This episode of Let’s Talk was recorded live in Indianapolis at TGCW22. Jackie Hill Perry, Jasmine Holmes, and Melissa Kruger discuss gratitude—why we struggle with it and how to cultivate it in our lives.
The Bible commands us not to covet what belongs to our neighbors. As Melissa points out, social media has made that command far more challenging to obey. She says, “The reality for us is we used to have like four neighbors. And now you can have 5,000 neighbors. You can look over the fence into somebody else’s life, but it’s a curated life. At least with your [real] neighbor, you can be like, ‘Yeah, I mean, their grass is really green, but their bushes are a mess.’”
If you’ve ever struggled to be thankful, listen in to this conversation for practical wisdom on walking in gratitude.
Transcript
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Jackie Hill Perry
Hi saints, how are you?
Jackie Hill Perry
Greetings.
Jackie Hill Perry
It’s a lot of you here. It makes us feel a bit uncomfortable because we just be talking. We don’t know if people will be listening to this thing. We might be more careful with our words if we knew that I have to read this little professional thing. Welcome to Let’s Talk a podcast for women from the gospel coalition Podcast Network coming to you live from TGC w 22. In in the Go hip in Indianapolis, Indiana, I am Jackie Hill Perry and I am here with my friends Jasmine Holmes and Melissa Krueger to talk to you about how to grow in gratitude. Great conversation. All right, there is no other intro other than a question. So when is a time in your life when you struggled to be grateful? No,
Jackie Hill Perry
let me scratch that.
Jackie Hill Perry
What is gratefulness? I think we need to understand that before we can know how to struggle with it.
Jasmine Holmes
I feel like at the source like bank thankfulness. Go ahead. Yeah, an attitude of I think there’s a there’s a humility to it, of understanding what we’ve been given and being thankful for it and being content with it.
Melissa Kruger
That’s really good. It’s, it’s that we’ve received something. So you have to be grateful towards someone you know, so that you have something maybe you didn’t deserve. So there’s a gratefulness or Yeah, yeah, that’s good. That’s good. I can tell the time I struggled to be grateful. When we were pretty newly married, we moved overseas to Edinburgh, Scotland. And I know it’s so hard to say this because everybody’s like, he’s lived in Europe. And that’s actually part of what made it hard. I was really struggling when we were moving. Because for me, it wasn’t like I was going for a vacation. And this was before. I mean, just to put in context. Email, I was still doing AOL downloads to do email. Okay. It was that long ago. So there was no Facebook, there was no Instagram, there’s no way to keep up with your friends. It was really, really cumbersome. And so we move over there. And, you know, I know everyone goes to places like Scotland in the summer, when the sun stays out till 11. Well, 11pm What that means is in like February, the sunsets at 3pm. And it rains every day. And it is deeply, deeply depressing. Okay, so, so we were there, we moved there, I moved there for my husband’s PhD. And I can remember sitting in our little apartment, your apartment was so so so so, so tiny, like, I had to like, basically lather myself to slip into the shower. It was that small. And you know, so you get in there, whatever. But everything was harder, like we didn’t have a car. So we lived on a place called the mail. And guess what that means? You’re walking upstairs all the time to get there, you know. And so I’m bringing my groceries I’m schlepping everywhere. And but honestly, the thing I struggled to be grateful about was I felt like I was just there for my husband’s job. I was kind of like, Lord, why am I here? So it felt like my life had been put on hold. And I really just struggled to be grateful. And in fact, I would get really good at complaining. And my house was in the back and I’m saying all this on my own. And
Jackie Hill Perry
everybody say hi, Dr. Krueger.
Melissa Kruger
I just saw him back there. And I’m like, oh, man, I’m sharing the story. Of the crowded room, we locked as. But I got really good at blaming everything that was wrong with my life on him. You know, so the fact that I was sweating because I’ve carried all the groceries out. That’s his fault. You know, the fact that I had to cook everything from scratch because they didn’t have all the stuff. That was his fault. You know, everything became his fault. But y’all are always thankful all the time. So y’all have anything
Jasmine Holmes
I am thinking about living in Pickens Mississippi. I had my firstborn. When he was six weeks old, we moved from Minnesota to Mississippi, and it’s I’m sorry, to anybody who’s from Mississippi. I do. I love living there now, but like it’s Mississippi. And then we live in this town with a population of 800 people and I feel like he’s related to half of them. And then we lived so like if there was a street and so it was his aunt’s houses here. And then his other aunts across the street and then his mom’s next door and then there’s a lot here and then across the street was my house and then There is like the woods or next to my house and then over the woods is the highway. So it was like I felt like I was just living at the end of the world. And he had a he had the car so he would drive like 45 minutes to work every day. And like I’m talking my friends back home like, well, you can like take the baby to the park or like, take them to Lincoln Park. There’s not stoplights here like what are you? So I would just be in the house all day with a tin roof that didn’t have cell cell reception. And I was very like, Woe is me. I had been forsaken in Mississippi, like, this is the land of my people suffering.
