The Two "C's"

After a few quiet weeks of navigating grief, transition, exhaustion, and personal reflection, Margaret returns to the mic with a simple instruction from God: “Just show up.”

In this deeply personal episode, she reflects on the two things she believes God is calling her to in this season: Calling and Closeness. From learning to rest and reconnect with herself, to intentionally creating space to be close with God, Margaret shares what it looks like to answer God’s call without having all the answers, clarity, or strength figured out.

This episode is an honest conversation about slowing down, healing, identity, surrender, and the continual invitation from God to come closer to Him.

For inquiries, please email:  girllivelovebe@gmail.com
 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hello, welcome to this episode of Girl Live Love Be. I am Margaret Smith Williams, the creator and the host, and I'm just really trying to live right, love right, and be right. It has been two weeks since our last episode, and I have been navigating quite a few things. Um, before I start, I just want to give this disclaimer that my voice is kind of a little raspy and a little not itself today. So if I have to clear my throat or just take a moment, that's what's going on over here. So my Uncle Stanley's passing um almost a little bit over a month now. I am kind of trying to make sure that I take care of my body and just really be a part of the everyday life things of being a wife, a mom, and just really figuring out who Margaret is and what God desires of her in the season. I like totally misplaced my journal where I documented the time of my family's transition from Florida to Oklahoma, so I don't really know where that is. And misplacing important things is usually not me. Usually I'm pretty on top of where things are, especially important things. So I've been like really quiet the past few weeks and honestly not sure of really what to say or where to start on this episode. I've been praying almost every day about what to say in this episode. If you've been listening for a while, you know that I don't like to just talk for no reason. I'm not a fan of recording just to be recording because this is a lot for me. I believe that when I sit down to create these episodes, I feel like I need to hear from God because it's it's literally like one of my meeting spaces with God. I'm literally sitting with this project. It's like I'm sitting with a project manager, I'm sorry, and discussing the task at hand. So I'm going with God and I'm like, God, give me your heart and your thoughts for this episode, and tell me what you want me to say. Tell me what you want me to see, tell me what you want me to hear, tell me what you want me to learn about myself, and ultimately tell me what you want your daughters to remember. So I brought this podcast and this episode to God, and I'm like, okay, what what we doing? And I pretty much do this with every episode just because no matter how big or how small, I believe that God can use all of our experiences to bring us closer to him. Because at the end of the day, that's all we really want. That's all I really want is to be close to God. And that should be all of our desires. More than anything else, we should also want to walk with God, like just talk with him, to be with him. For it is in him that we really live and move and have our being. As I was talking to God about this episode, I feel like I heard him say, Margaret, like, just show up. Just show up. And you know me, I'm gonna ask God like so many questions. Like, what do you mean by showing up? Like, show up how? Like, I can't be showing up any kind of way, God. So I need specifics about what you mean, show up. Show up where, how, with what script, like what we talking about, show up with what, Lord. And I remember telling him, I really don't have so much. I don't know if I have a lot to say to the girls. Like, this past year has been a whirlwind, and I'm talking to God, and I'm like, God, we're like, I'm trying to navigate some loss and navigate transition. Like, my mind has 50,000 tabs open with questions, tasks, thoughts, concerns, decisions. Like my body is trying to regulate itself. I'm trying to regulate myself. I'm in the midst of like a personal transition, like internally. What is it that I'm showing up with God? I'm not even sure if I have the words to like properly articulate and express where I am in this moment. Or even if I really want to express it to the World Wide Web, like, what do you mean by show up, God? And he said again, just as softly and as tender as he does sometimes. He's like, Margaret, just show up without having clarity, without having answers, without having your ducks in a row, without the missing journal, with a little sadness, with your body healing, with your thousands of questions, without having it all together, in the midst of your own personal transition, just show up, Margaret. So I'm just showing up today. I'm sitting in my closet on the floor, recording this episode and showing up. And in this showing up, I think God is reminding me of two things. For today, I'm just gonna