Dream big. Find your purpose. Fulfill your calling. All big phrases with big expectations. But what if we’ve missed an important truth? We are built for more…but what more are we talking about? Kelly Needham joins The AllMomDoes Podcast host Julie Lyles Carr for a candid conversation about where we get our understanding of purpose wrong, and how there’s something even better for us to consider.
Show Notes:
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Transcription:
Julie Lyles Carr:
One of my mom’s favorite songs was from the musical Man of Lamancha, and it was a song called The Impossible Dream. To Dream The Impossible Dream. And it was all about Don Quixote, and his desire to be able to do some incredible things, and fight dragons across the countryside, and rescue damsels.
And of course, the whole thing about Man of Lamancha is that’s kind of all in his head, in a weird way. He’s not actually getting to do some of these things. And he is very noble and he is very brave. But at the end of the day, sometimes his dreams are supplanted by the realities of what’s really going on around him. And in other ways, his dreams help support him and help him live in a certain way.
Well, I have someone on today who is going to help us unpack where are the places that our dreams, our calling, our purpose, all those big words that we use. And a lot of times as women, as moms in the thick of it with kids and on and on, maybe we feel like we’re having to let those go to the side.
She’s going to help us unpack that whole world of what it means to have things you want to do, and you would love to do, but then there’s also real life.
I’m Julie Lyles Carr. You’re listening to The AllMomDoes Podcast, and my guest today is Kelly Needham. She is a mom of five, an author, and I am so excited for this conversation. Kelly, thank you so much for joining me.
Kelly Needham:
Yeah, I’m thrilled to be here with you, Julie.
Julie Lyles Carr:
So I know that you got five kiddos. Tell us where in the world you live, favorite hobbies, flavor of latte, all that kind of stuff. Catch us up.
Kelly Needham:
I love it. I’m in the Dallas area, the south side of Dallas. We’ve lived in Texas. I’ve lived in Texas my whole life. So it’s stifling hot right now.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Yes, it is.
Kelly Needham:
My kids are ages 12 all the way down to nine months. Cute little nine month nugget. And hobbies, man, when I have a free day, I want a good book. I want to do a puzzle. I love puzzles. And maybe bake something that my kids don’t help me with. It’s just my time to experiment in the kitchen and do something new. So that would probably be my kind of a good fun day off for me.
Julie Lyles Carr:
I love that. I love that. I’m also in Texas, in the Austin area. And yes, you are right as of this recording, Kelly and I are toasty, toasty, toasty hot. it Has been quite…
Kelly Needham:
Don’t walk outside, you’ll burn your feet hot.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Yeah, exactly. That kind of thing. Where the kids are doing experiments on the sidewalk to see what all they can fry in the sunshine. And as it turns out, they can fry everything in the sunshine with the way it’s been the last few weeks here.
So Kelly, I want to hear how you became fascinated in this topic on the idea of dreams, calling, purpose. Those are all such big buzzwords and we use them a lot in our faith communities all the time. Even when we are giving a call to just ask people to volunteer to help with things like the coffee at church, we often insulated in this idea of come fulfill your calling and your purpose, and all those kinds of things.
Those are big buzzwords that are super loaded. I’d love to hear how you started your journey into taking a closer look at what we mean by all of that.
Kelly Needham:
Yeah, I didn’t know I had a problem with those ideas until I got married to a man who was doing public ministry on stages. We got married in 2006, and at that time there really wasn’t that much buzz around these words. There wasn’t really social media as we know it today. And I was very content and looking forward to just a very average, ordinary life of marriage and family, working somewhere in there, maybe not.
And then all of a sudden I’m thrown into this world of record releases, and concerts, and touring and TV shows. And just by my exposure to that, and my kind of close proximity to it, it began to make me question, how does learning how to work at credit card machine matter, which is what I was doing on the road with my husband, when he’s up there on stage preaching the gospel to hundreds of people every night.
What I’m doing doesn’t feel as important, but I know I need to do it. And then of course, that transitioned into new seasons of motherhood as we began to have kids. And I always wanted to be a mom, looked forward to it.
