Today's Heartlift with Janell

343. How Our Stories Form Our Souls

• Janell Rardon • Episode 343

Share episode

Send us a text

Pull up a chair at the Dim Sum Table and discover why your story—every tender, tangled part—holds real weight. Janell welcomes Jenn Suen Chen, author of Dim Sum and Faith: How Our Stories Form Our Souls, to explore how faith, family history, and formation weave together, not as a self-help checklist but as a lived way of being shaped by Scripture.

Jenn introduces a four-part arc for spiritual growth—shaping, undoing, awakening, remaking—and shows why the “undoing” we avoid is often where God does His gentlest work. We unpack migration as more than immigration: movement across generations under pressure from war, economics, and longing. Naming those movements reduces shame, expands compassion, and builds what Jenn calls emotional elasticity in our home cultures. Along the way, we sit with a disarming truth from her son: “We don’t get to choose what our brain calls hard.” That single line frees us from comparison, inviting honest prayer: Jesus, show me where You are here.

Visit Jenn Suen Chen's website: Jenn

Order Jenn's new book: Dim Sum and Faith

Support the show

Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:

  1. Visit and subscribe to Heartlift Central on Substack. This is our new online coaching center and meeting place for Heartlifters worldwide.
  2. Download the "Overcoming Hurtful Words" Study Guide PDF: BECOMING EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY
  3. Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon
  4. Leave a review and rate the podcast: WRITE A REVIEW
  5. Learn more about my books and work: Janell Rardon
  6. Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
SPEAKER_02:

As I've listened to the stories of thousands of women of all ages, in all kinds of stages, through the years, I've kept their stories locked in the vault of my heart. I feel as if they've been walking around with me all through these years. They've bothered me, they've prauded me, and sometimes kept me up at night. Ultimately, they've increased my passion to reframe and reimagine the powerful positions of mother and matriarch within the family system. I'm a problem solver, so I set out to find a way to perhaps change the trajectory of this silent and sad scenario about a dynamic yet unattacked source of potential and purpose, sitting in our homes and churches. It is time to come to the table, heartlifters, and unleash the power of maternal presence into the world. Welcome to Mothering for the Ages, our 2025 theme here on today's Heartlift. I'm Janelle. I am your guide here on this heartlifting journey. I invite you to grab a pen, a journal, and a cup of something really delicious. May today's conversation give you clarity, courage, and a revived sense of camaraderie. You see, you're not on this journey alone. We are unified as heartlifters and committed to bringing change into the world. One heart at a time. An invitation to Dim Sum and Faith. How our stories form our souls by Jen Suen Chen. An invitation to the Dim Sum Table. Ethnic values and racial constructs impact our growing up. Our nationalities and the places we call home affect who we are and the privileges we share. We should think about our family's migration story, including the circumstances of our grandparents' and parents' childhoods, and how they got to where they are now. I want to read this again. We should think about our family's migration story, including the circumstances of our grandparents' and parents' childhoods, and how they got to where they are now. I'm adding that I've never heard it said that way. And I think that the way that Jen is saying that to all of us, no matter where we are on our journey, whether we're in our 20s or our 60s, or maybe even in our 80s. Now is the time to consider our family's migration story. War often pushes people out of their home countries, beginning the ripples of trauma that are often passed on intergenerationally. Consider the impact on us if our grandparents or parents fled a war. How can we come to the table together with all that we are? Our stories, our histories, our pain, and our joys. She invites us to slowly read through Psalm 139, verses one through six. Oh Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts, even when I'm far away. You see me when I travel or when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You, God, know everything I do. You even know what I'm going to say before I say it, Lord. You go before me and you follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand. What passage or picture stands out as you read this passage? What invitation might God be extending to you through this word or picture from the passage? Bring that to God in prayer as we enter this conversation now. Dim sum and faith. So welcome, Jen. We are so thankful to have you here today and to be among this heartlifting community with your wisdom, your grace, and your profound words that you've written in this lovely new book. So welcome.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much for having me today.

SPEAKER_02:

You are so welcome. I have to ask because quite honestly, Jen, I don't know what dim sum is. And I really didn't look it up so that I would just hear what you have to say about it. And I was the minute I saw the name of the book, I'm like, I'm so in with the subtitle, How Our Stories Form Our Souls. So what is dim sum? And if I'm gonna sit at a dim, am I saying it correctly? Number one, and number two, if I'm gonna sit at a dim sum table, I want to see it in my mind's eye and imagine what that's gonna look like.

