Discovering Security in Surrender with Kaylee Meyer
“It’s really beautiful getting out of the way when the Lord wants to do something.”
This episode of Beyond the Bar features an interview with guest Kaylee Meyer, a wife, mother, and woman of God. In her conversation with Abby, she shares about...
- letting go of control over plans, goals, and ambitions
- finding security in trust in God
- the beauty of slowness and intentionality
- the honor of motherhood
“There is strength in every season of a woman’s life.”
About Kaylee
Kaylee Meyer is a previously extremely career driven woman who found peace as a stay at home mom that works part-time to be home with her son. She is a wife of 7.5 years, a competitor, lover of Jesus, and is currently focused on writing her journey to motherhood.
Read the Podcast
Intro: Welcome to Beyond the Bar, the podcast where coffee and conversation are a catalyst for growth. If you’ve been searching for that coffee-with-a-friend experience that leaves you feeling seen, met, and encouraged, you’ve come to the right place. So grab your cup, listen up, and together we’re going Beyond the Bar.
Abby: Hey friends, welcome to Beyond the Bar. I’m your host, Abby. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation, this is one of my dear, dear friends, we have had countless conversations that will probably reflect the one here. Typically we are walking when we are having them or drinking coffee, so today we opted for the sit-down coffee version of a conversation, but we are going to dive into kind of what it looks like to be a woman but in different stages of life. And so we get to dive into my friend’s heart and kind of her story and her transition from being the boss babe to the mother with the baby. So I’m excited for this conversation and I hope it resonates with you. So without further ado, I’ll introduce Kaylee Meyer.
Kaylee: Thanks for having me, I’m really excited to be here.
Abby: I’m so looking forward to this conversation. I was reflecting on how we met and I just think it is a great story for people to-
Kaylee: Yeah… it’s a very humbling story.
Abby: Yeah.
Kaylee: I, um, my husband and I had moved up to the area and we had just bought a house in Spooner and somebody had said in our family that we should be going to Cornerstone since it aligned with our faith and my dad’s an e-free pastor, your dad’s an e-free pastor… I didn’t know that at the time, but we were going to attempt to go to our first Wednesday night or Tuesday night Bible study. And you were there and you were one of the people that was our age. So I was like, “Oh man, moving to a new town, it’d be nice to have a friend.” But it was also the first time my husband and I had been in a church or like a youth group or any sort of like, Bible study setting together as a couple in like a year. He was a second shift manager. We didn’t go to things like that with his work. So it was a very big night for me to be walking into that setting going, “Okay, Lord, you’re so faithful. Here’s where I’ve wanted to be for a long time, and now we’re here.” And we get through the conversation and my husband’s just kind of like, you know, I could kind of see he was like, “Socially, how’s this gonna work?” And I saw you and I just, my eyes were glued to you. And because they had, somebody had said like, “Oh, is Jack here with you tonight?” and at the time, I could not count on two hands how many times people would ask me when I went somewhere because my husband was never with me ‘cause he was on second shift, “Is your husband with you tonight?” I went to everything alone and you were there alone. And my heart, just like that conversation for whatever reason, somebody saying that flipped me, just drawn towards you, and I was like, “I just need to let her know, one, she’s not alone, but ‘Oh my gosh have I been there and I hate that question,’” because there was nothing more isolating than that question, especially when you’re trying to be a woman of God who’s just struggling and tired and wants to be doing things with her partner. Um, so yeah, I had saw you that night, and I don’t know-
Abby: But I don’t think you talked to me that night?
Kaylee: I didn’t.
Abby: ‘Cause I think in my memory the first time I met you was on a Sunday, which maybe it was the Sunday after that.
Kaylee: I think so.
Abby: ‘Cause you rolled in and walked up to me. You stand there and you go, “Hi, my name is Kaylee, and we’re gonna be best friends.”
Kaylee: And I’m not that way. I’m really not. Like I am typically a social forward person, but not in that kind of like, “I want to be your friend. You’re gonna be my friend and I know it.” That’s not me at all.
Abby: That was my first introduction to you.
Kaylee: Yeah. Intense.
Abby: “Just so you know we’re gonna be best friends,” and I was like, “Oh, okay. Hi. I’m Abby.”
Kaylee: “My name is Abby. Nice to meet you. Thank you, Kaylee.” Yeah. Wow.
Abby: Yeah, from there you just like, I don’t know, you started listing a bunch of reasons why you had come to that conclusion. When we had never actually said “Hello.”
Kaylee: Yeah. it was all because of what I had watched that night. It was like, yeah, I just, my heart went to you. I was just like, “Okay, Lord. I’m supposed to… why am I here? Why are we gonna go to Cornerstone? What would be the purpose?” and then seeing you, it was, it was just a, it was a conclusion and then me going up to you was just to say, “Hey, I’m here. I don’t know if you know me, obviously, but if you have to sit in the raw with someone at some point and you’ve had thoughts and you’ve been in the trenches, I just want to let you know I’ve also been there. So whatever you’re thinking won’t surprise me and you won’t be in a not, a safe place if you want to talk about it.” And that was my heart behind it. How it came off was, “We’re going to be best friends, hello stranger.” But for sure the thought process in the back of my mind was, “She’ll get there eventually. She just doesn’t know that we’re gonna have a lot to talk about, so…”
Abby: And ironically, you were so dead on, you were so dead on. And I think that, you know, our relationship probably hasn’t looked like typical best friends and we hang out all the time, we start texting all the time, because it doesn’t. We are very random, a blow into each other's life and have like the most raw conversations you could have with a human.
Kaylee: Yep.
Abby: Yeah.
Kaylee: Yeah, it’s like, I don’t know, it’s like, it’s like a life-water is how I view our friendship. It’s, you need it and you need it sometimes with a fire hose, but then it’s gonna sustain you for a really long time until the point where you need another freaking drink and then you’ll be good again and then we’ll move on.
Abby: Yeah.
Kaylee: Yeah.
Abby: Yeah, so we, I think that was like four years ago probably.
Kaylee: Yeah.
Abby: So since then we have ebbed and flowed through each other’s lives, being friends at different moments and stages, and then having those four hour long walks and, yeah, so this is how this even came to be.
Kaylee: It’s just crazy because this was the conversation that we’d have. Someday I would like to have a podcast and you’re here doing it, which I’m so incredibly proud of you for doing, not only saying it, but you’re here doing it.
Abby: Thank you.
Kaylee: Yeah.
Abby: So now we’re having a real life, doing it podcast, doing it conversation, well getting into the meat of the thing a little bit. When we had met you were in school.
Kaylee: Yeah.
Abby: You were working full-time, you were married, and were very much a driven woman.
Kaylee: Yeah, yes.
Abby: You had goals and plans and things that you were gonna accomplish. There was no stopping Kaylee. So you were just doing the 4 a.m. waking up, working out, eating all the things, you know, and your Instagram was like major inspiration and always made me feel like, “Oh my gosh, I’m totally failing ‘cause I’m not waking up at 4 a.m. or drinking water.
