S2S Sisters: "Intentional Relationships: Peace Within, Between, and Among" by Janelle Glick

Our prayer is that you will be filled with the knowledge of His will, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power. Hello everyone, and welcome again to Strength to Strength Sisters. I'm Janila Kurtz, and I'm so glad to have you all joining us. The vision of Strength to Strength Sisters is to encourage women to be catalysts in advancing the Kingdom through biblical teaching, testimonies of faithful women, and thought-provoking discussions.

Today, we're excited to welcome Janelle Glick with us as she shares with us on intentional relationships: peace within, between, and among. Along with the daily task of family living, Janelle spends three days a week in online coaching and mentoring, with a main focus on helping Christian women accept Jesus' love for themselves. She loves to study the Bible and teach others how to do the same.

I value very much how God has blessed me as I've spent time with Janelle, and I know, and I'm anticipating a blessing for all of us as we hear God speaking through her today. So here's a few notes as we begin. Before we begin, this call will be recorded and posted after today on our YouTube and podcast platforms. And just a reminder, your face will not be recorded unless you are speaking. So don't be afraid to have your video showing. I know it's a great encouragement to the speaker to be able to speak to real faces.

After our call today, we're looking forward to hearing from you all if you have any questions for our discussion. You can submit your questions through the chat or feel free to ask them yourself. I'd love if you all would join me as I pray a blessing before we begin.

God, I just come before You, Lord, in this moment, and I thank You, Lord, for this amazing technology we have. And I thank You, God, so much, Lord, for Your Spirit that moves among us. Thank You, Lord, for Your Word and how You, Lord, have—you speak to us as Your daughters. And Lord, I ask a special blessing today on Janelle. Lord, just grant her peace of mind, Lord. Just help her to say only the words, Lord, that You want her to share. I just pray, Lord, that she could lean into Your Spirit. And I pray, Lord, especially for all of those who are hearing and listening today, Lord. And Lord, may our spirits be open, Lord, and our hearts, Lord, that we can hear and we can learn and we can grow.

And I pray, Lord, for all of—not only for those of us who are listening, but for our relationships, Lord, that go far beyond the reach of this call. And Lord, may this, Lord, be a catalyst, Lord, for Your Kingdom, Lord, of growth and advancement, Lord, that Your will can be done, Lord, on earth as it is in heaven. So Lord, now in this quietness of this hour, we are waiting with our hearts open before You. Thank You, Lord, so much for Your Son who died for us. Lord, may we never, ever forget the wonder, Lord, of the gift of Your salvation, Lord, for all of us. We just ask this, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.

So Janelle, may God's Spirit descend on you. Feel free to go ahead.

Thank you, Janila. Lovely to be prayed over, isn't it? And I really appreciate your prayer today. It's special to be here. I've known about Strength to Strength and various people who have spoken over the last years. And I think it's a beautiful thing that women get together from all over the world like this, Christian women. And it was special to hear some of you at the beginning today from different parts of the world talking about joining us now. That means a lot to me.

So I will begin my talk today. I do have a PowerPoint, so I'm going to pull up those slides now and share them with you.

Okay, are we good here? Can we see this? Okay. So if you've read already online the description, and Janila shared it here too, you've already looked at a description of what I'd like to share today. As long as I remember, I have been very attuned to people, and not only my own relationships with people, but I find myself noticing relationships happening around me. And I have memories of being a very young child and this happening.

And I expect that many of us are that way. As women, we come into the world, I think, very intuitively aware of relationship, and it's part of God's design preparing us to be nurturers in the world and in His Kingdom. So today is a combination of scriptures that I see encouraging us in the work of being at peace within, between, and among. And it's also an introduction to some of the tools that in my work as a coach and mentor, tools that I find time and time again, Christian women are finding—they're finding them helpful in putting biblical teachings into practice. If you're like me, sometimes you read the instructions in scripture and you find yourself praying, "But God, how?"

