Checking In w/ Heather Thompson Day

Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. What do you do when it seems like everybody else is getting their dreams and you're not well. I'm so excited about our next guest today, Heather Thompson Day. She's going to tell you right here on another episode of Checking In. Heather Thompson Day is an associate professor in the Department of Visual Arts, Communication and Design at Andrews University in Baryon Springs, Michigan.

She runs an online.

Community called I'm That Wife and hosts the Viral Jesus podcast and entered Denominational speaker. Heather is the author of books including Confession of a Christian Wife and How to Feed the Mediavore and her newest book, It's Not Your Turn. She's also a contributor for Religion News Service, Newsweek, and The Barner Group. And she previously taught at Colorado Christian University.

You know, some of us.

Haven't learned what the right away means. So your book is not your turn what to do while you're waiting for your breakthrough.

Heather, welcome to checking out in. I am so excited to be here. Thanks for having me listen.

When about maybe was it two years ago, because that's kind of how long.

It takes on it's your book.

Me and you had some contact via social media. I can't can't remember if it was Twitter or Instagram. First, it might have been Twitter. I was following you. I think some of your posts have gone viral in a good way, and one of your most recent viral posts was about when your father walked you down the aisle.

Yeah that's right at your wedding.

But we got in contact because of your book and girl, maybe even a connection or two of love connection.

We can talk about that, but I got cold feet. Let's talk about it now.

Tell them Michelle, because so one of my things I am a professor, but also I'm a matchmaker. I love setting people up, and I was trying to set you up and you never followed through. Just let them hang, loft them unrid.

Well, if they're listening to this, you can reach out to them, Heather, And I'll let you know in this episode Airs, I got cold feet. Okay, when you know at the time you think you're ready because you know you're like, okay, I'm ready, but I got cold feet and maybe I wasn't ready. And I want to encourage people that that's okay when you think you're ready, and you know, just follow that, follow follow your heart, follow wisdom, following discernment, like, eh, I'm gonna put a stop to it.

So, yeah, ladies and gentlemen that are listening, Heather tried our best. Was it about two or three?

And listen, I got three of the most eligible bachelors. I knew, just top notch cream of the crop, got them so excited that they would be hearing from you, and then nothing.

But it's okay. You weren't ready. Did I not respond to either of them? I don't. I don't think you did.

One was like.

An owner of a team. It's fine, it's fine. He wasn't he's an owner of a team? Or was he one coaches?

He had like a high level, like a vice president of a sports team. No. We I was scouring for the top notch people, put them together. I had like a bio sheet ready for.

You, and then we passed. But it's okay. I'm sorry to read. Are they still eligible? You know? I'd have to follow back up on that now it's been over me.

Be like Michelle might not Michelle wasn't ready for you, but she might know two or three folks that are. Can we Is that okay? Guys, if you're listening, we're gonna circle back. So oh yeah, yeah.

I think I was. I don't know if I was lonely or being sentimental or maybe in that place.

Like I said, I thought I was ready for a relationship and it just did not work.

Out that way and you're so busy. So you're so busy, that's perfect.

And I'm not gonna even say it's busy. You do make time for what you're ready for and what you want. I just knew when I look back. I just I thought I was ready, but I wasn't, especially when you finally are are, when it's put in front of you.

I could have easily maybe.

Press respond or whatever the app was, Instagram sign think I do recall some DMS? Yes I do, okay, And I just was not ready. I just was like, I'm not ready, but I respect not.

Okay, all right, okay.

Well meaning, And it wasn't their turn, right, it wasn't their turn.

It is not my turn. It wasn't our turn.

So what to do while you're waiting for your breakthrough is an amazing, phenomenal book. I was able to get a copy beforehand, and I think then, I think an actual book that was sent that consumers actually get in their hands.

So thank you, thank you, thank you. Was that your own experience?

That was absolutely my experience. It was something I started saying to myself. I couldn't find a job after I felt like I had done everything right. Academically, and at the exact same time, one of my best friends named Jule calls me and she gets hired by NASA, and I was like, wow, I'm so happy for you, and I was happy for her. I was just also incredibly

And that's what I did.

