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What if your deepest struggles could become the catalyst for your greatest transformation? Join us on the Jamie Luce podcast as we sit down with Cally, an inspiring mentor for young women and author of “The Wallflower That Bloomed,” to uncover the secrets of living authentically and fearlessly. Through a compelling conversation, Cally reveals how her decade-long journey of writing a divinely inspired book, coupled with her passion for woodworking, has shaped her life and empowered others to thrive by surrendering to God’s will.

This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom, exploring how to root your identity in Christ amidst life’s challenges, from severe chronic illness to feeling like an outsider. Cally shares personal stories of finding joy in the most unexpected milestones and highlights the importance of resilience and the power of personal choice. Through biblical analogies and real-life examples, we discuss the profound transformation that occurs when we face life’s storms with unwavering faith.

We also dive into themes of spiritual refinement and the activation of spiritual gifts, drawing wisdom from Charles Stanley and the story of the fourth man in the fire. Whether you’re in a season of rest or battling immediate hardships, this conversation offers practical advice and spiritual encouragement to live victoriously and abundantly. Tune in to discover how to trust God through all seasons of life and connect with Cally for ongoing inspiration on this transformative journey.

Where to dive in:

(0:00:00) – Becoming Overcomers

Cally, a mentor and author, shares her journey in writing “The Wallflower That Bloomed” to inspire living fearlessly through God’s will.

(0:09:11) – Blooming Despite Life’s Challenges

Overcoming chronic illness, finding identity in Christ, embracing uniqueness, and belonging in social settings.

(0:16:05) – Finding Strength Through Life’s Storms

Personal choice and resilience in life’s storms, recognizing value and purpose, and how challenges refine and deepen faith.

(0:30:20) – The Refinement Process of Faith

God’s refinement removes distractions and trials unbind us, leading to growth and freedom, paralleling nature’s processes.

(0:35:54) – Activating Spiritual Gifts for Miracles

God uses spiritual gifts to transform struggles, remove past marks, and bless others through our partnership with Him.

(0:45:34) – Trusting God Through Life’s Seasons

God’s faithfulness in prolonged struggles, deep relationships with us, and using ‘vanilla’ phases for rest or seeking direction.

(0:50:33) – Embracing the Vanilla Seasons

Vanilla time is a period of spiritual preparation and rest, optimizing our environment and aligning ourselves for growth.

(1:04:24) – Connecting With Kelly on Social Media

Author Kelly’s latest book and other works inspire and uplift, inviting listeners to connect on social media for ongoing motivation.

About your host:

Jaime Luce’ testimony has daunting personal mountains and treacherous financial valleys. She was trapped in day-to-day stress and couldn’t see a way forward. But how she started is not how she finished! And she wants you to know God has a plan for your life too, no matter how tough it seems. Today, Jaime has been married to the love of her life for almost three decades, owns two companies, and has become an author and podcaster. God’s way is always the blessed way! 

Free chapter of Jaime’s new book: You Don’t Need Money, You Just Need God: https://jaimeluce.com/book/

Connect with Jaime: 

Website: https://jaimeluce.com

Facebook:  / jaime.luces.page  

Instagram:  / jaime_luce  

LinkedIn:  / jaime-luce-00395691  

Full Transcript

This transcript is auto-generated and not perfect. We hope it blesses you.

0:00:00 – Jaime Luce
Welcome to the Jamie Luce podcast. Thanks everybody for tuning in. Today I have a very special guest with me that I want you to be introduced to. I have in the on such shows as the 700 Club Interactive, and her writing has appeared in numerous outlets, including Christine Kane’s Propel Women. I’ve actually been to one of those. Callie served as a mentor for young women for several years and enjoys challenging ladies to develop deeper relationships with God and to live fearlessly and authentically. She received her bachelor’s degree from Regent University and in her spare time she enjoys spending time in nature, genuine connection, chats over coffee and woodworking. That, one kind of, was a surprise to me. Woodworking we don’t hear that very often. I love that. I’m actually a bit of a geek on a couple shows, one of them being NCIS, go figure, but the main character is a woodworker so he’s always working with the wood.

But anyway, and why that I don’t know. I think I like to figure out mysteries, so that’s my thing, and I do that with the word too Dig it up, figure it out. That’s the way I go. But, callie, thank you so much for joining me today. It is a pleasure to have you in the studio with us to talk about your latest book, which is titled the wallflower that bloomed, and the reason that we wanted to do this program.

We exchanged a couple of emails and we just realized that our hearts for God’s people and our desire to see them be everything he’s called them to be, and to be victors and not victims, and to live this life, um, from a place of not just victory, but we’re overcomers. That there are, there are things to overcome, but we are overcomers and we don’t have to fear and we don’t have to be held back and we don’t have to be overcome. But we know that the Lord has given us the power, through his resurrected son, to be able to victoriously take on and conquer whatever we need to conquer and do it well, that we are not going to be the losers. We’ve read the end of the book, so to speak, and we know that we are the ones who have won the victory. So, with all of that out of the way, I want to welcome you in Hi.

0:02:35 – Cally Logan
Thank you. It’s such a joy to be on here and just to share this time and just such like kindred hearts you know for the kingdom. So I’m so excited to be here and, um, and I would love to talk about when we’re confusing any questions.

0:02:48 – Jaime Luce
So why don’t you start by giving us, um, some background into why you wanted to write this book? Because I I know that your desire to write is not just because you enjoy writing. There’s a purpose, and you’re trying to reach an audience with a message that God has given you. So how did that all come about?

0:03:11 – Cally Logan
Oh my gosh, this book in particular was one that all of the books I’ve had have had. You know, I don’t think you can write something that you don’t put yourself in. You know, this one in particular was such a gift to me and the Lord had given me the phrase the wallflower that bloomed about about 10 years ago and oh clever I like that, far too clever to be me how he was going to use it, what it was going to be used for. And about a year and a half ago now, he put on my heart that it’s a book and that we can begin to write the book. And I say we because this is certainly something that’s this is not of my own doing, of my own craftsmanship, this is truly of his authorship.

