Focus on the Family

Guest (Male): Hey parents, Adventures in Odyssey has been helping kids like yours form relationships with Christ for almost 40 years. Now the animated Adventures in Odyssey film, Journey into the Impossible, will reach a new generation of families.

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John Fuller: This program is sponsored by Focus on the Family, helping families thrive in Christ for more than 40 years.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: Wherever you are, get yourself out into nature and see how God does work through rhythms, through seasons. Get yourself out and watch a sunrise or a sunset. It just has a way of unhurrying your heart.

John Fuller: That's Jennifer Dukes Lee, sharing about the need to slow down to experience all that God intends for us in this life. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: Sorry about that chuckle, John. It's just so funny and so true. We move so fast, and then even slowing down to talk so people can understand us and hear us is part of it. This is such an important aspect of life, and I think in this common era, we are moving so fast. We've got that FOMO—fear of missing out. We've got to do it all, be as busy as possible, not want to miss a thing. Maybe it's even attached to our work methodology where we're going to work super hard and not go home at 5:00 but stay until 8:00.

Whatever it is, that really impacts our well-being and our soundness emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. Today, we're going to give you some insights on how to go a little slower, and in doing that, probably enjoy the journey far more.

John Fuller: This is something that I need to hear personally. I fill in so much. Jennifer Dukes Lee is with us. She's got a terrific book capturing her experiences and insights about this concept called *Growing Slow: Lessons on Unhurrying Your Heart from an Accidental Farm Girl*. You can learn more about Jennifer and this terrific resource at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim Daly: Jennifer, welcome to Focus on the Family.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: Thanks for having me. You guys have been a part of my life since the early '80s and you don't even know it. I was in a little church in Northwest Iowa and we played these videos. There was a video series with James Dobson. That was my first introduction, and now I get to be here.

Jim Daly: It's even for us. The platform that was laid there by Dr. Dobson did such a good job and people responded so powerfully to the advice the guests would have. We've just kept that rolling along, and it's great to have great guests like you to join us and to help people better understand what are the important things to look at when you're moving through this life at light speed.

The fact that you're in Iowa is really interesting. You were that professional woman and now you're on a farm, which I think is awesome. We're going to talk about that slower pace, but you and your husband, Scott, were dreaming big dreams and chasing those young adult ideals. Describe what your 20s were like and what you and Scott were into.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: Both Scott and I had zero intention of ever moving back to rural Iowa. We did have our sights set on success, achievement, scaling, hustling, and climbing the ladder. He went to law school and graduated and went into a career in insurance. I was a political reporter at the *Des Moines Register*, which is a pretty exciting place to cover politics.

Jim Daly: That's actually a big paper. Every four years because of the caucus, that becomes one of the most important papers.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: Exactly. It was really exciting but also really exhausting. Sometimes I look back on that and I think, how did our marriage survive that? We were like two ships passing in the night. When we started to think about having a family, our priorities began to shift.

We realized that we wouldn't be able to be effective parents or effective spouses. It really is by the grace of God that our marriage survived that time. We made this unexpected decision to move back to the fifth-generation family farm. I think we surprised even ourselves, but the idea of children has a way of shifting things in the interior journey of the soul.

When we decided to move back, I'm telling you, people thought we were nuts. People said, "Jennifer, you're on the cusp of something really great in your news career. Scott, you just spent a lot of money on law school and now you're going to go back and be a farmer?" For a long time, I asked myself the question, "What if they're right? What if we made a big mistake?" because we had seemingly thrown a lot of potential away, a lot of the things that we had built over time.

But it took me a long time to ask a different question, and that question being, "What if they're wrong?" because they weren't living the life of burnout that was stressing us out.

Jim Daly: Going back to the 20-somethings that you were in at the time and you were charging ahead, that's kind of normal. Not everybody has a fifth-generation farm they can say, "Let's give this up because we want a different pace of life." Farming is not easy. It's got its challenges. But in that context, it was more holistic, it sounds like, as you began to contemplate having children and just the idea of professionalism.

I think for women particularly—and Jennifer, this may be the most critical part of the program we do today—the idea that children are going to need much more of me and much more of Scott. How do we create that capacity? I don't know that couples are in that space today at 28 or 31. It is let's do all we can do financially to secure ourselves and make sure we can afford a baby. How often do you hear that today? You can't afford a child. Of course you can, but you find a way.

In that context, I just want to take us back there for the listener that's right there. They're 30-something and they're still in the race and they haven't come to that aha moment. Give that to us a little more deeply about being that woman who wanted children and then wanted to make sure the environment was conducive to parenting.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: I wasn't even following the Lord at the time. So let me just tell you that even though I wasn't making decisions based on what God would have me do, God was still working in us and bringing us to a place where He drew us to Himself. But I think the challenge becomes for Christians and non-Christians alike. Just look to the ads for proof. Hustle, grind, more money, more success.