So it became something I started repeating to myself when other people were getting the things I was praying for. I just started saying, it's not your turn, it's not your turn. It's not your turn, but it's her turn, and so you show up in you clap.

So that is a real thing, whether or not you have a solid relationship with God. You know, you are a professor, you know you write for amazing popular magazines, but you still find yourself in that position, like this person has what I'm praying for, and it's a human thing.

You know, now, as you told us.

What you did from the human perspective, how did you handle it spiritually?

M How am I.

Still handling it spiritually? It's funny it's like I've not graduated. And I think I had thought when I wrote this book, I was going to have graduated. I would no longer struggle with insecurity, I would no longer feel jealous of somebody else. And it hasn't been the case. And I feel like what I am really good at now is just giving it to God.

Immediately.

I will go up in my room somebody has a New York Times bestseller, which is alway been my dream. I'll go up in my room and just say to God, like, hey, I this is hard for me.

I'm struggling with this.

And I am I've been freed though, because it's like I don't have to be perfect or have the perfect responses. I just have to be honest right and try to stay in the relationships. And so that's kind of been more of my focus now.

That's so good being honest and like you said, taking it to God in prayer, yes, versus going to social media about it or acting away to the friend or or that peer that has that book on the New York Times bestseller list.

You know, I'm with you on that.

I was like, I just know my book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. We are doing the right things and it just didn't hit and you're soul right.

I had to sit in that and sit in disappointment, yeap.

And a part of me also had to sit in was a part of me feeling entitled.

Let's talk about that, because I think that's where I've come to right now. But this has been a progression for me. I have now gotten to a point where I have to say, Heether, do you want anything God himself has not given you?

I don't, right, But that has been a progression.

I think I went most of my years feeling a little bit entitled because I felt like I'd done so much work.

Yes, right. That's the thing when you actually do the word, do the work.

You're prepared, everybody's given you accolas.

Yeah, and you're like, I didn't.

Get the results I wanted. But it's like, what if you got the actual result that God wanted you.

To have exactly?

And how do we defer to God being actual lord over our lives?

That's the human experience, that's the journey.

And how we define what success is or what impact is. Would I have felt that I made impact because it was on the bestseller list or am I excited? I did a podcast recording before you and not knowing the young lady has my book and she's referring to chapters in my book that have.

Helped her on her journey.

She's an expert in finance, and I'm never thinking that someone who seems to be an expert at what they're doing would be holding a book in my.

Hand to me.

Yeah, yes, that is impact, and it is impact I believe in the way God desires for it to have impact.

Yeah, that's so essentially The entire book for me came down to this sentence. Who we are when we perceive it to not be our turn is actually more important than who we will be when it is.

It's very easy.

I was just speaking for university campus last week and I told them it is not hard to get up and speak in front of several thousand people.

That's really easy easy.

What's hard to do is show up when you don't know if anyone's coming.

That's hard. That's integrity. And I really think we need a generation.

Of people who are going to hit the podcast button on when I don't know if anyone's gonna listen. That's integrity. I'm in this because of the mission, not because of the reward. And who we are when it's on our turn is more important than who we will be when it is.

And not only that, like you said, doing the event if you feel like anyone will come. Also, what about posting that post when you feel like, okay, but no one's gonna see it?

Am I gonna have one?

Like?

But I'm telling you your people will see it in the right people when it's time.

Like you said, when is your when it's your turn?

A lot of people have gone viral out of the blue based out of the obedience of what they felt like they were supposed to do.

Tabitha Brown is such a great example, yes of.

Her saying at that time, I've got a cell phone, I feel obedient, feel I feel like I'm let to post things about cooking and inspirational moments and this girl is on fire, you know, just based off of that. So thank you for that while you wait, Like you said, when it's not your turn yet, do you feel like that's who you really are?

I think that's when we decide who we are, okay, is when it's not our turn?

Right?

When does David become King? David is anointed king.

