Going Deeper
The Going Deeper podcast challenges cultural norms from a Christ-centered perspective. We discuss topics spanning the entire spiritual-secular spectrum from social media and individualism to fasting and scripture memory. Come burdened by the noise and pressure of a 'have-it-all' world---leave refreshed and encouraged to go deeper in your relationship with God!
Going Deeper
If a Demon Tempted a Woman with Tilly Dillehay
In this episode of the Going Deeper podcast, host Justine Ordway interviews Tilly Dillehay, author of 'My Dear Hemlock'. They discuss the inspiration behind the book, which is a fictional exploration of feminine virtues and vices, inspired by C.S. Lewis's 'Screwtape Letters'. Tilly shares insights on the struggles women face, including the role of empathy, the importance of confession, and the impact of social media. The conversation also touches on the power of prayer and the spiritual warfare that comes with writing about such topics. Tilly emphasizes the unique power women have in spiritual battles and the importance of pursuing holiness for the right reasons.
Buy Tilly's book, My Dear Hemlock: https://amzn.to/3HP0SWQ
Chapters:
00:00
Introduction to Tilly Dillehay
03:01
The Inspiration Behind 'My Dear Hemlock'
05:52
Exploring Feminine Vices and Virtues
08:53
The Role of Empathy in Women's Lives
11:35
Confession and Its Importance
14:34
Unique Temptations Faced by Women
22:13
The Writing Process and Personal Reflection
24:48
Exploring Temptations and Struggles for Women
27:51
The Impact of Social Media on Spiritual Life
31:13
The Challenge of Writing from a Unique Perspective
33:11
The Power of Prayer in Spiritual Warfare
38:04
The Pursuit of Holiness vs. Self-Image
39:58
Facing Mortality and the Hope of Eternity
42:48
Empowering Women in Spiritual Warfare
Tags: Tilly Dillehay, My Dear Hemlock, feminine virtues, empathy, confession, social media, spiritual warfare, prayer, women's struggles, C.S. Lewis
Welcome back to the Going Deeper podcast. Thank you guys for joining me today. Today I have Tilly Dillehay. Is that how you say your last name, Dillehay? It is. You got it. Perfect. Tilly is a pastor's wife. She's a homeschooling mom of four. She's written for Desiring God, The Gospel Coalition, Risen Motherhood. She's also the author of three books, My Dear Hemlock, which we're going to talk about today, Seeing Green, and Broken Bread, which I will likely go and buy off of Kindle as soon as we're done. And she co-hosts the Home Fires podcast. Thanks for coming on, Tilly.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I'm excited for this conversation as well. As I told you off camera, this was one of the best books that I've read in a really long time and for so many reasons. But I want people to listen, like who are listening to know I'm not just saying it to say it because you're on. I really, really enjoyed this read. And I even think I'm going to do a summer book club with some women from our church because I think that it will spark really good conversation. So just kudos on that. I don't even know. How did you even come up with a book like this? We'll get into that. But so good. So good. But for those that don't know you, just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So, I mean, you mentioned all the writing stuff, but most of my real life is that I'm the wife of a pastor in just a really small town in Middle Tennessee. And we live on 10 acres here, and we garden, and my kids are 10 and under. So... It's a loud little house we have here. And yeah, we're having really good times just being part of the church and enjoying life. We're in small town Kentucky, so I
SPEAKER_00:can relate to that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, not far away. We drive up into Kentucky to the Mennonites up there to get our flower. I
SPEAKER_00:love that. Across
SPEAKER_02:the border.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. We just drove through Tennessee as well, going to Hilton Head for a vacation. Okay. I love that area. I love, I would live, I would
SPEAKER_02:live in Chattanooga if I could. So we just went for an overnight in Chattanooga last night. Really? Yep. And I was, as we were driving away, I was like, you know, honey, I don't want to ever leave where we live ever, but if you ever did and you want to plant a church in Chattanooga, I'm with you all the way. That's great. Gorgeous. It's so gorgeous.
