Glory & Grit : Season 2, Episode 10 - When You Feel Like What You Bring Isn’t Good Enough
Show Notes:
Summary
Stephanie once looked up to women who had spent most of their lives in church. Over time, admiration became something else: evidence that her own thoughts, service, and contributions could never be as good as theirs. She began deciding that what she brought was not worth the space before anyone else could receive it.
In this solo episode of Glory & Grit, Stephanie traces the cost of that comparison and the quiet ways God corrected it. A handmade card with a coloring section and two crayons became proof to a sick Primary child that his absence had been noticed. A ride offered to a woman walking became a lasting lesson for the young son watching from the back seat. A coworker’s response to one podcast episode revealed that impact cannot always be measured by follower counts.
Doctrine and Covenants 64:33 gives language for the small things that help lay the foundation of a great work. Matthew 5:13 offers the image of salt: influence that does not need to announce itself or become the centerpiece in order to change what it touches.
This episode is an invitation to stop abandoning your own place, name the honest offering you have dismissed, and offer it faithfully without demanding applause, proof, or a particular outcome.
In this episode
How admiration can quietly become comparison
Why Stephanie stopped believing her own contributions belonged in the room
What a card and two crayons communicated to a sick child
How one act of service shaped the son who witnessed it
What Doctrine and Covenants 64:33 says about small things and great work
Why salt changes a room without becoming the center of it
The listener response that mattered more than a follower count
How to offer one small thing faithfully this week
Key takeaways
You do not have to reproduce someone else’s gift to make a meaningful contribution.
Comparison can reject your offering before another person has a chance to receive it.
The meaning of an act may travel farther than the person you thought you were helping.
You do not have to be the center of attention to change what is happening in the room.
Faithfulness is offering what is in your hands and leaving the measurement with God.
Continue the conversation
Visit the Companion Page to identify one honest offering comparison has made you withhold, reflect on what God placed in your hands, and practice offering one small thing without demanding applause or a particular outcome.
Transcript:
Stephanie (00:03)
Have you ever admired someone so much that somewhere along the way your admiration became evidence against you? Hmm. Well, I have. I would look at women who'd been in church who
Had been there for almost all their lives, and then look at the few months or years that I was there and think, what's the point of me bringing something? it's not gonna be as good as hers. It may not even be worth taking up space. Comparison didn't just make me feel like less than them, it made me question whether I should bring anything at all. So what do we do when we've already decided that what we carry is not impressive enough or experienced enough or good enough to even offer?
Hi, friend. Welcome back to Glory and Grit, where faith meets real life. I'm your host, Stephanie, and I'm really glad that you're here with me today. This season we've been talking about rebuilding identity, waiting, healing, endurance, surrendering, and learning to recognize God's faithfulness in our real life. Okay. Today.
We're talking about things that we don't bring, we don't say or try or offer because we've already compared them to what somebody else can do. So let's get started.
as I said, there were women that I admired in the church when I first joined the church. They were confident women, they were versed in scriptures, they had a close relationship with Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father. And they were just awesome women. They knew how to minister. They knew how to say the right things, do the right things.
And I just really respected them and I looked up to them and I thought that, you know, when I become a big girl in the church, I want to be those things. So I looked up to them. I wanted to learn and become those things that they were. Now that was a few months into the church. Well, let's fast forward a few years in the church. I've been in the church for a few years at the time, and somewhere along the way, I don't know when or how, but somewhere.
Along the way, I went from I want to learn from her, right? To then becoming, I could never be her.
Is crazy. And then I start to think, you know what? I I can't do that. I'm just not as good as she is. I can't be, I can't say the right things at the right times. I don't know. I don't always know what the right thing to offer is to minister. I don't know scriptures well at the time in I I don't this and I don't that and so I could never be her. And plus I'm just not as good as she is. And I don't mean good as in these women were perfect. I mean good as in, you know, you just know that you're a convert and you've lived life before you joined the church and you didn't always make the best choices. So, you know, and this also comes from not yet understanding Christ's atonement and what it means for our forgiveness. okay, I I could never be her. And then you fast forward another couple of years, and it eventually moved from that to, well, why do I even bring anything at all? It's not going to be worth anything. It's not going to be as good as hers. So why should I even bring it? You know, I can't cook. So why should I even bring a dish to the potluck? Look, it's not going to be as good as everybody else's. I am not good at teaching the gospel. So why should I be a teacher or a substitute in a class? Because I'm not going to be as good as them. I don't know the scriptures. I'm not a scriptorian like they are. my walk with Christ, I don't know him as well as they do. Into just whatever you could think of. I don't want to bring a comment to the table because my comment isn't as pretty as theirs, because like I said, I'm a convert. I've lived life, you know.
