Wildwood Flower: Stories of Women who Built Country Music is back for Season 2! Intro episode will drop on October 1st! Available on all platforms. To find out more about the podcast, listen to the introductory episode here. Subscribe and follow on Instagram at wildwoodflowerpod to stay updated on new episodes and special announcements.

Welcome back to the Area Code neighborhood: Feel For the Game. Nick and Noah return with a series of (mainly basketball) conversations about nostalgic moments in NBA history, current issues plaguing the league, how coping and mental health play a role in sports, and more. Tune-in as they unprofessionally, but sincerely explore why sports are bigger than just the score of the game. Subscribe now, and follow along to find out how many times Noah makes an unwarranted Kansas Jayhawks basketball reference. Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/feelforthegamepod/ ✌️

Portia: "Just hearing her (Jasmine) words - 'We're going to carry it together.' That just means a lot to me because I have felt very alone in dealing with all of this lately. And I felt like I'm fighting a battle that nobody understands or even cares about. And also to have a supervisor who says we’re going to prioritize my health and not my work; we're going to prioritize your family; we're going to prioritize the things that get you well so that your capacity can be more...that means a lot to me." Jasmine: "Stop crying. We both know how I feel about emotional displays and I don't want to cry."

Jasmine: "You have these Christian people who are living in captivity and enslavement who, against all odds, love the Lord and want to serve him. But they aren't able to, to their fullest, because of their enslavement. All of a sudden, there's this citizenship. There's this opportunity, for the first time, to read God's word, to assemble in churches, to obey what he says about taking care of our families. It's just a beautiful thing. And we aren't saying that you have to celebrate Juneteenth because it's a biblical holiday. But there definitely is a precedent of being grateful for the ways that God has worked on behalf of our people." Click here for the pamphlet mentioned in today's episode.

Welcome the newest resident to the Area Code neighborhood:Wildwood Flower: Stories of Women who Built Country Music. Season 1 premiering on June 4th! Available on all platforms. To find out more about the podcast, listen to the introductory episode here. Subscribe and follow on Instagram at wildwoodflowerpod to stay updated on new episodes and special announcements.

Jen: "The Lord continued to cultivate my ministry through opportunities to serve the local church, and also through other women that got put in my life to pour into me as I was growing. It's like, each one teach one, you know? What the Lord does in you is not just for you to become spiritually fat." Portia: "I recently heard someone talk about how we have become such consumers when it comes to spiritual things, and we don't realize we're not just consumers for the sake of getting it and stacking it and sitting on it; or, as you just said, becoming spiritually fat. We consume to pour out." On today's episode, Portia experiences a show without interruptions or songs about presidents and Jasmine attends to some business. But joining Portia is Jennifer Lucy Tyler, founder of Soul Circles. Listen in as the two talk about the struggles, joys, challenges and rewards of women's ministry, effective ways to share the Gospel in today's culture, and more.

Jasmine: "We're talking about God's preservation of a persecuted church here in America, and his preservation of a persecuted people here in America, for His glory." Abena: "And one thing I'd love to point out is the absolute miracle that that is. Besides the suffering and all of that, we are talking about a people who were given a false gospel. Literally, pieces cut out of the Bible; only certain cherry-picked lines of Scripture. Frankly, today, people are led astray with much less effort. But like, I'm talking about people who had been given a false gospel, and somehow God actually was so faithful and present with them that they actually found truth." Portia: "And God still did it. That's what people don't understand." Joining Jasmine and Portia today is Abena Ansah-Wright, a PhD. Candidate at Vanderbilt University with a focus on Civil War history. Listen as they discuss the perseverance of the enslaved saints, God's faithfulness to an oppressed people, and the ways in which the church was - and is - implicit in this oppression. Here is the John Gottman book referenced in today's episode: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert

Portia: "Rest is not a byproduct of the fall. God had to remind me that rest was instituted, and modeled by God, before the fall of man. 'Oh, we have to rest now because we get tired.' No - God showed us how to rest before anything was ever even broken." Jasmine: "That is tweetable. He showed us how to rest before anything was broke. Amen."

Jasmine: God's way is hard. The Gospel is already offensive. He's already asked for everything from us. Okay? You ain't gotta paint a picture. Your dishes, your diapers, all the sacrifices that you're doing on a daily basis is a tiny picture of what God is asking from you. He asks for so much more than what our careers, than what our motherhood, than what our wifehood can give. Because he asks for everything. Portia: And we want to rationalize it and attach something to it. And it's not because we really are about God's glory, because if we were about God's glory we'd be confident that what we're doing is for the glory of God.