SPEAKER_00:It's definitely underrated too. I think everybody that's not in Tennessee, they go to Gatlinburg. Right. Yeah. And I'm like, no, Chattanooga is where it's at. Yeah. Well, Nashville's great, but it's like its own country. It is. But yeah, I love it. I feel
SPEAKER_02:more and more a stranger to Nashville, honestly. And I grew
SPEAKER_00:up there. Really?
SPEAKER_02:Did you? Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. I mean, it is growing a lot.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We, we are part of a church that is opening a campus in Franklin because of the amount of growth that's happening there. But, okay. So kind of back to the question that I said, where does an idea for a book like this come? What prompted you? Yeah. To write these letters.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And it's been a while, maybe three or four years, but it all started when I wrote some blog posts in this voice just on my own little private blog that I have with my husband. And it was the very first letter I think was the one on when the patient believes that she's married down. And so it was a topic that was kind of like I wanted to get into it. I wanted to get into it with a really vivid kind of picture and illustration, but I could not see a way to write about it and just a straight nonfiction piece. Because it would have been, I mean, I could have interviewed somebody or something. It just would have been really tough to get a woman to talk about that level of interior life in a marriage. So the fiction kind of allowed me to write about something that I thought I was seeing among young wives and write about it in a vivid way, but without, I guess, any awkwardness. So it was just It was a really good device. And I guess it also allowed you to root for good in a really unique way. And then I started addressing a few other things using that same voice. And I found it to be a really helpful way to think through certain things, to think about what would Satan want to see happen in this area of my life? What would he want? So I just enjoyed it. But I probably only did six or eight pieces on the blog. Didn't use it again. And a few years later, my husband suggested that I pull it out and try to pitch it around a little bit as a book.
SPEAKER_00:Go him. Go him. Well, let me give context because I forgot to do that for those that are listening. So your book, My Dear Hemlock, is very important to have the context. So it's not a typical nonfiction. It is a spinoff, I would say, of C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters.
SPEAKER_02:Right. It's basically an imitation of the Screwtape Letters, but with a female patient living today and the voice of the demon writing instead of this kind of sardonic Oxford Dawn voice that Lewis was using with Screwtape. It's this kind of catty female madam voice.
SPEAKER_00:You're so right in that. I even thought about that. I was tidying up my house before we were talking and I thought, you've almost found like a treasure trove of a medium because it allows you to address really hard and taboo things.
SPEAKER_02:That's right.
SPEAKER_00:But not be the one that's judging or saying what it is. You're just kind of like using the voice And conveying those ideas without it being like you are condemning.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. That's right. And also it means, you know, as you're reading you and this is this is another useful thing about the fictionalizing of this stuff is just like all fiction. Sometimes it kind of sneaks up on you from behind. So like you weren't necessarily thinking this is about me until suddenly it slaps you upside the head and it is about you, you know. But if it's not in all the probably many, there's so many things addressed in the book that. probably any one person reading wouldn't identify with every single letter. So the things that don't fit you, it's like, well, just pass right by those things. And when the shoe fits, wear it.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. There were multiple instances where I was slapped upside the head. I also don't cry in books. I'm not a crier. And I found myself crying towards the end. And mind you, I was inside of a chaotic, loud playground, indoor playground, where my kids were running wild, finishing it up. And last chapter, it caught me out of the blue. My eyes are welling with tears. And I was like, wow, this is... It's moving in a way that I'm not normally moved by in books. So I do think the fictional aspect was helpful because you start to really... develop sort of like a fighting spirit for the patient. You're like, you are, yeah, you're going to conquer this demon. Don't let him get you kind of thing. So you say in the book blurb, and this actually, this caught my attention when, when the publicist had reached out to me in the book blurb, it says, this book will give you the eyes to see the feminine vices that hide behind feminine virtues. Could you just kind of like flesh that out a little bit?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, for so many of the things that are sort of the ugliest parts of a woman's tendency, it's just the flip side of some very positive strength that a woman has in a lot of cases. Like for instance, we're relationally oriented. So we're Yeah, absolutely. the way that that can turn to sin would be things like manipulation, maybe, or an idolization of friendship, or having such a high expectation for our husband that we analyze everything he does and he always comes, you know, falls short of our expectations. And that would, yeah, that would be like a kind of bending of the help meet role that we, instead of watching him to help him, we watch him to criticize his mistakes, you know, from the backseat. Or like with empathy, you know, the empathy can be can be untethered to reality. Or the fact that we love physical spaces and are kind of made with a special gift to beautify and make lovely a physical space and use a physical space to sort of bless the human beings that are in our lives. I think sometimes we confuse just nice things with Effective ministry, like just having a bigger house or just having a nicer kitchen or whatever it is like with that. That's what a good life actually is, is the stuff when, you know, that's not what a good life actually is. So, yeah, I could think of more examples, I guess. But the things that make us glorious as women are some of the most the things that can be bent to the most horrific ends. Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I really loved the two chapters. It was actually kind of humorous, the chapters on empathy. When I got to the first chapter, which is essentially the idea of like borderless empathy.
