PP 202: The Power of Choice with Marie White

Quick Show Notes – The Power of Choice with Marie White

When we go through something hard, we have a choice. We can choose to be broken, we can choose to be bitter, or we can choose to be better.” ~ Marie White

Marie White and I share the deepest conversation of the Positive Productivity podcast to date. We share how tragedies in our families guided us on our entrepreneurial paths.

From tragedy to helping the world. @MarieWritesBook and @thekimsutton share the deepest conversation of the Positive Productivity podcast to date, sharing how family tragedies guided their entrepreneurial paths: https://thekimsutton.com/pp202 #positiveproductivity #podcastClick To Tweet

Episode Transcription – Marie White

This transcription has not yet been cleaned up, but thanks for checking it out!

Kim Sutton: Welcome back to another episode of the Positive Productivity podcast. This is your host Kim Sutton. And today, I am thrilled to introduce our guest, Marie White.

Marie is a best selling and award winning author, and has quite an amazing story to share with us about how she got started in the journey that she’s been on since then, Marie, I’m gonna let you take it from there. But Welcome. I’m so happy to have you with us.

Marie White: Thank you, Kim. I’m so glad to be here. It was so amazing to get to meet you and get to spend time with you and just kind of hear your story and you know how you got started doing this and what you’ve done. It’s just been amazing. I love to be able to watch people living a new adventure in their

life. Oh, thank you very much. And speaking of adventure, sorry, we’re gonna we’ll jump into your introduction like you introducing yourself even further in just a moment. But listeners, speaking of adventures, I have to let you know after months and months and months of talking about it. I finally did my first Facebook Live this morning. I’ve been promising it to you forever. What an adventure. It was about bloopers And wouldn’t you know Know that it kicked me out while I was recording, so quite appropriate, but totally not related to anything that we were talking about except for the adventure part, but it really was one. Now back to you, Marie, can you tell me more about you and and your journey up until now?

Marie White: Well, I think my journey might surprise some of your listeners, and some of them might be able to relate in a way. Three years ago, our toddler was abducted. And we had to figure out how to keep on living at that point how to keep going and breathing. I think Tom Hanks and Sleepless in Seattle said it best. You know, you, you have to make yourself get out of bed each morning and you have to make yourself breathe in and out all day long. And eventually comes a point where you don’t have to tell yourself to breathe in and out all day long. You can you can do it without saying it’s been quite a journey and Talking about it and putting myself out there is not something that I wanted to do. It’s actually I would rather just be in my home and with my family and have my missing child back and doing, you know, leaving a very private life. And instead, I really feel like this is the path that God has put us on, and that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, which is sharing with other parents and with other people. That no matter what happens in your life, there is still hope. And there is still the promise of a new tomorrow. And so that’s how I began three years ago when that happened. I didn’t really didn’t really know what to do you know how to handle it. It’s not like in the movies. It’s actually you don’t fall to the floor and you don’t you know, put your hands to the sky and scream Why Why did this happen? It doesn’t happen like that. You are in fight or flight for the rest of the time until your child is returned or until there is an end to secure You are constantly in a state of fear and terror and stress and adrenaline and cortisol rushing through your body. Your first thoughts are what do I do now? You need to call the police do you know do we call an investigator? Do we leave the house do we not leave the house it’s a million emotions that you go through. And obviously in the middle of all that there’s also moments where you do just break down and you know cry and and don’t want to keep breathing in and out because it’s so hurtful every breath hurts because of how much pain you’re going through right?

I can’t even get

in the middle of all that. We’ve found so much good huh?

Raise you have other children?

Marie White: We do we have other children.

That it blows my mind because I can’t even imagine so Bravo to you Mama. Like I haven’t been in your shoes and I haven’t been in your house and we’ve we’ve moved And then event, but with other children I can’t even imagine just going on, you know, for the other kids, but it’s what they need you to do most and I think it was a fabulous it was fabulous how you brought up the that quote from Sleepless in Seattle? Because I know that so many of us have been through struggling or struggles. And it really is it is a struggle at some point to breeze and to get out of bed and just wonder what to do next. And that I guess it just starts going on its own at some point and then you realize, wow, I am actually just breathing. And I don’t have to remember to anymore.