call it the two C's. So the first thing I think that God is reminding me of in this showing up space is calling. And so God is calling me to do a few things in this season outside of the wife and the mom and work and all that stuff. Like I believe that God is calling me to rest. Or I've been in this season of rest. And to rest my body and to rest my mind, and that's hard. I think since I went to college, I went to college at 17, I'm 41, I've really run my body to its maximum capacity. I've always worked two jobs, I've always had a full job, full-time job with benefits and health insurance and 401k and the things that you need with that for the most part. But I've always also had like a side hustle to fuel um just the things that I'm good at and also to give me some extra money because I like to get my hair and my nails done. And so I've always done that. Like I've always been the central processor of my home. I've always served at full capacity in ministry. And this past year, God has called me to really do the bare minimum. And when I say bare minimum, I mean like go to work, take care of my family, take care of myself. That is it. I have not volunteered anywhere nor signed up to join a ministry group or extended myself beyond the bare minimum because I feel like I just need a break. I just need to breathe. It has been like a whole 13 months since we've been here. And I literally just go into church, sit down, and I leave when it's over. And I've never done that in over like 31 years, except when I was on maternity leave after I had my kids. Like since I was a kid, I've been serving in ministry in some capacity. So I am sitting down, I have been sitting down, and I'm resting my body and resting my mind and just allowing God to really pour into me so that when the time comes, I won't be empty when I need to pour out. And it's not because I don't want to get up and do something, because if you know me, I ministry is is is a part of my heart. It's a part of the things that God has called me to do. And I'm not just talking about like being in ministry and being on a pulpit. I mean in the everyday interactions with people and serving, you know, in ministry, whether it be on hospitality or in production or things like that, like, or administratively, that is really a part of who I am. And so it's killing me sometimes to sit still and not to sign up to do things. But on the other part, there's this part of me that's just like, no, you deserve this. You need this, your body needs it, your mind needs it, your spirit needs it. And so God has called me to rest in this season because my body is requiring it. And honestly, I've probably been jeopardizing my life for a while, like in my health, and I can't keep doing that. So I think God is calling me to this place of reprioritizing the rest and the care and that love that I have for my body. Like if you really love something, you really take care of it. And so he's just really renewing the love that I have for myself and my body. God is also calling me to reconnect with myself. So much of my life has been consumed with learning other people and memorizing details of what people and organizations are in need of, anticipating the needs of other people before they can even think about it themselves. And serving and counseling others and working and learning and giving to others that honestly sometimes I know more about others than I know about myself. And I've given more to others than I've given to myself. And I believe that God is calling me to take this deep introspection of my identity in Him. Like, what is it that He desires for me? Not what does He desire of me? Not the work of my hands, not the productivity, but what is God saying about me and wanting me to do right now? And this is so strange because I feel like most of my life and even some of my identity, if I'm honest, has been in what I can produce. And girl, I usually produce very well. But in this season, I have to think about how much of my decisions revolve around what makes other people feel good or comfortable. Like, what do I really want out of this life? What do I want out of my relationships? What do I want out my marriage? What do I want out of the friendships? How do I speak up and advocate for the things that I want? Like, what is the next phase of my life career-wise? How do I want to show up in the world at 41? How do I take care, take better care of myself? Like, how do I truly live an abundant life? So in this time, God is calling me to this inward work. It's like a stillness and an inward depth that I've honestly never known or experienced. And with therapy and with prayer and accountability, it's a daily calling, a daily work. It's a holy work. And it's probably the most holiest work that I think I'll ever do. The thing about our loving God is that He will continually call our names. I think about it like this. So my husband and I have two teenagers, and each of them have their own phone. A rule that we have for our kids is that when we are not with them, and when we call their phones, like they need to pick up the phone at the first ring. There is no reason, like especially if