Melissa Kruger
So yeah, we could have been really good friends back then. Philip and Philip and Mike would have been like, Oh my gosh.
Jackie Hill Perry
Is it isn’t there a proverb about that, like a man should live on the roof instead of dealing with two grim grumbling women? I think you said something that is helpful and important is that one way to discern when we are dealing with being ungrateful is complaining. Because for me, I can’t identify a specific moment in time when I like gratefulness because it’s constant, really. I tried to be as grateful and thankful as I can be. But I’m also much more cynical about my life and my circumstances than I should be. And so I do think like those times where I’m just mad at just the stupid stuff, like even like, you know, the why, why gas? Gotta cost $12.76. Right? But then I got to remember, you got it. You can actually put gas in a car. Everybody don’t got that. So be thankful. Anywho. What do you think is the relationship between comparison and gratitude? Because one hinderance to gratitude is this kind of, you know, they have that I don’t she has this I don’t her husband looks this way. Mines belly keeps protruding? Like how do we know?
Jasmine Holmes
No, because like my husband lost weight when I was pregnant last time. Okay. And I was I met him I wanted to push him off the top because he lost weight. Yes, I was like how dare?
Melissa Kruger
So basically, this is turning into a marriage discussion.
Jackie Hill Perry
So let’s say hypothetically speaking, I think social media has kind of created an environment where we are always attentive to people who have what we don’t have, or whatever the case may be, or do better than what we do they speak well, I don’t know about how do we like exist in this world where comparison is a thing while at the same time? Not Allow that to cultivate cultivate an attitude of ungratefulness?
Melissa Kruger
I mean, I think when you look at the command not to covet, yeah, it talks about your neighbor. Well, the reality for us is we used to have like four neighbors. And now you can have 5000 neighbors, you know, where you really can look over the fence into somebody else’s life, but it’s a curated life, you know, because at least with your neighbor, you can be like, Yeah, I mean, their grass is really green, but their bushes are a mess. Yeah, or whatever. Like you, you actually know a lot more about your real neighbor than I know about you on social media. And so I mean, I see this in my own heart, you know, it can be like, I’m going for for a walk or something. And I’m just like, bored or hiking, I can, Lord, thank You that I can hike. Thank you that my body is strong. And I can, you know, I can do this exercise or whatever. And then I go look on Instagram. And I see these people whose bodies seem like to have never been marred by childbirth at all. And I’m like, awful Yeah, like, are you? That’s just a simple way. But it can rather than being thankful for the body got gaping, it can make me be all all sorts of discontent with it, rather than saying thank you. And so I can see how social media, I mean, whatever realm it might be for us. It can be our homes. It can be Oh, their children got every gold star award, you know? Yeah. Oh, they’re valedictorian. And they’re the school sports person and everything or whatever. We see it now in ways we maybe didn’t see it before.
Jackie Hill Perry
So I think one one scripture and we’re eventually moving into a question about scripture, but one scripture that is really tempered. My idea of of contentment is Romans one, which is surprising, but follow me So you know how Romans one it talks about how those who call themselves wives, but they are fools. And in that section, it begins to say that they were unthankful. And I thought to myself, Wow, and thankfulness is a description for unregenerate people. And so if I am a Christian, that means that I need to live in a realm of thankfulness, because I have a renewed mind about who has given me all these good things. And so I think that’s really helpful to say, man, like I need to be attentive to this thing to make sure that I see that God really has provided exceedingly and abundantly above all I could ever acts or think doesn’t mean I don’t struggle, but it means I have context for why I should wrestle against it. What is your go to passage, when dealing with gratitude?