For years before it's ever in his circumstances, right, So when does David actually feel like king?

He has to.

Believe the vision that's been spoken over his life long before anybody else is even able to confirm it.

So when you're saying he was anointed king long before he felt was that the early days of imposter syndrome?

Right?

And how do we keep showing up in those spaces when nobody's cheering for you when nobody the truth is.

Nobody would even care if you didn't.

How do we keep showing up when nobody else would even notice? And I had to come to a point where I realized, this is actually when it matters. My life doesn't start. It's a metaphorical there. Once I get there, that's when my life start.

No, my life starts.

Martin Luther King Junior has this really fantastic quote. He was speaking to a group of high school seniors. This is, I really think like a life transforming quote. And essentially what he says is if all you ever do when you leave here is become a street sweeper, then you sweep those streets with so much passion and so much intention and so much charisma that all of heaven has to stop and say, oh my God, look at the street sweeper.

So good. I want to live my life like that. So good, so good, showing up to my own life.

When you said that your friend, you know, got this job, and was that NASA? Is it something that she posted on social media or did you just find doubt?

Was it a text?

No, she called me, she said, you're not going to believe this. And at the exact same time, so this is about this is almost ten years ago. At the same time, I am applying for jobs left and right. I've been in school. I graduated high school in two thousand and five. I never took a summer off. I stayed all the way through my PhD. And I thought, surely I'm going to get a job right away, and I didn't. And I applied and I applied and I

This is great.

And I had to like, I just think it's okay for both things to be true. It's okay that this is really hard for me and also that I'm actually genuinely happy for you because I always was right, yeah, yeah, and allowing myself to just say that out loud, this is a botha and situation. I am sad for me, but I'm also really happy for you. But in this moment, how they do not let your sadness for you obstruct what you could say to her? And so I told her, I'm so happy for you. We're going to clap for you,

Okay. Do you think social media makes this feeling worse, Michelle? I know it makes it worse.

We know statistics. I teach social media. This absolutely has been exasperated. It used to be that we compare ourselves like to our neighbors. Well, now I compare myself to several thousand people at a time, right, my closest quotations, friends, and often it's people that honestly have like a literally totally different life experience than me, but they're showing up on my feed and feeling behind on a race that I was never in, right, I was never in that race.

Hard to feel good about where you are.

Absolutely, absolutely the comparison we compare ourselves to absolute total strangers.

Yeah, I remember about a year or two ago, Tasha Cobbs.

Leonard posted something I think she had gotten a plaque or something, and she said she almost didn't post it because of that reason. She didn't want anybody to feel like she was showing off and you know, gloating her success. And you know, but then at the same time, it's like, I'm so excited about an accomplishment that I have, which is the total opposite of like you said, you were

That's a good question.

And you know this because it's it's not just me, right, So I have an agent that's saying you need to make sure that people understand this, and I have other people that are telling me make sure that. So that's a really really good question, and they're at some point social media. As much as it's a reflection of us, it also becomes a reflection of other people's work too, right, that are helping me.

In whatever this brand is.

I hate to use that word, but that we're trying to put out there that are that I mean. So here's here's a real conversation that I just had with my agent. You should be putting doctor Heather Thompson day in your in your actual name so that people know.

Wait a minute, what what?

Wait a minute, Wait a.

Minute, doctor Heather Thompson Day.

So you see, this is a thing.

So this is the thing I don't I don't do it, I don't put it, and so it's I have a lot of different feelings about that because I don't make my students refer to me as that I.

Hate a minute, I gotta do a whole intro again, doctor Heather Thompson Day. I promise you don't an associate professor in the Department of Visual.

Arts doctor now.

So this is a thing, right, So people say you have to be very careful because you want people to see you in a certain way.

Yeah, it's hard sociality, is it because you want them to be eye level with you or to receive you from an organic down or earth.

I think for me it's because I'm still in the classroom and so because I'm with real students.

Every single day.

I have found in my own experience with this generation, they do better or a student is more likely to when it's just Heather, they might be too afraid to ever stay after if it's doctor Heather Tomp's day. So I've just kind of allowed myself to be myself without necessarily titles although conversations I have with other people, or should we.

