Hi, I'm Susie Larson.

Here's the podcast from Middays with Susie Larson.

Enjoy the conversation.

Well, it's only just a matter of. ever since, ever since we've got you late. Welcome to Mid-Days, I'm Susie Larson.

So honored to get to spend this time with you.

In fact, I look forward to bringing you conversations every single day that hopefully inspire you in your faith walk,

that deepen your understanding of God's work, and that heighten your awareness of his very real presence in your life. Well, you think about it. Everybody loves a new beginning. We love it when we finish strong, too. I'm on the home stretch. You've been hearing a little bit about it running towards my next book deadline. On Saturday night, Lord willing, I will push send on this manuscript, the longest one I've ever written, 120,000 words. I'm so brain tired, but I'm so ready to be done. And I love crossing the finish line. So yeah, we love beginnings. We love good endings. Not very many of us love the middle. In fact, there's even a term that authors often use. They call it the saggy middle. It's when your book droops in the middle and it kind of loses its luster. Well, my guest today, she's a former lawyer. She's a best-selling author, national speaker. I'd say she's got about the best smile I think I've ever seen. And she's here to tell us why the middle of everything matters so very much. It's where we tend to lose heart. It's time we tend to lose steam. We tend to wish we were in somebody else's story. But the middle matters. And I know we've got young and old men and women who listen to this show. This isn't about just about middle age. It's about valuing the middle phases of your life. Lisa Joe Baker joins me today. She writes this, let's relish the middle. Let's savor the middle. Let's embrace the middle in all its mundane glory. Because maybe the middle isn't so bad. Maybe we don't want to hide it, ignore it, or miss it. Maybe the middle is the part where it really starts to get good. We'll get her on in just a second here, but a quick announcement. You've been hearing this from me, and it's worth mentioning again. And every week on Faith month for giving away a He-Reads Truth Bible. Wish you could see it. It's this big, heavy cover, just rich-looking Bible, giving one away every week. You literally can register every week, and I hope you win. Just hop on our website at myfaithradio.com. I hope you win. All right, let me tell about my guest.

We'll get her on the show.

With the ability to laugh at herself and her mistakes,

Lisa Joe Baker continues to gather women around her into a community

that's tired of hearing how things are supposed to be, like perfect and easy,

and passionate about hearing how things actually are, scary stretching wonderful she's a former

attorney and a longtime community manager at encourage Lisa Joe is a best-selling

author lives just outside of Washington DC with her husband of more than 20 years

and there are three very loud kids I love this girl Lisa Joe Baker welcome to the show

Susie it's so fun to be with you today.

Looking forward to the conversation.

And we love to start every day talking scripture, Lisa. And I'm wondering if you've got a verse you've been hanging around these days, you can share with us. Yeah, for me, it's an oldie but goodie. So this comes from 2 Corinthians 4, verses 16 through 18. but the part that I really love is how it talks about how our light and momentary troubles, which is, I think, how he uses to describe everything here on earth,

is achieving for us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all. And I just love

that idea that what's happening here is being weighed in an eternal way that we can't even

begin to imagine that shows us how valuable everything is that we're involved in the every day.

Yeah, you know, whenever I read that verse, I mean, that one is meant so much to me as well,

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