Jasmine Holmes
My goes through a passage, it’s always the same. It’s always it’s either Psalm 16, or First Corinthians two, which I talked about all the time. So I’m gonna do Psalm 16. But it talks about how in God’s presence, there is fullness of joy, at His right hand are pleasures forevermore. And reminding myself of the fact that I have I have access to the very, like joy and presence and goodness and fullness of God. And he’s not gonna withhold any good thing from me. I am a wretched petty person all No, but I don’t really struggle with envy, envy, and like, just that’s not really my thing. Because I’m like, I mean, you know, God’s gonna, what is your thing? I’m like God to me, because he’s, shame is my thing. Oh, because you have a book coming out on February 14 2023. You can preorder it on Amazon, if
Jackie Hill Perry
I had your back, Jasmine. Go ahead, keep talking.
Jasmine Holmes
But yeah, I think just he, he has given me what he wants me to have. And they’re good. They’re good things. And there’s always somebody, it’s easy for us, I think, to look at other people and look at what we don’t have compared to them. But somebody is also always looking at you. And I think realizing that and seeing you know, people that people who say things like Oh, like you have it. So together, you have this, this isn’t and I’m like I am, I’m jacked up, I don’t think you know, and so but I think like, if I’m feeling that, then probably the person that I’m would want to look at and want to be jealous, or envious of is also knowing their deficiencies and having trouble with gratitude and knowing that and so just seeing God as a benevolent father, who is giving us each what we need.
Jackie Hill Perry
I gotta, I gotta say some of that, because that’s so significant. And I don’t know if it feels like it, no shade, but it’s, it’s powerful. Because what you’re saying is, is that God, God’s nature does not incline him to play favorites. And so with comparison, it’s this, this, this belief and this assumption that God is being better to better to everyone else, and he’s making to me, and that’s a lie. It’s a demonic wanting to, because the devil would lead you to believe that God is playing favorites with people that he’s made and died for a die for you. What else does he have to do to prove that he’s on your side?
Jasmine Holmes
But does that remind you of Eve in the garden? Because? Because God says because God said, don’t eat from that tree? Yes, yes. Here’s every other good thing, everything that you can have, but that one tree, don’t eat from it. And Satan was like, he doesn’t want you to have good things. Come on here. He was like, I mean, he doesn’t he doesn’t want you to have good things. Have you ever seen? Have you ever seen him do anything against you? Have you ever experienced any pain? Have you ever experienced any longing? Do you even know that you are butt naked? No. But as soon as somebody says, Are you sure? Are you sure God’s been holding out on you? I was reading a book one time that said that, like the sin the sin of Eve was like wanting too much. It was like a book that was like, you know, Christianity, I have a new perspective. Eve wanted too much. She wanted to know and I’m like, no, she wanted too little. Because she couldn’t be grateful. She wasn’t and not even a sense of like, be grateful for what you have. Even though it’s a little no like she had everything. But she had to have what she didn’t have which turned out to be death
Jackie Hill Perry
and preorder Jasmine’s book about shame being released on February 14, there we go.
Melissa Kruger
I would also say on what on what Jackie was saying to and what you’re saying. It honestly always shows true and gratitude for the cross. Because when you get when you go back to that when when it says And Romans have if he’s given us His Son, won’t he graciously give us all things. So So what it actually says let’s say I’m like wanting your minivan, which is I know it sounds stupid, but y’all we can get like all messed up about this sliding doors. Yeah, I mean, like, we can think it’s a you shouldn’t want my minivan. It’s really good. Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah. And so the things that we can kind of get believing, oh, my life would just be so much better. If I had x, y or z that we all have, if this were true in my life, my life would be better type thing. But at some level, so we’re saying, Yeah, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay. Yeah, I know you gave me your son, and he died a horrific death. But I think you love Jasmine and Jackie more, because you gave them this. And it shows that we’re thinking, oh, so the cross is kind of equivalent to the minivan with the sliding doors. Yeah, versus noon. So it’s kind of like I if I gave you each a million dollars, and then I gave Jasmine, a penny. And you’re looking at me like you gave her a penny. And you’re like, I gave you both a million dollars. Like it’s so insignificant and things that we actually allow to rob us of joy, because we’ve been given eternity. And so it’s like with everything else. He’s saying, Will you trust me? Yeah. When you trust me, that I know what’s better for you, then you know, it’s better for you. And it’s really a trust issue with the Lord, I think,
Jackie Hill Perry
how do so let’s say that that is what many of us are wrestling with is this deep sense of God is playing favorites. I am struggling in my marriage. I’m struggling in my singleness. Life is harder for me than it is for other people. And it’s been hard for a really long time that seems unfair, seems unjust. How should that shape the way we pray? Because it seems like I want to acknowledge, I guess how people feel. We all have this yet at the same time. How do we pray towards feeling more righteous, not feeling righteous? That sounds stupid, but you get what I’m saying?