Right? Like we have the instructions to live at peace with each other, but we cry out to Him and we wonder how. And I'm hopeful that some of these tools that I share today will give you ideas. You'll still need to ask God for specific wisdom and creativity in putting them into practice, but I hope that they'll be clear for you to add into what you already know about relationships.

I'd like to begin with first just a very quick word study on the word peace. First of all, the word that's translated peace in the New Testament. So when you're reading in the New Testament and you're looking at the Greek word for peace, eirene.

And a few things here, it's a noun. So if you care about grammar, that's important to know. We talk about making peace. And if you look at the instructions in scripture, you'll keep seeing a call to peace. But notice the verb that goes with it, because this word eirene is a noun. So it's going to have action verbs in front of it. But the definition, several ways that it's defined, are the idea of unity or oneness, peace, which is what we often see in the verses that we'll look at today. It's a quietness and a rest.

It's used as peace, peace of mind. For Jewish faith and practice, there's an invocation of peace or a blessing of peace as they leave each other. And in the Hebrew sense of the word, there is the idea of the health of an individual or this idea of wholeness. And this might remind you of an earlier Hebrew word that also means wholeness. So I'd like to look at that one as well.

The word that we—the Hebrew word is shalom. And the definition for that is completeness or soundness, welfare, peace. But when I'm talking about peace within, between, and among today, I'm not thinking about just let's not argue with each other or let's not have differences of opinion. It's actually a beautiful thing to be at peace with each other even though we think differently. And I think that as followers of Christ, we see a lot of that modeled in Jesus himself, in his ministry. He was so different from the world around him when he came. And yet his way of being in the world shows us over and over what completeness looked like, what shalom and eirene could have been, and what we can follow now too.

So that's a brief look at some of the—just a little bit of the word study for those two words as we begin. Now, I'd also like to talk a bit about women in the Bible who, as I read their stories, I also see demonstration of what it can look like to be at peace within and between and among.

And I've put them under the headings here just to hone in on certain aspects of them, but you could develop much more from this. It's very brief. I thought of Hagar when I was thinking about peace within. We might not think of her initially as just a woman whose life was at peace. And that is also something to note about being at peace is that whatever it is, it's possible even when lots of things are in chaos or there's lots of struggle around us.

So we know Hagar's story. And so I would just note here that she experienced God's presence and provision in her darkest hour. So she's in the desert and she's watching her son die and she's done everything she knows to do. So she's at the end of herself and she's preparing for him to die. And then God helps her. And then she talks about God as Elroy, the God who sees.

Now, when I think about peace within, that is an aspect of peace within. It's that element of knowing that all of this might be out of my hands, but I am still seen and known and loved. And that is an aspect of peace within. We see that in Hagar's story.

Another woman who comes to mind when I think about peace just within one individual is Jesus' mother, Mary. After the messenger comes to her, I have no doubt that she had lots of feelings. And she asked some of those questions to the messenger, "How can this be?" Right? She's trying to absorb everything that's coming to her here. But then a little later, we find out that she keeps and ponders these things in her heart.

You know, we want to really meet each other, and we do. And the moments when we really meet and communicate and connect are glorious. But there's also a part of peace that remains within us one person at a time. And that's where we are keeping and pondering what God's whispering to us or what he's showing up or opening up for us individually.

So those are women's stories that come to mind for peace within. I'd like to look next at some stories that reflect peace between. I think about Elizabeth. When Mary comes to her, Elizabeth already has her own wonderful story. She too has been visited by God and is miraculously pregnant after so many years. I get this picture of Mary walking in the door to see her and that maybe Elizabeth is just—she's ready to burst out with her story, but it seems that she gives preference to Mary. And then, at least in the scripture that we have, she is able to—in a sense, she can set herself aside and then she listens and joins in with Mary's story.

And that's the process of making peace between two people. When we're communicating with each other, we are constantly—we hold our own stories and we should be aware of them. But then we also make space for whoever we're with in that moment to sit and listen and join. And I like the word meet, that when we're really listening to each other, we are meeting each other in a very special way.

