Gratitude is a Mindset - Thankfulness in All Things

Guys!  Happy Thanksgiving!
Firstly, forgive me for making this so dang serious.  I didn't mean to hahahaha.  I get that way sometimes - too deep.  Too passionate about God guys - I can't help it!
I hope that you can find something in here worth listening to, friends.
And Secondly, I'm really thankful you're here. For real.
If you're interested in watching the behind the scenes footage of me recording this episode, check out my youtube channel in the links!  You can see just a bit of backstage action before the recording process begins ;-)
OH!  And for you guys that are ready to give your hair some TLC (you know, be an angel to yourself haha) Right now my listeners can give Gemmist a try and get 20 percent off their shampoo & conditioner!
Just visit Gemmist.com to get your personalized recommendation and enter NESTING at checkout for 20% off and free 2-day shipping....and TO GET THE BEST HAIR OF YOUR LIFE!

Music : Happy Ukulele : Scott Holmes

Gemmist
Haircare for the Holidays

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Transcript

Shannon Earley: 0:00

Hello friends, this is Shannon Earley, the hostess of the Nesting With The Earley Birds Podcast. And I'm so glad that you're back. For all of you that have returned listeners, thank you so much. And if you're brand new, thank you so much for coming. This podcast is really just a time for me to encourage women. And if you're a man, that's fine, too. Check it out, listen, but I just wanted to remind everybody, you're not alone. And whatever experience you're going through, somebody out there is going through the same thing. And maybe listening to these stories or listening to these words of encouragement can just help you get through those things a little bit easier. I'm a Christian homeschooling mom of four children, two of which are on the autism spectrum, one of which has a rare genetic disorder. I'm also a hairstylist, guys, things are crazy over here, that I mentioned homeschooling, I don't even know because my mind is in 75 places at all times. But I've got a lot of tips from doing a lot of life. And I've actually even survived things like abuse, what in the world. So thank you so much for coming and checking it out. I really appreciate it. And remember to share this with other people that might be interested, and help me to have this podcast grow. Thank you so much, guys. And remember, God totally loves you all the time. Hey, friends, this is Shannon Earley, the hostess of the Nesting With The Earley Birds Podcast. And it's Thanksgiving week, yay. Some of you might be thinking, like I have nothing to be thankful for. And guess what? I totally got you. I totally got you. And I think a lot of people right now are probably doing things that are going to be real cheery and like, Oh my goodness, like, think about how bad you could have it. Cuz there's people out there that are really suffering. I'm not, you know what, people are always gonna have it worse than you and they're always gonna have it better than you. Don't worry about that. Do not compare what your life is with what's going on out there. Because I'm going to help you look inside yourself and figure out what the truth is. And not to be too hippie dippie. But you know, I want to help you figure out the truth for you. You know what I'm saying? Am I gonna use some Christian ideas? Of course I am guys. I'm Shannon Earley. Like I'm a Jesus Freak. This is known. So first of all Thanksgiving, super exciting. I hope that you guys are doing something fun. Even if it's just like, Oh, you know what, instead of cooking this year, I'm gonna order pizza. That's fine. Who cares? You have money to order pizza. So what? Thanksgiving can be kind of stressful. It is super expensive. Having a feast is very expensive. And when you're already parents that have four kids. And then you're like, Oh, I'm gonna invite my brother and his fiance and I want my in laws and, man that adds up. Am I right? Like, I don't know. Thank goodness Evan found a turkey that was like 48 cents a pound? Is it gonna be good? Who knows? Who cares? Cuz Guess what, nobody even likes the turkey. I don't like the turkey. First of all, I'm a vegetarian. Second of all the sides are where it's at. Like, give me them carbs, carbs all day, every day. That is how I keep my figure if you're wondering. So I do want to actually talk to you guys about thankfulness, gratefulness, praise, that kind of thing. A thankfulness you tell your kids when you give them something, say thank you. Oh, and when they say it, how do you feel? Do you like I'm so glad they said thank you. That makes me feel really good. Even if it's something little. You buy him some candy at the store. Thank you, mom. You're so welcome. And you're like I'm gonna buy them 7000 candies? How do you feel when you do something for them? And that's not what's said. Think about that for a second. Think about the way you feel as the giver. When the kid gives zero poops, or you just did something kind for your husband and he doesn't notice. Think about the way you feel when you are pouring out your heart, your work your energy for something, some kind of cause nobody notices. How does it make you feel? It's not a good feeling. And I want you guys to kind of remember that as we go through thisvThanksgiving season, right? Think about the way it feels to not be thanked. And remember that every good thing That you are ever given in the world is given to you. It's given to you from God. Every mercy that you receive! A mercy is any kind of kindness. You can say it's as simple as a green light when you weren't expecting one, then all the way to not having cancer, when you get your diagnosis from some recent tests, you know, those real big ones, those are all mercies. And the Lord is the one that gives them to us. It actually says it in the Bible. Every good thing comes from God. So let's just, let's check our