Oh, Happy Day // S05E02

Is it possible to achieve everyday happiness? What does that mean when you have the Lord? It’s when you can get up in the morning and say that He is always there for you, that He will never leave you or forsake you. Here is to more happy days with His truth.

QUESTIONS WE TOUCH ON IN THIS EPISODE:

• What is a happy day?
• How to be happy?
• What happy people know?

VERSES FROM UNNATURALLY FLOURISHED:

Psalm 57, Psalm 92:13.

QUOTES FROM UNNATURALLY FLOURISHED:

“I mean, awake my soul awake, you know, awake my soul. I want to always be awake to the Holy spirit. I always want to be awake to God’s prompting. I just really liked the scripture for great is your love. Oh, I’m so glad he loves us and reaching to the heavens, your faithfulness reaches to the scotts. He never leaves us or forsake us, ever.”

Mama Karla, The Pantry Podcast, Oh Happy Day!

“When you come to Christ, no matter where you’re at, no matter what you’ve got, no matter anything, because simply Christ can go and fall into that perfect category. When I say perfect, the secret is Christ.”

Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast, Oh Happy Day!

” I love the idea that in the world, I remember as a kid, I didn’t know what Jesus had done, so I didn’t understand grace, I knew God was real. I just knew.“

Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast, Oh Happy Day!

ANNOTATED TRANSCRIPT:

Shea: Hey, I’m Shea

Michelle: I’m Michelle. This is the pantry podcast, season five on naturally flourished. We’re picking up where season four, left off looking at God’s unusual, amazing, and miraculous methods of elevating relocating, and redeeming us into his purpose in the ways the world just doesn’t understand.

Shea: Thanks to the spark collective, the warcry network and the Christian podcasters association for helping the pantry reach over 35 countries. Visit the pantry podcast.com for extras, show notes and faith-based tees that support the show and sign up for our monthly newsletter for sneak peeks into upcoming episodes and guests, and some of Shea’s amazingly delicious recipes. And now on with the episode

Mama Karla: A year, are you excited?

Michelle: I wonder why this time there’s so many reasons

Shea: Well, number one, I’ll share outright

Michelle: Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you.

Shea: It’s my birthday. And the most specialist guest ever so excited.

Michelle: Yeah. So today, without further ado, we’re going to go ahead and welcome on our super special guest in honor of Shea’s birthday, as well as for many other reasons we have mama Carla, on the line, I guess we’ll say all the way from Texas. Yes.

Shea: Yes. From the big T E X A S. Oh, Hey, mama is awesome to have you here. What’s up.

Mama Karla: Oh, it’s awesome to be with you too. And happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Sheazy. Happy birthday to you. That’s my name for him all his life.

Michelle: Now if y’all in the comments, want to try and spell it? Well, maybe we’ll give a prize to the ones who spell it proper, no, there’s only a few. We don’t just dole out this ain’t grace. We don’t spell it out just for free. Okay.

Shea: So today it’s already started the giggles. The last one, the banter, sheer motions I had to use that I love it anyways. We’re talking about, Oh, happy day and you know, Oh, happy days. It’s that should be every day, it’s not. And so when I was thinking about this extra took me to Psalms, I mean, of course, song, it’s like the book that always breaks down, like I’m in trouble. I’m not good. And then you move forward, like the song and actually the song that I’m reading from today, it’s David, you know it’s David. It’s not King David yet. It’s David. Now. I don’t know if he wrote it when he was a King or how that works out, it’s his story before he was a King. And it’s really when Saul King Saul was chasing them around and he’s running and he’s in the cave, right?

Shea: And this is that time when he had that opportunity to kill King Saul, he chooses not to. I think if we think about that, so the enemy is chasing us around, or we’re being chased by our motions, or we’re being chased by circumstance. You know, it’s all of these things that can compound and come onto us. You know, in verse seven of Psalm 57, it says, my heart is steadfast. Oh God, my heart is steadfast. I will sing and give praise awake. My glory awake. I will awaken the Dawn. I will praise you. Oh Lord. Among the peoples. I will sing to you among the nations for your mercy, reaches onto the heavens and your truth unto the clouds be exalted, Oh God, above the heavens. Let your glory be above all the earth. How many people have had days where you wish you could just yell that out or days where you can’t yell it out or days where you’re struggling to yell that out. And today’s episode is going to talk about yelling that out and seeking the Lord mama Karla. It is awesome again for you to be here. And I just want to hear a little bit about your story. I know your stories of like, I don’t want to tell it though, yeah. What do you think of when you hear something like this? When you hear a verse like this,

Mama Karla: I want to cry because it’s so awesome. It’s so exciting. And if I could memorize those, that scripture so well I would do that all the time. So I think I’m gonna decide to memorize that so that I can yell it out. Right?