So I love this text between Elizabeth and Mary and the way Elizabeth meets Mary when she comes.

It always seemed to me like maybe there could have been jealousy or some kind of tension between the two of them. If there was, we don't get to read about it.

Mary Magdalene is the second one I thought of for peace between. Her story has long intrigued me as well because I wonder, what did she all know? We know that when she's anointing Jesus' feet and washing his feet with her hair, he says, like he tells us a bit about how she's anointing him for burial. And I wonder how much she was actually processing in that moment. So peace between is also the act of giving.

And often it's extravagant and bold acts of love. So sometimes making peace between ourselves and another individual is done in more tangible giving ways. We show up for them. We pray blessings over them, not only in our quiet prayers, but also in our physical living alongside of them.

And I know there was a talk recently about forgiveness. And I think about extravagant and bold acts of love, even when there's tension in relationships, are sometimes also part of that forgiveness process. So peace between. Mary is, I think, in some ways in tension with herself, but we also know she was in tension with what other people were thinking about Jesus.

And she went ahead and gave out of what she understood.

Ruth is another woman. Her peace between, her peace with another individual, one other person, is showed in her loyalty. She made a long-term commitment to be with Naomi and to stay by her side. And I think sometimes we have a sense of being called long-term with individuals as well for their good, for their blessing.

All right. And then if we experience peace within ourselves and we extend that one person at a time, then I believe we can end up in communities where more people are doing the work of peace within and peace between, and then a group can experience peace among, which is broader.

I think about Miriam. She was a joy maker. She led women in worship and dancing after they crossed the Red Sea.

She had her own sense of joy, no doubt, when they were delivered. But she was able to move that through and invite a group of people to join her in that. And it's a beautiful picture of one person facilitating peace among.

Deborah is another woman. She was a listener. She listened to people's issues and problems. This was in Israel, early Israel days. And she offered good advice. And in doing that, she was contributing to peace among people, among a larger group of people.

Phoebe is mentioned. I know the King James version talks about a succorer. I'm not sure what other versions use. I understand it to be an encourager. And some commentators think that her work may have been visiting Christian women who had been imprisoned.

But a woman who was very much present to other people, helping them come to peace as well.

Esther, she was willing to be vulnerable and advocate for injustices of her people. And she put her life at risk for that. So I think when we're advocating for the health of another person or the safety, the wellness of another person, that can also be for the purpose of peace among.

Lydia, she was leading other women in prayer meetings. She invited Paul to speak to their group. And from there, the Philippi church began. And at least for a time, was meeting at her house. So she was giving of herself, one step at a time, for the work of wholeness in community. She wasn't just looking out for herself.

And finally, Priscilla. She was a tent maker, married to Aquila. And we hear about her being a mentor and a missionary alongside of her husband. There are other women that you may think of as well in scripture. But I think about these women as being faithful and having vibrant lives of peace within, with the Lord, and then extending that out into relationships and into a whole community they were giving to.

All right. I'd like to switch now to a look at some of the tools that I'll be introducing to you today. Virginia Satir was a family therapist. She did a lot of her work in the 1960s to the 1980s.

And in her mind, she cared a lot about peace within, between, among. And she understood that in terms of systems as family systems. And so she would sit down with family members. And in her mind, she would sit with a family and nobody was bad. It could be that they had really bad coping skills and that they weren't healthy in their lives. But she believed that at the core of everyone is a space of health. And that's what she would speak to in her family sessions. Now, I think she died in the '80s.

But her work continues to be studied by other people. Jean McLendon is the lady listed here who has come up with this model called the Seven A's.