you're not in a practice, if you're not in a class, if you're not in youth group, if you're not occupied by doing something like that we know about, then when we call your phone, you need to answer it. But you know, sometimes with kids, they like do their own thing and they get caught up in something and might miss the phone call or the phone is on silent, which I don't understand. So we keep calling them and calling them until they answer. And when they answer, we're usually like, Why didn't you pick up the phone the first time? So our father God is similar to this in the fact that he's gonna keep calling your name every day, and this is just my own visualization, and I've spoken about this before, but every day, like God is sitting at your bedside waiting for you, calling you, beckoning you to come to his love and into his plan for your life. Even in like your worst state, even when you don't even want to be found by him, even when you are hiding from him, even when you are angry with him and mad with him and frustrated and you've run in the opposite direction, like he's still calling your name. Y'all know, like, I'm a music girl, so I will take music over TV any day. And beyond the rhythm and melody of music, I just love the lyrics. So when a new song plays, excluding like instrumental music, um, my ears are heading straight to the lyrics. Because I think words are important. So when I said that God is calling your name, I immediately thought of this old 90s choir song by gospel artist Hezekiah Walker. And it's the song is called Calling Your Name. As a matter of fact, Jonathan McReynolds covered a snippet of the same song on his new album. So some of the lyrics says, How many times would it take for me to learn that it's only in your will that I'll ever earn? I'll ever earn my life's reward, the honor due to me, life eternally, riches and glory. And then she goes on to saying, Lord, I know, I know I don't belong with you because I've done wrong, but yet I still hear you calling my name. You're calling my name to come into your arms to be saved from fear and harm, knowing this, but I still choose to go my way, and you still say, you say that I am he who supplies your every need. Oh Lord, I've sinned, but you're still calling my name. You're calling my name. What is God calling you to do in this season of your life? And are you even listening for his calls? Or you do you do like my kids, like you see him calling you, like you see all the evidence, you hear his voice, you see the signs, you hear what other people are saying, and you just like ignore, or you're so preoccupied with other stuff that you can't even hear the phone ring. Sometimes when God calls you to a place or to a thing, it can be audibly, like we talked about, like he can call, call you audibly, he can speak to you audibly, like you can hear his voice, or maybe it's through a sermon, or maybe it's through a life circumstance or something or a situation to get your attention. What is God calling you to do in this season? Is he calling you like he is to me to rest and to take care of your body? Is he calling you to pay attention to your home life, to your marriage and to your kids? Is he calling you to take care of your parents or spend more time with them? Is he calling you to start or even to go back to therapy? Is he calling you to set boundaries and bring order to your life? Is he calling you to forgive or to have hard conversations? Is God calling you to change careers or step out on faith and start your business? Is he calling you to be open to new friendships and new relationships? Or is he just calling you to just come sit with him, to be still and to surrender? What is God calling you to do? The second part of this just showing up journey, I believe, is the second C is closeness. God wants me, and I'm saying me because I'm talking about me. God wants me to be close with him. And this needs to be the most important, like the top priority in my life. And notice that I say that God wants me to be close with him, not that he wants to be close with me, because the Bible reminds us that God is omnipresent, like he is everywhere, but we have to make the choice to scooch in closer. Is scooch even a word? I don't even know. Jeremiah 23 23 says, I am I not God at hand, declares the Lord, not a God who's far away. Like he's here, like God is everywhere, he's always with us. But we have to make the personal choice every day to be close with him. First Chronicles 16 11 says, Seek the Lord and his strength, and I think it says seek his presence continually. Like I, and I'm saying I because I'm talking to me, but you know I'm talking to you too. But like, I need to choose to be with God. I have to choose him, I have to choose his presence, I have to choose his way, I have to choose his will. Choosing God does not come naturally to me or to you. At least not now, it doesn't. If we look back at the beginning of time with Adam and Eve, they were like legit walking in the garden with God in the cool of the day, every day, like in perfect harmony, in perfect union, in perfect relationship with God, with any thought, without any thought of