And he gave me the beautiful opportunity to type it out for him and I’m grateful to be used as a vessel and a conduit of the Lord and the heart behind it. You know, in prayer it really felt like a now or never, but the heart behind it is to encourage people that I saw around me, even myself. I think a lot of times when you write something, when you create something, you’re speaking to yourself just as much as you’re speaking to those around you and you’re reminding your heart. Right, you know David through the psalms. When he was writing those psalms, we read them and apply them to our own hearts, but he was writing that to his own heart as well right and it was that you don’t have to wilt, you can bloom.

and the way that we actually truly bloom, and not this artificial bloom that is of our own doing, is we do it through Christ, that we allow him and we surrender our will, our desires, everything, every facet of life, over to him and say Lord, you made me, who did you make me to be, and what does it look like to have John 10, 10, life and life abundantly through you? And so that was really the heart behind the whole book of what does it mean to step into john 10, 10, to have the good, the bad, the vanilla, the, the boring times, everything all together? And what does it mean to actually thrive? Thrive even in the storm. What does it mean to thrive even in the boring time? What does it mean to thrive when everything is going your way and to bloom in all seasons and not carry that heavy weight of just wilting? So that’s really the genesis behind the book and kind of where we came forward and the Lord just really just blew the doors open of this time for this book.

0:05:44 – Jaime Luce
That’s wonderful. Several things were running through my mind as you were saying that. I like the picture when you said that that we can bloom and not wilt, because sometimes people just kind of think, okay, I’m going to bloom, I’m going to, you know, I’m going to become, I’m, I’m going to do something, and there and we’re leaving out the fact that, in order to bloom, sometimes the best description of something is in what it’s not. So to bloom is that what’s the opposite of blooming? Well, that is wilting. That means under the pressure, in the fire, in the storm.

We have this idea that while we are walking with Christ, that whatever the weight is, whatever the trial is, whatever the storm is that somehow we are less than during those times, than we are once we’ve come through. And I don’t think we realize that’s not really the truth that we can be blooming in the midst of very difficult things. If you think of somebody who works out regularly in the gym. They’re sweating, this is hard, they struggle and have to push back, but they’re actually becoming in that process. It’s things are happening, Things are changing, Strength is coming and and it’s not just this I’m weak, I can’t do this, this is too hard, and I’m in fact I want to write it myself a note because I want to come back to a different thing that you said too and I’ll forget. So I’m going to write this down. And I liked the word that you use the vanilla.

But before we go there, I would really love for you to share a couple of and pick whichever you want, because I know you’ve had some things that you’ve dealt with in life.

One is the premise for the book that you’re opening story, but you also talk briefly about a real storm you battled physically, which is a. That’s a. It’s a heavy soul thing. When you’ve got stuff going on in the mind, it’s affecting the body, it’s affecting choices, it’s affecting your emotions, and I’m wanting to talk kind of to our broader audience at large to say we understand, we understand what it is to go through very, very hard things, very difficult times and seasons. Sometimes we’re grateful, you know, if it’s a quick thing and a hard thing, but sometimes there are long seasons, Sometimes it’s the feeling of I have toiled with this all night and I have nothing to show for it. I have you know, and so maybe you can kind of speak into how the Lord, whether that was the way that you reached out to him, whether that’s the way that he was speaking into you or how he pulled you through, and it can be in conjunction with how you’ve told the stories in your book. But I just want you to kind of share your heart with the audience.

0:09:08 – Cally Logan
I’d love to, actually the one I feel led to share about. I briefly hinted at it in the book but I didn’t really go into it so in my late teen years so 18, 19, and to way into my mid 20s I’m 32 now I really dealt with, and I still have some after effects with a really severe chronic illness and it’s made it so through those late teen years, you know, college years, when when everybody else was living a life in one sort of way, I was literally in the hospital, I was literally having surgeries and in all these different things and unsure if I was actually going to see 20. I remember that being my 20th birthday was such a victory for me and to the point where, well, people don’t know, but I get really excited when I get a new wrinkle.

It’s kind of weird, why? And it’s because I never expected to live to the point where I would get them, because seeing 20 was such a victory and I remember being in a tough spot at the time and I just kind of like people would say to me, you don’t look like you have an illness, kind of like, in a way, like I would have never known unless you had said something and on the drive home one day I asked the Lord about that.

And then I don’t. I don’t quite understand, lord, because some people, you know they’ll have something and that’s all they talk about, that’s all they know for this, that and the other. And I was like what’s the difference there? And he said you, you didn’t make that part of your identity. And that was a big thing that I realized and although I have dealt with with issues from this illness, I am not my illness and my illness is not the defining of me, and that was such a huge pivot point for me.

Just heart status wise that although I was going through surgeries, although I was going through difficulties and uncertainties and things like that, I did not let that become the essence of who I am. And though I’m doing better and everything now, I still, you know, when I have kind of something to prop up, I think back to that. I think you know it’s still. It’s something I have had to maneuver with, it is something that I have been affected by, but it’s not me and it’s realizing that I don’t have to be defined by something I’ve gone through or I’m going through.

0:11:38 – Jaime Luce
Yes, I actually wrote that down in my notes from reading your book and I put down you had said that, instead of asking the Lord, why am I this way, or whatever it is that we might be dealing with, you were saying the right question would be what does God want me to do with the differences that are in me?

And that can be just in personality, that can be in who we are and our giftings and talents, and it could be in our awkwardness and in the things that we struggle with.

But it can also be with, just like you said, the things that we’ve gone through, that our identity, how we live out our life, is based off of who we think we are, and that we can’t, we can’t allow the enemy to so easily put those labels on us, whether whether it’s comes from um, uh, you know growing up and a teacher said something, or, and and you can tell us the example of um at school, what you dealt with at school, but it could be parents, it could be the loss of something or someone, it could be traumatic moves across a country as a child and you just don’t. You know you lost all your friends and you had to start all over and you know, it could be any myriad of things, but we, we are to live with the identity that Christ has given us, not with the identity of what we’ve been through. Those can be trophies, yeah, but that’s not who we are. So maybe share a little bit of what you went through as a child.