Yes.

How long? How long did that take for you and and

what did you see as the biggest steps to be able to breathe again.

I think the first couple of months obviously were the hardest. I mean part of you is, you know, stuck in this terror and the other part of you is hopeful that there will be a resolution very quickly that, that, you know, don’t give in to the terror because, you know, tomorrow could be, you know, could be great news. And so I think you you live in this weird, you know, other dimension almost of you know, the ground is uneven beneath you, you don’t really know where you stand. And it really it turns your life upside down in more ways than just the rhythm of your family. You know, as a mom, when one person has gone from your home, the rhythm of the family changes. And that, besides that, there’s also this looking at life and going Lord, you didn’t, you didn’t protect us from this. And if you didn’t protect us from this, and you allowed it to happen, you didn’t make it happen, but you allowed it to happen, then what else could happen next? I mean, tomorrow Are we going to walk out the door and get hit by a car is there you know, if we like take a plane ride is it going to crash I mean like what is going to happen? Next, because all of a sudden, everything is up for grabs. If this the worst possible thing that we could possibly imagine happened, then anything could happen.

At the risk of sounding paranoid, there are days that I just want to tell my husband not to leave the house. Mm hmm. Because there’s that fear of something happening. No, I’ve never told him not to leave. But I can’t imagine him not coming home. Or any of my kids not coming home.

Yes, yeah.

It’s unbelievable. And then of course, like you said, there are no other people in the household. So it’s not just what you’re going through and your terror and your grief and all the emotions you’re going through. But now you’ve got to gauge the tenor of the house. You know, if I have a day when all I want to do is cry all day long and it’s not that you really are on the floor crying all day long. You You have to keep getting up you do still have to, you know, cook meals or take out the trash or You know, give the dog food. I mean, there are things that have to be done. They don’t stop life does not stop just because you want it to. And so in those times, you do have to keep moving and you’re doing it like a robot, very perfunctorily. You know, your eyes are there. If you smile, there’s no smile in your eyes, everything is forced. But on the days where you just feel like all you want to do is break down and cry. You have to also look at who’s around you. You know, is it a day when my husband’s having a good day? I can bring him down with my sadness. And there’s the day with my kids are okay. And they’re dealing with it in that moment while but I can’t bring them down. And I think each of us feels that way as we go through something like this.

Marie, first off, thank you for sharing all of that. Last July, I hit a breaking point where and this is prior to the podcast launching so listeners if you’re listening while To The Future, I’m talking about July of 2016. I was wrapped up in major anxiety and I was thinking the worst. And by worse, I mean I was. And I don’t know how much detail about this I’ve ever gone into the pod into in the podcast, but I was actually thinking about just ending it for me, because I was in so much anxiety and depression. But this isn’t something that I’ve never shared before on the podcast.

In October of 2013, my brother died. And he was an entrepreneur and went missing. And a day later was found that and the reason why I haven’t talked about it on the podcast before is because it’s still an active investigation.

There was a new segment last week, so I apologize to my family for discussing this on the podcast, however, because it did go out in the news, and I’m taking liberty to talk about it a little bit, and I apologize, Sue Murray for sort of taking away your story for a moment, but I think just sharing from this side, I can see a bigger connection happening and, and, and I just want listeners to know that I’m in the struggles been here to the there’s mixed sides of the investigation now. Because he was found and he was found it, but we don’t know how he got that. We don’t know if he did it to himself. Or we don’t know if somebody did it to him. Because the evidence is not there. Or it’s there. I just, I can’t say any more than I’ve said already. But last July, I realized I can’t do what Devil is telling me to do. Because my family has already been through this number one. And number two, because there are so many people out there who have those days that are full of anxiety, and their business isn’t going how they want it to go, and the income just isn’t coming in how they want it to come in. But they need to know that there’s hope, and that they can keep on going. And on that day, I reached out to a friend and she gave me resources and it turned my life around. We still don’t have answers on my brother.