Keep doing that? Should we do this differently? Okay? All right? Is it in your bio your Instagram bio line? Yes, I think it might be. I know, it says professor.

You know, there's only so many characters that allows you to have in those little bios.

And I know, and we have some.

I know my first name, middle name, and last name is way too low.

Let me make sure headther' Thompson day. Nope, it is not. I don't have it in there. See yeah, Nope, it's not. It just says Heather Thompson Day. You know. And listen, I just did a post about.

My uncle for a Black History Month and I felt like I call him uncle Charles, but in certain settings I must call him doctor Washington, you know, to let him know that I honor, you know, around because I don't want somebody just walking up to him saying, hey Chuck because they heard me call him uncle Charles. It's like, no, he is a medical doctor. It too come years to get these letters behind his name, so absolutely incredible. What to do while you're waiting? What do we tell somebody

Their bills before the do date. Yeah, what I've come to is, I just started. I just think you're anointing begins the day you believe you have one.

And so I just.

I'm anointed and it doesn't matter if anybody else sees it. I'm just going to show up and believe that for myself. And so what happened for me was I can remember the day. It was a February about four years ago. I had this revelation for myself where I said, you're annointing me begins the day you believe you have one. And I was going to go teach a class after lunch and all the students it was after lunch, the students heads around their desks. There was only like five

Thank you so much. And I just.

Realized, had I not shown up, had I not believed that there was a reason for me to be there, I probably wouldn't have answered the prayer that she.

Had and praying.

And so then I realized, wait a second, how many people am I going through life? And because I'm not showing up to my own life, I'm missing opportunities to impact people in the way that God has actually called me to impact them, right, And so once I realized

Okay, it changes things, so good, so good, so good?

Do you mind if I fast forward as well to relationship and inter racial dating?

Okay?

In the criticism or did you find yourself having criticism? And if you did, what was your process and didn't have anything to also do with insecurity.

So I'm biracial.

My mom is white, my dad is black, So in my home like my sister's husband's Asian, my brother's wife was Hispanic. Like my family dynamic is very multiracial, multi cultural, So I never it just didn't come up necessarily in my mind about dating app well, almost anybody would be outside of my race, just because I'm already biracial, but dating outside of my race and my husband I've known since I was in sixth grade, so we have definitely

I'm just in a very.

Multi racial environment that it has been very protective I think in a lot of ways of our relationship, me and my husband.

Anyway, Okay, okay, I know the the referring to a post that you posted about your father and you know walking down that aisle and what it was for you. I know for me, I grew up, of course, in an all black household, went to a private school and then public school, and so I was surrounded by multiculture. I was also surrounded by relatives who had also maybe consider okay, you dated outside your race, and the negativity

And even guilty of letting.

The entire world into that relationship, which was a huge mistake, instead of maybe stewarting that and protecting that. And so I just wanted to ask you, you know, maybe to advice for people who might date someone or goal on a career path that seems to be outside of what everybody else is comfortable with you doing.

I mean, I do want to say this about dating outside of your race. I do think it's really important that you're with somebody who celebrates who you are and is not asking you to change or is not embarrassed the way you may do things. Like I will say in my relationship that has absolutely been very key probably is that my husband is incredibly supportive of not just me, but my family background and our culture and the way we do things that is different than the way he grew up doing them.

So I think that's important for people.

How do we do things when we don't have everybody's blessing over it. That's tough, especially for Christians, right because we look for the confirmation of so many people to feel like, Okay, now I'm fully in God's will. And I think at the end of the day, you have to know the voice of God. You have to know what that sounds like for you. Is it God calling me to this thing? Because I can think of very rarely do I do things without my parents' blessings. I

Too?

Is everybody saying no that you trust with counsel I'm really big on mentorship and council but are you. I have people that I will put things out to that I trust as much as almost I trust myself, and then I take that feedback in absolutely.

Now I don't agree with someone just talking to some of everybody because maybe you're scared of.

