We are back with the second half of my conversation with Jess Connolly talking all about rest because the month of April on the Work and Play podcast is all about the importance of rest in our lives. I’m so grateful you’re here! I can’t wait for you to listen to the rest. If you haven’t listened to part one already, go back to last week’s episode and start there.

Well, I’m trying something new here at Work and Play with Nancy Ray and that is months that have themes. So the theme of April is rest and this conversation is not going to disappoint. I’m talking to Jess Connolly today all about why women are so tired. We’re all so tired and this conversation is full of practical and spiritual answers as to why we’re so tired and what we can do differently. Guys, this conversation was so good, I decided to divide it into two episodes. I can’t wait for you to hear it and I think it fits perfectly with the theme of rest for this April. Enjoy and come back next week to hear part 2!

We live in a time where rest and play are very hard to come by. It can even be looked down on in our culture and often it feels impossible with the busy nature of our lives and schedules. Today’s episode is hopefully going to be encouraging to you to make time to rest and play a little bit more.

Every once in a while us moms find ourselves in a very perplexing situation: We have an unexpected hour of time and we have no idea what to do with ourselves. Today, we're gonna get a game plan.

During the month of January, I read the entire Bible and this episode is all about how I did it.

My friend, Val Marie, is such a gift. She's the founder of Val Marie Paper, she's an author and she designed the lovely yearly prayer journal which I have used time and time again. Val has given me so much perspective on prayer and has been such an encouragement to my walk with the Lord. And today we're talking about what prayer can actually look like in our lives and how to make 2024 a year of prayer, for you, for real.

I'm back. It's 2024. I'm so excited to be here for my beloved State of the Podcast episode. I hope you enjoy listening to Work and Play with Nancy Ray episode 221.

Have you ever heard of wintering as a verb? Well, now you have because today I am going to share with you 5 ways that I'm wintering this year.

So this year I'm doing something a little different. I decided early in November that I am not thinking about or planning for next year until next year in January. I am all in for 2023. I want to be present and finish this year strong. My eyes are on my kids, my husband, Christmas, and New Year's, and I just, for whatever reason, feel so strongly in my spirit that I need to not take time and energy in this month to plan and look at it. This is so different for me. Okay. I am a planner. I am a forward thinker. But there's just been some different life circumstances that have led me to this, so this episode is all about some end-of-year rhythms for reflecting on your year and how you can finish this year strong.

Get ready for the icing on the cake for the best kept secret to a holiday season full of joy and contentment. You ready? It's giving. It's giving. It's being intentional about giving away the resources that God has blessed you with. We're wrapping up this holiday series with the best episode of them all, holiday giving.

While so many women wear multitasking as a badge of honor, I will readily admit that I am the worst at multitasking. I—it's terrible. I get so distracted and cannot do it. And I'll be frank, this has not served me well in motherhood because the interruptions are great and we'll talk a little bit about that. But today I just wanna share my thoughts on multitasking and how it doesn't help anyone and how it's so much better if we can focus on one thing at a time.

Be where your feet are. This simple phrase has brought me back time and time again from feeling scattered and overwhelmed to simply being present. It's taught me a lot about my own limits and how God is limitless, and I found a lot of encouragement in that. So today's episode is all about that phrase, be where your feet are. And I hope you find it encouraging.

Welcome to another episode of May is for Mamas, and this is Mother's Day Week! We are approaching Mother's Day and I had the thought, I want to create a podcast episode that is a gift to any mom who is listening. And oftentimes for Mother's Day, we wanna get a massage or we wanna get away, or we want a new bag, or we wanna be served breakfast in bed. And all of these things are good and of of course, of course we want most of all those homemade cards from our kids that is the best. And just the acknowledgement of all the work and love that we pour into our families and all of that is so good and right and wonderful to want and receive those things.

But sometimes, sometimes more than anything, I just want some words of life spoken over me. I need a fresh wind of the Holy Spirit to empower my steps. I want to to hear scripture and words that can speak to me in the dark moments that hold me together when I feel like I'm falling apart. The words that give me patience when I lose my temper, the words that give me wisdom when I need it most.

And so today I am gonna be sharing my favorite scripture verses for mamas. And of course there are endless scriptures that I could share. There are so many more that I could pull from, but these are some of my personal favorites that I just want to read over you and share with you today.

I've had three best friends for over 20 years: Jess, Heather, and Sam. And the four of us are called The Minkies, and I invited them to do a special episode of the podcast, just me and my best friends sharing our story, sharing our favorite memories and what it's taken for us to maintain a long lasting friendship for over two decades.

So it's a very fun, different episode today. There's a lot of laughing and joking and storytelling, and when it comes to work and play, these ladies, they definitely know how to work hard, but when we're together—it is 100% play. They are my idea of fun and having a good time, and they have been for the better part of my life. What a gift it is that I get to share them with you today!

The heart of what I want to talk about today is simply the idea that we can say a lot and we can have a lot of great ideas, but really our lives come down to what we do. My encouragement to you today is simply to let your yes be yes.

Today, we have the privilege of hearing from my friend and mama mentor, Renee Swope, who is a wife and a mama of three and an author and speaker. She's so wise and I love that she is ahead of me in the motherhood journey, she has so much to offer.

Having four small children six and under simply means that over the last six years there has been a lot of sickness in our house. And while there's really no right or wrong way to be sick, because you're just sick. I have learned a few ways to cope with sickness, ways to cling to Jesus, ways to pray over your children during sickness, ways to perhaps make sickness a little less miserable and that's what I'm going to share with you today.

And now for the shortest podcast episode of 2021, I hope this encourages you and is just what you need today.

Today we're going to talk about five ways for you to work through that feeling of overwhelm that honestly overtakes us every once in a while and leaves us feeling so helpless.