- Donna Summers [00:00:02]:
- The timing wasn’t right for me to walk. And He wanted to know if I trusted him. And I did. And that’s hard for some people to understand. And I’m not saying that’s always ever that He’s going to ask you to do hard things, but sometimes He’s going to ask you to do hard things. I think the point is to ask and be open to what He has for you that day, that week, that month because it may lead to something you could never imagine.
Introduction
- Kim Moeller [00:00:26]:Welcome back to the Generous Girl podcast. It’s great to have you here. And today, I’m joined with a special guest named Donna Summers. Donna is currently the president of Gables Residential Management Company and has over forty years of residential property management. She works in Dallas and lives in Fort Worth, Texas, and currently serves on the board of directors for Apartment Life and Redemptive Real Estate, two incredible organizations we are going to unpack during this podcast today. Well, do you ever feel like just calling it quits, throwing in the towel saying it’s too hard? Can’t do this anymore. I’m done.
- Kim Moeller [00:01:10]:Donna is the perfect person for you to meet, who is our guest today on the Generous Girl podcast. And you will enjoy her story of perseverance because she is the person who has not given up through many trials and many tribulations and she feels as though she could have thrown in the towel and she has not. She has trusted the Lord and has seen his faithfulness over all the years. Donna has been married for thirty nine years, and with her husband and herself, the two of them have a total of four children and seven grandchildren. So it is so great to have you here with us, Donna. Welcome.
- Donna Summers [00:01:52]:Thank you. I appreciate it. I’m very honored to be here.
- Kim Moeller [00:01:55]:Well, shout out to Ryan Pahlerr with Redemptive Real Estate who said you have to have Donna on your podcast. So so grateful for the connect. And thank you. Yes. I know. I’m just looking forward to this time with you, and I enjoyed our pre conversation where we figured out the title of today’s episode. And I think for all of us, perseverance in the Christian life is so critical for our success. And I think that you are a walking billboard of perseverance, and we’re going to dive into that.
- Kim Moeller [00:02:29]:So I will let you decide where you want to start with maybe how we came up with that title that might be a good way to start unpacking it.
Perseverance
- Donna Summers [00:02:38]:Sure. Well, thank you. So I have had my fair share of trials and like many people and particularly women, I’ll talk a lot about women today because it’s really in my heart, you know, just working with women and helping with women. So we’ll talk a lot about that. But let’s go back a little bit. When I was young, I was not really very healthy. I had a lot of health issues, and I didn’t understand it.
- Donna Summers [00:03:05]:Obviously, that’s many years ago. A lot of people didn’t understand it. So long story short, I had to drop out of college to help take care of family situation. My parents had divorced. My mom has since passed, but she well, actually, both my parents have.
- Kim Moeller [00:03:22]:Sorry to hear that.
- Donna Summers [00:03:23]:We just had a really rough situation in our childhood, and my parents’ divorce was really rough.So my mom went through a very difficult time and had a nervous breakdown. I had to come home out of college to take care of her. So that was very disappointing, but the Lord used it. I don’t think He wastes anything if we persevere. Mhmm. And so I was very disappointed to leave school, but I came and I got a job in the apartment industry, And it was random. I was actually trying to take some night classes to try to keep school up, but I had offered this full time leasing actually turned out to be assistant manager job on-site.
- Donna Summers [00:04:01]:
- And so I took the job and had to quit the night classes because it was too much, etcetera. But long story is that I did not get to finish my degree because then shortly after I got married, my first child was born with a cleft lip and palate. So there were a lot of operations, lots of surgeries,lots of issues, plus I still had health issues.
Career and Children
- Kim Moeller [00:04:23]:Mhmm.
- Donna Summers [00:04:23]:So I never went back to school, but I continue to persevere and eventually am at the role that I am today. So along with that, you know, those issues that came along the way came a lot of insecurity, a lot of I’m not worthy, I’m not good enough, you know, these things, but my faith always held me together. I’m so fortunate that I was, even though from a divorced family, my grandfather was a minister for fifty years, and he was a lot like my father. He was the father figure in my life, and he gave us a very strong he and my mom gave us a very strong foundation of faith and so over the years that faith and hanging on to that faith and I don’t believe faith is a conscious act. I believe it’s deeper. I believe it. I don’t believe it’s just don’t give up right. It’s knowing that it might be hard.