heart right there, ladies and gents, let's put that mud on the door there. And I was thinking as I started to record this, you know, I had all these other ways I was going to go about it and be like, oh, Peter, so many ways you should be so thankful. And I remembered that. Four years ago, in November of 2016, I actually thought I was dying. I thought that I had cancer. And a a lot of my family. I don't know if they thought that but I think it was one of those unspoken maybes. And I had this rare issue with my kidney where it started. I already knew there were cysts on it from when I was 19 years old. And we thought it was polycystic kidney disease, which actually can be fatal. It's a pretty big deal. It causes your kidneys to fail. You need to go on dialysis. It's a really big problem. And as a matter of fact, there's a woman that goes to my church, who did have a lot of difficulties because of polycystic kidney disease. And she ended up having two kidney transplants, just whatever liver transplant did, it was awful. And I think she had to basically be a home body. what is the word like not a recluse, you know, the thing that we're doing with COVID, where you're like, staying isolation, what is the word? I don't know, whatever. She had to do that for a very long time because the risk of infection was so great. Anyways, so that's what we thought it was. But it was really rare because it was only on one side. So then they were calling it unilateral polycystic kidney disease. Well, because of it, I needed to get regular CAT scans like every year. And all of a sudden, I'm just really ill feeling so sick. And it was a very unusual situation, obviously. And I go to get it checked out. And yes, the cysts are still there, but they're growing and they're changing. And the weirdest thing is that I always put my babies up on my left hip. It's just the way I carry them, probably because I'm a lefty. And I thought that my abdominal wall or my abdominal muscles were growing in that one spot because it started to come out. It started to push out of my, I don't know, my rib cage area. And I thought I was just growing muscles, which I know sounds so silly, but it was my kidney growing. We found out later that it was pounds, pounds heavier than my right kidney. Not only that, the cysts were not simple, fluid filled cysts for those of you that are understanding of the cyst world in any kind of way. They were complex cysts, they had matter in them. And then at one point, I was getting these like weekly tests for some reason of a CAT scan, one week MRI, another ultrasound another and in between each week, the cysts are growing. Not good, definitely scary town. And they then found out that my kidney function on that side was non existent. I remember one doctor said that essentially my kidney was like, I don't know if He said it was rotting. But it was dead. And that that's one of the reasons I was feeling so terrible. But if you take a pee test, when you only have one good kidney, the kidney function looks fine, because God blessed us with two kidneys, and one makes up for the other ones, you know suckage so I ended up having my left kidney removed in November of 2016. And I remember going the night before surgery, I made sure I had all my kids on my lap. And I was reading them a story and I really thought, what if I die? What if I die? And I even recorded this special video to my children. And my husband and I made one message individually for each person. I still haven;t watched them, I can't, I can see the video. I know when it's the video. There's no way I'm going to watch it. It's just immediately it just pricks me. But before the surgery, I had said I was like really sick, my husband was just serving in every capacity he possibly could. He was working full time. He had all the kids at home, they were so tiny, then. I think so we only had three children. But the oldest one was four. So you can imagine that that's pretty insane. Not really any family help at all. And if any of my parents Listen, I'm sorry, I'm putting this out there. But there was actually a friend from church. And she had set up this like caring thing where people would sign up to take care of my children or bring a meal. And my mother signed up for one thing out of a three month period. And that includes watching the kids and stuff. So it was pretty sheisty. And oh, I guess I almost cussed... did I cuss? Maybe that's actually a word. I don't know, guys, but I have been doing like super well, I told you about it. So you know what, I'm gonna stop talking about this. The point is that I was suffering. My husband was suffering. My kids were suffering. We were doing as much as we could to continue in normal life. But there was this feeling. There was this dark cloud, this scary cloud of what if, what if, and it permeated everything. But by the grace of God before bed at night, we would thank Him, we would thank him for doctors, we would thank him for our children thank him for our marriage. Okay, you guys. So this is superduper exciting. Most of you know that I'm a hairstylist, you know, like, as well as a mom and a homeschool teacher and all that jazz. But this is superduper exciting, because this episode was actually brought to you by an amazing sponsor that I'm so excited to stand behind you guys, you have no idea. Being a hairstylist, I've tried so many different hair products, so many different, like, you know, styling solutions, and I've done all these different things. And you guys also know that as a hairstylist, I changed my hair all of the dang time. Like I currently have red and pink hair. And before that I was brown before that I did some blonde. And I'm constantly changing it all of the time. But I also like to wear my hair superduper long, which means that my hair has sustained some damage, you know what I'm saying? And there's actually this website that you can go on and you take this quiz, right? And it has