Shea: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Mama Karla: I think you’re right. I mean, awake my soul awake, you know, awake my soul. I want to always be awake to the Holy spirit. I always want to be awake to God’s prompting. I just really liked the scripture for great is your love. Oh, I’m so glad he loves us and reaching to the heavens, your faithfulness reaches to the scotts. He never leaves us or forsake us, ever. What a happy day, when you can get up in the morning and say, you never leave us or forsake us, you’re always with us. You’re always holding on us. And you wanted to hear my story. So as a child, I was raised in church and we were there every time the doors were open. And through that time, you know, some people, they just kinda get into the flow of it and they always stay in church and they always do the things that they’re supposed to do.

Mama Karla: Well, I didn’t. So I went away from God for a long time. As you know, I’m no longer married to Shea’s dad, his dad and I divorced. And, then a few years later I married my husband that I have now, his name is Don and I love him very much, that wasn’t really the way to do it the way I did it. So, and my life in there between was just ungodly, just totally ungodly. I’m not going to go into details like Shea does, I was really not a good person spiritually. I still was loved by God. Jesus still loved me, I wasn’t loving him back. And I think that through that whole time, I, I had this image of God’s hand reaching down toward the earth from heaven. And there’s this arm that he’s got to hold up this from the, from heaven.

Mama Karla: And that’s God, he had a hold of me. I, I, I have this image of that. And I’m so thankful that he never let go of me when Don and I got married, we were, we were living out on the East coast and we decided to go to Denver and then he lost his job. My husband lost his job. And so it made us have to make a decision. So his parents lived in Kansas and he felt like we needed to go there. So I sure didn’t want to, I was really bitter about it because I didn’t have Christ living in me. And I told him one day, I said, I just really didn’t like you at all for taking me to Kansas. I mean, from Colorado because I loved Colorado. I had a great job, you know? And so we went there and he was trying to find a place to live for us in Kansas. When they found this old, old, old, old house, I think it was historic or so it was a horrible one. It was okay. Thick shag, orange carpet. Anyway, it was really an old house, the lady that owned it, said, I’m going to be moving out of my house. And I would like for you to, to rent it, you have to promise me one thing. And that is that you’ll come and visit our church. Well, we been going to church. We didn’t even, you know, think about living for the Lord. And so Don said, sure, he was really wanting to bring, to bring me out there. So, so we, we did and we moved in and when I walked in the front door, I knelt down to the floor and I just cried, and his mother said, Oh, it’s okay, honey, we’ll get some curtains to go in here. So she was trying to help me, honestly, we started going to their church, Ms. DOT’s church. And the Lord started talking to me. He, I mean, he just started talking to my heart and convicting my heart. That’s a big word, you know, I was feeling pretty bad because of the way I was living.

Shea: When I hear that, you know, the conviction and I’m just gonna just little jumping, it’s such a similar feeling, this condemnation turning to conviction. How would you describe that? Like in the past it was always this like condemning, cause the way you were raised in the church, the way that you were brought up in the church, and then to hear you sit here and say that, you know, you walk into this church and then all of a sudden, now there’s this conviction. I just want people to understand that, that there’s, there’s a transition into the truth and this is where it started, I think, right?

Mama Karla: Oh, yes. It was very definitely starting at that point because you know, I knew what was right. I knew what was wrong because my parents were strong through this whole, whole time. And they were praying for me. They were praying for us. They were praying for all of us. They were praying for Shea. They were praying for my daughter. I mean, they, you know, they’re just prayer warriors. They were, and now they’re in heaven, so I really was convicted. And so one day Sunday, you know, in the Baptist church, they give altar calls, right? So you can come up and repent and ask God to forgive you and, and tell him that you believe, and you’re going to live a godly life. Well, I did that. And then I got baptized again. It was so awesome that day. I’ve got a picture of me being baptized anyway, you know, I just started, I changed my life.

