017 – Renee Rizzo – Exercising the Muscle of Hope

Today, I am thrilled to have a guest named Renée Rizzo with us, and we’re going to focus on emotional fitness. We talk about fitness as one of our pillars of the five Fs, and we’re going to talk about friendships and fitness, but this time it’s going to be more mental and how we exercise the muscle of hope within our brain, our soul, our hearts. And you are going to be just really in for a treat to meet Renée. She is the author of a book on Amazon that’s called, All You Need is a Mustard Seed: Between Hope and Despair. And she recently completed nearly 20 years as the CEO of the Hope Clinic for Women in Nashville Tennessee. She grew the organization by 400%, and in that time, and currently now as well, she’s a sought-after speaker with events and churches, podcasts, radio and TV. And she’s currently coaching executive leaders and board members of small businesses and nonprofits and continues to speak and write throughout the region on creating healthy relationships. And also she emphasizes hope and creating sacred space for people to show up in their brokenness and their humanity. Welcome, Renée.

Renée Rizzo: Oh, Kim, it’s such an honor to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Kim Moeller: Absolutely. And I always love to get recommendations for people as to, “Oh, you should definitely, Kim, have this person on your podcast.” And so shout out this time to Ron Henry, who is a former friend and neighbor in Southern California of mine who moved to Nashville. And he said, “Kim, you need to have Renée Rizzo on your podcast.” So thank you, Ron. Renée Rizzo: We’re so grateful to Ron. Thank you. Kim Moeller: Yes, and his amazing wife Becky as well. We’ll do a shout-out to Becky. So I have really enjoyed reading your book, and I know the listener is really going to enjoy hearing why you wrote the book and just sort of the topics as well. And I also just love your heart with being the CEO of the nonprofit for so many years in terms of generosity and how you saw people obviously financially devote their resources toward the nonprofit, but their time as well. So we’re going to spend some time talking about generosity in the new year, and maybe you might be feeling a little blue in January, and we’re going to hopefully motivate you to take the next step and maybe it’s to volunteer some of your time to something you have a passion for, such as this pregnancy resource center where Renée worked. So why don’t we start, Renée, with you just giving a little bit of the background of why did you write your book, which seems to be a little bit like your life’s work?

All You Need is a Mustard Seed

Renée Rizzo: It’s funny because someone said, “Oh, it’s your memoir,” and I’m like, “Oh my goodness, I didn’t mean to make it my memoir.” And I guess it really was because I feel like the Lord gave me this title literally like 25 years ago, and I didn’t really know what to do with it. And when I moved to Nashville about just over 20 years ago, I was like, all right, what am I going to do when I get there? And he was like, you’re going to help broken people find hope. Now, at the time, I thought I was going to be the next Beth Moore and a writer and a speaker, but more snarky and less homework. And I ended up at a place called Hope Clinic for Women. And I really had an opportunity to help all of these broken women find hope, hope enough to have that child, hope enough to recover from a past abortion and have that healing. And this book was just sitting in the background the whole time. And so I really was like, well, maybe I’m not supposed to write the book. But then as my seasons went on, I feel like some themes started coming up that I got asked to speak at my church and it was like the topic of depression was hot on the market. And I had spoken about when hope doesn’t look happy and the fact that the church doesn’t know how to sit in emotional brokenness, because usually we hear phrases like, “Well, faith and fear can’t sit in the same place.” And it’s like everyone’s JOY, Jesus, Others, You. And it’s like, no, you’ve got to put the oxygen mask on yourself first. And so that became my mantra. And then as my singleness lasted way longer than I wanted it to, I got asked to speak about the valley season of life. And so what better topic than the valley of being single? Not that being single is not a great gift, and I haven’t done great things as a single person, but I spoke about that. And so it was like I started getting asked to speak about the topics, and at some point I’m like, oh my gosh, I am really writing the book and it is a lot of my story, but it’s a lot of scripture, and then it’s a lot of stuff not in scripture because I’m practical and I couldn’t just pray all my way out of everything. Hope is a really hard thing to cling to when you’re trying to find hope over a sustained period of time over a number of topics. And so I needed a lot of practical stuff. And so, as you know from the book, I call it