So Virginia Satir talked about peace within, between, and among. And you see the direction that the arrow is going here. She wrote about how families will be in distress. And I would say for our context today, family and church community, I just see a lot of parallels. I think churches can have a lot of similar coping and relational strategies going on that families do because we're human and we're trying to relate to each other. What she said is that we really long for peace in a whole group. And we realize that it's very difficult. And we will often try to do all our problem-solving at the end of this line around peace among. But what we don't understand is that we don't have peace among unless we're being really an open and honest way back through our individual relationships, like one-on-one relationships with individual people, and then also very honest and willing to be aware of even what's happening within each of us individually.

So I'm going to give you a few words to fill out this. Jean McLendon then talks about how to have a healthy community at the end of this spectrum. You're going to need to have healthy one-on-one relationships between two people at a time. And you're also going to need healthy individuals, people who are able to know and be aware of themselves personally.

And then finally, these are the Seven A's that Jean McLendon added in here. She says that here at the end with peace within, we have awareness, acceptance, and authorship. So first of all, I think about the words of Jesus. We can see a speck in our brother's eye and not see the beam in our own eye. And awareness is that part of the process. It's being willing to ask God and other people, and even looking at our own responses honestly enough to be aware of what is going on for us in our difficult relationships with other people.

Easier to want to talk about what's going on for them, but really important to know what's happening for us. And then as we become aware of what's happening for us, to understand that we are loved, even if we are not doing well, we are loved by God. This would be my language for it. Acceptance for a believer is understanding that even when we're not doing well and we're making mistakes, we're still seen and understood and loved by God.

And that warmth and compassion built from Him helps us take ownership or authorship of what we're doing in our relationships. This is often what people are doing in coaching process or in counseling processes. They are learning about themselves and who they are in their life and relationships.

But then we move to have relationships with other people. We don't just hold that knowledge and understanding quietly and alone. We start articulating that to other people in our lives. We start talking about what we're learning and understanding about who we are and what we're doing. And we invite other people to help us make application to the relationships that we're in.

And then when people are able to do this between each other, then we move into a community of peace. The activism isn't my first choice of a word. I think maybe when I think of activism, I think of like I'm thinking of doing justly, loving, mercy, and walking humbly, right? Like we are engaged in our life and in our world in a way that is working towards justice.

But it's not just activism. We're not just finding our pet projects. And altruism is at the far end of it, where a community of people is not just living for themselves anymore, but truly knowing who we are, we give up ourselves. Just like Jesus emptied Himself for us, we begin to empty ourselves for each other.

So that is a model that may be helpful for some of you as you think about what's going on in your life and community relationships. I like to set this up also with the passage from 2 Corinthians. Through Christ, God made peace between Himself and us.

And God gave us the work of bringing people into peace with Him. I mean that God was in Christ, making peace between the world and Himself. And in Christ, God did not hold people guilty of their sins. He gave us this message of peace to tell people. So we have been sent to speak for Christ. It's like God is calling to people through us. We speak for Christ when we beg you to be at peace with God.

I hear the community spectrum in that language of God making peace with Himself and human beings, and then human beings being a part of inviting each other into this peace with God. We don't just do it alone.

So I'm going to the rest of my talk is divided into three sections. First, peace within, then peace between, and then peace among. I have a few verses to share for each, and then something from the tools that Virginia Satir used in her family therapy.

So in John 14:27, Jesus says to His disciples, "I leave you peace. It is my own peace I give you. I give you peace in a different way than the world does. So don't be troubled. Don't be afraid."

The peace that Jesus gives us is such a personal thing. And He meets us in such personal ways. And often I hear people talking about the calm place in the middle of a storm. They're well aware that they feel like there's chaos around them. And they do feel some fear. But there is a center of calm that they are given.

But the fruit that the Spirit produces in a person's life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.

Let or allow the peace that Christ gives control your thinking. It is for peace that you were chosen to be together in one body. And always be thankful. These verses illustrate peace being inside of us individually as a very special gift, very spiritual gift that's given by God.

We'd like to expand this though and show you a diagram. It's called the iceberg diagram. You notice that up at the very top of the iceberg, which is where we interact with each other. So think about each of us having our own experience of the iceberg.

