Joyce Meyer - The Big Questions for Women - Part 2

Ginger Stache: Well, here's another question that came in on social media, as most of these did. And I think this is a great one. And it's hard for men too, but it's especially hard for women. "How do you deal with criticism in your roles and in your life"? Lisa hmm, I've never had any.

Lisa Bevere: Okay, I learned a saying, and I'm sure Joyce can elaborate on this, "Let your critics refine you, not define you". So, if I can say it better, if I can add more clarity to it, then hallelujah. But they do not have the right to define me, or label me, or disqualify me. And so, I think that you have to have that approach and then also understanding that a lot of the people that are critics have done nothing. And they are just attacking people that do something, sometimes to make themselves feel better about doing nothing.

Joyce Meyer: I think, here again, the first thing is, and not that I always do this, but the first thing is to ask yourself, "Are they right"?

Lisa Bevere: Yeah.

Ginger Stache: That's a hard one to start out with.

Lisa Bevere: That helps you refine.

Joyce Meyer: That's a hard one to start out with. And I find, interesting enough, that I take criticism from my kids better than I do from Dave.

Erin Cluley: I can understand that.

Joyce Meyer: I guess I'll have to go home and be honest about why, I'm not sure.

Erin Cluley: Yeah, you ask yourself that question, and tell us.

Joyce Meyer: My children have now become my parents. You know, they say it reverses when you... And so, it's like, it's really kind of funny. Since I had my 80th birthday, now, two of them refer to me as their "80-year-old mother". I said, "Why did you never call me your 79-year-old mother"? You know. And so, of course, I had the leg thing, you know, my birthday was right in the middle of that, so, they said, I think with the falling and all that, it just, we got like, and so, they're always trying to tell me, "Now, be careful, don't do this, don't do that, you don't need to do this: you don't need to do that". And Dave is extremely protective, always has been, always will be. And the man still will tell me when I'm getting out of the bathtub, "Be careful". And I am like, "Please, don't tell me how to get out of the bathtub, I'm 80 years old, I've gotten out of the bathtub a thousand times". And thank God I finally just learned to say, "Thank you". Remember? We still working on that, girls?

Erin Cluley: I do.

Ginger Stache: It's still something I have to practice a lot.

Joyce Meyer: We decided months ago when our husbands gave us advice, we were gonna thank them.

Lisa Bevere: Okay.

Joyce Meyer: But we're still working on it.

Erin Cluley: We are trying.

Ginger Stache: Yeah.

Lisa Bevere: Okay.

Ginger Stache: My husband's figured it out though, it doesn't always mean I'm gonna do it. It just means "Thank you".

Joyce Meyer: Yeah, now they catch on pretty quick.

Ginger Stache: Yeah, they're pretty smart with that stuff.

Joyce Meyer: And like Lisa said, you know, your critic is not always right. So, I think you do need to ask God, "Are they right"? And there've been things. There was something that Dave criticized me on in the last year. And I asked God if he was right, and he wasn't. I didn't go tell him that, but he wasn't.

Ginger Stache: "God said, 'you're wrong'".

Joyce Meyer: I did ask my daughter and she said, "No, that's not right". And so, just because they say something doesn't mean that they're right, but neither does it mean that you should not consider it.

Ginger Stache: Right.

Erin Cluley: Yeah, that makes sense.

Ginger Stache: See what we have to learn from it.

Joyce Meyer: It's about the best I can do.

Ginger Stache: I think that's one of the biggest things about critics 'cause it can be really hard and it can really hurt. But it's how we deal with it, what we choose to learn from it, and what we choose to let go of.

Joyce Meyer: Yeah.

Ginger Stache: You do have to learn to tell yourself, you know, "It doesn't matter".

Lisa Bevere: But I love that Joyce is talking about people who are close to her.

Ginger Stache: Right, yeah.

Lisa Bevere: Not people...

Ginger Stache: That's different.

Lisa Bevere: We're talking about random strangers who don't...

Joyce Meyer: Oh, I get all kinds of criticism from them.

Lisa Bevere: Yeah, that's what most people are fighting. People that are close to me, my husband, my children, my boys love to help me on things as well, these are people committed to bringing the best out in me. The people online are not people committed to bringing out the best in us.

Joyce Meyer: They don't matter to me.

Lisa Bevere: But if I can say it better, I wanna say it better.

Joyce Meyer: I always tell people, "Don't write me a nasty letter because they're not gonna give it to me anyway". Somebody else will read it and they'll say, "Nope, Joyce, doesn't need to hear that".