0:13:20 – Cally Logan
Yeah, I’d love to. So, growing up, the wallflower, the bloom, certainly is something that spoke to my heart when the Lord said it, because it’s something that I think he kind of meant it as a promise, because when he gave it to me I was around 21 and still just dealing with a lot of kind of aftermath from teen years, and I saw it as a pivot point as well as OK, I am going to bloom and I’m still against the wall. I’m still that wallflower but I can bloom. I don’t have to be the wilted or the flat against, you know, like wallpaper.

But as a teenager, high school was very hard in the way that I was just really bullied. I felt like the outcast, the outsider. I didn’t feel like I fit in. I felt like anything I did to even attempt to fit in it kind of backfired on me or it would just fall flat. And I realized when I was in my 20s and when I was interacting with more people outside of just my tiny high school that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

And it wasn’t even just limited to movies, because we’ll watch movies and they relate like Mean Girls, clueless, you know those classics and we’re like, oh, yep, I’m that one, I’m that one and everything else.

But you realize a lot of people, I think, even even in those movies, the people who are the most popular people in the school, like Cher and Clueless. Even she felt like an outsider several times and she didn’t know where she belonged, even when she was the most popular girl in school. So I think that’s how I started the book, because I think a lot of us at some point or another can relate to that feeling of either in school or at a job or in church or in a community or a new mom’s group or whatever you’re going into, I don’t really know where I belong and I feel this awkward feeling and I want to belong, but I don’t know how. And so it’s kind of that starting ground of what does it look like to stand confidently in who God made you to be, and God’s opinion matters most, and what other people think then comes secondary or it doesn’t matter at all.

0:15:25 – Jaime Luce
Right, right, I actually picked up on a, which I liked, because here you were telling the story of how you were bullied and in the book, but what I kept hearing coming through was that you were actually very strong. It takes and you probably didn’t know it I mean, you probably didn’t know during that time what strength you had. And yet that would be part of the process. You would see, as God is doing that blooming in your life and making you an author and someone who can share a story and be able to convey a message to a much larger audience. But what I kept hearing was and you even mentioned it just a second ago was that, for better or for worse, you would kind of make the choices that you made. But you had and I wish that people understood this, because I think we all have this there’s a part of us that when it’s happening, we’re still making these little micro choices. You know we could be not sure of what’s coming at us and and how to take it, and it could be hurtful, and then we make these little decisions about it. And then for you, you continue to. You talk about whatever clothes that you were wearing, whether they were popular or not, I was good with it and I would wear. So there was a part of your strength that was coming out and I want people to to maybe catch this.

If you’re somebody who, um, deals with feeling like you, you just feel less than whether people are saying it or not, whether you feel like you’ve got it all together or not, um, regardless of what people are saying, just even if you feel this yourself. What we need to recognize is there’s also a part of us that kind of. We push against that on the inside, we say that’s not true, like they don’t know me, they don’t understand, and we think those are weak statements. But what you’re really saying is there’s a part of you that knows you are created for more than what this image is, or that there’s more there and there’s this little bit of godly rebellion I’ll call it that says that’s not really me. Who I am is who God says I am, and we kind of want to push that out where we’re wanting to bloom. We’re wanting to say, no, this is who I am and this is right and this is good and I’m necessary.

I always think of just the body of Christ, that we each are a member of his body and each one of us is very necessary, and each one of us feels what’s going on, what is affected by what the others are going through, whether we realize it at the moment or not. You can look at just internal organs and things that are going on, and I could have one rogue cell. Well, eventually the organs are going to respond to that cell and if I am in pain somewhere, my hands are probably going to run and rush to grab and soothe the area that’s in pain. We affect one another and, for good or for bad, we need to understand how necessary we all are, not just to encourage one another, but also to know I have value. There’s something about me that God’s put in me that I have purpose, I have value, I have meaning my life. This isn’t for nothing. I have value, I have meaning my life. This isn’t for nothing.

I mentioned to you a quote that you put in the book and it’s coming to mind now, so I’d like to actually read it right now. But the quote is and if I say it wrong you’re going to correct me Haruki Murakami. Is that right, murakami? But you’re good, murakami. I wrote it wrong. That’s the problem I wrote it wrong.

Okay, and once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive, you won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain when you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That is, that’s what this storm’s all about. Why don’t you share why you put that quote and what that quote means to you, and then we’ll kind of talk about that for a minute.

0:20:01 – Cally Logan
That quote was just one that really hit my heart deeply and I think I actually saw it like on Pinterest or something when I was scrolling one day. But it just, you know, it really spoke to me. And realizing that some storms that I have gone through and in that particular chapter I talk about a storm that affected me very deeply on a very soul level and realizing, I remember I wasn’t quite sure if I ever thought I would be able to get out of that storm because it was so bad and I just thought, man, I don’t, I don’t know, am I just trapped here for good and realizing that that wasn’t the end of the story?

And when I came out of that stormy season, it was realizing, yeah, that I did I’m not the person that I was when I walked into this but that that is part of why God allowed it. I don’t think he authored that storm, but he did allow that storm. And we look at Job. You know he went through such a stormy season and God didn’t offer those bad things to happen. God allowed those things to happen. But we see Job, on the other side, came out of that storm even deeper in faith, even deeper in having a face to face interaction with the creator himself, interaction with the creator himself, and was able to pray on his you know, for his friends, pray for those around him in this deeper way, and his roots were all the more deep because of it.

And I think that at times God will allow storms to happen because they do make us into these in the becoming, like you’ve been saying, the becoming of who we were always meant to be, and that is a facility to make that happen. And so what we think at times are god, how could you allow this storm to happen. It’s actually in the end of it. On the other side, if we see the whole big picture, we say god, thank you that you used that, that it wasn’t in vain, that it wasn’t just something the enemy was harassing me with. It wasn’t just something the enemy was harassing me with, it wasn’t just something that this particular person did to me and it was done in just complete mouth and evil. Thank you that you were able to use this to refine me and to help me become the person I am today in a good way.