SPEAKER_01:

Imagine um walking into a restaurant. It's always typically out, and you're walking to a restaurant, it's lots of tables, mostly round. There's some tables of four to six, but mostly round eight to ten. Okay. Families gathered around, so it's like intergenerational. It's grandparents, it's moms and dads and their children. A lot of times it is friends, but a lot of times when you go out, you're gonna see a mix like an intergenerational table. Oh, I love that. Lots of small dishes, um, steaming, piping hot dishes. Um, old school would be they'd push them out on carts and you'd get to pick out what you wanted. Oh sweet and savory. Roots in southern China, Hong Kong. Um, so you have baked, steamed goods, you have noodles, dumplings of all sorts. And um yeah, it's a it's a kid's dream because you get to have dessert at any point. And if you're out with like lots of people, they're not paying attention to the dishes you're grabbing from the cart, and it doesn't matter because everyone's so happy. Um it was it was a real communal event. It's you know, as a kid, I think growing up in the States, realizing like before I had a chance to go to Asia, and I was 12 on my first trip to Asia, so that things started to make sense a little bit when I went. But I think juggling the cultures and bridging it, I think dim sum felt um so different than the way you that the normal American family eats Easter meals. But it was it was it's um yeah, but it's one of generosity, it's one where you're it's about the other, it's about who's in front of you, it's about um honor and respect, it's about listening. And um, it's loud. You cannot go into a restaurant and not be loud. So I think it kind of is it was a perfect metaphor, I think, in terms of life and the messiness and the awkwardness, and um yeah, yeah, that was the context in which um yeah, part of the context of that framed my story.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that so much. So there would be a dedicated dim sum restaurant.

SPEAKER_01:

It would yeah, and you only serve it like at noon. It's really typical. Like it's like it's a it's a noon, like brunch to mid-afternoon. A lot of the dim sum restaurants will close and get ready for dinner. Um they don't typically serve it at dinner.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, I I'm going to have to have it. You know that. I'm going to search around my my wherever. Um I'm sure there is at least one in your city. There has to be. I am assured of that. If not, when I travel, I will look for a restaurant. And that would be so much fun to experience it after reading this book for sure. Why does my story matter? Why does our story matter, Jen? Help us uh illuminate that for us.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. You know, I think um beginning in the scriptures in Psalm 139, which is the passage that frames the whole book, you know, we our lives are laid over the text. We don't take the text and try and fit it into our lives. Oh our lives are we we take our lives and we bring it into the text, which is the scriptures, and that has to inform our starting place.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. Can you maybe take that a one step further?

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

What does that mean to lay our life? And I love your movement being a dancer myself, like laying our lives over the movement of that scripture. Is that how you said that?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I I think what I've been trying to just describe is that our you know, our lives, scripture has to it has to be everything. It has to be our blueprint, right? So a lot of times we take scripture and we try to fit it into our lives. We try to we try to make sense of things. So we go and we we try and grab a scripture to to hand out to someone who's hurting, or we we um we try to do that for ourselves. But I think that the rever we are we need to live as people who are being formed by the text, by the scripture. And the word of God has to be has to tell us the meaning and purpose of our lives. We don't just all of a sudden need to know it and then we open up the scriptures and we're looking. Please, you know, yeah. So I can I can somehow make some sense. This the scriptures help us make sense of what it is. And I think when I was been meditating on Psalm 139 for so long, and that we are searched and we are known that if there's a factual knowledge that God has of us, but there's also relational knowledge. When Jesus says that He is, He knows what's in the hearts of man, there's this factual knowledge, but in our relational, His relational knowledge of us, it's only because we are in relationship with Him. Yes, correct. That's right. So I think that that piece is it so this idea that the scriptures invite us to map our lives onto the text.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh that is a vision I really imagined with God there.

SPEAKER_03:

Just really saw a beautiful picture.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh my goodness. Yeah. Of our literal map of our lives over scriptures.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. And then it begins to inform. So when it says you you formed my inmost being and knitted me together in my mother's room, I'm fearfully appraised you for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. My soul, in the depths of my soul, whether it is something I remember all the time, but in the depths of my soul, my soul knows this very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in the secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my it my unformed substance. And in your book were written all my days. All my days even before there was one of them. The psalmist knew this is the this is it. And he says, How precious are your thoughts towards me? His thoughts towards us are precious. How vast are the sum of them? If I were to count them, they would be more than the sand. And he says, When I wake, I am still with you. And I think there's if we just let that just inform in those moments when we wonder, does our life count? Did you make a mistake? Can I just have another story, please? I mean, all of us. Every listener, at some point in our life, we wish for a different story. Boy, that's it. And I think um, as I was writing, I think it was just like it's just like you're we're we're just looking for words to articulate what's going on, right? And I think um we're combating the lies that come at us all day long that assault us over our worth, over our value, over our identity, which has been given to us already by God already. Yeah. So that is what informs us. This is what we we put our lives and we map it on. Um, I would say then your story matters, and everyone listening, your story matters, and mine does too.