Jim Daly: More spending.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: More spending. The quieter way, the slower way, the family way isn't screaming and shouting at us all the time. So to counterbalance that takes a great deal of focus and a great deal of faith, which God grew in us on the farm.

I think the idea for women is that you're going to have to give something up to slow down. But what we forget is that we have so much to gain. We don't need to choose the spectacular life, the spectacular home, the spectacular family doing spectacular things and hosting spectacular parties. God works in the unspectacular.

Ordinary life, regular life is holy ground, and sometimes you can only see that when you look back. It's just really hard to see it when you're in the midst of it. I recognize that it's hard because you want to chase and achieve. I still get to be a smart, capable woman on the farm. It doesn't change that. I just don't have to be doing it the same way I was before, which was burning the candle at both ends.

Jim Daly: In that regard, what I loved about your book is you were very honest about how you got to the farm and then you kept yourself busy. It wasn't like this formula where you said, "I'm so busy in my journalist life and my husband's a lawyer and we're going to go to the farm and kick back and take it slow." You hit the farm running and you found yourself in the same busy. What did that look like?

Jennifer Dukes Lee: I shocked even myself with this. A lot of people will say, "Well, of course you can grow slow. You live on a farm." But hurry isn't just an external issue. Hurry is something that hangs around your heart. You can have a kind of hurry sickness, a feeling like I just need to be busy, I need to get more done.

I'm going to wake up anxious, I need to hit the ground running. I needed to have a shift internally outside of the pastoral blue sky fields and livestock life that we were living and tend to the field of my heart that needed a divine farmer to come in and say, "We've got some work to do here."

Jim Daly: In that context, working a farm is predictable. You know what you've got to do. You've got to get up, feed the livestock, take care of this, plow that, harvest this. It seems like a rhythm that is doable because you know what's expected. You know what you have to do and you've got to get it done, versus just adversity coming at you all day long, problem-solving that's coming out of nowhere, which is what we can experience in a more corporate environment—lawsuits, whatever it might be. I think that rhythmic thing is what God intended for us. Speak to the rhythm of things and how you began to learn to slow down.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: God created our world with a rhythm. The sun comes up and it goes down. The Earth spins and it goes around the sun and we go through day and we go through night. We go through seasons: spring, summer, fall, and winter. There is a definite predictability to it. On a farm, we get up with the sun and we go down when the sun goes down.

Each day offers us this new opportunity to rise again with the Lord and with the sun and to close out the day when it's time. I literally say goodnight to the office at 5:00. I turn off the light and I say goodnight to the office and it's time to be a family again. Where I see that God really works in rhythms is in the seasons.

When we farm, we're planting literally millions of seeds in the spring waiting for something to grow, and sometimes it can take a very long time to see those first bits of plant come up. Then we have summer seasons where everything is green and all the rows are touching. But we fear, of course, storms, windstorms, drought, hail, all those things. There's a lot of pressure to just keep it going and at the same time trusting that God is doing His good work in the fields of our lives.

Then comes harvest, fall, where there's nothing quite so wonderful as holding that fully ripened thing in your hand and knowing all that went into this growth. I love the seasons. Then, of course, winter when things just kind of go dormant.

John Fuller: We're going to talk about these seasons here in just a moment. Let me say that this is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and our guest is Jennifer Dukes Lee. Her book *Growing Slow: Lessons on Unhurrying Your Heart from an Accidental Farm Girl* is a terrific book full of insights, experiences, and stories. It'll encourage you. Get a copy of it from us today at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim Daly: Related to summer, you mention already that small things are big things. I can remember in college, I had a professor talking about wind power, but also she was working specifically on wave power. If we could harness the power of a wave. I remember she gave a lecture totally void of spiritual understanding or anything like that, but the spiritual application is huge.

She said you think of a coastline and you think of rock, which we all think of as the hardest substance—diamonds, rocks, a cliff. But water, potentially one of the softest things that hits us, hits that rock every day and over centuries it erodes it. The water wins. I took that application to your summertime of little things are big things. Water is stronger than rock. Wow.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: That's so true. That's a growing slow process. That's the way when you think through the formation of these beautiful mountains, when you think through the formation of lakes over time, how God uses natural processes slowly over time to grow things and to build things. Even in a farm field, you don't see the growth minute by minute. It's happening incrementally.

You see it over days or even weeks and months. The same is true in our lives. These little things are growing up and around us. There's a story that I wanted to share with you about these little things. For summer, sometimes I can just be like I've got to keep this going, I've got to keep this growing. It's hot outside and the bugs are flying around and there's all kinds of things that keep you from just zeroing in and focusing on the small things.

