You Can (and Maybe Should) Slow Down // Tara Sun

"We need a more sustainable way of living, right? This means that we can keep up with God, even when we're tempted to numb out and be overwhelmed by all the things in life." 

— Tara Sun

Today's Episode: Join Natalie Abbott and Tara Sun as they dive into the challenges of managing burnout and finding a sustainable way of living out our calling in Christ. They explore how to live out our faith authentically, even amidst life's chaos, and discuss practical steps to prioritize spiritual health. Tara shares her personal journey of overcoming overwhelm and the importance of intentionality in daily life. Tune in and be encouraged that you too can live a slowed-down, intentional, rich life. 

This month's memory verse: “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” — Colossians 3:17

Today's guest: Tara Sun is the uplifting host of the popular women's podcast “Truth Talks with Tara” and the author of Surrender Your Story and Overbooked and Overwhelmed. She is a dynamic speaker and creative, using each of these platforms to equip women with the tools to know, love, and live God's Word in their daily lives. Tara's favorite titles are wife to her husband, Michael, and mom to their children. You'll find them living and serving the Lord in Oregon.

Want to dive deeper into this month's verse? Join Natalie in the her monthly Bible Study.

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Links from today's show: 

• Get to know Tara at TaraSunMinistries.com and @misstarasun.
• Check out this 4 step Bible study: The EASY Bible Study Method from Coffee and Bible Time.
• See the Bible as one big story with The One Story Bible, by Greg Gilbert (get it for 30% off!).
• Check out Dwell's BIGGEST SALE OF THE YEAR - 8/18-8/29.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey, welcome back to the Dwell Differently podcast. I'm Natalie Abbott. Guys, today we are talking about all the things that we do, all the things that we think, all the actions that we have, and how do we go about living out our faith in a way that is genuine, that we can look at what we do and say, I did this because of Jesus. I did this through the power of Jesus. I did this for Jesus. The verse that we've been memorizing all month is Colossians 3.17. It says this, and whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. It's a beautiful verse. I hope that you're meditating on it and memorizing it. It's been saturating in you. And I'm super excited to have my friend Tara Sun back on the podcast. Welcome, Tara. Thanks so much. This was one of my favorite ones to be on like a couple years ago. And I'm so excited to hang out with you and be on the podcast. It's like a double whammy. We get to hang and talk about one of my favorite verses. Awesome. Okay, so you are on back in March of 2023. And I feel like some life has happened since then. So give me your like five bullet point. This is my update where I've been. So if any of you have listened to this podcast before, or if you want to go back and listen, we'll have it in the show notes. But like, what's up? Oh my gosh, so much. Yeah, two years doesn't feel like that long ago, but also, well, yeah, two years, right? I'm like, wait. A little more than two years. Well, more than two years, right? Two and a half. Okay, yeah. So not that long, but also so much life has happened. So when I was on the podcast, I had a one-year-old and now I have, well, so now he's three. And I have a six-month-old now, so I have two boys now. I've written a couple more books, one that we're going to kind of talk about today along the verse. And yeah, I mean, I think those are the biggest things. I mean, we've had a lot of other little things in between, but just more kids and a lot of life. Yeah. We were talking before this about like sleeping and having, you know, having good sleep and how important that is with our kids. And I'm like, man, there's so many good things that we're talking about right now. We should just hit record. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of my friends the other day was like, how are you looking like this? I mean, she just had her first. And so, of course, I was in a totally different place with my first because I was figuring it out. And I still am figuring it out. But there's a level of... you know a little bit more every single time I'm learning. And I'm like, well, I'm like, of course you feel a little bit more comfortable as you have more kids as I'm learning. But also I told her, I'm like, I'm really grateful. I'm getting good sleep. So that is really life changing. It really matters. It really, really matters. I mean, I can remember those seasons of just like complete and utter chaos and just being like, if I can just sleep, then I'm I'm going to be good. And so, yeah, I love to hear that you're actually sleeping. Yeah. Well, I