SPEAKER_02:

Um how many of us have found, especially um I've been having some great conversations, you know, about this historical time that we're living in, but how principles and the principalities and powers of darkness have been the same. You know, they they've they're the same. The same principalities and powers of darkness are swirling and whirling and twirling all over the world the same way they have 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, 2,000 years ago. The grave difference being this whole digital world that we live in our access being 24-7, you know, and uh knowing exactly what's going on in every other part of the world. Not not exactly wrong adverb there, right? Having hints and seeing visuals that we would not have seen, you know, even 25 years ago. Right. So I think that uh that that line that can I or that question, can I please have somebody else's story is ever more present. Uh so it's it's even more critical that we answer that primary question, why does my story matter?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Through the context of Psalm 139, Ephesians 1, so many others that say how valuable my life is Genesis 2, 7, God breathed his virtue, his very character into us.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

We shouldn't need to spend a whole lot of time understanding why our story matters, but yeah, we do. And then being sure to guard uh that we don't fall down Satan's well, his abyss of darkness of why can't I have somebody else's story? Because my story personally really just sucks. I don't know. I don't know a better word.

SPEAKER_01:

No, absolutely. You know, absolutely, especially in the darkest moments when we're, you know, I'd say, if anything, our stories have contained probably more moments of darkness and and challenge and pain than we would like to admit. And some of us have found a way through it to tell ourselves we sometimes tell ourselves a different story. And sometimes we do that to get through. And I think you know, it's okay, right?

SPEAKER_03:

It's a well-honed coping strategy, as you write. It is well-honed coping strategy, yes.

SPEAKER_02:

And you know, uh slowly but surely, uh, God in his mercy and his gentleness, because that leads us to repentance, right? He will begin to take away our well-honed coping strategies so that we become fully, fully dependent and interdependent with him. You have the book so beautifully crafted into four movements and or four parts, as you say. I always think in movement. Part one being shaping. Love it. Part two, I want to talk a lot more about this. We don't talk about this a lot. Undoing. Unlearning is another way of saying that.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Or undoing and unlearning, possibly very different as well. Part three, awakening. And I love how you let me see, you have awakening, and the first movement to study in that that part is slowing down to notice. So we'll come back to that. And then part four, remaking. So well-selected words. How long did that take you as a writer? I have to ask. Or was it just like this is the movement, this is how it goes?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, it honestly was one afternoon. Okay, I love it. And I would, that's why I just think it's just Holy Spirit. He gave me the picture. Yeah. Um, I've been thinking a lot about, you know, whether we look at our seasons of our life, you know, the spring, summer, fall, winter. Um, there's people that have talked about like the stages of growth for a believer that are cyclical in nature, um, descriptive, not prescriptive. But I thought, you know, some of it feels complex. And I think in my way of thinking metaphorically, it felt like this. Um I think we return, we return to these places, these waypoints. Oh, um I think there's such a uh there's such a hurriedness, I think, that I when I meet with people, people say, I shouldn't be struggling with this still, you know, or I I should be better, I should know. Um that it really is this can be so paralyzing in our faith journey. Yes. When we think we should be where we're where we're not, or we don't want to be where we are. So I think this I was trying to think of a picture of just that would bring about more spaciousness in terms of I don't think that God is as fussed as we think He is. Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't think he's he's I don't think he's as fussed as we are. I love that, Jen. That is, I'm gonna be using that so much now. I don't think he's as fussed as we are. That's so good.

SPEAKER_01:

We just don't understand. We just don't, we just have no concept because we are yeah, we're uh results driven. We are so works and accomplishment and determined, like we're we are what we do kind of people. And we are so I think when I was thinking about my own journey when I've done just my own story, and then I thought to your point on the undoing piece, I think it's so we're so under like we don't have a very robust theology around that space, which includes suffering.