Erin Cluley: That's good,

Lisa Bevere: There we go. That's a lot of lost energy.

Joyce Meyer: Once in a while, very rarely, but once in a while, I'll look myself up online.

Lisa Bevere: No, don't do that.

Joyce Meyer: No, like I said, I rarely do it.

Ginger Stache: Well, all right, this is a question that I think a lot of women are asking, and I think especially younger women, and I think it's really helpful. I know I've had this talk with my girls. But the question is: "Can a woman really have it all? And what does having it all even mean"? They have choices to make, they have sacrifices to make, and we feel like we're missing something, if somehow, we haven't accomplished all of it.

Joyce Meyer: Well, can you expound on what it means to have it all?

Ginger Stache: Well, when you, in society, you know, it's...

Lisa Bevere: The Gucci clothes.

Ginger Stache: Exactly, it's the great job, it's the wonderful family, it's the perfect children. Can you do everything and be happy? And I love this question, because I've told my girls, you know, "I don't wanna have it all. I wanna have all that God has for me, but that's all I need".

Joyce Meyer: I don't think anybody can have it all. I don't think it's even good for you...

Ginger Stache: No, exactly.

Joyce Meyer: To have it all. You know, God didn't create us to never hear, "No". And we need to trust God to give us what we can handle and not decide what we want and try to manipulate God into giving it to us. And a woman certainly can have a career and she can have a family, but everything's not gonna be perfect. I always tell people, "I was not a normal mother, but I was a good mother". But I wasn't normal. You can't do what I'm doing and be normal. I couldn't be there for every single thing that they did because I was on the road a lot of times. Our youngest son, our baby, who's now 44, he grew up under the resource tables, you know, crawling around under there. And what is normal? I mean, normal is very much overrated. You gotta find your lane and get in it and stop trying to get into somebody else's lane because you think that's where you need to be.

Ginger Stache: I love that. I think we all need to hear that because this is what you were called to. And therefore, God gave you the ability, he gave you what you needed to do it.

Joyce Meyer: Always.

Lisa Bevere: And graced your children.

Ginger Stache: Yes, exactly. One your daughter-in-law's, Nicol, is called to be at home with her kids and homeschooling, and she does it beautifully because that's what she is called to.

Joyce Meyer: And she is very talented. She could be doing a lot of other things.

Ginger Stache: Exactly, exactly. And I think that's so comforting for us to know is that we don't have to do what somebody else does. God has special things in each one of us. And it's there, in them.

Joyce Meyer: And you know, my two daughters worked in the ministry and they both left when they had kids and wanted to stay at home with their kids. And that's great.

Lisa Bevere: And I think the right thing in the wrong season becomes the wrong thing. And so, I think you have to know your season of life. Because I'm hearing from young girls who postponed, they wanted their career, they froze some eggs and postponed their life, and now they're having problems. And so, you have to know your season. There's only a certain amount of time where you go to school. There's only a certain amount of time when your kids are 10 and under. There's only a certain amount of time. And so, you have to know what is best in this season. And I feel like God'll grace you if he tells you to work full-time. He'll grace you for that if he tells you to stay home and homeschool your kids. My kids would have been idiots if I had homeschooled them. They are so...

Joyce Meyer: And I would have been in the madhouse.

Lisa Bevere: Oh, yeah. There would have been problems if I had homeschooled my kids. So, thank God, I was able to put my kids into public school. And we actually now, of course, it wasn't quite as crazy when I had kids as it is now. But we were able to navigate questions at home around the dinner table with our children. And I think that women are so stressed out right now.

Erin Cluley: We are. We are stressed out.

Lisa Bevere: Yeah, because everybody looks perfect. Everybody's house looks perfect. Like, thank God no one was looking at my house. It was a Lego explosion. I mean, it was like nobody, I was never...

Ginger Stache: That's dangerous to walk around barefoot.

Lisa Bevere: Posting pictures of my beautiful home, with my beautiful husband, and my beautiful baby. Nobody saw that. I didn't have this constant intervention and criticism in my life. And I think people need to edit their lives and stop living up to everybody else's expectation and find out what God has for them in this season. I do think it's crazy.