Portia: And so what would happen if we saw other people, other believers, as family? Like people who still have my love - and I'm not saying passivity, you know what I'm saying? Love still corrects. We still corrected her and told her "No, you don't put poop in Mom's bed." Jasmine: But I bet you didn't end there. I bet you weren't just like "You don't put poop in the bed and I don't love you anymore." You were like "You don't put poop in the bed. I love you, but don't put poop in the bed."

Jasmine: I'm not here to give shame, I'm not here to make you feel bad—I'm honestly just here to tell you about God's faithfulness to a certain people group that I belong to, whose stories have been lost for so long. Portia: For us, it is about glorifying God and sharing his faithfulness to us and to people who have come from the same space and experienced the same hardship. --- The Jude Three Project: https://jude3project.org/

Check out another show on the Area Code Network, No Chill Enneagram: Watch Party: We can't stop talking about the enneagram, so we started a podcast to get it all out of our system. No Chill Enneagram: Watch Party is a safe space for ennegram and pop culture fanatics. Each week, pop culture expert, Richard Clark, and enneagram expert, Bethany Perkins watch a movie or tv show and talk about it through the lens of the enneagram.

*SPOILER ALERT* 6:20 - 9:15 Jasmine: So listen, we're not saying that Christians are to be too heavenly minded for anything earthly. What we're saying is that the Republican party's vision for fixing the problems of this world and the Democratic party's vision for fixing the problem in this world—they ain't radical enough. --- Instagram: @portiawcollins, @jasminelholmes, @sharonsayso, @allsidesnow She Shall Be Called: https://www.sheshallbecalled.com/courses/start-your-year-in-gods-word Annenberg Classroom: https://www.annenbergclassroom.org/constitution/

Jasmine: "I think both of us are in a place right now where I'm really happy with my little ministry niche that I have got. I am really happy with the way that it's growing. I'm really happy with the scope of it, and I'm really happy with what it is. And one thing that I think we're both very committed to is not compromising. So neither of us wants to start doing things in order to get more numbers and then not be faithful to the message that the Lord has placed on our hearts." --- www.sheshallbecalled.com --- Mother to Son: Letters to a Black Boy on Identity and Hope: https://www.ivpress.com/mother-to-son

Check out another show on the Area Code Network, We Wonder: Advent. The podcast where we wonder together about the story of God. We Wonder is a contemplative devotional for children. Find our more here: wewonderpod.com

Portia: I just really believe that this is Satan's way of distracting us from what is most important. Most Christians would agree that there are gross problems with Critical Race Theory. Jasmine: And with the entirety of the thought process. I'm sure they are pointing out some issues that are real issues, but because their answers aren't from the Scriptures, why would we expect them to be right?

Check out another show on the Area Code Network, Attached to the Invisible: Exploring the intersection of the science of attachment and theology, we’re asking why we feel disconnected from God, and how to cultivate security and safety. Find our more here: https://www.propheticimaginationstation.com/attached

Portia: I think that that's the thing about any affliction, like your pain is your pain, you know, whatever it is. Like we're not in the business of comparing struggles. Jasmine: Well, we shouldn't be. I am, but we shouldn't be. Portia: I get it though, because I've done that with fibromyalgia saying, well, at least it's not cancer, or at least it's not this, but my pain is my pain. My affliction is my affliction. --- How to Keep House While Drowning: 31 days of Compassionate Help: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MD9T8XD/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_f-STFb2ZRZYE0 DISCLAIMER: While we know our listeners have much advice and experience to offer, we’re under the care of licensed professionals for all of the diagnoses mentioned in this episode.

Jasmine: We are all about not curating what it means to be a working mom. We already have to curate what it means to be a black woman for you. We're not about to curate motherhood too, sorry. Portia: We want to get as close to what it is as we can, and so this is an element where we feel comfortable sharing. And this is the hard part that I'm struggling with, because we felt like this was a safe spot; this is somewhere we can be really authentic with our children.

Jasmine and Portia are taking a week off. To hold you over, we're offering you the audio from an Instagram Live between Portia and Krispin Mayfield, the host of another Area Code Podcast, Attached the the Invisible. In his podcast, Krispin and his Co-host, Amy Simmons explore the intersection of the science of attachment and theology, and ask why we feel disconnected from God, and how to cultivate security and safety. This might be a good week to check it out! In this discussion, you'll find out whether or not Portia won her political campaign and how to cope with election week. See you next week!