SPEAKER_02:

I love every last thing you just said. We need to develop a robust theology around the principles of undoing and unlearning and lament would fall into that, I suppose. There has been more coming out on lament, and I'm happy to see that, but not so much on this word undoing. I've only had one podcast out of 350 some now, where I've talked about unlearning and undoing. And so I'm so happy to have your voice add to the conversation because it is something you've experienced firsthand. Can you share an experience for us at this moment of undoing for you? Uh share as much or as little, but just helping us to maybe really. I love that you want us to imagine with God. I'm going to keep referring to that. It's you're really asking us to come into this baptized imagination which God gave us. And so this picture of undoing. I have my own, but I'm so curious.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, there's really fresh moments. Um, and then there's just this constant. There's been there's been just some constant ones that remind me of where I've been. Um, I think early on when I first left, moved overseas um as a young mom and young wife, and with a pretty, I don't I wouldn't say I was idealistic in any anyway. I I think I imagined the worst in that I just thought, I don't think I'm gonna be able to do this. And everyone expects that I'm gonna be able to live cross-culturally and be able to do this life that um feels like everyone put us on a pedestal and they wanted us there because if you you can put someone else there, then you don't have to be there. Move to China with a two-year-old and one on the way, and um gosh. Or have mercy. I was yes. I think I I realized like I I don't actually have the tools to to make this journey. I don't think I can do this next lake without honesty. And I don't think I can think my way through. I can't memorize enough scripture or fast my way through. I can't pray my way through. I can't, and I it required I wrote that it required something that I didn't think I had, which was honesty. Honesty about life and how hard it actually had been to grieve the pain to call lost, lost and to go there with Jesus. So I was in my mid-20s, that was my first, I would say, honest encounter. And then I think through the years, like I think losses and crises, they always they they're moments, they're invitations. They and I write that. Like the Chinese word for crisis is like it's it's opportunity. And I don't mean that in like some like um, you know, let's just be optimistic and and um oh no it's hard.

SPEAKER_02:

Positivity or no, it's not positive manifestation. It's it's the Chinese word has two um yeah, two meaningful two symbols, right? Within the one word crisis. And so it one is danger, yeah, and one is opportunity. And you write about it page 75 and 76 so brilliantly. And tell us more. So here, here we are. I mean, you can't crisis is a dangerous situation, circumstance, relationship, somewhere where we find ourselves in a state of panic or in a state of fawn, which is I'm just gonna stay in bed. I can't lift my head off my pillow. I am frozen. And so, but the other symbol is an extension, it's opportunity. It's mind-blowing. I learned that so many years ago, and I thought, oh, I even bought a picture of the, you know, this the symbol and the calligraphy. It was gorgeous. And you're writing about that again at such a time as this, because I don't think I don't think we're gonna get away from danger. I I just don't, I don't want to be a doomsayer. No, but goodness gracious, you can't go shop in a Target at three in the afternoon, you know, uh, without being uh watchful at seemingly uh non-risk situations. So yeah, we're not being uh what's the word? Um worst case scenario people. That's not what but this is life. So life offers us danger, but there are there is an invitation within that of opportunity. Yeah. And what does that look like for you? What did that look like for you being able to look? You know, hindsight is always 2020, and you're writing from that space in the beginning of the book with your journey in China. So how does how do you see that now, like as the older woman?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you know, I think I would I have so many more words around things now. I think the dangers, the fear of failure, the fear of disappointing people, the fear of looking bad, the fear of disappointing God. Oh man. Where things feel fragile, where you're I think if we found words for it, you know, I was sitting with the Lord last year, just holding something that felt painful, just a um an internal crisis that was that I've carried around just about a relationship that I love, but that feels fragile. That's the word. And um I felt like the Lord just said to me, honey, it's not as fragile as you think. Oh and I just remember just weeping, like it feels so fragile, like it all rests on me. That I can break it in a moment, and I'm so scared to break it. Dear friend, it's a dear friend, and I I I just tread carefully. I don't know how to love, and I want to love well. But I but in that I feel like it I'm a person that feels an over sense of responsibility for things, and um I mean if you couldn't read it in the book, it's just it's it's more of a confession of like, I think I can help.

SPEAKER_00:

I think I can save. I think you need me. And I think you need me. There you go.

SPEAKER_02:

So good. Everyone lean in. That's our lean-in moment because I'm at that most women are right now going, yeah, I think I think you need me.

