Speaker 1: 0:01

It's time now to get the hell out of your life. A weekly broadcast with real people sharing real struggles and offering real hope. Today's show will encourage, inspire and empower you to face life's challenges with a bold confidence and renewed hope. Now let's join our host, ron Myers. The promoter.

Speaker 3: 0:25

Hello, my friends, it is so good to be with you today. I hope you are having a wonderful day and if you have a little bit of maybe rain on your parade in life, well, I'm so glad you tuned in because this show is about to encourage you, empower you and inspire you. Have you had any talks with Jesus lately? I call it Conversations with Jesus. Me it's Coffee with Jesus which turns into Conversations, which leads to inspiration and doing what Jesus does best minister to our soul to encourage, empower and inspire us. And my guest today will do the same thing for you.

Speaker 3: 1:09

When it comes to dealing with rejection, no matter what role she has played, patti LaRoche has experience. She spent the last 20 years writing, but when a fellow tennis player invited everyone but her to a steak dinner, her friends held a rejection party which she, which was attended only by fellow rejectionees. Out of that, a little faith lift, finding joy beyond rejection, a humorous book with a serious message was born, and my conversation with Patty was just exciting because she is another fellow believer in that when you have Jesus, you really have something that can give you life with peace, power and freedom. Here's a quotation from Patty God is the audience that counts when we exist in the if-only world. If only I were prettier, thinner, smarter, holier. Whatever, we create an unhealthy competition of comparisons and as Teddy Roosevelt said, comparison is the thief of joy and listeners. On the phone with me is writer, author and speaker Patti LaRoche. Patti, welcome to the show. Will you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 2: 2:43

Well, a lot of it is actually covered in my book and it's my story of redemption and my story of meeting Jesus kind of the hard way. I think I was kind of a knucklehead and God had to do a lot to get my attention. But I grew up very poor. My dad died when I was eight months old and my mother was pregnant and I had a brother a year older than me, so she worked minimum wage her entire life to raise us, never dated. But we never had the clothes, we didn't have a TV, we didn't have the car, we didn't have so many things that my friends had, and I always had this sense of I'm just not where I want to be. I want to be like them.

Speaker 2: 3:18

I was always comparing myself to somebody else who was prettier, more popular, smarter, whatever, and it took me years to figure out that that is a very unhealthy way to live. And then when I ended up marrying a professional baseball player, my husband, I thought that that would be my answer, that I would then be in a world where I would be accepted and respected. And I found out very quickly that in the world of professional baseball can be just as cruel as middle school and that there's still some petty jealousies and some comparisons, and it just left me feeling like I still was really missing out on something. I just didn't know what that was. I had been raised in a specific church that was pretty legalistic and made me think that if I did the right thing enough times then I would earn my I call them my grace points. But I had three miscarriages and then a baby died at the hands of a quack doctor and I went kind of into this pretty serious depression. And it was at that time that someone invited me to go hear an evangelist speak and I didn't want to go because that evangelist was not from my denomination, which I believe was the true church. And she just convinced me I know now that it was God and I said, okay, I'm going to go, but I'm going to sit on the back row and I'm not going to listen to anything he says. So I'll go just to get you off my back. And it was there that I heard that Jesus loved me unconditionally, that he's the audience that counts, that he has this unbelievable grace that covers all my mess ups and my insecurities, and I ran down the aisle and asked him into my heart and then my life forever changed, because then I started reading the Bible for the first time and just understanding this amazing God. That had to go to some pretty desperate lengths to make me stop thinking religion was the answer and understand that it was a relationship with his son that mattered. So that's my back story.

Speaker 2: 5:21

And then, dave, my husband, coached for another 30 years after he got out of playing baseball. Our sons were all drafted into professional baseball and we have two daughters who are competitive athletes, so our whole world revolved around a lot of athletics. And you know, sadly, ron, there's a whole lot of people in this world especially, I think, in our country who believe that that's your ticket to being somebody. And we know firsthand that it's not. You know that that's not the answer, it's not your job, it's not your position, it's not your power, it's who you are in Christ, the gift that he gives you, that he wants you to share with other people.

Speaker 2: 5:57

And so I always have loved to write and I love to laugh, and I realized, gosh, I have a lot of stories of really being rejected and funny things that had happened in some of those stories, and so I started to write them down and they turned into my book. Wow. And also I was a teacher for 20 years with teenagers and their hurts and their despair and kind of like, hoped my classroom would always be a place where people would be safe and they would leave there with more confidence than they entered. So that kind of became a mission in the teaching field.

Speaker 3: 6:36

So that's where we are. Absolutely, man, I would have loved to have you as a teacher, and you know your backstory, though that all of us have those backstories, and your backstory is one reason your book is so great for people to take a read Now. It took you 20 years to write the book. What was the final thing that made you say I got to get this thing going?