little questions on it, like, rank your top three hair concerns, which First of all, it's awesome that you can pick more than one option. You know how when it's like, do you feel like your hair is flat? Or do you feel like it's ugly all the time? And you want to be like both? Those aren't exactly the questions. But so for instance, it might be like, Is it that your hair is flat or dry? Or frizzy? Is it that there's undefined curls, chemical or thermal damage, things like that. And then it actually has 13 other questions. So it's 15 total questions. One of them is you know, your name easy, you totally have that no problem. And the coolest thing is is that our team answer all these questions, it fits you with the perfect combination for your hair, you can get a good shampoo conditioner system. And the neat thing too is it will even ask you questions like, do you use your shampoo or your conditioner quicker? You know how I've had, you know, curly hair clients and they're all about that conditioner, which you know, you should be. But anyways, it asks all these different questions and it's so awesome. They have all these different formulas, and then it gives you your results. And another superduper awesome thing about it guys, is that this company is woman owned. They're a CEO and founder Her name is Alison haar, and she's a mom of two. She's also a dog mom. She's wicked smart. She's a Harvard graduate. My favorite part about actually is There's free returns as well. So you can try gemist risk free with free and easy returns within 30 days. I mean, if you hit a shampoo or conditioner or something like a CVS old, like you can't return it, that's crazy. So I think that's really awesome that they've got this program, especially when you're trying out something new. And here's the best part. If you're ready to have the best hair of your life, try gemist. And right now, my listeners can give gems to try and get 20% off of your shampoo and conditioner. Just visit gemist.com to get your personalized recommendation, and enter nesting, which is N as in Nancy, e s, t i n g at checkout for 20% off and free two day shipping, that is gemist.com g, e, m, as in Mary m, as in Mary is t.com and enter code nesting at checkout to get the best hair of your life. Alright guys, let's do this. We're on our knees praying quite a bit. And it brought us so close to God. And you know, when looking back you there's these things called Ebenezer stones. It's these stones that you almost like a tombstone of it's a stone of remembrance, really, of remembering a time when God was good in your life. And you know what? It's all those times of suffering, that I can see how God was so good to me. Maybe you don't see it when you're in it. That's totally normal. And then as you start to slowly come out of it, you see, wow, God really protected me from something here. Wow, God really helped me in ways here that I didn't even know to ask for. And that's what is so awesome, is that I have these Ebenezer stones now in place. You know, I survived abuse, not from just one man, I survived abuse from men. And because of that, I am thankful I'm not, it's weird to say you're thankful for abuse. I'm thankful that the Lord is let me see that. Evan is such a good man. I don't think I would have known how great he was if I hadn't gone through what I went through. And God showed me what I haven't ever and because of that, you know, I'm life, you know, like, I thought I was gonna die. And then this year has been insane balls. I've had a gajillion breast biopsies and Lady department biopsies there's been a lot of really weird things going on. And it's brought us to that point, again of we are so thankful that God cares so much about me, that he's giving me this, this marriage, these children, this great church, there's been a lot that he has really blessed us with. And I think too frequently people get caught up on the material blessings, like, Oh, we don't have money right now. We can't be thankful. And I am I understand that. Like, I'm not judging on you at all. But at the end of the day, we need to understand, there are way more things to be thankful about, I think, when things are stripped away, and you really think oh, my goodness, what I have to choose new clothes or my husband, what I have to choose this or my children? Well, it's like, oh, okay, the choice is easy, what to be painful for. And sometimes I think we are we forget, when we are so frequently blessed and so frequently, just abundantly given things that we don't even think are things that were abundantly given? Does that make any sense? So I did want to just share with you something. This is from Luke chapter six, verse 45. And it says, a good man produces good out of the good storeroom of his heart. An evil man produces evil out of the evil storeroom of his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. Think let's just let that sink in for a little bit. Basically, God is saying that whatever comes out of your mouth is how you're feeling inside. Are you a kind of the kind of person that is continually blessing God, even when things are tough, the kind of person that's praising God's name in times of abundance and praising his name In times of trouble, are you the kind of person maybe you praise God when things are going well, and when they're not you turn from him you run from him. You start grumbling. Marinette, do I grumble? Yes. But are you the kind of person that's always or grumbler? Hey, man, people look at you, it looks like things are going pretty well. But you're still not being thankful. Man, you should really consider that. God says what you put in your heart is what's coming out of your mouth. Think about it. I remember one time I was listening to this amazing woman speak. And she had said, Imagine if God only let you keep or gave you the things that you actually praised him for. Right? And she said, when you wake up to you, thank God for