But again, I’m covered in spit-up, changing diapers, and calling my husband every night who’s getting off-stage and having stylists buy him fancy clothes and signing autographs. And I’m wondering, Man, It’s hard to deal with that.
And what’s interesting nowadays, I think that everybody has that problem because of social media.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Right, right.
Kelly Needham:
Because we have access now to everybody else and their mom, who’s hosting a podcast, or writing books or blogs, or working for this ministry or that one. And so it creates a crisis.
And that’s really where it started for me was on the road with my husband.
Julie Lyles Carr:
I can see that. Because we’ve sort of made it not okay, in a sense, to lead a quiet content life. To have goals and aspirations that maybe might get termed average. At some point we have made those kind of words seem almost like, well, you’re giving up. You’re not really trying. You are not elevating what you could be. You’re not being all you could be.
Kelly Needham:
Yep.
Julie Lyles Carr:
And you’re right. You put social media in the middle of that and all of a sudden the “opportunities” for comparison have just multiplied tenfold. As you were saying this, I had to laugh. I thought, man, we’ve even made, just an easy afternoon at home doing something like baking. We’ve even elevated that to where it needs to be cottagecore, or I’m entering my baking era, or whatever.
And all of a sudden it has to look a certain way, feel a certain way, and have a certain soundtrack to it. What did that experience of doing these jobs that some might say are “lesser,” that are not as elevated, what did that do to your level of contentment with yourself and with that season of your life?
Kelly Needham:
Well, initially I was very not content and full of envy. I mean, that’s really what it was. I’m looking at what God is doing in my husband and going, well, I want some of that. I love to tell people about Jesus. I, at the time, even had a sense that I wanted to teach the Bible to people and disciple people. But I didn’t have an outlet. And so I was not content.
And I knew enough to know God was orchestrating my circumstances. And so I really began to wrestle with him and look to him for, how do I make sense of this? How do I understand, is it wrong for me to even long for more? Is it wrong that I have this ache in me for something great?
And ultimately what I found at the end of years of wrestling was, it’s not wrong for me to long for that. It’s not wrong that mundane minutiae doesn’t light me up. Because I really was made for more than that. I was made for Him. And God is so much more glorious than laundry. And the living God is so much more exciting and astounding than caring for my kids even, which is a noble thing.
I was made for something more than those things, but I wasn’t made for a different set of activities. I was made for a person. And when I began to embrace that reality, God, I was made for you.
And even if I got everything I wanted in just the glamorous sense of it, of doing really cool things, it still wouldn’t be enough. Ecclesiastes tells me that. And I was seeing it in my husband in his own wrestle. Even if I got everything I wanted, it wouldn’t be enough.
But I have you. Is it true that you are enough for that ache for more? And if it is, help me embrace that and live for you. And as I did that, it began to change how I saw the things set before me. Whether that was cleaning up a mess, taking the car to get the oil changed, or making a phone call or doing an interview. All of that began to change as my purpose began to be detached from my verbs, from my activities, and began to be attached to a person, to a noun.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Kelly, that is profound. Because so often, you’re right, we are looking for fulfillment in activities. And we can feel like, well, as long as those activities are things that are for God and for some of the big purposes that we see for people of faith, whether that’s for evangelism, or teaching, or music or whatever, you’re right. We are still focused on activities and not the person. Wow, that is really, really powerful.
How do we get out of the mode? And I think for some of us, depending on our temperament, and depending on our backgrounds, we may come from faith systems that have been all about those people who are getting to do certain activities are seen as having a higher status in our faith communities, or are doing more for God, would be some of the verbiage. How do we break free from some of that mentality and get ourselves rewired?
Kelly, it reminds me of that song Audience of One. That song is so powerful. To make us rethink, who do we want to be watching? How are we evaluating and putting value around what we’re doing? So talk to me about the process you went through to try to detach yourself. And again, this can be tougher. This can be hard depending on your personality and the things you’ve been taught.