- Donna Summers [00:05:19]:It might hurt this might be rough, but in the end, God will use it And through that faith and, you know, James says that faith produces perseverance and if you persevere, you finish the work.
- Kim Moeller [00:05:31]:Mhmm.
- Donna Summers [00:05:31]:And so at my age, of course, I’m not finished, but you get to the point where you look back and you see patterns in your life. And the pattern in my life has been this faith and to persevere. I had multiple more health issues. I had, was diagnosed just to give the audience hope if anyone’s dealing with this, I dealt with an autoimmune that they finally recognized actually a couple and then right after my second child was born, I got very ill and I had to go into the surgery. There was an error with the surgery. I wound up in intensive care for six weeks. I almost died.
- Kim Moeller [00:06:09]:Oh my goodness.
- Donna Summers [00:06:10]:It was devastating. I had a six week old I had a baby daughter at home, six weeks old. And hereI am in the hospital.
- Kim Moeller [00:06:15]:Wow.
- Donna Summers [00:06:16]:A son with a cleft open palate, all these things. But through it all, the Lord always helped me,and there was an outcome that became better than you could ever imagine. And I persevered. I didn’t give up. I kept my faith and ultimately, you know, got to where I am today. Is it carved still? Yes. I’m going through some some things right now that are marked. And I laid in bed last night asking the
- Lord, you know, what am I going to do? And He’s like, you’re going to do nothing but pray because sometimes, right? Things are out of our control, and we pray and we believe and we have faith.
- Donna Summers [00:06:57]:So that’s where the title has come from. Now, I will say that the Lord gave me an opportunity several years ago to read a book which we’ll talk about later and it helped me to write my personal mission statement and so with writing that and I believe everyone should have a personal mission statement because you need to understand what the Lord has you here for.
- Kim Moeller [00:07:20]:Family mission statement too is great.
- Donna Summers [00:07:22]:Exactly. I took my kids and they were eight and 10 and had them write mission statements, which has still hung with them today. Oh, I love it. Believe that you want to see what the thing that God has put in your heart. And so I have persevered ,but I’m so thankful that the Lord gave me that because it really helped me to persevere with a plan with what He saw me doing, what He wanted me to do. And so I try to take on every opportunity.
- Donna Summers [00:07:51]:I mean, just Ryan referring me here, you know, it’s scary, right, to get in front of me while I’m talking and, open up. I’ve always been a kind of an open book, so that’s not really scary. But you take the opportunities that God’s give you gives you because you know there is a plan.
- Kim Moeller [00:08:08]:Mhmm. I think that’s so true. And sometimes we meet these, quote, random people, and we don’t think anything of that connection. But even taking that next step with that person of they’re saying let’s have coffee or email each other, you just never I mean, I’ve just seen even from this podcast, someone will say, oh, you should definitely talk to her like Ryan did with you.And or this person definitely should have and so I’ll just follow those leads because I feel like yes, if somebody’s coming to me with that, there’s, you know, a good reason.
- Donna Summers [00:08:42]:Well,if you’re praying if we’re praying, and I I know you do. I do. If we’re praying for the Lord to use us everyday and I get up every morning and ask him how he wants to use me that day.
Precious Moments
- Well, then I believe if an opportunity comes along, it’s exactly like here’s your boat. Let me get in as well. I try to take these opportunities and people may think I have my personalities. I’m pretty out there. You know I’m using my hands.
- Donna Summers [00:09:07]:I’m kind of loud and so people look at it sometimes and think Oh she’s so confident I could not be more from the truth. What do you call them Precious Moments dolls that I bought for myself. It’s a little child and they have armor on and they’re all beat up. Oh no, I should have brought it to show you guys, but I have a screen on my dresser because it reminds me that we’re all children inside. We’re all His children. So we all have the knocks and the bruises and we’re we might be afraid but we do it afraid. We do it anyway, and then He removes the fear.
