There are three lies we often live our lives by, and they’re not serving us well. AllMomDoes host Julie Lyles Carr welcomes Cynthia Yanof to unpack why we struggle when God takes us in different directions than we expected and how identifying and overcoming certain lie soundtracks in our minds can bring us a fresh freedom.
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Show Notes:
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Transcription:
Cynthia Yanof:
I think we’ve got to be really keenly aware of what’s behind the expectations we have or the perceptions of where we need to be. What are we trying to prove? Who are we proving it to? What’s the truth we’re believing? Be a student of why you do the things that you do, why it matters. Because I think the worst thing we can do is wake up one day, and we spend our entire life chasing after a dream that actually didn’t fulfill. And it wasn’t a dream that had an eternal perspective, and so I think, get curious.
Julie Lyles Carr:
You know it’s going to be a great podcast when we start off with the declaration that my guest has a brand new puppy sitting at her feet. And we’re going to see how this goes today. Cynthia Yanof, you started out as an attorney, and now you’re a podcaster and a writer. My listeners here on the AllMomDoes podcast are going to be so excited to hear your perspective, how you have taken life in a lot of different directions. Listener, I’m so glad you’re here today. I’m Julie Lyles Carr, the host of the AllMomDoes podcast, part of the Purposely podcast network. And my guest, Cynthia Yanof, is going to take us on quite a journey. Welcome to the podcast, Cynthia.
Cynthia Yanof:
Julie, thanks for having me. And yeah, like we said, never been less professional than when I’m like, “Hey, we have a new puppy, and we don’t have a crate yet, and it’s sitting next to my feet. I’m so sorry if the wheels fall off.” But isn’t that life in general? So here you go-
Julie Lyles Carr:
Oh, absolutely. And for the mom who’s listening, Cynthia and I want to make sure there’s something that you know, because we have a shared lived experience. Your family, you’re going to open it up to a democratic family style, and there is going to be discussion about an upcoming pet, a kitten, a puppy, an iguana, what have you. And you may get overruled, you may get outvoted. Cynthia shared with me that’s what happened in her case. And so now the family has a new pet. But really, Cynthia, the truth is-
Cynthia Yanof:
I have a new pet.
Julie Lyles Carr:
… you have a new puppy. Yes-
Cynthia Yanof:
Yes.
Julie Lyles Carr:
… I have a puppy that she’s not puppy anymore. She’s quite an elderly lady. But yeah, we have pets on behalf of the family. That’s just part of the reality. So just, mom, as you’re hearing these arguments, just be aware of it. So…
Cynthia Yanof:
Well, and I’ve told my family forever, especially my younger child, I’m like, “You are one fifth of this family, so you get one fifth vote.” And that got thrown in my face when I said no to the puppy. They’re like, “Oh, well you’re only one fifth, Mom.” I’m like, “Oh, that’s too bad.”
Julie Lyles Carr:
Yeah. I really think parents need to think about benevolent dictatorship really a little more thoroughly on certain issues. So well, Cynthia, I’m so glad you’re here because you have long been a trusted voice for women just tackling what it is to live in this day and age, the things that we’re trying to do, the families we’re trying to raise, the careers we’re trying to chase, our romances, our spiritual lives. Tell me a little bit about your own history. I know that you started out being trained as an attorney, and you made a lot of different life changes. Tell me a little bit about that trajectory because for someone to invest the time and the finance and the sweat and blood and tears into going to law school and then deciding to let that thread go for a period of time, I want to hear about what happened in your life that made that possible.
Cynthia Yanof:
Yeah. It’s the age-old only God. I went to law school, and I’m so grateful I did. I met my husband there, and then I was probably fourth year in, fifth year practicing law, having some kids, all the things, and was up for partner. The year I was up for partner, and something just didn’t feel right. And I remember sitting on the 40th floor of a downtown Dallas law firm and just looking out the window, and I had this moment. I call it holy discontent. If you grew up in church, you know those words. If you didn’t, I didn’t really know what that meant until I felt it, but that this doesn’t feel like enough. And it’s not that I have any knock on practicing law or doing the realities of working. I think that’s critical. And my husband’s an attorney, and I’m so grateful he does that and does it well.