Kaylee: Most people shouldn’t. Yeah, oh, yep.
Abby: So you would do that, you were going to school, you were working full-time, and documenting the whole thing. And yeah, big business babe goals and it was awesome. But your life has majorly changed since then. And so we kind of want to dive into that transformation because your journey to motherhood was not an easy one, nor was it one that I think you had ever really anticipated or expected in the way it went about. So could we dive into that?
Kaylee: yeah. That’s the raw of getting to the place that we are now, which is kind of crazy. At the time, yeah, we were getting up at 4 a.m. in the morning, we were doing the workouts, we were documenting, we were all about, like, “Let’s go as fast as possible.” And I grew up going to the gym every day. My dad was an all-state athlete. I was bred in my mind to be an all-state athlete, to bust goals, to make sure that everything was as high-achieving as possible. And I think that goes on for a long time in a person’s life and then you question, “Okay, when does life slow down and when am I gonna be content?” And I’ve been married almost for eight years to a wonderful husband who’s been incredibly patient with me, so incredibly patient with me, but he was not, he’s not that way. And so in the midst of me being this personality and having this drive that’s enough for two people, he’s just always wanted to be a dad and he’s never cared what he had to do as long as he could be a father and provide, he was okay. And I did not understand that mindset. And so my journey to motherhood was not this, “I’m- growing up, I want to be a mom.” I knew I was gonna have kids someday, I knew I wanted to be a mother, but it wasn’t something I grew up knowing, like, “This, this is the thing that I’m gonna do,” and for that reason, watching other women and as our conversations, some women know that very early on, and I thought something was broken in me because that didn’t fit the mold at that time. And my husband kept asking, “When are we going to have children?” Again, incredibly patient and some might think of that as pressure to have kids when you don’t want them, but for me it was just more out of fear. Everything was driven by fear. Everything was like that-
Abby: And we had talked about that going on our walks. You were still very much in that mindset- I think you had just graduated-
Kaylee: Yeah.
Abby: Years worth, like multiple years of going to school while working full-time.
Kaylee: Three years of non-stop, like, 90 hour weeks.
Abby: Yeah. You’ve been working over full time, you were going to school, and it was all very, like you said, all very boring. “I’m doing this thing, I’m hustling hard, and I love it.”
Kaylee: I could be married to work. Yeah.
Abby: Yes, like you constantly in your conversations to be like, “No, you don’t understand. Like, I’ve got this.”
Kaylee: (Laughs) Yeah, yeah.
Abby: Watching your life makes me tired, but okay.
Kaylee: And I was tired. Like, yeah. I was tired.
Abby: Um, so, but I think it was on a walk and you had just graduated school and you were figuring out work and Austin was asking you about kids and family building and you know, and you were like, “No.”
Kaylee: No.
Abby: No, you were like, no. And you’re like, “I have to get this kind of a job.” I remember you talking to me and you were like, job plans and options and like, salaries, and like, “Well, we might have to move for this one,” and you have a whole, like, mapped-out idea of all of these different options and careers and how Austin was gonna follow you somewhere if you did that and your guys’ discussions around it. And I remember in that conversation looking at you- and I’m not very quiet type of dude-
Kaylee: Which is what I enjoy about you. I do enjoy this about our friendship a lot.
Abby: So I think I looked at you and I was just like, “Kaylee, what are you doing?”
Kaylee: Yeah.
Abby: And like, “Why are you hustling so hard?” Because you had very set ideas in your head of what success after college looked like.
Kaylee: Yeah.
Abby: And all of the things that had to be in place for you in what you would say to make you feel secure. Like I remember you telling me, “I can’t have this until X, Y, and Z has happened.”
Kaylee: It had to be in the plan.
Abby: And unless those things happened, then this was off the table. And so I kind of challenged you on that and pushed back. Could we talk about that stage of life for you and what was going on in your head? Because I think it’s actually something that a lot of people can relate to, that fear driving and the need to control all parts of your circumstances to feel safe.
Kaylee: Yeah, I think, so as the oldest of four kids and growing up in a household where we talked about money a lot, but I don’t think we always framed it in a right way of, there can be an abundance but we don’t always have to be in this considerable lack, and how you have conversations about your overall security I think can really play into how secure you do feel outside of your relationship with God. Like, that is where, that is where it comes from first. That is your peace. That’s your security. There was also this bucket of, we are always in lack, and I was constantly fighting both of those. I need to be doing more, but how do I be content in all things, like, this is my daily bread. How do I focus on today? Today has enough worries of it’s own. And my- well, it was constantly in conflict of that. And for me, security was, how do I get as far ahead as possible? So someday, if I have a child, they don’t feel that same thing, because I’m terrified of messing that up. So that was a driver for me, of all, um, in that conversation that we were having, at the time, um, I had just become the breadwinner for about three to four months. My husband had left an incredibly lucrative job, but for the first time was depressed, and I had, he was very mentally stable and he broke and everything for me felt like, “I’ve got to go into overdrive,” and that’s how I would operate. We’re not secure, time to lock it down, time to just literally shut off all emotion and work like a horse. And I’ve learned a lot through that time, but at that point, that’s where we were. And we were talking about kids, but I wasn’t giving any sort of faith into the future or hope into the future that me outside of working like a dog was gonna actually produce a fruitful home, and that is sort of a state of fear and it is, it is a consistent reminder for me that at the time of which we wanted to have kids and we were going to start planning was the first time that I had to go, “Okay, Lord, you have, you’ve been there for us when we had nothing. $50 in the checking account, two college kids trying to get married. Then, you blessed us then. We worked, we were faithful, you kept on blessing us, but it was every single time you forced me to trust you in a stage where none of the plan was in place,” and for me, everything has a plan. So to step out in faith, it was again, it was just like another faith resume moment, where, “How far do I want to push myself to the point of complete end, physically, spiritually, mentally, before I’m just gonna trust God to take it over and then bless the next steps.” Because we were at that point on the walk where I was applying for a job. I was in my third interview. We were gonna move to Madison, put our house up for lease, get an apartment, and my husband was gonna try to find a new job. And I didn’t end up getting that job for blessed reasons, but Austin was willing to come with me, but that’s not even the home life I wanted either. I didn’t want to be the one that was like, dragging my husband all around. I am an alpha and I want him to be an alpha. But in order to allow him to lead I needed to let him, and part of that conversation you and I were having was, “Have you given your husband an opportunity to lead your home, to put your household in working order, so the thing that you want to operate successfully can? Are you willing to get out of your own way?” And it seems counterintuitive when part of you wants to go full steam ahead and God’s asking you to say, “Actually, you just need to, you just need to trust me and give the man that you’re entrusted to, you know, lead an opportunity without blowing him over.” And that’s rough, incredibly rough.