A couple things.

I don't agree with you just talking to people who you feel are going to tell you what you want to hear. I also don't agree with you just talking to everybody to vent and get it out, because then that's where confusion comes, because now you've got twenty perspectives when there should only be maybe three trusted counselors or people.

I feel like I'm going through something.

Right now, that my therapist my like person who's gonna give me bible that perspective, right, and like a best friend who'll tell me the truth period. Yeah, But other than that, because I can't vent to my therapist, like I will my best friend just to you know, although you have to be honest with your therapists chaunselor, you know, And the same with my spiritual advisor. I feel like there are things that I even know to do in the word. There are things I know to do through prayer.

Be careful that you're not just telling stuff.

Yeah, and if it involves another person, honor that other person and kind of cover them and not just blast what you might be going through inter personally.

With about your coworker, about your boyfriend, about your husband, about your wife, kind of cover you know, you know, be be cool about that.

But you know, I can tell when a person has talked to eighty people already before they got to me.

And I think it's important that people that we're asking people who are wise right and have the fruit of that wisdom in their own life, because sometimes we're asking people that you don't you don't want advice from them.

Yeah, great, Like you, you might talk to a pastor spiritual adviser.

That don't mean they have fruit in that air.

But I promise you that there are people that they've got some fruit for.

Sure in this area.

And so I just think that's so important, and I think that's a good suggestion of what a person should do while they're waiting. Yes, but they're breakthrough, Yeah, seek counsel, what you're what you do while you wait is so important while you.

Wait, yes, And I just I want essentially, I just want people to understand it's always your turn. It's always your turn to keep living your own life. It's always your turn to keep showing up to your own life. It's always your turn to keep believing something for yourself, right, Like you have to claim that your anointing begins the day you believe you have one.

You sure you're not a lack of songwriter.

On the lift, you almost as they say, you got bars, You've dropped a culp, shit, you've dropped a couple. And so I am just so appreciative of your encouragement and of your time today.

What is brewing next? Yeah?

So yeah, my latest book is It's not your turn. And then I have I'll see you tomorrow, which is all about relationship.

So I think we have a lot.

Of really needed advice about boundaries, which is all important, and how to leave. But I'm really concerned that people don't know how to stay, and so I wrote a book about how do we stay? How do we Essentially, we don't get to have relationships that span decades unless we learn how to have conversations about what it looks like to say I'll see you tomorrow. I'm pissed, i am angry, i am discouraged by what just happened, but I'm committed to the idea of a relationship with you

Wait wait, wait, wait wait, you saw my eyes get big? Wait wait wait wait, I'll see you tomorrow. So there are books that help people to uncouple in a very positive way.

Yes, yes, which is important.

Which is important. And then now you're writing a book. I'm mad at you, but I'll see you tomorrow. We're going to watch that's good. There's a meme that says, I don't care how mad you are, would be you better come and pretzel with me you better, you like you know. But I think that's good because in the heat of the moment, we might make her decisions.

Listens to this.

When we have a temporary feeling, we might say it's over, I'm done.

Here's the real I've been the bad friend, I've been the jealous friend, I've been the bitter friend. And I'm so grateful for people who forgave me. I'm so grateful for people who recognize that it wasn't a pattern, it was an incident. I think there's a difference between patterns and incidents. And at a time when we're saying everybody's toxic, we're forgetting that words mean things. That toxic means something. It means every time I drink from this well, I'm

Have you seen a person break a pattern and have a successful relationship with the same person.

I think pattern breaking, well, I'm a Christian, obviously, I think pattern breaking can be done. But I think the person has to be willing to do that work. You can't control somebody else, right, Is that person willing to do the work that's required. Yep, And and so that things have to be an individual basis for sure, But on average, I think it's a really good advice to take. If you see a pattern, it's not your job to try to fix somebody.

So good, Okay, yeah, better listen. I'll see you tomorrow. That's right, girl, I see you tomorrow. I'm so excited. Thank you for being with us today. Thank you so much for having me. We'll see soon.

Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.