How to Respond to Disrespect at Work - Janeen Uzzell

How do you respond when you’re being overlooked, misunderstood, or even mistreated at work? Your situation might leave you feeling angry, drained, or overwhelmed. Your performance suffers. You may wonder, “Where is God while I’m going through this?” What should you do? How can you discover the story God is writing for your life, amidst adversity at work? Guest Janeen Uzzell is the CEO of the National Society of Black Engineers and former COO at Wikimedia, after 18 years of working in technology at GE. A global strategist and STEM leader, Janeen is experienced at building and managing inclusive teams, and she’s going to help us work through this question of how to respond to being mistreated at work.

Scripture References

• Colossians 3:12
• 1 Samuel 25

Additional Resources Referenced

• Find Janeen Uzzell on Twitter @janeenuzzell
• Suscipe by Ignatius Loyola: Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O Lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and Thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.

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Transcript

Leah Archibald: Making It Work is brought to you by The Max De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary and the Theology of Work Project.

Mark Roberts: Welcome to Making it Work.

LA: Through conversation, scripture and stories, we invite God into work’s biggest challenges... so that you can live out your purpose in the workplace.

MR: I’m Mark Roberts.

LA: And I’m Leah Archibald. And this is Making It Work.

How do you respond when you're being overlooked, misunderstood or even mistreated at work? Your situation might leave you feeling angry, drained or overwhelmed. Your performance suffers. You may wonder, "Where is God while I'm going through this?" What should you do? How can you discover the story God is writing for your life amidst adversity at work? Our guest, Janeen Uzzell, is the CEO of the National Society of Black Engineers and former COO at Wikimedia. After 18 years of working in technology at GE, a global strategist and STEM leader, Janeen is experienced at building and managing inclusive teams, and she's going to help us work through this question of how to respond if you feel like you're being mistreated at work. Janeen Uzzell, welcome to The Making it Work podcast.

Janeen Uzzell: Thank you so much for having me. This is quite a discussion we're planning to have today.

LA: So I just wanna jump right into it and ask your own experience. Were there times in your career where you felt like you were being treated negatively at work, and that impacted your performance?

JU: Definitely. In the workplace, it's a difficult experience because for someone like myself who's incredibly extroverted, very, very committed to people and to work, and maybe I just wear my feelings on my shoulder because I take a lot of things so personally because I give so much to my career, and because of that, whenever I feel like I'm letting someone down, whenever I feel like there's a misperception or that I'm just being left out and misunderstood, I take it very personally. It affects so much because I don't... I think that what may not be understood when a person is being overlooked is that when you experience that many times, it speaks directly to your sense of worth and how you feel about yourself, and so someone else has the ability to shift in just a moment, in a second, how you may have spent the entire day feeling about yourself or about how you're doing. It creates a sense of dis-valuing. Isolation, and separation is very judgmental, and so it's something that we should all remember weigh so heavily on ourselves, this is how it makes me feel, even if someone that's listening says, "Oh, I don't feel that way at all, and I'm overlooked, I don't care." Well, you are one of maybe not a lot of people. I think that maybe everyone does care, but they're affected very differently, and for me, it has quite a weight. It carries quite a weight.

LA: And I think it can... It happens to all of us at different times. Sometimes it happens at big moments. I remember one time I was presenting at a conference, and one of the other presenters asked me if I can get him a cup of coffee, right? That's a very pretty straightforward example of feeling like there was a mismatch, or feeling like my professional experience was overlooked. But even recently, just this week, I was in a meeting, I thought I really had a lot to contribute, I thought I really did a great job, and then it was kind of like, someone else said, "We didn't learn anything in this meeting." And I'm like kinda thinking like, "Hey, what am I doing over here?" I wonder how common that experience is, and when do you understand it to be veering into serious mistreatment that you should do something about?

JU: I'm so glad we're putting examples on the table. Can I just share one that happened to me last week?

LA: Please.

JU: Oh my gosh this is... It was at a convening... A banquet, I won't say which one, and we're just excited to be able to get back into big rooms and spaces. So I was at a gala, at a fundraiser, and sitting at a pretty high-level table, and a gentleman comes over to me, and to recognize me in my role as the new CEO of NSBE and to greet everyone, but very intentional, and I know some people might say, "Well, how do you know it was intentional?" Because I've been around this enough to know. [chuckle] Very intentionally, as I'm seated, and this gentlemen had come over to the table, so they were standing around me. He puts his arm on my shoulder and it is in a way to keep me seated, instead of standing up, so that they are standing over me. It wasn't one of those tap on the shoulder. It was a... It was pressure, so that I actually, my reaction was, I moved from under there, and I said, "Let me stand up and greet you properly. It's been two years since we've seen each other."