- Donna Summers [00:09:44]:So kinda goes back to that perseverance.
- Kim Moeller [00:09:47]:Yes. And then, obviously, who is our confidence based in? It’s not in ourselves because we don’t necessarily fail and not do what we had hoped or thought or, you know, that our confidence is in Christ, then all that power rests there. And when you talk about the little Precious Moments figurine, it reminds me of a story. Someone talked about literally seeing an angel, and the angel had, like, burnt wings from protecting them.
- Donna Summers [00:10:23] All of :a sudden it makes us look like that too. We thought everything’s perfect and life is perfect and
- Kim Moeller [00:10:29]:Yes. I know. But it’s like, no. Just dodged one on the freeway. Thank you. And we don’t even see know, the wings.
- Kim Moeller [00:10:39]:Right. Okay. So why don’t you talk about the two organizations that you’re serving on the boards for the Apartment Life and Redemptive Real Estate and unpack each of those? I have learned about redemptive real estate over the last couple of years. I’ve had my real estate license for a decade now, but I really love the people that are being drawn into this redemptive real estate work.
Redemptive Real Estate
- Donna Summers [00:11:04]:Well, me too. So let me start with Apartment Life just because I’ve been associated with it more,and that led me to redemptive real estate. So I was, Apartment Life, if you’re not familiar with it,
- – it’s an organization where they believe in building community, Christ-led community. And so they will take couples and put them in an apartment community, and that couple will work with the apartment’s office to create activities and interactions and connections with the residents to build community. And then they don’t go in and preach, but through example and through loving people and caring for people and looking for needs that might be met, whether it’s a single mom who might need groceries or I thinkt here’s thousands of them. Then they help meet those needs, and they’re typically connected with the church. The couple are connected with the church and so they’ve got the church who can help back with needs being met and they do that without yelling and screaming or preaching the guy, you know, or intruding, but they wait for people to come to them and people do. They come and they say I want the light in you.
- Donna Summers [00:12:15]:I want to know about this… I want and so it opens the door for salvation and I just love it because it meets a need of community whether you’re Christian or not, you need community. Absolutely caring for people. Jesus cared for people. He just cared for people, and that’s what they do. And then out of it comes the example.So I love this organization I was with them for about six years on their board, then I stepped down for a while when my mom was sick and have recently gone back on so then they introduced me to Ryan and so Ryan and I met and so what redemptive real estate does is their vision is to connect and inspire and resource like-minded real estate industry leaders so that people can honor God in their communities through their career.
- So this could be anyone from the vendor side to the development side to business owners to property management anything that has to do with real estate connecting those people because they’re like-minded and putting Christ in the center of everything we do with real estate so I was not able to make last year’s event or the 2023 event, but I did go in ’24 here inDallas and a plug there’ll be another one in November of twenty five in Dallas.
- Donna Summers [00:13:36]:I strongly encourage you if you’re in real estate that you attend because there was something very powerful about sitting in a room. I mean I wept in a room of 300 other businessmen and women worshiping the Lord and praying before we opened the sessions and then the sessions were about how you can create community and reach people and you know connect over here.Connect over there and then these people connect and we produce greater product or greater ideas. So one example I met for the first time a wonderful man named Dave Snyder, which many on this podcast may know because he’s very popular and famous in what he’s done in multifamily real estate. I I really honor him and he has started an organization and I’m not going to do it justice to talk abou tall the different pillars, but one pillar of this organization is tow ork with Grand Canyon University on a kingdom-minded property management certification.Oh my gosh that was a game changer. It was like reading my mail. Just my whole passion is that my job isn’t a job.
Multi-Family Real Estate
- Donna Summers [00:14:50]:My career isn’t just a career. It’s a calling. And I believe multifamily real estate is a calling. We touch thousands of people’s lives where they live.
My Career and Calling
- Kim Moeller [00:15:00]:Okay. Define for the listener, multifamily real estate.