Abby: It’s so hard, and I remember looking, like listening to your heart on that walk and so seeing it. I mean, I’m alpha female, like you. So there was so much, like, I knew exactly what was going on because I could see myself in it and I could, but you were telling me these conflicting things and one breath you were saying, like, “Abby, I just want Austin to like, take care of it and provide so like, I don’t have to worry about it,” but, so in one breath you were saying this and then in the other breath you were like, “I have to go for this job,” or, “We’re gonna have to sell the house,” and-
Kaylee: Yeah, yeah.
Abby: -and I was like, “What does Austin think about all that?” It’s like, “Well he’s so for me but like he says we’re gonna be fine if we stay here but I- we’re not gonna be fine.”
Kaylee: Yeah, that sounds about right.
Abby: Yeah. The thing of just like, “Kaylee, you’re gonna have to, this is gonna be, like,” it was hard for me to say but I was like, “I have to tell her this, and I so don’t want this to hurt her.” But I remember looking at you, just like, “Kaylee, your husband loves you. I mean, he’s incredible, and he loves you. And if you want to move to Madison, he’s gonna let you, and he’s gonna follow, and he’s gonna love you and he’s gonna support you and he’s gonna keep standing by your side and chipping away at something. But your husband has put his heart before you and declared what he wants. And he said, ‘I’ll protect you,’ and he said, ‘I’ll keep you.’ Like, he’s doing everything that you could ever want a Godly husband to do for you. Is he perfect? No, but he’s doing all the things. You won’t let him. Like, you’re gonna have to take second seat here. You’re gonna have to decide that you do trust your spouse to love you. You do trust your spouse to protect you.”
Kaylee: Yeah.
Abby: And that even if he messed up, ultimately, God was still there. He was still going to be good, and ultimately a lack of trust in your husband, more than that, was a lack of trust in the Heavenly Father. And telling you on that walk, I remember saying it and then looking at you and just praying the whole time, “Lord, I hope she received.”
Kaylee: I did. It honestly was the beginning of a change in our house, and I have not been super successful, but it was the first time you had asked me, “Kaylee, what would happen in your household if you went to Austin and just said, ‘I am sorry. I love you. Thank you for everything that you do for this family. But I trust you in moving forward with leading our family.’” And he was really broken at that time, and I remember hearing that and going, “I need to do this.” And I told you, I’m like, “I’m so scared to do that,” because, again, it’s trusting something that’s broken and I’m, I’m broken, it’s so arrogant looking back to think at that time how much I had not sorted through my own fears and just, again, like you said, you know, not trusting him but not trusting the Lord to take care of, when over the course of time He’s considerably done that every single time. You have a resume of all the ways that He has and all of the sudden you get to one and it takes you two seconds to forget how many times He’s provided. And I mean the Lord and I also mean the faithfulness of my husband. But… how, it took you that long, and I just remember looking at you, “I don’t want to do that,” like, I said that right back to you. Like, “I don’t really want to do that.” But I knew I needed to, and you just sat with me and prayed in the front of my driveway and I was walking into that house, like, walking up the driveway, it was like walking down the aisle again. It was like, I have to, when… how did I get to this point of not being for my husband and as a faithful prayer warrior how did I get so lost in how the world views security? Where did I… where did I go? Because like, I’ve known the Lord since I was a little kid, but how did I get this far? And I did, I went in and my husband was sitting on the couch, and this was pre-kid so thinking about just walking into that house and talking to him solo is crazy, but like walking into the living room and I said those things, and I was just like, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for bringing an immense amount of fear into your ability to not only be a faithful husband and just continue to do what you’re doing. I’m sorry for putting fear before my faith in the Lord and before our marriage, and I do trust you and I’m sorry.” And he went stone cold. He didn’t know how to respond. He just looked at me and it was like the first time in our marriage in like, in ever, you know. He just, he’s like, “Wow, you must have had a really good conversation.” And he was very genuine about it. Like, he wasn’t trying to be like, “Wow, good job, Abby.” But it was very just, reflective. Like, you had a really good- are you okay?” Like, that’s what he asked next. “Are you okay?” And I was just like, “I’m not totally okay, but I realized I’ve got a lot of internal work to do and I’ve been living in a state of fear for a really long time, so I’m sorry.” And yeah, that was the first beginning of me trying to thaw this, like, cold, fearful workaholic into somebody softer, you know.
Abby: And I think, I don’t think that the world we live in creates an environment that is super great for women to thrive in that.
Kaylee: No.
Abby: We live in such a feministic, you know, anti-men culture, and it’s super easy when you are a strong, driven, capable woman who has desires outside of keeping a home to not slip into that even accidentally, because it’s really easy to be like, “I’m capable!”
Kaylee: Oh, yeah.
Abby: “I can provide things. I can buy that if I want to.”
Kaylee: My also thing is I think my biggest fear was, I would be put in a position where I would have to give life to another child and then the rug be pulled out from underneath me and I cannot be present for them and somebody could literally, I mean, it’s a vulnerable like, pool of just fear. Somebody has the ability to make or break me. Like, that was my mindset. And I had conversations with Austin about it. But that’s why I was like, I have to be independent because if… my wonderful, loving, serving husband who doesn’t deserve that, he doesn’t doesn’t deserve that, it’s just like, when you get in an argument and you’re like, “A, B, C, D, E,” and you’re, where does that come from? And that’s honestly what I’ve been working on in the present of just continuing to put, like, in a praying, that God just takes that and squashes it. Like, that fear is not allowed into the doors of my home because that is the fear that kept me from having a family, to be honest.
Abby: Yeah, and I think, I honestly think it’s a super normal fear. I don’t think it’s ironic to you. When you’ve experienced things in your life that feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath you, in whatever situation that might look like, I think it starts to kind of trauma train you to respond in this way of like, well fine, I will be so independent for myself that nothing could, like, I would be okay. And so it does put you into the seat of like, I will control everything then, or everything I know how to, because it feels like if you can control it, you’ll be less hurt and less shattered in the wake of something. So it really trains your mind that way to respond and that can be so damaging in a relationship, so damaging, and, which is what you experienced. It’s like you didn’t even know that the very thing you had been wanting in your marriage, you were in fact killing.
Kaylee: (Laughs) Word.
Abby: And like, I’ve been there myself, I’ve been there. Where all of a sudden, by God’s grace, He shows you a mirror and you go, “Oh.”
Kaylee: Yeah, like, big, oh.
Abby: But yeah.
Kaylee: Like, “Oh, no…” Like, He, yeah, just, “Lord, please help me through this…” “Well, get out of the way!”
Abby: Yeah.
Kaylee: That’s sometimes how I view me talking to me, so I will do it, like, just, get, well get out and let me do it, “Okay, fine.”
Abby: Yeah, but I think again our personality types… we’re definitely not passive women. We’re definitely, when we related over this before, some of the reasons you thought we would be friends. We were both the oldest of four and had similar kind of passions and some similar drives and I think you immediately recognized that and you went, like, “Okay,” like, I see that in myself, and so I think for both of us, you know, when I said that to you wasn’t coming out of a heart of judgment, it’s coming out like, “Hey Sister, so been here, I think I know exactly what’s happening because like, I’ve done it.”