But I had that moment, and so I remember stopping and just praying and not even the holiest way or anything like that. Just like, “Lord, if there’s something different, then just make it really evident.” And I didn’t know what that was going to look like, but over a series of events, fast-forward a couple of years, we entered into the foster care realm. We were called into that, and so we did foster care. And I stopped practicing law around that time, and foster care led to me working for a big Christian ministry and writing.
And funniest thing ever, you guys. Just when you think, “Oh my gosh. I can’t believe we paid for law school, and here I am.” Well, I podcast. And you know what a podcast is? It’s like a deposition. You ask questions, and you listen to answers, and then you ask a few more. And so I just like to tell everybody, I’m just practicing law. It’s a little different context now, but here I am all these years later. Yeah, a podcast. I just wrote my first book. Life is messy, God is good. And doing all the things, trying to raise kids and getting it wrong more than I’m getting it right it feels like. But just trusting the Lord and the process.
Julie Lyles Carr:
That’s awesome. And MESSmerized is the new podcast. And so we’ll make sure that we get that in the show notes so the listener can go check that out. I want to go back to this idea of holy discontent, Cynthia, because I think we have a prevailing feel right now within a lot of our spiritual content that we’re consuming, within a lot of books, on and on, encouraging us to be content where we are. And certainly the Apostle Paul writes about that, learning to be content in whatever situation. And yet I have found myself at times using that methodology of trying to be content as a way in which I’ve missed the message sometimes. The nudge that God has on me, the place where He’s saying, “Hey, I actually want you over here.” Or, “Let’s do this.”
I have sometimes misplaced loyalty in that way. I have sometimes misplaced a sense of gratitude in that way. Well, if I’m grateful, then I won’t want to make some kind of a change. How did you begin the process of filtering through? Is this me just wanting more than maybe is what I’m supposed to be doing? Is this me trying to ditch a situation that maybe I’m uncomfortable in? How did you get it to the point that you distilled it down, that you could be confident that it was God’s leading, that this was a discontent in which He was saying, “I want you to release this and turn and focus on this”? Because I think that’s a hard thing for us to figure out sometimes.
Cynthia Yanof:
I do too. I think it can be really hard, and I think that if you start seeking, seek and you will find, and you start really seeking. I find that God’s not in the business of making things tricky for us. And for us with foster care, that’s not something I’ve ever dreamed of. I don’t know many people that dream of foster care. That’s not an easy road, but all of a sudden it just became evident the Lord… It was funny. Every sermon I heard was about foster care. Every mailer that came in the junk mail was about foster care. I would flip on a podcast, and it’d be foster care. I’m like, “I get it. Okay, Lord.” And so it was one of those where it’s how would I have not seen it? It was that obvious along the way.
And what I would challenge us with is I think that the Lord has plans for us. He has plans for us before we were ever born. He’s very intentional of that. And I think we’ve got to realize that from the beginning of time until the second coming, from Adam and Eve until the second coming, at any point in that continuum, we could have been born. And so now’s the time. It’s very intentional. He’s chosen for us with our spouse, with our family, in these communities. And I live, and I think this is a gift maybe my parents planted in me, but I live with the sense of, I don’t want to miss it. I don’t want to miss it. Why now? And I think if you can live with that perspective when it’s so easy to get caught up in the, I’m so busy, I don’t need one more thing on my plate. Or I’m not good enough, or you don’t know my past. There’s 1,000 messages that get mixed up in there.
But if you can live in that, I don’t want to miss it, the Lord’s not going to let you miss it is what I’ve found. And so after that, it’s just that, yes. And I always say, you don’t even have to give the full-fledged yes. I love the sentiment, do it scared. I think that’s great. But mine was a reluctant yes. Mine was like, “Oh, I guess.” More of that kind of yes. And that’s all He needs. If you’ll give a reluctant yes, the Lord will run with it. And so yeah, that would’ve been my challenge. It’s easy when you’re trying to figure out, is this me or is this God? What am I hearing? I would say one, when you seek Him, you will find Him. When you ask Him what the plan is, when you start feeling a little bit of that little discontent, a little something stirring, start lining up what you’re doing in life. Line it up with God’s word, and surround yourself by people that are willing to pray over you and are willing to push you. And I feel like in those places, God’s faithful.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Right, right. A reluctant yes. I think that is a great way of saying that. Cynthia, I find too that one of the places that we can be reluctant when it comes to being willing to lean in and look around for maybe the signal fires God’s putting out there for us, I find that part of the challenge is releasing what we have developed as the expectations around the things that we are wanting to do in life. And that is such a Rubicon to have to cross when you have put a lot of time and intention, when you’ve told a lot of people, “Oh, this is what I’m going to do. This is who I’m going to be. This is what my path is.” And then you find that God is inviting you into a completely different kind of adventure than you were thinking.