How do we detach all of that to make sure that whatever we’re doing, whatever circumstance, we understand that it’s to God, it’s not this thing of trying to gain other attention.
Kelly Needham:
Right. Well, this is going to sound like the cheesiest Christiany answer ever, but it was really consistently having a diet of Bible reading in my life. Not just New Testament, all of it. Kind of making sure that I was reading the whole breadth of the scriptures. To see who is God, how does he reveal himself? What does he like? What gets him excited? It started with that. Do I have more interest in myself or in God?
Julie Lyles Carr:
Right, right.
Kelly Needham:
I think that culture teaches us to see ourselves as the main character in life. That we would wake up in the morning and wonder what we’re going to do with our lives. Instead of asking, what is God doing in my life? What is God doing in the world? And so as I would pick up my Bible and read with that lens, I began to notice things.
I would notice things that maybe I knew in my head, but started to see differently. Like when Jesus is giving his first sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, he says, “Don’t do these things so others will see you.” He says, “Do it in secret.” Then he says, “Where your father who sees in secret will reward you.”
So Jesus doesn’t advocate for, don’t live for an audience. He just says you’re living for the wrong one. There is an audience. Live for Him.
And then you see all sorts of stories filling our Old Testament pages. Whether it’s Joseph, right, who flees Potiphar’s wife. This great act of integrity, and he gets him thrown in prison. He literally goes from the top, the peak of visibility and important work. He’s running everything in Egypt, almost. And then he’s literally in the bottom, a prison cell forgotten about.
And that happens because he’s walking with God. But God sees, and as you read his story, you realize, oh, God is watching. God is rewarding. God is attracted to that. Whose attention do I want?
Or the Bible will say things like, “The eyes of the Lord search to and fro all across the earth to see whose heart is fully devoted to him.” Just to even think about that, that God is looking around going, whose attention is on me today? I’m looking for that person.
And as I would meditate on those things, it gave my imagination something new to mull over. And social media is awakening our imagination. It is setting before us pictures and images of people doing cool and interesting things. And if that’s the only food we give our brain, then we’re going to chase those things too.
But as I was just getting a steady drip of Bible in my mind, and seeing those things, it helped. It became now when I was tempted by social media, I could put it down and remember, what did I read this morning?
Oh yeah. I was reading about Ruth leaving her home, and I was reading about her getting in the fields and doing manual labor for her mother-in-law, and how He saw that as valuable. I’m doing manual labor today. I’m taking out trash, and doing laundry, and cleaning up messes. I have a friend in Ruth.
It gave me my mind. It just took my imagination back from the culture. And for me, that’s where it started, is to reframe even how I think. To put on a different set of glasses for how I see the day, if that makes sense.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Absolutely, absolutely. And it makes me think about the statistics surrounding women today that we are still doing such a huge amount of both the emotional and physical load of carrying our homes and kids. And it doesn’t matter if you’re working inside the home or outside the home, that those statistics are there. And they are real.
And so for all of the progress at times we think we’ve made, there are still some statistics that show us that women are, a lot of times, those who in some personality assessments, and in organizational business assessments is called the grinder. The person who is just making sure that all of the things get covered.
We have more and more women who are becoming really frustrated with that, and discontent with that. And this in no way is something to say that if there is an inequity in your marriage in terms of what you are carrying versus what your spouse is carrying, that that should never be discussed, that you should never potentially feel a feeling of resentment if you are not getting the kind of rest and the kind of partnership that you need. That’s not to say that at all.
But it is to say that in life, there are those times that the kitchen’s got to be cleaned regardless of whether someone thinks they’re gifted for it or not.
So how have you made sure that you’re staying in a healthy place where you are getting the kind of rest, and the kind of involvement for things that are important to you, hobbies, physical health, all of that. How do you make sure that stays in a place and a posture of balance with the other things that are simply the chores of life, the stuff that we got to do? So how do you keep that?
Because sometimes, you know what Kelly? I see people who, in their efforts to serve, and in their desire to please God, they let themselves get to a place of complete burnout. Because they are not paying attention to some of the other signals God gives us. With our emotions, with those places where we get tired.
