This week we’re celebrating blessings with heartfelt gratitude. Guess what? YOU are one of my blessings!
Big news. In 2020, Fireside Talk Radio podcasts downloaded over 3 million times. Wow! THREE Million. Huge! Most importantly, we are truly grateful for all YOU’ve done to help us catapult the messages of heroic people out into the universe. Please pray their tender stories keep comforting others.
Plus, David and I traveled to Fort Worth to speak to the brave and talented ladies of Provarsu of the Fort Worth Women’s Club. Fun because they are amazing. Brave because they came out with masks and big hearts!
More big news. My first book, The Well: the Art of Drawing Out Authentic Conversations, is out on Amazon! In gratitude, we’re honoring our partner in this project, Elk Lake Publishing. Plus, sending out bucket-loads of gratitude to our fine editors, Sue Fairchild, Susan Stewart, and publisher Deb Haggerty, every chance we get!
The Well is a content-rich, easy-to-read, idea-packed guide with over 40 communication strategies Jesus used for transforming lives. Simple stuff we can do today to transform our own conversations. (Look for our next book, Marriage Conversations: From Co-existing to Cherished in February of 2021. More info here.)
From Isolated to Influential: One Conversation Away
I love the way Jesus takes one woman from isolated to influential in ONE conversation.
Next, our daughter Ellen Krafve Trant came on Fireside Talk Radio to help me talk about communicating wisely and why I write. Can I say this in public? I’m so proud and grateful for how well the book turned out. See the above paragraphs in case you think for one split second I take any credit at all—Elk Lake Publishing delivered the goods!
Yep, Gratitude is My Middle Name
If you love the story of the woman at the well, you’ll love this fresh look at her life. Told as only a woman could, I incorporated all the truth we’ve learned from listening to other women tell their most tender stories with authenticity.
So, we have a lot to be grateful for this week at Camp Krafve. Personally, as I pray, here are the things reducing me to tears on my knees.
- God loves me anyway. In spite of. Beyond my comprehension, my weakness is dear to Him. Including my frailties, flaws, yucky stuff, human tendency to sin, all of the ick.
- He hears me when I cry out to Him.
- God surrounds me with those who love me anyway, too.
- He uses me in spite of my frailties and FEAR in unexpected ways because He is that good.
- This one may surprise you because it’s so simple, but I constantly thank Him for a clean, soft pillow at night and a roof that doesn’t leak. Maybe we camped in the rain when I was a child, but somehow that always makes the top of my list.
- If you know my story, you know I’m grateful to be a mom and grandmom in ways that are extremely personal. Each day with my family is an undeserved blessing I receive with true gratitude.
Communicating with Wisdom
Speaking of fear vs. gratitude, when Ellen interviewed me about communicating wisely and effectively, one communications challenge gave us a good laugh. Can anyone talk to teenage boys? Yep, it’s a challenge. (If your hands are full raising kids, click here.)
Seriously, though, can anyone, besides Jesus, usher another person from isolation to influence? The answer is yes. Anyone.
Anyone Can Conquer Communication
When Ellen came on the show to interview me (agh!!), we talked about overcoming my fear and stepping up to communicate. Basically, Elle is my go-to person when I feel afraid. She peps me up.
“I’m a mom, I’m a business owner, I’m a wife and the thing that gets in the way for me often is communication,” says Ellen. Her first degree was in Radio, Television, Video, Film. “But it gets so frustrating because if something is going to sabotage my relationship with someone, it inevitably comes down to communication.”
If communicating is hard for those of us who studied it, surely it’s hard for everyone. Can we learn to communicate wisely? Fortunately, just a few communication tips from the Master Communicator instantly help.
Jesus Engaged Imagination to Spark Authentic Conversations
Use Your Imagination. One of my personal favorites is how Jesus engaged other people’s imagination. Since we are made in God’s image, He gave us imagination, too.
A few Thanksgivings ago, I invited our daughter Anna Krafve Pierce to co-host with me accidentally in a panic because I had a guest cancel on me. Now she co-hosts pretty often.
“I cannot believe you said that,” Ellen responded, giggling about Anna being my accidental guest. Honestly, though, anyone who knows me understands that most of my successful moments happen accidentally. Usually, because I asked someone else to help me out of a jam. Or because I’m terrified of trying something new.