0:22:19 – Jaime Luce
Right, right, yeah, it made me think of so many of the different stories we’ve seen in scripture. Job is a great one I’m thinking of, and I mentioned this to you earlier, before we began but to me, this is one of those things that when people realize that these storms, these troubles that they’re going through, they are temporary, that God does have a destination in mind. There is a to your book, a full bloom. There is a difference that, oh, how do I want to paint that? Your life, no matter what you’ve gone through, no matter how difficult it’s been, I actually am thinking right now of a family member who, um, they’ve recently lost, um, someone, and it has been incredibly difficult, um, and shocking and horrible in every way, and at the same time, I’m watching these same people. Really, it forces the roots down. I mean it really forces your roots down and you have a choice to make. I mean you can choose to say God, it is your fault, you did this on purpose, and now I’m mad at you, and some people go through that first season where they hold God responsible and they have to work that out.

It makes me think of the movie Forrest Gump you mentioned that in your book, actually too, and one of them, yeah, and he has to fight it out with God. You know he’s out there, okay, and he’s in the storm, and this is between me and you know we’re going to have it out, you know. And yet he comes out of that season a different person and his life changes for the better and it looks different. It doesn’t look like it looked before, but it’s beautiful. It’s not. It was above and beyond what we could ask or imagine. It’s not the stuff you’d think of. We get so lockjod on what we think we want and what we think our story is going to look like and how it’s going to unfold.

And yet God tells us clearly no, I do above and beyond. I do stuff you don’t think about. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts, my ways are not your ways and we get lost in our ways. We get lost in our seas, we get pounded by the waves and we wonder how are we going to make it through this? And yet, if I think about the children of Israel coming out of Egypt, coming out of bondage, and they have to go through the scariest looking thing, I can’t imagine trying to walk through what is actually a sea that has miraculously somehow parted and has dry ground and there’s walls of water that I’m walking between, knowing that at any moment, if something changes, I’m done, for this is history. I mean, it’s a faith walk. It’s literally a faith walk the whole time that they’re walking through and it’s like a valley going through a valley, and yet David encourages us.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I don’t have to fear evil. If we know who God is, if we know that he’s the author of whatever is good, if he’s allowed something in my life and I truly believe he’s good, then I can trust I’m going to be okay, he’s good, then I can trust I’m going to be okay that the outcome, whether I can picture it in my mind or not, is going to be good and I’ll be able to say that’s good and that was God and there’s no way that I could have done that without him. And so I’m hoping that people can understand that, whatever they’ve gone through that, callie, everything you’ve gone through, all the difficulties and the physical, the mental, the spiritual, the emotional, all of those things that they are a pearl of great price. They’re very valuable and God sees, he sees us through that value because he’s the one who gave us the value. Without him we have no value, but because of him we have value. So we don’t have to be convincing ourselves that I’m good enough, I’m powerful enough, I’ve got enough, I’ve you know. I simply am because he made me valuable.

He said you’re mine, I have a plan for your life. It’s really good. I have things in you that you don’t even know yet. They’re going to come out and they may come out in ways that we had not thought about. They may not be ways we’d choose. I mean, how many of us? I can say this for me for sure? There’s things that I have learned after going through something that I, I would never want to go through, that again I, I, I would never want to do that, but I am grateful for what God has done and what he has taught me and what I have gained from that. That it, it. It’s something that I wouldn’t exchange. I wouldn’t trade that in I, it’s too valuable. And then it helps us know.

He says that, yes, we do go through the fire, and sometimes it’s an actual refiner’s fire, sometimes he’s in fact. I would like you to talk about this, because you bring up the story of the refiner’s fire, but you, you talk about the necessity of pruning and how we have to make um, we’re being molded and we’re being. I I recently had read the story of someone explaining going to a glassblower’s shop, and so I’m picturing that in my head as well, because you’re seeing this beautiful thing emerge that is literally on fire. You know, I mean, it’s just it’s.

And when you think about the three Hebrew boys who had to go into the fire, their faith was so secure in the goodness of God and in the righteousness of God that if he saw to it that they had to go on a fire, then so be it. That is amazing to me that they would know that’s not just, that’s not just me saying I believe in Jesus, just that’s not just me saying I believe in Jesus. That’s some serious faith to say I’m going, I believe I don’t have to go through this, I’m believing you’re going to deliver me from this. But even if you don’t, I trust you, I’m serving you, I’m doing this regardless. So maybe talk a little bit about the process of that fire.

0:29:24 – Cally Logan
Yes, well, it’s a gift, you know it’s, it’s fire, so it burns, it hurts, but I, I think I look at it in the way of I? Um, actually had a very, very crazy, cool dream about a year ago this is not in the book at all, but uh and in which there was this object is actually like a trampoline, which is funny enough, but it was on fire and it was this holy, holy, holy fire and you could tell it was holy. There was just. Even in the dream I had this heart status of reverence and I just felt that I was, I was looking upon this and I was realizing that it was burning up anything that was not of the Lord’s, so anything outside of his will, anything that had been given or taken or placed outside of his will, and that it was burning in such a way that if it wasn’t the Lord’s will, it was going to turn to ash and only that which was God’s would remain.

And I think about what Charles Stanley says. He says anything acquired outside of God’s will will eventually turn to ash. And that quote has just always stuck with me and I thought about that after I had that dream, and so I prayed into that as well and I said, lord, thank you for that holy glimpse, because I was just struck with such a profound. I think it was quiet for like two or three days because it just felt that holy ground, but it was in recognizing that he will have his way and it is in his goodness that he sets those things on fire.