But it’s become my mission. Now, that if

if I guess he’s inspired it that if he did actually do it to himself, My mission is to be out there to support entrepreneurs, either by way of the podcasts or my coaching that they know that there’s an outlet to go to so that they can have the hope to keep on going And it’s I mean, it’s feels to me in very much alignment with what you’re doing, no matter what happens in a family, you have kept on going and you’re providing the hope. And the resources and the materials and your books, which I’d love to start talking about, to others to know that they can keep on going to.

Marie White: Absolutely, Kim, and you’re right. I mean, this is, this is the thing that I think you find out you have a choice when you go through something hard like this. And in so many ways, our situations are very similar. But when you go through them, you have a choice, all of us, we can choose to be broken. We can choose to be bitter, or we can choose to be better, better than we were before this happened. Making not the same mistakes. I mean, you know, we were we were very, very blessed that God gave us you know, insight into parenting by the time My youngest came along, we had already had two children. And we knew how quickly childhood went by. And so we didn’t make the mistakes with the third that we did with the first two, you know, I’m tired. I don’t feel like playing with them or, you know, or Yeah, I should go out and throw the ball, but I don’t really want to do it or whatever. By the time our third child came, we knew how fast that went. And we made less of those things, those mistakes, we don’t have any regrets. I don’t look back and go, Oh, if only I had, you know, rock them one more time, or tuck them in, or played on the floor or whatever. I don’t have any of those. Because we learned from the first two children. And I think that’s the same opportunity we have when something horrible happens is we have opportunity to become the best version of ourselves. We can look back and go before this happened. This is who I was. But what do I want to be going forward? When my child comes home who is the person I want them to find they can find somebody who’s been sitting on the floor for three years, eating chocolate bars and not improving, or they can find somebody who is stronger, who is better, who is prepared to take on the rehabilitation that’s going to need to happen. When our child comes home.

You brought up a really interesting point and I’m asking as much for myself as I am for listeners. I love how you said that. You know, you learn from your first two, how to do the things with your third, so as to not regret not doing them. That’s actually been one of my hardest parts out of the death of my brother, because I had been home to upstate New York or Western New York just three weeks before his death. Actually my grandmother, and my, my parents divorced when I was young and my my brother was my mom’s, but my grandmother died and she was my mom’s mom so my brother wasn’t at that funeral home I made plans to go meet him with my husband who he had not met and, and my daughter, who was newborn at the time who we hadn’t met, either. However, life gets busy making other plans sometimes and I never made that trip. It taken me 10 minutes to get there. And I look back with regret not having been there.

Okay.

And don’t, don’t let it Don’t let it hold you down because we all do those things we can’t know we can’t possibly know what’s going to happen. When we when we make a decision like that. I mean, that was something so tiny, but it does haunt you. But don’t let it because now moving forward, you know, if you have that opportunity, you won’t miss it again.

Absolutely. And that’s actually I love how you said earlier about being better. Because that’s another part of the positive productivity brand is Taking time for self care and to me and part of self care is taking time for family as well. There were so many nights and weekends that I worked all night, didn’t even see my kids worked all weekend and see my kids and we were in the same house. And I won’t deny that it still happens more than I would like it to. to being an entrepreneur. I think we work nights and weekends. Yeah, however it’s been it’s scheduled into my calendar now. I am not available after 430 my time because I want to make sure that I I’m not rushing to pick them up. I am not yelling at them to hurry up and get in the car because I had to get home and get on another plane call. No, you know, this is my family’s time. I am not available to clients anymore.

And that takes balls or boobs.

Whatever you got

You know, saying no to other outside influences in your life so that you can make time for what’s important.

Yes, even great opportunities, you know, they say, you know, the great things get taken up by the good things. And so we’ll see some cool opportunity and go like, well, this is presented and go, Wait a minute, but at what cost?