My Hope Toolbox

My Hope Toolbox because sometimes it starts with scripture, sometimes it starts with worship, sometimes it starts with movement, sometimes it starts with a massage, sometimes it starts with therapy. And so I’ve learned, depending on which thing I’m feeling hopeless in, I knew which thing to pull out. So it’s all of it kind of working together. And as you know, it’s no magic button. So I taught it as a bible study. I’m like, well, maybe I do have something here. So then about a year and a half ago, I taught it as a Bible study, and all I had it in was PowerPoint, that’s it. I had it in PowerPoint and Notes, and everybody was super hungry for it. So I’m like, all right, I think I got something here. I tweaked it, taught it to another group of people, tweaked it again, and then I just turned it into a manuscript and I let a few people read it and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, you have to get this published.” And I really just wanted it to get out there really fast, which is why I went through Amazon because I wanted it out there because so many people are like, “Renée, the world needs to see this now.” And so I just wanted to just circumvent a lot of the process of publishing. And I’ve already gotten a chance to speak about it in Jamaica at a conference with Nicole C. Mullen, and then more locally. And every time I get to… I mean, it’s cool talking about hope and in this book is I’ve had men come up to me and women telling me how much they need it and how fast they read the book. And there’s homework questions. And so that’s why I love this whole podcast is we’re not just here to talk to you. I hope if you’re listening to this, you come away changed and you are a different person and you try some of the things that we talk about, because otherwise if we just listen and we don’t change, then what’s the point, right?

Kim Moeller: Right. No, that’s a great call out because I do think this episode’s going to be a little bit different than others because in the sense that you are a teacher and we want to use this content a little bit to help activate the women listening. So we’re going to have a little bit more of a, okay, listener, have you done this? Or take these next steps. And that always is the goal of this podcast, to be a more generous person with your time, your talent, your treasures, and to take the next step wherever you’re at in your own life. So going back to, you’re talking about writing this book, but why don’t you back up a little bit to how you moved to Nashville and helped your sister as a single mom take care of her spina bifida child?

Generosity Through Caregiving

Renée Rizzo: So to go back even further, why I felt the call to do that, most people don’t know this about me, but I actually grew up in the hospital and I was born with a birth defect in my eyes. And so I had a lot of eye surgeries. On top of that, I had also a tumor attached to my tongue. So my poor mom, I didn’t get the measles or the mumps. I got things that landed me up in the hospital with surgery. And so God has just given me a heart to be sensitive to people with disabilities for my whole life just because that was my childhood. And then fast-forward, my sister got pregnant, she was married at the time, and she learned that Nathaniel was going to have spina bifida about five months into the pregnancy. The doctors at the hospital were really trying to convince her to abort him. And my mom and my brothers and I literally dropped what we were doing in Connecticut and down in my little Ford Escort in one day down to Nashville, Tennessee to just be there. Michelle was getting lots of advice in all directions. And I just said to her, I said, “Michelle, do I think your salvation is on the line? No.” And I said, “But do I think God wants you to have this child? Yes, I do.” And she was like, “But, Renée kids were so mean to you as a kid and they were making fun of you, and what are they going to do to him?” And I’m like, “God will equip you and He will equip Nathaniel and I’ll be there. I will always be there for your son.” And so she let me name him. And so I got to name Nathaniel. And so his name is Nathaniel, which means gift from God. And so as she started her life with Nathaniel, she was in a very unhealthy marriage, very unsafe marriage. We kind of helped rescue her out of that. But she was a single mom in Nashville, and I was in full-time ministry up in Connecticut, and she kept saying, “I need you to move down here.” And I kept saying, “Well, if God wants me in Nashville, He’s just going to have to give me a job in Nashville.” Because I’m super practical sometimes. I have a finance degree, and so I look at a spreadsheet and that’s how I make my religious choices sometimes. And that’s just not how God did it. Interestingly, there was some stuff, I would say there was chapters ending in my life all at the same time, and I felt like the Lord, literally, I had just finished reading If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat by John Ortberg. And I literally felt like God woke me up in the middle of the night and said, “It’s time to go.” And I was like, “That’s great. What am I going to do when I get there?” And he was like, “I’ll let you know.” And I’m like, “What?” I gave a three-months. But He gave me some confirming signs. So I gave a threemonth notice at the church, moved back home to save money. So even though

A Leap of Faith

I was taking a leap of faith, I was still practical. Kim Moeller: Sure. Renée Rizzo: Made sure I was going to Nashville with a little pot of money, and I got there. And so for about six months I was Michelle’s Cinderella and I cooked and cleaned, gave her a break because when you are a single mom of a child of a disability, it’s exhausting. And I really kind of held steady for about three months, just ministering to her and ministering to Nathaniel. And about somewhere in October in my journaling when I was kind of freaking out, God, why did I move here? Where’s my job? I’m not the next Beth Moore. No one’s taken my calls. What am I supposed to do? And He gave me January 5th. And so I put January 5th in my journal, had no interviews at the time. Well, long story short, I kept doing some interviews and I landed

