Freedom Friday: The Art and Consequences of Juggling with Jaquetta Ross

Welcome once again to the alert podcast. I am your host, ruth Abigail aka Ra, and this is Freedom Friday, where me and me of a friend of mine come to you and share something we've unlearned recently and how it has made us just a little bit more free. And I have my, my, my best friend, one my best friends, uh, jacinta Ross, on the podcast once again. What up, queda?

what's up, best friend? What a great time on the alert podcast man. What a great time.

I, uh, I need to change my camera angles and things, so I'm sitting here trying to like figure out yeah, the people want to see your face, right we want to see Ruth Abigail, so um.

I've had, I've had a good many years trying to, you know, make you better. You know you've done that.

You've done it a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. Uh, and I have about to say it, you know, let's say you know, same. I mean, I'm just saying, I feel like it's not. I was about to say, to say, hey, it's two-way street. Two-way street, uh, what's up, man? How's your week been?

for sure man, this week has been banana nugs, but I'm not getting it. We are on spring break. I feel like I can breathe again. I feel like I can sit down and hear the Lord and get a new vision and and carry us on to the end of the school year.

But we're doing fantastic over here, best friend. How about you? Uh, yeah, um, I'm doing good. I'm headed out of town, uh, on the conference tomorrow, so that's gonna that's gonna be great.

Oh, I didn't tell you that I need you to see me like your schedule because, yeah, so I'm in the leadership program. You know this.

No, I was your program, and so we have our first like. I didn't know that conference that happens in Orlando, so headed out there and we'll be there for a week, so um I guess by the time people will be hearing this.

I will be at home so, but uh, but I will. I'll be out there. So, getting ready for that. We just came off of spring break so we're going back into regular, regular times and I've been to the park a lot, you know, with the family. That's been fun and done a lot of um yeah, fun with the family family fun and, uh, we've been doing a lot of running you know, I just got back from the park.

Actually this evening and I have a cramp in my leg, been doing a lot of running. You heard it right running a lot of running. That's right.

Yeah, we've been racing and so we've been doing these races all right. I'd like to say, uh, I'm not family, uh, that in my almost 20 years of knowing that Abigail, I cannot positively say that I have ever in my life seen her run anywhere okay, untrue, anywhere untrue, just put that out there untrue.

I think that's untrue. I'm unwilling to say that that's true a quick brisk walk, friends.

A brisk walk like you're walking through the airport. You got it like man, I gotta hustle. You know, like that kind of walk I don't even know what I'm seeing a jog pass like maybe three steps before. I met you in college I did intramural.

I'm just saying I did intramural basketball. We don't need to talk about it.

We don't need to talk about it. I'm just saying it was the truth you know, I'm saying like, I'm telling, like these stories, so just be clear, all right, just let's just be clear.

And no, I don't run a lot, I mostly walk. But I'm getting back into my you know, active game. You know what I mean. Like that's what happens when you have a nine-year-old. You have to be active, so, but I have a cramp yeah, I was about to say shout out to you man. I hear yeah, yeah, yeah, it's cramped. The next level of your life is not. It's not working for me.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what it's called. That's what it's called.

Uh, late nights, uh yeah, so, queda, yeah, all right. So we've been, we have that, we have. We actually have talked a lot that's uh recently, and you have just had some really cool speaking engagements. You've been like out there on the speaking circuit because my homie is a dynamic speaker. Okay, let's be clear about it, let's be clear. Let's be clear. All right, my girl can throw it out at the microphone, okay, and so, whatever you need her to do, you call her. She got you all right. So, um, but yeah, so like you've been out there on your speaker circuit and how's that been?