Speaker 2: 7:02

Well, actually it's a story that's too long to tell in this interview, but I was playing tennis in Mexico we were living half the year in Mexico with three other women and one of the gals spoke up that morning and invited one of the tennis players to come to dinner that weekend, and the other players and I were looking at each other like, did she just invite somebody to her house and not invite us?

Speaker 2: 7:24

And so, anyway, we were kind of laughing about it. And then, after we played tennis, the one she'd invited said oh gosh, I forgot, we have my husband's brothers here. And then the host just said oh well, then you can't come, we don't have that many stakes. And then she turned to somebody else and asked them in front of me, and so I was laughing about that. When I went into the house with my husband, I said you know, I feel like I'm just back in seventh grade and I walked across the dance floor and asked Float to dance with me and he just told me no, that's kind of one of these experiences, and wow of rejection.

Speaker 2: 7:54

Well, anyway, our good friends, our really good friends uh, were out to breakfast, so that's why I was sharing the story with them, and they started kind of cracking up because they had been invited to this gal's house too, and so it's such a funny story. But my friend Joyce then said Patty, you have so many stories. Every time we talk about your childhood or things you've dealt with, we just watch you be rejected in the funniest ways and you laugh about it. Why don't you make your book about that? And honestly, it had started out being bleacher blunders and fielding fiascos.

Speaker 2: 8:31

My first attempt at writing was going to be all about sports, and then it changed to it's my pity party and I'll cry if I want to. And then when she said that, I thought, oh my God, so many of the things I've written about are funny stories about ways I've tried to measure up and just didn't cut the mustard. So I just quickly went back to my book and probably had it written within a few months after all that work. So yes again, god does work in crazy ways.

Speaker 3: 8:59

And Patty, you even did a TED Talk, did you?

Speaker 2: 9:03

I did. Yes, I did. It was nerve-wracking, it was beyond nerve-wracking. I don't memorize well and I started four months ahead of time memorizing, because you're given exactly 18 minutes and it is word for word and there are no edits or cuts or changes and I had no idea what to expect cuts or changes and I had no idea what to expect. So I wrote, I talked about the rewards of rejection, that there are actually some good things that can come out of being rejected, like maybe you learn a little bit of humility, or maybe you learn who your really good friends are, or maybe you just learn that there are ways that you just need to kind of check yourself.

Speaker 2: 9:43

You know, am I too loud, am I too quiet, am I interesting, am I whatever? And so we can all learn from rejection if we just give ourselves a chance. And that's what my book's all about. It's just. My book is really about God's the audience that counts first of all. That's the big message in it. That it's not what somebody else says about you or thinks about you First of all. That's the big message in it, that it's not what somebody else says about you or thinks about you, it's if you can go to bed at night and say OK well, somebody told me today that my hair looked terrible, but but I, I please God, that's the only thing that really matters here, and if you can focus on that and live with that being your primary goal, then, boy, you just don't worry about what other people say about you if they're being unnecessarily critical.

Speaker 3: 10:28

I interviewed a group one time and they had a song it was called Audience of One, and they said that's what we need to focus on, that we all have an audience of one and that one is Jesus and if we understand, that is who we are to do life with and let him identify and encourage us that you know it helps us when we are rejected. Do you think that's accurate?

Speaker 2: 10:55

Yes, and even if it's not about rejection, I mean I just can't imagine my life without him. I have more freedom, I have more peace, I have more fun and because he just he takes care of all the big problems, you know, and I don't have to do that. It's like okay, lord, here we are, we got, we got to deal with this now. So what are we going to do about it? And it just makes life easier. And and I will tell you right now, especially with, especially with social media and the damage that it's done to so many people, if you have, if you have Jesus, then none of that other stuff matters. You know, you're not focused on it, you are. Your whole life totally changes. And I will tell you another thing and I write about this in my book, and it was a huge, it was a huge wake up call for me when I taught one of my classes. I taught was speech and they were jun this in my book. And it was a huge wake-up call for me when I taught one of my classes I taught was speech and they were juniors in high school and every year they would write questions for the kindergartners and we would walk the five blocks to the elementary school and they would be paired one-on-one with a little five-year-old and we'd go out to the courtyard and my kids had really fun questions to ask you know how old are your parents? And they'd say, oh, they're both the same, they're both 214 years old. And do you have a pet? I have a fish. I had a fish but it died and I put it in the trash can. And then my students said, oh, is it in heaven? And this little boy went no, I told you, it's in the trash can. So little boy went no, I told you, it's in the trash can. So my kids would write all their answers and we'd come back and everybody just delighted in that time with those little kindergartners and I would stop them and I said, okay, now when you asked them to sing, I noticed that they would jump up and they would start singing as loud as they could. I noticed when you asked them if they could dance, they would jump up and show you their latest dance or dribble a basketball. They would jump up and show you their latest dance or dribble a basketball.

