Julie Lyles Carr welcomes Jamie Ivey to the podcast for a powerful episode looking back on their mothering careers, what they would change about their toddler mom selves, and how to help our kids (and ourselves) embrace what makes our kids special.
Interview Links:
Jamie Ivey: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
Book: God Made You To Be You
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Transcription:
Julie Lyles Carr: You’re listening to the AllMomDoes podcast where you’ll find encouragement, information, and inspiration for the life you’re living, the kids you’re raising, the romance you’re loving, and the faith you’re growing. I’m your host, Julie Lyles Carr. Let’s jump into this week’s episode.
On the AllMomDoes podcast, she lives right down the road, near and dear to my heart. Jamie Ivey comes back to the podcast today. Welcome back..
Jamie Ivey: I’m so happy to be here.
Julie Lyles Carr: I mean, I got to give you kudos because here’s the deal, Max Lucado has been on three times. This will now be your third time. And you were like one of the flagship interviews when we started, you were so gracious when we were starting this podcast and signed up to be one of our first guests.
So, thanks so much for coming back.
Jamie Ivey: Listen, anything that I’m on the same scorecard as Max Lucado, I’m happy. So, I am so grateful to be back for a third time. Thank you for having me.
Julie Lyles Carr: And we’re so glad to have you. You, of course, are always up to all kinds of new adventures and doing all kinds of things.
And I’m excited to talk to you about your latest endeavor that you’ve kicked off with. And I know that so many of our listeners, moms who have kids who are in those ages of say two to six, like preschool into early school, you’re going to really want to listen closely. But even if you’ve got older kids, Jamie’s got a lot of wisdom to drop about helping our kids truly be themselves and understand what that means to be.
So, Jamie, what about this younger age group got you excited in terms of a new writing project, because you know, we’re both in those stages where we’ve got kids launching and we’ve got kids in the tail end of some of the middle school and high school years. So our toddler years are not that far behind us.
Doesn’t seem like it was that long ago, but calendar says a little bit otherwise. So what got you interested in this age and stage?
Jamie Ivey: The calendar does say otherwise, that’s for sure. I’m launching my first child this year. So I have a senior. So my kids are all teenagers. And so there is a part of me that’s like, man I speak to teenagers every day. Like this is our life. We both know this. This is where I have teen ministry in my house. It’s so a little bit, it felt like, man, I want to go back to a time that I’m not directly in every single day. Easier to look back on. It feels a little bit easier to be that, that older mom that is cheering on a younger mom with a, you know, two, four or five, six year old kid and just going, I made something for you to help you because I believe in you.
And so I think that’s what it was for me. This kind of sense of, you know, what I remember those little years, and I remember how important they were. I also look back and I remember reading books to them that were so special to not only them, but also to me. And so I wanted to create a book that I felt would be special to kids and mommas and daddies and grandmas and aunties alike that were reading it. And I think we’ve done that with this book. I’m super proud of it.
Julie Lyles Carr: You know, I love in some of the things that you were considering when you were writing this book, some of the research that’s out there that tells us that kids really begin developing a strong sense of self much earlier than we originally thought.
I know when I was getting my degree in one of my reasons in child psych, way back then a million years ago, you know, we really kind of felt like that there wasn’t a whole lot, in terms of personality with younger kids, you could necessarily see maybe kind of wait until they were 12 or so. Now we know that it’s way younger when kids really begin understanding and having that sentient sense of self. How did that inform.
The stories that you wanted to tell moms and dads and their kids, because it’s pretty, you know, it’s a pretty recent thing to realize just how formative those years are in terms of how someone sees themselves?
Jamie Ivey: Yeah. You know, I have four kids, like I mentioned, and we had one child in particular that when they were younger, really struggled with
wanting to be the person that God had made him to be. And that sounds like a show that I might have at 43, or you might have when you’re 20 or whatever. But I saw that in this child of really not knowing where they fit. They were different in this area and the same in this area. And I remember as a mom, really wanting to just say on, repeat over and over and over again, like God made you this way.