And that was how I addressed it. But what it took for me in that moment was to immediately snap out of the emotion of, "This dude is trying to keep me in my seat." And I was angry. And so, you have to pivot quickly in the midst of the emotion of what it does to you. And then there are times when I know for sure that people do not mean some of this inequality on purpose, but most of the time they do. I think that there are plenty of times where it's actually just an ignorance, a lack of knowing, and then there are times when I know without a doubt, if I'm the only woman in the room, or the only woman at a table, or the only minority, it's some of it's intentional, and sometimes, I call it out. And in this case, this was an all boys, kind of a Black male gathering, and I did, and I was like, "And by the way... " And I just said it to him, I said, "Were you kind of resting on my shoulder to keep me seated? You know we don't do." And I said, "We don't do that anymore. Shame on you." But I didn't call him out in public. I just kinda said it to the side of him. "No, no, that's not what I meant." And then I just kinda left it, because I knew I could say that to him and it made me feel better. I didn't do it in retribution. I did it as a point of clarification.

LA: There's so much to pull out in that experience. I mean, if I was... [laughter] Mark, can you break down Janeen? What could we learn from that, step by step, from Janeen's experience of just like, how do you do that? How do you turn off the anger for a moment? How do you react with a loving extension of greeting? How do you save the confrontation for later, when it might be more appropriate? Mark, what do you see in all that?

MR: Well, I'll answer that, but first, I just gotta say, 'cause I would be more like the guy. Now, I don't think I've done that thing, but I'm sure I've done things, right? And part of me is thinking, "Oh man, I don't wanna be that guy," but also...

LA: Don't be that guy.

MR: There have been times in my life when people have said to me, "When you said that, that hurt my feelings," or, "When you said that, I felt I was... " And those are really hard things for me to hear, but they're really important. So I'll just say that. Now, I'll go back to this. I mean, Janeen, it's so clear that you have a really good sense of what's going on inside of you, so that you can decide what you're gonna do with that. So one of the things, Leah, your question, "How do you respond to it?" I mean, one of the things that's just so essential is to know, "Okay, I'm getting angry," or... Because I'll tell you, when I have... There have been a couple of times, and not many in the last few years, but a couple of times when I've been in a meeting, and felt like I was being mistreated somehow, and man, when my emotions start going, that's really hard, and if I'm not aware of it, then I'm really in trouble. So part of what I'm learning from you, Janeen, it's just you're aware, you're aware what's going on in the relationship, you're aware what's going on in you, so then you can decide, "Well, how am I gonna deal with this?" And I just think that kind of self-awareness just seems like it's hugely important.

LA: It sparks in my mind, this memory I have of a story from the Bible, and it's actually one of my favorite female heroes in the Old Testament. Her name is Abigail, and she defused this situation that had to do with people's snap emotions. So she was a poor woman. She was married to a guy, whose name was was it... Is it Nabal or Nabal?

JU: I've always said Nabal. I don't know.

LA: Nabal, okay. [laughter]

JU: I could be wrong. I'm not a Bible scholar. I just love God.

LA: We'll go with Nabal.

MR: Yeah.

LA: I like that. So she's married to this guy named Nabal, who's kind of a hot-head, and David and his... This is the time David had been anointed as king, but he wasn't, or hadn't already taken over the kingship. He was kind of wandering throughout the countryside with his group of mighty men, and he came through Nabal's territory, and it was the sheep sharing time, and he came over and he said, "Can you give me some sheep for my folks to eat?" And Nabal's like, "Who's this guy? I'm not giving you anything." Which was not only rude...

But it was breaking the laws of hospitality towards strangers in the Bible, like the Nabal should have been extending his hospitality to David and his men, and he didn't, he insulted them, and out of his hot-headedness, and then David got all angry. He was being mistreated. He gets out his sword and suits up to go kill everybody. And in the meantime, the servants are like "Abigail, Abigail defuse the situation, please." And she does. She comes in, she makes an apology, she extends gifts to David and she just... And she uses her reason. She's like, "God save you from shedding blood today." She uses her reason and her... To stop David from doing something that he'll regret but also I see her in that moment using her calmness to diffuse the situation, which is something that I hear from you in that situation too. I don't know. Janeen, you tell me if this rings any bells for you.