Mama Karla: I quit doing all of the things that I knew that I didn’t shouldn’t do and just gave it up. I mean, everything, everything I was doing, I just gave it up just cold Turkey, I guess you say. In fact, one of, my, my husband’s sister, brother-in-law called me, goodie, excuse me, miss goody two shoes. And that was a little offensive at that time, the more that I studied the word and the more that I listened to the preacher and the more that I, you know, got involved in serving Christ, the more I realized that I didn’t mind being called a miss, miss goody two-shoes. That was a compliment actually, I didn’t condemn everybody about what they were doing. They just had, you know, that was their life. Anyway, I’m a musician and I sing and growing up, I was always on the piano playing for the family, get in, get together when we sang and sing in.

Mama Karla: My family was just that way. And, it just so happens that the wife of the pastor of that church that I got say, I, I say that I got saved really saved. I mean, I went to youth camp, you know, I really made a commitment and got saved then. And then, her daddy was the pastor of a church in Joplin, Missouri, right across the line from where we lived in Kansas. He knew I played so, and he had heard me play. And so he asked me to come be the organist over there at their Baptist church. And at that point, you know, you’re, you’re just, you’re getting back into what God actually intended for you to do in the first place. Hey, flourished. My pay may my music flourish. And I used it for his purpose, his glory. It says, I will sing a view among the peoples.

Mama Karla: And I got to sing about Christ in this scripture, that shade just read. And I get to sing. I got to play piano organ. Mostly I got to play piano too. I got to do a lot of funerals, some weddings. And it was just wonderful. And I felt like that I was just being the hands and feet of Christ. That’s awesome. Then we lived in Joplin through those times, you know, I just tried to live. I just tried to live with Christ the best I could. I know a lot more now than I did then, I started going to a Sunday school class and granny green was my teacher. I think that was the very first time that I really started learning about the word. All I knew all the little, you know, the little stories about David and you know, all the stories in there, because I was raised in church, she really taught me a lot.

Mama Karla: And I’m so thankful that God sent her my way to see. He just was sending me all kinds of things. And when I say flourish, I don’t know how to use it necessarily very well, he really made things just happened in my life and drew me closer to him. And that’s when I was able to pray for my son. And I did a lot of repenting for all the things that I did and God took care of it. Our Jesus took care of it. He just forgave me. He just forgave me of all of my sins. So that’s what I had to do was just give all of those things in the, in the back, you know, behind me, not looking back, pressing forward, right to the Mark. I made some mistakes along the way, I got to tell you, he has always been faithful and forgiven me.

Michelle: No, I love it because I was, I was waiting for how you would bring in the happy blessing it is that now you’re saved. You can start praying for your son, cause you can’t pray for your son. If you’re not, I mean you can pray for your son if you’re not saved, God ain’t here. What I mean, it doesn’t, you don’t know what you’re actually doing until you’re at your saved yourself. And so you had jumped on that life raft, and now you can go after your son and the cover photo. I encourage everyone to go to our website and look at the cover photo for this week because this week’s cover. Photo is Shay and his mom dancing at our wedding. And that’s when I was thinking about what to name this episode for unnatural unnaturally flourished.

Michelle: I instantly thought, that’s the picture that needs to be here because of all that it means it kind of was this culmination of all these years of dedicated prayer that you had had. And it wasn’t just your life that was flourishing, the life of your son, which is an extension of your life. Sometimes we think when we hear, you know, God blesses us, it’s our life. You know, that we’re, that we’re thinking of like, Oh, he’s blessing my life when I’m praying to him. So often the flourishing surpasses us and goes off to our kids. And I see the joy that you have in your day-to-day life, even when things are hard. And I know that Shea pretty much inherited that from your DNA, it’s one thing to have that without the Lord. And it’s another, when he flourishes it, when, when you come to him and then it really gets to be that light. The photos of Shea that I saw when I, you know, when I was getting to know him and I was Facebook stalking the heck out of him, looking at all his photos, I was like, his eyes are completely different. Now that he knows Jesus, he always smiled. He was always the life of the party. He was always happy in that sense, his eyes show light when he came to
christ