God made you to be who you are. God made you for a purpose. And so I think that I’ve remembered doing that so often with this one particular child. And my other kids, they didn’t struggle what that as much, then it looks different now as teenagers, but in those younger years, but there was that one kid of mine who never really felt like they fit in. And this book is special for that reason as well, because there’s this one character in this book, that feels different. It doesn’t feel like he fits in and his friends rally around him to remind him of how much goodness he has in his life. And so, I think that that was important for me as a mom. And I think that a lot of moms now, like you said, we’re more in tune with our kids these days than even our parents were, or our grandparents were, you know, raising kids in the 1800’s.
And so we’re just more in tune with what they’re feeling, what they’re doing, and what they’re talking about. And so this to me is just another resource of how we remind them of things that are true, that we want them to know and believe on a, on a six year old level, you know, a six year old board book to help them.
Julie Lyles Carr: You know, I think because in some ways we suspended this idea of trying to get into the nitty-gritty of someone’s self-concept until kids were a little bit later. I feel like a lot of the advice I got when my oldest kids were younger, was to focus more on their behaviors, you know? So how do we, how do we sit still at a family dinner, and how do we do this, and how do we handle that? And we’re not, we don’t want to lie. And we want to make sure that we pick up our toys… and there was so much that was behaviorly based. And it was something that I think as a parent, I can sort of get my head around. Right. I could see if the, if the things I was saying, and I was guiding them and were working, whereas this idea of how you see yourself and understanding your position within a family and within a community that feels a whole lot more esoteric when you’re still trying to help a kid understand all of their barnyard animals.
Yeah. So why do you think there’s a value and why do you think it’s important in starting that conversation early? And how do we balance kind of two questions here, Jamie? How do we balance making sure that our kids are doing the things that we know we want to infuse into them young, without supplanting this idea of making sure they understand that they have a seat at the table, you know, that they are valued for exactly who they are?
Jamie Ivey: Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s hard work and you know, you have a lot of kids. I have four kids, which is a lot of kids and some standards. And I think that makes it even harder is because not only were trying to focus on just this one sweet child, you know. In our situation, I know some people that is their story, we’re trying to manage all of these kids. And sometimes it can feel so overwhelming. Cause like one day you’re like, are we still talking about the same thing? And yes, we are still talking about the same thing. Yes. And so I think so much of an intention on a parent’s part. And, you know, I had this conversation recently with someone else and it made me think about this, there’s a lot of times the things that we’re trying or that we want to instill in our kids, a sense of identity, the sense of believing that they have a purpose, this sense of something more with their heart than with their actions. I think sometimes we, as adults are struggling to figure out how to do that as well.
I mean, we think if we just look the right part, then everything’s good. But if someone digs into our heart, then you know, game over, like, I don’t think you want to know what’s in there, but I’m going to act like everything’s okay. And so therefore, sometimes it that rolls over into our parenting, like, okay, kids, if you’ll just do this, we’ll be okay.
But it takes so much intention and work to dig into the heart and that’s hard work. And so I think it’s important work though. I’m now digging into my heart on things that never got dealt with and it’s hard work, but the fruit is so evident. So I think we can look at that as our kids as well. It’s like, man, I, there are some things that we just have to do because you’re an Ivey.
It’s how we roll. It’s how the house functions, is what we do. But also there are things that are individually true for each kid and they’re different. And as a mom and dad, How do I stay in tune with that, man? It’s hard. It’s really hard. And sometimes I have to come back and remind myself, how is this kid’s heart and what are we doing here?
And I’ll tell you, I think that’s harder when they’re younger, because we’re dealing with just four year olds and their just their behavior is so different. And there is so much like we’re teaching so much behavior right now. So, so I want to admit it’s hard work. This is real hard work. It’s hard now with teenagers on a different level, you know?