JU: I wish. I'm gonna go back and read that. I cannot say that I'm calm in those situations. I can say that I am... Because I have become more aware of the experiences, I almost set myself up for what could go wrong and try to prepare. But there's another side to that, because the other side of it is, I'm less likely to grant you grace if you did make a mistake, so I'm not perfect in this, 'cause I know you're supposed to go into everything saying, "Let's assume good," but I kinda go into just like, "I know one of these guys gonna mess with me today and I need to be ready for it," and that's not the way we need to live either, right?

And so, I'm still working on constantly healing from the disappointments of my past and then working on being authentically open to understand the environment, and then trying to ask God for the spirit of discernment to know when I should be a bit more robust with my boldness as opposed to... I don't think they meant that they're not sure what they just did and it could lead to a conversation. So I think I'm managing all of that because many a time I'm not calm. Now, in the conversation, I'll be calm but then catch me in the bathroom a few minutes later, calm not so much. But I take those situations just as seriously because even though maybe I didn't present one way in front of people, which is good, I still feel like, "God I wanna honor you in all of this," so even when I'm in the bathroom and I'm mad. And I just sometimes I'm when these things happen, I'm like, "Lord, what is it about me that you feel always... It's always okay for these things to happen to me?" And I'm wondering now in this conversation, if it's because He's like, "Because I want you to be able to speak about them." Some people don't wanna tell the truth of what's happening to them, whereas I'm like, "That was embarrassing. Wanna hear what happened?" And I seem to be more comfortable telling these stories and maybe that's why He's allowing me to experience them because on any given day, I'm kind of like, "That wasn't really necessary God, but if you say so."

LA: What an interesting change of perspective, 'cause I would just go straight to mad. But you're turning it to a different purpose. Why am I experiencing this? What can I teach? What can I teach other people through this experience? I even feel like... Mark, you tell me if you think, if this is a heretical view, but maybe that's why some of these stories were written in the Bible in the first place, so we could... 'cause I'm sure it wasn't just Abigail who was dealing with a hot-headed husband in her day. But I wonder if it's because Abigail was the one who stood up and said something to change the situation. If that's the reason that we have this story written down, so it can affect us for so much later. What do you think Mark?

MR: You know, one of the things I love about the Bible is it shows people in all of our diversity and craziness and goodness and badness, and so it's all there. And so, certainly, the story the... Abigail's action in that is a great encouragement and... But there's just there's so much in scripture that challenges us when we're in difficult situations. What does it mean on the one hand, to be wise, to be committed to God's justice, to be committed to seeing that all people are respected as people created in God's image, including me, and at the same time, and I think there's... I've been working recently on this passage in Colossians, that says that we're to be compassionate and kind and humble and meek and patient. So how do you do those things?

JU: That's a lot.

MR: Yeah, it is.

LA: That's a tall order.

MR: So I think we live in this tension. It's a biblical tension between, on the one hand, being people who are really committed to addressing evil and seeking justice and seeing things change in our world, in our workplace, in our relationship. And yet also to discover how we can do that in a Christ-like way. And that is a challenge, but part of what you just said Janeen, you can react in a certain place with a demonstration of patience, of humility, even when inside, there's a part of you that's burning, and then you do have to go out into the bathroom and just let it out and tell the Lord.

And of course, sometimes there are times for a stronger immediate reaction in a case of actual sexual abuse in the workplace, or there are times when you just... But again, I'm impressed with the self-awareness that is needed, and then also with the wisdom, and then also with your sense that you are uniquely gifted to be able to talk about things that need to be talked about. Gifted in terms of your experiences, they don't feel much like gifts. They're not. They’re often negative things. But the giftedness comes in God allowing you to... And even calling you to talk about those things that so much need to be talked about and understood. And when you do that, then you're given a gift to others. You're certainly given a gift to those who are victims of mistreatment, but for those who really want to not do that, it's also a gift to hear the stories.

LA: Now, Janeen, I have a sense that you have a lot... You've had experience throughout your career of knowing when do I speak up? When do I point out what's going on? When do I offer more patience either because I don't want... Because the person is not gonna hear it in the right way, or because you're under some threat in the workplace? Speaking up sometimes is maybe not be good for your career. What kind of... How do you walk that line now? How has that changed throughout your career? What kind of advice would you give someone who is trying to learn that tight rope act of "When do I say something and when do I be silent?"