How do you maintain the balance to discern the difference between a restlessness or a comparison that means you’re getting off-track versus those very real places where sometimes we need a break?
Kelly Needham:
It’s helped me to remember that my first and foremost command is to love the Lord my God with my heart, soul, mind and strength. Second, to love others as I love myself.
And a lot of times we flip those. We go, well, there’s people who need things, so I need to get to that. But God has looked at us and said, you are healthiest when you are loving me. And that requires me to be quiet and still. Relationships take sitting down and looking the other person in the eye, and making that time consistent.
And a lot of times that feels like a splurge for us. To even, as a mom with busy children, to sit down when things are undone. And have a moment to go, I’m going to read my Bible, or a devotional, or another book. And I’m going to go on a prayer walk, or I’m going to ask my husband if can he watch the kids so I can walk and just enjoy nature.
Those are all expressions of us fighting for a heart that’s in love with our creator, and they should feel restful. God’s first thing he did when he set his people free from Egypt, he instituted the Sabbath. These slaves who’d worked day and night, so hard, he sets them free and then says, I want you to do nothing for a day. Can you just rest? Because that’s how this relationship’s going to work. I do the work, you receive. That’s how this works, and I need you to know that.
And for me to embrace healthy rhythms of rest in my life is a way for me to embrace what God has ordained for me. Which means I can’t do it all. And I think that’s the tension that you’re addressing. Is, we want to be able to keep the home clean, be with our kids, and chase our dreams, and get a good night’s sleep. And we just can’t. That’s too many things. They don’t fit. Something’s getting squished out.
And usually for me, what’s getting squished out is relationship with God. And so when I start to put that back in, then I’m faced with some decisions. And sometimes the decision is, you know what? It’s going to be okay if the dishes sit there for a day or two. It’s going to be fine.
My kids aren’t going to remember that. They’re going to remember that I actually was a human being who sat.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Took time, yeah.
Kelly Needham:
And, took time to do things that I love, like the Lord or even other things.
Sometimes it’s, man, is this the season to chase that passion? I don’t know. I just had a baby, right? So I have a nine-month-old. And there are decisions I had to make in this past year. I mean, we hired help so that I could write this book and get it out in the world, but there were other things I wanted to do. And I’ve just had to go, you know what? This is not the season.
And not all season holds all joys. We don’t have to get everything in all right now. There will be seasons in the future that will have more space for me to do some of those things. And so if God is first, I can keep him in his right place.
Then I can start to assess with wisdom what needs to be done in front of me, which is important, and what I want to do. And how those things can fit while still allowing me to not act like I’m the savior of the world who needs no sleep, and no food, and no restoration.
Julie Lyles Carr:
And that God’s motives and means can’t move forward if I don’t get everything on my to-do list done.
Kelly Needham:
Exactly.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Kelly, you referred to the process of writing this new book. I love this title. It’s called Purpose Fooled. I think that is so fascinating. And I’ve got to tell you, as someone who has spent time in vocational ministry, and has also run a nonprofit and all kinds of things, there are places that I myself have been guilty of trying to help someone find their purpose through the needs of some of those organizations. And saying, well, here’s how you can find your purpose through this verb, this activity, this role that we need fulfilled.
I think for a lot of us who have operated in those spaces, we didn’t mean to, but we’ve been involved in this whole place of purpose fooling people. Because we’ve made purposeness such, in some sense, an idol. I mean, there is a place where I do think that particularly even as people of faith, we have tried to turn finding our purpose, finding the one thing that we’re gifted for, and for such a time as this, and on and on and on. We have elevated that in a way even in our worship songs and all kinds of things where the focus is on us.
As you dove deeper into this idea of a human being’s purpose, do you think we have this idea in our romantic notions about, there’s this one person that is supposed to be the one for you, a soulmate, and I don’t like it any better than anybody else when somebody says, I don’t think there’s a one. I think you determine what you want in a relationship. And I’m like, that’s not very romantic.