Jasmine Holmes
I so I was on a panel with Winnie Allsup. Yesterday, I love her. And she was talking about disciplining, she she was used, she was talking about it in a different context. But she was saying that she has to discipline herself to believe the truth that people say to her. And it was such a lightbulb moment for me because I have to discipline myself to believe the truth that God has said in his word. And so I had to like, it’s not about just reading it, it’s feeling like it’s a it’s a constant process of self discipline, and telling myself and reminding myself and bringing myself in accordance with what I know to be true in God’s word. And so I think that gratitude doesn’t sometimes it doesn’t start with a feeling and sometimes it just starts with knowing the truth and choosing to walk with it in our hearts are just gonna have to catch up when they catch up.
Melissa Kruger
And I think lament is totally valid. So like, we can pour out our hearts about the dumb things. I mean, because I use a really dumb example with the like sliding doors. I mean, you say like, but But even the things that we are holding on to that we say hard, right? I mean, this is what the psalmist does. Yeah, they pour out the hard, but typically comes back around it’s like you can see he’s talking truth to himself as he’s as he’s saying, you know, why so downcast? Oh, my soul, poor Jehovah God. What? Yeah, but then he’s talking about what’s hard. Why so downcast? Oh, my, so put your hope. And God, I think that’s a right conversation we’re having with the Lord, we can we can pour out what’s hard to him, he can handle it. And then keep reminding ourselves of the truth in that conversation. And I think that’s how we get to gratitude. But, uh, do you think it’s, yeah, I think we wrongly think it’s just this thing that descends upon us, you know, that Oh, yeah. I’m just gonna be happy. And it’s not it’s something deeper, it’s choosing to be grateful, rather than just feeling gratefulness.
Jackie Hill Perry
How I’m just coming up with these questions off the top. Because I won most inquisitive in kindergarten.
Jackie Hill Perry
Is there a relational consequence to lacking thankfulness?
Melissa Kruger
As the Israelites, I mean, the Israelites were, you know, they grumble. And the Lord was not happy. You know, I mean, they’re out there. I mean, gents, passage. What I mean, what did it say? You had, we have no food out here. And then just a second later, it said, we don’t like the food you gave us. She’s like, clearly there was food. Yeah, I mean, and so the grumbling and complaining is what kept them out of the Promised Land. Yeah, it wasn’t like all this other sin. It was like their hearts were hard. It there’s a hardness that comes with grumbling. So for instance, with my husband and with Scotland, my heart was hard. I mean, I was it broke our relationship. And I think that’s what James says you you want something and don’t get it. What causes what causes disputes and arguments about among you, you want something and don’t get it? You kill and cover Yeah, all this stuff. You know, that’s my paraphrase. I’m sorry, that wasn’t very good. But, but like, it definitely has a relational component. If I am discontent, I’m going to view everybody is kind of a measuring stick of God’s love, you know? And so I’m gonna look at you and say, Well, you have what I want, so I don’t have to be nice to you.
Jackie Hill Perry
But Jasmine that that gets hard when it’s your friend, right? Like I’ve had friends where it’s just like, oh, like every time we meet, you have just a world of complaints that you’re just throwing on and I want to carry your burdens. I really do. But I am not equipped to carry all of them in front of me and no, I wouldn’t do that to you. What did I do? We would meet privately at Connors downstairs in the Marriott. But how do we how to like when your friends are the grumblers that can be exhausting? Like how do we love our friends through that and help them to become more thankful without being me?