mean, and then I look back even to a couple of months ago when my son was like still in our room and like, you know, we feed him every hour or two, you know, whatever that was like. And like, you kind of get used to that, like the sleep deprivation. And then one night when your baby sleeps a four hour stretch or something, you're like, oh my gosh, I'm a new person. And it was just four hours. But like, what a difference that makes. Yeah. You're like, I didn't realize how much of a zombie I was. It was just like functioning. Yeah. And you're like, wait, like I used to get eight hours. Like what is life? Awesome. Okay. So last time when you were here, we actually were also talking about a similar thing. And I, it's funny because it's like, I did not Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. in the name of the Lord Jesus, like how do we not just listen to the word and then just kind of fool ourselves into thinking that we're living it out, but to actually like do what it says. And I feel like that conversation was so confessional and practical. It was convicting. And I think today's conversation, hopefully, will take a little bit of a different look. It's a different angle of this. So today we're going to maybe look at the hope that we have, the successes and the failures that we have, and how we live in every way, not out of like this sense of duty or fear, but out of the joy and the fullness that we have from Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him, like our verse says. So let me read our verse one more time. And then I'm gonna ask you a question. So our verse says, and whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. And I just think like, what if my life actually looked like that? Like it is this beautiful idea. Like before we do anything else, like can we just even imagine what that would look like? Isn't this something that we all want? Yeah. Oh, this is, this is what I want. I mean, I, and then we're gonna talk about this, how you say you want to do one thing, but it's, it's hard. It's like, we, we have to acknowledge that, that it's really hard to take something from your mind, right? Like what we consume to living it out with our hands and our feet. Right. But I genuinely believe most Christians listening to this, that really profess true faith in Jesus. This is how we want to live. But I think we get so stifled by maybe the pressures or life is so busy that it's just like hard to live it out. Also, when you were reading that again, Natalie, the name of the author is escaping me, but someone was talking about these emphasis, like when you read scripture with emphasis on a different word every single time. And when you put an emphasis, I don't know, maybe you didn't even mean to on the name, like doing it all in the name of Jesus. And I just, it struck me because how much do I do it out of like, the name of me. Like I do everything out of the name of Tara, because of Tara, because I want to achieve this. And I don't know, that just stood out to me a second ago. And I just like want to acknowledge that because I'm like, oh, like it just was such a stark contrast from doing everything in the name of Jesus versus how often I do things in the name of me. Yeah, no, I think that's a really, that's a really helpful thing. I would love to explore that a little bit more. But like what, I don't know. I just want to answer this idea, though, of like, why is this something that we want? Why is this beautiful to us? You know, like, what is it about? I think it's like considering the beauty of the gospel in it. Like somehow that if we're doing everything in the name of Jesus, if we're doing everything in his authority, by his strength, through his power, like, wow. Yeah. You know, like what if all Christians actually lived like that? Yeah. Would the whole world just get saved in a day? Yeah. No, seriously. Seriously. For me, what immediately jumps out to my mind is that we're all looking, we're all kind of wandering around and looking for meaning behind whatever we do, right? I mean, like whether it's in our motherhood, our marriages, our ministries, our vocations, in the dishes, literally anything. We're like looking for something like beyond the actual act. Like I want... some like purpose behind what I'm doing in the mundane. And I think maybe that's why this really is compelling to so many of us because we're just looking for something deeper, something more. And even the secular world that doesn't know Jesus, like people want deeper meaning. Everyone, you know, that we want to be known, seen and heard. I mean, you hear that even in non-Christian circles. So like that's something that God planted in us, right? That's why we want to do something bigger than ourselves, I think.

UNKNOWN: 8:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:04

And I love just what you said about even in the dishes.