SPEAKER_02:Boundless empathy. That was just me trying not to completely crib Joe Rigney's terminology. I think he's usually saying untethered empathy or untethered. But yeah, boundless empathy, just empathy that doesn't know the borders of truth and what is actually true and thinks that the most important things that you feel with and agree with the person that you're hearing from, because the suffering is real, but doesn't think that it's important for both of you to remain connected to what's actually true in a given situation. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I was reading that and I thought, yeah, that's not me. I would describe myself as the person when I was reading the chapter, I thought, yeah, no, I'm typically the person that finds that quality frustrating in women. Right. And then I got to the next chapter.
SPEAKER_02:So then the flip side of that would be like, I just, Job's comforting. So the whole next chapter is about all, you know, there are many people who are not, they don't have any issue with the empathy problems. Like they're not overly empathetic and they're not, and they're, and they're well warned against it by the circles that they've been in. Maybe if they've been listening to and reading stuff about that, but, but maybe for them instead, they are kind of the one size fits all group. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm 100%
SPEAKER_00:guilty of that. Which one would you say you resonate the most with?
SPEAKER_02:It just depends on the season. And I feel like, honestly, the more ministry that you do with people, sometimes I think the more you end up as the Job's comforter. Because experience does tend to say most of the time, there's sin lurking behind the suffering. And a lot of the time it's sin that the person is unaware of in their own life. And so you do tend to have this almost tendency to become jaded in your ministry with people. But I also have found that I think you push through that and continue to minister and you will be floored by some of the innocent suffering that you'll encounter. People who've, the things that are happening to them are just happening. And what's scary about being able to acknowledge that is that it means you don't have an answer in that moment. I mean, you have an answer about God's goodness. You have a lot of answers, actually. But it feels like you don't have an answer when you can't say, okay, well, here's the sin for you to repent of here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And it feels also scary to acknowledge that you yourself may one day encounter undeserved suffering. Yeah. That's the scary part.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It was almost as if you were in my head. That chapter was, Scary is a good word because I was reading the Job's Comforter chapter and I thought, I have thought very similar things. And as you were concluding in the chapter, kind of saying that from the demon's perspective, just keep encouraging them in this mode and eventually they'll realize they'll end up being the innocent sufferer. It'll happen to them. And that's when their eyes will sort of be opened. And again, being hit beside the head, Right.