Up at the top of the surface is how we're talking to each other today. Are we frustrated? Are we happy? Are we dismissive? Are things going well? Are they just neutral? Or are we actually really struggling at the surface with someone in our lives?

And then you notice the line that says coping. That's right at the water level surface. And we're going to talk about that in more detail here shortly because there are different ways of coping. And we usually have our preferred ones that we think are working okay for us in our relationships with people.

But here's the thing. When I think about peace within and the awareness, you can look back on any moment in your life in the last week or so. And you'd be able to think not only about what you were saying and doing, but if you wanted to, you could explore some of these other levels in that moment. You could ask yourself, "Huh, what was I feeling in that moment when I was doing that thing or saying that thing?"

And let's say that in that moment that you're remembering, you were actually feeling sadness. Then you might ask yourself, "Okay, and what feeling did I have about sadness?" It's a decision that we make about our first feelings where we think, "Oh, I shouldn't be sad about this. It's not such a big deal." And then we decide whether we're going to actually allow that feeling to be present or whether we're going to try to push it away.

You could ask yourself, "What was I thinking when that was happening? Did I have any beliefs that were at work in that conversation? Was I assuming anything about the other person?" And expectations are also in our thinking. Was there something that I thought I should be doing in that interaction? Is there something I thought somebody else should be doing?

And if you go all the way down one more step yet to this place where you can ask yourself, "What was I really longing for in that moment?" God gives us good longings. And we often have deep longings at play in the way that we are interacting with each other. But we're not always aware of what they are.

So it can be helpful to think about, "Even if this whole interaction went south, what was I longing for?" And then any repair that happens is about addressing the longing. So you see here I have paired this diagram with Galatians 5:25 into chapter 6, verse 2.

If we live by the Spirit, let's follow the Spirit as well. Let's not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another. Brothers and sisters, even if a person is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual are to restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself so that you are not tempted as well.

Bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. I'm offering the iceberg as a tool for the looking to yourself part of peace within. When you don't understand a relationship in your life, this is a place to begin. And you can do it very prayerfully.

I often use this in praying through something that feels difficult to me. I will ask God to help me explore what is happening for me. Because if any restoration is going to happen between me and someone else, I want to have a good sense. And it's only responsible to have a good sense of where was I in that interaction.

Not just what the other person was doing, but where was I and what was happening for me? This is a way we can bear each other's burdens and fulfill the law of Christ.

So that's a tool for thinking about peace within. Be willing to know yourself. Be willing to let God show you yourself. And these are the categories of the iceberg and even just the image of an iceberg I find is helpful in the spiritual practice of self-examination, of learning about what's down below.

And moving now to peace between. Here are some verses that reflect the understanding that between me and another person, there is a call to peace. Me and another person, one at a time. So what if you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that someone has something against you? Leave your gift there and go make peace with that person. And then come and offer your gift.

And in Jesus' words here, I think he's talking about first and second things maybe. He's not saying that an offering to God isn't important or worshiping God isn't important. But he is saying that if that is coming ahead of making peace with another person, it has to come second.

This thing of making peace with another person seems to be a first thing in this instance.

Wish only good for those who treat you badly. Ask God to bless them, not curse them. When others are happy, you should be happy with them. When others are sad, you should be sad too. Live together in peace with each other.

In God's kingdom, what we eat and drink is not important. Here is what is important: a right way of life, peace, and joy, all from the Holy Spirit. Whoever serves Christ by living this way is pleasing God, and they will be accepted by others. So let's try as hard as we can to do what will bring peace. Let's do whatever will help each other grow stronger in faith.

I like that added line there or the last line because if peace is a reigning, it's about wholeness, right? We're not just trying to finish off arguments. We're doing whatever will help each other grow stronger in faith.

So I'd like to now move to something that is we're going to talk about coping stances now. So on the iceberg diagram, right at that water level was the word coping stances. And these were listed very briefly there.

