When Loving Others Is Hard ~Valerie L. McMahon & Abbey Bailey Ep. 51

Loving other people can be hard. What makes it hard? Why is it harder to love some people than others? What can we do about it? Join Valerie and Abbey on this episode for personal insights as well as tips on how to posture yourself to love well, even when it is hard.

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Transcript

 #51 When Loving Others Is Hard ~ 

(Transcript is auto-generated)

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

love, Abbey, god, people, marriage, husband, reflect, reclaim, person, life, boundaries, relationship, podcast, compassion, talking, social media, child, bit, Jesus, story

SPEAKERS

Valerie McMahon, Abbey Bailey, Denisha Workizer 

Valerie McMahon  01:22

Hello, Abby. Good morning to you. Hello, Valerie. It's good to be here. Yes. I just met Abby, officially, I think a few days ago. I think so. And I feel like I've known you forever. So that's sweet. Yeah. So that must mean that you're meant to be part of this team. Right?

Abby  01:40

Thank you. Yes, it's been good. Awesome.

Valerie McMahon  01:43

Well, have you Why don't you just tell us a little bit about your about yourself if you'd like to just a little bit about your family. And what's your favorite restaurant in Tucson? Ooh,

Abby  01:56

that's a tough one. Okay. So yeah, my name is Abby. Let's see. I've been here in Tucson since 2013. I am married my husband, his name is Tyler. And we moved to Tucson because of his work. And then we have two amazing children. We have a seven year old boy Mason and a four year old little wonderful, wild and free girl. Her name is McKenna. So yeah, we we love being here in Tucson. And as far as my favorite restaurant.

Valerie McMahon  02:30

Yeah, cuz you're from Ohio. Right?

Abby  02:32

I'm from Ohio. Yeah. So meat and potatoes. Yes, that's my you know, that's my first love. Yeah, yum, yum. But let's see the first thing that popped into my mind because I honestly I love going to restaurants, that's one of our favorite things to do is like, go on a date night and check out different restaurants. But culinary Dropout is what popped in my mind. Okay. Just because you know, it's a fun place. And you can get a variety of different food there. You can just hang out where you can play games. So yeah, it's just a fun place. For sure.

Valerie McMahon  03:04

Awesome. Awesome. I know, I put you on the spot there. But you did get to good. Well, I wanted our audience to get to know you a little bit. But today, we have the privilege of talking with each other about our topic for today, which we're going to be exploring. What do we do when loving others is hard? Yeah. Can anybody? Can anybody relate? I think we all can relate. 

Valerie McMahon  03:38

can be a time that I can be too. I can be too. Yes. We're not interviewing our husbands. Today we're talking. We're talking with each other. But yes, we've been talking the last few weeks about love. And especially we've kind of focused on how does love get distorted. And, and we've talked about Denise and I have talked about how a lot of it can start with how we view God. Yeah. And last week, we talked about how the Bible says that God is love. And so if God is love, then he you know, he is what love is all about. And if we really want to understand what love is, we have to understand who God is. And so we thought, you know, as we've been focusing a little bit on that, you know, vertical relationship, we're gonna dive in today with our horizontal relationships, right? Because every single day, we interact in some way with other people that can be hard to love. And so Abby, I want you to start us off this morning is you and I were talking right before the podcast. You know, why are people hard to love? You know, what can be some of the reasons that make people hard to love. Would you like to share with us about your thoughts on that? Sure.

Abby  04:55

Yeah, you know, I first thought about how God made Each of us so uniquely, and that is most of the time, we would think of as like a really beautiful thing. But inherently with that, you're also going to have a lot of difficulties and complications and challenges, because we are so different. So to me, I think that's one of the main reasons is our differences, whether it's a difference of opinion, different personalities, different backgrounds, or the families that we came from, and the ways that we handled conflict and different things. You know, there can be all kinds of things, just somebody challenging the status or status quo. Of what, how you like to roll? Yeah. So yeah, I think that there's so many ways, you know, and just the simple fact that love is beautiful, and God is love. But love is also complicated. You know, and I don't know that we can always fully understand and fully appreciate that about love.