Cause you’re just like, you’re the answer of how are you today is just, good. Like just good. Are you fine? Yes. Fine. So what feels good? Everything, everything. So I think it’s important, but I think it’s also really hard work, you know? One day at a time saying, Hey, how do I connect with my kid on an emotional level rather than just how well are we sitting at the dinner table tonight.
Julie Lyles Carr: Align for me, because we definitely have in our family vernacular, we, you know, we’re the car family, and we do blah, blah, blah. My mom and dad were very big on that. There was a whole thing about Lyles are fill in the blank, and Lyles are not, fill in the blank. And I do think there’s this beautiful comfort and this sense of belonging when you have a family identity, that is clear. That is, this is how we roll, to your word. This is how, if you’re an Ivey roll. And yet sometimes I wonder if we can let the sense of family identity or what I’ve sometimes called a family mythology, you know, that’s the kid who’s not good at math and that’s the kid who’s the super helpful one. And that’s the kid who’s shy and that’s the good, who’s really outgoing. If sometimes in what we begin to define as our family constitution, if you will, if we need to be cautious or maybe push a little harder, how do you manage that and manage it well, in those younger stages to where being part of the family doesn’t necessarily squash some individuality, or some things that you’ve noticed in a child don’t become their manifest destiny in terms of the position within your family.
Jamie Ivey: Oh my gosh is just so hard because we like speak things into being when we, like you said, like the shy kid. I remember reading a book one time and someone’s talking about how, when I was little, this was a person remembering everyone called me the shy kid. And I was shy, but then I just kept being shy because I was just the shy one, you know? And so there is this idea of as parents, we have this, this authority and speaking over to them so many times. And so, a lot of times when I’m thinking through my kids, I’m thinking I want to speak over you and call you up into what I want you to be. And those would be like foundations for our Christian faith. You know, like I want you to be a person who is kind and loving and generous and accommodating and, and, and noticing people around you. And so we’re going to speak that over you and speak that into life.
You know, you talk about, you know, this is what the, the Carr family does, and we do that too. Like the Ivey’s, you know, we’re going to be generous people and we’re going to be hospitable people. Our doors are going to be open, and so calling our kids up into that standard, even when they don’t feel like it is difficult and hard, but it’s important and it becomes a part of your family culture. But also, you know, with my family, all four of my kids, you know, they’re so different, which most kids are, but our situation’s a little bit unique that three of our kids joined our family through adoption. So all four of my kids have different DNA, you know, different, all the things, you know, nature versus nurture all the things.
And so how do we also become parents who look at each of our individual kids and say, we see this in you, and we’re going to call you up to that. Not that we’re not asking anyone else to do that, but man, you know, I have one particular kid that I see so many leadership qualities in this kid. And they don’t, they are not involved in a lot of leadership things, but I see it in them.
And so it’s not that I’m going to squash my other kids and say, you are not leaders. But I’m going to deal with this kid in a unique way that really encourages and calls up to leadership that I think that they should be doing. And so that’s kinda how we’re trying to do that. Just one quality in one kid doesn’t diminish it in another one, but how do we individually speak into each kid? And again, It’s hard. It’s intentional. I have found, I just, the other day I was like making notes about each of my kids cause I want to be better about praying specific things to them individually. And that’s the thing that came to my mind is like writing down qualities I see in each individual kid that I kind of want to call them up into. And I got to have that practice and see it written out, you know, and that was a reminder to me as their mom, that they are unique and individual, and I can kind of call them into those things.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right. I’m going to ask a two-parter I’m going to start with the harder one, but it’s connected. I would have to assume you can confirm or deny, that going back into writing this type of material took you back about 10 years to get back into that place of oh yeah, when the sippy cups were constantly making cheese in the back of the mini-van. All of them. Yeah. All of that. And. I know I’m reflective, particularly as I’ve got kids, who’ve launched.
I have three, who’ve gotten married in the last 18 months. I mean, it’s like, wow. And I know this is something we kind of want to punch people in the throat for we’re in the throws of toddler years. And somebody is like, he goes so fast. You know, the days are long with the years are shorter. I blah, blah, blah.