When we are in an interaction where we don't feel safe, and I would say another way maybe is a time in an interaction where we don't feel known or seen or loved. Something's going wrong or something just feels unsafe for us. We begin to shut down. And so first of all, I want you to see I'm going to use circles here to show you this.

When we are experiencing a Virginia talked about congruent or differentiated listening. So when you are in interaction with someone where you feel at peace, I think it's because you feel safe enough to be fully present and engaged in that interaction. And you feel safe letting the other person be present and engaged in the interaction. And both of you are comfortable with the context that you share, the subject you're talking about, the place you are, the history of your shared friendship or relationship. I hope that all of you have these people in your lives that you know and are at peace with, and you can be with them in a way that feels very whole and wholesome for you.

Now, Virginia Satir talked about physical stances that demonstrate these. And I can't stand up or you'd lose my head. But the congruent stance, think about this stance as your spine. As you're sitting, your spine is strong and straight, and your front is open and welcoming and engaged, and your body's relaxed, right? Your hands are at your side. You feel open to the person in front of you and what is going to happen in the conversation.

That is the congruent place. That's the place where we're at peace in between. But when we don't feel safe, we start to shut down our awareness of these three pieces. So let me show you what these are. Sometimes when we're feeling afraid, we get a fight response that comes. It's very instinctual. And in this place, we are minimizing the other person. And we tend to get angry, and we feel very rigid inside. We have to be prepared to do battle or obliterate the other person. And it will sound a lot it'll sound like blaming. So most commonly, this will be in a disagreement. And then we'll say things like, "You never hear what I'm saying.

You always this." There will be these accusations of what the other person is doing wrong. That's blame. So we're still aware of ourself and our thoughts and what's happening, but we're cutting the other person out of the conversation.

Placating is the opposite of that. Placating is where we minimize ourself in the conversation. It's often because we're talking maybe to someone who's in blaming stance. And so we think that to be calm or to stay safe, we just have to agree with them. "Yes, you're right. I'm a terrible friend, and I don't get back to you as soon as I should. And I never this, or I don't do enough of that." We just sort of go along with the blaming.

And we're kind of in agreement there. The blamer gets to blame, and the placator receives it by minimizing their own feelings and thoughts. We just go along with what we're receiving from someone who's in blame.

Super reasonable stance then is where someone actually kind of steps out of the relationship and caring about it all together. A big part of this is that if we're doing super reasonable, we will go up into our just up into our heads, and we will often start problem-solving. We'll be trying to solve an issue, or we'll be doing a job together, but we're not emotionally present to ourselves or each other. We don't really care anymore about what we're feeling. And we don't care about what another person is feeling or thinking. We're just getting the job done, or we're just fixing this problem. We get really hyper-focused on context.

And irrelevant is where this can happen different ways. But what it looks like with this circle is that we're not really present to any of this anymore. We've stopped caring about knowing our own thoughts and feelings. We've stopped caring about knowing the other person's thoughts and feelings. And we don't really care what happens anymore either.

So where placating is going to say, "I can't show up," and blaming is saying, "You better not show up." Distracting is saying, "I can't be here at all. I can't attend to me. I can't attend to you, and I cannot be present to what's going on."

Sometimes this looks like leaving the room. Sometimes this looks like humor, like there's a lot of tension, and then we just crack an off-the-wall joke or we just change the subject. Like, "Here's all this tension. Let's talk about something completely random and different over here."

But the idea is the basic sense is that I can't stay here in this interaction. And in any of these coping stances, we can't meet each other. We can't keep having conversations like this and ever hope to meet each other.

So I'd like to invite you, if you have paper with you, you're welcome to write anything down you like about this. But we're going to take a few moments here for you to write or think about an interaction you've had recently that you think, "Huh, yeah, I was doing this coping stance."