SPEAKER_01:

I think you need me. And I'm scared. I'm scared if I'm honest. There's a little girl in me that feels very scared that um either I won't have what it takes, that I might break it, it might be my fault, that I could have prevented it. And we don't use these words, right? So we use bigger words that actually are not precise. Yes. But the precise words are I'm really scared. Yeah. And Lord, I and to bring that, I think in our undoing moments, it just is that it's like if we could feel that, if we could hear him say, Come close, because I'm coming close to you. So the danger feels real, but more real than that is the presence of God. Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to the heavens, if I make my bed and fail, if I say, Surely the darkness will cover me, right? This his word informs so darkness is as light with you, the psalmist says. That's right. If that is true, then more true than the how fragile I feel or how scared I feel. If I'm just honest, like I don't I don't want people to hurt, I don't want the people I love to hurt, I don't want pain from for anybody. I three weeks ago, well, a month ago, we welcomed our first granddaughter. Oh, and um she's just angry.

SPEAKER_03:

Congratulations!

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

In love, this gave me chills, I know that's so so lovely.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, I was sitting with my, you know, I'm with her, and I'm with my son, and watching heart rate watching. Baby Harry, watching contractions, and watching and I'm just I'm terrified. I am terrified. The one I birthed, the one I we birthed in prayer, and then the one that we've prayed for together, right? And I'm scared. And I wow at one point in this moment, like these 46 hours of labor that I witnessed.

SPEAKER_02:

You were in the labor room as the paternal grandmother.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing. And that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02:

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

It's really, really sweet.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, it is. That's precious, actually.

SPEAKER_01:

And I was thinking of this birthing of spaciousness in me that God's been doing, right? So it's like the honesty that's that the honesty then turns into fruitful. I think it turns into authenticity is a fruit. For sure. Absolutely. So then there's this space within to be able to say, Lord, I my own fears I release to you. We look at them. We look at them and go, I fear. Yeah. I see you. And I'm scared, Lord. But in turn, and I think in the undoing, it doesn't mean that hard won't happen. It doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that there won't be pain. So that also means that it's fragile, but not as fragile as I think. Because God is here. And it feels dark, but in the darkness he's here. So all these things hold there, we hold all these things to be true. And I think we just have to say them all out loud. Without a doubt. Yes. Right? And we need the company of another to say with me or to say for me. That's correct. And to bear witness. Jen, I see you holding on. Janelle, I see you holding on. And I will hold on with you. Yeah. Right. This undoing is so terrifying if we thought of it as we're alone.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I think the darkness, that's where the aloneness you you feel it most. Yes. Right? Because it's it's dark. And then that's why they call it the dark night of the soul. Because the most anguishing, to me, the most anguishing moments are in the middle of the night when it's not anything but dark. And everything looks different at the dawn, you know, for sure. Everything. Everything looks different once the sun rises. And so, but it is in those moments that you're writing, you're encouraging, you're inciting us, you're giving us your story. To me, that's where my soul is formed. I mean, you say formational. That's what you're like, it's a formation journey. I love, like, I would have I would be called a prescriptive writer. Well, I am transitioning that too, because I love being a formational writer, like being someone who is associated with formula, formattio, you know, formation. And I love that you you write that, that this is a formation journey, hence the shaping, then the undoing. It's very potter clay, like shaping, pounding down, you know, undoing. The potter's gotta undo it because it's not right. And then awakening it and then remaking it. So I love that. It's on page 25, and you're you're writing, you're writing. And then I wrote down, why did your son say? He says this incredible statement. We don't get to choose what our brain calls hard. Is this the same son or a different son? That is that is my oldest, yeah. Why did your son say that? We don't get to choose, other than he's like a really deep philosopher kind of guy. We don't get to choose what our brain calls hard. What does that mean? I'm so perplexed and intrigued. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, you can have you know, six in a family, four, four kids, and they all go through a similar event, and each of them choose something of that event that they do feels hard.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And we we so don't want it to be hard. We so don't want that to be a painful memory. I so don't want to be the villain in anybody's story.

SPEAKER_02:

I know, especially your children.

SPEAKER_01:

I know. Right.

SPEAKER_02:

And they all perceive differently.

SPEAKER_01:

It's just crazy. Right. And so I think we were he was actually leading a devotional for an event we did last year, and he said that, and I just looked at him and I thought he was doing story stuff with young adults. And oh I thought, here's my boy that we've done. Lots of repair, lots of conversation. So many tears. And I wasn't ready for it when you know if anybody listening has, you know, an 18-year-old or maybe they start younger, but he, you know, left for college and the conversations began. Yes. So yes. Here we are.

SPEAKER_02:

Adulting is hard. Yeah. But they're not little anymore, you know, they're grown-ups. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm so grateful that I get to be present too, but it requires this. The book was written, you know, really as it's it's an ongoing, it's a living, yes, a living document.