Oh, absolutely. Great. Things got great things get taken up by good things. I haven’t heard that before.

Yeah, there’s an actual quote with that. I don’t remember what it is, but it’s something very similar to that.

But said much for listeners that will be a tweetable in our podcast notes, which you’ll be able to find that at thekimsutton.com/pp202.

Murray’s

you started writing or were you already writing before this happened?

Marie White: No, no, actually, when this happened, you know, I was a stay at home mom with my kids. I’m also a veteran of the United States Air Force. And you know, I’ve stayed home with My kids and raise them and then this happened. And within I would say probably two or three months after it happened in life kind of became this is our life, our life is that our child is missing. And they’re, you know, they’ll come home when they come home, but it may not be tomorrow, and we have to keep living and in planning the rest of our life. And I didn’t mean we gave up and like that. I mean, we are still going it doesn’t end. But it does mean you kind of realize this is the new normal. And so I you know, I really was just calling out to God going okay, Lord, this is new life, our new life. What do you want me to do with this? Because the pain is overwhelming, but I know you wouldn’t have allowed it. If you didn’t have a purpose for it. So tell me, what am I supposed to do with this? And the first thing that happened was I was listening to a podcast and you know, I was just like, you know, how am I going to administer? I don’t want to leave the house. You know, what am I supposed To do, and this podcast came on, and they said they were looking for missionaries to work from home and answer people that were writing in from all over the world that had just become Christians and wanted to, you know, grow in their faith or they were facing persecution, and they needed somebody that was further along in the faith to kind of guide them and disciple them. And so I was like, that was it. That was perfect. So I signed up with that and went through the, you know, the background checks and all the referrals or you know, whatever, you have to have references and all that kind of stuff and all the training and became an online missionary with global media outreach and started talking with hundreds of people from Iran, you know, Mayan Mar, China, Japan, the US, Canada, all over the globe. And it has been an amazing adventure. But it was not the end of the adventure. The next thing was all right, Lord, I’m doing that. What else have you got? And the next thing was to start it a YouTube channel called Bible stories for adults, almost everyone in our family. We all came to Christ as adults, we did not grow up in a Christian home. But almost everybody of my family is are now believers and my husband’s family are now believers. And so everyone came as adults, and they didn’t have young kids. So they didn’t know the stories of the Bible. I had grown up going to Sunday school because it was cheap child care for my family, they could send us each with a quarter and get us out of their hair for a couple hours on Sunday morning for which I am very grateful. And, you know, knew the stories of the Bible and when our kids were born, bought them. Bible stories, you know, for kids, and read them to them and my husband knew the Bible from reading those stories to the kids. Well, for adults who didn’t have children or grandchildren to read those with, they didn’t have that kind of knowledge. And so I started Bible stories for adults, learning how to use YouTube learning how to record myself and videotape. Take New Adult believers through the stories of the Bible over 110 videos, in short two to four minute videos.

While I share that similarity, I was actually Well, with one exception, I was born and raised Catholic. So just about every single Sunday, you could find me at service. However, I did not absorb a single thing. And from the time I went to college until until I was 3031, I abandoned faith completely, or Christianity, but I didn’t have a connection up till then. I hate to say it, but right. My Church, I mean, they had youth group, but it was more about going to see what boys were going to be there. Mm hmm. So when I left my ex husband in 2010, that weekend immediately after some God called me and said go to church. So I went to my local church, one of my local churches and cried my way through service. And I finally began to understand I did not know, a single story from the Bible with the exception of Christmas and Easter. Wow, up until that point. I mean, the story of Joseph and his in his coat. I mean, the biggest connection I had to that was the musical. Mm hmm. What is it? The Technicolor Dreamcoat? Yeah, I mean, that’s sad. But now I understand and there’s a story right there, you know, he was he went through amazing, not amazing in a good way, but incredible challenges and struggles and still came out stronger in the end.