JU: Well, certainly, I have progressed and transitioned over time, right? You get older, you go through more experiences. My walk in Christ has grown, even though I've been a Christian since I was a young girl, but applying my faith to my workplace has become very different. And so I think I'm continually practicing it and trying to be better at it.

Speaking up for myself, I really... I'm trying so hard to live my life without regrets, but I regret not speaking up for myself sooner in my life and in my career. It is one of the things that I judge myself on too hard. I need to give myself a break with it, but I still judge myself heavy on it. I was bullied and teased a lot as a young girl and I kept that to myself. I never told my parents, never shared it, never talked about it, and so it made me put a lot more pressure on myself than my parents could never understand. They were like "What is she doing? She's so hard on herself." But it was because I was always trying to fit in.

JU: I think I'm just as nerdy and quirky as I was then, maybe I do it in cooler glasses, but I don't care anymore, I don't necessarily... I'm not in the cool girl CEO group and all of that. I'm really not. I'm working and I meet great people and I have great experiences and I bring my very best, and God opens up the most amazing doors and opportunities for me without me being in those communities, and I believe it's because I'm okay saying, "I'm not the cool chick, but opportunities and God's grace still create these spaces." I wish that I had spoken up for myself more, and I work hard to do it now in ways that still show grace, but speak my authentic truth, because I realized that it's not just for me. I realize now and understand more than ever that every time I'm in a room or on a stage, or on a call, or on a Zoom, someone is seeing me, and maybe they may have never experienced a Black woman in leadership, they may have never... And they could be of any color, any race, whatever.

My chief of staff, every time we get off out of the meeting, she's like, she’s a Black girl, she's like, "I have never been in a meeting with four Black PhD women that have natural hair and look like... " She's amazed by that even in her career. And so every time I do that, I say to myself, "Some people are experiencing me for the first and for the only. Some people may never experience me again, and what do I wanna leave with them?" And so I try to put aside some of the emotion of it. The other piece is that, to be honest with you, I've just been so angry for years and I just don't wanna be angry anymore. I remember saying to God in 2020 like, "I'm so tired of being angry. I'm so tired of just... It's exhausting." Now, disappointment is just as exhausting, so I gotta work on that 'cause I'm disappointed a lot too, but I'm tired of it and I just... I'm like, "Lord, you have me here. I wanna have... I wanna walk into these environments after all of these years in the workplace with nothing to fear, nothing to hide, nothing to lose."

And I would challenge others that hear this, to think the same, and to come from a place of kindness and goodness. I've been praying most recently the fruit of the Spirit. It was a big part of something, a church that I'm still very connected to that I went to in Africa, one night of fasting and praying, they were praying the fruit of the Spirit, and I've just been praying that, just goodness, instead of all the prickliness of who I wanna be or how to show kindness to people that aren't even kind to me, or I don't know it, but I just don't like the way they treated someone else, so I don't need to be kind to them. And I've just been trying to practice the basics, which is that tall order that Mark talked about. I'm like, "Kindness, goodness, that's just so much, all on Tuesday, we have to do that? We have to get all that right on Wednesday?" But I'm trying and I just have to believe that when I put forth the right intentions that God's making up the difference.

And so, I think back to the original question, it's like, "Did we try to do that well today?" And then when I don't, I repent for an offense and ask for forgiveness. And again, I don't think I'm unique in this. I'm sure there are other people that feel this way, but I just take it, I'm so doggone sensitive and I take it very personally when I'm treated wrongly and then when I treat people wrongly.

LA: I really... As you were explaining that, I really felt that in my spirit. When you say like, "Oh, I feel like I'm not at the cool kids' table." That's how I feel when I get overlooked for my contributions, or I feel like someone's talking down to me. It's that same feeling of "Oh, I wanna be there, I wanna be sitting at the cool kids' table and I'm not at the cool kids' table." And what I hear from you, Janeen, is this wonderful... And then you came up with this wonderful acceptance like, "And, I'm the way God made me. I'm just... I'm a nerd in cooler glasses." Which I love, which our listeners don't get to see you on the video and see your glasses. But they are very cool.

JU: Thank you.