Valerie McMahon  05:56

Yeah, well, it's interesting what you said, about the difference in backgrounds, I wanted to kind of talk about that, because we just you said, you're married, and the audience knows I'm married. And I actually, my husband and I, and just a few short weeks are celebrating 20 years of marriage. Thank you. And, you know, we came from very different backgrounds. You know, I shared in our podcast last week that I grew up in a Christian home, and my husband came to faith later in life. And you know, that husband, even though we met, and we both, you know, are sold out for Jesus and you know, had a lot of similar similar hearts about ministry that we have found, as we've come in, have gone along in our marriage, that our background, our family background, can really influence how we show love to each other, how we handle conflict, which there's aspects of love and how we handle conflict. So how have you experienced that Abby a little bit, you know, in your marriage, and just your upbringing, and even how you parent your children? How has that affected you? And just, you know, coming from a different background, maybe then from your husband?

Abby  07:12

Yeah, absolutely. It has affected background, it has affected my relationships, for sure. And my marriage relationship, maybe being one of the main ones, you know, because that's the person that you spend so much time, yes. And been experiencing so many different things with? So yeah, I'd say, you know, and it's an ongoing thing, too, you know, like, I don't feel like you can ever just figure it out, and then like, run on cruise control for the rest of your marriage for the rest of your life. That's good. Yeah. You know, like, it's, it's continually evolving different seasons of life, or whatever. But yeah, we both come from pretty different backgrounds. As far as how we were raised, and even the environment as far as, like, the location geographically where we were raised. And so all those things have played into how we communicate with one another, the ways that each of us differently handles conflict in the moment, you know, and, and having to learn not only about one another, but about ourselves, too, you know, I think that's been a big key is learning. Okay, you know, we are having a disagreement right now. What am I feeling? And why am I feeling that, and taking, taking that kind of ownership of figuring out where I'm coming from, so that I can also meet him and try to have compassion and understanding for where he's coming from, you know, so it's, it's a complex thing. And, you know, I just, I heard this phrase a while ago about marriage. And man, it really, like, got me and it's that marriage can be like a mirror. And that's, you know, what that kind of means is that, who you're married to, and the things that you guys experience in life together, it's often going to reflect back to you. So whether that's beautiful and good things that you can experience in that you'll that will be reflected back to you or whether that's tough and maybe not so not things that you'd necessarily want to embrace about yourself or look at and feel good about yourself. Yeah, you know, so. Yeah, marriage relationships are complex for sure. Yeah, it's yeah, it's affected everything but I think having God as your anchor, remembering that we can love because God first loved us. Amen. You know, all of that, I think, really, really matters. In our and all of our relationships.

Valerie McMahon  09:50

Yeah, you were talking about that mirror. I think another few mirrors I have in my house are my children. They can definitely be mirrors of if you are a parent out there, and when you see a behavior they're doing, they're like, why are they doing that? And they're like, oh, they learned it from me, you know, I'm how, you know, we can think, why is that child so different from the other and, you know, I love them all. But it's like sometimes the way we love our children and their differences, it has to be different, right? And it can seem like one child is harder to love than the other and, and we have to be careful with that we have to be on our guard, like, well, this child just always, obeys always listens. Like, we kind of can almost think like, oh, yeah, they're easy to love, but it's like, it's not just about easy, it's about loving differently, and loving in a way that that person feels loved. Right. And, and I think, you know, just thinking of that, if you know, another reason why people are hard to love is because, you know, maybe we're receiving resistance from them, right? Like, we're, we're putting out all this effort. And, you know, I know, probably many of you are familiar with love languages, right? What are your love languages? Abby?

Abby  11:05

Oh, gosh, I think my top ones anyways are quality time. And I can't remember what my other top when it that's my top one for sure. Quality, quality time. And, of course, you know, my husband's is like completely opposite. It's perfection, which is like my lowest Yeah.

Valerie McMahon  11:22

Isn't that interesting? How God does pet it? Sure. And I think we're going to talk about that a little bit later about that has a lot to do with putting others above ourselves. Like, how do we love people that receive love different from us any? And I think that's another reason, right? Why people can be hard to love. We can you know, think it's them, right? There's something wrong with them. There's something I'm not, you know, but really, it's how they receive love. It's not wrong. It's different. And we have to learn, okay, how I've learned that with my children, how does this child receive love? You know, one child may want all the praise in the world, one child may just want quality time with you. I have one child that likes gifts. little expensive. But yeah, it's it's learning how other people feel loved. Don't you agree like that?

Abby  12:16

Yeah. And that's a huge, a huge challenge. Because I think, well, at least in my experience, I guess I should say is, it's often not exactly the way that I would want to be shown love or the way that I naturally express love. Yeah, you know, so that can be tough to kind of take a step back and go, but um, you know, you're thinking to yourself, maybe, but I am loving you, I am showing you love. But to realize that maybe for that person, you know, while they can see that you're caring for them that maybe they're not actually really feeling the love. Yeah. from you in the way that they really desire to.