But, I mean, can I have a researcher? We’re here to say it’s true. I’m sorry. All the cliches are true. When you were doing that little time jump, getting back in the parenting Tartus and going back into the history, what did you notice that you think? Gosh, I would change that now if I had the opportunity, knowing what I know now, I would change that in some of my parenting dialogue or style?
Jamie Ivey: I know exactly what it is. Okay. When my kid, when we became a family of six, which when my two kids came home from Haiti, and at that time we had a six year old, two four-year-olds and a two-year-old. And that age bracket in itself, or that’s what this book is for, but that age bracket in itself with four kids between two and six is just as hard. It’s hard. It’s exhausting. It’s hard throwing on top of that two kids who came home from a foreign country through adoption. So we throw on all the layers at that moment. Throw on top of that, a husband who at that time traveled a lot. And so I was exhausted as most young moms are, but I talked earlier about not , we talked earlier about this behavior modification stuff and just like wanting them to do the right thing.
And I can honestly say looking back, I spent so much time concerned if people thought I was a good mom. So concerned that all I wanted to do is get my kids to act right in public. And so I can only imagine the stress that put on my kids. I know it stressed me out, you know, and I was a grown woman. And so I think if I, I know if I could go back that I would be way more willing to have my kids act a fool in public.
For me, not for me not to find my worth and identity through their behavior. That’s what I would do hands down is I would let them be crazy because me trying to control that… now, again, there’s all these things of like, oh, we have rules and all of that. Yes, it’s true. It still exists. But within that, I drove myself crazy.
Trying to look like ahead at having it all together.
Julie Lyles Carr: Yeah. I mean, that is a wisdom bomb right there. And I, and I hope I can remember, Jamie, part of the same sense. I mean, different scenario. We didn’t have children. We were adopting in, but all these little kids and feeling like particularly, I think there’s something too about when you have a bigger number of kids.
It’s not that parents of two children don’t feel this, but you do feel like the eyes are more on you just because you take up more real estate. When you walk into the, lot of us coming in, there’s a lot of us coming in and you feel like you’re going to be evaluated more. How well of a handle does she have on this?
And you know that they’re going to be people who might say this is why people shouldn’t have that many kids or, you know, whatever the thing may be. And I can remember, there were times that there were people, women older than me, who would watch one of mine, have a meltdown and actually be kind of condescending and judgy about it.
And I hope that one of the things that we can carry forward, I hope something that I definitely carry forward when I’m that woman, that older woman observing that mom with kids, is to extend her all kinds of grace and a smile and support. And if you’re somebody who has experienced having somebody kind of frown on you, I hope that doesn’t become like a negative motivator for how you’re parenting your kids. It does, you know, we do, we feel it and I know exactly the sense that you’re talking about. Yeah.
Jamie Ivey: And I think too, well, I want to add to this too. I think part of it for me, that is embarrassing maybe to say out loud, but it made me think about it when we talked about that mom, is I was more concerned with that stranger than I was with the heart of my child. Yeah. And that’s embarrassing to say, and that’s a hard thing. I know a mom is listening can relate to that. And I would give anything to not give a flying flip about that stranger. And to go back and spend that time to, to talk to my child’s heart.
So that’s yeah, it’s just, we put so much weight on what people think about us strangers, with strangers. And not always, is it strangers, I understand that as well, but in your example, and that’s happened to me before, so I get it.
Julie Lyles Carr: Yeah. I have to ask, this is not really germane to the second part of this question, but now I just have to know what are you on the Enneagram?
Jamie Ivey: I’m a six.
Julie Lyles Carr: You’re a six. Okay. Yeah, I’m a 2, 3, 3, 2, which I say is like the worst, because you want to be better than everybody at helping people, which really sounds messed up. But that performer in me, in that pleaser in me, and I think if we have listeners who identify as that pleaser or that performer, you got to really watch out for this stuff because the stranger often is kind of your preferred audience.