And we think about that. How kind is he that he would remove the things that are not beneficial? Because if it’s not of him, then it’s going to hurt and it’s going to harm. It is not going to be something that is propelling you towards the goodness that he has. And so I actually saw that of him doing the refinements and the purification, as that was the kind of possible thing he could do. And so it’s really cool when you get to see things and look and your vacation, as that was the kind of possible thing he could do.

And so it’s really cool when you get to see things and look and and in the natural you see it and you’re like, oh my gosh, but it’s burning. But then you see this beauty on the other side and you see what is left, and you see everything that is not of the Lord’s, everything that is not his desire for there to be. It’s gone, and I think about it in the same way of great sculptors. I got to see I actually got to see the David statue in Italy and that was such a profound moment in my life, just even looking at how he had the veins in his hand, and that’s the thing, the thing. I stood there and I just looked at David’s hand and just the veins. But I thought it’s crazy to think that at one point this was a square rock and everything that was not this David statue had to be chipped away, and that was forcibly chipped with hard tools, hard force.

Metallic tools hard force. Yeah, and looking at the delicate detail of the veins in his fingers and I thought about if that is something that is created by a human being. How much more does God in us spend time to pay attention to those details, to chip away anything that is not of us, that is not actually who he made us to be? So I think in the same way, be it by fire, be it by force it is actually a kindness of the Lord to remove all that rock. That is not you know.

0:32:54 – Jaime Luce
That’s really good, because, if you think about the pruning process, the reason that you come in and prune and take down is because the nutrients need to be able to get to the blossoms, and if there’s too many extra twigs and things all over, they take the nutrients away from where it’s actually supposed to go. And so it’s necessary, so that we don’t realize in our life. Sometimes we think, well, I like this, I like that, and the Lord seems to be taking things off and cutting things away, and it’s because very valuable nutrients that are supposed to go somewhere are going to places that are a distraction, that are going to places that maybe could be harmful. I’m even thinking because we live in California, so we have the wildfires so badly out here, and one of the reasons we have them and shouldn’t have them is because we aren’t actually going and doing the burning that needs to take place and people need to earn it. Yes, we’re supposed to be burning the underbrush, supposed to be making sure that we have certain paths that we have already burned to prepare, to make lines of ways for emergency vehicles to fight fires, but also because there’s an actual process that the plant life is supposed to go through and the burning actually helps it reproduce and bring new foliage and new things to life.

As a kid I had seen the movie Bambi and that was the idea too that you see a season when everything burns down and it just seems like it’s gone, it’s lost, and you think it was for nothing and you think it’s all a waste and that it is just ashes left. And yet the next time they turn around and they show you another spring, and there it is, and there’s all that beautiful life. It’s all come back and even better, and that it’s. It takes time, it’s, it’s the. It’s the way that God has designed and ordered the world, that there is seed time and harvest and there’s a process that is necessary for us to go through. But he takes us through it. He doesn’t throw the baby in the water and say learn to swim on your own. He’s in the process with us. He’s the fourth man in the fire. And while we’re in there, my favorite part of that story is that they’re fully clothed but they’re bound hand and foot when they’re thrown in and when they are in the fire, they recognize that there is a fourth man in the fire and they said and their bonds have come off. They fall off in the fire and we don’t realize that that fire, that difficult process, many times is actually removing things that have bound us up and hindered us and brought us grief and pain.

And he’s saying I will remove it. I know this is uncomfortable, but I’m going to take this off so that you’re free. When you come out, you know, and it’s, there’s no smell of smoke. And now I have the victory. When I come out, and you won’t to back to your earlier point. When I come out, then my identity is not fire. I don’t smell like smoke. My identity isn’t the badge of I’ve been imprisoned and I’ve had this and I’ve had that. It’s I don’t. You have no idea other than what I tell you and what I’m proclaiming. That’s the only thing that you have as evidence, because there is no tag on me, there is no scarlet letter on me. There is no. And that’s the beauty of what God does, that’s the freedom that he offers us, that’s the, that’s the growth process that he’s offering to us. You had mentioned the use of the gifts of the Spirit in order to go through this process and I would love for you to kind of take us through some of that.

0:36:59 – Cally Logan
I would love to talk on that. You know, I think there’s a lot that, even though I think in Bible studies or sermons and things like that, we kind of sometimes, as much as we’ll go into something, we don’t always even get into the nitty gritties and you know, the well, where does this apply to my life in particular?

And so I really tried to go into each of you know the things the Lord will do through spiritual gifts and kind of dig into those, because we do have access to those and many of us innately have those placed within us or we may not even be aware, you know, it might just be kind of a hinting of it, and so I think that’s really where, partnering with Holy Spirit and saying Lord, could you highlight to me the gifts that you want to foster and cultivate during this season? Because ultimately, those gifts are given for us to know him better, because he is the giver of the gifts, right. So in John 17, jesus even says you know you, every good thing has been given by you, right To his father, and the same thing with us, by you, right to his father, and the same thing with us. So though we are born with that or you know, we have that within us that is not of our own doing. We didn’t cultivate and manufacture and make up as something that he has graciously given onto us.

But we need to connect with him in order to use it correctly. Right has he made it?

so we have to work with him and throw him and buy to use that properly and in its intention and its fulfillment, right? Yes, and so I think, in a lot of the process of discovering, into the coming of who you were meant to be, it’s identifying a lot of those gifts and it’s it’s saying lord, have you given me the gift of encouragement, right? Is that something that you want to to use in me? Maybe you haven’t seen that in yourself or you’re aware that it’s there, or someone has spoken over you. Hey, you really seem to have this gift of encouragement and saying, lord, I want to cultivate that. What does that look like? Can you help me? And I think probably one of God’s favorite questions for us to ask him is would you help me?

0:39:06 – Jaime Luce
And.

