesus at the temple, we have another transition verse. And, and that's verse 52.

So we're going to start with verse 40 and move to verse 52 and kind of talk about transitions in our lives and how they apply. Sometimes you do feel like you're in limbo. You're moving from one thing to the next.

So verse 40, it says, and the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. And that's, that's the verse. So, Sid, thoughts on this verse?

Because there's some really amazing phrases in there that I swear we could spend one podcast on each of those phrases, but we don't have that much time. So thoughts on that verse?

Sid Winward

00:04:38.644 - 00:07:36.016

Well, my brain went to wisdom and, and also the grace and the child grew. So I, I thought, okay, I had to, I had to look up a few things because that's how I roll.

And I came across a really fun talk by Young is her last name Dwayne J. Young. And she said, very soon we become aware of another great truth. Only God's children have the capacity to direct their own growth.

This means that we can use growth because we choose. And, and, and that's part of the wisdom.

And she also said, as we observe the process of natural growth, we become acutely aware of certain eternal principles. And so this, this growth, this, this transitioning is all eternal principles.

And first we, it's an, it's a norm and it's a divine challenge that we've been given to grow and to change and to adapt. And so I, that was my first thought, and then my second thought is my mom was wise. And when I, when I ever I hear the word wisdom, I think of my mom.

She grew up in a home that she didn't have. Her mom passed away when she was nine years old.

So she, and she said to me, she says, I didn't have a mom to teach me, so I had to learn what I could, what I needed to do. And she says, you have had the blessing having a mom.

And then she said, our goal is you do a little better than me, have your kids do a little better than you, have that next generation do a little better than you, and we'll all do better together. And it, it helped me understand that growth isn't, it's not just isolated to ourselves. It's growth for everyone.

And everyone's affected by, generations are affected by our choices in our growth. So that was kind of one of the first things.

And when I think about Jesus growing in wisdom and stature and, and waxing strong in the spirit and, and the grace of God that was upon him, I think he was, he was taught, he was taught by angels, he was taught by his Father, and he knew, he knew him.

Tamara K Anderson

00:07:36.168 - 00:11:40.540

I love so much of what you shared there, that growth is a choice.

And that in those transition periods, it's interesting to me as, as I've come to different transition points in my life, I think my knee jerk reaction to a change happening in my life is, no, it's just that simple. No, I'm happy and content in this little spot that I'm in. Leave me alone, I'm good.

You know, and God, you know, kind of smiling at, you know, looking, it's like him looking at a young child saying, oh, Tamara, come on, it's time for you to grow a little bit. And I'm like, no, I just, I'm happy here. But there's no growth unless there's a little bit of a change. And there's no growth in being stagnant. Right?

And so God gives me these transition things that move me on up to a different plane. And he gives me a choice, okay, you want to grow with me or without me? Really? That, that's the question that, that, that he's asking here.

And obviously Jesus grew with his father, but I love the phrase grace in here because for stubborn little Tamara, who is like, no, I don't want to do it. You know, it's like a two year old. No, I want my way. God has grace.

God has grace for us in these transition periods when we are moving from one thing to the next, we're not very happy about it. I kind of picture myself as a 2 year old toddler, kicking and screaming. Come on, Tamara.

No, I don't want to do, you know, and, and, and yet he's helping me come to it. And I get to the next new thing and I'm like, oh, well, that's not too bad.

I think I can do this, you know, but, you know, it's that journey across, you know, and so maybe it's just me that has that kicking and screaming going on in the back of my brain, like, do this. It's too hard. And yet he's like, come on, Tamara, you'll enjoy this, I promise. Just come on. Come on. I, I, one, one idea is popping into my mind.

I remember when my kids were young. And of course I have three boys, so I was involved in Cub Scouts. Well, I wasn't involved in Cub Scouts.

I was, I was leading a choir and I was in my happy space. That was like, I, that was something I knew and I loved. And then they asked me to help with the Cub Scouts and I'm like, oh my gosh.

Like, I grew up with sisters. I know absolutely zero about Cub Scouts. I was super apprehensive about it.

I was like, I don't know God about this, but, you know, I felt like it was the right thing to do. So I started being involved in Cub Scouting and do you know what I found? I loved it. It was one of my favorite things that I ever did.

Like, I get to play with these young boys. I have a background in recreational therapy, so I had to take a lot of rec classes and structuring activities are fun for people.