Whoa man, you know it's been, it's been number one, an absolute blessing and a, you know, to see God move in the different facets of my life because each speaking engagement was so different. You know, like I told people, I am now apparently black history month and women's history month. I just need to be ready, like when February and March roll around. I Just need to be ready, you understand, because they are like, hmm, jacquita, get her like. So it has been, but it has been an absolute blessing because that is a way that I Can serve God and serve people in a way that is just so beautiful and it's just so edifying, not just to the people I'm speaking to, but to myself. Always tell people like you, even when I was in the classroom teaching every single lesson I taught, you have to live out Like you have to make full proof of whatever. You're gonna get behind a microphone and say like you have to, life is gonna take you through something. If you are a person that speaks with conviction and if you are a person that is meant to transform and to elevate the lives of other people, you are gonna have to live that stuff out. So when I was teaching college skills and teaching time management. My weeks before I thought, before and after I taught those time management classes were Rough. It was like, oh, you want to teach it, you got to live it.

And so every time I get in front of an audience, I try to make sure that it's not just me speaking empty words. What makes my words Powerful and and have you know, a landing effect, is that God has taken me through a process so that my words are carrying the weight of what I've learned and I'm learned, you know, just kind of through the weeks prior to that. And so these past couple of speaking engagements have just been. I mean, it has been a birthing process for sure, but it's been so beautiful to just know that God would use not just my words but use my story, use my living, use my relationships with people, use my conversations to.

You know, those moments are a culmination of all the moments that happen before it, and so it's always, it's always a blessing to be able to be in that space. It is nerve-wracking. I love I would tell people, you know I am at home behind the mic, but the moment up until I am a nervous wreck. Even before we got on the podcast today I was like, ooh, my nerves are bad and I know you were like girl and I was just like, but the moment we kicked in I was like let's go, let's go time. And so I'm at home behind a mic, but the journey to the microphone.

My lord, it's a process.

I don't want to because that's I think that, yes, amen, that is. I think that's. That's a great place to pause. I want to ask you what you've learned about the journey to the microphone. I like that.

I do. I am a licensed minister and a preacher and I'm also a you know, self-proclaimed motivational speaker. You know, like I said, I love being in front of a crowd. But what I have learned one is that those journeys are both, can both be very different in some ways because you, you carry the weight of the people in a different way. The journey. One thing I know about preaching and I've always known, since I went to divinity, sure, sure, sure, so many years ago no need to put a number to it but I've always known that preaching like that's not my word, like that that's not my word to give these are not my people to try to, you know, influence. One way or the other, god is gonna do what he wants to do and I'm gonna stand out of his way and be a willing vessel Just to pour out. But the process of waiting on God to speak, you know, since I was in divinity school, I was like I'm gonna wait on God. All right, god, if you could please come, maybe a week or so.

Before the event and just let's, let's pour this out, you know, let's, let's get this thing knocked out. And at that time I was preaching for assignments. So I was like, lord, this is do tomorrow. Need you to speak? Jesus? Speak, lord. This your word, I don't care if it is in class, these, your people, you know.

But when you are in a different space in life and the word is Bleeding through your living and not just like this direct download from heaven that I'm used to, I'm used to sitting praying the Lord, just Whoosh, and then I'd be like oh man, that's a good word, lord. This time it was live a little, I'll talk a little, live a little, I'll talk a little, live a little, I'll talk a little. And it was, it was. It was a very different process, because I kept thinking to myself oh, I'm waiting on God to speak. And I think God was saying I'm waiting for you to hear me in a way that maybe you haven't heard me before. And I had to keep my ear open in a way that I probably wasn't as used to. You know, it wasn't a let me lie on my face for 10 hours and God's don't speak. It was man.

I've been through so much today and as I'm driving home, the Lord is like download now boom, and I'm like, oh, I'm over here. Voice the text like, all right. So in the book of first Samuel, when she said this, this and that that relates to what I went through today, you know, and so it was, it was. You know, these motivational speeches and these sermons and all these things that God has put in me, in the forefront To the stuff that's happening in the background, like those things are beginning to like intertwine in a way that that I've been used to in some regard. But this particular season of speaking, it's been much different. Like it has been, it has been very much a. I am literally walking through the things that I'm getting up there, saying so, like I said, it's been beautiful, but it's been good.