Valerie McMahon  12:52

Yeah, yeah. And if I was just thinking, if you're listening to this, and you're like, what our love language, I know, you can go online. I think Gary Chapman was the one that first wrote the book, but you can take a little test and there's even tests for kids. So yeah, check that out. For sure. If you're like, what are these love languages? Yeah, and just as we, as we're talking about how, you know, our love can be distorted and how, you know, like said, you know, we've talked about these reasons why people are hard to love, maybe their personality background, the way they receive love, you know, in speaking of your new role with reclaim story of handling our communications, and Abby does a lot of the content planning and all the beautiful social media use. You see, Abby, what do you think? How much do you think the social media, what we see out there on Facebook, Instagram, TV? How much of that do you think really influences? How we're able to love each other? Well love those horizontal relationships?

Abby  13:57

That's a great question. I and I think it's a very, it's like a hot topic right now, you know, for sure, just in our culture, and just generally in the world right now, and how the way that we interact with one another way we see people interacting, whether it's on TV, on social media, whatever. It can give us that distorted view of love that we've talked about here before, you know, and especially on social media, I'll kind of like focus in on that for a second that it can be such a divisive place. Yeah. You know, where you don't have to see people face to face necessarily to put something out there. Which makes it different, don't you think? Like, it's a lot easier to say something that might be a little cutting Yeah. To someone when you're not looking at their face, or saying it so. Yeah, or just seeing other people and the way that they're interacting on social media or we're seeing you know, politics and different things, which is you know, always for me anyways really difficult. And, you know, it reminds me of a phrase that I've heard recently, quite a bit. And that's about like toxic people. And I, myself have even in the past said, you know, oh, I don't know, this person is just toxic. I think that I'm just gonna, I'm just not going to be around this person. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, I'm sure there might be situations where that's appropriate, whatever, but there might be others where this person is in your life, and you can't really just cut them out of your life, you know, and that's where I feel as a Christian called to lean into God and to lean into how can I love this person? Despite what my initial like feelings are? Yeah, you know,

Valerie McMahon  15:45

we don't always understand why, right, like, what's behind the toxic behavior? What's behind the cutting comments, you know, we don't know the story. Right. Yeah, you know, we talk, you know, that's what reclaim story we're talking about, you know, is understanding our stories, understanding that we all have pain and hurt in our past, which can distort our view of love and affect how we relate, you know, to other people, and the, you know, what we put even put out there that maybe it's not, you know, our real selves?

Abby  16:19

Yeah. So that's such a good reminder. Yeah. And just the encouragement there about remembering that everybody has a story. And, you know, only we know, only individuals are going to know really what their full story is. So just, I think always trying to hold that extra bit of compassion that, yes, you could say very factually, that person's behavior towards you, or their actions towards you were not kind. Yeah, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you should respond in the same way. Yeah, no, you don't fully know what's going on. And just carrying that bit of extra compassion, with every person that you meet, whether digitally or in partner, you know, I love

Valerie McMahon  17:01

that, that compassion, and it makes me think of a lesson I learned along the way, even early in ministry, is that you can accept someone without approving their behavior. You know, you often don't know, Christians often say, you know, accept the sinner, you know, or, you know, don't don't accept the sin. And, you know, we see that we see that model so beautifully by Jesus, right. I mean, story after story. We, we've talked a little bit about this in the last few podcasts, like the woman at the well, which is one of my favorite story, the Samaritan woman, who had had multiple husbands was living with a man that wasn't her husband, and, and Jesus accepted her but didn't leave her in that toxic behavior. He didn't leave her in that in that sin. But you know, the acceptance of her, as you mentioned earlier, we're all uniquely made, or made in the image of God, that acceptance of her drew her to wanting to reclaim our story. Right. And, and I think we're going to talk a little bit about boundaries. You know, we want to be careful here, we're not saying that if there's some toxic people, some people, you know, abusive relationships hurt, you know, we're not saying like, okay, just accept, you know, there are boundaries there, you do need to protect yourself. But, you know, but like said, the people that may have, you know, repetitive behaviors, you know, that, that continue to just be hurtful or be offensive and, and just being able to say, okay, how can I accept this person? How can I show compassion? How can I see that they're made in God's image without necessarily approving? You know, that behavior approving that sin? Right, and what that would make how that would make a difference?