And I ended up using that recreation part of my degree in Cub Scouting all the time. And so it was almost like God was dragging me across. Come on, let's transition to this new thing that you're serving in and, and you'll like it.

I'm like, I don't know. I never done anything like that before. Yeah, I. Come on. And I did. And I loved it. It was seriously my favorite thing.

And I ended up having so much fun with those boys. We went on all these adventures, ventures together. We learned new skills and we had fun. We had a lot of fun.

And I loved hanging out with my sons as they were going through the Cub Scouting programs. I ended up being in it for years and becoming a Cub Master. And I mean, I was all in. And then of course, there's a new transition.

It's like once you get things figured out and life is going Good again. Then God's like, all right, let's switch things up a bit. You're like, oh, there's camera you can picture. Young baby chat.

Sid Winward

00:11:40.880 - 00:11:46.584

I'm doing the round of applause for you anyway.

Tamara K Anderson

00:11:46.632 - 00:12:00.216

But it's just interesting how that is a pattern. Like I look back on my life and that is a pattern. It's a pattern that I can see over and over again.

And sometimes there were transitions to things that were not so happy and fun.

Sid Winward

00:12:00.368 - 00:17:57.340

That's one of the things that I was.

One of the hardest transitions in my life was, and I may cry a little bit, was going from a mom with a baby in my arms to a baby not in my arms and very sudden, unexpected death of not quite three year old little boy. And just overnight. And that transition was hard.

And I remember calling 911 and praying, praying, praying that he would be okay and him leaving in the ambulance and me having my bishop outside my door waiting to pick me up to take, follow the ambulance. And this transition period of I want him to live, I want him to live, I want him to live, I want him, I want him, I want him to.

Oh my goodness, if this isn't your will, we need to let him go. And this thought came in my mind, if it's, if, if, if it's your will, please let him stay with me. But if he's not, if it's not, thy will be done.

And that happened on the way to the hospital. At the end of the day when the fellow came in, happened to be a friend of mine who was working on him, his little heart stopped.

Just totally unexpected. Just. We didn't know what caused it or anything, but his little heart just stopped.

The fellow who'd been working on him came in and he happened to be a friend of mine. And he said to me, this was a hard day. This was a really hard day. You know, it was a hard day.

And the next morning when I got up, I didn't think I was going to survive. I didn't think I could breathe. I thought my heart was breaking. His heart had stopped and I felt like mine was going to do the same thing.

And I just needed a blessing. And I just said to my husband, I need a blessing. And he says, when?

And I says, right now we're sitting, I'm sitting there in bed and he gets up and gave me a blessing. And Tamara, the pain went away. God makes things good and I still miss him. That's what the tears are. The tears are pain of missing him.

But the pain in My heart went away, and Heavenly Father blessed me to be able to help other people get through this. And for years, I thought I was functioning normally because I didn't have that heartbreaking pain. And as time went on, I started seeing miracles.

Just miracle after miracle after miracle of why he needed to go. And one day, I. In my brain, I saw this little boy just yahoo. Jumping up and down. He was so excited. And.

And the thought came to me when they came for William, he just yahooed all the way into heaven because he was a child that grew from grace to grace very young. He told us the night before he died, he was grateful that Heavenly Father let us be his parents. That Heavenly Father is sending to our home.

He told us we needed to have more children. He told us. I said, we need to record what's going on, because he was quoting scriptures and he was singing primary songs.

And I said, we need to get a recording. And he says, yes, you do, Mommy. When this is somebody. This little guy was 33 months old. He was just shy of three years. And he was just. He was.

He was that little boy who just had grown out of us. And that transition, going from having him and holding him and loving him to not having a baby. I. Like I said, I thought I had transitioned.

Well, as I look back, I started. I realized I did. But the pattern is that you grieve. You're going to grieve, everyone's going to grieve. And.

And we do that, whether it's the death of a child or the loss of a job or a change in a job or just getting older. I became a great grandma last year, a couple of years ago, and great grandma is a different role than grandma. I don't get the phone calls.

I don't get the, come help me take care of the babies as much as I did with my own grandbabies. There's a transition and there is a grieving, and we. We grieve, but we don't have to grieve alone.

And that's the biggest thing is, is if we follow Christ's example, He was taught and he progressed with grace. And the grace is not only what is it. Emily Bell Freeman says. She says that we have the grace to overcome and the grace to become.

The becoming is the power to become. We. We can gracefully do that with the help of our Savior, Jesus Christ in the. And. And he showed us how. And that's what's.