And so I so appreciate your transparency and saying, Hey, sometimes that’s who I was trying to measure up. And who cares? I mean like some random lady at HEB, I met her name, never see her again, but I could actually make a big impact on my kids. I think.
Jamie Ivey: I mean, I, I told this story yesterday actually to someone who was asking me almost the same question. And I remember going with my kids to my grandmother’s house in Arizona and my grandmother’s passed away for a couple of years now. But I remember wanting my grandma to think I was a good mom, so badly that I just wanted my kids to act normal. Quote, unquote, normal. But they really just needed a mom that would like direct them and care about their heart,
and I’m painting myself as a worse picture than it was but I just remember those moments of caring a lot about where someone. And I wish I could go back and not care.
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Okay, so here’s part two. You’re looking back, you’re developing content to help moms of kids in those stages.
What do you look back and go, and I got that one, right. I’m going to give myself some credit.
Jamie Ivey: Thanks, Julie. You know, one thing that I feel like that Aaron and I have done really well is we have really developed a culture of family. Now we have teenagers. They often want to, you know, do their own thing. But we have really, since, as far back as I can remember developed a culture of like, we have family dinners all the time.
And we call them family nights and there’s nothing special except for we’re all home. And, you know, as well that when kids get older, that’s a special thing when everybody is home. And so we have really developed that culture and we did dinners around the table when our kids were little, you know, even if we were feeding them first and then Aaron, now we’re going to eat it in.
We sat down at the dinner at the table as a family. And I’m so happy about that now that we have teenagers, because it’s not an odd thing for us to sit around the table five nights a week and have dinner together, you know? And you know what, while I’m on that, and you know what my kids will do? They will do the dishes and they will do them without complaining.
Not because they’re amazing kids, which they are amazing kids, but just, we’ve always done that. Like mom and dad cooked, you guys get in there and clean it up and they just do it. And I’m so proud of them. So maybe we did that right.
Julie Lyles Carr: I think you did a lot of things right. But I love hearing about that one. You know, Jamie for some of my listeners and actually, I think we’re seeing this more and more today with a lot of the women that I interact with with women who are moms and trying to figure it all out, there was a base that I was able to start building some of my parenting on. I had parents that saying we had family dinners, you know, Sunday was church day. And, and I’m not saying we got it all right. And all the things, but there were already rhythms and there were already values that I walked into parenting with, for good or ill. I just kinda went on and plugged in. And then there was some things I was like, I’m never doing that. You know, I was going to go 180 degrees. But I’m encountering a lot of women who are like, man, my background, I didn’t come from a faith background or my parents really struggled, or I had a parent who this happened or that happened, or there was a blended family and in that blended family dynamic, it was hard to pinpoint exactly what we were going to say was part of being part of a family and how we wanted to go forward. How do we begin to establish for ourselves, whether we came from a background that gave us a base or whether we feel like we are starting from ground up, how do we begin to build a base about determining what we’re going to say are the things that are non-negotiables, the wiggle room for a kid to truly be themselves, and how we begin to facilitate a dynamic, a culture within our family that supports that? Not just taking what everybody else says, or now we’re involved in a church and their parenting conference says it has to be this or that. How do we begin understanding what we need to do?
To build what’s unique to our family.
Jamie Ivey: You know, it’s interesting because we live in a day and age where you can go get knowledge and information, well, not knowledge but great information anywhere, you know. I mean, you and I, both host podcasts is, you know, we are communicators. We write books. There are, we live in a, in a day and age where it is not scarce to find information on how to do something. So you talk about parenting. I mean, you could go to Amazon right now and I don’t even know how many parenting books you could pull up. I mean thousands upon thousands I would imagine. Thousands upon thousands. And so there is this idea of, oh, it feels overwhelming because we don’t know what to do.
And you talked about, you had the base coming in. I had a great base coming in, but how do we decide what we’re going to do? I think it is maybe not what you want to hear, but it feels like a little bit of trial and error. Like you come to the table, you and your husband, you’re like, here are the 10 things.