0:39:07 – Cally Logan
I think he’s that proud papa saying I’m waiting for you to ask you know to steward those well, and I think it’s partnering with him and letting him grow those. And then you have this application and then you realize this is actually something really cool, that I get to partner with the Lord and see him fulfill. And so I kind of go into all the different gifts in there. But I think it’s asking him please identify these in me and teach me how to use them so that I can bless other people in the kingdom. So that you’ll wake me up at 3 o’clock in the morning and say I need you to pray for this friend. She’s discouraged because she and her husband can’t have a baby. And you call them and you say hey, I know this is kind of a weird conversation, but I woke up at three o’clock in the morning and you were on my heart and I just pray for you. I don’t know how that happened and she just started crying. She said how did you know? Because he told me.

Right right and I was able to help that friend feel seen and say God sees you. I didn’t know that, oh how would I. He knew that.

0:40:10 – Jaime Luce
Yes.

0:40:10 – Cally Logan
And I’m here to partner with you and say, hey, he’s Elroy, he’s the God who sees, and he loves you and you’re not forgotten, and so, yeah, that’s one of my favorite parts of the book. Thank you for highlighting that.

0:40:24 – Jaime Luce
Yes, you know it makes me think of I had a similar situation. I’ve had this a couple of times, but this particular one, the Lord really took me out of my comfort zone to do it and I the church we were attending. I had come to know one of the people who worked at the church and they had a daughter. Husband and wife had a daughter and she was like preteen age, but they were desperately wanting another child and had been trying for all those years and was not able to have another child. And I just felt the heaviness and the Lord kind of put a burden on me to be praying for them. And so, as time was going on because we had been at that church for many years and so I watched this process and had been praying for them Well, one particular day this was during COVID, and at the time it was pretty fresh and we were still having services, but we were having them outside and it was an evening and it was getting cold.

Um, it was a midweek service for prayer. It was really just a prayer service that we were having and I I was. It was nearing the end of the service and I hear the Holy Spirit say to me. I want you to go speak to her and tell her I’m going to give her a child, and I’m just like, oh boy, you’re putting me on the spot, cause that’s you.

Know the spot, because that’s you know, and I had to put my faith, you know, because it’s like I believe you. I heard you, but this I felt in the moment and this is telling of my insecurity I felt like, okay, this is me saying I’m going to if I step out and say this, saying I’m going to if I step out and say this if this doesn’t happen, what does that say about me? And you know, looking at me, instead of worrying about just yes, sir, and and just obeying and letting the chips fall where they may, and I wrestled with the Lord and the services winding up, and I’m seeing her and and I’m not knowing, do I have the opportunity to go? And I didn’t want to make a scene and I didn’t want this to be something that was I did, this was private and I just wanted to have it be private. And so, as I’m wrestling back and forth and he’s saying you need to tell her now, you need to tell her now. And I’m feeling the pressure, and all of a sudden she moves out from where she was sitting. I’m like where’s she going? And I see her and she’s walking. She’s going somewhere, probably to handle something, but it’s like she’s going somewhere. I’m thinking I have to go now. I literally got out of my seat and I’m running in the dark in the parking lot trying to catch up to her. And I caught her and I just said I know that this has been hard for you, but the Holy Spirit wanted me to tell you that he has seen you and you are going to have a child. And she burst into tears and she said you couldn’t possibly know this. She said but I had told the Lord, if I don’t hear from you tonight, I’m stopping everything, I’m not trying anymore, I’m not doing any of the things that we’ve been doing, I’m giving up, I’m done, and that’s I mean. She had a few hours left. This was now nine something in the evening and you know, and I just at that moment, the the relief of oh God, I just it was. It was a confirmation to me on multiple levels. First of all, she knew she needed to hear from God today. This was it, this was her day. And she had gone all day feeling depressed, thinking this is it. And on top of that, I knew he was saying she’s really going to have a baby. I’m not just saying this, she’s going to have a baby, like this, you know and within the year.

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She became pregnant and had a little baby, and then, after that, they were just so thrilled to have that baby. They were so excited to have that baby and then, to their surprise, another baby was on the way, is on the way, and so I was just like. God is so good, he’s so faithful, and it’s in those hard, hard, long seasons. I mean this was a 10 year thing, you know. It makes me think of the stories of the woman who was bent over with the issue of blood for years and years. And you have the man laying at the pool, bethesda, who’s been there for like 30 years or whatever. I mean, these things are long, these are, and our tendency is to think that God’s not going to answer and that it’s always going to be this way. God’s not going to answer and that it’s always going to be this way, and that’s simply not the truth. You know, there’s scripture and I’ve used it many times and quoted it. I wish I had the reference written in front of me.

But the scripture says that, while he waited, the word tested him and, speaking of Joseph, god had given him this dream. He didn’t know he’d have to become somebody who was a slave. He didn’t know he’d have to become a prisoner. He didn’t know he’d have to be betrayed by everybody that he loved and then be for lack of a better term abandoned by his father, even though his father didn’t know, he thought he was dead. So all the issues I mean he had all the issues and he had all the horrible experience and he’s been lied on and he’s been mistreated and he’s forgotten, I mean every possible thing. Just it continued to mount that the mountain got bigger. Instead of moving, the mountain got bigger. And yet God is not a liar. He will do what he said he will do if we will remain.

You know, you kept saying about how this, how his through the gifts or however it is that he’s wanting us to ask him and to connect with him, because that’s all he cares about, all he cares about, all he wants. He has an agenda, he has a purpose for our lives, but it’s because he wants to connect to us. Jesus came to reconcile us back to him. That’s all he’s after is he wants our relationship, he wants to be with us, he wants to help us, he wants to be involved, he wants to help be the father who says this is good for your life. Go this direction. Let me advise you, let me show you, let me make a way for you. Let me all the ways that we somehow forget and think that he’s so distant and far away and doesn’t care and doesn’t. It’s like, no, he wouldn’t give up his son. It’s the scripture that how much more if he gave us his son? It’s like, what won’t he do for you, what won’t he come in and intervene for?