Speaker 2: 12:46

But two weeks ago, unbeknownst to you, I asked you questions in this class to which I knew the answers. Can anybody in here play the violin? They didn't even make eye contact, ron. I mean. No one raised their hand. And I had this first chair violinist in my class. Can anybody ride a bull? I had a national bull riding champion in my class. He never looked up, no matter what I said.

Speaker 2: 13:10

Even though I knew I had these students, no one had the confidence. And so I said to them why were these five-year-olds so confident? When you asked them if they could do something, and when I asked you and you have done it you were too embarrassed or ashamed or insecure to admit it. And that's when they began talking about how people had put them down and how it was a coach or a pastor or a parent or a friend or someone. And they all had stories. And I thought, oh my gosh, my job is so much bigger than just teaching students how to write a speech and deliver a speech. My job is to make them understand how amazingly valuable they are, and so it really changed the way I taught. But it was just this incredible lesson in the damage that's done when we buy into somebody else's opinion of us. So there's no damage when we buy into Jesus' opinion of us. There's no damage at all. It's not the best way to live.

Speaker 3: 14:13

That's why God needed you to take a little bit of time 20 years to put your book together because, he was getting all these stories together.

Speaker 3: 14:23

Yes, in these stories I've always said, patty, that I believe one day we, when we get to heaven and and God says, well Patty, well, ron, look at those, that person. That person was because you were faithful to your gifts and you'll say, well, I don't ever remember those people, no, but they read your book. Or because you touch somebody else, they. It was like the domino effect. It goes on and on and we really will never know until we leave this world, how much we can touch a person's life through love of grace, of acceptance and the power of Jesus that we share with them in a non-threatening situation. And right now I think maybe I'm wrong, patty, but tell me if I am I think the world right now needs some Jesus.

Speaker 2: 15:11

Oh, I, you know, I imagine every generation says that. But I will tell you my counselor, friends right now are overwhelmed. There is a hopelessness and it's so tragic in so many people right now. And I've even talked to 70 and 80 year old women. I haven't talked to a man that age who tell me, who read my book and said I wish I would have had this message when I was a teenager, because I've spent my life trying to major up, trying to impress somebody or be somebody. I'm not and I wish I would have had this message. And I said, yes, but in your time left you have it. So now, what do you do about it?

Speaker 2: 15:48

You know now, do you honor God and thank him and let him be, let him be your audience, or you continue to let other people, you know, look through the filter of insecurity and I'm just, I'm just not valued. I feel like an imposter because you're always trying to be valued instead of just sitting back and saying, ok, god, it's you and me, so how are we going to do this thing? But but I and I do use a lot of humor in my book because I have a lot of funny stories and I will tell you. As I speak to women, I try to use a lot of humor and they'll come up afterwards. It's been so long since I've laughed that hard and I see it in, I see it in our youth, I see it in the classroom. The students have lost that joy, that that kind of silliness and giddiness that I think we had when we were young, because they're just so consumed with with, I don't know, making somebody tell them they're pretty or they're talented or whatever. As they're texting people, they have a hard time communicating and looking somebody in the eye.

Speaker 2: 17:01

We're in a really sad, sad place right now. And I'm telling you, jesus is the only answer. That is an absolute. You know that there is no one like him. There's no one that we can have in our lives who measures up to him. And if we just give him a chance, you know, if we just say, okay, jesus is coming to my life. I don't know what this mess is all about. I know I've messed a lot of things up, but I'm just going to trust that you are the only one that can make a difference and then see what he does. It's miraculous what he does. I can't even explain it.

Speaker 2: 17:34

And the other thing I was going to say too and I mentioned to you before we went on the air that my son does a lot of work in sex trafficking, the fight against sex trafficking, and he's allowed me to be a part of some of his. I haven't been on any recovery with him, but as he shared his story, I became certified to speak on that evil, and I think 99% of it comes from the internet. It's not, you're not going to be picked up in a Walmart parking lot. There's going to be a connection on the internet and it's always some vulnerable person who buys into the story that they're being told by the pedophile, by the John, by the pimp, by whatever you want to call it, that they are precious and it's a lesson they haven't learned. It's a lesson they haven't bought into. They don't know Jesus as their personal savior, to know what he says about them, and so they buy into somebody's. Making me feel good about myself.

Speaker 2: 18:27

And that starts the relationship and that starts them then leaving their home and meeting these people when their parents aren't aware of it, and it's horrific. And it's epidemic and so we can say rejection, but there's a level of rejection that is extremely dangerous, and it just starts from us not feeling good about ourselves, because if you feel confident in who you are, you're not even going to be talking to somebody online that you don't know.