But I had this friend, his name was Dave. He was a pastor and it's just like he had this instinctive knowledge that I was pushing just a little too hard on the farm—my husband and I. So he would send me these long emails and he would say, "God delights in you, Jennifer."

Sometimes it's the little things like that—having a friend or someone we love remind us that God delights in us, not just in what we are growing in our fields or in our lives. God delights in us wherever we happen to be in the growth process.

Jim Daly: That is so good. Even to send that note is something we could do to somebody we care about. God delights in you. It's such a great reminder.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: Dave has passed away and apparently I wasn't the only one that he used to send these messages to. After he passed away, on his Facebook page, it was filled with people saying, "Dave, thank you for reminding me that God delights in me." These bits of legacy.

We think it's the big things. We think it's the front-page story in my case or a field of crops that produces an exceptional yield. But the things that matter the most, the mattering things, are these little things that we can do for one another.

Jim Daly: So we got spring and summer. Let's move into fall or autumn. What is the harvest like? What are some things that you learn spiritually about harvest? The scripture is so full of the harvest metaphor. Jesus spoke about it, Paul, everybody's talking about the harvest spiritually, obviously the harvest of souls into the kingdom of God. But you must really tangibly feel that when you're working with your own hands bringing in the harvest with your husband, Scott.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: I love going on ride-alongs, getting in the combine beside him and going through the fields. He's like a kid at Christmas. He just loves the way that feels. There is something really special about looking out and knowing all the effort that went into that.

I mean, for anybody listening that's ever grown a tomato, there's just something really cool about saying, "I did that. I grew that with God. God and I co-created this thing. Oh, that's so cool." That's what it feels like on the farm. I think that's what it feels like when we harvest anything.

If you're an empty nester, your kids have moved on and that feels like a real season. You're seeing fruit in their lives and it's something to celebrate. Also, harvest is a time where the thing is over. So you have the joy and the celebration of having reached this point, but also a bit of sorrow and sadness that it's over.

Jim Daly: I was going to ask about that because sadness is a natural part of life. We've gone through a season of losing some pets and some family members, which is, of course, a greater loss, but just trying to help our kids learn that sadness is a season. It's not necessarily going to define the rest of life. Address that from your perspective.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: I describe myself in the book as the queen of unexpressed grief because ever since I was young, for whatever reason, I didn't want to cry. I didn't want to be seen as being weak and sorrowful. So I became busy doing things. I even remember from a young age when my grandparents would die, "Let me write the obituary, let me write a poem, let me do this, let me help." Just do, do, do so I don't have to really deal with what is hurting.

My father passed away a couple of years ago and it was a long goodbye. He had congestive heart failure and was on hospice. Because of some work that I had done internally and with the Lord, I let myself grieve. Sometimes that was really hard because I didn't want to have to feel my feelings.

But I feel like I'm in such a healthier place now after losing my beloved father because I allowed myself to feel what I needed to feel and to just cry before the Lord and even cry with my family and even cry with my dad.

Jim Daly: In addition to the pace of life and all the things that we've talked about, that may be one of the golden nuggets out of our discussion today because I think this issue of unprocessed grief is a killer for us physically, emotionally, spiritually. We don't even recognize it that we haven't slowed down to the point where we could really grieve the loss of something, whatever it might be, certainly family members, and just the ability to do that.

I remember as a nine-year-old and I was at my mom's funeral and everybody was telling me, "Don't cry." That was the thing I walked away from at my mom's funeral was if I don't cry then I've met somebody's standard and I remember fighting those tears back. Now, I'm thinking how stupid that was to tell a nine-year-old not to cry at his mom's funeral. So that's one of the things I'm a big advocate for. Let your kids cry when there is loss. King David was a man in touch with his emotions. I think the Lord loves that aspect of our heart. He wants us to be connected in that way. He wants us to feel life. He wants us to slow down and understand those seasons.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: And He models it. I mean, the shortest verse in the New Testament we all know: Jesus wept. So we can look to our Savior to know that it's okay to cry.

Jim Daly: With your dad's passing, that kind of tips us into the winter season. Are there other examples? When you look at the winter season, what are some other things that you classify as wintertime?

Jennifer Dukes Lee: This is an area where we want to skip over. Talk about unexpressed grief and moving past things—let's just skip winter. Where we live, people are called snowbirds. "Just keep me in spring and summer and fall, skip winter." That's the American way. Just keep producing. Winter is this season where when I wrote *Growing Slow*, I didn't want to write the winter season of the book.

It's split into seasons and I sent in two chapters. I said, "That's enough because this is a really depressing way to end the book." I get a note back from my editor: "More winter, please." Scott, you've got to help me. What's happening on the farm that is productive in winter? Because it seems like you and I are just looking out at these fields and just waiting and just itching for the sun to come out again so we can get out in those fields.