How do we get to the place that we are able to accept that in not wanting to miss it, like you said, that God sometimes has a very different set of expectations for us? And that the things that we conjure, the goals that we set, the 10-year plans that we laminate and put on our refrigerators, it’s not that something’s gone wrong or we have missed something, it’s actually that we are headed towards something when we have something unexpected happen. Because I do think sometimes under this moniker of, I don’t want to miss it. I don’t want to miss it. We can still stay in such a heading for the thing that we laid out, that we unintentionally can miss it because we have just built into our minds such an expectation.
How do you create that balance between creating goals for yourself, having vision? We hear that verse batted around all the time, where there’s no vision that people perish. How do you do that where you have some kind of heading, vision, goal, something that gets you excited, and yet remain supple enough that you don’t miss if God decides to take something to a hard ride or a hard left that you didn’t think was going to be part of your life?
Cynthia Yanof:
Yeah. I mean, isn’t that the question? And you phrase that so well, and expectations get us into trouble. We have an expectation of what it’s going to look like, how it’s going to go, especially in parenting. I mean, my goodness. And I think that God works in the very places that go off script. That’s what I’ve found. And so I try to hold it real loosely. Even something as big as law school or whatever those things are, I try to hold it loosely. And the other thing I could say is this sounds very churchy, if you will, but you have to lean in to God’s word and lean into hearing from Him. I mean, I think that’s the only answer. And I have to line up the voices in my head, the truth that I believe with the truth of scripture and with the truth of who He is.
And so I think about this an example in my life. When I was in high school about to go to college, I overheard a girl say to a group of people about me. I only got in the college I got in because my parents knew somebody, that I wasn’t qualified. And I’m just going to stop everyone there. I didn’t go to Harvard. I mean, I went to Baylor and I love Baylor. But my goodness, you guys, I got in. My parents didn’t know anybody, but that marked me. And so that was a voice I listened to.
And so I went to college and I was like, “Well, I’ll show her.” We’ll call her Karen. That’s not her name. But I was like, “I’ll show Karen. I’m going to get a 4.0.” And so I went to college, I got a 4.0. And I’m like, “I’m going to show Karen. I’m going to go to law school.” And so I went to law school. And when I was there, I remember thinking, “Well, I’ll show Karen. I’ll get a top tier law firm offer.” And doing all these things. Was that the sole reason I did it? No, obviously not. But I wake up one day, and I realize, “Listen, I’ve been proving a point to a person that has not thought about me since high school.”
Julie Lyles Carr:
In a long time.
Cynthia Yanof:
And so I think we’ve got to be really keenly aware of what’s behind the expectations we have or the perceptions of where we need to be. What are we trying to prove? Who are we proving it to? What’s the truth we’re believing? Be a student of why you do the things that you do, why it matters. Because I think the worst thing we can do is wake up one day, and we spend our entire life chasing after a dream that actually didn’t fulfill, and it wasn’t a dream that had an eternal perspective. And so I think, get curious. Why do I do these things? Is there something in my upbringing? And many times I get curious, and I dig a little deeper. And I’m like, “Yeah, this is where the Lord has me. I can see it. I’m seeing fruit from it. It is actually doing things that God cares about.”
But if we are spending all our time and energy and efforts doing things that by the world standards of success are successful, having a great job in a law firm, but we’re not seeing God’s fruit of success from that, if we are not seeing that what He cares about is being tended to, then that’s a problem. And so I think it’s not that every one of us needs to quit our job, and, “Oh boy, I’m a CPA. I must not be doing…” Whatever our thing is, no. I think in the very places where we’re working at the moment, God uses those. But I also think, don’t be so un-malleable that you can’t stop and ask why. Don’t be so stuck and set in your ways that you can’t be curious.