Abby  18:47

Yeah. And yeah, I wonder how could that make a difference in the world? We saw more of that, because, you know, the canceled culture that is, yeah, such a thing right now, just writing people off because something that they did or said, and, you know, not again, just like you said before, not that there shouldn't be ramifications, you know, for our actions and our words, yeah, but I don't know that there's anything that should cause us to just write people off.

Valerie McMahon  19:17

Yeah. Yeah. Imagine if, you know, Jesus did that. Right.

Abby  19:22

Yeah, yeah. See that? Yeah.

Valerie McMahon  19:24

I mean, he didn't, you know, we all we all have sinned. We all have made mistakes. And, you know, Jesus didn't write us off, you know, he said, I, I accept you and I know that, that you are better than this, and I have a plan for your life. And, you know, yeah, he he welcomed the outcast, he welcome those who are on the fringe of society. I mean, even even, you know, those that were, you know, directly opposed, you know, to to what he had to stand for what he had to say, you know, he still, he Still didn't turn his back on them. And, you know, I think that, like we've been talking about, there's so many ways that we can love others, even when it's hard. And we've been talking about that of, you know, seeing people as uniquely made in the image of God and have I love what you said, having that compassion. And you know, and it kind of starts with us to having seen seen the mirror, you know, standing in front of the mirror and saying, okay, you know, what do I see about myself, you know, that needs to change. And, you know, I think about, you know, about asking God even how, how do you want us to see that person? God? How do you want me to have your heart for that person? And, you know, and we've kind of talked about this, the last few podcasts that, you know, sometimes what makes it hard to love others, is because we are not receiving that love from God, that we aren't caring for ourselves, you know, love your neighbor as yourself. You know, if we're struggling to love ourselves, and to love who God made, how are we going to love others that are different from us. So yeah, yeah, yeah, share more about that. Your thoughts on that?

Abby  21:16

Yeah, I do think that's a really good point, you know, just in kind of remembering, God first loved us, you know, and that it's because of his love that we can extend love to other people. And sometimes I think we do you have to stop and, and reflect and think like, why am I maybe feeling some unloving feelings, or anger, or whatever it might be? At, that's not a bad thing, that you're feeling those things, but they're indicators that there's something there, there's something to go back to God and to kind of explore, you know, a little bit further. And, yeah, you know, I just I just think that it's really important that no matter no matter what we do, no matter what we're doing, in our day to day, we're trying to approach our life with God as our anchor. That's been like a huge thing for me, particularly in this past year, for some reason, you know, I guess there could probably be a lot of different contributing factors. But it's just been a really good reminder for me that if something anything is feeling off in my life, like I need to go back and kind of reevaluate my relationship with God first. Yeah, sure. You know, God, yeah, it's just from that, that I'm going to have and be able to have relationship with others.

Valerie McMahon  22:40

Yeah. Well, and you know, we are, as the Bible says, you know, people will know that we belong to God by our love, you know, God over and over, he's commanded us I know, that can seem like a strong word, but he has created us to love Yeah, you know, he has created of us to love others. He's called us to love it really is an act of obedience to God by by loving others, and not that we should do it. Okay, I need to go love this person. You know, they're gonna know that right away, whether it's genuine or not, but that we are the that vessel, we are that conduit of God's love. And, you know, and if it like we've been talking about, it's been so good. Like, you know, sometimes we want to just say, okay, that person is hard to love something with them. But you know, we have to like you said, we have to hold that mirror up and say, okay, but it begins with me. You know, what, what am I not believing about God? What am I not? How am I not receiving His love? Because if we don't receive His love First, there's no way we can love others. Well, right. Yeah.

Abby  23:43

And you know, one other thing it reminds me of is also reflecting what am I trying to do just on my own and my own strengths? Yeah, no. You know, there are especially when it's difficult to love people. That's an opportunity to lean on God and to say, God, this is hard. I can't do this in my own strength God, love comes from you. Let me be a vessel for your love in this situation and actually praying, you know, I think sometimes that's the that's the best that we can do. And that's okay. Just to be able to say that God I'm having a hard time with this. I can't do this in my own strength. I need yours.