And, I just became where I'm, you know, it doesn't I shouldn't say anything because my comment's not going to be nearly as helpful. It's not going to be as pretty. It's not going to be as spiritual. nothing I can do, right? and this had an effect on me. I eventually became quiet. I I hesitate to volunteer for things or I would spend so much time over-preparing on a lesson, trying to get the right spiritual feel to come out through things by making sure the right things were on the table, making sure the I had all the right scriptures copied and making sure just over-preparing. I mean, that in and of itself is not over-preparing, but when you add that to the multiple other things that I was trying to do, to be so prepared that I could address every issue, became over preparing.
And then I just started to discount that my own ideas weren't worth saying. They were my ideas. They weren't ideas that God had prompted me to say, right? That also comes from learning and recognizing how God speaks to you. Right. which I know now how he speaks to me, but I didn't know then how he speaks to me. And that's uniquely individual for each individual person, right? but that was how I felt. I don't know how it got that way, out of growing years in the church and trying to become those women. It later became, you know, almost like a nail in my coffin for me.
And it's not that those women did anything wrong. Like I said, they were amazing women and amazing examples in the gospel. And they helped me grow a lot. these were just my own insecurities popping back up. There's a difference between honoring what someone else carries.
And using it to disqualify what God placed in you, which is what I was doing. Now, we all know that comparison is the thief of all joy, right? But another trouble with comparison.
Is that it could make us reject our offering before someone else has even had a chance to receive it, right? We've just deemed it useless, worthless, without even giving others the opportunity to receive it and to respond to it.
And some of the measurements that we often use to determine that is, years of experience, polished words, confidence, educated, they have high positions or bigger audience, visible results, you know, and those things may be a valuable way, but they are not the only evidence that something matters.
Our worth comes from being children of God. You are a child of God. That is where your worth comes from. Not from the productivity or how useful we can make ourselves to others. So this episode isn't about earning our value by doing something. It's about becoming willing to offer what God has already placed in our hands. Okay.
and it's okay, you can bring something to the table that's honest and heartfelt and worked for even before it becomes this polished, beautiful list of words or a dish or whatever. It's okay. Really.
Mic thumper.
God was not asking me to bring what they brought. He was asking me not to withhold what he had given me.
Yeah, and that's what I was doing.
Years ago. I had been in the church for years, but not. Yeah, I'd been in the church for years. And I remember when I was teaching my first primary class when I moved to the area that I am in now. but it was a different ward. And I remember teaching my first primary class, and one of the little boys was out of class that day, and I later learned.
From I don't remember if it was from a sibling or from one of his parents, but I learned that he had been sick. and if you don't know, which you probably don't, because I don't think I've said it before, but I'm a crafter. I love to sew. I have a sewing room and I'm a crafter. I love to do DIY crafts and I love to make cards, scrapbooks.
All the things. When I say all the things, I mean all the things, right? So when I learned that my little primary kid was sick, I went home to make him a card. I'm a big Stampin' Up! fan. That was the first way I started. So if you are a professional hobbyist card maker, then you know who that is.
But I went home and I pulled out my Stampin' Up! stuff and I made this little card and and it was so cute. It had a little coloring section on it. And then there was a way that you make a cutout in the card. And you put two crayons in there and the card would hold the crayons so that when the card was closed, you could see you could see them. And then when it opened, I don't remember. I think you could see the coloring page. And of course, I put some kind of sentiment in it. You know, stamping up always has sentiments, and I'm sure there are others, but that was my choice at the time. So I put the little sentiment in it. And we card makers we love to put our cards in clear plastic envelopes. So that way the mailman gets to enjoy our card, the postal worker gets to enjoy our card. And whoever pulls it out of the mailbox gets to enjoy our cards.
So I put it in this little plastic envelope so that the front and the crayons could be seen again so people could enjoy it. And then on the back you put in a little slip of paper with the addresses on it. And you put the stamp on the outside of the plastic envelope so the post office has to be able to stamp it, right? Right.
So I send this in the mail to my little friend and I later received a call from his mom saying how much he had loved that card and how much it meant to him, you know, because he really wasn't feeling well and he received this little card and this little crayons and it meant a lot to him. and I just wanted him to know that I noticed he wasn't there.