SPEAKER_01: 8:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:09

Like, I do think that this verse is such a challenging verse because it's like every single thing, like all things, whatever I do, whether it's the dishes or whether it's like singing in church on Sunday, whether it feels like it's religious or it feels like it's secular, whether it feels like it's small or whether it's really big, like, I mean, I don't know how, like Tara, if you think about your life, do you feel like it's easier for you? And I'm kind of going off scripture, but I'm just thinking in the realm of what we've been talking about, like, is it easier for you, do you think, to acknowledge and to live out your faith in sort of the big ways? Or do you feel like it's, easier in the small things. Or maybe there's just, I mean, maybe there's a little, like it depends. Yeah. I think sometimes it depends. But I think lately I've had the awesome privilege to be able to see that in the smaller ways too. Because I don't think I used to see it in the small ways. Like I very much was obsessed with achieving and accomplishing and doing big things in the name of Jesus. And I really thought I meant that, but it was really more like we talked about in the name of Tara. I wanted to do these big things and it felt like it was for my gain. And so that's how I saw a lot of life. But now I think learning a better rhythm of life and understanding the gospel in every day a little bit more over the last couple of years, I see it in the way that I talk to my kids. I see it in doing the laundry and doing the dishes. I see it in having a conversation with a friend over coffee or... driving to Costco. I'm really grateful for that opportunity because I used to read scriptures like this and say like, well, I don't actually understand how I can do that in the everyday because life is just a string of mostly mundane things. I mean, you're going to have some big things in life, but it's mostly that. And so I think we would be really wise to see that in the everyday moments because that's really what makes up most of our lives, right? Yeah, oh my gosh, so much. I think that that's the challenge in this verse is like really considering how this affects every little component of everything that we do, not just the big things. But just like one thing that comes to my mind, so you just wrote a new book called Overbooked and Overwhelmed, how to keep up with God when you're just trying to keep up with life. And I think sometimes, like if sometimes a verse like this can feel really heavy, like we're trying to do all the things for Jesus. Like I'm barely keeping my head above water. How do I do everything for Jesus? So like, what would you say? Have you ever, like, obviously you're writing a book about this. So I have a feeling that there's been a time in your life when you felt crushed by the weight of all the things. Could you tell us a little bit about that? Oh, yeah. So first of all, this was like never something I thought I would write a book on. It was never like, oh my gosh, like I need to scramble and come up with an idea. Let's just do this. It was really genuinely out of a place of I had all the things on my plate and a lot of things that I had prayed for, like kids and ministry and all like good things, right? Like there's also distractions and life was really full. And so in the face of that, instead of like letting Jesus sustain me and be the reason why I did all of it, I just... went the opposite direction and I started to put other things above him. My Bible was growing dusty. I was achieving these things and saying it was for Jesus, but it was really just to check things off my list. And I was in a perpetual state of overwhelm and exhaustion and weariness, overstimulation, anxiety. Like it wasn't just one day or a week or a season. It was like constant. And that's where really this book came from where I was doing all the things and I didn't know how to handle all the things because I'm like, God, you've given me all the things. But like, how do I- I'm trying to do this for you, Jesus. Yeah, I am. But then I'm not doing it with you, right? Like I'm, I don't know. It was this really crazy thing that I never thought I would be confronted with. But it's like, we say that we want to