your breath. Do you think God for your bed? Do you think God for your husband or wife, your children? Do you think of your health? Do you thank them for your mental clarity? I mean, you could really just go on and on during this time of COVID. Do you think that your lungs are breathing the way they're supposed to be? Do you thank him that he made you? And it's like, oh, man, when you really strip that away, you start seeing I get so caught up, I get so caught up. There's this really cool verse from second Corinthians that I love. And I just wanted to remind you guys that I am not saying this as some kind of Pollyanna. Oh, you should always be thankful for all things. I mean, should you Yes, but I'm not saying it. And I don't understand or care or empathize about what you're going through. Not saying it in that kind of way, guys. I'm trying to say in a, God knows you. He made you. He knows your life circumstances, he knows your life story, because he wrote the darn thing. All right, try to see what is something you can be thankful for. Because when it starts slowly, it starts to snowball into something bigger. And it's the same way with our anger. Jealousy starts slowly, like a little tiny seed, and it grows and grows and grows. What is the thing that you are constantly thinking about? What is the thing you're quote unquote, meditating on you know? And that's one of the practical things I wanted to share with you. Let's say you're thinking yourself, I just can't be thankful right now, in this moment in my life. A really good thing to do is to meditate on that Think about it. Think about what is that thing that is really upsetting you really let it sink in, think about it. And then start maybe asking God to help it. help take you know, get rid of it help get you out of that situation. Maybe start praying thankfulness for it. Thank you, God, for this scary time in my life. Because it is bringing me closer to you. Thank you, God, that my father struggles with alcoholism, because it reminds me Lord God, that you are a perfect father. Do you see what I'm doing? there? You see that? Maybe to some of you listening. It's like Shannon, this is ridiculous girl. And listen, by the way back story. I'm not a preacher, not a pastor. Okay. I just wanted to maybe show you guys there are ways to be thankful about your own life without saying Oh, look at her, you know, at least we're not that person. I'm not even saying that. I want you to just focus on what you have got going on in your life and the ways you can be thankful and you know, maybe even starting with the easy things is the way to do it. So thank you God and I got some toilet paper Geron COVID Thank you God, I got deodorant, so that I don't have to go around like a stinky person. You know, starting easy doing it silly, whatever you want to do. But I love this in Second Corinthians chapter four verses eight through nine. God is showing us he understands that people are going to go through some tough stuff. Listen to this. I love it. says we are pushed hard from all sides. But we are not being down. We are bewildered. But that doesn't make us lose hope. Others make us suffer. But God does not desert us. We are knocked down, but we are not knocked out. Hey yo Am I Right, like isn't that so gangster, I love it. Love it. We are knocked down. We are not knocked out. Thank you, God. I am not knocked out. Thank you, God, I have another chance. Thank you, God for another day. Thank you God for a fresh start. Thank you God for the sacrifice of your son. Thank you God that you love me so much, even though I'm sorry, understand, I am not lovable. Thank you, God. Right. So I have so much more I could talk about on this. And maybe I'll do a podcast every day. I don't know. I had so much more than I even wrote. And then I'm looking at the timer. It's been 22 minutes. Like what is going on? So anyways, guys, maybe this was too serious. Maybe I shouldn't post it. I'm gonna post it. Thank you for being my listener. Thank you for coming to the show when you don't have to. That is amazing. You're amazing. You're amazing. Thank you. And if you wanted to donate to my Patreon account, that would be really cool, too. I would totally thank you for that. Thank you so much. Oh, shout out to my friends. Shout out to Lisa. Thank you for supporting me with all your encouraging words about this podcast. And I'm so glad Lisa is thankful for her family and friends. Specifically friends she can be 100% honest with get it girl. And Samantha. Thank you for being a goof and bringing humor. When so often. I like to be so serious. I don't know what it is. Thank you for that. Samantha likes my new setup. I am thankful for my new setup. Ah, I forgot to put like the wall sound barrier thing up over here. Whatever. Thank you that I now will remember that next. Thanks a lot, dudes. Thank you very much. I'm thankful for gemist the hair shampoo and conditioner, hair care company for wanting to partner with me in any kind of way. Like you guys have got a sponsor. What? I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful that my husband's downstairs with the kids. They find a house I'm thankful that. I don't know I'm wearing shoes. I tried to light a candle. So like I'd feel so during this time, and I feel like it's making my nose stuffy. I don't know. Anyways, thanks a lot, guys. I'll do one that's like happier also. Okay. It'll be like a bountiful Thanksgiving of podcasting. Alright, dudes, thank you so much for listening. And I hope you enjoyed this Nesting With The Earley Bird Podcast episode. I hope it mad you think a little bit. Hope i made you feel a littl encouraged that it's okay t feel knocked down. It's okay It's okay to feel like I'm i I'm suffering. It's okay to fee like that. Just don't run awa from God. That's the that's th worst thing you can do guys jus run towards sprint or exam Remember, God totally loves yo all the time. I'll talk to yo later, Gators