Jasmine Holmes
So I’m experiencing that right now. Actually, remember, I said that I’m not like a jealous person, but like, I just started my loc journey. Thank you. And like Jackie, is like, way further along than I am. And so it can be hard not to be envious. I thought you were gonna be serious of her hair. No. Okay. So really, though, it’s you don’t want to be Job’s friends. Because I think there’s, there’s like, there’s a thin line, right? So you want to bear your friends burdens, but you don’t want to be permissive and be like, cool. Let’s just complain all the time. But you also don’t want to be Job’s friends who are like, wow, you’re going through a really hard time right now. What do you do? God is mad at you. So I recently had a friend who was going through something that was very real, and was telling me about this thing. And it was just like, all consuming ly difficult in all consuming real. And she was like, I feel like God is forsaken me. And so you have two choices, right? And you have more than two. But the two extremes would be Oh, man, that God man, do he do be forsaken? Or what did you do? Like that made him forsake you like what did you do to make it and what I did was something that she had modeled for me when I had come to her she always will say, Man, that is that’s so hard. Isn’t it so good that you have that example of the last time that you felt like this? When he was faithful? Or man I know that does feel so difficult like it you you are you are at it in a lonely time. But like, isn’t it so great? Remember the last time that you felt like this, and God just like came through. And because she had modeled that, for me, I was able to then like give back to her. And that’s like one of the best parts of our friendship together is that I never feel like she is overlooking those times when I am suffering and those times where I do need to feel heard. But she always moves me towards gratitude by remembering God’s faithfulness. And that comes from that comes from intimacy, like you can’t do that with somebody when you are not part of their life. And when you haven’t seen God working in their life, but because we walk together, we’re able to do that for each other.
Melissa Kruger
Have you Have either of you ever confronted someone for like bitterness? Or a lack of thankfulness other than your children? Because, well, it maybe you haven’t done that with your children. I’ve never done that with much. But are is that? Is that too hard to do? I mean, it’s a really hard thing to do, right? I mean, I don’t know, have you ever done that?
Jackie Hill Perry
Not not in like, super. Because on the podcast, they won’t see my arm. So I don’t even know what the word for that would be direct. Not in a really direct way, just because I always really want to be careful of not leaving my friends presence, leaving them wounded. And so I think I’ve been more indirect or explicit by saying this. Tell me about something good that you can celebrate in your life. And it may take time, and it may be small. I woke up. Let’s be thankful for that. And so I think asking my friends questions to help kind of give them options because I think what suffering does and what comparison kind of cultivates is a hopelessness, even subtle. It’s like, life is just really bad. And it’s like, yes, it can be terrible, but it is not at its worst, because you could be inhale. So
Jasmine Holmes
I feel like that’s the baddest it can ever be.
Jackie Hill Perry
So my children know that’s constant. It’s ridiculous. Like it’s like, oh, you mad because it’s a commercial law. Like mommy will not skip and it’s like, you can’t skip commercials this time. It is not YouTube. Like you just you chose to watch Nickelodeon. So you got to endure the commercials, but you don’t understand. I had to endure them all the time. And you know what I did? I just sat there. Yeah, you need to practice that patients choose what they want to watch. No, they do. And I don’t like it. Because they just they interview like, I want to watch. Because they go have a hard time when they start opening up their Bible. And really, they just don’t start skipping books. And I can’t do that. I’m a Bible teacher. We need to sit in this thing and sit there. I don’t care how boring it is. being bored as a discipline, hello. I don’t even know where we are.
Melissa Kruger
That is a good question. How do you cultivate gratitude in your families? Like do you have anything you do? Or do you just tell them to sit there?
Jasmine Holmes
Sometimes? So my son when he just turned six? No, not gates. know he’s,
Jackie Hill Perry
he’s, he’s growing.
Jasmine Holmes
But he’s like, he’s it he’s always asking for. So he’s always asking for something like mom can have chocolate milk, I’m like, Sure. And I bring it to him. And then he’s like, Can I have some goldfish? I’m like, Sure, that’d make it to him. And he’s like, Can I have it? I’m like, can you have a sit down? And can you have that? And I talked to him the other day. And I was like, when you don’t do you’re just acting like a gaping like hole of just like you need, you always need like, you want more and more and more. And I’m like talking to him. I’m like, you just want more. And he’s like I do. He’s like I do I always I always want more. I just don’t know what to do. I can. And as I was talking to him, I was like, Oh, you’re Oh, you’re me. Like, I’m getting really frustrated with you. Because you always are like, I want more. I need something else. Like it’s never enough and like, Oh, thanks, god. Okay, okay. And I love him because he never gets offended. Like, I’ll just like, you are just doing too much. He’s like I’m doing who just have a lot of conversations like that, where I’ll try to be like, you know, I relate, I get I get it. I do that too. Sometimes I feel the same way. Yeah.