Marie White: Yes. Yeah. And I actually talked about him in the book and one of the books because after doing the Bible stories for adults on YouTube, you know, here I was, everything I did was rushing. You know, Lord of the Rings, you know, the unlegal that says, They run as though the very whips of their masters were behind them. And I felt the same way. I felt like, there’s something you want me to accomplish God and whatever it is, I need to hurry up and get it done as fast as I can. Because as soon as the last thing is done, you’re bringing my child home. So is it to become a missionary? I did that. I’m still doing that. But they’re not home does not it. Next one. Okay. Is it to start Bible stories for adults? Okay, I did that as fast as I could. I mean, just you know, videotaping and learning how to edit and get it up on YouTube and everything. And then Okay, that’s done. That’s not it yet. There’s still something else. Okay, what’s next? And the next thing became writing. People kept hearing the story of what we were going through and saying, that’s a movie that’s a book. Are you writing this down? Are you writing this down? And I kept thinking now, I’m so egocentric in any way, my own. You know, everything in life is about me. The last thing I need to do is to write a book or write a movie and be like, Oh, it’s more about me and like Really, I just want to live quietly in my home with my family together and I don’t want to be me, me, me, me, me. And so I really, you know, thought that a lot until finally I just felt like alright Lord, if you’re waiting to bring my child home until I write this, then I will write it. So I started writing the story of what we were going through of what we had gone through and our child’s story. And then I finished that is the size of a Harry Potter novel. And my husband said, You can’t publish that. I was like, Yeah, no, okay. So that is sitting aside for you know, who knows how long 1020 years down the road where I can actually put that out, but then became, there were other there was other reading to do. So then came a Bible study that came out 10 day Bible study. Then came a book for the LGBT community, which I am not a part of, but I saw in our pain, the pain Other people, and one of the groups of people I saw so much pain in was the LGBT community. And I wanted to share how much God loves them in a way that would be, you know, just loving and compassionate. And so I wrote God’s love for lgbtqi. And that was published. It’s also in the head two books out.

I just want to give you a big hug for that.

Seriously, I just want to give you a big hug for that. Because I mean, growing up as I did, and going through art school and working in architecture, I have so many incredible incredible friends who are part of and I could never get the letters right that’s so bad, but are gay lesbian, and, and everything else. And they’re incredible people. And sorry, I’m not trying to insult you if I didn’t include everything, but I’m just saying Trying to get the point across that. They’re incredible. We’re all incredible. And God’s love was right there. So thank you.

It is thank you for saying that it is. And it’s also scary, you know, putting something out like that as a straight Christian. And I thought, you know, I remember the day the manuscript was finished and ready to go to be sent off to the publisher. And I went to press and, and I slammed the laptop closed and pushed it away. And I was like, I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I just I can’t take one more thing, Lord, I cannot take a bull’s eye on my chest in the middle of losing my child in the middle of all that we’re having to go through right now. Because as it turns out, when one thing goes wrong, that is not the only thing that goes wrong. William Shakespeare said, When sorrows come, they come not in single spies but in battalions. And he’s right, because you don’t just lose your child and everything else is fine. You lose your child then your air conditioner breaks. The computer dies, then all these things happen where you’re like, Where in the world is that money going to come from? And you have no clue. And he does provide and it does work out. But it just seems like you’re just getting hit from all sides.

I’m so sorry. I was over here laughing not at you. But because I understand that so completely.

Yeah. Does it

ever happen in ones here? It happens in threes or more. Yeah, it seems to be the number. So yeah.

It’s so true. And nomen tells you that ahead of time, well, I guess I guess Shakespeare did a while ago. We should have listened. I don’t know.

You have me thinking about a song that we hear in my house all the time. We listen to K-Love Radio.

Marie White: Mm hmm. Me too.

Kim Sutton: And there’s a song and I’m not even going to try singing because I will get automatic disconnects in unsubscribes if I try singing it’s a it’s he says something about God, why don’t you do something? And he says, like, it’s basically what I did. That’s why you’re here. Yep. And I don’t remember who sings it. I’ll look it up for the show notes. But that’s so true. But let me Murray, I want to know what happened after you put that book out. But I also want to know, how being so vocal in your, in your face, how that’s affected you. And, and if you have experienced any backlash from that?