So think about a time maybe when you were diminishing the other person's thoughts or opinions and just really saying your own, or where you were placating someone else and their thoughts, or where you just kind of shut down from the fact that you're in a relationship entirely and went numb.

Remember where you were.

Remember who was with you.

Remember what they did or what they said.

And remember what you felt or what you said or what you did.

And please be kind to yourself in this process. All of us do these things. This is what we mean by letting ourselves see ourselves.

God loved you then. He loves you now.

He still invites you to see and grow.

And that's what we're going to move into next here then is take a moment and imagine what you could have said or done to be peaceable. Could you have been more honest about your own thoughts or feelings? Could you have given them more space and invited them to say what they were thinking or feeling?

And I just offer these phrases as maybe some guides for future conversations. When you're in an interaction where you realize, "Wow, this is hard," you can actually say that out loud. You can say, "You know what? This is really hard for both of us to talk about this subject. This is difficult for both of us."

And then you can follow that up with attending to them first maybe and say, "I understand that you are afraid about this or that you are concerned about this thing. I understand that you're feeling frustrated because this didn't happen or this did happen."

And then include yourself also. "And I am thinking this," or, "I am feeling this way."

Anything that you can add back in. When you say, "This is difficult for both of us," you're attending to the context. You're naming this difficult conversation. When you say something that reflects something you're hearing in them, you're putting them back in the circle.

And then the most vulnerable piece is usually naming something of what we're thinking and feeling. And we add that into.

And the hope is that the other person can join us in some piece of that.

So I've talked a lot. Hopefully, there's something that you can imagine. The imagining is not because you have to feel bad that you didn't do it then. The imagining is so that you can prepare for doing this in future conversations.

I'm going to move on now to peace among.

Let the peace that Christ gives control your thinking. We've looked at this verse already. Now look at the next phrase. It is for peace or wholeness that you were chosen to be together in one body and always be thankful.

You are joined together with peace through the Spirit. Do all you can to continue as you are, letting peace hold you together.

Tell them not to speak evil of anyone, but to live in peace with others. They should be gentle and polite to everyone.

But the wisdom that comes from God is like this. First, it's pure. It's also peaceful, gentle, easy to please. This wisdom is always ready to help people who have trouble and to do good for others. This wisdom is always fair and honest. People who work for peace in a peaceful way get the blessings that come from right living.

So one more tool. And I've told Jamila that in the following discussion time, she can use this if she likes. But if there's other questions that you have to ask, those will get priority, I think. If we learn to be able to reflect within and know what our feelings and expectations and longings are, then we can come together as groups of people and be honest and open about anything here on what Virginia Satir called a community temperature reading. Imagine sitting in a room with a group of women or like we're gathered here today, and we would just take time. We would say, "What appreciations would anybody like to share today?" We'd start at the bottom.

And then people could just say, "I appreciate this. I'm excited about this." But in the same moment that we have appreciations and excitements, if we listen to our thoughts, we also sometimes have these other things going on. We have worries. We have concerns.

We have questions, right?

And sometimes we even have complaints. And in the temperature reading, because it's looking for positive group interaction, you're allowed to complain, but you have to have a possible solution so that it's not just complaining, but it's like, "Here's what I notice, and I think it should be this instead," right?

We could share new information with each other just because it's good to be known when we're at peace with each other. It's a wonderful thing to just be known. And finally, we could share our hopes and wishes. "Here's something I'm hoping for in this moment. Here's something I'm wishing for."

When we are at peace within and we know how to communicate with each other, then we can meet as groups of people and experience peace among.

So I'm going to close here with just a look again at these two verses. I've highlighted the phrases that I hope will ring for you as we leave today. Let the peace that Christ gives control your thinking. It is for peace that you were chosen to be together in one body and always be thankful.

You are joined together with peace through the Spirit. Do all you can to continue as you are, letting peace hold you together.

Thank you so, so much for that, Janelle. I think we all have a lot that we can process and think about our relationships and grow.