Hope Clinic for Women

at Hope Clinic for Women. And my first day on the job was January 5th. And I have no earthly reason why I got the job. I’ve never been pregnant, I’ve never had an abortion. I didn’t know anybody in Nashville. let alone anybody with money. And fundraising was the biggest part of the job. But I think they heard my heart and my story of Nathaniel and thought, well, if she’s going to move 2000 miles away to rescue this baby, then she cares about life. And I also remember saying, and this is something good for your listeners too, I remember thinking this topic is either, A, too big or, B, too controversial. So I will stay out of the whole conversation altogether. And just in the interview process, I fell in love with this organization. So I said, I can help find more people like me. And so maybe that’s you listening. It’s like there’s a topic or a thing that God’s actually nudging on your heart to place your time, talents and treasures, but you’ve been avoiding it because you’re afraid of what people are going to think or you don’t want to seem controversial, but it’s actually the very place that God has you because you’re going to come in with sensitivity. So because I have friends that have had abortions and I watched my sister go through this pregnancy, I came to Hope Clinic with a different sense than if I was just a staunch political pro-life person. And so, hopefully that answered the question. Kim Moeller: Oh, no, that’s a great answer. And then just reading your book and hearing your story to know how large you grew the organization and how long you stayed there for that season is pretty remarkable as well. Renée Rizzo: Or crazy.  And that’s the thing with God, God will continue to bless. He will be clear if we really learn how to listen to Him. Now, again, it’s back to you were talking about emotional fitness. If I wasn’t getting in touch with my emotional fitness, I

Emotional Fitness

would’ve quit long before 18 years because ministry is hard. Faith-based ministry is hard. And if I just let my emotions lead, I would’ve given up. But I had to really learn how to lean into my faith and lean into my power source, the rod of being God, and manage those emotions because I hate when people say, “Oh, women are so emotional and men would never do this.” And so it’s like women just, we start denying our emotions, which means they just either implode or explode. And so I found a way to honor my emotions without exploding, and I probably learned the hard way. I’m sure in the early years my staff would tell you, I did not do it well. But that’s our journey. That’s our journey. Kim Moeller: That’s right, that’s right. So why don’t we talk about some of the practical steps. You mentioned how you like to be practical. And so do I. And I really hope that when the listener listens to the Generous Girl podcast, she does feel like there are practical ways to implement what these amazing guests that I have on the show are sharing about so that it becomes a part of their life as well. So why don’t you share some of these steps in terms of developing a mindset of hope?

Developing a Mindset of Hope

We’re titling this podcast Exercising the Muscle of Hope. And I liked our pre-conversation where you and I were just talking about when you’re waiting for something that just seems to be not in your timeline and God’s timeline is quite different, getting our eyes off of whatever that is that we’re praying for and not seeing the answers we want to see and putting our eyes back on Him and knowing who He is and His character. Renée Rizzo: That’s great because I think it’s really easy to walk somebody through hope when it’s an immediate crisis. It’s like this horrible thing has happened and we’re just going to kind of put on the bandage, help you through the crisis, and then kind of get past it. And that’s an easier hope to get back to. Harder hope, I find, is when it’s chronic, either you’re chronically emotional, chronically depressed, or you’re chronically waiting. You’re still unhealed, the marriage is still not fixed, you still aren’t pregnant, you’re still not married, you still didn’t get the job. And it’s like how do you handle hope in this very chronic season? Because we were talking about the verse, hope deferred makes the heart sick. And so people just go, “Oh, well, it’s going to make you sick.” And really where I came to in the book and where I have now at my age at 55, don’t mind saying that, is hope deferred makes the heart sick when the thing I hope for is bigger than my hope in God and bigger than my hope in Christ. It was really hard for me to learn, it was very hard for me to type, and it’s very hard to say out loud because it might sound like an attack, but it’s really not. So it’s not that I hope less for my earthly things, I hope them, but there’s biblical hope and there’s earthly hope. And so earthly hope is kind of like a wish and the strength is in myself. Godly hope is hope in God and the power source isn’t me anymore. The power

The Holy Spirit

source is the Holy Spirit, and I get the power source through my connection through Jesus Christ. And so when hope is deferred and you’re waiting and waiting, you literally, if you’re listening to me, I really want you to close your eyes and I want you to think about the thing, put out in the palm of your hands, the thing that you’re hoping for. Now, I want you to grip it with all your might. It’s really exhausting to hold that grip, right? But I want you to release that grip. I still want you to hold it, but I want you to let your fingers kind of be loose. So that’s the thing. I’m not asking you to give up your hope. So this is your hope, this is your wish, your want. But instead of you throwing it away or instead of putting it in front of your eyes so it’s blocking your vision to God, I just want you to hand it to him. And I want you to go like, “Okay, God, I need a hope in you, but I have no strength.” “Great. I don’t need your strength.” So I really want you to picture this rope being tethered from God to you, and I want you to grab onto that rope. I literally have to do that. I’m doing it right now. And you can literally grab onto it and go, “Okay, Holy Spirit, you need to make that connection happen because I’ve got none in my own strength.” So that’s like the visual I have to give myself immediately. Any day that that hope is crushing my chest, I have to just kind of physically pull it out. So I’m a big person in doing a physical manifestation that kind of goes with it. The other tool that I like to do with that is. It sounds crazy and it sounds super hippie dippy, but it’s breathing. We shallow breathe so much, and when we shallow breathe and we get nervous and upset, we start to not get enough oxygen in our body. And God created our body to receive oxygen. It needs to do its work and it needs to go to all the cells. So I literally start to do what’s called box breathing.