Shea: And, and I want to say something on the cool side of all this, like if we’re parenting and we have children that, and this is speaking from, you know, the experience that I had with my own mother in this, because you know, we’re here, we are talking about prayer and how, you know, she came, this is where she started feeling like there was power behind these prayers because now she’s connected to Jesus Christ to the Holy spirit. You know, it’s, it’s like a huge difference when all of a sudden you have this, this connection, it’s like, here I am. And you told me that if I ask you, you know, if you, if I ask you, you know, you’ll make this thing happen. Right. And it was really cool as I remember always visiting. And like, she never really beat me up all the time over it.

Shea: She was never like, yo, you need to be in church or dah, dah, dah, dah. No, she always, she had her prayer, when I’d come visit, she’d be like, would you like to go to church? And of course I loved it. And you know, I mean, I would go and do the church thing. That’s what I call Charlie’s thing. What’s cool is I think that those periods of time started something inside of me, her flourishing was starting to ignite something inside of me because I’m a singer too. And I love to sing. And like the worship services would always be a point of, of a point of contact with who I knew to be true. And so it was really beautiful how she’d work that in. And I just want to add that. Cause it was, it was cool to watch that. Yeah.

Mama Karla:Well, I got to tell ya in the years that we were separated, Shea, those, there was such a division. We were so far apart and for the Lord to work in me, that’s the only thing that brought us back to where we are. And you, you know, seven years ago, wasn’t it? Seven years. Oh, when you returned to the Lord. Okay. I mean, there was a, there was a bonding that started at that time. Shea always loved me because I’m his mama, there’s a time there’s times that you just don’t really like somebody or you don’t, you don’t respect them or whatever, because of things that I did that were ungodly, I got to tell you something, God has brought this together and I’m so thankful for Shea and Michelle. And I’m so thankful for their marriage, that God is working in their marriage and they’ve got a long way to go, I got to tell you, they are so, happy and Jesus, they put him first. And that is the most important thing is that we put Christ first in our lives, in everything. He is our main person to be involved with. Like he says that Michelle’s, you know, she’s important to him. And he, she, she, he loves her and all that, Jesus is first. And that if people don’t do that, if, if we don’t do that every single day and stay connected with him, we’ve put wedges between us and others that we love. And so I’m really happy Shea that you, let me be your mother again, you forgave me

Shea: Earlier than that, that’s okay. I just, I don’t know what the spirit is that God put inside me of forgiveness pretty easily. Everybody might look at me like I could just roll somebody, put man, actually just forgive people quick. It has to be a God thing. So we were in Joplin, right? So that’s, you know, we’re at Joplin, you’re growing with granny green, you know, you’re, you’re playing in the church and then you had some changes, had a few changes. Another one of those David moments where like the world just kind of collapses in on you. And you’re like, Oh my goodness, I got to move. And so just briefly, you know, like what, what took place in that time period? Because it had to do with actually, God, God, I mean, it was natural. So yeah. I mean, cause you’re not living in Joplin now, right?

Mama Karla:No we’re living in Texas, Lumberton, Texas. So in Joplin, a number of things happened, we had a tornado go through our, our city that killed like 62 people and a lot of friends and we, I didn’t have a church because I was playing in a church. I was being paid to play in a church, I didn’t, it wasn’t really in my heart. So one day I was coming home from, from that church and I was looking at all the devastation and Don had been wanting to, move to Texas asking me. And so I told him, I just wasn’t ready yet. That day I got ready. And when I came home, I said, honey, I’m ready to go to Texas. He does. He wanted to be a Texan and I don’t go crazy. Anyway, this is where I’m.

Mama Karla: We moved to Texas. They asked me, they found out that from my niece that I play piano and they immediately asked me if I’d start playing piano at my church, I’m going to now it has been just a real blessing. I have a wonderful church family that is always there to, you know, encourage us. They’re wonderful. Shea came for a visit and he sang with me and everybody saying, is your son going to come back and sing with you? Cause they thought he was so incredible. And his attitude was so good and his enthusiasm happy day, you know, he’s just always right when Jesus washed my sins away. Anyway, he was always happy. He just, we sang. And so it was, it’s been, it’s been wonderful here. And Don wanted to move back to Joplin. And then we, I prayed, I think as I didn’t want me to leave.