“Am I trying to prove this to my parents? Am I trying to live in the right zip code because the culture tells me I should? Do my kids have to look a certain way? Am I curating my life so much that I’m not able to do the things the Lord has or I’m not able to pivot?” If you can’t pivot, then I would question. I would question if maybe we’re really listening to what the Lord has. And so I think it’s ongoing. It’s never too late. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t be like, “Well, I missed it. I didn’t do this and that.” No. Even today, take a minute, get quiet and be like, “Okay, am I in the spot where you want me, Lord?” And point out, where am I seeing fruit? Where am I seeing things that make a significant difference? And if you’re not, then ask some questions. Get quiet. And I think that’s how I’ve done it, but it’s not always straightforward process. It takes some time.
Julie Lyles Carr:
I love this question, Cynthia, or a question of statement of be a student of why am I doing the things I’m doing? That is a profound question for any of us to stop and think about. It’s insidious how things can really come in and can direct a lot of our behavior and a lot of our decisions, and we don’t even realize that’s the whisper of what’s going on. It makes me think about a million years ago when I was in high school and Glamour magazine was the magazine. There was an article I read one time that said, “If you’re using more than two hair appliances, then there’s something wrong with the way you’re doing your hair, with your hairstyle, with your…” Cynthia, I confess for, I don’t know, three more decades after that, I would think, “Oh, you know what? I had to use the blow-dryer and the this and the straightener and the curler. I’m doing my hair wrong. I should be doing…”
Now, that’s just a tiny funny example, but I think all of us have things in our lives, whether it is a statement from a relative that could have been an offhand thing said one Christmas. Or something we thought that a good friend of ours said, or even someone we hardly knew, like you said, Karen at Baylor. It is remarkable the way that those kinds of experiences and interactions can guide a lot of our behavior forward and can drown out the direction at times of God because we create rules off of these things. We think that there is truth in there, and so many times it’s either a neutral or it can be a lie. And we don’t even realize it if we don’t ask that question, “Why am I doing the things I’m doing?” I love that.
Cynthia Yanof:
Yes. Well, can I add something to that, Julie-
Julie Lyles Carr:
Yeah.
Cynthia Yanof:
… I was going to say too is that there’s something called the illusory truth syndrome that I was reading about, and basically the illusory truth syndrome says that we’re bombarded by so much information all the time that we no longer check the veracity of things. If we hear something enough, and it fits in our general scheme of what we think is right and wrong, then we just assign it truth. And the reason I think that’s dangerous, especially as believers, is we can’t assign truth to what we hear the most, what seems to make the most sense in today’s culture. We’ve got to assign truth to the Lord. His truth is the only truth that matters. And so as you’re saying that, I’m thinking the same thing. What are some lies? Yours is funny, that hair product things, but we all have those things that are on a bigger level. And identifying, getting curious, what are some lies you’re believing?
I speak a lot to groups, and recently I’ve been talking a lot about the three lies I believed for a long time that have impacted what I’ve done, and I won’t go through them all, but here’s the three. I’ll just tell you. One of them is that I’m defined by the success and failure of my kids. I mean, talk about getting you in trouble if you walk that road. The second lie I’ve had to fight is that ordinary is not enough. And I think that’s a hard one for so many of us in a day and age where there’s platform, and if you’re going to do something, it’s got to be significant. Everybody’s got to see it. No.
And then the third lie I think that I’ve fought a lot of my life is that everyone has to love and accept me. Everyone has to be on the same page with me. Everybody has to be like, “Oh, that’s right, Cynthia. Go do that.” Those are just lies that I think have spoken into me over the years. And so that’s, again, what we’re talking about is just take a minute to step back and be like, “Okay, what am I believing?” I don’t think these lies I just told you are anything that my parents ever planted in me. I think it’s just over the years that illusory truth. I’ve heard it enough. I’ve seen it enough. It’s become a part of my DNA. And so that’s the battle is, I don’t want my DNA. I want His DNA. And so how do I reframe that into truth?
Julie Lyles Carr:
I think those three lies are so profound and resonate for so many women. We can get caught at any point realizing that some of the things that we’re doing have to do with one of these three things. I’m just going to recap them because I think they’re so great. First one is that I am going to be defined by my kids. You said it better than I did, but if my kids are a success, then I’m a success. If I have a challenge with a child, it means that it’s all fallen apart.