Box Breathing

And it’s really to slow your breathing down. You kind of draw a box with your finger and you inhale a few breaths, you hold it for a few breaths while you draw it, you exhale and then you hold your breath again. And it literally only takes four trips around the box to slow your breathing down, get you back into deep breathing. And so all that emotional stuff that’s starting to trigger and the sadness that you’re feeling, it’s not that it goes away, it just starts to get regulated. And I think that’s the opposite message I hear so much in church sometimes, and well-intentioned people is they want us to stop feeling. And I’m like, no, I’m asking you to feel and own it, but I’m asking you to use what God’s giving you. You need to slow down your breathing and you need to get Him to be your power source. And so those are two very practical exercises, and that’s before I even tell you to get out some scripture and to get some worship music on. Those would be the more obvious that people would think of, but I start there really intentional and really visual.

Kim Moeller: I like that a lot because I feel like everyone, we’re all at a crossroads, especially when we’re here in January 2024. Look at your brand new beautiful calendar, blank slate. And if we finished out the year with amazing victories, answers to prayer, we can be skipping into the new year. But a lot of the times it’s not like that. And it’s always, there were great things, but there were super hard things for each of us. And so as we go into the new year, I think this taking the time to look at the emotional side of things and where we’re at. Are we healthy? I think of Pete Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Church, and his whole premise is that it’s really hard to be spiritually mature if you’re not emotionally healthy. So I like your call-out to the emotions and not to deny them, not to ignore them, not to just step them under the rug, to be aware of them, but then to not allow ourselves to be just completely sidelined and immobilized because we have something we’ve been praying for for a long time and we’re just not getting the answers that we want. There’s so much more of a peace when we’re able to surrender and, like you said, not to give up that prayer that is still so important to us, or prayers, but just surrendering, knowing that, okay, God is in charge, He is sovereign.

Jesus Cares Board

Renée Rizzo: And I actually have one more easy practical thing to do, and a friend actually taught me to do this, and she said, “You need a Jesus Cares board.” C-A-R-E-S. And its reference is 1 Peter 5:7, where it talks about casting our… Whatever anxieties we have, we want to cast them upon the Lord because Jesus cares for us. And so whenever I’m thinking about what I’m still hoping for this year, the things that are causing me anxiety and stress, I literally write them down, get a magazine picture, and I put them up on the board, and it’s this mental fitness of getting them off of me and putting them on the board and saying, “Okay, God, you write, I’m giving the pen to you. This thing I’m casting to you.” And so I have it actually sitting in my bedroom now, and now that it’s the end of 2023, 2024, there are definitely some things that have come off my Jesus Cares board. And I’ve kind of said, okay, God answered the prayer. Sometimes He didn’t answer it the way I wanted to, but sometimes He answered it better than I wanted to. And there are still some things on that Jesus Cares board. So now that it’s January 2024, I’m kind of going, “Alright, God, what do you want to say to me about this?” Have I tried to take it back? Because it’d be really easy. It’s January. You’re like, “Well, God, you didn’t answer that prayer. So I’m going to take matters into my own hand.” And I’m the first to tell you, still single, that I am not innocent in my singleness. I think I said this in the book, I have made my own mistakes and choices where I took the pen back from God and didn’t like the way He did it, and I probably just derailed the very next thing He was going to do. Now, He’s God and He’s not going to screw it up and He’s going to fix all my fables, but some of the delay might be my own picking it back up. And so having a place to cast your cares, and if you’re like, “I don’t want to do a bulletin board,” then write it down and stick it in a jar. Find a way for you to just say… Because I don’t know about you. When you wake up in the middle of the night and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I have to remember that.” I don’t know about you, Kim, but if I don’t write it down on a note, I will lament all night afraid that I’m not going to remember in the morning. So I write it down so I can cast it off. And that’s the same way we can cast off our fears, our sadness and our hopes of the things that have not happened yet.

Kim Moeller: I talked on the other episode about a vision board for the new year, and actually my husband and I are planning to do this next weekend where we get our own foam core and some magazines from the drugstore and just lay out just things that we would love to do or maybe make this dish or see a sunset in this place or whatever. But I haven’t thought of another board kind of almost being side by side ofRenée Rizzo: It’s almost the opposite. Because I have a vision board too, because the vision board is more what am I going to do to move towards it where the Jesus Cares board is more, what am I going to let go of and give to Him? Kim Moeller: And I feel like they’re both out of our control. Renée Rizzo: Yeah, for sure. Kim Moeller: But you’re right. Let’s just say I have something on my vision board about fitness. Yes, that is up to me to say, “Okay, did I do what I wanted to do today?” Kind of thing. But that’s good because I think it’s almost like the cares board, the surrender board is that visual memory of I did give that to you, Lord, and I’m still giving it to you instead of Abraham and Isaac trying to take it back off the altar. No, I’m going to just continue to just let it be there. No, that’s great. So you finished working with the Pregnancy Resource Center, but tell the listener what you’re doing today and your speaking career.