SPEAKER_02:You can keep it at bay. Just don't do any of those wrong things and then the suffering will never reach you. Yes. It's almost like a spiritualized version of the person who every time they hear about someone having cancer, they have like a dietary response. Like they'll say, well, they ate a lot of meat, didn't they? Or something, you know, like I've known people who literally thought, well, if you eat a certain way, you will prevent disease. You know, you will not get disease. And I'm like, okay, fine. What about die? Are you going to die? But it's just, I think it's sort of like the spiritual equivalent of that where you're like, well, relational problems won't come if you obey the Lord or spiritual depression won't come if you obey the Lord. And it's just not true, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I think we're seeing a lot of that to go down the wellness aspect. I think it's like this wellness salvation. And there's also the theme of like the anti-aging movement. Where we think that if we do X, Y, and Z, we won't age, but we also will somehow not die. And I actually think there's two. Because I'll say I'm more of a natural or holistic person. But I've, through the years, had to come face to face with realizing that that is not my savior. And I know two major things. holistic health doctors who have both had stories where they're healthy as a horse and they're in a tragic accident. And, you know, they're having to face sort of the reality of, okay, yes, I can do all of these things to make my body perfectly healthy and, you know, rid it from disease. But I'm also not immune to just accident.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I love that you kind of called that out. You called out a lot of things that are subtle or under the surface that you maybe don't think about. So one theme that I love that you talked about was confession. You had a whole chapter. I think you
SPEAKER_02:had, did you have two
SPEAKER_00:chapters?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I can't honestly remember what was in each chapter, but just the content of that whole section. She's a newlywed, you know, at the very beginning of the book, there's some stuff about just what the demons want to start, the habits they want to set in the newlywed couple, just habits of like rudeness, you know, the kind of stuff that will turn into hatred later on as it starts with just inattention and discourtesy, you know. But then... she gets into you want to prevent confession of sin in her life, like just on every level. But it's going to look a little different depending on the kind of sin that you're dealing with. So like if she's a new Christian, she might have these big, deep, addictive types of sins in her life, the kind of big secret sins that feel impossible to conquer, old things from her single days. This is like your eating disorder, your porn, your drinking, that kind of stuff. And in that case, you want to delay or prevent confession by arguing that it's too big, like it's too much to confess and get her to just delay it until she can kind of get her conscience to feel a little bit better. And then eventually, maybe she can just try to forget the incident and move on. And so her conscience will be slowly damaged over time by that process. But then there's the everyday sins against her fellow man, the kind of the rude word or the gossip or the, you know, the things that she's going to be doing to some degree or other, basically every day. And especially in the new marriage here. So here in that case, you delay her by, by getting her to think that it's too small really to confess. Like this is not a big deal. We do this all the time. We can't have a big conversation about it every time. And so you get her to build up crested over small sins against, especially against her spouse. Um, but anyone in her life over time. And it, and it builds into this kind of tartar of the soul, but built up very slowly by not naming sin when you, when you need to name something and confess it and, and forsake it, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So that was just so good and very eyeopening. And I loved that you, I resonated with both of them, uh, For the first one, there's a part of my story where when I was a young 16-year-old and struggling with porn, and I went to a youth group. I was going to youth group in a new area, and the youth pastor had happened to give a sermon on confession of sin and repentance. And he kind of had a call to action at the end of his sermon to... find somebody that you're close with. And if you have a sin that you need to confess, confess it to them. And I pulled aside this girl that was on my soccer team who brought me to this service and confessed it, never struggled with it again. It was like chains broke. And it's interesting because back then as a 16-year-old, I didn't really think anything of it. I just remember being like, I just thought, okay, connection between confession of sin to another person and freedom. Actually, what happened back then was pretty miraculous. Like, people don't just confess and break free from sin like that. That was definitely a move of God for my young, innocent mind to think that if I confess, the Lord's going to give me freedom here. And so, yeah, reading that chapter kind of brought back that memory. But then the second chapter on more small sins, I loved when you said, if you can name it a sin, the next time it happens— It's out there. Everybody knows.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Everybody, it makes, um, and this is something you, that I think I picked up in like new thetic counseling circles, like biblical counseling circles. They, they talk about the, um, the, I think it's the noetic effects of sin. Um, I think I might be getting the word wrong there, but basically just that sin affects the mind. So it, it makes you stupider. Like sin, sinning makes you, um, less clear about what up is up is up and down is down and And you become more disoriented in sin. But confession of sin clarifies and makes you smarter. So it actually helps you to see the world more clearly, like the world that God actually made more clearly in yourself. And when someone sins against you, there can be a little bit of the same effect. muddying for you, but also when someone confesses sin clearly to you, it clarifies. So it's clarifying to the person confessing and to the person confessed to, because then everybody can look at it and say, oh yeah, we named that already. We called that sin. So the next time that comes up, and it probably will come up again, but we know what it is now. We know which bucket to put that in and what to do with it. And it makes you get clearer as time goes on. So obviously Satan does not want that for you.