Marie White: Well, you know, I was, like I said, really scared to put that out. And I did have to, you know, kind of walk away from the computer for a little while, pray about it kind of, Okay, now I feel better I can come back and do this. It actually I thought that the Christian community was going to be like you’re compromising and the LGBT community was going to be like, we don’t want to hear about your God and instead, the opposite happened. It became this this whole thing I mean, I, the reason I wrote it is there was nothing like it out there on the market at all. This is something that someone who is a Christian parent can give to their teenager who has just come out to them, and can feel comfortable that what they’re giving them is sound. And it is just God’s word, loving and caring to have in their hands to have by their bed. I mean, that’s what it is. And for the LGBT community, I mean, I literally will take this book with me just for advertising purposes and keep it with me as I’m at Starbucks, meeting with somebody, whatever. And I’ll have 60 year old men come up to my table and go, what is this book? And when I tell them what it is, because, you know, there’s making sure they understood what it said. They’ll just start breaking down crying in the middle of the Starbucks, and I’ll just end up holding some stranger there. As they cry and say, I thought God had abandoned me and I thought Christians hated me. And that has happened way more than once. The feedback has been amazing. that it hasn’t met a need within both communities for just sharing God’s love. Because you know what he, he’s amazing. And when you know who he is everything in life changes. And that’s also why the next thing that happened was the Bible study got translated into modern Greek and started being used by missionaries in Greece. The next book came out which was changing your life in just 10 days, within a very short period of time. 10,000 people had read that book. And it’s more secular, though it does have some, you know, Christian things in it, some christian quotes in it. And then, finally, the work that I feel like I was really supposed to do, and that I know God has given me as my task was to write the book strength for parents of missing children, surviving divorce, abduction, runaways, and foster parents. And when I wrote that, I thought I was writing to families like ours. And as it turns out, I was writing to everybody.

You were actually

re I didn’t even include this earlier. But the reason why my brother had not met my husband or my daughter, or I don’t know that he has meant that he had even met my older children was because there was a break in the family. Yes, about a decade prior. And he was a strange.

Wow.

So he was not either of my weddings. He wasn’t at my sister, either of my sister’s weddings. No, graduations, no Christmases, Thanksgivings. You know, anything. And I have not been at home. Meaning home where I grew up. This is my home now, but I had not been back there for years. But I had seen the pain and I still see the pain that it puts my especially my stepmom through because

She has… her son died. And she has grandchildren out there that she doesn’t know. Mm hmm. And it’s horribly painful for her.

Yes.

And so often, you know, especially as another believer, you understand this that, you know, the tactic of evil is to make you feel like you’re all alone. Like you are the only one going through whatever it is you’re going through. No one else can relate. You can’t share it with anybody. And your life is the only one that’s this bad. And as it turns out, you know what, there’s a whole lot more people going through exactly what each of us are going through. And when we go looking for them, we become stronger.

Absolutely.

So, you, how many books have you written 553 years? Oh my gosh. The listeners have heard me Talking about writing chronic idea to sort of since I launched the podcasts and listeners, I have a confession. I don’t even have mine completed. Like, I know what it’s about, but I just don’t know. Like, I don’t feel it yet. And I can’t force myself to write that’s just doesn’t work for me, then I get far less than good. You, you’ve written five books in three years. How did zombies come? To be? And can you share what zombies is with listeners?

Well, as the books started coming out, they started doing really well. In fact, four of them became bestsellers. And, you know, it’s by God’s hand alone, because honestly, you know, I would be like you, I would be like, Oh, I have an idea. Yeah, it’s been sitting there for several years. But this has been a time where I really feel like God has really just pushed me there are some things I need to get done. And I just do them now. And so I have done them well With that kind of fervor, and of course, with the angle of that, you know, at some point I’m going to finish whatever the last thing is before my child comes home. And so, in that I ended up started starting to mentor other writers who were coming up or who had written books and had gone, they had gone nowhere, you know, five people read their books. And so I started mentoring them and helping them and then eventually started a publishing house called zombies press, which is ZAMIZ pyaare ss, to help people get their stories out there and have a publisher that works with integrity to help them do that.