Mama Karla: Yeah she is a pillar of that church, she does all kinds of things from, they’re like, Hey, Carla, you think you’d do this? She’s like, yeah, she runs. You know, she doesn’t run out because she feels like she has to, she runs cause she wants to. Yeah. I think that, that’s what I’ve seen a lot, in this, in this rebuilding of her life is her, her running towards God. And, and you know, that, that sets a tone. You know, when we think of, Oh, happy day, right? It’s like, I hear this all the time that people are worried about their kids or they’re worried about their parents or they’re worried about something because you know, there is, this is, is one or the other. There’s, there’s two ways to go here. And what’s really neat to understand is when we start to reflect, you know, what we believe, you know, then that it changes. And it starts to bring in flourishing, you know, when someone else starts to flourish, it’s like an outpouring. It’s like the, the, the water coming, you know, the bring in the water, you know, and then it overflows.

Michelle: There’s a special relationship that parents can have with their children. I’ve seen something really that ignites no matter who you are, this is what’s cool is sometimes you look in the word and you’re like, wow, that family has it together. I have a few families in mind when I think down like that family they’re strong together. They that strong love, you know? And the only thing it seems they’re missing is Christ, which is everything right. That’s what they’re missing. from a world perspective, every other box is checked. What’s interesting is what happens when you come to Christ, you always have the chance to be that family. Now it’s like beforehand, there’s a very special cocktail of things. You have to have to have that perfect family that, that healthy, happy, loving family. You’ve got to have the right money, education background, you know, resilience to stick it like perfect family chemistry.

Shea: When you come to Christ, no matter where you’re at, no matter what you’ve got, no matter anything, because simply Christ it can go and fall into that perfect category. When I say perfect, I don’t mean actual perfection, what the world was like that good for everyone wants that family. Everyone. I want what y’all have. I want that relationship. And it’s the secret is Christ. And the cool thing is he’s not supposed to be a secret or even an attitude towards your friends, your family. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. How can, like, I don’t know how many times my friends will be like, how do you forgive that? It’s like, Jesus. I mean, we’ve been forgiven for worse. We’ve been forgiven for worse has been a lot worse forgiven. Yeah. Yeah. I haven’t done that work. Right, right. It’s, it’s really cool. And it’s cool to, to have my mom here and it’s cool that you do flourish. And so I guess on that, it’s like, what would you tell? I think it’s important. I’m speaking from a perspective of a mother or a, or a parent. What would you tell someone who has a kid? Because there’s a lot of people out there. I get a lot of prayer requests for, for people who are like, I just wish my, my child would turn to Christ. What would you tell them? What would you, what advice would you give them?

Mama Karla: Never give up. Always love. Always forgive. Don’t be offended. Don’t don’t let offense come in this because that is a sin. And always pray that God’s will be done in their lives. And you, we know what God’s will is, right? Yeah. Those of us that, that live for Christ and where there’s breath there’s hope. And that is in the Bible. I don’t know the scripture. I guess I should have looked it up, where there’s breath, there’s hope he will answer your prayer, you have to be faithful too. As a mother, you have to be fateful too. You can’t just like Michelle was saying, well, you can pray, he may not hear you. Well, that is true. You need to stay faithful to God. And what he says, because you know that every promise in this book of the Bible is, is ours. As Christians. We have to do a few things. Ourselves just stay true to him.

Mama Karla: And I would, if I, if I were a mom and I knew what I know now, I mean, when I was a mom with a, a young child, with both of my children, I would have read my Bible more. I would have prayed more and I would have stayed with God because our children, we are responsible for our children as far as prayers go and how we raise them from birth. I love the way Shea and Michelle are raising Calia. They, they talk about Jesus all the time. She knows Jesus. She, I mean, she doesn’t know him, she knows the name. She knows, and she’s getting the hang of it. As mothers, we have a big responsibility. And if we don’t pray for our kids, I think we’re going to be held accountable at the end. So I’m so blessed to forgiveness so glad for forgiveness and that we, you know, we start, we, we have do overs and it’s so cool. You know, it’s so cool to be able to have a do-over and we just pray that and forgive, forgive, that’s important forgiveness. And we have to forgive if we expect God to forgive us. So is that what you were asking there?