Joyce Meyer: I'd like to piggyback off of that and say, this thing about timing is so important. And many times, you can have something in your heart that really is from God that you will do at some time, it may just not be now. I tried to go on television before God put me on television and it was a disaster. In six months, I got two pieces of mail. It just wasn't right. And I tried to have a talk show and I wouldn't let anybody talk but me. And so, you know, that became obvious. And then, when God told us to go on TV, I was surprised. You know, it was like, so, you may have something in your heart that's just not for now. But, you know, God does provide if he wants you to do something, please understand, God will provide what you need to do it. I needed help with my children, and God always provided somebody to help me.

Erin Cluley: That's true.

Joyce Meyer: I remember the first woman that came to me, a friend of mine, and she said, "It's obvious you're called to teach the word. And so, I feel like God wants me to volunteer to help you with your housework, with meals, and with your kids so you can give yourself to that". I couldn't pay her. And she did it for a long time for nothing. And her first salary was $50 a week, and she still works for us today. So, God will, he'll give you what you need if you're really supposed to be doing something, and if he doesn't, then you need to back up and ask yourself one of those questions, "Why do I wanna do this"?

Lisa Bevere: Well, and I love that you're saying you can make a mistake and God will still actually redeem it. You know, I remember looking at the life of Abraham and Sarah and you see this interaction where the angels come and they're like, "Hey, a year from now Sarah's gonna have a baby in her arms," and she laughs in her heart, not even out loud. And it's interesting that when people get so acquainted with disappointment, they're afraid to hope again. And I remember reading that and God said, because Sarah was a crazy woman. I mean, she beat Hagar, a pregnant woman, "Here, take my", I mean, I would never say, "Here, John, here's an option for you. Take my handmaiden". I mean, there was like some, you're like, Sarah was like, dysfunctional. She would have been on a television show. So, when I look at that, I love Sarah's life because it shows us that you can make a mistake, but that doesn't make you a mistake.

Joyce Meyer: Right.

Lisa Bevere: And I feel like God has a plan. John and I, we felt called to give away books. We gave away books 10 years too early and it almost broke us. And then, when it came back again, John was like, "God's telling me," I'm like, "Didn't we already try this? I think this was a failure". But it was the right time. And so, I love that you're highlighting that the timing is crucial. And there's so many people out there that have something in their heart, and it isn't happening.

Joyce Meyer: And it's frustrating to them because they don't understand. You know, "But I know I'm supposed to do this," but it's not just what you're supposed to do, it's when you're supposed to do it.

Lisa Bevere: So good.

Ginger Stache: And there are always seasons of sacrifice in our life. You know, there are things that we have to wait on things that we have to give up at times. We can't do everything and do it perfectly. We're not even supposed to.

Erin Cluley: That's hard too. I mean, that just has been hard for me as a mom of young kids. And my mom will say to me, "Erin, it's just a season". And I just wanna go, and I just wanna say, "Yes," to everybody. And I can't. And so, I have to be okay knowing that it's just a season. And that doesn't mean that I missed God. It means this is where God has me now. So, I really appreciate you guys sharing that.

Lisa Bevere: You don't wanna look back and wish that you...

Erin Cluley: No, I don't.

Lisa Bevere: I tried to fully immerse, nobody was volunteering for me. So, I had to fully immerse. I breastfed my youngest son until he was two and a half. And he was like, I'm sure I put...

Erin Cluley: You are amazing!

Lisa Bevere: No, he was like, "I'm at nursery, and other kids have stopped this a year ago. We are not doing this anymore". But I wanted to totally immerse in that season. So, I had to edit some things. And I think going back to that is, you can't do everything. So, when I travel and spoke, when I was home, I was home. Because I couldn't do the girlfriend thing, the shopping thing, the lunch thing, the phone call, whatever gossip things. And so, I was fully immersed at home, fully immersed writing, and then fully present, you know, when I was on the road, fully present when I was home. And I didn't get to have some other things. You have to edit your life in certain areas.

Joyce Meyer: That's good.

Lisa Bevere: 'cause you can't do everything.

Joyce Meyer: That's very good.

Ginger Stache: All right, totally different direction, but a question that many people are asking and I know that you can help with. "Help me deal with inappropriate behavior from men. When a man..."

Lisa Bevere: Joyce and I would just say "Punch them".

Ginger Stache: That is one direction to go. But yeah, just "How do I deal, whether it's in the workplace or wherever it may be, just inappropriate".

Joyce Meyer: Well, you don't put up with it. I mean, you just, first of all, you try nicely to tell them, "That's inappropriate and I really don't want you to do it". And if they won't stop, then most companies now have an hr department, you can go to them. And if nobody'll do anything about it, then by all means, just go get another job. Because you need to respect yourself enough to not let somebody else disrespect you.