What I, what I like about it.

Um, it's been really beautiful because I think that, cuz, like you know, most, most people listening probably aren't speakers, but I think what I like about that is the fact that you're, there is a reality to the you know how do I want to say it. There's a reality to the line upon line, precept on precept, kind of walk. You know, it's just a steady. You know I like what you said. You know I live a little, god talks a little. I live a little, god talks. I got a. But see that it's a relational way of communicating, because now you aren't. Everything you are experiencing has undoubtedly been experienced by somebody else and it's almost as if God is you know very much, putting you in a position to relate to the people you're talking to by through your story, you know, not just through revelation but through experience.

And that it makes the communication much more powerful. And I also think it brings a level of maturity to the conversation, because when you experience something, when you experience something, you have to kinda, you have to own every part of that experience.

And you know, for the integrity of the communicator and the integrity of what you're saying, you don't get to make it up, you have to be honest about it and there's maturity that comes with that kind of honesty and I just I wonder, like I wonder what, what have you? What are some things that you have uncovered or unlearned about you through the ways, through your living, right, like, what are some examples of? You know, man, I just went through this and now I gotta go talk about it like what.

So a couple of things. Some things were coming up while you were talking and so I'm gonna bring those up because I don't wanna lose them and then I'm gonna try to loop back into your question. But when you were talking about the, you know it makes you relate to the audience. You know, I think a lot of times people see speakers up here and then audience down here. But if I've been living and going through and pushing through the same thing that you're going through now, we're speaking on a peer to peer level and I may be the one motivated and encouraging, but it's more so a push from behind, like I got your back and I'm gonna push you to where I know God can get us both through, versus this kind of reach down mentality and I gotta give you the word to pull you up because I've already reached the mountain top and everybody needs to be listening to me, right? That's the first thing that kind of came to mind when you were speaking is that our process levels us to a point, to where we can really reach the people. I can't reach the people if I'm too high up. I gotta get to the point, or if I'm too low down, like if I haven't made myself come up to where the people are, then I can't reach them.

The second thing that I kind of thought about as you were talking is that my life has changed, man. Since the last time I really was out here in these speaking streets, I started a PhD program. My job is we are in busy season, man. I work in student life, which is always busy because there's always something to do. When you're talking about campus organizations, events and programs, literally there's always something to do. But we kind of hit like a peak busy season that I wasn't fully. It's not that I wasn't ready for it, it's just that it came and everything came out all at one time. And so everything in my life was kind of like popping big, busy, all at one time. And whereas before, when I was able to really carve out a space and say, these three weeks I'm devoting purely to the preached word of God and I'm not worried about work and I'm not worried about friendships and I'm not worried about PhD, I'm not worried about anything. But for three weeks I got this space carved out. I mean because literally I think the last time I preached was like over the summer. Now I was like coming home every day lay down on the floor. You understand me. But now it is okay. All of the things, all of the doors God is opening for me. Nothing else in my life stopped because the door opened Like nothing else in my life said oh, that's so great. Like you're picking up steam and you're getting out there and look at you go, why don't we just give you extensions on all these assignments? None of the programs and events that's on this big calendar on my wall, none of them said oh wait, jaquita has to speak. Guys, so everybody can't solve all of that stuff. Nothing stopped Like I wasn't able to push pause on the other parts of my life because I had something to do out in the forefront.

I had to literally carry everything and it required more intentionality on my part of me saying, okay, what can I pull back from? And not to mention, I had other stuff going on too. Like I had a lot, just a lot, going on that I was just kind of in the season of everything's happening all at once and it was all good things, but it was just things that needed me, that needed my attention, that needed my energy, that needed my efforts and so me being able. I'm kind of an all in person. If I'm focused on this right now, then I'm fully in that. I'm not a multitasker. Most of my friends know If I'm doing something, all right, I didn't need backup. I already said you know. I already said you know Nobody needed affirmation of that but I'm a passionate person. I'm an all in person.