SPEAKER_00:Such a great renewed perspective on, because I've never, I never had heard that before until you brought it up in the book. That's really good. So you address a lot of temptations that are unique to women. That's sort of the goal with the book is the C.S. Lewis group tapes was more for a man. It was the demon was addressing a man. And so what would it be if he addressed a woman and the temptations are unique to women? That's
SPEAKER_02:right. And the screw tape letters, you know, is so applicable to any, pretty much anybody, I think it's great for young people, but, but, um, but the patient in that story, you know, he wasn't married. So there's no, there's no marriage stuff in there and obviously not a woman and not a mother, not a parent at all. Um, so there's just so much that I found like, Oh, I can, I can get into parenting. I can get into all these things. And, um, and it was just, it was really nice, especially nice to do it slowly over time. So I didn't have to stay there in that voice for long periods of time at once.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What would you say, um, When you're writing this book, were you like, because as a writer myself and aspiring author myself, when you work through a chapter or even like a premise or a thesis, you almost have to like, it's like when a pastor jokes, like if I'm going to be preaching on X sin on Sunday, the Lord's going to walk me through it that week leading up, you know? Was there any like stories from writing where you were writing about something and then the Lord was like, you still have to work on this yourself?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:definitely. I
SPEAKER_02:mean, most of it probably, or at least a good half. I mean, some of the topics and stories were really more from maybe a friend's life, but I would say I had the feeling throughout the writing process and even in the interviewing process over the past six months, I'll do an interview and talk about something. And then that night I'll be like, wow, like I was just talking about this, you know, I was just talking about this. Yeah. And the battle, the battle is, is always on, like it's always on. So, yeah. And it's, and it is, it's a scary thing to wade into, especially when you're explicitly calling out, you know, Satan's devices, I guess you're like, well, what, you know, where's he coming? I don't know. It's just, it's, it definitely makes me more aware. It makes me more aware for sure.
SPEAKER_00:I have to tell you, too, I was cracking up. I got to find where it was. I don't even think I marked it. For those listening, I have a few pages marked that are quotes that I want to have her unpack. I literally laughed out loud. I loved when you opened a chapter. So this one says, My dear Hemlock, I was on vacation last week inhabiting the front left wheel of a Walmart shopping cart. I laughed out loud. And then you did it again. I can't remember what it was. And I was like, that's where I would expect Satan to be. Or like a demon to be, right? It's on a wobbly left
SPEAKER_02:wheel of a shopping cart.
SPEAKER_00:So some of the temptations like envy, empathy, the desire to be famous, you talked about like diversified pleasures. Why do you think these particular struggles are so prevalent like for women? And how can women, you know, through your book begin to recognize and address them? Yeah, so...