Michelle: That’s beautiful. That’s so perfect. That’s so perfect. Yeah. I love the idea that in the world, I remember as a kid, I didn’t know what Jesus had done, so I didn’t understand grace, I knew God was real. I just knew. And so when I would pray straight to God, I would feel like I couldn’t do it. If I’d been really bad, I’ve been really bad. He didn’t want to hear from me for a while. And it kind of felt like those factories or coal mines, because my family, my mom’s from West Virginia, those coal mines where they say, you know, 82 days since the last accident, you know, and then all of a sudden you drive by again, it’s like one day since the last accident. And you’re like, man, and how demoralizing it feels when you go from 83 or 82 down to one.

Speaker 0 00:32:24 Again, what I love about Christ is one. You learn that like you, ain’t never going to get today. 83 have not Senate, not in this whole world. So you don’t have to ever feel like that, you don’t have to feel like you’ve lost your momentum in those ugly moments. You can just because he’s not disowning you, like you said about the arm reaching down from heaven, you can be at your ugliest and dirtiest today and he hasn’t let you go. And he’s not saying you, I don’t want to touch you right now. He’s there. So you can be that faithful person. Who’s like, well, I’m not trying to let go. Either Lord we’re in this together and you can bounce back and you don’t have to be like, man, I’m down to zero. He won’t talk to me again until I’m at day 12. Like you don’t have to be like that, that it makes every day, much more likely to have at least happy moments. Right? Happiness. Isn’t the goal joyous, it’s much more likely you’re going to have happy moments every day because of the happy news that you can bounce back,

Shea: Right? He’s constantly pouring into you. He’s constantly flourishing you. That never stops. That never ceases. What a beautiful conversation today, What a beautiful time we’ve had with you, mom. I love you. And I love how God continues to use you, how he continues to flourish you. And we’re going to close out with a song because I think that everybody has to understand that he is consistently constantly, whatever term you want to use on that. That is just all the time pouring into you. And he’s flourishing. You, you might not feel it. You might not think it. You might not understand it. You might not grasp it, he’s flourishing Psalm 92:13. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. That, that flourishing, the budding, the sprouting, the blooming are happening continuously because we made a choice to serve the Lord. Amen.

Michelle: Amen. Thank you for being here. Mama Karla. Welcome.

Mama Karla: I’m really happy that I got to be here so much.

Shea: I just want to say something before we head out though about like raising your kid, you know that Calia and I mom might not know this. We got an argument last night. It’s the funniest argument. This can stay on. It’s cool. Do you love Jesus? No baby. You love Jesus? No baby. And then, I’m like, do you love Jesus? She goes, no baby Jesus.

Shea: Look, parents it sticks. Love them. Watch love your kids. Like my mom has loved me. Love your kids and you know what? They’ll flourish, love them with the love of Christ. Amen.

Michelle: Amen. I have something about Calia just to build it up even more today, we’re looking outside and she’s watching you clear off the car. And she said, Jesus. Cause I said that you helped out. And she said, Jesus help. And I said, yes, Jesus helps us out too. And she’s like Jesus, up high. And I was like, yeah, he’s very high. We can’t see him right now, we can feel him in our hearts and she and she like drops her head down and puts her hands together. And she’s like, Lord, thank you, Jesus.

Shea: Pantry fans. You got to hear that story. Cause Grammy on the phone.

Michelle: I know, y’all you can hear even more and we want to hear from you. So remember that next week we are going to be doing a live zoom chat and we would love for you to be there. And there is still time to sign up for that link. So you can just go to the pantry podcast.com/zoom and sign up to get the link. And we will be sending that link out the day before. So all the details are there and you are cordially invited. So until next time. Bye bye. That was so good. Perfect. Perfect. I’m glad you said that. I can put that in there.

KEYWORDS: HAPPINESS, JOY, EVERYDAY HAPPINESS, GODLY TRUTH, THE KEY TO HAPPINESS, PODCASTS FOR WOMEN, PODCASTS FOR FAITH, PODCASTS FOR CHRISTIANS, CHRISTIAN PODCASTS TO FOLLOW.