SPEAKER_02:

So emotional.

SPEAKER_01:

With my kids, I would say we're still on it. We're still listening. We're still here. And I'm someone said, Wow, you're brave to let them talk to you like that. And I thought, oh, they talk with such love and such love. Sometimes there's a lot of emotion. And yeah, I want to say, I'm here for it, honey. I'm, you know, buckling up.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you, Jen. No, I love it because I said the same. And then what you hear is very hard.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And they're like, you said we could say it. I'm like, yes, I know, but that's not softening the blow. Yeah. And it's self-examination as parents to a point. Yes. Correct.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And uh it's not easy to find camaraderie as adult parents, I don't think, because we don't have the privilege of being a young mommy blogger with littles, right? We have to actually get permission. And it needs to be ethical storytelling in that. So I appreciate your honesty. Yeah. Because that would have been the son that was a wee little thing when you moved to China when you put in a desperate place. So of course he's going to, and he sounds very empathic in writing. You're writing about him, although he must be very left-brained as well to be in an ER. So he's got this beautiful combination of brain power. So for him to say we don't get to choose what our brain calls hard. Wow. How did he offer that? I'd love to just know how you saw him offer that as a point of encouragement, as a point of reality. Chemistry. Invitation. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Invitation to say. Yeah. It's okay. It's okay if you what we want to say is be thankful. Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, gratitude.

SPEAKER_01:

At least you didn't, blah blah blah. At least we have. At least it's not this. Right. And I think I as a as a young mom, I so wanted to, you know, you know, I write, I write in there, like, I so I wanted to chase away a complaining heart. I remember one lens. Oh yeah. It's so my second son. My second son is um equally direct. And my k my kids are amazing, but my my boys, they they keep me humble. Oh yes. Um my second son said to me, We were in land and we were all like, what are we gonna give up with Land's? Well, I'm gonna give up complaining. Oh, thinking we're having a moment, you know. And he looks at me, he's probably like eight or nine, and he goes, Oh, isn't that what we're supposed to always be doing?

SPEAKER_00:

Like, always we're supposed to always be giving up complaining. And I thought, that's yeah, do everything without it. Yeah, mom's just gonna be a little bit more honest.

SPEAKER_01:

So I think that one of my kids I think the invitation to say it's okay. It's okay if that memory you have around the table or at home or at school or was hard, and it's you can't think your way through. It's still painful. Yes, still has painful. Even though blink, it's okay because Jesus is here, and that I will keep saying is he's here. And I just want it, and I sometimes can't find him, and I just need just Jesus to show me where he was. Yes, for sure. And we do that all the time with the kids when they were little, when they'd have a bed, we'd have a bad memory or we'd have a moment and we'd just sit and listen and just say, Jesus, would you show us where you are here? Where you are, yeah, would you show us where you are?

SPEAKER_02:

I don't feel it.

SPEAKER_01:

And I still need him to do that for me.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, regularly. Yeah, for sure. Yes. You call that, you say, well, page 26. I just have these, I I could have read every page in every sentence. Home culture. I I loved, I read at the beginning uh the introduction, Jen. At the end of your introduction, you write at the dim sum table, dim sum, that we should think about our family's migration story. Now, I've never heard it put that way. Maybe I have, but you're putting it in a way that is very tangible, sharing your own story and your family's story, including the circumstances of our grandparents' and parents' childhoods and how they got to where they are now. Well, you know, and then you continue to talk about war pushing. But I wrote down home culture on the next page. Home culture is defined as the place of our primary relationships. This requires emotional elasticity. So you're prodding me. I'm gonna put a whole program, a whole episode on emotional elasticity. I've never talked about it as a whole episode. And so I will do that because I want to hone in more on why you think uh that it's so important to have a framework. You may not need to know every dot and tittle, every little thing. And uh, especially if your parents have come from childhood trauma, which both my husband and I have. And so then you do your very best not to pass on the trauma and to stand in uh the gap. But then the adult children, it, you know, it they're still remnants, and some don't want to even think about it, or well, that shouldn't be my problem. Like I said that to my to my parents, an alcoholic father. Like your alcoholism shouldn't be my problem, but now I now it is because I'm an adult child of an alcoholic, so I have things to deal with. Yeah. But why do you write that you feel like it is important to embrace that and to have that emotional elasticity around it? Because at the end of the day, I think the what I concluded was page 31. What does home feel like for you? Yeah. It it your book is so it's such a movement and a work and a it's process driven to me. So I was like, oh, why does my story matter? Because it's a formational journey. And then, you know, you just are laying out home. I write a lot about home and family. So I it's why I think I'm just love it so much because you're really giving me more tools and more uh verbiage and vernacular to be able to share why I think home is so important and why your story matters. So thank you, thank you, thank you. As someone who works with a lot of families and a lot of homes. Yeah. So what does home feel like? You feel like that's an important question. I have asked you 10 questions. I am so sorry.