Renée Rizzo: It’s been a fun journey for the last couple of years. And one of the first gigs that I did was help a marketing company that works with pregnancy centers all throughout the country. And so we worked on statewide sites that would draw in a lot of content, a lot of referrals. And so if there were doctors or family members or churches that needed to connect with resources throughout the state, they would be able to access that because unlike a planned parenthood that has a franchise name and people kind of have that brand name, there’s over 4,500 pregnancy centers across the country, but there’s probably 4,500 names of pregnancy centers. And so it’s not as easy to kind of find them. Kim Moeller: Sure. Renée Rizzo: So we try to come up with a more national way for people to access that information because if we want people to make a healthy choice, then they got to get to those pregnancy centers in the first place. So I had a lot of fun working on that project. I did help a couple of nonprofits who were going through the founder stepping down, and that’s a really delicate space. I came in… In between Lucy and me, Lucy was the founder. She did it for 18 years. There was somebody in the middle for only about four years and then myself. And so you have to honor that founder well, but then also give the new person their voice and their space. And so I had the honor of getting to do that. And my most recent contract that I’m still working on now, so there’s a bunch of little ones in there, but the most fun one is I’m involved with one, it’s a small business, but it’s a faith-based small business. And they’re helping singles literally across the globe get the heart healing that they need because I think churches just don’t know what to do with singles over the age of 32. It’s like it’s just a hot mess express. And so Jackie wrote a book and it had a ministry. And so it started predominantly online during COVID, and now we’re starting to do more live events. I just actually came off of that call with 300 women sitting in learning about how to heal your heart and how do we hold space for single people who are never married, divorced, widowed, and that’s not their final place that they want to be. And just holding that space. Because if churches even have a singles’ minister over the age of 32, it’s relegated to the back corner. And a pastor’s never going to preach about it on Sunday, which he should because 45% of the congregation is divorced or still single in some way. And yet it’s a topic we’re really uncomfortable talking about from the pulpit. And yet I listen to a lot of marriage sermons and a lot of parenting sermons, I would think… So that’s been a really cool one that I’ve gotten a chance. I’m helping behind the scenes, build the operations

Kim Moeller: Love that.

Renée Rizzo: … but I also get to teach on the front line. And I start seminary school in a few weeks too.

Master of Arts

I start my Masters of Arts, and I’m glad I’m in a cohort that Lisa Harper started and it’s online and I don’t know where the Lord’s going to send it. I feel like when the Lord sent me to Nashville, He said, you’re going to help broken people find hope. And if He had told me I was going to run a pregnancy center, I would’ve said, heck no. That’s not my jam. And God allowed it to be my jam for almost 20 years. And so I feel like my mantra is still, Renée, you’re going to help broken people find hope. And so now I’m just finding new places to do that. And once I finish the master’s, I don’t know, I’m excited. You guys, I think that’s the thing about holding your hands loosely, is I don’t want to hope for something so tightly that I don’t give God an opportunity for Him to craft it in a way that’s even better than what I could imagine. And that’s back to the holding onto your hope too tight. So I think I know what I want it to be, but at this point now I’m willing to be wrong and God’s going to have me help broken people in ways I just never thought of.

Kim Moeller: Well, I love your surrendered heart and wanting obviously what God wants for your life, and that’s just throughout your book on hope. So again, if people are looking for a great read here in January, they should look up Renée Rizzo, R-I-ZZ-O, on Amazon and her book about having faith as a mustard seed. What I want to go back to, well, first of all, the seminary piece is amazing. And my husband got his Master’s of Divinity many years ago, and it’s really, that theological education, he’s been in a lot of nonprofit leadership roles, but he’s always been so grateful that he got that MDiv degree. A couple other connection points, so I don’t think I mentioned to you in our pre-conversation, I’m from California, he’s from New Jersey, but what brought us back to California a number of years ago is he was the singles’ pastor at Saddleback Church. So he knows all about being a singles’ pastor and props to Saddleback for really wanting that to be a great ministry and healthy and small group based. Really, it was a fun season. It was when Rick was writing the Purpose Driven Life books.

Renée Rizzo: And that’s when I got to meet Rick, actually back in the day during The Purpose Driven Life.

Kim Moeller: I love that. He’s amazing. And so it’s just like

Renée Rizzo: Small world.