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, there's so many different ones you just mentioned. Yeah, you just mentioned several ones that are different. You can stick with one. Yeah, the diversified pleasures is one that was a new concept to kind of think through. And I can't remember where that came up, but I think it was just from watching my own heart and just seeing how often I want... I want so many things. Like I just want so many different things, so many different kinds of things. And sometimes things that are not even logically compatible with each other. Like you can't have this wonderful life at home with your kids day in and day out where you're teaching them and also many, many hours a day to write in. You can't have both those things. They're not actually logically possible. You have to choose and you have to choose wisely. You know, based on what you think your duties are in this season of life. You can't have a husband who's logical and extremely bookish and devotes many hours of every day to study and also this super relaxed, outgoing, like outdoorsy dude. Yeah. And maybe part of it is the Part of it is social media era, you know, where we're just, we're watching a lie all day, every day. I think a lot of us would do a lot better if we would be off of it. But I think that that goes also to just on the purely spiritual level, what we want is happiness and joy. And we also want total autonomy and not to submit to our Lord. And those are two incompatible desires. they aren't the same thing and they're mutually exclusive. So it's the battle
SPEAKER_00:of the
SPEAKER_02:flesh. Right. Um, but I love to, Oh, go ahead. Just laying things down next to each other and saying like, are these, are these things even logically possible? The things that I'm wanting and, and being a little more, just a little more, um, logical with ourselves, I think.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you kind of touched on the social media aspect, but, um, Could you kind of discuss how this book, you
SPEAKER_02:know, addresses?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So the chapter about social media in the book is called On the Pocket Mirrors. So I think I cribbed this idea from Tony Reinke's book about the phones. I think he talks about them being mirrors of the soul, sort of. Yeah. So the demon says, these are pocket mirrors. The human beings carry them around everywhere. If they were to walk around with actual mirrors that they were gazing into all the time, they'd be embarrassed to be seen doing that. But instead, they are looking into these mirrors that show them all day, every day, what they love, what other people are saying about them, what makes them feel interesting or makes them feel like they have taste or that they're... important or relevant people. And the victory that we've seen, the demon is saying, the victory that we've seen in these pocket mirrors is that the human beings are basically removed completely from the flow of time while they're on these devices. So God, the enemy, has made them as human beings to walk down the road of time, one step after another. They're humans. They're creatures. They were made to experience each moment. Sometimes the moments feel slow when it's a hard time. Sometimes they feel fast when it's a good time. But they were meant to experience time. And the pocket mirror's literally just lift their feet off the road of time and float them down to another point and drop them back down. And as they do this, they're atrophying, like their muscles, their ability to even experience time is going away. where they can't even sit and have dinner with their friends without feeling this itching kind of need to get out of time again and float down the road. So they're pulling their phones out and it's not even work they're avoiding, it's pleasure. So basically she's saying like, this works basically as well as a good old fashioned drug addiction in terms of just disembodying them and removing them from the flow of time. And the demon is also saying, It's pretty similar to what we've done. We've rejected the enemy's time. We are also a little bit disoriented in time, in the rebellion. And that's just me, honestly, on kind of a– it was just an idea I was exploring, really, that– Because I've always wondered, you know, how does a demon stay in a battle that they know they can't win? And then I've also experienced addictions, and I know how disorienting they can be where you kind of, you're like, I don't want to be right now. I want to be somewhere else or some other time, but I don't even know where I want to go to. And when you're waiting for your next hit of whatever the thing is that you're addicted to, you're just very disoriented. So I figure that rebellion is disorienting like that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I love the juxtaposition when you talked about the gardening. Right. Yes. And just like the contrast of that or the positive would be that the patient is in a garden and she's pulling weeds and 30 minutes passes, but she's completely experienced that full 30 minutes. She wasn't escaped from it. Right. And she
SPEAKER_02:does have that feeling of like, oh, what, 30 minutes already? But it's because it was pleasant work that she was involved in and she was fully there for every minute. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, it was very, it was, it made me want to, I have my sourdough starter in the fridge and it made me want to get it out and just like bake again. Oh, great. What would you say is like, Well, it was kind of what I
SPEAKER_02:was describing earlier where I would feel like. Man, all of a sudden, you know, I'm working on this section. All of a sudden, this thing that wasn't a problem is feeling like a problem again, you know, or something like that. So for sure. And I just maybe just with more awareness of it. But as far as just the difficulty, I found it really tough. And I got this note many, many, many times from the editor where I would slip into kind of. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I want to go through some of the quotes that I pulled and I had to dwindle some of them down and just kind of I'm going to read them and then I would love for you to just sort of like unpack them a little bit further. This one is the one on prayer, which I really, really loved this chapter. But the quote says, Prayer is the commander in chief's personal telephone number, a handwritten invitation to sit in his chamber for a meal and chat. The book makes believers prayer. The book makes believers prayer seems to make radicals. It produces people who don't just claim, but actually appear to believe that they are in war. Book reading can be dangerous, but prayer is the beginning of the end of your work with this girl. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:So this was sort of a treatment and the book that she's referring to in there that she won't, bring herself to use the word Bible, but she's talking about the Bible. Um, and basically this was me just, you know, I'm, I'm in sort of reformed type world. Um, and I have been most of my life and, um, a little, you know, reformed Baptist church out here. And it's a very bookish world to be in. It just is. And we, we value the Bible, I think in a, in a wonderful way. Um, we value study and, um, and yet, If we have a ditch, and I think sometimes we do have a ditch, I think it is in an awareness of the spiritual.