live for Jesus in all areas of our lives, in all of the things. And then we come to this place of burnout or we come to the end of a season and we're like, where was God in that? Or like, where was my Bible time in that? Or where was, where was he? Like he was there. I just was the one who was far away, sadly. So what would you say, obviously you got to the end of that. Like, how did you realize that? How did you come to this conclusion of like, Like, did it take you getting to kind of that rock bottom place of like, I'm so totally burnt out? Yeah. Like, what? Like, tell us. Give us the behind the scenes. Oh, my gosh. Of like, what did this? I mean, maybe you don't want to, but like. No, I will. I'm an open book. I genuinely had like a breakdown. Like, I say it was like, yeah, it was it was like right after I had had my first son. and then had like a book come out and then just normal life. So, you know, whether you're listening to this and you're writing books or in ministry or not, like it doesn't really matter. Like life still lives and big stuff still happens and it keeps moving no matter what. And I didn't know what to do. And so I had this moment of after like a year of like living in a constant state of burnout, I like finally reached a breaking point, not just in my mind, my emotions. Physically, I felt the effects, but also spiritually. There was just this switch that I realized I have been living this way too long. I wasn't... I mean, some of the signs where I weren't treating people in my life that I loved well, I was just this anxious, snippy, stressed out person to my husband, to my son. I hate saying that, but like I just, I felt like I couldn't sit still with my son. I couldn't be present. I couldn't enjoy my time with him. I was in postpartum, but I just, there was just so much of like the effects of how affected my relationships with other people and with God that I had to come to rock bottom. And I, that's really genuinely another reason why I wrote the book was because I know a lot of us can relate to the burnout, but I don't like want people to think that we have to, because I just think a lot of culture is like, well, Like, you know, you can rest when you need to or, you know, the old saying, rest when you're dead or, you know, like just you're going to like burnout just happens or, you know, hustle culture. Like there's just stuff that we accept that we don't have to accept, you know? So the reason that you wrote this book was to help people who are going through that to kind of like give them a way out? Yeah. I'm assuming. Yeah, a way out. So like if you're currently listening to this and you're like, I need a way out, I am burning out. Yes. Or I have been burnt out and I've just accepted like, this is just who I am, I guess. Yeah. I guess I'm just a stressful, anxious person. Yeah. Who has too much on their plate all the time. There's no way out. No, for sure. And for the people that think, well, I haven't read my Bible in two months, but that's just the way it is because life is busy. There's no shame in that because I've been there because God understands. He has grace. but also for the person that just like feels like they can't get out of that cycle. Like I'm so busy and then I neglect God. And then like, it's just not sustainable, I guess, is maybe what it really comes down to. Like we were invited in by Jesus to have the full abundant life. And this means walking in lockstep with him. This means being sustained by him. And of course this means that life is gonna still be overwhelming, right? We're told in scripture that just like the man who built his house on the rock, the wind and the waves, they still came. but we were able to stand, he was able to stand firm in that. And so that's why I wrote it, you know, because like we just need a way out. We need a more sustainable way of living, right? This means that we can keep up with God, right? That's just what sustaining means that we can keep up with God, even when we're tempted to numb out and be overwhelmed by like the verse says that we're talking about all the things. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think like, honestly, if you read a verse like this and you're coming at it from that perspective, like it just feels like a burden, right?