But how do you feel about this idea of this singular purpose, and gifting, and thing that you were born to do? How does all that play out? Because we also have people like Gideon, like Samson, like others, who early on in their lives were very much directed towards some very specific verbs that were going to play out in God’s history. So how do you distill all of that?
Kelly Needham:
Yeah, I would still say, as I think about those men’s lives, those men and women that we see in the Bible who clearly have a unique role in God’s kingdom, their purpose is still the same as ours. They exist for God at the end of the day.
Now, the Bible is clear in the New Testament that we all do have, each one of us is an important piece in the body of Christ. First Corinthians 12 is very clear on that every person is gifted by the spirit in some way for the common good. So we are all irreplaceable in God’s kingdom.
But think about John the Baptist, for example. John the Baptist, who has been in the more prophesied, spoken highly of than him? He’s prophesied about in the Old Testament. He has a miraculous birth. He’s filled with the spirit from the womb. Jesus says of men born of women, no one’s greater than John.
But if you look at John’s lived experience, he has a very short public ministry. He lives by and large, with what we can tell, a very normal ordinary life. And then has this short little public ministry before Jesus comes on the scene, and then he’s imprisoned and beheaded. And his ministry is in decline even before that happens. And his disciples come to him in John three and say, John, everybody’s going to Jesus.
He essentially says, yeah, exactly right. I exist for him. I’m at his disposal. If he wants to use me in this public way, amen. If I decrease and it makes him better, amen. Which is why he ends up saying, may he increase and I decrease. And then he finds himself very shortly in prison, and then beheaded.
And does that mean that unique purpose didn’t exist for him? It did, but it wasn’t like that’s what he was doing 24/7, his entire life. And I would say the same is true for any other notable character in our scriptures that we read about. They’re spending years in solitude, anonymity, hiddenness walking with God just as we’re called to do.
And this book that I even wrote, maybe a bright little spot that other people outside of my family and neighbors see, and then it may dwindle and go away. And that’s fine. I pray that it helps people.
But my purpose every day when it remains, I exist for the living God. I’m at his disposal. And he has set a race before me to run, Hebrews 12 says. And today that race is an interview with you, but tomorrow that might be my kid is sick, and I have to exercise all sorts of wisdom, and compassion, and patience, and strategy to make that work. And that’s just as important of a race because it’s lived for Him. Even if less people see it.
Long story short, I would say their purpose is the same, though people do have unique things God sets before them to do. We’re free to live for him as everybody we read out in the scriptures did. We read their highlight reel too? Sometimes in the Bible, we Have to remember. They had conversations with mother-in-laws, and ate dinner, and went on walks just like we do.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Yeah. Did laundry, all the things. I mean, I think that’s a really beautiful reminder that in some way, we are kind of seeing their Instagram feed through scripture in terms of some of the highlights of their days. I love that.
Kelly, how much do you think all of this plays into this place we’ve been for quite a while as a culture, where we are so deeply searching for identity. And so the idea that I can have this singular purpose because I am a praise and worship leader, or I am someone who’s writing books, or I am someone who’s doing fill in the blank, X, Y, Z, whatever the verb is, that I become identified by this verb and now I can know who I am.And if I can just achieve this verb, then I can know who I am.
And if that exists out there, then that makes me become the person that I really want to be, instead of maybe the person that I actually am. How many places do we get purpose and identity all tangled up in these big words that we throw around all the time?
Kelly Needham:
Yeah. It’s really dangerous for us to get our verbs into our purpose. Because what happens when you get sick? What happens when your child is, I mean, really sick? Chronic illness, cancer. What happens when you get old? When things are stripped from you, when you have a child with disabilities?
We’re watching friends of ours who’ve had years of really impactful ministry now suffer illness, and take up roles of caregiving and all sorts of other things that really pulls them into a place where they’re not really seen, and they don’t appear to be doing cool, notable things anymore. What about people in other parts of the world who don’t have options and opportunities like we do?