“People were downloading her episode like crazy. So then I knew, ‘Oh, people want to hear more from Anna,’” I reported to Elle in our interview. Naturally, Anna and I talk a lot about how to foster imagination in kids.
Seriously, imagination is one of the tools that Jesus used to help the woman at the well think beyond her current situation. With creativity, He sparked her imagination to consider a new way He wanted her to live. Jesus wanted her surrounded by love and companionship. (For more of the ways Jesus sparked authentic conversations, order The Well here.)
In the same way, He wants sweet respect and honor for each of us. All people want love and companionship. And honestly, God seeks us out in order to provide that for us if we will just pause long enough to learn from him.
Book Bananza: Another Reason for Gratitude!
We’re grateful for all the local authors who will be at our very first Book Bananza! Stuff all your stockings with books signed by the author!
This is your invitation to join Gina Butler and me and over a dozen local authors for a festive evening of FUN! Get your picture made with your favorite authors.
Look for Martha Hook, The Springdale Series, Angie Ruark, Spiritual Warrior Women, Tony Johnson, Me and My Boys, Brian Brandt, Blind Spots, BJ Garret, Unwanted No More, Candace and Simeon Hudson, Harry and His Big Nose, Danny Sessums, A Force To Be Reckoned With, Volumes I and II, Olivia Hardin & C.H. Sessums, The Faith Book and The J.D. Pierson Series, April Coker, The Keeper and Keeper II: The Storm, Holli Tennison, and MORE!
❤️Mark Your Calendar Now! ❤️
It’s a one-stop shopping spree! Bring your friends and hang out together with your favorite authors! For more info, click here.
Jesus: The Master Communicator
Once I realized the principles I found worked, I really wanted to pull them together in a book to share with other people. Why? Because we all trip over communication sometimes. The breakdown in our culture is evidence we all need to polish up our skills to have authentic conversations.
No matter what people think about Jesus, they nearly always agree that He was one of the most influential teachers to ever walk the planet. I think of Him as the Master Communicator and my own Savior. But perhaps you don’t.
If you order and read my book, I hope you will notice I tried to communicate gently. Perhaps, you have a friend who might not think of Jesus as the Savior. Still, we all need truth and communication skills. We’re wise to seek it where it can be found. I hope you feel comfortable sharing my book with anyone you love.
Don’t Take It Personally, But…
It’s easy for authentic conversations to get high-jacked, especially with so many roadblocks to communication,.
“You can even say things precisely the way you mean to and the other person will misinterpret them or take things personally,” Elle pointed out.
Her point is well made. David and I suffered for a long time because we tended to take things personally. We misinterpreted each other frequently. I have a background in writing, media, and public relations and I still couldn’t get my own husband to understand me. He lived with me twenty years at that point and it seemed to be getting worse all the time!
Painful conversations devastate both people. So I studied the scripture for communication principles that would really work. I was studying for myself.
In case imagination doesn’t work, knowing a bunch of Jesus’s strategies often comes in handy.
More Great Strategies for Your Family
Jesus was such a great communicator, it’s seems impossible to number all His ways of reaching out. For instance, here’s another strategy Jesus used. He ignored the initial objections raised by the woman at the well early in their conversation. Odd, but interesting strategy, right? So there are times in your family when you can just ignore their questions and objections.
Another thing, Jesus gave her the question He wanted her to ask. These are things we can do in our own homes. There’s forty-something of these strategies in the book. I hope you find the strategies you can use to open up the best, most tender authentic conversations in your family.
I’m so honored you opened and read our blog today. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. ❤️
May we pray together?
Dear Father, we all have moments when we feel isolated. Yet, You call us to influence. You even pre-qualify each one of us. It blows my mind to think of all the ways you set us up for success. You even sent Your own Son to demonstrate the sweetest, most tender companionship of all. Help us now as we create authentic conversations with those we love. Heal us and heal our communities, we pray. Bless us now because that’s Your heart’s desire. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
We LOVE to hear from YOU!
How has a conversation changed your life? When do you find the best times to talk to your kids? What special conversations would you like to have with your family this holiday season?
Cathy Krafve, Speaker, Blogger, Podcaster, and author of The Well: The Art of Drawing Out Authentic Conversations, invites your stories, ideas, and questions at CathyKrafve.com. Truth with a Texas Twang.
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