SPEAKER_01:Spirit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, of the spirit. Just of the working of the spirit and of the power of prayer, like expecting prayer to be a real efficacious thing to be doing. So my experience, I also, in this little church that we've been in since we've been married, I came out here as a single person and joined the church. And there's a Wednesday night prayer meeting every that's been going on for 40 plus years, you know, and the women will, the women and men get together and give requests and then split by gender and give more requests and then split into groups of three or four and, and pray. And this is how I learned to pray as a young Christian, you know, I was praying with older women who had been praying for years and, and it's, it's scary to do when you're, you don't want to go, like you don't want to go to prayer meeting when you're a young, a new Christian, you're, you're scared to go. But it's, It's the way you learn is by praying with other believers and then praying alone and learning.
SPEAKER_00:You
SPEAKER_02:can only
SPEAKER_00:do it. It's almost like learn by fire a little bit. Right. You have to do it in order to learn. There's no other way. If you can just delay her for whatever reason, whether it be she's not doing it right, distraction, that's just your goal.
SPEAKER_02:Make her believe that she's waiting for these very important passionate, emotionally fulfilling prayers to kind of overtake her. So the idea of saying her prayers, even using written prayers to pray by for a while, all of that just doesn't feel right to her. It would feel perfectly fine to her grandmother or her great-grandmother. They would totally understand that sometimes you just say your prayers, and that's what you do.
SPEAKER_00:And it's not this emotional experience that I also love to touch on the when you say that you kind of are in a reformed church. I really love, again, going back to the ability to use this as a medium to convey or to talk about more taboo topics. But I love that you talk on kind of find out when the patient, which way she leans. Does she lean more, whether it reformed, you know, Bible based or does she lean maybe more charismatic or or spirit focused? And then kind of you talk about the ditch. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And I was like, man, that's great because I think that we're seeing that happen, right? And I have seen people get really caught up in all of that. And it's like the spirit wouldn't want that. The Lord wouldn't want that sort of division. But that's what Satan's going to do.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And almost any of the topics we've talked about probably have ditches on either side of them. You know, like the empathy, Job's comforting thing. Those are just two ditches, basically, that you're finding which way to push and the demon wants to push you where you already lean.