That’s amazing.

When you publish your books, you went through a publisher, or did you do any self publishing?

Marie White: Both.

Both? What did it look like for you working with a publisher were they helpful for getting the exposure that you believe you needed and God needed for for your works

Marie White: The state of publishing now is that you have to do everything on your own, as long as authors understand that, that they’re going to be building brand building on their own, that they’re going to be doing all of their own publicity, their marketing, everything. The only thing a publisher does is to produce your book, when they understand that they understand how the publishing industry works now.

It shocked me when I found that out. I had a client, actually a Christian client or writing a book three years ago, and he was working with a publisher — and I believe he actually paid them to publish this — but I was shocked when they didn’t do anything as far as marketing. Not one single thing. Nope, they that is today. Yeah, they didn’t hesitate to tell him that he should change the name. But when it came to actually helping the book go big.

A single millisecond of thought put into no

and unless you’re Dr. Phil or Oprah or you know, somebody who is, you know, the top 5% of the top 5% of the top 5% then they really just don’t put any money toward you. It just it doesn’t happen. So you have to learn on your own. And that is a long and detailed process much like me, I’m sure publishing and marketing your podcast is the same way you learn on your own.

listeners, there are

a lot of things that just aren’t being discussed in this episode. I just want to be totally transparent marine saying that I mean, both for the case with my brother and also raise child there are still active investigations, so we’re just going to leave a lot of that alone. However, Marie when your child comes home, how do you think your life will change? Will you keep on writing and doing what you’re doing now?

Marie White: I do. It’s the weirdest thing because you know when I’m you No, just going about my day doing the things that I do. I, you know, I’m talking to God, I’ll be like, you know, I want my child comes home, you know, I just want to drop everything and just spend time with them. And yet I know that that is not the case that that is not what he has asked me to do that I’m trying to make sure everything is in place so that my workload is light. And that it is I can hand it off to other people, you know, different parts of it, and really, you know, outsource some things that I’m normally doing, but I know that he wants me to keep on doing this, that this is not do this, watch how it’s gone. And then, you know, when they get home, just, you know, drop it all.

Marie White: I’m supposed to keep going. And so I’m making sure I have the things in place to keep going at a obviously a less, you know, frantic rate. But, yeah, it’s hard to, to not want to just shift off everything, okay? I’ll just focus on them when he’s going. Okay, I do have more for you to do.

There’s a big parallel between that and what we often see people doing with their prayers. They don’t hesitate to ask God for something when they need something. Mm hmm. But when they get what they’re searching for, we can’t forget to pray. Yes. And, and give gratitude. Yes. And keep on doing the work.

Marie White: You’re so right, Kim. I’m so glad we got to talk today. I’m so glad I got to be on the positive productivity podcast. This is amazing. You’re doing a great job. Thanks for having me on.

Thank you. You’re very welcome. Marie, I know you had a gift for listeners, can you? Can you share more about that and where they can find it?

Marie White: Absolutely. I would love to give each of your listeners a free copy of my book changing your life in just 10 days by visiting my website which is Marie white, which is spelled like the color author.com that’s MarieWhiteAuthor.com and they can pick up their own free copy and I would love for them to check out on Amazon strength for parents of missing Children and see if it’s something that might not encourage you in your life.

Kim Sutton: Marie, do you have a last piece of parting advice that you can offer to listeners?

Marie White: Absolutely. Mark Twain said the two most important days in a person’s life are the day they’re born. And the day they find out why. Go find out why you’re here. Search anywhere you have to go to find it. Because there’s a reason that God made you the way that you are, and with a great purpose, and now it’s your job to go find it.