Kaylee: Yeah, yeah, and well, that’s the thing is, too, about, like, when you, you’re obviously doing this like to cultivate friendship and like community, but part of that conversation why it was transformative for myself and my family was because of the fact that I could sit and we could have a conversation where your, my sin that I was clearly just like in a tornado of wasn’t uncomfortable to talk about with you, and saying, “Hey,” you know, “If we’re gonna really carry our burdens and I am gonna, I want transformation. I want you to call out and say, ‘Hey, no, actually, some accountability here, sister, we’ve, we’ve got some work to do on your end.’” That came because you created that space so there was enough for you to say what you needed to say because I respected the fact that when I could come to something, come to you with something that was ugly, I wasn’t going to be met with, “Well, gosh dang it, Austin just needs to…” blah, blah, blah. Like, we were going to have a conversation on what I needed to do and there is a lot of self-reflection going back and forth where it’s like, “Yeah, you’re safe to say this here, but then we’re also going to have a conversation about how we get better afterwards.”
Abby: I think that what you’re saying, there is a huge part of what can go wrong in relationships is, if there isn’t an environment for the the things to be welcomed at the table in a way that isn’t judgment. In a way that is like, “Oh, I’m gonna be, like, with you here, like, you can present and lay this on the table.” That’s really needed. That with-ness with each other is really needed in order for you to go after something. And also I think love goes after things, and so I think there’s a both-and that’s required in that where it’s like, “Man, we need to be people who, who make sure we’re creating space for that with-ness with each other and that takes time and it takes a presence in stuff,” where you’re really focused on that person and, you know, for us, even, like, we’ve, most of the time we’ve actually had these chats have been walks.
Kaylee: Mm-hmm.
Abby: Neither of us have our phones on us.
Kaylee: No.
Abby: We go on a walk and so there’s a with-ness and a presence where it’s like, it, we’re very much together, there’s no distractions with us, and so even just cultivating like the practical space to be with each other and we’re not shoving it into 20 minutes, you know, we’ve picked an evening or we’re not rushing home to something, so even just cultivating that environment for the conversation to be able to happen, but both of our posture has usually been trying to be very present with that person, and I think that’s necessary. I think you need to have that in order for the next step to come. Which is, if you’re gonna go after something, it better come out of grace-filled love, where you would look at it and say, “Actually, love has to say something here.”
Kaylee: It does.
Abby: Because it would have been like, you said if I would have been like, “Screw Austin,” and like, “He needs to…”
Kaylee: “…step up, get over himself,” like, any of that.
Abby: Yeah, or, “I can’t believe he’s trying to pressure you into having kids, like, that’s so awful,” which honestly, I think a lot of-
Kaylee: A lot of people would have said.
Abby: A lot. I think a lot of relationships can look that way.
Kaylee: Yeah.
Abby: Where it’s quicker to just start gossiping and trashing people versus like, honestly, like, “Oh, I think love would say something here.” And like, I wasn’t talking to Austin so I wasn’t gonna be talking about Austin.
Kaylee: Correct. There is a very fine line of gossip and the ability to share with someone that’s going to be for your marriage, and that’s so important, you know, like, whether you’re starting a dating process, you get into marriage, and then when you decide to have kids you need people in your space that are for your marriage, and I mean, during that time that you and I were becoming friends, I remember we had gone on one walk and it was, you were going through your season and I remember, Austin and I were coming, this was before this previous walk that we were on. But there was one thing that you said to me, and it was because of this that I knew in future postures moving forward that what I could bring to the table with you was not only gonna be safe, but you were gonna be for me, you were gonna be for my marriage. It was because when you were going through your season of just, “I’m feeling alone, I’m trying to make the thing that God is, you know this marriage covenant, I’m trying to make it work,” and you told me that, you know, “I’m praying that mine will work, but I am hopeful and prayerful that yours will, regardless of if mine fails.” And to say that to me, first of all, how many people are willing to say, in today’s day and age where comparison is so hard already, to say, “I’m going to be for you even if mine doesn’t work out, even if it doesn’t work out for me, I will be for you,” and I knew how much strength it took to say that. So when that’s the groundwork of a friendship that says, “Regardless, I will be here, if it gets ugly, if it’s good, no matter the condition of the state we’re in, we’ve got each other, ‘cause it’s not gonna shock anybody.” Like when you’ve gone through enough, it’s like, “Okay, just put it in the wagon, let’s just keep going, we’ll be fine, we’ll get through it together, it’s gonna be okay,” but that time where you could say what you needed to say before I walked up my driveway, that posture was already set in place, that groundwork was already set in place. So, you know, I’m here now because of those conversations of people saying, “I’m gonna sit with you,” and that’s now my posture to the people in my life. It’s like, like what do you, “What do we need to get the groundwork of?” Because that’s actually the stuff that’s, you’re going through right now, and I, how long are you going to sit in that? Unbeknownst to you, ‘cause unbeknownst to me I was the one that was in the way of having, having a family. Being able to just find myself in a newer stage of life that wasn’t consistently running on 4 a.m. mornings and coffee and trying to be everything and nothing at the same time.
Abby: Well, and honestly, I, in that conversation, the posture I was taking wasn’t even necessarily that what you were doing was inherently wrong.
Kaylee: Mm-hmm.
Abby: It was like, “Hey, if you guys decide as a unit you want to move to Madison and you’re gonna chase this job, by all means, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that.” I think my whole point in the whole conversation was, “Kaylee, it really sounds like you and Austin are not in unison. It really sounds like your husband wants to be on the same page as you and you want the same thing, but this, like, this fear and this needing to control it is actually keeping you guys not on the same page. So whatever is on the page is less important to the fact that you guys are on the same page. Whatever, the words are there.” And so I wasn’t arguing that working was bad or that your job was bad or you couldn’t be a career woman. Obviously that’s what I’m changing.
Kaylee: We were trying to do that together, figuring that out. So it wasn’t anti-anything, it was for something.
Abby: Yeah, it was just for you guys and for you guys to be functioning in a way where Kaylee was healthy, Austin was healthy, you guys were healthy together, and you were making the decision to build a family or not build a family together. And then we probably didn’t talk again for a couple of months.
Kaylee: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Abby: ‘Cause that’s different.
Kaylee: That was, I mean that, but that is it, and that’s okay.
Abby: Yes, and so the Lord was doing things in Kaylee, and I don’t remember when we would have circled around to another conversation.