anything else. It was all about God. It was not about nothing, just God. Everything was God, and they were chilling, like they were just living the complete soft life. Like they had it made. It was like heaven on earth, literally. But that natural continual communion with God was broken once sin entered the world and the Garden of Eden. And being close with God was no longer their main priority and desire. They were awakened. The parts of them that God did not want to be awakened, that sinful nature was awakened. And all of a sudden there became this competition between allowing God to be your Lord and Savior and following Him to following the desires of our flesh, or following the desires of the enemy. So now we live in this dusty ghetto, sin-ridden, fast-paced competition-driven world. We don't naturally just have this desire to be with God. Like we have to intentionally make the choice. We have to fight through our fleshly desires, we have to fight through our busy schedules, the responsibilities, and all the demands of this world, and we have to choose God. We have to choose God above all else. We have to continually seek Him every single day. For me to make sure I'm choosing God, I have to start my day with Him. Like whenever I roll over, I need to find some worship music. I need to find a journal. I need to start praying. I need to be playing a prayer for YouTube because I've got to get God in my heart, in my mind, and my spirit as soon as I wake up. Because yes, I had them yesterday, and yes, I was working and I might have worshiped yesterday. And yes, I might have been at church on a Sunday and had a great word. But listen, the way this life in this world goes, and yes, I'm clapping my hands and snapping my fingers at this point, the way this world is going, what I had yesterday is not always good to be rolling over today. I don't want no, we can't, we can't be using leftovers. And so I gotta get him in my head and my heart in the morning. Like he has to be, as soon as I open up, I gotta be like, okay, Margaret zone in, let's get with Jesus. Because if I don't, anything is liable to happen. I also have to make sure that I'm sticking with him, not just in the morning, but I gotta stick beside him, like in all times. Like when I'm cleaning the house, or on Sunday morning when I'm getting ready for church, or if I'm sitting in my closet floor on a random Tuesday, or when I'm close to the edge with my kids or my husband, like I gotta I gotta make sure that I'm close to God. The closeness with God that I create is not dependent on the time of the day, or it's not dependent on my local location. It's not even dependent on if I'm alone. It's really about how much of Him that I allow to invade all of me. How much of God do you allow to invade all of you? How much room do you give him in your life? How much do I acknowledge my need for him? How much do I remember that he is the source of my strength and the strength of my life? How much do I recall that it is God's breath in my lungs? And the day he stops breathing life into me, I'm cooked. As the young people would say. How much of closeness to God is your priority? How do you create closeness with him? How do you make room for his presence in your life? How much of him do you really require? I spoke earlier in in this episode and I think in previous episodes about how I envision Jesus sitting in a chair in my room every day, just waiting for me to get up every single day so that we can be together. Like every day without fail. He's waiting for me. He's just sitting there in love, in grace, in patience, waiting for you. But there are days, if I'm honest, that I just kind of pass them by. I get up, my mind starts to go, it starts to think about all the things that I have to do, all the decisions I need to make, and the things I need to be paid. I get ready, I go about my day, I make the sinish decisions, I finish the day, I get in the bed, and he's still sitting right there waiting for me to receive his love, like to engage with him, to receive his strength, his wisdom, his grace. Like he sits there every day waiting for us to answer his call. On most days, he whispers and he calls me and he can say, Margaret, I love you. I'm here when you're ready. He might be calling your name and he might be saying, I love you. I miss you. I haven't spoken with you in a while. I just want to be close with you. How do you respond to that? How do you open up your heart and make space for him? How do you ensure that you are close with God? I don't know how I went from not knowing what I was gonna say to recording the whole episode, but here we are, y'all. Whatever God is calling. You to do in this season, just answer him, just show up. Get close with him. He wants to be with you. And nothing else you do, no other relationship that you're in, no job, no career, no amount of money, no amount of fame or clout will ever be able to replace his presence in your life. Let's pray. Father, I thank you. I thank you for your goodness and your kindness and your grace towards us. I thank you that you love us so. I thank you that you love me so that you came up with this plan to