SPEAKER_01: 16:18

It

SPEAKER_00: 16:18

feels like a weight, right? And yet I think if we are making space for Jesus, if we're filled up, if we are experiencing this abundance, right, that you're talking about, then a verse like this doesn't feel overwhelming. It sounds like I have margin for that. I can consider that. I can live out of fullness, you know, instead of feeling like, Oh my gosh, this is one more thing on my checklist. Yes, that's so good. I love that you said that. Margin and having the room because we want to do these things for God, but we're like, I don't have any time. But then it's like, wait, wait, what are we actually giving our time to? We live at such a fast pace that we don't even have five seconds to evaluate what is a part of my day? What can go? What can stay? Yeah. because we're all like, oh, like I don't have any time for God. But I've been convicted, Natalie, that so much of my life when I feel overbooked and overwhelmed and like God is on the back burner is because I self-impose other things. It's not that like I'm a, I'm not a victim to life. Like I have the authority in Jesus Christ first and foremost, but I also have free will. And how many of us are just self-imposing things that are just overwhelming us? And we think, oh my gosh, but it's really what we're allowing into our lives. When was the last time you saw someone fall in love with God's Word for the first time? These days, it's easy to scroll through our phones and harder to slow down with Scripture, especially for new believers. That's why the easy Bible study method from Coffee and Bible Time is such a gift. Guys, I love the ladies over there at Coffee and Bible Time, and they've developed a simple four-step framework to help women open their Bible and actually understand it with clarity, joy, and purpose. So whether you're walking alongside someone who's new to the faith or you're You're just looking for a fresh way to engage God's word for yourself. This is a tool worth using. Spiritual growth doesn't just happen. It takes showing up and slowing down and even inviting others to do the same. The easy method helps make this possible. You can grab a copy of the easy Bible study method from Moody Publishers. There's a link in our show notes and don't just read it alone. Open your Bible, invite a friend and let the word of God do what it does best. Transform your life. I want to tell you about a new Bible that's out from Crossway. It's called the One Story Bible, and it shows how the entire Bible is one story about God's plan to redeem the world through Jesus. It has conversational commentary from Pastor Greg Gilbert woven throughout the entire ESV text. This Bible helps readers, whether new or seasoned, see how every part of Scripture fits together and points to Jesus. I wonder if there's a person in your life who needs a Bible like this. We'll see you next time. Yes, I think that the verse like this calls us to evaluation and intentionality, right? If we really read it and we think to ourselves, okay, and even like that little bit at the end that talks about thankfulness, like that if we're doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, well, how would Jesus want me to do everything? He wouldn't want me to be stressed and burnout. He wouldn't want me to be exhausted. In fact, the reality is he doesn't need me. He doesn't need all my efforts. He doesn't need all of my works. And so if I'm doing it in the way that he would have me do it and in his name, then I can do that with a grateful heart even. That's so good. Instead of a heart that just feels so empty, like a heart that's overflowing with gratitude. Right. And what I'm really hearing from this too is like, When we do things for the motivation of glorifying God and in his name, it leaves more room for us to be grateful because how many of us say we want to be grateful people and that we're like, oh, you know, like, I mean, gratitude lists, you know, like you hear all the studies that it's, you know, super powerful or like, okay, cool. Yeah. But like we actually then can have the space to do that when we actually like slow down enough to be like, okay, wait, like this is what life is about. This is what sustains me. Gratitude changes everything. And I noticed that in the seasons that I am doing things out of my own ambition or my name are the times that I am more prideful and self-centered and less thankful. It leaves less room for me to be thankful. Yeah, 100%. And I think that, again, it's like, I think sometimes we get so consumed with this idea of what we're doing we're not really considering how we're doing it. That's true. That's really true. My sister Vera right now is on sabbatical for five weeks, which is amazing. And it's funny because I was just talking to her today. She's on like just starting week two. And she was confessing to me how hard it has been to unwind and to unplug. And I do think kind of like what we were saying, like there's this required intentionality You know, and I would love to hear your kind of response to that of like, how do we, you know, as much as we want this, like if we want this verse to be true, if we want to be able to get to a place where we can even do what this verse is asking us to do, like we maybe need to take one step further back and be like, how do I reevaluate? How do I unplug? So can you kind of give us your, maybe experience with doing that. And then maybe some helpful tips for those of us who are like, I want that so desperately. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm gonna say this in the most love and I'm saying it to myself too, is that we need to call an idol an idol. We need to be honest about what is in the way, right? Because we're like, we wanna unplug, we wanna unwind, but like we are letting so many things come into our lives and steal our attention and steal our devotion and steal our focus, right? which then affects how we unplug our ability or our lack of, right? And so I talk about in Overbooked and Overwhelmed how we first need to address our heart condition. We first need to address what are we giving our time to? What are we craving, right? Because ultimately what we crave comes from a place of like what we desire, right? So like say we're craving rest and we need relief because life is crazy busy. We're craving whatever this is. We need to look at, okay, if I'm craving that, what am I going to to fulfill that? Am I going to social media? Am I going to food? Am I going to relationships? Again, nothing, like I'm not demonizing any of these things, but like, are we going to the temporal things that just like Mary and Martha, you know, like Jesus said, Mary, you're choosing the eternal. Martha, you were choosing the temporal. Are we going to the temporal like Martha to fill us up? So that's the first thing I would say to someone who feels like they want to disconnect and unwind, rearrange their priorities is to look at what we're putting in front of God. I just said it like, we've got to call an idol an idol. We got to be honest. with what we are allowing to take that place on the throne in our lives. And that's really hard. But I would say this isn't like there's nuance to this conversation where it's like, okay, social media may be an idol, but like doesn't mean you necessarily have to completely log out for the rest of your life. But like, how can we steward that in a better way? I think just getting honest with where your heart is and where you're giving your time to then can help you realize where you can disconnect and how you can like start to unwind if you realize what's kind of stealing your rest if that makes sense yeah yeah so just thinking about like how how we unplug and let's say that we get to this space right where we're feeling like okay I can even start to like I've done this inventory of the idols that have been in the way yeah now I feel like I can do sort of a positive inventory maybe of what I want my life to look like. All of the things, right, that we were talking about. So maybe some of those things get removed or rearranged or reprioritized or maybe we spend less time in them. But how would you recommend somebody who's maybe doing that positive inventory to do that? Yeah. Well, I would say, first of all, look at the things that are most urgent. And I think we need to redefine what urgent is, right? I used to, Natalie, I used to think that there were like 30 big things that were urgent in my day. I mean, 30 might be a stretch, but like it was a lot. And it wasn't just like little things like feed my dog. I mean, that's important, but like it wasn't like those. It was like big projects or big things or like a big thing in my house or in work. I just thought so many things were urgent. And so I think that person that wants to make that positive change look at what really is urgent, right? I mean, I'm going to go back to Mary and Martha. Jesus says, you know, she chose the better portion. This is what's necessary. So what do you want to build your life around? Is it really Jesus? Is it his word? Is it his wisdom? Is it his purpose? So get specific about the things that will get you there. There's even a practical section in the book that we say, you know, we have these goals about like, I want to grow my faith, right? But like we say that and then life gets busy and overwhelming and but then we don't know how to put it into practical action because we've made the like 30,000 level, but we haven't brought it down to the 10,000 or 5,000 foot level where it's a little more specific. So like, how can you get specific about your big goal, about putting Jesus first, about, growing your faith? What are those things that you can do now? And then rearranging your day around it, right? So if there's things like you got to work, you got to raise your kids, you got to make dinner, you got to do the laundry. So like those are things that are always in process, right? Those are things that will always be there. Then how can you take those other things in the word, prayer, community, how can you fit those things into the day? Like as not an afterthought, but as just little building blocks. And also just, this is something I say in the book and I'm challenging myself too in this season of Little kids and busyness is that we so often limit what God can do by just saying, oh, I'm going to just spend time in the Word for an hour in the morning and then I'm going to check out and I'm just going to go about my day, right? Or maybe it's not even an hour, but like how much are we missing of the presence of God and the wisdom and the things He wants to pour into our spirit, conviction, truth, all this stuff by like blocking Him out when we're in the car, when we're feeding our kids, when we're at our cubicles, when we're working out at the gym, like All of those moments, this verse, do everything, whatever we do in the name of Jesus. And I just think we're missing it because we're just confining him to one block of our day. Okay, so how do you do that practically though? Like you are literally changing a child's diaper. Yeah. Like what is going through your mind that is connecting you to Jesus? Or you're at work and you've got a task, you're filling out a spreadsheet. Like in those moments- what are some practical ways that we can engage with Jesus so that it does feel like, hey, he's going with me all day long in the big things and the little things. So my dad, I don't know if he's the original originator. That was weird. The original, like, the original guy. He is the original dad. The original originator of this idea. But no, my dad is quoted so much in this book. My parents are really. And they've