Yes, well, I’m thinking we’re winding down on time here, but I wanted to go back to the very beginning, because we’ve talked about the difficulties and we’ve talked about making it through those and that we can still bloom and flourish. And I want to do two things. I want to talk to those who feel like I’m not really. I’ve been hanging in there, I’m listening, I’m not really going through anything right now. How does this apply to me? The vanilla and and. And then also give us some practical things that you feel right now that the Holy Spirit’s prompting you. I know you get some practical things in the book. Just give us some practical things to be doing right now as we are blooming, as we are becoming, as we are turning into and manifesting the purpose that God has for our life.

0:49:30 – Cally Logan
I’d love to. I think those vanilla times are actually such gifts and we look back on it and it’s weird because we almost, even when you’re in a chaotic time, be that exciting chaotic or horrible chaotic you know you look back at the vanilla time and you’re like those were the good old days, weren’t they yeah.

You got a sweet tea and you’re on a porch or something in your mind, but I think it’s looking at it Okay. The vanilla time is either for two things either for rest, to rehabilitate, to to reset and to just breathe and to have that freedom. Or, god, what should I be doing to steward this time? Well, is there something that in this downtime that you want to do, you want to cultivate within me, me that I’m not doing? Maybe it’s a hobby, right? Or maybe it’s it’s what I call a hobby, you call it career, god, maybe it’s. You know something in that way. Maybe it’s reconciling past hurts, maybe it’s it’s working in a different way.

And I kind of had a very short vanilla time back in the spring. I came upon this, this one podcast, and I just I felt like I went from spiritually having kind of like milkshakes maybe not quite just milk, but milkshakes to just t-bone steaks for spiritual warfare equipping. And I thought, man, I just I just became like just like a glow from this podcast, because I’ve been looking for something like this and and I’m listening and I’m, I’m just eating it up and I feel like the Lord’s just given me all these arrows to have in my quiver for spiritual warfare and, oh, this is great, all this stuff I never knew. And then right after that it was like action and I had more spiritual warfare than I I think I ever have had in my whole life.

0:51:22 – Jaime Luce
And.

0:51:22 – Cally Logan
I thought man one. I was kind of longing for the vanilla days where I was yeah, but but two. I thought what a kindness he was allowing me to catch my breath and, in a safe kind of sandbox, equip, yeah. And so I think, looking at you might be in a vanilla time and think, well, either there’s going to be a time where you’re not in the vanilla time, so use it well, use it so that you’re being equipped or you’re resting.

Because, resting is equipping too, it’s recalibrating, it’s renewing, it’s having that soft season just to breathe and just to be.

So I think, use that time well, because that’s what I was going to say and I think I think for practical ways, I think some of them that I feel kind of led towards saying is really, look in your environment um, I even go in the book at the subtleties of your environment, even in where you’re, you know most of us don’t have some reality share budget to go renovate everything.

But even if you don’t, you have some sort of capacity, even if you’re, you’re just kind of gutting out things in your environment, saying, you know, that chair depresses me and I don’t know why I’m going to get rid of the chair and I will find a way to not have that chair. But that chair it just it kind of kills something in me, you know, and it sounds dumb, but it can actually have a huge impact. And even just going to Goodwill and looking, you know, like you know what this, this color, this this fuchsia color of this pillow makes me really happy. And yeah, three dollars and just putting that in there and having those little things, and I think our environment is a huge aspect and plays a bigger role than we realize. Um, so I encourage to really practically look at your environment, even just taking the time and folding those clothes that you had in that basket. That can make a difference and that’s free.

0:53:22 – Jaime Luce
Yeah.

0:53:22 – Cally Logan
And they can make a huge difference, or investing in your environments, because it does play an impact in what you’re living in the day to day. Otherwise, I would say, is you know, even looking at your clothes and the way like you, these really project who I am inside. Or is this me putting on someone on a knot? And literally wearing, you know, this costume of someone else and this is a false me. It’s like I don’t want to wear a costume anymore.

I want to actually be me and look like me and then it’s another practical way and I think it’s inviting Holy Spirit and saying Lord, please make me keenly aware of anything that needs to, to shift or to change, or maybe you want to work on in me. Well, it’s something in my family growing up that we did this one certain way, but it’s counter to what you actually have for me and for the generations after me, and and doing that work, and I think that vanilla time is the best time to do that.

0:54:17 – Jaime Luce
I love the thought of vanilla time because I I had a conversation many years ago with a very dear friend of mine, and when she said this because it was something she had studied it was like you can’t unhear it, you can’t unknow it. It’s forever in me and I have to remember because I can start to forget it. And then it will, it will come, and it was this that we tend to as Christians, especially if we’re on fire Christians, especially if we’re really serious about God. You know he talks about the zeal of the Lord. We’ve got the zeal and we’re wanting to make a difference, and we’re, you know. We know we have purpose and we’re wanting to do, do, do, do, do.

And she said you know, if you look at the lives of the people that God used all through scripture, other than the life, we have a really long picture of King David, from young boy to his death. But aside from his picture, we see people. You might get a snapshot, you get a, you get a a 30,000 foot piece of times in their life, right, but you’re not getting the zoomed in their whole life when you look at their whole life, though. If you look at Abraham, abraham was 70 when, when God told him to leave his father’s house 70, we know nothing about his whole life. And then all of a sudden he’s got to wait. You know he gets a word from God but then he has to wait another 20 years or whatever to to finally have what God told him. And what did he do during those 20 years? Like you get a word from God and then you’re waiting and it’s 20 years later. And she said he simply grew and multiplied naturally, like organically. It says he became a wealthy man and he was working his field and doing his normal stuff.

It’s like and I think of the women who are home raising kids. You know I had that season in my life and you’re so. That is so consuming. There’s not a whole lot else you can do. I mean, I did, I tried, but it’s like it’s consuming, you know, and that we can know that there are times that just seem like the in-between, it’s the dash in the middle of dates. It’s like what happened between this time and this time?