I love the one on the lie of ordinary is not enough. I feel that we’re getting to a place, I hope. I keep seeing a trend about loving my little life, and I really hope that that continues. I got to witness, and I’ve talked about this on a previous podcast, one of my sons-in-law when he proposed to my daughter, and I got to be there, which was so cool. But essentially the context of his proposal had a whole lot to do with, I want us to do laundry and do our taxes. And I was just so touched by that kind of statement about willing to do the ordinary things in life with someone, which was so beautiful. And then this last one, oh, it just gets all of us. And I think any of us who love being with people and love being in front of people and all the rest, this lie can get us just in so much trouble, which is everyone needs to like me. I mean that one just, boy, we can get in a world of hurt really fast-
Cynthia Yanof:
It is. And the thing about that one, my friend tells the best story ever about a junior high thing with her daughter. Her daughter went to a sleepover, and she got in the car the next morning. She’s like, “It was the worst sleepover ever. Three of the popular girls went and slept in the other room and left all of us alone.” And my friend was like, “Oh, well that’s terrible. How many were left in the room with you?” And she’s like, “17.” And I’m like, “Isn’t that the truth of it, you guys? Literally, you got the 17. Don’t worry about the three.”
And that doesn’t mean we’re not trying to live in harmony with everyone. Absolutely we are. But I firmly believe in today’s culture that is divided economically, politically, socially. I mean at every level, if we’re going to do the things of God, we’re going to have to stand alone. And if we’re going to be able to stand alone, if we’re going to raise kids who can stand alone, which is what I pray for my kids, then we got to be able to do it. And if you’re going to stand alone, then not everyone’s going to agree with what you’re doing. And that doesn’t mean they’re bad people. When my family did foster care, people we love dearly that we still love, some of our dearest people in our life, they love the Lord, were like, “Are you sure? Have you thought about this?”
And I appreciated their concern, but that was a standalone moment for us. And so I would just encourage us as you’re seeking, am I walking the right road? Am I on the narrow path? Realize sometimes it’s like getting a puppy. Sometimes not everybody gets a vote. Not everybody gets a vote. God gets the vote. He gets the whole vote. And everybody else, He’ll put people around you that’ll support you and surround you. And I mean, especially in the church, man. You will find people that are broken and misguided and messed up just like I am. But you will find people that will point you on the path to doing the things you’re supposed to do. And so, yeah, I would just say don’t get caught up in if you got 17 in the room, don’t worry about the three that aren’t. It’s okay-
Julie Lyles Carr:
Three, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that is such a great story. I absolutely love that. Tell me, Cynthia, where we can have… It’s going to sound like a strange statement, but I’m going there. A healthy mess. Now here’s what I mean by that. I find a lot of people who are telling us that they’re being really raw and vulnerable, but what they’re presenting us with is a curated mess of what’s going on in their lives. And there is a whole lot of pre-production that is going into the sharing of what this mess is in their lives.
On the flip side, having been for a long time in vocational ministry up until a few years ago, we would oftentimes encounter people who truly needed help and needed support, and we wanted to be there for them. But then it was almost like a chronic lingering, weird, terrible boyfriend mess kind of relationship, if you will, because they didn’t want to break up with the mess ever. This was their handle. It was their way to be part of the community. They were the person who always had crisis and mess and disaster going on. And I don’t mean that in a harsh way. Certainly there are times in our lives where it does feel like stuff just comes, a wave one after the other. But I’m talking about that place of chronically living in and being identified by a consistent mess going on in your lives.
How do you get to a place where you really are being appropriately transparent about the challenges in your life, the challenges in your marriage, with your kids, on and on without oversharing? And at the same time, staying in a posture of inviting people into that, making sure you’re inviting God into that and those places where life is messy. And I love your statement that God’s right there in the middle of our messes with us. It’s not that we have to clean things up and then present to Him. It’s that He’s right there with us. How do we make sure that we are neither ashamed of our messes, or we’re not getting prideful and over identified in our messes? Where is that ecosystem about how we’re supposed to live as people of faith when it comes to the realities of a messy world that doesn’t always go as to the plan?