shaped so much about my faith. And one thing that he has taught my brother and I growing up since the beginning is that he just has like this open conversation with God. Like, think about picking up your cell phone the moment you wake up in the morning, like starting to call to God and saying, hey, God, love you. Thank you for waking me up this morning. Let's go. Let's do this. And you go about your day and maybe the first thing you do is change a dirty diaper and you're not very happy about it. And you can just be like, we call these whisper prayers, these conversations with God, just prayer, like being like, God, this sucks. I don't love this, but thank you so much for my sweet baby. Thank you that I have a dirty diaper to change. Thank you that you woke him up healthy. You know, like whatever this looks like. Going about when you're doing a spreadsheet, reciting a verse that you've memorized, you know, a dwell verse that you've memorized that you need to remind yourself when you're in the pits and you hate this and you're trying to do this for the glory of God, but you're like, this doesn't feel important. But, you know, recalling a verse, praying and thanking God for it. And not just Thanksgiving, but write petition, asking him. I just think Even just this open conversation where you never hang up the phone with God, that's inviting him into every moment. That is saturating your day with his presence because the reality is he's always there. He's always with us. But how often are we... like treating him like this pesky house guest that never leaves. Like we also need to be at home with God, right? Like you need to be with him too. And so that is just a really tangible way of doing that. Like in any situation, when you feel frustrated, when you're thankful, when something goes great, when something doesn't go your way, just in your head or out loud, just saying it. Even around my three-year-old, I've been trying to like pray even more out loud or like if I'm having a hard day, just being like, just audibly like, Lord, I need patience. It's simple as that. It's simple as that. I will say I've had a kid call me out before for like, they're like trying my nerves and I'm like, Jesus, just help me. And I didn't even mean to say it as loud as I did. And they were like, did you just say that about me? And I'm like, well, yeah, kind of. But like, but confessionally, like I need Jesus to help me because I don't really know how to parent you right now. Yes. You know, and they're just like looking at me like I have worms coming out of my ears because I have teenagers, you know, so it's different. Yes. No, for sure. And I think that's something that we miss is that like we just, we let ourselves stew in the frustrations or the disappointments or the comparison we feel when we're scrolling or the frustration we feel with our kids or even just, being thankful about something, right? I often, let's tie it back to the verse. I often, when something really great happens, if I don't acknowledge, thank you, Jesus, even just something as simple as that, it kind of can be easy for me to start saying, oh, thank you, Tara. Like you did it, right? Good job, Tara. Seriously. And so even just something like that, like, It's so simple. And I say that in the book. It's a lot of the stuff in this life in following Jesus is simple. I'm not saying it's easy, but simple as in straightforward, like God has laid it out in the word, but we forget. And so we just need to be reminded of doing it. Yeah. So good. All right, Tara, we are about out of time, but I love that whisper prayer. I hope that that's something that will go with our listeners as they're thinking about all of the things, all the things, whatever you do in word or in deed as your day is going forward to just allow Jesus into those different spaces. He wants to be there for all of it. And I laughed, but I think you're right. I think sometimes we think of him as like a house guest who will never leave. Or like kind of like a judgy old aunt maybe who's like, Tisk, tisk, tisking us all the time. That's just like hovering and like judging. Yeah. Yeah. That is not who he is. He is not like that at all. He's like having your best friend around. And I'm reminded of thinking of like my kids right now, my older teens who have Snapchat, who like they're, it is like a constant barrage on their phone of like their friends sending them pictures and all the things. And, you know, like what if you were like that with Jesus? Like what if all day long? You were actually like, hey, check this out, Jesus. You know, like this is what I'm doing right now. Just inviting you in. Anyway, I love that so much. Well, Tara. Thank you for joining me. Guys, if you want to find out more about Tara and all of her books and all of her fun stuff, she has her own podcast. In fact, Vera was on it, I believe, last summer. I think so. Maybe I'll put that episode in the show notes as well. So we'll have all things Tara Sun, including that episode with Vera. But thanks so much for joining me today. It's just a delight. It's a joy. I always love spending time with you. So thanks for having me back on. Yes, yes. Awesome. All right, guys, do check out our show notes and all the things Tara said. And we're so glad you're here. Okay, don't hit fast forward because you're going to want to hear this, and I am just barely containing my excitement. We have our warehouse sale, which is our biggest sale of the year. This August, the 18th through the 29th, we do it once a year, and we sell all kinds of stuff. We open up the vaults, and we have old verses. We have key tags, tattoos, and verse cards that you can buy separately, which we never sell. We have massively discounted verse kits for gifts that you can stock up on for retreats, your Bible study, your church, big We'll see you next time.