It was really difficult to not be able to say, all right, three weeks, nothing else matters. I had to literally step back and say, okay, if I'm an all in person and I got five things on my schedule right now, I literally have to. I have to create some structure, which, again, ain't really that, ain't really what I do but I have to create some structure so that I can be able to give everything the attention that it deserves, because I don't want every. All of the balls in my hand right now are glass, and I don't wanna drop any of them. You know like I don't wanna risk breaking anything that's in my hands right now and then also realizing sometimes, though, that that ball that you thought couldn't be broken, it'd be all right.

Do I have to read every article from my PhD program? No, I do not. No, I do not, not thoroughly, and you know, get the point, keep it pushing. You know what I'm saying. Like everything, everything can be all in, and that's a really hard thing for a passionate, you know, really devoted person to learn. Like I'm not able, not 24 seven. Like everything, everything can't get all of me. So, lord, what's important to you and what's important to me, and how do I balance those things? Right, if anybody invites me anywhere to speak or to be a part of a program I've MCed events before I have, you know, I'll be an usher, I don't mind, you know, whatever it is, if anyone invites me to be a part of a program, a part of something that they're doing, that's one that that's a glass ball to me, right that's. And somebody has entrusted me with a piece of something that they're doing and that's a glass ball and I'm going to give that all the care and concern that I possibly can. But what does that mean for the other glass balls? I was already juggling, you know.

So, really, learning how to not manage the situations but to manage myself, to manage. I always teach that time management. Like we can't actually manage time, I can't say all right, this week I don't really have as much to do on Friday, so I'm gonna take 10 hours from Friday and put it on Wednesday, right? We don't actually have the ability to manage time, but I can manage my attitude, I can manage my energy, I can manage my motivation, I can manage me. But that takes looking at me and taking a real deep look at myself and saying you kind of suck in this area.

And when it came to like time management things, I was like, oh, you kind of suck in that area, right, like you are going to have to do it at another level and you don't realize that you're bad at something when it's not pressing on you, right? You don't realize that something is a struggle when it's not pressing on you. But when my time became short, when I had less of it to kind of give and play around with, it was, oh snap, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Now I thought I was a little bit better than this, but it definitely has taken me to a new level. I will definitely say PhD has as definitely, in ways that I wasn't anticipating, brought out some necessary enhancements to the life of Jacuita.

So yeah, that priority thing and like that everything can't get everything, like everything can't get everything, it's not possible, and I do think that, yeah, man, I think that's good, like especially and you know, I think that we it's seasonal right, I think there's a book I'm reading. It's called First Things First I think I told you about it by Stephen Covey, and I know you're a Stephen Covey fan.

Yeah, and that book talks a lot about what you were kind of describing, this idea of like, how do you, you know, how do you kind of decide what, what things get most of you at what times? Like, you have to make those decisions and that's not, that's not a set thing, it doesn't. It's not like, okay, I figured it out and this has gonna be forever. That is a it's. It's a it's on rotation, a lot of times, the day by day, moment choice, it's, it's, it's, you know, switching things in and out, it's all that. So we have to always be aware, like you said, of what's important to God, what's important to me, and then you have to be aware of when it Ships. When is the switch, what happens? Because switches happen.

You know, I'm saying like that's gonna happen and I feel like you know and I'll share with you, I'm sure other people like I I Did not realize how much time I had when I, when I didn't have a family. You know I'm saying like I didn't realize that and now it's like, oh shoot I. The amount of time I used to have has shrunk when it comes to doing the things that I was focused on doing before, which was almost exclusively work. So Now it's like okay that my seasons have shifted. Therefore my priorities have shifted. Therefore, there have I have to have some more Intentionality around what. What things get pieces of me when and it can't be, you know, it's good, it's, it has to be a consistent, thought-processed thing like I love what you said.