Cynthia Yanof:
Right, right. And I think there’s two kinds of messes. I think there are the really deep-seated messes that you’re talking about, and there’s great counselors, there’s great medications, there’s great things out there to get the help you need. When I think about just living authentically and vulnerable and in a vulnerable manner, I’m thinking about messes in terms of life is just off script. It didn’t go how I thought it was going to go. And I don’t know about you, but I get disillusioned or turned off both in our culture and in the church when people… Everything has to look a certain way. And we can’t just come out and say the things like, “You know what? My kid has a learning difference, and I never wanted that. That’s really hard.” Or, “You know what? My kid didn’t make the team.” Or, “My husband’s job isn’t great.” Or, “My marriage is a struggle right now.”
Those are the places where life is off script. And I think it’s okay to say that. I mean, I think we need to be conscientious. We don’t need to probably start our podcast talking about that or whatever the thing is, but to find your people and be able to speak into that authentically and vulnerably. But on the road to recovery and knowing that God can work in that. He’s bigger than it. I think when the mess is bigger than God, you’re in trouble. Our God is bigger than whatever that mess you are in is. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, but I think you’ve got to make sure that you keep it in the proportion of what it is. And so I think about this. The thing that’s hard, and this is maybe slightly tangential, but stay with me for a second if you will, guys.
I have this friend Kimberly who she used to practice law with me, and she recently passed away. And it was very sudden, and she had quit practicing law just a couple years before she died. And so she had an aneurysm, and she was with her full family and just was mid-sentence died. And I say this not to be a downer, but here’s the thing. And her eulogy, her husband said something that stuck with me. I’ll never forget. And this is just a dear friend, and I was just devastated. And when she went to quit practicing law a couple years before, the partners kept saying, “Oh my gosh. You have such a promising future. You have such a promising future. Don’t quit.” And her husband said in her eulogy that she left her promising future to live in her cherished present. Are you following this?
And so many of us, you guys, I think that’s what we’re doing is we are living in a place where we can’t live in the cherished present because we are chasing after a promising future. And we’re waiting for the mess to be cleaned up, and we’re waiting for the marriage to be better, the finances to be stronger, the kids to make better decisions, whatever it is. And I just want to live like this friend. This is my friend that was the most connected person I’ve ever met, yet she never had one social media account ever. She did the things in the moment because today’s the day you’re promised. And so what I would say, and as I’m answering that question, it’s just this. Don’t live in a state of waiting for the promising future of that perfect healing or for everyone to be on board and to surround you, and they’re going to make it better or for your husband to get his act together.
Don’t live in that place. Live today in your present. You have today. You have this cherished present, and let’s live in that, and live it well. And only when we can acknowledge it’s off script. It’s messy, but I’m still going to value what today is because I know God’s in it. I think that’s the sweet spot. And so I would just encourage us all, we’re all walking hard roads. I mean, I’m walking a hard road at the moment with a puppy and a first-grader who will not read. I’m like, “What’s going on the world?” And we even held him back, and he won’t read.
And my mom always says this, “If you’re going to laugh about it in a year, laugh about it now.” And that’s what I try to do is just get some perspective around this and be like, “Okay, this stinks. It’s off script. It’s a little messy. I’m going to laugh about it. I’m not defined by it because I’m not defined by anything other than the truth of who God says I am. And He’s already named me who He is. I’m one of His. I’m adopted. I’m His daughter in Christ, and so let’s live in that place.” But also, it’s okay. You don’t have to curate everything. It’s okay to acknowledge the mess and laugh about it a little bit if you can.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Right. I’ve been seeing a trend that I think speaks to this in a really beautiful way, and the heartbeat of it is, fall in love with the house you have-
Cynthia Yanof:
That’s so good.
Julie Lyles Carr:
… Fall in love with the kids you have. Fall in love with the vehicle you’re driving. Enjoy what is currently here. Don’t put off that affection and connection until it becomes the dream house or it becomes the dream whatever, SUV. Enjoy it, care for it, take care of it, appreciate it even when it’s not fully everything that you are hoping for or is not exactly what you think is representative of who you are. For many years, I drove a 15 passenger van because with eight kids, that’s what’s available to you-
Cynthia Yanof:
Yes, you do. Yes, you do.
Julie Lyles Carr:
… There’s a jump. If you’ve got five kids, then you can still fit in this. But once you make the jump to eight, you’re in a 15 passenger van. Cynthia, it’s so funny because that 15 passenger van, I was thrilled to have it. I was thrilled to have enough space for all my kids, and then there came that point where I was very discontent with that vehicle for a period of time. I have to tell you, one of the funniest things that resides in our family video library is the video that my kids produced about saying goodbye to the 15 passenger van when it finally went away.