Valerie McMahon  24:20

Yeah. Well, and you know, if if you are familiar at all with just you know what Scripture talks about God's love. It's referred to as a god Bay love and there's the different kind of loves you know, arrows is kind of that attractive love for Leos that brotherly love. But I want to read one of my favorite scriptures in Philippians two, which really, I think is you know, really captures what that sacrificial Agave love is and Philippians two three says, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Right it's not about me, rather in humility value others above yourself, not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the interest of others, then it goes into talk about how Jesus did not consider equality with God something be grasped, he made himself nothing. He came as a servant, He came to serve not to be served that sacrificial love that says, Okay, I have these needs. I want my needs to be known, you know, and I'll be honest, that's been the biggest struggle in my marriage, is that, you know, both my husband sometimes both, we both have this hesitancy like, Okay, if if he does this, then I'll do that, or, you know, if she pursues than all pursue, and that's like not, you know, right. Like God pursued us, Jesus came down to pursue us. He didn't wait for us to love him first. Right? Like you said, he, we know how to love because he first loved us. Yeah. And, yeah, that's so, so good, so good. Like you said, we can't do it in our own strength. We have to have God's strength in us. We have to have God's compassion in us, we have to have God's heart. So as we as we think about, you know, what we've talked about so far, what, what kind of practical steps what what encouragement would you give our listeners, as far as, you know, kind of wrapping up summarizing, how do we love people when it's hard? And you notice, we're not saying how do we love hard people? You know, but how do we love when it's hard? Yeah. You know, so what would you say are some of those top top things we need to focus on?

Abby  26:42

Yeah, I think we've mentioned maybe a few things within our conversation. But one of them like a very practical thing that I've been working on this past year, it actually relates directly to social media. I think, for everyone, social media can be a difficult place a different difficult thing in the world right now. But especially if you're also working on social media and creating content for social media, and just having to be on and seeing what's going on. It can it's, it's just another layer. So I've been working on trying to make sure that before I go on to social media, before I expose myself to other media, that I'm first filling myself up, in the ways the intentional ways that mirror how I want to live my life. Yeah, so oftentimes, that looks like taking some time to journal to just be in silence and solitude when, when possible with two little ones, of course, you know, taking some time to read a devotional in the morning. Yeah, and just fill up on that before going and taking in information that you know, is likely going to be divisive or just challenging or maybe sad, or, you know, or great. That could be good, too. But just starting with that anchored place first.

Valerie McMahon  28:06

Yeah. And and asking yourself as you're journaling and spending that time, like, how can I show your love God? How can I show your love in my post? How can I show your love when I'm interacting in this Facebook group or on Instagram? You know, what pictures? Do I post any everything? Like, how is it showing? How's it going to point people to you? Yep, yeah, yeah,

Abby  28:29

that's really good. For sure. Yeah, we talked a little bit too, about reflecting on why. So thinking about, you know, how do you tend to respond in a difficult situation with the other person? What's, you know, at least for me, I've found that there's a couple of kind of, like, go to responses, like, I typically am either defensive, I hate to say, but it's the truth, I am often either defensive or I withdraw, you know, depending on the circumstance and the person, whatever. So just really taking some time to think about, okay, why, why would I have a defensive response here? Maybe there's something about this that is challenging me, maybe there's something about this that is reflecting a part of me that I don't want to admit, is real. Yeah. You know,

Valerie McMahon  29:22

maybe even it touches on a wound. Yeah. From the past, which is often hard to relate. You know, is this reaction really about what just happened? You know, and that can be hard to discover is like, or is it really a reaction that, you know, I've been prone to, to do this since since I was a little child. Yeah, we don't always know. Right, those connections, but they can be very important to realize,

Abby  29:48

yeah, it can be helpful just to reflect you know, and, and, when in doubt, I think one of the things that I try to do is pause. Just pause and listen I heard another wonderful quote recently that is being heard is so close to being loved, you know that just to listen to someone can make that person feel loved. Like, it's not even necessarily that you always have to do something major. Just being there and truly listening. Mm hmm. Not thinking about what you're going to say next. Yeah, actually listening. Yeah. can really make a person feel loved. So when in doubt, and listen, yeah, you know, be slow