Kim Moeller: Always. Okay. And the other small world connection that I mentioned to you on the pre-conversation that I couldn’t believe is in reading your book, you mentioned your mentor Sarah Berger, and I thought, wait, her name is really familiar. So I looked in my phone and sure enough, I have her number and where did I meet her? I met her in Israel of all places at this park dedication ceremony of this huge bronze statue of Aslan’s Lion in Jerusalem. Renée Rizzo: So cool.  And here we have this connection of Southern California and who knew that she was your mentor? So, I love that.

Renée Rizzo: And talk about somebody who has hope. I mean her and her husband, Steve Berger, a pastor, lost Josiah at 18 years old to a car accident, and they’ve written a couple of books on that as well. So if anybody could help me have hope in hard seasons, it sure was her and him. So, love it. Kim Moeller: Yes, I remember talking with her even in our brief conversation and that came up and my heart just always goes out to someone who’s lost a child prior to ever expecting that happening as a parent, you just don’t think it’s going to be in that order. Okay. The generosity piece, when you were working with the women and the men, everybody involved with your nonprofit, can you speak a little bit more about just the value that comes from being generous with your time and your

Generosity with Time and Treasures

treasures and how you might’ve seen some real blessings with the people connected with that? Renée Rizzo: It’s really funny because I never used to think I was a person that was really good at asking for money, but what I really am, what I love to do is have people feel passionate about something. And the idea is, and here’s what I’ve seen. I’ve been in full-time ministry a really long time. I worked at the church and one of the things I noticed when I worked at the church was how generous some of the donors were and some of the congregants were. Some of the people that gave the most amount of time were also the very wealthy people giving all of their money away. And I just remember two couples, actually, one of them was Harold McGraw, remember from McGraw-Hill and Associates? Kim Moeller: Yes. Renée Rizzo: So that’s the son. And the son was like 90 when I met him, and he was just like, “Renée, you can’t out give God.” He’s like, “I give it away because He keeps pouring it back on me.”

You Can’t Outgive God

And then I met another couple who kind of just modeled that not just in their money but in their time. And so that has always sat in the back of my head. And so when I started working at Hope Clinic, I just remember sharing those stories with people going, it’s not like God’s a genie, and I’m not asking you to be generous with your time, talents, and treasure because you want something back in return. But the truth is, God is clear, he is going to be generous with you if you are generous. And so it’s a promise. Now, I’m not saying if you give away $20, you’re going to get $2,000 back. That’s not always the way God works, but it is pretty stinking amazing. I can think of dozens of testimonies where people are like, “Well, I don’t have enough money to tithe anyway. I don’t have enough time to do this,” give time anyway. And so, really just try to be practical. It’s like even at church, it’s like, if you don’t have time, time, pray, pray for your church, commit to prayer. Can you give up one hour a week? If you can scroll for an hour, you can donate an hour. If you can enjoy a $10 latte, then you can donate $10. And so be intentional with your giving.

There are some things I have been donating to since I left college. I was really involved with the Navigators. It’s how I got saved. And so I remember giving $25 a month and maybe it went up to $50 a month. Y’all, 30 years later, it’s like $20,000. It’s a crazy number. And so if you have not started giving yet, start small and think, “Oh my gosh, it’s not going to matter.” Yes it will. And it’ll grow into this thing. And here’s the thing. God doesn’t need your $10 to make it grow. He’ll make it grow. And that’s the cool thing. And so whatever thing is stopping you, I’m just going to say to you, there is something about releasing from you. I’ve seen it work with clients. Clients are so happy. Clients who have nothing and who have no money and get all of these donations, those donated maternity and baby items, they’re the first ones to want to do a testimonial, volunteer their time, give those clothes back to the next person when they’re done. And so I’ve just never seen anybody be generous and be disappointed. I’ve seen people be cranky with life. I’ve seen people have a poverty mentality in every area of their life, and they continue to have a poverty mentality. I’ve never seen a person be generous with their time, talents and treasures have a poverty mentality and stay there. It’s just the data’s there. And so take that leap, do something, find an hour, find a dime, find a talent to give away. You will be blessed. It always comes back to you. I cannot say that enough. Kim Moeller: It’s so true. I did a seminar for a church, a webinar in December, and the premise was you can’t outgive God, like going into the holidays. And I do want to just challenge the listener about the financial giving as you go into 2024 and maybe last year you didn’t give quite as much as you had hoped or promised God that you would. And I want to encourage you to just have a fresh start this year.