Speaker 3: 18:58

And so.

Speaker 2: 18:58

But boy, these young boys and girls are so vulnerable right now. So yeah, pretty tough world.

Speaker 3: 19:07

Yeah, it sure is, Listeners. The book is called A Little Faith Lift, written by Patti LaRoche. Now, Patti, somebody picks up the book. What is it that you want them to get from your book?

Speaker 2: 19:19

I want them to understand that they are valued, that God has given them talents and gifts, and maybe they've never even tried to figure out what those are. Or maybe they know they have them but they've never tried to develop them. Because God's message is one of encouragement. His message is one of Him wanting us to encourage other people, and so if they're feeling weary or stressed or tired or anxious or unloved or unvalued, the message is very clear. It's not the truth. You're listening to the lie of the enemy, Satan himself. He's the one that wants to keep you beaten down, but that's not the God we serve.

Speaker 2: 20:03

So if you can learn to laugh at some of your mistakes instead of letting them be, oh my gosh, I'm never going out in public again. I can't believe that happened to me. Well, my book is full of those stories and they all happened to me, so I'm kind of one that can say no, you can recover. And they actually end up being kind of funny stories If you just let them be. Some of them are, Some of them are not, but anyway, God's the audience that counts, Wow, and I want people to know that.

Speaker 3: 20:29

Now, where can listeners get a copy of your book?

Speaker 2: 20:33

They can go to Amazoncom Amazon's probably the best or Barnes, Noble or Target. I have a website, a little faceliftcom they can order from that. But whatever they choose, I hope they're able to buy it and read it and be blessed by it and laugh but still see the very serious message behind the humor.

Speaker 3: 20:59

Well, you know, patty, you obviously are being used at this time in life by God. God's never late, he's never early, he's always on time. And to be able to hear some of your words of encouragement very empowering, and I know the listeners will want to get a copy of this book Before we go I want to ask you, if you have a pep talk, you can do a little energy, a little pep talk right now to my audience, and then will you end it with a prayer for us.

Speaker 2: 21:33

Oh, absolutely. Thank you for this opportunity. Okay, a little pep talk. You matter. You were created with your own unique DNA. God's stamp of approval was on you. He designed you in your mother's womb to be who you are. Don't fight it. Don't try to be somebody you're not.

Speaker 2: 21:56

Teddy Roosevelt once said comparison is the thief of joy. So if you're finding yourself kind of joyless and maybe a little hopeless, there is an answer for you, and it's Jesus Christ. And if you've been told that before, I pray that you give him a chance that these not just be words, that are just words, but that you understand the meaning behind them, because I spent way too many years trying to learn how I could measure up and it was just so simple it was by believing what God said about and for prayer. Oh, what a privilege, what a privilege, god, to come before you, and thank you for the people who are listening to this message. Thank you for Ron and his incredible ministry, lord, that he cares that people's lives are changed, that he cares that people are led to Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2: 22:51

I do pray, father, that as they read this book or they hear the words that we have spoken today, that they do stop and say you know what Jesus? Hear the words that we have spoken today, that they do stop and say you know what, jesus? Maybe you are the answer and I'm going to give you a chance, because there's no one like you. There's no one like you, father, and we love you and we thank you for this opportunity in Jesus' mighty name, amen.

Speaker 1: 23:25

You're listening to Get the Hell Out of your Life with your host, ron Myers. Real stories, real struggles and real hope.

Speaker 5: 23:35

Here's a refreshing word from Ephesians 5, 1 and 2. Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love, as Christ also has illusion of Christmas, with gifts for everyone Games, planes, jewelry and toys, paintings, pottery, candles and food guaranteed to put you in the Christmas mood. Visit the North Pole with free kids crafts and photos with Santa himself. Bring the whole family to the event everyone is talking about the Christmas City Gift Show in Biloxi, inside the Mississippi Coast Convention Center, the holiday event you've been waiting for. Produced by Ron Miles, it's the greatest show in the South.

Speaker 4: 24:28

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Speaker 5: 24:47

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Speaker 1: 25:00

You're sick of being let down and you want to turn your life around. If you want to start living right, get the hell out of your life. Get the hell out of your life. You want to make a change. We'll make it. Thank you, thank you. Get the hell out of your life is underwritten by the Christmas City Gift Show. We invite you to come shop with over 255 vendors from all over the United States from November 8th through the 10th inside the Coast Convention Center, located on the beach in Biloxi, mississippi. You can find more information at christmascitygiftshowcom. Thanks for listening, and if you would like to share your story of what God has done in your life or listen to previous episodes, please visit our website, thepromoterorg. Join us next week for another episode of Get the hell out of your life Real stories, real struggles and real hope.