Lisa Bevere: Yeah, and if they're doing it to you, they're gonna do it to somebody else. And I know that women have a tendency to, in their mind, say, "Well, maybe I was asking for it". "Maybe I shouldn't have worn that dress". "Maybe when I talked to him about this one thing, I shouldn't have talked", this is not your fault. This is them, predatory behavior, seizing on a opportunity. And I 100% agree, you go to them, but I would go to them with somebody. Because they will deflect, and they will gaslight, and they will say, "You're the one that did this". Because I had a situation like that when I was young, and that person almost convinced me that I was the problem. And I actually just said, "Well, I'm gonna take myself out of the equation". I love, Albert Einstein says, "One way to put an end to the problem is to stop participating in it". And you just step away, and so, hr though is important.

Joyce Meyer: I even had a situation situation at a church that I went to for years, where a friend of dave's, came to me one night, and he said, "I wish my wife was as good-looking as you are". And I went home that night and told Dave what he said. And I said, "How do you wanna handle this"? You know, cuz they were good friends. I mean, they played golf together all the time. And he said, "Well, let's pray about it, and if he ever does anything again, then I'll talk to him". And he never did anything after that. But, because...

Ginger Stache: Honesty, being open.

Joyce Meyer: Yeah, but I just, I wasn't gonna just let that slide because it was inappropriate. It wasn't something that he should have said to me.

Erin Cluley: One thing I love, that you said, that you told Dave when you had that comment made to you, and I think, I mean, I've talked to Ginger about this that being able to be honest with your husband when things like that happen or even if you're not married telling, being honest with a friend and saying that out loud I think takes some power away from the situation.

Joyce Meyer: It does.

Erin Cluley: And it makes you less vulnerable. So, to be able to say, "This happened, that makes me uncomfortable," or "This is something I'd like to watch for," I think put me in a much better position to be proactive and be more aware than things just happening.

Ginger Stache: What are things that all of you think is vital to share with your daughters? What are things that our daughters need to know about this life that they're going to be navigating, now that we all have some experience in it.

Joyce Meyer: Well, I'd say one of the most important things to tell people is to "Be yourself and don't feel like you have to apologize for it". You know, "Don't try to be like somebody else just because that's what they do". I'll never forget when I tried to sew because my neighbor did, and I tried to have a garden because my neighbor had one, and they were like, it was like a nightmare. It was like, it's hilarious now, when I look back at it. It's some of my funniest stories. But you have to be yourself. And I participated in a wedding a couple of weeks ago. And they just asked me to just say a few words and pray for 'em. And I said, "The one piece of marriage advice I will give you is don't try to change each other. Remember the things you love about each other now. And don't forget those things: and then start picking on all the things you don't like". And just be yourself. You're never gonna be happy if you're not yourself.

Ginger Stache: Yeah, that's great.

Lisa Bevere: So, I had gone to south Korea with John. And we did a really quick turnaround. And I was working on a manuscript, and I fell asleep at my laptop. I woke up eight pages later of the letter "T". I had just depressed one and I was like, "Whoa, whoa".

Ginger Stache: You're making good progress.

Lisa Bevere: Yeah, I need to lay down. This needs to stop. And I remember, I was just falling asleep when I heard, "I do not love my children equally". And I was like, "What? Did I bring home a blasphemy spirit from south Korea? You have to love us all the same". And God said, "'same' implies that one of you are replaceable". He said, "'equal' says my love can be measured". He said, "I don't love my children equally, I love them uniquely". And I started to think about my children, how there's things about my firstborn that are, I'm like, "Oh, I love that about Addison". "I love this about Austin". "I love that", and so, when we are actually not true to who God created us to be, when we're always trying to be somebody else, "That woman I saw on Instagram, that post that I saw there, I wanna be that," we're actually undermining who God created us to be and how God wants to love this world through us. And, you know, I know that when I had my first son, I loved him so much, I was like, "I wanna have five. I wanna have five boys, I wanna have so many boys". But then, I got pregnant with my second child and I went a little crazy. I started thinking, "Wait a minute, I love Addison so much, I don't want to cut the love I have for Addison in half and share it with stranger baby from the sonogram".

Ginger Stache: I remember thinking the very same thing.

Lisa Bevere: Yes, and I was like panicked.

Ginger Stache: Yeah.