I was concerned about him and I knew that he was sick. So I just wanted to send him something to say, hey, I miss you today and I'm thinking of you and I'm praying for you that all you're you're healed soon. And that was it.
That was all I was trying to do. And then his mom called and she told me how much the card had meant to him. And then she thanked me for being so thoughtful. None of this is what I was aiming for, any praise or anything. I just wanted to reach out to him, right? And I wanted him to know that he was loved and missed. So it was a card.
With the sentiment and just a little note that happened to be crayons. but he received more than that. He received evidence that his teacher noticed him. He received evidence that he mattered, his presence mattered in our class, And his absence had been seen, right
And sometimes the meaning of what we offer travels farther than the person that we think we're helping. Let me tell you what I mean.
Years ago when my son was younger, you used to put your small ones in the back seat for safety issues. And he and I were in the car. I had put him in the back seat, strapped him in, and we were in the car going somewhere. I think we were leaving church, but I'm not exactly sure and we were driving on our way, and I saw this woman walking on the side of the road, and I felt impressed to offer her a ride. So I turned around, went back, and I offered her a ride, and she accepted and she got in. And we were taking her to where she was going, or as far as we were going. Again, I don't really remember that part and she talked about having some difficulties and She was touched that I had turned around and come back to give her a ride and I don't remember what her hard times were. I just know we talked for that time as she was in the car.
Now, my son was young then. Fast forward a couple of years, third, fourth, grade, my son is sitting again in the backseat. My son always sat in the backseat until he became like a tween or teenager. Then he started sitting in the front. But he was sitting in the car and he would have still been in elementary school at this time. So he meant yeah he would have been in the backseat. And we were riding along our way and I think what happened is we passed that same location in my mind. And out of nowhere he says, hey mom, do you remember that lady that we picked up and gave her a ride?
And the crazy part about it was I remembered exactly who he was referring to. Even though I didn't remember any of the details of speaking with her, I remembered feeling impressed to stop and pick her up. And he brought that up years later. And what was even more special about it to me is that he said that he had often thought of her and thought of that good deed that we had done and how happy he was and how happy he felt.
That we were able to do that for her.
And that we were able to listen and go back to help her.
love that kid. I love all of my children.
But it was so awesome to know that he always remembered that out of all the things I've done. And this is to remind you also that your kids are always watching. Out of all the things he's seen me done, he remembered the good thing that he saw me do. And I'm so I'm so happy to learn that he felt happy about helping and not irritated.
That we had turned around and delayed our our destination to help someone out. So it was really great to learn that he was impressed by that. I mean, not impressed with me, but impressed enough that that made an impression on his mind and his spirit that that was something good to do. I thought I was responding to the needs of the lady walking.
And while I was watching her, my son was watching me.
So I had no idea that that moment was going to become a part of his understanding of what it looks like to notice someone, first of all, and to notice that they need help.
Mic Thumper.
Sometimes the person most changed by your obedience isn't the person you thought you were helping.
Doctrine and Covenants, section sixty-four. the Lord is encouraging the saints not to become weary while they're laying the foundation of a great work.
DNC sixty four thirty three says.
Wherefore be not weary in well doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work, and out of small things proceedeth that which is great.
The ride felt like a small thing that I could do. and it was a response to an immediate impression that I had felt. I didn't know that I was also laying the foundation for my son.
The card that I sent my little class buddy, it was just paper and two crayons. but to him it communicated that his presence mattered and that his absence had been noticed.
The scripture doesn't mean that every small action we do is gonna become famous or that it's gonna have this big dramatic result or even receive any public recognition. It means that we should be careful about declaring something meaningless simply because we can't measure it yet.
We do not always get to see what God is building through the thing that felt ordinary in our own hands, right?
if you look in math you five thirteen
if you also look in the New Testament. My bad. Okay, so Matthew chapter five verse thirteen.
Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?
I think we talked about this in our summer scripture verse mapping. You can get a deeper dive there, but Jesus called his disciples the salt of the earth, right? And salt doesn't make this big announcement like hey, 'I'm here. I'm here to salt the potatoes.' I think I said that in the summer scripture first mapping too. It doesn't make this big grand announcement, and it doesn't have to become the centerpiece to affect what it touches. Because you may not notice when salt is in something, but you for sure notice when it's not in something, right? So this doesn't mean that.
We're supposed to make ourselves invisible or never speak up. It means that attention is not the only proof that something or someone is making a difference.
You don't have to be the center of attention to change what happens in a room. I'm going to repeat that for the people in the back. You do not have to be the center of attention to change what is happening in the room. Yes, yes.