Kaylee: Mm-hmm. Um, I was trying to figure out if I was gonna leave my job. That was, that was four or five months after that. So I had, had the conversation with Austin. We had gone maybe another month or two of me trying to let go, not doing a great job, but us getting on the same page and working better together- and we’ve always worked well together, but again, it was just like, “Okay,” me actively going to work for us. And it came down to the fact that we were gonna have to rearrange our house. And how are we gonna do that before we had kids, and lots of conversations were going into that, so my mind of preparation switched from, “How do I set up our sphere to have a family?” and I was preparing that without knowing whether it was gonna be something I wanted. That it was just, daily I would be having a conversation like, “Okay, if we’re going to have a family, I’m gonna need to get out of this driver’s seat of working 50 hours a week. Probably gonna need to find something that’s gonna allow me to be part-time, because if I change my mind, if I change my mind, how do I set our family up so I can be home? Because I don’t know if I’ll change my mind.” And I think a lot of, from the conversations that I’ve had with my, what I called “running buddies,” the women in my sphere that are like, “We’re going Mach 10 until we get here,” and it was an energizing group, like, wonderful, but we all started talking about, “Okay, when are we gonna have kids? How does that look like for us? What if we go from being so driven to wanting to be at home? How do we do that practically? And how do we get on boards and working together as a team with our husbands before it just arrives and all of the sudden we’re like, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to go back to work, I want to stay home,’ and then we’re freaking out,” because my planning mind was, “How do I get there?” so that was where we were at and it took us six months of talking about and planning and rearranging and nothing was happening.
Abby: But I, I love that- maybe in the midst of it, it felt like nothing was happening, but looking back on it you can go, “No,” like, “God was graciously giving Kaylee time because He was still running after something in you,” and so I love that you’re saying, “I didn’t actually know if I was ready to be a mom or to have kids,” I just said, “God had done something that night when I kneeled before my husband and asked for forgiveness. God had started a work there, and he was continuing it for the next six months.” And so he was working on something but your posture changed. Your posture changed to actively being allowing the Lord to deal with something in Kaylee and in His grace and sovereignty and love for you. He didn’t have it happen in two weeks.
Kaylee: It was good too. And actually, it was Sunday morning. It was after six months and my husband was going to get a different job and I was going to get a different job. I applied for 15 jobs. It was all no. It’s like, “Okay, Lord,” like, “I’m trying to do this your way, but, hello, can we get one of the 15?” So I was starting to get discouraged, and my version of getting discouraged is, “Okay, I’m gonna run a marathon then. Screw it. If it’s not gonna work here, then we’re going here,” and so, you know, in the midst of this, we’re sitting down one Sunday morning, and Austin and I were both just exhausted. I don’t know what prompted us, but we were gonna have a Sunday morning where we were sitting on the couch in our living room and we were listening to the pastor that my husband found the Lord through, this church and this pastor. We’re sitting there, and I don’t remember a single thing that the sermon said. All I kept hearing was, “It does not have to be perfect for you to start a family, and if you will just trust Me then I’ll take care of the details,” and I could, I do not remember the entirety of the sermon but the sermon was an hour and that entire time was, “Will you trust Me? Will you trust Me? Will you trust Me?” and I looked at Austin after the sermon, I was like, “I think, I think we’re ready to have kids.” And he looked at me, and I kind of get goosebumps now because there’s nobody who wanted to be a father more than my husband, and it’s so beautiful, but he just looked at me and he’s like, “Are you sure?” It’s like, yeah, I, “We have been trying to do the right thing, we tried to plan, we tried to get our household in order, but this last step, again, it’s trust, and I don’t remember the words of the sermon, but I do know that if we just say, ‘Okay,’ the rest of the details are gonna fall into place.” And I was like, “Are you okay with that?” And he goes, “I feel like this is reverse psychology. I’m gonna need a day,” ‘cause he’s like, “I feel like I’m supposed to say, ‘no.’” And I’m like, “No, that’s okay, like, take a, this is going to change your life together.” So you’re like, “I want to make sure that you’re sure. Obviously we’re sure.”
Abby: But like, it took him a bit to figure out, “Is she okay? Is she playing a joke?”
Kaylee: Yeah. Yeah. I was serious and that was the first step. And quite literally the next two months, Austin got a different job that was going to provide for the insurance portion that we were really focusing on for having kids, because my current job would have been ridiculous. We would have gone broke trying to have a child in my plan. But then I found a job as well. And it was like, and we didn’t get pregnant immediately. And that was, I was preparing, like, “We’re getting pregnant immediately.” And we were still planning. But that didn’t even happen. So it was, it’s just been consistently me getting to the end of myself and then God saying, “Will you, again, we’re here, will you trust Me again?” and it’s really beautiful getting out of the way of when the Lord wants to do something because it’s so much less stressful and that’s how He designed it, because I think I have the pen to the story that I’m writing even now sometimes, and it’s just like, “No, just give it back to Me and I’ll show you what I have planned,” but I’ll just give it back a little bit, and so that was the next stage. And then I think we went on, then, you were at the coffee shop. You were asking how things were going. I’m like, “We’re getting new jobs, that’s where we’re at, yeah, we’re trying for a family but we’re not pregnant yet,” so that was the next step, probably our next conversation maybe four or five months later.
Abby: Yeah, and it’s crazy because, I, again, we both were raised in the church, you know, this is true, but then somehow on the journey of life you forget that it’s true. It’s not like an end-arrival-point and so you, at least I like to think that there is an arrival point, where you get this point where you’re like, “Good, I like it, also, I’m done.” But God continually brings you to the end of yourself, like you said, just to do it all over again.
Kaylee: It’s just another version. It’s just sanctification over and over and over again.
Abby: Yes, and like you can know that this is true, theologically, and like in the Word, you can, “Oh, yeah yeah yeah, we’re sanctified for the rest of life, got it,” and then in the driver’s seat of your own life when the sanctification is happening, when God is doing something and you’re just like, “Oh my gosh, can we please be done? Now stop teaching me lessons.” The amount of times that I have said that, like, I forget that it’s a journey. I forget that I’m never gonna be done yet.
Kaylee: Yeah, and I’m 100% the same way because our journey to, you know, having our wonderful baby boy was, “Okay, we’re gonna start trying,” and it’s month one, month two, month three, month four. Now I’m gonna run and try to run another marathon, so I start training because it’s not working. I’m just not very patient. I’m working on becoming a patient person, and everybody’s like, “Don’t pray for patients because God will give you an opportunity,” and He has, but you know, it, it’s just something I’ve learned about myself. Like, “I finally gave it to you, now will you answer quickly?” and I want quick answers, and, you know, it took us five months to get pregnant, and today I know that’s such a short amount of time, but I think that next step in our journey of faith is like, “Alright. I’m gonna give this time. We’ve got our new jobs. We’re preparing well. I’m gonna be faithful in this season. Lord, I took a different journey because we’re gonna try to have a family. What if we can’t have a family?” And all those questions start, and that next journey of, “Will you trust me again?” and that’s probably, I think, the thing around motherhood and just deciding to start a family, it is, it will cause every form of vulnerability if you struggle with it to be exposed at its max level, and it starts in the beginning of trying and it doesn’t stop. And there is so much, I don’t know how somebody doesn’t operate without faith, because even sometimes the mustard seed that I have is the thing that keeps me going. “Okay, I’m not pregnant yet, but will I be? We took these steps for a season that we don’t know if we’re gonna be in, but will we?” And you like constantly have those questions, and that next conversation that I was having with you is, “We’re trying.” Four or five months goes by, we’re here. And you would think that, “Oh, you’re finally pregnant, you’re excited,” then for me was, “Is everything gonna be okay?” And I think th Mm0he journey to motherhood has been so utterly exposing of just like everything that I want to be okay and not knowing if it’s going to be okay but just being like, “Alright, Lord, you are wrapping your arms completely around me in this moment. I trust you to take care of it.” That doesn’t mean my desire to take back control doesn’t come in like a floodgate through each of these seasons where I have to let go and… so hard.