LA: They could connect with you on LinkedIn, or Twitter, or YouTube, they'll see your glasses, they're very cool. And... But I get... I also suffer. But I think we all do, suffer from that sense of "Oh, I wanna be there, I'm not sitting with the cool kids." And I think Scripture tells us that each of us are fearfully and wonderfully made. That God made each of us, specifically the way that we are without having to have external sources of validation all the time. It doesn't mean don't stand up if you're being mistreated, but I'm thinking of how to get out of the oppressive emotional experience of it. I don't know. Mark, I'm sure you never feel that way. You never feel like you're not at the cool kids' table.

MR: Oh, it's so funny, 'cause really, Janeen, I was very much like you growing up. I wasn't a Black girl, obviously. [laughter] But I was a nerdy kid in a world that was not appreciative of people like me. And so I did experience bullying and lived with a lot of fear, and I never told anybody, 'cause I... Partly, I was ashamed, and partly, I was afraid if I tell my parents, they're gonna go to school.

JU: Yep.

MR: And the school's gonna confront those kids, and then I'm gonna be in worse shape. So I just... Anyway, I was just... I was right... But again, Janeen, so I'd said before, I'm just struck by your self-awareness, and I think that's so important in this. But then in what you've said more recently "Your sense that you're the steward of what you've been given." That would be the biblical... You're to use well, for God's purposes, what you've been given.

Your opportunities, your skills, your... And now your opportunity to, on the one hand, model as a Black woman, senior leadership for folk, and that's gonna be really important. It's certainly gonna be important for younger Black women. It's actually important for all of us, because we need to rethink a lot of things. That's a real gift you're giving in your sense that God has given this to you and these opportunities to serve others. That also... Doesn't it kinda help redeem some of the pain? It doesn't deny it. It doesn't say, "Oh yeah, that was all great," or, "That didn't happen." But there is a sense in which God is using this for good, and in that I can be grateful. Is that... Does that work for you?

JU: Well.

MR: Or what do you think?

JU: Okay. Yes and... After the fact though, okay? I'm not...

MR: Oh, yeah.

JU: Gonna be even sit here and act like, in that moment, I'm like, "Yes... "

MR: Oh, yeah.

JU: God used me and I'm feeling so isolated right now, but to God be the glory. No, I didn't have to...

MR: No, I'm...

[laughter]

JU: Something... A few weeks ago, there were a group of women that were at a big event. And I just remember watching that like, "Why am... Why was I not there? I do that, I'm not... I'm in that. I'm of that level." And I was so in my feelings about it. I felt so rejected. It wasn't even like I had got not, I don't... I had no reason to feel rejected. But just looking at it, I was like, "I should be there. I'm always just scraping the bottom. I never... " And God was just like, "Really? Would you just stop acting like such a martyr, first of all." And he said something to me, he said, "What do you not have? Name what you don't have. And what is that... What about that do you want that you don't already have?" And it was so convicting. So in those moments, Mark, then I'm like, "Okay, okay, okay, I get it. I still could... " Yeah sure, you wanna be in that room? Why? Just tell me why.

And this is God dealing with me 'cause he's pushing me on something, "Tell me why you want that." Because of pride. That is why. And then he said, "Okay, I'm just gonna let that sit 'cause you already know what you're dealing with, with pride, so." Okay, and now I can go deal with that. But when he calls me to it and he says, "You name one thing that you don't have right now that you need or that you want, 'cause if you name it, I'll give it to you." And I got nothing. I got nothing for you. And so I'm dealing with wanting to be in a place where God already has me. Just deciding that I want someone else's platform or stage, and that's just not what He has for me. And I always get it later, but in that moment, yeah I was just like, "This is not right." Yeah.

LA: So this is my last question, and it's a question of advice for all of us and for our listeners. How do we get to that place, Janeen? How do we get your relationship with God? Tell me in 30 seconds. No. But how do we get to that place where we can be feeling excluded or feeling mistreated at work and then feel God's presence with us, telling us we have everything that we need in this morning... In this moment. Give us a how or if you had one piece of advice to get to a how.