I don't want to say too much myself because I'd really, really love to hear if anyone has any appreciations or questions or new information they gained or hopes and wishes.

Maybe I'll just open it up and disperse all. I want the Spirit to lead. And if anyone has something on your heart, you can ask your question here. You can put it in the chat box. Feel free.

Thank you so much, Janelle, for that. That's inspired me again as you used some of the similar—what did you call them?—tools as you did when you did a talk at Sattler recently. And so I was excited to see this again and realize the iceberg especially was very interesting to me to realize what all can be below the surface. And so I found that very helpful. And one of the most amazing things—and I feel like this is something that God is slowly teaching me, even though I've always kind of wished to have counseling and something like that—but I feel like He is teaching me through His word and through others is this awareness thing, the self-awareness, how that starts there.

And I feel like throughout my life, I've had a lot of unhealthy patterns with relationships with covering up or just kind of really putting yourself away, not acknowledging how you're feeling. Very much the placator. Very much the placator. So that was really enlightening for me to hear that and to think that through because our own awareness of ourselves is so important in our relationships without it being sound selfish, right?

It always seems selfish that I need to think of what I'm feeling and all this. But it's such a vital part of it that it's just fascinating to me and exciting how important that is. And it's something that I've started to pray for myself and others around me is that we would be well personally, just well, whole in our own personal individual lives with God. And I just find that so exciting.

So I thank you so much for sharing that. And it was just very good to hear it again. I'm glad it was good to hear it again because I did think about you and other people that have heard it before.

Yeah. Oh, no. It was good. It's terrible how fast you forget. And I'll take notes and stuff. And then I forget to go back to my notes, even though there are some things that have always resonated and I still remembered about what you've said. Yeah, it was great.

I think the iceberg is something that a lot of people find they absorb it most if they take it for a time and use it every day or at least every other day. Maybe as you're falling asleep or if that's not a good time for you at some point in your day, just sort of notice your feelings, notice your thoughts, notice your expectations, and notice the longings. Yeah.

Yeah. And I found it helpful in my relationship with my husband just to air some of those things. Wait until I'm not too emotional, but yet, "Hey, I'm just really feeling this way." And I think he likes that. If I do it not too emotionally.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Husbands and wives, we need to meet each other, right? We need to hear and really meet each other.

Yes. That was great. Thanks again. You're welcome.

That was a beautiful thought, Linda. And it made me think about how I gained a new appreciation. So here's one of my appreciations and new information for what the word shalom means. I think whenever I think of the word shalom, I tend to think of the word peace. But I love the thought wholeness. And especially a thought of how God giving us and our pursuing the wholeness we can have in God, how then that can bring health to our relationships between each other and among. It's a beautiful thought.

So one of the sisters from our church took your class at Faith Builders. And I think that she said that you have certain poses that go with each one of these. And I found when she shared it with us as a group with our church, it helped to clarify some of that. And I know it's hard to do it on video, but I don't know if you could share some of those that go with each one of those stances. Yes. I can now. I didn't know how to do it when I was sharing my screen.

These aren't exact—I don't know if you'd rather see me doing them, but I have pictures here too. So placating is a lot like this. When we're in placating, it's like we're down on a knee. And I would put one hand up towards another person and maybe one hand over my heart because the feeling when we're placating is that we have to stay small. We have to stay down here. And we want to appease this other person to make the conflict stop.

But we're also defending ourselves. We're trying to stay safe, right? And in the worst-case scenario, it does look more like this. If things are getting more abusive, right, and really harsh, then we are actually very protective. But sometimes I think we're staying small because we're afraid of not being liked if we speak up too, right? And I think sometimes as women, placating is a very natural place to be.

But sometimes we're called to stand up straight and be present, right, rather than in a self-protecting role. This is blame then. So here you would see blame is very strong, very angry. And there's a lot of strength in this arm that's pointing at someone else. All our mental energy is almost going into deflecting our feelings and the other person's thoughts as well. And the only feeling left is anger.