And their perspective on having been kids in this vehicle that, believe me, most people don’t want a 15 passenger van. It’s not the dream machine for anybody. But the love that they had and modeled for me about how much they enjoyed that period of time when they were all living at home, we take these ridiculous long road trips because we couldn’t afford to fly all 10 of us anywhere. It was such a great lesson to me again about, wow, it was a literal container. A little container for our family, and what a great thing to learn to fall in love with afresh, that filthy 15 passenger van with the duct tape on one of the windows because the window wouldn’t stay closed. It was really classy. But-
Cynthia Yanof:
Yeah. I mean, that’s such a good word. And isn’t it that reminder that all the big things that we think are the big things, like maybe having the right car or getting in the right preschool or figuring out public or private or homeschooling, all these big things. Got to have the right trip, got to live in the right zip code. You’ve launched kids off out of the house, and I just launched the first one a couple of years ago, and here’s what you know at the end of it. Looking back, you realize all the big things aren’t the big things. They’re the small things-
Julie Lyles Carr:
Oh, yes. They’re the small things. Yeah.
Cynthia Yanof:
… And all the small things, the passenger vans, metaphorically speaking, and the drives and the road trips, and the Friday nights when your kid wasn’t invited, and you sit home as a family and you’re like… You guys, that’s building the DNA of our families, of who we are, and who the Lord is to us. And so I just think that’s such a beautiful reminder. Love where you are. The big things aren’t the big things. The small things are the big things. Capture the moments. However you need to do that, whatever that looks like for you, capture those moments because you don’t get them back.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Yeah, yeah. They’re there and then they’re gone, so you might as well love them while they’re with you. Well, Cynthia, what a great encouragement for moms today. For me to be reminded that hey, mess is going to happen. It’s okay. God’s in the middle of it. That’s what shapes us. That’s who we can be. That’s how we can lean in further with Him. Tell the listener where they can go to find your new book, Life Is Messy, God Is Good. To find the podcast, all the things. How does the listener connect with you?
Cynthia Yanof:
Love that. Thank you. And you have really spoken to me today. I’m going to love the moment I’m in with a puppy, everyone. I’m trying my best. Yes, I would love for you to grab a copy of my book. It’s out. Life Is Messy, God Is Good. And hopefully it’s really funny with some good spiritual truths, but it’s a safe book to give to a friend who’s struggling. So yeah, anywhere you buy books, you can grab it. Life Is Messy, God Is Good. And then my podcast is called MESSmerized, but it has two S’s with mess in it because that’s how life is. So MESSmerized is my podcast. And then cynthiayanof.com is my website. Social, Cynthia Yanof. I have a weird last name, everyone. Y-A-N-O-F. And so if you Google it, you can find me anywhere because nobody else has that name, so-
Julie Lyles Carr:
You’re unique. You’re unique.
Cynthia Yanof:
Those are all the spots, you guys, but I would love that. And yeah, thanks for being such a great support. I appreciate you asking that.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Absolutely, Cynthia. Well, hey, you give that puppy an extra squeeze for me because that puppy has been perfectly behaved today. I’m very impressed. And again, thanks so much for your time talking us through all kinds of things to think about when it comes to living fully in our today. And sometimes the mess is the best, so I really appreciate you being on-
Cynthia Yanof:
Yes. Thank you so much for having me. So fun.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Absolutely. Okay, listener, you’ve got your directives. Go to the show notes. Rebecca puts those together each and every week. That’s where you’ll find all the links to interact with Cynthia, to find the book, to hear more of her humor and her insights. So go there, and be sure and check out AllMomDoes, allmomdoes.com, AllMomDoes on the socials, all the places. And I love to hang out with you too on Instagram, usually. @JulieLylesCarr over at Instagram.
Hey, while you’re doing all that, would you do me a huge favor? Send this episode, send the link to someone who could really use a word of encouragement today, who may be struggling, who may be feeling a little overwhelmed with all the messes they’ve got going on. Be sure and send that link. That’s just one of the best things you can do for us to support the podcast. And make sure wherever you subscribe to your podcast, that you are liking and reviewing and all those things. And we love to share your reviews, so be sure and just type a quick one. We would so appreciate it. I’ll see you next time on the AllMomDoes podcast.
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