Valerie McMahon  30:30

to speak quick to listen. Back can be hard. So yeah, and some other things we talked about, I think you brought up too is just, you know, praying, praying and asking God for his strength. And, and even we were talking to Tanisha, right, right before this, and she said, she loves to pray and ask God, show me your heart for that person. And wow, that's, she said that does you know that? Yeah. And those are every time it's like, okay, you ask God to show his heart for that person, he's gonna show it. And that makes me think of, you know, kind of my own journey. You know, I think many of you have heard my testimony, either podcast, just my struggle with anger in my marriage, and how, you know, I've had many times of hurting my husband, with anger in the past. And I remember my counselor helping me with this, at one point, saying, you know, imagine when you're about to unleash, you know, what you're going to say, imagine Jesus standing behind your husband? And, um, yeah, talk about that mirror, right? You can't, you know, and ignore Jesus, but like, that just made a huge difference for me. And, you know, just saying, like, what I say this to Jesus, you know, and just realizing that man, my, my husband is made in the image of God. And you know, like, you know, that just kind of convicts us like, why would I say that to somebody that's made in God's image? And if Jesus is standing right there, yeah. So that, that has made a huge, you know, difference. But I also I wanted, you know, to kind of reflect back again, on boundaries, you know, how is how is setting boundaries? Abby, what do you think? Like, how is setting boundaries? A good practical step, you know, with, like, you mentioned, those toxic people, or the people that can have those repetitive hurtful behaviors? How, how can boundaries be a good practical step?

Abby  32:27

Yeah. Yeah, I think sometimes boundaries, also can equal love. Yeah, sure. Sure, you know, both for yourself and for the other person. But, you know, one example I could think of is kind of a boundary for me, with a certain relationship is kind of reframing my expectations of that relationship, you know, I can acknowledge my desires or otherwise, I'd rather, you know, I desire for a different kind of relationship. But the reality is, it's probably not going to be possible because of those repetitive things that have happened that have been hurtful that I can't control, and I can't change and it's not my place to tell that person. Yeah. That so instead, it's reframing my expectations and creating boundaries of what kinds of interactions that I have, making sure that I'm going in with realistic expectations. Yeah, that's, that's one of the ways.

Valerie McMahon  33:23

Yeah, yeah, one of my one of my favorite authors, Jill Savage, she wrote in her book, no more perfect. Moms, in that she has a book, no more perfect marriages. But she says, you need your expectations to match your reality, and how, you know, we can hard we can see that in every relationship, you know, reflect on what's our reality? How do we match our expectations to that? So that is so good. Well, Abby, this is this has been so good, just reflecting with you on your experience and what you've learned, throughout, you know, your years of, you know, relating to other people and marriage and, and just even on social media that's been so valuable to think about, you know, as we've kind of broken this down of when we think about, okay, what makes loving others hard that it's not always about, you know, what that person's doing, how they're acting, but it really comes down to looking at ourselves, looking at our hearts, you know, evaluating our relationship with God and like you said, you know, how the only way we're gonna love others well, is when we love and God's strength. So yeah, is there anything else you want to our audience to know about that as we wrap up today?

Abby  34:45

Sure. I guess just the last thing I'd love to share is I am absolutely no pro. You know, navigating difficult relationships. I think we've all had experience navigating difficult relationships and just one of the things I really feel right now All that I need to like, encourage is that love evolves and changes over time. And that's okay. Yeah, you know, it's like we started out this this podcast today talking about how complex love can be and how many different types of love there are and how many different needs you know people have and all the things. So just kind of giving yourself grace, or receiving the

Valerie McMahon  35:26

grace. As I said last week, it's in your head that

Abby  35:30

receiving grace that's already there. Yeah, God for us to have that, you know, it's okay to make mistakes. Yeah, it's okay to do that. And to learn over time. Love is gonna look different in different seasons of marriage in different seasons of parenting, you know, so just, I guess part of it for me is that there's no like, direct answer. Yeah. It's just leaning into it. Being able to lean into God, being able to lean into others, and continually learn and grow Love is a beautiful thing. Yeah.

Valerie McMahon  36:02

It's a beautiful thing. That's so good. Yeah, learning and growing like we have. That's, that's the Christian life. And that's what it means to love others is continuing to learn and grow. I love that, Abby. Well, thank you. Thank you for being on our podcast and ledger. And you'll probably be hearing more from Abby in the future. Even hopefully, on this podcast. This was fun. So, so thank you for listening again, to living the reclaim my podcast. And if you're not connected on social media with us, we're on Facebook and Instagram. And we're going to be dropping a new blog this next week on this exact topic when loving others is hard. And you're going to hear from one of our Reclaimers about how God showed her how to love her mother who was pretty much addicted to drugs all of her life and what that looks like and how her persistent love eventually helped her mother come to Christ. So it's a beautiful blog. So look out for that since next week, and we look forward to seeing you on the other side of this mic.