The National Christian Foundation

The National Christian Foundation is a platform that thousands of people use for their own giving, like Navigators. So you just sign up for ncfgiving.com/california, go on there and you can start your little giving fund. I say little, I mean because you can give very little amounts. A lot of people give very, very large amounts, but wherever you’re at, you can use that. Like your example of Navigators or maybe you give to Young Life or crew. And same with you, we have people that we have supported, not huge amounts, but over all the years, it definitely adds up to a lot of money. And it’s just a great way to really, instead of just having the money all messed in your bank account, in Bank of America or Wells Fargo and just mixed in there, it’s a separate platform. You donate it into your donor advice fund, it’s no longer your money. The IRS records it as your contribution on the day that you give it. And then you can choose when you’re going to actually make the gift and grant it out. But I love my job because I get to just hear all these incredible ways that people’s hearts are tied to the causes and the money God’s given these individuals, they are choosing to share it across the board and their lives are so rich. You’re absolutely right. I think these generous people have an abundance mindset, not a scarcity mindset, because we serve a very, very generous God who gave His greatest gift, His son, to us. And so to kind of go into this new year with a, let’s go with the premise of we can’t outgive God. And so what will that look like? And if we’re tested in these various areas and it just feels like, wow, we just don’t have enough time, or the money feels tight, paying off Christmas bills or whatever that is, put it on your cares board and release it and just watch what God, watch what He can do when we put Him first. Renée Rizzo: And it’s really cool because it’s just a little bit. The reason why people fail at their New Year’s resolutions is because they try to take off this big thing. And so it’s like you don’t memorize the entire Bible at once. You don’t lose 25 pounds all at once, and you don’t give away millions all at once. Everything is an incremental habit. So it’s like, just think about what can be the one habit I change this week? Take 10 minutes after listening to this and go, what are some habits I can do differently about my time, differently about my talents and differently about my money? Just a small habit change. And then next week, make another small habit change. And so then if you’re thinking to make, all right, make an appointment, learn about that giving fund, learn about it, figure it out. Because I don’t know about you. I’m so glad you said that because sometimes when I think of giving funds, I think, well, I don’t have enough money. They’re going to laugh at me. Kim Moeller: No. Renée Rizzo: It’s just like we get it, but that’s just the lie from the enemy, just trying to shame you. So just start small, start somewhere. Start small, but think big. Kim Moeller: That’s right. Believe in the big God that we serve. And one more book I’m going to call out that I keep hearing about, my husband’s read it. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but it’s on my list for the new year. Oh, this is something I did over the holidays that I’m happy about because we have so many great books that are recommended on this podcast. So I asked one of my daughters, Claire, I said, “How do you keep your books organized with the different… People say, ‘Oh, you should read this, you should read that.'” So she uses the platform Goodreads. And so I had an account there, but I just wasn’t using it. So I went back into Goodreads and then every book that people have recommended on this podcast, I put in a season one list and then now I have a season two list, and then I have like aRenée Rizzo: Love that. Kim Moeller: Yeah. Self-help is one category. And then Beach Reads is another category and they’re all just the different shelves. So every time people say these books, I’m adding them there. But one of the books I keep hearing about is this 12 Week Year book. And it’s like you’re suggesting focus on one thing and then the focus on the next thing. This author wants you to do that, but over a longer time. He feels like focus on just one thing for 12 weeks. So you want to lose 10 pounds. Okay, just do that. And then when the 12 weeks is done, do the next thing. And this gal, Edie Wadsworth, she talks about she wanted to learn how to make sourdough. So she gave herself 12 weeks to do that, and now she’s really proficient. Renée Rizzo: I love that. Kim Moeller: I know. Renée Rizzo: I love that. Great idea. Kim Moeller: That’s kind of good because your brain, if you’re just focused on one thing for three months, it’s a lot more doable than, I’ve got six different areas, I’m trying to do this and that. Renée Rizzo: That is a great idea. And maybe, so instead of having an annual vision board, you have a quarterly one and you just think about, all right… Or you’ve got seven things on it. But you know what? For these 12 weeks, I’m only going to focus over here

Kim Moeller: We’re just going to focus on that.

Renée Rizzo: And then the next 12 weeks I’m going to come over here. That’s a great idea. Love it. Kim Moeller: Okay, so we love to wrap up this with the three questions