And then honestly, you might get three kids in and go, this is not working. One of these things is not as valuable to us as we thought it was. And we’ve realized we were really missing it on this. So we’re going to take one out and add one, and we’re gonna do some math, you know, carry the one and bring some down.
And I think that that’s a lot of it is. As you look around and you decide for yourself and your family. You decide for yourself and your family. I’ll say it again, you decide for yourself and your family. What are the values that are important? Obviously, if you’re coming from a faith background, there are going to be some probably non-negotiables that you’ll find across the board for a lot of Christian Jesus loving families.
And then there are going to be some that alter and that change that, that just kind of, this is what it is for our family that’s super, super important for us. And so I think it is, take information and I am a lover of information. I’m also one that believes that we can do our family, how we want to do our family, you know, on top of that baseline, you know, Christian faith aspects that we have.
And so I say, you fit you, you, you write 10 things down a husband and wife, three kids in your like,listen, I’ll tell you what we thought this was important, but this is no longer important. And you know what, before you have kids, there are some things that you think are important and then you get in and you go, what were we thinking?
And there’s also some things that you thought, I didn’t think we would need that in this family. And you go, we’re craving this in our family. So. One of the, one of the things that we have also non-negotiable, and it’s kind of parenting, but Aaron and I date every single week. And you know, not to throw my parents under the bus at all, but Aaron and I the other day we’re talking, and I said, I do not remember my parents going on one single date the entire time I was in the house. Now, maybe they grabbed dinner on the way to a football game to watch somebody play, that does not count. Like that’s not like a date date for me. And so, you know, thinking of that, like, I didn’t bring that baseline into our parenting. You know, Aaron didn’t either, but it’s one that we developed.
And so, and the long we’ve been married and the older our kids are getting, the more we realize we really need that. So I think it’s a bunch of trial and error.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right. And I love too that you bring up that part of your parenting strategy, part of your 10 things includes the health of the marriage. I have, oftentimes in my own head, I have heard taught all kinds of things, almost this delineation, right?
Like this invisible line of, well, this is the marriage and this is the parenting. And yet, They do. I mean, it’s just, it’s all in.
Jamie Ivey: And we found too, like when our, we’ve talked about this before, but 2020 was really hard on our marriage, really hard. And I, for the first time realized, man, when marriage is real hard, it bleeds into every everything.
It is like a, just bleeding out into every aspect of your family. And so I really do believe, and you know, you probably have some listeners who aren’t married and I understand that unique situation. I don’t personally understand it, but I acknowledge that unique situation. But for those that are listening, that are married, that how important it is to value your spouse.
And I say to my kids, like, I love your dad more than I love you because listen, you’re all gonna leave and it’s going to be him and I for the next, you know, 30, 40 years, way longer than you guys were ever here. That was, I heard that someone say that the other day that they realized that they would be married without their children in their home for longer than they had kids in their home, if everyone lives to 80, all the things. If you’ve got all, you know, there’s so many things that kind of add it, but for Aaron and I, that will be true. If both of us live to a long, older age, if God doesn’t bring us home before then, we will be together without kids in our home then with, and so it’s just a reminder that’s very important in our parenting. Cause we’re going to, we’re going to be hanging out for a while.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right. I mean, now you’re still relatively young girl. I mean, if you want it, you know, want to get a surprise, something in there.
Jamie Ivey: Don’t even speak that into the universe, Julie. Oh my gosh. Nope. Nope, Nope. Nope.
Julie Lyles Carr: All right. All right. You’re good. You’re good. And so Danny, this, how do we unwind when it comes to our kids? Some of the expectations we bring to the baby and toddler era in this way. I think a lot of us, when we found out we were going to be parents, whether that was through, through birth by biological means by adoption, we create, and I don’t think this is wrong, but we create what that’s going to feel like.