I mean, the whole theory of my purpose, I can get my purpose from what I do, is really a privileged thought process that can only exist in a culture like ours where we have opportunities, and technology, and health, and some level of expendable income to chase some of those things. I mean, it really is a privileged place to be in.
And it keeps us enslaved to our verbs. If I exist to write, if my purpose in life is to write, to be an author, then everything in my life that keeps me from writing is now a huge burden that I have to get rid of. And that means my kids become burdens, my husband becomes a burden. My neighbor next door who’s elderly, who doesn’t know Jesus yet but wants to talk today, is a burden. Because I have to write, I have a deadline.
It just warps our view of life. And then it really ultimately enslaves me to this task. I now am owned by my writing. It now is my God. Like you said earlier, it becomes an idol. And so the whole thing is problematic to really think that way. It ties our identity. I think what you see your purpose as is how you see yourself as your identity. And if you tie it to doing, you will always need it to be okay.
Because you need a strong, sturdy place for your identity to land that’s bigger than you. And if we look back at Genesis 1:27, the very beginning of the story, we are made in the very image of God. Our purpose is tied to a person as an image bearer.
If we keep it tied to him, we’re liberated to do all sorts of things with passion, and take risks, and not be owned by those things. I can now write a book, and I can rock my baby to sleep. And I can do them both with the same amount of passion, energy, creativity, and exercise everything at my disposal to do those things well.
Because I’m doing them now to image my God. Despite if a lot of people see, or if just my other watching kids see. Those things matter. If I’m imaging God well. Because He is my purpose. If my identity’s not in Him, I flounder every time. So for me, this is constant recalibration, recalibration.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Regularly. Yep, yep. Making sure the wheels are somehow aligned as we continue to move through.
Kelly Needham:
Yes,
Julie Lyles Carr:
We have a portion of our listenership, of our audience who are learning how to really wear the moniker of mom and what all that means and the things that they’re having to shift and change from. For some of them that transition is challenging because they have been a fill in the blank, an accountant, a teacher, or whatever, and they’re making the decision to either keep a foot in that camp and be raising kids. Some of them have decided they’re going to stay at home to raise kids. And there is this unsettling of, well, now who am I in this space?
We have another portion of the listenership that they’re launching. They’re in the launch season. And kids are out of the house, kids have gone to college, kids are getting married, and they are faced, for the first time because there’ve been so many verbs happening for such a long time around raising kids, that as soon as the verbs get a little quieter on some things, They’re left with a sense of having no idea.
What am I supposed to be doing? Why am I here? What is my next supposed to look like? In any of those seasons where we have a transition, and the things that we’ve leaned on to help us understand who we are, even if those are things that we should have been thinking and talking to you ahead of time, but now we’re there. Now we’re there in a transitional season.
What can be some great first steps to helping, as you say, recalibrate so that when we are going through a transition, we’re not tempted to immediately jump into whatever the next verb is. To create the next, and I’m going to use air quotes around this, “purpose” around ourselves to mitigate some of these feelings of feeling a little bit like you don’t really know where you stand anymore, what the gravity is.
So what are some early steps that someone can take in a season of transition like that?
Kelly Needham:
Yeah. Well, I think the deep longing that shows up a lot of times in motherhood, in those transitional seasons, the beginning of it or kind of the ending of mothering at home, you don’t ever stop being a mom. I think it’s okay for us in those seasons of becoming a mom, moving to the empty nest years, to acknowledge that deep ache we have for more. And to acknowledge it’s not met in motherhood.
I think that’s okay. I don’t think it’s right to demonize that kind of itch we have. Like, oh, I was made for more than this. You were. You were made for more than this, but you weren’t made for a different job. Even if you get the best, highest-up, favorite position in whatever organization you were at, are at, go to the peak of whatever mountain you would also like to climb, that’s also not going to do it for you.
You’re going to get there and it’s not going to be enough. Because you weren’t made for that either. You were made for more than that job that you were at, you were made for God. So I think it’s okay to recognize that longing and to not shush it down, but instead redirect it. And go, man, this was meant to lead me to a God who is the designer of galaxies, the inventor of the human body, with all the complexities of an eyeball.