Lisa Bevere: But then you know what happens. A whole nother portion of your heart opens up, the things you love about that child. And God is the same way with us. And so, like, when Joyce is trying to do a garden, God's like, "I kinda, that's not really why I love you, Joyce. I don't love you because of your gardening skill, or your sewing skill or whatever". And so, we have to ask him to...

Joyce Meyer: But I was trying to be a regular woman because people were telling me that I was weird and a religious fanatic, and just had lost my mind because I was trying to cast out devils, and heal the sick, and preach the gospel. I really thought that I needed to be a regular woman, so I thought that's what you had to do to be a regular woman.

Ginger Stache: But God has an irregular love for all of us.

Lisa Bevere: It's very unique.

Ginger Stache: Yeah, exactly. And we are each his favorite. Because I remember telling both my girls, "You're my favorite". When I was with one, she's my favorite. When I'm with the other, she's my favorite. And they both knew that I did that. So, it was okay.

Erin Cluley: Didn't backfire on you.

Ginger Stache: No, no, no. But then they would say, "Well, I'm the favorite".

Lisa Bevere: Well, they're favorite for different reasons.

Ginger Stache: Exactly, exactly. And that's the kind of love that God has for us. And I think it's so important that we tell our daughters that they can be anything. They can do all things through Christ who strengthens them, but that he has put special things in them because of who they are. And because they're a woman and that's not something to back away from. Those wonderful feminine things that are inside of us are great things. So, I just think there are so many things for our daughters. And, you know, you've got a beautiful little one coming up. So, what will you be telling her?

Erin Cluley: Well, since Peyton's six, so we talk in much, like words, very simple words. But just one thing I pray over her every night is that she knows she's fearfully and wonderfully made because I will never forget what I experienced growing up and feeling like I wasn't good enough. And I want her to know "You are made to be exactly who..." I mean, just like you guys were saying, who God made you to be, and that she'll hear the voice of God. If that's all she gets, I mean, that's all she needs.

Ginger Stache: That's good. Yeah, one thing, for me, talking to, I think, any women in particular, it's "Don't base decisions on fear". Just...

Lisa Bevere: It's a horrible counselor. Yeah.

Ginger Stache: Exactly, exactly. And there are so many things that we, as women, are responsible for, that we feel like we have to try to control and we have to take care of.

Joyce Meyer: Women do have a lot of responsibility.

Ginger Stache: Yes. So many fears that can come into our lives because of that, and we don't wanna do it wrong, and we don't wanna have a problem, and we don't wanna make a mistake. But we can't make decisions based on those fears. And so that's just been really helpful.

Erin Cluley: That's really good.

Joyce Meyer: Like, I don't cook, but I feel the responsibility to make sure that there's a proper meal in the house every night. So...

Ginger Stache: Yeah.

Erin Cluley: It's in us.

Joyce Meyer: Yeah, women do have a lot of responsibility.

Ginger Stache: We have so many more great questions for women. So, we'll do this another time.

Erin Cluley: My list isn't done.

Ginger Stache: No, no, I mean, you know...

Joyce Meyer: You should keep 'em and we'll do 'em another time.

Ginger Stache: Yeah, work-life balance. You know, everybody always asks about that one all the time. And, erin, you saw a lot of great questions, too.

Erin Cluley: They were so good.

Ginger Stache: Yeah. So, anyway, thank you very much. Really great stuff, really helpful. So, we love to help you walk it out after we talk it out. What are some of the things that we all need to do to kind of let this sink into our spirit, to see what God's word says about it, and to really walk out what he's telling us? So, what we're encouraging you to do is the next time that you're feeling a little bit vulnerable in a room, as a woman, you know, maybe the only woman in a particular group. Joyce was talking about being the only woman on the church board, all those things that we're all often part of, is remember that God is the one who protects you, he vindicates you: he equips you: he loves you so much, just like who you are. There's a reason that he has you in that room. So, you can be so confident in that. And now, we want to ask you, also to write down three things about yourself that you know God put in you. And I think that's just so encouraging. Put it somewhere that you'll see it, somewhere that you'll remember it. And when you have all of these questions, take them to him. He's got great answers for you. And there's so many scriptures. It seems like the Bible is a book about men sometimes, but there are so many scriptures, and so many wonderful books, and chapters, and stories in the Bible about strong women and women that God did amazing things through. So, dig into those things. Thank you all very much. We appreciate it. We love all of you. Thank you for being here with us. Don't forget to walk it out and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.