Jackie Hill Perry
Yeah, I think for me, one way is I watch a lot of documentaries, and I allow eating because eating is the most ungrateful because she’s the oldest. So she’s the most aware of all the things that she has. And I like to watch certain things with her. Because even for example, it may be something about people who are impoverished. And she doesn’t see that often. And she will say, why are they sleeping outside? They don’t have a home, they don’t have a home, where’s their mommy and daddy, they might be gone. They don’t have any money. No. And so she’s able to actually be exposed to another world that she wouldn’t otherwise see, which cultivate cultivates a layer of gratefulness. But I also think prayer, because I pray with her on the way to school and her dad prays with her at night. And in the prayer, we’re thanking God for things. And so in my prayer before school, it’s a really consistent prayer that I pray, but one is God, we thank you for education. And we thank you for the mind to be able to educate ourselves, something like that, I think 46789 10 year old they’ll realize Oh, knowledge and the brain and intellect and logic and reason all of this is a gift that God has given me. And so hopefully, as she gets older, she’ll recognize that even our prayers kind of give her like a sketch for how we should think God,
Melissa Kruger
well, that’s good, because it changes. You know, a lot of kids are going to school, like I don’t want to go to school. So it teaches her by praising God for it that I get to have an education. Yeah, when lots of people around the world, especially little girls and others don’t even get to have an education just to hear, hey, let’s, let’s pray. And thanks, God that I get to do this. I mean, that’s almost a way to stop the complaining because we’re being thankful for it. Rather than saying, I don’t want to have to get up to go to school. I don’t want to have to learn you know, it says no, we’re thankful that that we get to do it. Yeah, that’s huge. That’s good.
Jackie Hill Perry
I don’t know if you know, but you have to do favorite things. Yeah,
Melissa Kruger
already? Yeah. Oh, it’s Tom. Okay, so I didn’t want you weren’t looking at the paper. So, thanks for telling me. This is how it works. Normally. It’s your Okay, favorite things? Okay, we always do favorite things at the end of our sessions. So this week, I want to know what’s your favorite family recipe? What makes you sit around the table and feel gratitude
Jackie Hill Perry
from me? Or my mama either, either, because she made things I won’t ever be able to make until I become desperate I’m so hard I was about to complain because it’s because the favorite ones are the easy ones that I got to think about. Yeah, no, it’s just like spaghetti and ground beef is one of my favorites because I just put it in a pot with some salt, some garlic powder, powder, and salt and pepper. Maybe some cheese if I’m feeling fancy. Put it on the plate and the kids love it and I get to go sleep
Jasmine Holmes
Yeah, similar like a roast and some potatoes. And then they’re just happy. Never made a roast. I just stick it in a crock pot.
Jackie Hill Perry
Now Melissa Melissa
Jasmine Holmes
they shaped you.
Melissa Kruger
I can get your book you
Jackie Hill Perry
with this blazer and these flats with this brown hair? Three kids Holston women’s conferences and you ain’t never made a roast.
Jackie Hill Perry
You are. The stereotype fails you I don’t understand. I don’t understand.
Melissa Kruger
Your book.
Jasmine Holmes
Chi Chi gardens. Gardens.
Melissa Kruger
Yeah, I grow everything organically. In my house.
Jackie Hill Perry
So do you know how to make one no. I’m fascinated. Do you not like him? You don’t like him? I don’t like There we go. So you don’t like the texture? Like what is it?
Melissa Kruger
I don’t like I’m sorry.
Jasmine Holmes
Is it because is it because of the wait, hold on. It’s the trauma from Scotland. Okay, yeah, okay, sure. Yeah, sure. Because like roasted potatoes is like a real
Jackie Hill Perry
discerned it is yeah, it
Unknown Speaker
is a thing I got you.
Melissa Kruger
Oh ha I’m feeling convicted every year. So my favorite thing is potato soup
Melissa Kruger
I love it. We have a baked potato soup. My whole family loves it. We all look forward to it. There is no meat in it and they all love it. And they love it
Jackie Hill Perry
was a roast beef in the oven and shred it up and put it on top. It’s the same thing.
Melissa Kruger
Now you have to have me over for dinner.