Abby: Well, and I don’t even think it has to just be motherhood, because we had this conversation over dinner. You were just, you know, you were pregnant, you were excited in some ways, and in other ways, it was, again, like this new leveling up of like, “Okay, the Lord is bringing me to a season where he’s still dealing with Kaylee’s control and Kaylee needs to trust.” But ironically, entirely different stage of life, I was single, not pregnant, not trying to build a family, I was trying to build a business.
Kaylee: Yeah.
Abby: And do things like Beyond the Bar and a website launch and rebranding all these business things. And we were sitting down to dinner and my, unlike you, my dream had always been to be a wife and mom, and unlike me, your dream had always been to just be a career woman.
Kaylee: Mm-hmm.
Abby: And so you stopped there, stopped at career woman looking at each other feeling like we’re kind of the same person but we’re living opposite dreams.
Kaylee: Yep.
Abby: And so in parallel ways, the Lord was teaching us the same lessons through very different circumstances.
Kaylee: You can always find circumstances that are the same if you’re willing to look
Abby: And listen.
Kaylee: Yeah, 100%.
Abby: And so we sat at dinner and went, “We are not at all in the same stage of life in any way, and yet the Lord is doing the same work in our heart.” We both looked at each other and went, “Wow, we are both being asked to trust the Lord and do obedience, even though we don’t see how it works together.”
Kaylee: Yeah, to trust the season. To honor the season you’re in. And that was, that was that part of the conversation, that next step of going, “Okay, you’re gonna be you in your stage of being vulnerable and putting your creativity,” which to me I’m watching in abundance and going, “My goodness, Lord, you bless her immensely, like, everything that she’s done and created-” your coffee is by far the best. I don’t care who asked me, but like, I literally, like, my whole fund could go to you and I’m just so for you and I’m watching and you’re like, “I’m trying to create this, and I want it to go this way,” and I’m learning so much. And I’m just in awe of your presence and how you’re operating. And still, you’re able to see the season that I’m in, and I’m going, “I have no idea.” And you’re like, “You can. You have to honor yours, and I have to honor mine,” and women who have opposite desires, seeing the desire that they’ve had be fulfilled in somebody else still say, “I love you, I’m for you, I’m gonna be for you in A, B, C, and I’m gonna challenge you to stay faithful to that season you’re in and to be grateful for that season you’re in because I don’t want you to miss what the Lord’s trying to work through and in you, because you’re spending your time wishing you were in her seat compared to the seat you’re in. And that was, that’s not an easy thing to do, but we did.
Abby: Yeah. I think it’s needed to be able to have women who link arms with you and say, “I’m gonna be for you here and I’m gonna see your whole life and I’m gonna see that it’s hard and it’s dynamic-”
Kaylee: Mm-hmm. Very dynamic.
Abby: It was beautiful and it was really hard. It was joyous and it was super scary. Like it was very dynamic. To be for your friend or for another woman in her season and to see that and not just label it as one thing, and then for her to be able to acknowledge, “I also see you, I want to be here, but I’m gonna champion you in your season,” oh, we need more women who do that. Because you had shared in that time that you had, and I had shared that I had women who were in our circles in our lives who didn’t do that for us.
Kaylee: Oh, yeah.
Abby: Who would go, “Man, I, like, I thought you kind of wanted a job, though, Kaylee.”
Kaylee: Mm-hmm.
Abby: And who weren’t really that excited about the baby. Just the level of making it feel like your soul was missed instead of someone just taking the time to sit with you and go, “Man, I see all of that and I’m gonna believe for you that God’s writing a good story, and I don’t know how it plays out, but I’m gonna hope for you if you can. I’m gonna remind you that God’s got good things here, and let’s look for Him together.” We need to be women who do that.
Kaylee: 100%. And I think that is just, that’s the thing, is, is when you’re going through a different stage- you and Maryn talked about this on your last podcast which I really appreciated- an excuse in friendship can be, “We’re in different stages of life,” and part of going into motherhood, whether you’re in it or you’re out of it, you’re either the friend that has a friend that’s got a baby on the way or you’re the mom that’s got a friend that doesn’t have a kid quite yet, and you’re hoping that it could be a desire on both ends. You hope you stay together. You hope you don’t lose that friendship and connection because the dynamic is going to change. And for me, desiring always really deep friendships, was, I don’t care where you’re at, but I will be here for you. And maybe that’s being the oldest of four girls, maybe that’s just because you watch them go through stages in the life that are similar to yours but very different and you can walk through them, but that posture is so, it’s so needed. Because when you have that next conversation, even for me, I didn’t know if I wanted, didn’t know what motherhood was gonna look like, and I’m preparing for something that I don’t know if I’m even gonna want, was that next stage of finding out they were pregnant, but also that dream that I had told you about, that I did not know what peace looked like in this new season, because new season, because I was going towards something that I didn’t have a confirmation of, and the Lord had just blessed me with a dream. It was, you know, I’m sitting there in my rocking chair holding my baby. I thought it was a girl, it’s a boy, but nevertheless so grateful to have a son. But I was sitting there and I’m holding our child and I’m in the nursery and my parents are with me and I am just filled with an immense amount of pure joy that I’ve never felt before. And in my dream, I was like, I need to go tell my boss that it’s time to work from home now. And I woke up and I told my husband, I literally felt the baby heat, like, the baby’s body heat on my body. And that was the first time of all this planning, of all this hope, that one day I’ll feel just like, “Okay, I am designed to be a mom.” It took to that point where I was just like, “See, I am gonna be faithful. You might have not seen this in that vision of your life but it is gonna be so sweet. Challenging, but so utterly sweet, that once you get here, just give me a little bit more time, and I will be faithful in where I’m calling you.” But it, that, that was my confirmation. And that, I didn’t know if ever it would happen.