And if we have it, you know, oh, I still want a little girl, so I can dress her up this way. Or, you know, I still want a little boy because it’s, you know, he’s gonna do this and he’s gonna, whatever the thing. And then a lot of times, God will give us a kid that their likes, their bent, their personality, doesn’t exactly align with the things that we thought we were going to expect when we were expecting. How do we begin that process of unwinding it and, and letting that be amazing, because it seems like it should be intuitive. We should be able to just welcome these kids into our home and whatever packaging they come in, and however God wired them. But it is a topic that is so fraught again, as you alluded to before with our own identity, with our own sense of dreams, with our own sense of expectation. And I think that can be one of the really big stumbling blocks for us when we’re trying to let our kids be who God made them to be in support that.
Jamie Ivey: Yeah. I have thought about this a lot recently and I have a really close girlfriend who her daughter is a teenager and Has autism. And then I have another friend whose kids are just doing things that they never thought would be a part of their story. We talked about this the other day and we said so many times we’re afraid to grieve what we thought we were going to have.
And I think we feel guilt in that as a mom. Like why should I grieve? But I think there’s really something special in going before the Lord and saying, I’m going to give myself a space to grieve and be sad on what I thought was. On what I thought the story was going to look like. On what I thought my life was going to look like.
And I’ve heard a lot of parents with kids with special needs talk through this scenario of like, just grieving before the Lord and saying, I am sad that my kid will never run. I’m sad that this is not how I thought it would go. And I think that we think sometimes if we do that, that we’re not grateful for our kids, that we are bad parents, that we’re mad at God. And I just don’t think that I think I’ve had to do that in certain ways in my own life. And I’ve seen girlfriends walk through that with their own mothering and then realize, man, God does have a beautiful story for our family and it might not be the story I would have thought it was going to be at 21 or 25 or 30, but it is still indeed good
for our family, and it is a good story. And so, but I think that if someone’s listening and they’re like, okay, that sounds all good, I think it’s hard to get to that believing that God has a good story for your family if you’re not allowing yourself to grieve what you thought was going to be your story.
And so, I think that is just where a lot of people need to go back and say, man, I’ve just been trying to just walk through this. Like, I’m just, everything’s happy. And maybe you need to spend a moment just being sad over what you thought was. And then it’s not a, it’s not a matter of then pick yourself up by your bootstraps and move on.
It’s a matter of letting God truly be a good Father to you and you going, I trust that you’re good. So I know that you only do good. And so I will believe that this is good.
Julie Lyles Carr: I think that is really a great word though, because even when it’s something simple, maybe you always thought that you were going to be a girl mom, and God gives you five boys, maybe it’s that you thought you had a kid who was going to really share your interest in something, and you just visualize that you would hike mountains together or travel, and God gives you an introvert who’s far happier at home reading. Whatever it is, even all the way up to those things that we don’t see coming when it comes within the realm children who are differently abled or children who come to us through adoption and have a background that is really challenging. All those things. That idea of just owning, Hey, I thought it was going to be this. It’s not that. And that it’s all, that’s all okay. And moving forward. I think that’s just a really beautiful piece of wisdom.
The book is called God Made You To Be You. It’s the newest offering from Jamie Ivey. And of course, she’s got the gold standard of podcast. Got to go check out happy hour podcasts. Where else can people find you? What other things do you want to direct them to? How can they interact with you and see all that you’re up to.
Jamie Ivey: So fun. I think Instagram is so fun and they can find me there at @jamieivey but anything and everything you want to know about me can be found at jamieivey.com. Go there and you can see all the books and podcast.
Julie Lyles Carr: Jamie Ivey, so great to see you and I look forward to seeing how well this book does. It’s so great! Thank you for being here.
Jamie Ivey: Thank you for having me again, friend.
Julie Lyles Carr: Check out the show notes for all the links, info and other goodness from this week’s episode, with a big thank you to our content coordinator, Rebecca. I’ve got to request, please go like, and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really does make a difference in helping other people find the show. And I’ll see you next week here at the AllMomDoes podcast.