Jackie Hill Perry
I don’t make rows
Jasmine Holmes
she did all that to you.
Jackie Hill Perry
Every time I made it, it came out real hard. And
Jackie Hill Perry
I’m like eight this was the shred but it would come up. The whole thing would come up with the floor. I don’t think I did it. Right. You see what I’m putting in the crock pot.
Jasmine Holmes
Three hours. Okay, now you do three hours in the morning, I’m low.
Jackie Hill Perry
Three. I thought I was out shopping turned on you. Golly, nevermind. Let’s stick to spaghetti.
Jasmine Holmes
Let the record show that I’m the only one up here who knows how to make a proper room.
Jackie Hill Perry
And we’re grateful
Melissa Kruger
Okay, well before we close
Melissa Kruger
it’s been such a pleasure to be here with you all. One thing I’m super grateful for our has been this time with Jackie and with jasmine, getting to have this podcast. We do want to just say this is actually our here. This is our last episode. So we love talking. We love doing this. But um, we’re gonna close it here and we’re so I’m so grateful. I’m so grateful for these women for these conversations. And we’re so grateful to all of you for listening so faithfully. It’s been so much fun. I’ve had a great time. I love you all.
Jackie Hill Perry
I’ll be a mosh because you’re always the mush. I’ll add to it. I’m not gonna cry though.
Jackie Hill Perry
I’m grateful for you. Because you’re so smart. And you really spend a lot of time educating people with all your history facts and teaching us about boundaries and shame. I’ve never I’ve never heard someone speak about shame so joyously
Jackie Hill Perry
and then Melissa, you’re wonderful. Like y’all know Melissa is like that woman right? Like she’s like that chick, like but
Jasmine Holmes
she’s what like no she out here. Like when I literally when I see her I just like walk out. I just like put my head in her I’m just like, Hi. But I cannot
Melissa Kruger
make a pot roast.
Jackie Hill Perry
No, I think I text you one time. I don’t remember what I said. But it was something around that you have a unassuming godliness, which is you are you are godly in such a way that doesn’t demand attention. But if anybody notices they realize that this person spends time with God. Yep. And so I think I’m really encouraged by that being able to spend time with you and see your life and all the things that you really do love Jesus. So no problem.
Jasmine Holmes
Now I want to go had and it is it’s just, I know that like Jackie is a star. But it is clearly sincerely, sincerely, okay. You are a pleasure. Like, you know how sometimes you like you get you. You’re like, oh, that person seems cool. And then you meet him. You’re like, Oh, they’re a jerk. They’re the worst. Jackie’s sincerely a pleasure. She sincerely loves Jesus. Like she doesn’t just have the appearance of godliness. She’s nice to be around. And we love them. And that was the love for you, girl when I tell you. I was like, Okay, well. Thanks, Jasmine. You’re welcome. All right,
Jackie Hill Perry
can we close?
Jackie Hill Perry
Really on stage? All right. That’s it for this special Live episode. I gotta put my voice back on. That’s it for this special Live episode of Let’s Talk. Let’s talk as a podcast from the gospel coalition Podcast Network. The Gospel coalition supports the church and making disciples of all nations by providing resources that are trusted and timely, winsome and wise and centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you guys. I off
This is the final episode of Let’s Talk. We’ve had a great time making this podcast for three seasons, and we’re grateful to all of you for listening! You can always listen to past seasons of Let’s Talk.
Melissa Kruger serves as vice president of discipleship programming at The Gospel Coalition. She is the author of The Envy of Eve: Finding Contentment in a Covetous World, Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood, In All Things: A Nine Week Devotional Bible Study on Unshakeable Joy, Growing Together: Taking Mentoring Beyond Small Talk and Prayer Requests, and Wherever You Go, I Want You to Know. Her husband, Mike, is the president of Reformed Theological Seminary, and they have three children. She writes at Wits End, hosted by The Gospel Coalition. You can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.
Jasmine Holmes is a wife, mom, and speaker, and the author of Mother to Son: Letters to a Black Boy on Identity and Hope and Carved in Ebony. She and her husband, Phillip, have three sons, and they are members of Redeemer Church in Jackson, Mississippi. Learn more at jasminelholmes.com. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
Jackie Hill Perry is a spoken word poet and hip-hop artist and the author of Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been. She and her husband, Preston, have three daughters.