SPEAKER_01:

Don't even worry. I'm I'm processing that right when I'm talking. Okay, I love it to know.

SPEAKER_02:

Then why lean or learn our family history? Okay, there you go.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I think because my I think not even I didn't want to use immigration as the word. Like migration is the word because it's movement. It is. So I think if we think about our families generationally moved, yeah, and not just not just um as a Chinese American, I'd say all of our families generationally have moved. So unless we are indigenous here, which I'd say the indigenous people still moved. They did. They first nations people still had to move. They were pushed out and they were so I think we the acknowledgement that we have always been a moving people. I love that word migration. That extends us, I think it maybe hopefully extends grace to that. We're not just talking about a problem. That's correct, or we're not just talking about one moment and that there were so many circumstances. And I think it just makes it more human. Like I think when we think about like my family, my parents are more recent immigrants to the US, but their migration story was pushed out from war from in China, and and so what happened there that required so many to move. So I think if we what happens is I I think there's parts of our story that we deem unworthy and deem we can say at the very least it's uninteresting, which I don't think so, but I think we've told ourselves a story about our story about that. Oh, yes, right? Yes, and then I think we cut off parts of ourselves that we think either embarrassing or shameful, right? So for you to say my my parents had a lot of trauma, and that's really painful to say my father was an alcoholic. There's so much in that statement, Janelle, that would say you have endured so much heartache, but he had heartache.

SPEAKER_05:

He did, right?

SPEAKER_01:

And then what propelled him into that that propelled right? So I think it's correct. Perhaps could it be if our growth and journey would lead us to become more spacious people, where there's like that deep compassion, is because I've come to discover the grace and love of God for me. And then as I do that, like it turns into an honest and grace and love for others.

SPEAKER_02:

It's so much empathy, it's oozing out of you.

SPEAKER_01:

So I think there's it just you know, when we're when we're the only or we feel like we're the only person that maybe had this, then it keeps us in hiding, which I write about is like out of the garden, right? So why know our story? I don't think we have to know everything. I think so either. But I think with the Lord, it's like Lord, would you show me? Would you show me what I need to know? That's okay. For right now, this moment.

SPEAKER_02:

That's so great.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm having a moment with my kids or my husband or with my friend, or I'm being triggered is a word we use often, at work or at wherever it is I'm being triggered. What just happened? Yes. Would there be anything like I I think you know, there's we can do healing prayer with the Lord in ourselves in a moment, right? Oh yes. What would you want me to know? What would and I think that the family story helps us realize that we're part of something so much bigger.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it's the dim sum table. Right. It you just said it when we started, and we don't do that. It's just rare. Maybe Thanksgiving, maybe, maybe, maybe Christmas. Maybe, maybe, but not on a regular Sunday afternoon do we all come to the dim sum table. So I I just I love tables. I'm obsessed with tables and decorating tables. I love tables as well.

SPEAKER_03:

I love tables.

SPEAKER_02:

And so I love that every chapter ends with come to the dim sum table. I just can't wait to find one. But I think you would, yeah. Oh, go, go, no, add.

SPEAKER_01:

No, no, I would add that family, like if we think biological family is one. But I think when we think kingdom family and to those of you who would say, I but I don't have the generational stories. I would say, but we have them within the kingdom of God, within the family of God. What are the ways in which we can be family to each other? Who are the grandparents? And even the great-grandparents, who are the aunties and the uncles, right? That are around us. How can we be that for one another? Yeah. A sister, a brother, a you know. So I think that I want to extend that metaphor of family and the table to so much more descriptive of a way in which we live in community with one another.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, Christ tells us, I mean, you know, he sets the solitary in the midst of family. It's it's a beautiful biblical metaphor all the way through, and you know, always setting, uh making room for everyone at the table. I love that so much. So we we learn from our family history, and to me, that is uh part of the glue. So that's why I do uh love you bringing this here. You also, I'm just gonna, I wrote some things down that were just so profound to me, and we won't have time to go through them all. So you are just gonna have to have a small group that has dim sum and reads dim sum in faith. But you talk about the unknown parts of our hearts, Jen. And you give a lot of uh time and words to that idea and that thought as we're awakening, as we're uh remaking and the unknown parts of our hearts. That would be part of one Psalm 139 as well, correct? Search my heart and know me. But what what are you trying to invite us into when it comes to these unknown parts of our hearts?