Abby: Yeah, yeah. And I remember you telling me that story, and might have not done it for everybody, but God specifically spoke to you in a way that Kaylee could hear and receive to bring that confirmation of like, “Hey, when that baby is laid on your arms, like, you’re going to be ready to be a mom in every way that matters. You’re going to have things to learn and you’re going to grow and you’re going to make mistakes and it won’t be perfect. But it was the Lord doing something in your heart where He was telling you, like, “Hey,” like, “that floodgate will open, even though you just were never the girl who pictured that and desired it the same way somebody else did.” Which I just think is so cool that the whole time, again, like, I’ve walked with life for you like I said for four or five years, so to watch what the Lord has done in your heart and life, to watch how he’s run after things in your heart to make your marriage better, to make your home better, to make Kaylee better, to prepare you for this moment and what you guys are doing… it’s so humbling to get a seat to watch that and a friend and go like, “Man, God’s just been, like, so good. It’s been really messy and it’s been super hard. There’s been a lot of chapters within that story that were hard and messy and broken, and like, through every single one, God was writing something good.”
Kaylee: Yeah.
Abby: Obviously we have the vantage point of perspective, but it is just really cool looking back and seeing that. And then watching you and Austin with Henry- you guys actually stopped at Redemption on the way home from the hospital! You pulled him out and just watching the three of you it was, I mean, I was in tears just knowing the journey it took to get to that moment. So then watching the three of you, it was watching something holy.
Kaylee: That was very redemptive. That was like, stopping by, and it’s truly, mine might have come in a dream but it’s the same thing, you watch the same type of faith-like story in you and knowing that you’ve been there, maybe at a couple months at a time, but just knowing the person that’s for you that might sit kind of in the corner, that you always know is there and on our way home was like, this going to Redemption was part of the summary page, that next chapter flip for us, because those conversations that we had, whether bits and pieces over the course of months were so imperative for our family to get to where we were for me. And how many times Austin would just say, “I love that woman,” because he knew that you were for us. And it wasn’t because I’d come home and I’d be like magical, sprinkle dust, everything was good. But like, you have to, you had to have a person in that space that was gonna be for your marriage and going to your coffee shop was like you’ve been there this entire time. You are, it was just, it was a perfect economy. You’re in your space being faithful to where you need to be serving other people, and we’re coming into your space saying, “Thank you for being faithful in your season because now I’m sitting here with my family that I didn’t know I could really just wholly and fully move myself into and let the Lord just love around the three of us, and now we’re gonna go home,” and we just, it was part of our redemptive story, was stopping by you and then going home. It’s the truth, it’s the truth.
Abby: It’s an honor to hear that. It can be very easy to forget that it’s doing anything. Serving lattes is doing anything. It is, so humbled by that and it was, just again, like beautiful to watch the three of you as you started your next chapter as a family, and God will have many more chapters in your guys’ life of doing that work of sanctification, which is just really cool. But as you’ve moved into motherhood and transitioned, what would be, and if you’re looking back over your story, and there’s someone listening who goes, “Okay, I’ve been the control person. I’ve been holding on with death-grip hands because I’m so afraid of something going wrong and life’s spinning out of control, so I’ll just control a little bit.” If there’s someone listening who’s resonating with that, what would your advice to that person be?
Kaylee: Gosh. I think when it comes down to it, the scripture that says, like, don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow has enough trouble of its own. I’m doing a good work in you, you know, I have a plan for you. Jeremiah 29:11 has been my favorite scripture for a long time, and it’s one that I’ve come back to since middle school. But it’s just talking about, like, I have a hope and a plan for your future in a three, in a, you know, just a short summary. And it’s true. You, you can write a draft, have a vision- a man without a vision, a woman without a vision is going nowhere, we know that in scripture- but be faithful for it today. Just be faithful for it today. And if you know you want to get to point A and point B, that’s okay. You can write out a draft. But at the end of the day, the Lord is sovereign in His plan. And if you would be faithful to Him today in the morning, before you go into your routine before you go into your 4 a.m., before you go into what you think you have planned, pause first and spend some time really praying, like, “Lord, how do you want this day to go? Like, fix my heart to go into this day honoring and glorifying you, so the path that you have me on if this is your will, make it evident. Bring people, bring conversations, bring opportunities that align with where we are meant to go, not where I am meant to go.” I love Galatians and I read this one often because it hits me like a brick. It’s like, where there is selfish ambition, there’s destruction. And I am the queen of selfish ambition. So if I want to, where my desire is, my heart for the Lord spiritually, where I want to go, I have to get out of the way first, and so to put a hedge of protection in those, those types of wisdoms and words around you in your mind before you go about taking action, if you can put that at the forefront, you’re probably gonna find yourself on the right path rather than a really weird bunny trail more times than not. At least from what I found. And I would say to myself, if I could go back, posture yourself that way first.
Abby: I’ve been a huge fan of the phrase “posture.”
Kaylee: I’ve said that a lot this, this conversation, but it is true.
Abby: I like it.
Kaylee: I don’t have the best posture physically, but like, mentally, you do have to do it.
Abby: In sports, like, there is a specific position to take where you’re going to succeed. And usually it’s an inaccurate like, position or posture that would form to something where like, hey, like, that’s part of the problem.
Kaylee: Yep.
Abby: I think, so maybe it’s just that, I don’t know.
Kaylee: Oh, it’s great-
Abby: Because for me, I’m like, that makes so much sense. ‘Cause you can do the same action, but if you were off, like, if your posture was off and just like the way you approached it, you can, it can have negative effects, and so I like that concept of posture in your heart for the day, even from that “I-to-we”… you might end up doing the same activities that day, but they would go about differently if your heart posture was different from that “I-to-we.”
Kaylee: Yeah, 100%.
Abby: So I love that. I am also curious, um, I think a lot of pushback that strong women have when probably hearing part of our earlier conversation-
Kaylee: Sure, yeah.
Abby: -with husbands and males and work is going to be some of that, like, “Hey, women have value, women can do things, like, women are awesome,” which I fully believe in a thousand percent. I know you do as well.
Kaylee: Oh, yeah.
Abby: Could you talk to a little bit from, just, maybe even some clarity on, like, neither of us are saying that women aren’t like, full, awesome, amazing creatures.
Kaylee: Yeah.
Abby: But that position of humbling yourself before your husband and like, were you submitting to his, to his headship and leadership in your home, did you talk to that? Because I just think that somebody listening could hear that and be a little bit like, “I’m confused.”
Kaylee: Absolutely, and-
Abby: I’m not saying that being a wife and a mom is the only way to have a healthy function.