I mean it’s just, that’s what God we serve. We are made for something so magnificent. Of course, motherhood doesn’t do it for us, doesn’t get us out of bed in the morning sometimes. It doesn’t, me either. So what has helped me make it through that is to go, I am not primarily a mom. I’m a servant of the living God, and He has given me children in this season. And those are the little neighbors he’s put around me to love, right? Love your neighbor as yourself.
Well, today, that means these little kids running around my house. Might also mean the Chick-fil-A drive-through person, might also mean my dad, and my next door neighbor, and that mom of my kids’ friend at school.
But if you go back to work, it’s the same there. I am a servant of the living God. More than I am an accountant, more than I am an executive, more than I am these things. And today, the people he’s put around me to love, the neighbors to love as myself, is my coworker. Is this person, that person.
My identity should stay firmly tied to him and what he set before me every day. Not to the particular role. And that’s really freed me to then go, today’s not full of my favorite verbs. I have favorite ones. There are things that I like doing more than others, and it’s okay for me to admit that. And say, you know what? Folding laundry is at the bottom of my list, and organizing my kids’ messy playroom is also at the bottom of the list. But okay, that’s what’s in front of me today. God, help me do it as your servant.
And then other days are full of verbs that I love more than anything. God, help me know that these verbs can’t meet that deep need that I have for purpose. Only you can do that. So even today, thank you God that I get to do a lot of things I love. Even as I do them, remind me I’m meant for more than this, even. I’m meant for you.
And so in both doing fun things and not fun things, I have to fight to keep my identity fixed in one place. And a lot of times that means detaching identity from mom. And you know what? I found that I’m a better mom when I’m not identified by it.
When I can go, I am first a child of God. I’m immediately able to serve my kids, and even take care of myself so that I can serve them in better ways when I’m not fully identified by that role. Which is one that ebbs and flows over, like you’re saying, seasons of life. It will come and go.
But my first loyalty is not even to my children or to my husband, it’s to the God who saved me and set me free. And if I maintain deep fellowship with him, it’s going to liberate me to do momming well.
Julie Lyles Carr:
Right, to mom well. Exactly. Well, I’m so excited for you on this new book, Purpose Fooled, Why Chasing Your Dreams, Finding Your Calling and Reaching for Greatness Will Never be Enough.
Such a compelling conversation. Such a beautiful and fresh way of looking at this entire topic. Kelly, where can my listener go to find out more about you, about the book, all the good stuff?
Kelly Needham:
Sure. You can go to purposefooled.com to learn more about the book, and you can keep up with me and my husband, what we’re doing in other places and spaces at jimmyandkelly.com. We host a podcast and do a few other things on the side so you can go there. And of course, we’re on some social media channels, but those are some places to start.
Julie Lyles Carr:
All right, excellent. Well Kelly, I can’t thank you enough for being on and for digging into something that is, wow, such a powerful topic. And in many ways, kind of counter to a lot of what we hear and a lot of our faith spaces. Such a great reminder to really make sure that we first are loving the Lord our God well, and maintaining relationship with Him, and everything flows from that. Just a great reminder.
So thank you again for being on. It’s just been great.
Kelly Needham:
Thanks so much, Julie.
Julie Lyles Carr:
And listener, I want you to go and check out the show notes. Rebecca puts those together for us, and you can find all the links that Kelly was talking about. And also check out allmomdoes.com and AllMomDoes on the socials. We talk about this every episode, but it’s a great place for you to go, and to connect and, to get inspiration and encouragement. So be sure and check that out.
I love it too. When you jump over to Julie Lyles Carr, particularly on Instagram, that’s where I tend to hang out the most. And I love getting to chat with you there.
Hey, be sure and grab the link from this episode. This is huge. If you would grab the link from this episode, and with someone, a friend of yours, a family member who’s struggling right now with their idea of purpose or a dream that they’ve had, would you send this link to them? I think it would be such an encouragement. And I’ll see you next time on the AllMomDoes Podcast.
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