Stephanie (23:30)
And that brings me to how I think about the work of this podcast.
Stephanie (23:38)
One of my co-workers listens to the podcast, maybe more because she's shared it with more, but shout out to Kathy. Hi, Kathy. Something she'd heard in an episode made her think about her experience as a caregiver and it helped her to acknowledge or to put a name on something that she hadn't thought of or realized before.
And I was thinking about that because someone recently asked me how many followers the podcast had and as I was explaining it made me think about her and that comment because it was very much an example of my answer I guess I could call it an example and as I was telling the person I don't know how many followers the podcast has. I have not checked. I don't look at statistics or analytics. I don't know. I have looked at it one time, and that was in the very beginning of the podcast. but just enough where I think what I saw was that people were listing for and I remember being surprised that one was in a foreign country, but then I also worked with missionaries, so it it might be just normal, but I don't follow those things, right? Ever since then I have not looked, I don't monitor it, I don't I don't stalk it, I don't look at it. And here's your reason it's not that I don't care, but I don't care.
Because the way I measure the success of this podcast is if one person hears the one episode that makes the difference in their life at that moment, it makes it shares God's love with them a little more. It gives them a point of reference for a scripture or a one of our guest stories helps them. That is how I measure the success of each episode.
Stephanie (26:04)
Even when I taught fitness classes and they would do these specific trainings at the studio, it bothered me when a class was canceled because only one person had registered. I mean, I understand it from a business decision, but that one person still was planning to show up and paid for the class, so it mattered to them.
Stephanie (26:29)
Now, yes, I understand from a business point of view, that's what they're there to do is to make money. But this episode, this this podcast makes no money. I never intend to have it be a moneymaker. I intend for it to be a way of sharing about Christ with others. So that is how I measure. And for me, that episode was successful because she found something that helped her in her life. And that is my hope, that is my prayer for each episode then there are more people it gets to help, which is what I would love for it to do, to help as many people as it possibly can. right?
Mic Thumper. One person helped is not a small result. One person is a person. Okay? If the one person who needs the episode finds it and it helps, that is the statistic that matters most to me.
That would make me happy.
So let me ask you this.
Who do you admire?
What do you admire about what that person brings?
When did that admiration begin turning into evidence that your own offering wasn't enough?
What have you already decided not to bring because it doesn't look like what someone else would bring?
Maybe it's an idea, a testimony, an invitation, a kindness, something creative. Maybe a question, an act of service.
I'm not telling you to add this endless work or to ignore your personal limits or say yes to everything. I am not telling you to say yes to everything. Let's get that straight. Okay. But what I am asking you to do is to stop disqualifying one honest offering solely because it doesn't resemble someone else's.
You were never asked to take her place. You were asked to stop abandoning yours. Mm-hmm. Yes? Yes.
I want you to choose one contribution, kindness, idea, testimony, invitation, act of service, whatever. Choose one thing that you've been dismissing.
Okay. What am I withholding? Whose offering have I been using to disqualify mine? What would it look like to offer my one thing faithfully without demanding applause or a particular outcome?
And you can pause and answer that now or you can answer it after the episode is over.
Don't wait until your offering looks like someone else's before you decide it's worthy of being given.
Bring the honest thing that's yours to bring.
The full offer, the small thing practice will be waiting for you on this episode's companion page. So make sure you check that.
My friend maybe you have spent so much time admiring what someone else carries that you've forgotten to look at what God placed in your own hands. I did.
Maybe yours feels like a card with two crayons. Maybe it's a ride. Maybe it's a conversation. One idea, a testimony, an episode, or just one quiet act that nobody applauds.
You may not know what it means. You may not know what it means to the person who receives it. You may not know who else is watching. And you may not even see the full work God does with it.
Your worth doesn't depend on what you accomplish.
You are already a child of God.
Stephanie (31:59)
But comparison doesn't get to decide that what he placed in you is unworthy of being offered.
Stephanie (32:07)
What you bring doesn't have to look like what someone else brings in order to be worth offering.
So offer the small thing faithfully. Leave the measurement with God and keep walking.
Please remember there is a companion page for this episode at gloryandgritpodcast.com. I'm your host, Stephanie, and I'm so thankful that you're able to join me today. If this episode was encouraging or helpful in any way, I'd love for you to share that with someone who might need it too.
I'm truly appreciative of all your support for Glory and Grit. Until next time, my friend, keep looking for glory and keep walking with grit. Bye now.
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