You can't take ten hours from Friday and add it to Wednesday. You can't do that. You know, boy. I wish you could.

That would be phenomenal but you can't do it, so it's like, all right, well, what? What am I going to do today? I think I told you this past week for me, I feel like, was a bad balance week. I feel like I could have done a better job and you know, it's just like. You know you win some, you lose, show is what it is and you have to just give yourself grace and move on. But I think that paying attention, paying real close attention to the season of life you're in, where, where you are being pulled, and not, and in honoring that and not Feeling like you have to fill these other buckets that are there but may not need to be filled right now, like they're just still, they're there, it's okay, like they'll be fine and there'll be a time when you put more into those buckets, but for right now, it's these buckets and I need to do that right. I need to be, I need to honor the buckets that are in front of me. I yeah, no, no, no, no, please.

You get one of those, I would use my best friend privilege to interrupt. Thank you, um, but I go back to. I go back to the imagery of juggling right, like as we're juggling, like sometimes the things are in hand, and like you have your hand on that particular ball but there's other balls in the air, like they're still in rotation but they're not in hand at the moment and you know, but it's gonna shuffle, like it's gonna, like this ball is gonna go to this hand, that one's gonna go back up in the air, you know. And so like everything is not always gonna be in hand, you know, but that's the, that's the art of juggling is that it's not always all in hand but it's always all in rotation. And that is such a, it's such a helpful, just imagery as we are like just kind of processing through.

Everything in my life is important and it's all in the cycle of what. I can only hold two things, two or three things at a time, but I can keep things going, like I can keep moving, I can keep it cycling, I can keep things, you know, in good working order, but I can. Only I won't be able to touch everything at one time, and so, just as as I think about like where my life is right now and where my life is going, amen, like I'm, like it's only, it's only gonna be more things to juggle, you know. And how am I, how am I learning? Yeah, you know, if you, as long as you know the basic technique, you know adding stuff, you know you can't, can it get overwhelming? Yes, but you can, and so I feel like, right now I'm just learning really good and I.

I think what.

What, what, what, to me, is freeing about what you just said? The rotation is that there's a reality in if we're, you know, if we're honoring the way that God has called us to live right, living in communion with him and in community with others, there's never a point where the things that are in rotation aren't being taken care of. It just not may, it just might not be by you. And so there's freedom there, because I don't. If I believe that everything is not up to me and I'm not, I'm not. I don't actually Work and live and think and behave independently. I am, I am within a context of community and communion with God right. So when, when I have, I have the things that he has or life has just handed me at the moment, but I'm keeping the other stuff on. But the other stuff is in rotation, god is have. There is a way that that's being taken care of and I may not know what it is right or Literally with other people, they're just. It's like this is being. I don't have to be Burdened by that, I don't feel guilty about it and I don't have to feel like that's my sole responsibility.

I think that Sometimes we get so caught up in the and independence and in our own, you know, ability to do all the things we're supposed to do and all this stuff, and it's like that's just not how we're meant to live. And there we can. Sometimes we can really perpetuate this idea of, I think, mental and emotional bondage when we force ourselves to live by ourselves and to do by ourselves because we feel like it is my, it's mine and only mine, and it's not. It's not. And God, the things that are important to you are equally and more important to God. He has it under control. He has under control, especially when he knows you don't and there's just a, you know I'm saying he has under control.

Girl, yes, but I think also, I think also like that juggling metaphor. You know I take a metaphor and we go all day, but I think it's you seeing yourself as a steward of the things and not as a control, like I have.

I actually don't have any control over the thing that's in my hand, I'm just the one steward and get through right. And so I think that, even as I'm like looking at the different areas of my life, I realize that I am growing in stewardship, you know, growing in my capacity to take care of the things that God has given me, to take care of in the way that he's called me to do it. But also, I don't always I don't have all the information about those things. So I'm, you know, keeping my ear tuned to heaven, like Lord. What should I be saying to this person, lord? What should I be doing with this Lord?