And it may just be very normal going to work and raising families and doing, even if you’re at church and you’re doing your normal routine of the stuff you go and do at church, that’s okay, we are’t. We are not a um, a oh. What kind of machine could I think of that just constantly has to pop off and be producing something, you know, where it’s not like. We’re constantly having to just produce where it’s not like, we’re not popcorn kernels on a popcorn and we just constantly have to be popping and something’s wrong. And if, if we’re not, you know. So we need to understand that there are seasons in life and there are vanilla times in life. And it doesn’t mean you’re not hearing from God, and it doesn’t mean that he’s not using you, and it doesn’t mean that there isn’t purpose and it doesn’t mean that you’ve missed it. It just means that you keep doing the last thing he told you to do until he tells you the next thing he tells you to do.

That’s right, that’s right, just stay the course. Another movie reference from the Patriot, you know, is just stay the course, stay the course and knowing that God will be faithful, that during those times, thank goodness, nothing more is required of me right now, you know, I thank goodness. If something is required of me right now, you know, I thank goodness. If something is and I’m and I need to be about it, then I need to be about it. But we would know, even if we were watching a friend or a child or someone that we’re close to, and if they’re just running and burning the candle at both ends and and it doesn’t seem like it’s for any reason other than to just be busy and thinking that they have to constantly be producing. You know, the beauty about the way that God multiplies is that his multiplication is exponential. It’s not constantly adding two plus two plus two plus two plus two plus two. It’s two becomes four, four became eight, eight became. You know it’s. It’s the exponential growth. So it’s not that what I’m doing necessarily is any different. He can be producing and growing what’s already been planted and what’s already been done by my hands and we’re still accomplishing for his kingdom. We’re still being a witness for him. We’re still giving him glory for wherever we are in our life, and I so I love, I love that. I love that you brought in the vanilla, because I so many times we make it about the all the busy, busy, got to do, got to do, and and it’s it’s.

I believe it was Joyce Meyer, who many people have said it, but she kind of is remembered for enacting it at one of her meetings. But she said I can’t be an apple tree and stand there and think apples push the apples out. I can’t force them out, they will just grow and appear. That’s because the apple tree will do what it was intended to do it will produce apples. And so if we know who we are in Christ, then we will become who he has designed us to become, as long as we stay.

If I’m using a tree example, stay rooted. If I’m using the gifts of the spirit, I’m staying connected, I’m not disengaging. If I’m remaining in a relationship. Jesus said that you remain in me, you’ll be my disciples. It’s like if you do what I tell you to do and you stay with me, just stay with me, just stay connected to me, and we’ll be okay. You’ll be okay, I’ll take care of it. Even when it’s hard, even when there’s a storm, even when there’s fire and there’s pruning and there’s difficult times, he’s not turning loose of us. We just need to make sure not to turn loose of him. Amen, amen. Do you have any final things that you’d like to add?

1:00:41 – Cally Logan
I just love this conversation so much. Oh, man, I think just to encourage people. You know that God has so much more in store for you than you can ask for, think, for hope, for imagine, and, as we were saying, off air, just you know, who knows what the tide will bring.

1:01:03 – Jaime Luce
Yes, I forgot to bring that up.

1:01:04 – Cally Logan
up, that’s one of my favorite things. But uh, but I think you know I I loved what you had said off there about you know, so much can happen in a day and I love the sudden leaves of god. I I really do feel like that’s a that’s a pertinent thing to encourage people with. Is is don’t underestimate him. Yes, just because you haven’t seen it yet doesn’t mean he’s not doing, and I love.

I was talking with a dear friend the other day about the mystery of God and this morning I was praying about it. I was always praying into some of the things that I feel like he’s doing in my life behind the scenes and I’m such a curious person and I’m like, but I want to know. But then thinking how the mystery is such an invitation to to not limit him, because in that mystery it could be so much more than we could think of or imagine that he’s doing behind the scenes. And so the mystery is trusting him in the hidden work and trusting him for when he’s going to bring that forward and when that’s going to be just something glorious and you’re going to say, man, I’m glad, I trust the god?

1:02:10 – Jaime Luce
yeah, because he is the god of the. Suddenly he is the one that in the prison, and all of a sudden you’re shaved and standing before Pharaoh and become second in command, and it’s just like that. And that is the hope that we have. He is the God of suddenlies and he still does miracles and he still makes a way, and he’s still the answer. Whatever we have, he’s still the answer. How can people get a hold of your book?

1:02:39 – Cally Logan
Oh man, it’s available everywhere. Books are sold so Amazon, barnes and Noble christianbookcom there’s links on my website. It’s Callie with a C and a Y logancom. And then definitely connect with me on Instagram and all those different things I love sharing, like God stories on there and just in those things A lot like what our conversation was today. I love sharing my stories, stories on there and and just in those things a lot like what our conversation was today. I love sharing, you know, my stories, other people’s stories, stuff like that.

1:03:06 – Jaime Luce
Yeah.

1:03:07 – Cally Logan
Yeah, and I also write for crosswalks, so I have articles just about every week. Okay, yeah.

1:03:14 – Jaime Luce
Awesome. Well, this has been a treat. Callie, thank you so much for joining us today, and I’m going to go ahead and just close this out in prayer, and I love it, amen. So thank you, father, for this time, this conversation. I pray your blessing over Callie and the work of her hands that you have had her to do, authoring your story through her life in this way.

So we just give you praise and thanks for that, father. We ask that you would take this message and that you would touch the hearts of the hearers today and that each one would be able to glean from, and hang on to, the promise that you are faithful and you will do what you have promised to them, and that they don’t have to fear whatever storm they may be going through, whatever difficulty they may be facing. You are there with them, you will take them through and you will remove whatever was a hindrance in their way in order to set them up and place them in the place that you have designed for them, where they will flourish and be able to be who they were called to be born to be. So we give you all the praise and the thanks for that today. In Jesus’ name, we pray Amen, amen.

Well, thanks again, kelly, for being with us today. I encourage everybody, go ahead and get on your social media, follow her there, get a hold of her book, be encouraged. And she’s got other books, not just this one, so you may want to check those out as well, and we will see you all next time. Thanks for tuning in today. Thank you, okay, bye-bye, bye.