That's what's great, is we can overcome those challenges, any challenge that we have, and I didn't choose to have my baby pass away, but I did choose to turn to the Lord and have him help me.

Tamara K Anderson

00:17:58.520 - 00:18:18.618

Yeah, to let that grace be a part of your journey.

And I think that's one of the beautiful things in this verse is, is that we can choose to have God and His grace be a part of our journey which will fill us with his spirit and give us the wisdom that we need to keep going. Yes.

Host

00:18:18.634 - 00:19:17.414

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Tamara K Anderson

00:19:17.502 - 00:19:22.918

So so as we invite him into those transitions, he will help us navigate them. Right?

Sid Winward

00:19:23.054 - 00:19:23.730

Right.

Tamara K Anderson

00:19:24.590 - 00:20:31.890

All right, let's. Speaking of transitions, let's go to the next verse and this one is beautiful. It's at the end of.

And we'll cover the temple journey next week with Jesus, it says, and Jesus increase in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. And I love this.

And I think for a new year this is a great verse to kind of look at because these are different areas in which we can grow in our lives and we can kind of follow the Savior's example. You know, we can learn more. We can physically take better care of our bodies. We can increase our spirituality and connection with God.

And also we can increase our relationships around us. You know that God and our neighbors of the first and great commandment is loving them and loving our neighbors.

So you can see that these are awesome areas in which if you set goals at the beginning of the year, these are some great areas to consider during this transition. Right? Thoughts on this verse, Sid?

Sid Winward

00:20:33.030 - 00:22:30.800

Well, I like the part increase in favor with God. I like that. I like the idea that, that I do things that I know my worth is already there, but I Like to bring God joy.

I like the idea that, I mean, as a grandma and as a great grandma, I love to hear from my children. I love to watch them grow. And it brings me joy. So I think that sometimes we forget that his joy is our growth.

And one of the things I always sign all my emails and everything with is that we're known, we're loved, and we're needed. And when I say, have said needed before, I've had people say to me, no, no, no, no, God doesn't need anything. And I'm going, yes, he does.

He loves us, he wants us to grow so that it brings him joy. And he also needs us to be his hands. And so.

And that's in favor with God and man, so we can really help each other and strengthen each other and find ways to be more outside of ourselves. Maybe in our.

When we set new goals and things, instead of I want, I want, I want, which I hear a lot of it, I, I just really think it's important to ask, what do you want, Heavenly Father? What do you see me doing? How can I help other people? How can I grow? Increase in wisdom and stature? How can I do that? What, what do you see?

And then just listen.

Tamara K Anderson

00:22:33.060 - 00:25:23.110

I love that. And I've had some powerful experiences when I pray to him about the goals that I'm setting, especially at the beginning of the new year.

What do you want me to accomplish this year? And he's good to guide us, especially when it pertains to us loving and serving his other children here on Earth.

I found sometimes if I'm asking selfishly, I don't get an answer very well. But if I'm asking, how can I love and serve people? The answers come much more quickly because there's always someone in need.

And I think the trickiest thing with that part is that I'm like, but I am so busy, you know, like my days are already full and yet. And so there's probably some of you out there going, tamara, I don't need one more thing to do. You know what I mean?

But what I found is that when you partner with God to help and love and serve those around you, so growing in that favor with God and man, kind of like you were saying, that he helps you find and make time for it, this past week for me has just been incredibly, incredibly busy and stressful. And yet God has inspired me what little tweaks I can make to juggle so many things.

For example, I've had back to back podcast recordings today, but I Also had an accountability group that I meet with every Monday morning and, and so we have a call. And yet I, I also prioritize my health and so I, I need to exercise. And so what.

What I was inspired to do was I can do my zoom accountability call with my friends at the same time that I'm walking. And so usually I do it before, but because I was recording podcasts, I couldn't.

So I ended up re doing my accountability call and walking at the same time. So it all worked out. But sometimes when we add things like that God is good to help us be wise as we manage the time that he's given to us.

I think it's not by chance that they, in this verse, it says in favor with God that they put him first.

Because when we put him first, as we're going through transitions or as we're trying to upgrade our lives, he inspires us how we can best fit things in. Or maybe there's some things we just need to let go of. Do you know what I mean?

Some things that, okay, this was important for a time and now it's not. You need to transition that out of your life. And sometimes those are the hardest prayers to ask because there's things you don't want to let go of.

You know, that's very true.