have your son Jesus Christ come to earth in the form of a human, to die on the cross for our sins, to rise again on the third day, and to ascend into the heavens so that we could have a relationship with you, so that we can be close to you, so that we can be connected to you. Not only did you stop at Jesus, God, but you sent your precious Holy Spirit to earth so that we could have a comforter, an advocate, an intercessor that connects us with you. And God, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for loving us beyond every fault, every sin, every time we don't deserve it, God. Your love remains constant. Your love remains present, your love remains secure. It is a firm foundation. It doesn't shift, it doesn't waver, it doesn't change, it doesn't decrease in its worth or value. It remains all-consuming, all-saving, all-redemptive. It continues to be everything that we need. And I just want to say thank you. I thank you that you love us enough that you call us to places and to things and to seasons that are not only good for us but for but are for your glory. So I thank you for this season of rest and introspection that you're calling me to. I thank you for the seasons that you're calling my listeners to. I thank you, Lord, that we are patient in these seasons, that we do the holy work that you're calling us to, that we don't get antsy, that we don't move ahead, that we don't allow fear or personal conversations, or we don't allow insecurity, or we don't allow antsiness, and we don't allow ourselves and our flesh to get in the way of what you're calling us to do. But I thank you, God, that in the midst of the calling us, that you are equipping us and you are showing us the way. I thank you, God, that not only do you call us, but I thank you that you want to be close with us. I pray that we would value the closeness with you more than we value everything else in this world. May our closeness with you matter more than the closeness with our husbands, matter more than the closeness with our parents or our siblings or our children or our friends, matter more than the closeness with our um church members, God, or matter more than the closeness with our coworkers, God. May you be the priority. May you be the face that we seek. May your presence be something that we cannot live without, God. Help us to make you a priority. In the moments that we forget, in the moments that we create idols out of the things of this world, Holy Spirit, recenter us, redirect our gaze, convict our hearts, help us to get back in alignment with you. God, I thank you that you don't require us to sacrifice animals and goats and sackcloth and ashes and lay in the temple, God. But all you require is a contrite spirit, God. All you require is a broken spirit and a contrite heart. So we're standing before you today saying, God forgive us for the moments we've forgotten about you, where we've relied on our own human dependence and our own human strength and our own human intellect and our own human knowledge, when we've relied on our own human connections and our bank accounts and our relationships and our families, God, and we put them in the place of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. God help us to remember that you are our savior, you are our Lord, you are our friend, you are a God, and you are our father. So I thank you, God, that our desire, our actions, our thoughts, everything that we'll do, God, would be so that we can remain close with you. Thank you for your precious Holy Spirit who taps us on the shoulders when we get out of line, when we get too consumed, or or too, our gaze is off on the things that they need to be. Holy Spirit, I thank you, and we welcome you to remind us. Remind us if our focus is off. Remind us if we are not paying attention to the voice of God. Remind us if we're ignoring his request or his desires to be with us. We thank you, God. We thank you for the work that you're doing in our lives. We thank you for what you're calling us to, and we thank you for allowing us to be close to you. You don't have to do it. You're like the supreme God, you're like the Lord of Lords and King of Kings and the Alpha and the Omega and the beginning and the end. Like you are the first and the last, but you want to be close to us, mere mutile, mere mortal humans, God. And we just want to say thank you. What a privilege, God. Let us not take it for granted. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Well, that's all I got for y'all today. Thank you for tuning into this episode of I was gonna call it the old podcast name. I'm sorry, y'all. Girl Live Love Be. Um, like, subscribe, share. Oh, I forgot to tell y'all. So I could I love music, so I created this playlist on Spotify and it's called closer, and it's just my interpretation of songs and melodies that allow me to be reminded of the closeness that God wants with me. So if you would like to listen to that playlist or join in on it, just email me at girllivy at gmail.com. You can also comment or DM me on Instagram at girl live love be. Until next time, I pray that you would live right and you would love right and you would be right.