Kaylee: Absolutely not. Like you, so many women have been given, given so many dynamic gifts. Like, one of my favorite phrases in Scripture is like, when you know, there’s Adam and Eve and people get help, hung up on the word “helper,” and “helper” in Hebrew- I was listening to this pastor talk about “helper,” to help someone is to be the person in strength. Because you have somebody who’s helping another. If you think of an EMT, a firefighter, anybody else in that space- you’re picking somebody up. You’re carrying something. You are strong. So strong. And I think how the definition of strength for women is, we don’t really realize, sometimes we’re trying to be the same strength as what a man has and forgetting how dynamic a woman’s strength is when it comes to humbling does not have to look weak. Humbling does not have to look like you’re saying, “Oh, I just have to be a mom at home.” Like, I work a part-time job, I’m still helping provide for my family, but that’s not, like, no, it is, because every single- there is strength in every season of a woman’s life, and what she decides is going to be the strength of her family and when you want to do it if you’re putting yourself in a position of knowing where God is calling your family and being in tune to that, not being in tune to what the world thinks that your family should be or maybe that certain friend group, like, who is for your family. Who’s looking out for your family and what strength decision are you making for at the time being a mom is the hardest thing I have ever done, because it forces you to lay down your, your wants and needs for your child while also keeping a part of yourself- if you’re working and you’re a mom. God bless you. I’m for you. And I think that’s the thing, like, when it comes to honoring your family? In today’s day and age there’s not, not everybody can stay home. We, we decided we were gonna make a lot of sacrifices to stay home. But even then, if you’re going out into the workplace and you’re being faithful in that and you’re coming home and you’re being strong for your family, God bless you. Because that doesn’t, you are honoring your family.
Abby: For you mentally, coming from such a, I want to work, I want to do things, I want to be, you know, doing good, a lot of entrepreneurial goals, you have a lot of like, big vision for stuff like that. So has it been a hard shift for you? Or, after coming before Austin and saying, like, “Hey, actually, I do want you to lead.” Did that shift desires then for you or has it been difficult in this season not doing some of those other things?
Kaylee: I think my mindset didn’t shift when I came before my husband. Those desires didn’t go away. And I think that’s… what’s been really wonderful to think about is the fact that, my life span is not a five-year period of raising kids. It’s not a ten-year period of raising kids. If I’m blessed to have many years, my life will be dynamic in a motherhood season is not that long. My entrepreneurial spirit can stay with me my entire life, and it can look very dynamic in all seasons of life. But I will, for me, what happened when I found out I was pregnant, I did not expect to have a 180 flip light bulb. I prepared like I would because I didn’t think, I didn’t know. That’s the honest, I didn’t know if I would have that like turn on of, “I just wanna be at home.” But it did. And I think when you, and I have talked with other moms that have been just like this, it’s like you get to a season where you’ve been a hurry hustler and it’s a beautiful season, there is a purpose in that season, but all of a sudden your focus, your ability to focus and succeed now looks at a child and goes, “This is my focus, and my success is not to, my success looks different. My title that I was looking for out there is now here,” and you look outside the home for it, for a purpose, but now it’s inside the home and they can operate on the same playing field. Mine for me just went from, I, so badly at the time before I came before Austin and was just like, “This is where I’m at.” My fear was, I have to have a title in order to be respected in order to find worth, in order to supplement this desire. I need that. I wasn’t giving fully over and surrendering to the Lord too. I was searching for something to identify as, and my title outside, and that could be anything, but my title was going to define me. So when you’re searching for something out there or maybe if you’re at home and you’re searching for something, that title at home, and you’re thinking it’s going to fulfill you, at the end of the day, you can’t find fulfillment in it, but you still have to come before the Lord and say, “Lord, my first and utter title is your daughter, and I need you to help me fulfill this role and be faithful in the season I’m in.” Because the entrepreneurial spirit doesn’t go away, the creativity, they’re still part of my desire that’s like, as I’m getting out of the newborn stage, starting to see how I can operate both of these, you know, both of these functions, but that desire to be home and see my child and like, watch him go through his milestones and take on the world and everything’s new every day, it’s utterly beautiful to watch. And I heard a quote the other day. I was like, most of the time when you think about being a mom you think and people talk about all the things that are going to go away. Like your sleep, sure. Like how many diapers take up your time. This, that, the other, but what they don’t talk about is, you get, you get advancements if you stay in the career field. You might work ten years and then you might have a new title. You might be granted something else, an advancement, and what’s so beautiful about “mother” is, it is an advanced title. It is forever someone’s permanent memory of life-giving ability to say, “Hey mom,” for as long as they’re alive. They’ll know me as an advanced title mom. I’ve gotten a different advancement. And as somebody who is so career-oriented, to think of “mother” as that next advanced title in that way, to just say, “Wow, that matters," and that’s okay if that is the thing and that is your title, how blessed you are in that, and to not find anything but joy in that, to invite and joy in that season is really beautiful because so many times I feel like it’s, “Well, how quick do you want to get back to yourself? How quick do you want to get back out there? How quick…?” and there’s nothing quick about being a woman. Not a single thing. Like God designed us to be the slow. You know, we don’t, nothing when it comes to, once a month you’re reminded you’re a woman. It takes time to find out if you have a child. It takes nine months to give life. And then for the rest of your life, you’re slowed down by someone that says it’s okay to slow down. But I think women have just felt this. I will say it for me, not women. Myself, I have felt like I am supposed to run a race that’s so much faster than God designed me to operate. And when I operate in the sweet and the slow and I’m faithful in that and I’m reminded that I am on the race that I’m called to run after, that God is designed for me, and not get caught up in the pace of the world, that I’m running so much sweeter and so much more at peace and content if I would just remind myself of that daily. But we weren’t designed to just be maxing out non-stop.
Abby: I think that is beautiful and an incredible reminder for probably everybody listening, whether you are a man or a women, I think the world that tells you that success looks like running a million miles a minute to whatever next finish line you can find, but yeah, just to slow down enough to enjoy the running, to enjoy where you’re going, I think we could all use that. So I think that’s a beautiful lesson to have learned and to hear it coming out of your mouth.
Kaylee: Oh, funny funny.
Abby: It’s really just cool. And other people are gonna listen and go, “Man, Kaylee is just so wise and she’s so beautiful, and like, I know this is what people are gonna think as they’re listening.
Kaylee: That’s really really nice.
Abby: I think they’re gonna be like, “Wow, and like, she just must have, like, the most beautiful zen life,” and it’s just funny to me sitting here because here you say it is actually just such a testimony of God’s work in your heart. Like hearing, hearing you like witnessing this moment, sitting here, watching you say that and knowing how people are gonna receive it and the balm and the blessing it will be to people’s hearts as they receive that word, and I think it will be. I am so proud and in awe of the God that we serve that that was a genuine reflection of your heart because that was completely and totally a work of God in your life for you to have said that and to have genuinely meant it. So as your friend, it is just beautiful to see what the Lord has done. It is beautiful.
Kaylee: It’s over time, and it’s not all put together. It’s just a lot of shards of glass put together over time.
Abby: Yeah, and the mosaic He is making is gloriously beautiful.
Kaylee: Thank you.
Abby: Really cool moment to witness and watch.
Kaylee: Well, you’ve been faithful to stand by and watch. That’s, that’s the thing, is to be active in another person’s life to know the difference of when the posture, as you’ve said, is genuine and not just lip service. Because we’d be having a very different conversation three years ago. Very.
Abby: Oh, yeah. And there would have been beautiful things in that too.
Kaylee: Mm-hmm, just different.