SPEAKER_01:

I want to invite readers into the love of God. I think when Paul says that together with all the saints, you may know the height and breadth and length and depth of the love of God.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I think we're scared of what we might find. I think we're our own darkness, I think we're most scared of. So we hide, we mask up, we we pretend we're okay, we tell ourselves we are.

SPEAKER_02:

And um take pride in it, actually.

SPEAKER_01:

We do.

SPEAKER_02:

I take such great pride in my high functioning.

SPEAKER_01:

You know what? Truly. Until two weeks ago when I was a yes, I broke my toe three weeks ago, and then just who has time for this? And on Tuesday, just two days ago, I went into urgent care, and she was like, it's broken. I was like, Are you kidding?

SPEAKER_03:

You are watching your book. It was just it was bothered.

SPEAKER_01:

The Lord is so funny because you know, girlfriends that know me well are just like just sending me this word, one word.

SPEAKER_02:

Um not getting lost on us, Jen. No.

SPEAKER_00:

And so thankfully I had my the doctor was a woman and the radiologist was a woman, and and um the nurse was a woman, and they looked at me, they were like, of course.

SPEAKER_01:

Who has time for a broke? Apparently, you need all five toes.

SPEAKER_03:

Apparently, I w which toe was it? It's just my I don't even it's the fourth one, and I think it's just my fourth toe.

SPEAKER_01:

No, right, super unimportant. And um, I think I was working out on it. It was hurting, and I thought, yeah, you know, this is ridiculous. So it is funny, the unknown parts, right? So all of a sudden you're like, I have a toe, and it hurts. I didn't know I had a toe a lot. I know that was I didn't realize that fourth one was actually important. And so I think it's just you know, if you can't if you don't have a specific, I'm glad you have one. You just heard here we are. Are you supposed to be traveling? Oh yes, yes.

unknown:

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01:

They gave me this really ugly shoe, and I was like, what?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, I'm gonna do a book signing with this. No, not too sure about that.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my gosh, this is so you know, you're just like, what am I gonna find? And then you find it's okay. It's not as bad because he's here. Yes, not a moment of our lives unknown to him, not a part of our hearts unknown or scary that he's not scared, he's not scared of us. He's not scared of our heart. And so if he's not and I then I think I can we can go in together. Yeah, we can do it together.

SPEAKER_02:

I had a beautiful spiritual director say to me, because you're you are a spiritual director, and I think you probably are so amazing. But she said to me two days ago. She said, you know, he was in that pain with you. He's never outside of it. He's actually in it. And it was arresting to hear that. I can know that here, but to hear it said, you know, is really arresting again. I don't know any other word. Just that is way beyond my imagination. Like he's just, I love, I love, I love love. That you said that the unknown parts of our heart are really an invitation to understand the love of God because that is what we've been talking about here for a good two years, if not longer. Just 1 John 4. Really knowing the love of God. Know it. Know the breadth, the depth. And I love that you brought that as an affirmation again. That we really I don't think I have any idea, honestly, of the length, the breadth, the depth. And I've been walking with him 44 years. And I still don't get that he would love me if I never produced another thing, if I never ever accomplished another thing. Whatever. He just loves us. Point blank, you know? So I had written down here, I don't even want to move beyond that. I think I really do want to leave on that note, even though your your work has so much to offer on understanding the love of God. So that's nowhere on the title. It's nowhere, but I'm letting everyone know a little inside secret here, that having read the book, it is all about getting to know the love of God and getting to know God's heart for you as a human being, as a person. Because I feel like when we know that and it makes its way down that long journey to our heart, it will be a literal feeling.

unknown:

It will.

SPEAKER_05:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't have anything else to say. Jen, thank you so much. Thank you for your time and for your honesty. The book is so honest. And not only does your story form your soul, it's helping us form ours. And that's the power of the pen.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks for the gift of being with you today.

SPEAKER_03:

It was right on time. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks for listening today, Heartlifter. Be sure to hop over to Substack at Heartlift Central, Instagram at JanelleRarden, and if you would be so kind, make a tax-deductible donation to keep this podcast ad-free and spreading its influence all over the world. You can make that donation on my website, JanelleRarden.com, Heartlift International. Everything you need to know is right there. Remember, Heartlifter, you have value, worth, and dignity.