Bible Verse, Book, and Bargain

of what is your favorite Bible verse? And I’m sure I’m going to guess what it is because of your book, but your Bible verse and then a book that you’re reading, and then a recent bargain. And go ahead and give everybody a couple of things, the full name of the book so they can find it. And then also you talked about the hard work singles group. Talk about that so they can find that as well. Renée Rizzo: Yeah, that’s great. Okay, so my book is, All You Need is a Mustard Seed: Between Hope and Despair, and Renée Rizzo. It’s on Amazon, I think it’s also on Barnes and Noble. You can get it on Kindle. You can get a hard copy and you can get a paperback copy of the book. So my verse, so I kind of did a play on Matthew 17:20-21. So it says, “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” We talked about being in Israel and all I ever thought about was a mustard seed being this teeny tiny seed. I didn’t know how gorgeous a mustard seed is. And so my sister-in-law, who designed my book cover, found a photograph that she worked with that shows what a mustard seed looks like when it’s this gorgeous blooming 25… A mustard seed is the smallest seed, but it grows 25 feet high, 25 feet wide. And so when Jesus was giving that verse, He was literally at the Sea of Galilee pointing to a field of this gorgeous field of mustard seeds turned into flowers. He was so specific. It was always like whenever He was using an analogy, because it was like standing right next to Him. And so I love that. So that’s my verse. And so I kind of was like, all right, so that’s how I want to cling to hope. So some days my hope is just the size of a mustard seed, but it’s the difference between hope and despair. And so I hope that for all of you. So that was the first thing. The book that I’m reading, it’s really kind of not that sexy right now. Marilyn Murray wrote it, and it’s called The Murray Method. She’s actually a very well-renowned therapist. She’s in her 80s. The woman is usually in Russia except because of what’s going on with Ukraine, she’s back from Russia. She’s like, “I’m going to live to 105.” And there’s a lot of things that she created, something called the trauma egg. She’s done a lot of work but also loves Jesus. And she throws a lot of sneaky Jesus in when she goes across the country, else they would never let her into Russia. And so it’s been really great to incorporate, again, I’m practical. So I love my Jesus stuff. I love scripture, but I’m always looking at ways to produce healing. She actually experienced all of her own trauma, which actually helped pull out this stuff. So if you’re listening to this and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, my life’s over. It’s been too late.” The woman’s 86. So when I say, “Oh my gosh, I’m already 55 learning this,” she’s like, “55! You’ve got 50 more years.” Kim Moeller: I love it. Renée Rizzo: I love this mindset that we’re never too old to start learning a new thing and doing a good thing. So if you go to Jackie Dorman, J-A-C-K-I-E-D-O-R-M-A-N.com, you can get a link to the challenge groups and the pages of the singles’ ministry. And she has a men’s challenge going on right now and a women’s challenge going on right now. She works actually a lot with Kris Vallotton over at Bethel, the church up in Northern California. We have a lot of people in the community from California. It’s actually one of our largest communities in Northern and Southern California. So that’d be a great place. If you’re listening to this and you’re a male or female that is single, come check us out. We’ve got a great word. And I think one of the other things that you wanted me to tell was my bargain. Kim Moeller: Yes. Renée Rizzo: Okay, so this might not be your jam. However, if you are in the fitness and you’re losing weight, but you’re going to be at various sizes, but you want nice clothes, but you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t want to buy clothes at this size because I still have 10 more pounds to lose.” So one of my friends, so since we’ve been talking about powerful, generous women, one of the women that used to be in ministry with me here in Nashville, Tennessee, she wrote a book actually really to help heal women over a past abortion. And so she started a online company called 2nd and Mine. So if you go on Instagram, it’s the number 2-N-D, and then the word A-N-D, M-I-N-E. So it’s 2-N-D, A-N-D, M-I-N-E  It’s basically like a vintage secondhand stop. So she finds items curated in the LA area. A lot of them still have their tags on, so we’re talking gorgeous items that would sell for hundreds. And evidently all these women in LA get these items, they get them in swag gifts, and they never even wear them. And so she finds them. And so I’m in between, I’ve lost 20 pounds, but I’ve got 20 more to go. And all through Christmas people are like, “Oh my gosh, I love your clothes.” And I’m like, “I paid $10 for it.” Kim Moeller: That’s so great. That’s fantastic. Renée Rizzo: So if you want to find cool clothing for women or men or other little items, go to 2nd and Mine on Instagram, and her name is Tammy. So, A, I love supporting other women in business, and I love that she is kind of like this idea of helping people along. So that’s my little bargain. If you’re losing weightKim Moeller: Perfect. Renée Rizzo: … that’s a way to go get nice clothing without spending a lot of money. Kim Moeller: That is awesome, Renée. Well, I have so enjoyed this conversation. I love that we’re allowing the message you have to be able to be out there in the world this month of January in 2024 and not waiting till August. It just feels like you’re a perfect guest for the new year. And I’m just excited for everyone listening for the pearls of wisdom that you shared and how they’re going to just really take at least one of those pearls and activate it in their own lives to just be all they were made to be and to be the most generous girl they can be in 2024 because that’s what it’s all about. So thanks again. Renée Rizzo: I love it. Thank you. Kim Moeller: You’re a blessing, and I’m excited for your new theological education. You’re going to crush it, I’m sure. And who knows what God has in store with that education in your back pocket going forward. Renée Rizzo: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Kim Moeller: Thank you. God bless. Renée Rizzo: Bye-Bye. Kim Moeller: Thanks so much for joining us today on the Generous Girl Podcast. We’re so glad that you’re here. And if you know of someone that you think needs to be a guest on this podcast, please reach out to us. New episodes are released every other week, and you can follow us on YouTube and on all platforms. Thanks for being here, and we’ll see you next time.