SPEAKER_00:There's a book called Hole. Yeah. I can't remember who wrote it, but she uses the phrase like embrace the tension a lot. And just that you could go one way or the other, whether it be in heart or in head, whether it's in sinner or saint, whether it's spirit or truth. But what does it look like to sort of embrace both of those? Because we were meant to be sort of like whole and, you know, we're not all sinner or all saint. We can't be all Bible and no spirit kind of thing. Yeah. And
SPEAKER_02:probably our tendency is like, whatever is more comfortable that we We already seem to sort of automatically understand it would be nice to just stay there and not ever have to grow in a new direction. Right.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, next quote is from On Diversifying Pleasures. You said, even her highest affections are not so high. She loves not holiness itself, but the idea of holiness. She loves the idea of becoming more respectable, more knowledgeable, more fruitful, more righteous. It's a love of progress, of dignity, of potential, of growth. She still rarely fixes her thoughts on him. At her best, she is engrossed with the idea of herself being more engrossed with him. Dagger to the heart, Tilly. That was, yeah, I've felt convicted of that very thing. Almost like an idolization of growth and that growth in Christ, spiritual growth slash my pursuit of the Lord is almost is almost like the end rather than the means to an end. Right. Yeah. Like,
SPEAKER_02:so what are we, what exactly are we, you know, what is the growth leading us to? Who are we getting closer to? Who are we looking at and fixing our minds on? And how are we going to grow or develop or whatever this progress is that we love so much? How is that, any of that going to happen?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:If we're not gazing on him, then we won't be made over into his image. That's the way that happens. I
SPEAKER_00:loved how in every chapter you kind of dismantle the... sort of hidden, well, the vices, if you will, and sort of illuminate what's really going on underneath. And it's really helpful because you're putting language to something that we as women struggle with, but we don't often know how to explain it. And so even just that quote, it's helpful in a moment when I'm realizing, okay, Justine, Are you truly pursuing holiness in order to look like Christ? Are you just wanting to look like you are holy? Yeah. So that was helpful. Let's see. Oh, I marked Job's comforting, but we already talked about that. And I did want to read the final, like one from the final chapter. Spoiler alert for those who haven't read Screwtape Letters, but the patient does read does pass in the end. Yep. He dies. So, but it was on, I, I'm so glad that you did that because it was, um, Just like a complete picture. So let me read from this. It says, And I just loved the way that you sort of gave this visual for that moment when somebody is ushered into... heaven. And that was part of, that was the moment that made me tear up because it was very sobering to read because it's real, you know? Yeah. Right. And if you've experienced loss, you've experienced
SPEAKER_02:that. And that's where you're, that's where we're all walking, you know, we're all walking towards that moment. And we don't know how many turns and how many years of road we've got, we just know there's going to be that moment for each of us. In the last five or 10 years, we've lost several really dear saints who were women in our church community. And I think I interviewed a family member to get some of those just details on that. But for me, just the impact every time there's a a long-term, faithful, pillar woman in our community. First of all, when she's gone, the whole community is changed by her not being part of it. The work that she was doing, the voice that she was, all of those things are losses. But watching someone die, I think, is... I always picture like you're in a room and there's a curtain there and they push the curtain aside to walk through it. And for one moment, you get a glimpse of what's behind the curtain because they were just pushing through it. And there's just something about, you know, it's precious in the Lord's sight, the death of his saints. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. Oh, man. Oh, just so good. So what is your greatest hope for women to take away from when they read this book?
SPEAKER_02:I want women to see the battle that we're in and to see how much power we have, how we can be a real threat to the armies of the enemy. Our lives, they can be a real threat, or they can be completely innocuous to the enemy if we choose to pursue only those things that We automatically want to pursue that feel good to us to be pursuing. Then we can be perfectly harmless to them. But a woman who fears the Lord, she's terrible as an army with banners. She's powerful in a uniquely feminine way, which is a flexible, life-giving, glorifying way. It's a uniquely feminine power that every woman has.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Oh, that was so good. We're just going to, there's really not much more to add there. This was, this was such a refreshing conversation and I, I really pray that it blesses whoever listened and, um, you're not, you're on social media, but you're, you're not. Yeah. I'm not putting things on
SPEAKER_02:Instagram really, but, um, I respect that. Yeah. I just had to get, um, yeah, I feel that Facebook I'm usually I'll check up on people on Facebook. So,
SPEAKER_00:okay. Um, well, uh, The book, you can get it on Amazon, really anywhere you get books. I'll make sure to link it. Highly recommend it. There's an audio book. Yeah. I read the
SPEAKER_02:audio book this time. That was fun. It was my first time to read one of my own books. So that was
SPEAKER_00:cool. Okay, great. I'll make sure to include all of that in the show notes. Well, Tilly, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me. It was fun.