JU: So I've been working on the surrendered life, like living a life of surrender. And I say working on it because it takes all day, you have to surrender every day, all day, like the Bible talks about renewing your mind and constantly. My piece of advice is to be intentional about it. The same way we are intentional about our hygiene, or our savings, or our spending, whatever your lifestyle decision is. I want so much for... My career is very much what God has called me to in terms of purpose. And so, if this is ministry for me, if this is purpose, and if I'm going to go through some of these things because God needs me, or is calling me to use them for conversations like this or... Then I don't want them to be for naught. I'm like, "I'm tired of feeling rejected for naught. Let me figure out how to get the reasoning behind it," because it's not for naught and it's not rejection, it's to get me to a place where I'm just understanding that God's acceptance is all I need. And I suppose that when I get there, these other things won't matter as much to me.

So my advice is to be intentional about surrendering and just leaning into or letting go, so that you can rest in the things that God has for you. But I will be honest in saying that what I've had to go through to get to this place is something that I don't know what everyone's experience will be, but I've gone through a lot of rejection in my career, a lot of disappointment, there was gut-punching tears. And maybe I'm a slow learner, and that's why God had to... I had to go through that. I'm not gonna say God did that, but maybe that's why I had to have those experiences so that I could finally get there. I'm trying my best to not have a multitude of those experiences anymore, but that's not in my hands, because God gives us the life we live each and every day. I'm just doing my best to be intentional about choosing life, choosing surrender and choosing hope in the midst of what we all know is a really cruel and unjust world, and the workplace, and the school places, and they're all a part of that unjust world but it's what we're in every single day. So if we're in it every day, that we get to put two feet on the ground, then I'm like, "God, I just wanna be intentional about how I'm using the gift of what you've given me today."

And if you're listening to this, and you're like, "God, that just sounds so poetic." It's not. It has taken me, like it took me hours this morning to get here, and before we're recording this in quiet time, in gym time, and some breakfast and a little coffee and talking to my friends and talking to God and prayer in the car on the way here, just to get through like, "I'm just three hours in." So it's like I have by no means am saying that I've got the pretty bow on this. I'm just committed to wanting to honor Him. I keep these prayer cards by my desk and I... Sometimes when I remember, I pull one out and I read it. And then some days I don't touch it at all because I forget, because I'm human. But it's all a part of the process.

MR: Janeen, I've said this already, but I'm just struck again. One of the real gifts you give us is the gift of your openness to just what's real in your life, because you say things that one might not expect to hear from a person who is as successful as you are, and is influential as you are, and so it's a gift for you to open up and talk about those things.

I was struck by a couple of things, one was, Leah, your question was, how do we do this? So I mentioned that part of Scripture that calls us to really challenging things, right? Compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. What I didn't mention was how the verse starts, 'cause that verse starts as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved. So the starting point is this rock-solid sense of who we truly are as people who matter to God and are loved by God, and that really defines us. Which I think can strengthen us then when other things seek to define us down or change the definition, or you're only this, or you're only that, or things in the workplace that can be really taking away our humanity.

And so the more... I think the more we... So exactly what you said, Janeen, in terms of, yeah, you need to spend that time with the Lord and be reminded of who you are in Christ.

That's one thing that was striking to me. The other you mentioned, surrender, which is just... Man, thank you for bringing that up. That's a struggle for me every day, and it's literally a struggle every day, and that I use a prayer of Ignatius that's called the Suscipe, from the Latin word for "take", and it talks about really... It's really a prayer that calls us to give everything over to God. It recognizes that God has given us everything, and it's already God's, and there is this surrender in this, and I pray that prayer every morning, but every time I pray it, I'm struggling to mean the words I say. But I think what you have encouraged, not only me, but all of us, is to enter into that struggle with self-awareness, but also really with an awareness of who you are as someone whom God has chosen and set apart and deeply loves. And so then entering into that process of growth for yourself, but then also stewarding that for the sake of others and for a more just and grace-filled world, and we've got a long ways to go, as you said.

LA: And I would just close with saying, "Surrendering to God does not mean surrendering to other people's bad behavior." Surrendering to God does not mean surrendering to mistreatment, it does not mean surrendering to injustice. Surrendering to God might mean standing up to those things or pointing them out in love, or finding the right time to point them out. I've heard the military definition of... I'm not in the military, so what do I know? But I've heard the military definition of surrender is, "Lay down your arms and wait for instructions." And that's what I wanna do with God. I wanna lay down my weapons and I wanna wait for God's instructions. Janeen Uzzell, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a real blessing for us to have you on the podcast today.

JU: Thank you so much.

MR: Indeed.

JU: Thank you for having me. This has been a pleasure.

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