Like the only way that I keep those things going is that, as a good steward, I'm listening to the master, I'm listening to the father, like I have the voice of God guiding me through it, or otherwise I'd have been dropped these balls. I've been, everything around me would be broken and shattered, honey. But it's my devotion, first to God to say, yes, lord, I will steward the things that you've given me, and then my continual trust and reliance upon the Holy Spirit to be able to do it, because without that there's nothing that I immediately knew that my last, my last two speaking engagements, I was like Lord without you it would not have happened Like I was. I was able to cycle through, but Lord without you, we would not have made it.

You know, yeah, I can appreciate an extended metaphor. I pray, I pray, I like that. Yeah, no, no, no. I can appreciate that.

No, because you're right I think we.

I love the stewardship thing, the stewardship thing is real. I think you're right, we're not. We're not. It's not ours Right. And so, again, the owner of it cares more about it than we do, so he's not going to let it drop and cares about me, and cares about me.

Amen, he's not. He's not going to let me drop. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, it got hard, it got difficult, but you know, I'm grateful that I'm in God's hands, you know. And so, even when I feel like I have a lot of stuff in my hands, to know that we're in the Father's Come on in this house.

See we weren't even trying to get all deep in spiritual. But see, I'm talking to a preacher, so I don't. It was going to go here. It was going to go here. It was going to go here, yeah.

It was a preacher or not. You know I love the Lord. Yeah, yeah, you know I'm the way to speak of me.

Oh no.

Oh Lord, yeah, I'm the least, I'm the under saved one.

Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, no, I'm just playing.

No, I have no real life.

Y'all, y'all live below, below water and like the, the, the deep 200 feet, I live right there. You know what I'm saying. I mean, I just deep enough to swim, but you know I can, you can walk in it, but you can also kind of wait in it, you know. That's where I meant the job. You know what you did to have like we drag you off the shore occasion.

I feel like you know our entire friendship has been me trying to drag you into the deep waters and you say in Jaquita, come back to the land, put your feet on the ground.

That is it. That is how that is. That is us, that is us.

Yeah, that's what it is. That's what it is.

So, queen of, this has been a very enriching conversation. I appreciate it. I appreciate you joining me.

I love this.

I think we have experienced several of the same things, and you know we can probably talk about this all day, because I'm sitting here thinking about other things. I've definitely like man, all wrapped up into that whole, this whole theme, um and so, but you know, I'm grateful. I just I'm grateful for seasons. They, they change, and and that there's hope in that is, though, so, if it's hard right now, seasons change. You know, if it's boring right now, seasons change. If it is, you know, confusing right now, if it's lonely, right now, seasons change. And I think that if it's heavy right now, if you're overwhelmed, right now, things change. And knowing the season and be a confident, thank you, and be a confident in uh, maybe lose my whole train of thought be a confident in, like you know, being confident in the fact that everything doesn't require all of you. All the time it can't, you're not able to do it, and when you're not all in, god is all in, so don't worry about it. Should I drug me to the date? Oh Lord, I didn't brought her on me.

We got off the floor today. Ruth said I got a word for the people. I need to tell y'all anyone who may feel discouraged, you know they fell down and right.

Okay, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right. Quetta Dahl, thank you for coming on the show man, listen, I love y'all, I love this podcast.

I love what you're doing. I love that, ruth Abigail. If Ruth Abigail ain't going to do nothing else, she is going to take an idea or a concept and she is going to take it all.

I appreciate it. I appreciate it and thank y'all for listening I'm loving it Once again to the unlearned podcast and let's keep unlearning together so that we can live more for really. We'll see y'all next week Peace. Thank you once again for listening to the unlearned podcast. We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode. Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think. We're looking forward to the next time when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom. See you then.