Sid Winward

00:25:23.930 - 00:27:10.140

One of the things that I learned probably 10 years ago, and I've.

I'm not even sure it's been 10 years, it might have only been five years when, when we started talking about focusing our on God and I, I wrote a little time management book and it's called Focus on who.

And instead of making your calendar with all your to dos, put down who you're going to visit, who you're going to see, who you, who your co workers are, who you're going to call, who you're talking with when you're walking, who, who is, who is this chunk of time benefiting? And if we change it to who, all of a sudden we have so much more time. It, it's just really kind of a miraculous thing.

And I have who, you know, my time with God first, and then I have my time with me to take care of my body, and then I have my time with my family and my time with my swim buddies and my time with just different things. But I don't do it all the time.

But when I shift my focus to who, who's benefiting from this conversation, who's benefiting from this service, who is benefiting from even going to the store, who is Going to be blessed from this. And it just changes your focus. It. It helps you to recognize different ways we can make a difference. And it. It. For me, it.

It's one of the things that helped me with some transitioning from. From working full time and not working and actually never worked full time. I worked part time.

Tamara K Anderson

00:27:11.160 - 00:28:40.320

Yeah. No, no, that's beautiful. I.

I love that you brought that up because I think as women, we have our long to do list, and sometimes it feels like we're not getting to the people who matter most, you know, or that we're not taking care of ourselves.

And I love that this verse talks about us taking care of ourselves, you know, that we're taking time to let ourselves learn, that we're taking time to take care of our body, that we're taking time to increase our connection with God and that he then empowers us to be able to do it with others as well. And so I.

I think if we just shift, like you said, that our thoughts to how are the things that I'm doing today benefiting those that I do love and care about the most? That it helps us realize, really, we are helping those around us much more than we probably realize we are. We're going shopping.

It's usually for food, to take care of our families, you know, So I am. I am taking care of my family when I go shopping. Even though I know there's some people who love to shop, I am not one of them. I'm like, get it.

Know what I need, and I'm out of there, you know? So I think that is very, very wise to look at the. Who we are benefiting with the test. And that.

That helps us maybe feel less guilty, because there is a certain element of guilt that we deal with, especially as women.

Sid Winward

00:28:40.700 - 00:28:41.480

Yes.

Tamara K Anderson

00:28:41.820 - 00:29:19.564

Right? For just not having time enough to do everything we want to do or need to do or. It's. It's a lot. It's a lot. And then we feel guilty.

Well, the adversary kind of is there to say, oh, you're not doing enough, or whatever. Whatever. We. We tend to believe him. We're like, oh, you're right. I'm so not. Because we're so worn out and exhausted. Right. So.

So maybe that might be a goal for the year is. Is to take better care of yourself. Right. As. And. And.

And to strengthen that connection with God so that you can discern what is most important to focus on during.

Sid Winward

00:29:19.652 - 00:29:20.188

Right.

Tamara K Anderson

00:29:20.324 - 00:29:36.840

This new year. All right, let's wrap it up. I can't believe our time has been Flying so fast. It just blows my mind.

Thoughts takeaways that we can apply today from these verses that we've read. I know they've only been two verses, but we've had an awesome conversation about them.

Sid Winward

00:29:37.790 - 00:30:01.810

Seek wisdom and seek his grace. Try to become what he wants us to become and do it even. Even through the hard times, even through the easy times.

Anytime you have to, you have to change. If we do it with grace, we're going to be a lot happier about it.

Tamara K Anderson

00:30:02.200 - 00:30:59.930

Yeah, 100% agree. I love the idea that you talked about, about remembering who. Who each thing is for.

It's a good reminder to me and I don't know that I've ever kind of looked at my to do list like that before, so maybe I'll, I'll tweak it a little bit here and, and, and try to remember that the things on my to do list are benefiting others and help God, maybe shift my mind to see it that way. That it's not just a box to be checked, but that it's, it's benefiting me.

And I also love what you said about grace because I think God can be with us through any transition, whether it's the good transitions or those hard ones that you talked about. So thank you for sharing that personal story because that was beautiful and it also shows us that that God will be with us through whatever.

Host

00:31:00.830 - 00:31:41.400

Thanks for tuning in to Bible Women and Bathrobes, hosted by Women warriors of Light. We've loved exploring the stories of remarkable women or the teachings of the Savior today with you.

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Until next time, stay faithful and may your journey be blessed and illuminated by God's love.