He began to share some things with me about what's happening on the farm. One of those things is that the ground needs the cold, dark of winter to kill off diseases and pest cycles. Snow when it falls pulls nitrogen on the way down, so it's called poor man's fertilizer in Iowa.

But the biggest thing that I think is so cool and has some metaphorical application here is that when winter turns to spring, right at that period, we get rocks in our fields and we have to go out and we have to pick rock. For whatever reason, it's called picking rock. The reason we've got to get those rocks out of the field is because they'll hurt the equipment come spring.

Jim Daly: These are things that have been in the ground and now they're exposed?

Jennifer Dukes Lee: The frost-thaw cycle of the land pushes them up and out. This is the healing work of winter on a farm. Just imagine your heart as a field. Think about the things that you've carried in your heart for a very long time. Winter has a way when we quiet ourselves for God to have those push up and out so that He can remove them.

What would it be like in the winter seasons of our lives to let God pick rock? To let Him take those things out of the field of our life so that come spring seasons we have healthy, productive fields? So winter might be the most important growth season of all.

Jim Daly: He talks about it that way—the stoniness of someone's heart. That's the rocks of the field you're talking about. If we can slow down, we can see God's fingerprint everywhere and all of the signage that He's trying to give us to say here's the way to go, here's the pace you go at, here's the things you recognize. Right at the end here, let's cover the five things to never forget that you mention in the book.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: Happy to do so. The first one to not forget is just to be right here and right now. Embrace the loveliness of the moment that we're in. I heard it said before that you can get so busy and in such a hurry that you're afraid you're going to be late to your own funeral. That's an old adage, but true. So just to slow down and appreciate the loveliness of this moment. In all my years as a farm wife, I've never once seen a corn plant freaking out. It just does what it does and we don't have to freak out either. So just be right here and right now.

The second thing is that nature never hurries. Wherever you are, get yourself out into nature and see how God does work through rhythms, through seasons. Get yourself out and watch a sunrise or a sunset. It just has a way of unhurrying your heart.

The third thing is that scarcity mindset breeds panic and a growing slow mindset promotes peace. In a scarcity mindset, we are often in a rush to acquire success and things. A growing slow mindset—that peaceful feeling that you have—is a reminder to your own self that there's plenty to go around. God is going to take care of you. He has not forgotten about you. You don't have to rush trying to get more.

The fourth is the reminder from Ecclesiastes 3:1-11. It says that to everything there is a season. If you look at those pairings, there are happy times, times to die—I mean, there are some hard ones, but there's also some really wonderful ones: time for dancing and for birthing and all of these beautiful things. Not every season gives us exactly what we want, but each help us to become all that we might become so that we learn to praise Him in the good and at the same time to trust Him in the hard. To everything there is a season.

Jim Daly: And what's the last one?

Jennifer Dukes Lee: That Jesus was never in a hurry. If we want to learn how to operate and move through this world, we should model the behavior of Jesus. I've never seen Him running in scripture. I see Him sitting at a well, I see Him around dinner tables. He's connecting with people all the time.

Even after He rose from the grave, what does He do? He's like, "You know what? I think I'm going to go back out to the lake, find the fellas, I'm going to make a charcoal fire and we are going to have breakfast." It's such an unhurried, beautiful picture of our unhurried, beautiful Savior.

Jim Daly: Jennifer, I'm just calmer talking with you. I feel it. What a great resource: *Growing Slow: Lessons on Unhurrying Your Heart from an Accidental Farm Girl*. What a great story you have—that professional driving journalist at the *Des Moines Register* and then on the farm with your husband Scott, the lawyer who has become the farmer. Thank you so much for being with us and spending time helping us to slow down.

Jennifer Dukes Lee: Thank you for having me.

Jim Daly: Man, this is one of those resources I think it could change your family's trajectory. There's so many young families that are catching this. They're practicing the Sabbath. We've interviewed a handful of them and it's refreshing to see the 20-somethings, 30-somethings families that are going, "This doesn't work for us, this pace. We're going to go back to scriptural truth and apply that."

This would be a great resource if you're in that space and need and want to do that. I'm going to talk to Jean about it tonight. Let's slow down. You can get a copy of this by just ordering it from us here at Focus on the Family. If you can make a gift of any amount—ten dollars—that goes right back into the ministry and we will use it to help marriages, to help parents, to save a baby's life, and so much more.

John Fuller: You can do that online at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast or call 800-A-FAMILY. Next time, we'll hear from Lee Strobel, a former atheist who now talks about the resurrection of Jesus.

Guest (Male): So everybody in the first century is conceding the tomb is empty. The real question is how did it get empty?

John Fuller: That's next time on Focus on the Family. Remember when you get in touch, let us know how you're listening: on our website, through our mobile app, or on our podcast feed. I'm John Fuller and on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, join us next time as we help you and your family thrive in Christ.