- Donna Summers [00:15:04]:Yes. So multifamily yes. Thank you. Multifamily real estate is basically apartments. Iit could be single family home rental. It can also be built to rent rental but in general think apartments okay and that’s instead of being commercial real estate, which might be or industrial real estate, which might be big, you know, warehouses and things like that. This is apartments, and that’s what I’ve done the majority of my career or all my career. So when I speak to people in my industry, when I speak to the people that work for me, if I’m teaching a leadership class or whatever, I always say, I believe our industry is much of a calling as a nurse or doctor.
- Kim Moeller [00:15:48]:Absolutely.
- Donna Summers [00:15:49]:You are dealing with people’s lives. And if you think about a property manager on-site in the day to day that she gets in her or he gets in his their office. It’s my I’m getting a divorce. I had a death in my family.
- Kim Moeller [00:16:01]:My husband, I can’t afford my apartment.
- Donna Summers [00:16:04]:I lost my job. I mean I’m sick. I have cancer. I’ve lost my insurance. Like, it’s on and on and on.You have to deal with that with a level of compassion. And I don’t care if it’s someone who just says, I don’t want to pay my rent this month. You know? You still want to deal with – they are still people, and you want to deal with them with love and respect.
- Donna Summers [00:16:25]:We may have to do hard things,but you do it with love and respect, and you learn how to resource those people and help resource those people through outside sources that could help them if you care. If you approach it as just a job, you don’t care. I’m sorry. You’re out. I don’t want to do business that way. I believe we need to be loving and compassionate and show Christ-like behavior. We don’t have to say it’s Christ.
- Kim Moeller [00:16:47]:It’s kind of like you are a property manager pastor.
- Donna Summers [00:16:50]:Exactly. But you do it with love and you do it. So this certification would help teach people who are interested in going into real estate. It would teach them all the business side of it because there’s a lot of housing. There are lots of laws and there are rules you want to follow all of those but it teaches you to do it with Christlike kingdom minded emphasis with the mind of Christ.
- Eventually the goal of this certification would work into a four year degree through this university. So I connected with him on this and I said, I want to be part of that. So now I’m part of helping write that certification. So I’m excited.
- Kim Moeller [00:17:32]:It’s so exciting.
- Donna Summers [00:17:34]:I’m sorry. I just want to say, yes. Simply what Real Estate did. Right? Yes. Exactly. Is to connect people. I would have never met them otherwise. You bring 300, four hundred, five hundred people into one room and you start connecting these things, you’re going to build strength.
- Kim Moeller [00:17:50]:That’s right. And especially, it’s iron sharpening iron and it’s rubbing shoulders. It’s watching this person over here, how they run their company with their vision, looking at your company or the one you’re associated with and going, wow, I think we could up our vision. It just brings you tothat that next level. And shout out to Dave Snyder. I actually met he and his wife at the impact event that we had for NCF last fall. But you went to the Dallas, Redemptive Real Estate Conference. And I went to the one year the year before in Santa Barbara for the second half of it.
- Kim Moeller [00:18:25]:But what I loved was the last morning is when Dave stood up and shared how he felt at four in the morning. He needed to get up out of bed. He told his wife and she is, she’s like, oh, here you go again. He’s like, I know, but I just have to do this. So he goes in the ballroom. I want to say there were 200 people. And he said he’s in his sweats, barefoot, sat in every chair in that ballroom and prayed individually for every chair and every person who would be there.
- Donna Summers [00:18:54]:He’s a lovely man.
- Kim Moeller [00:18:55]:So great. Such a legacy, you know, that he’s leaving with all the leaders he’s influencing and then the power of prayer and the generosity of sponsoring things. And it just, again, it elevates the game and it gives other people the vision of what one life can do. And to your point about, okay, so you attended and you’re encouraging other people to attend the next conference in November in Dallas. But what if you wouldn’t have gone? You wouldn’t have had that whole Grand Canyon Connect. And for me, actually, what came out of the one in Santa Barbara was I was standing in line for coffee, and there was a guy there who was in his thirties, and he was right ahead of me for coffee. And he was dressed super fancy for Santa Barbarabeach culture. He looked like he was from New York City.
- Kim Moeller [00:19:47]:
- I said, wow. You’re dressed so dapper. And I had no idea he was actually the keynote speaker that morning, and his name is Nelson Marsh. And Nelson then began the connections for me where we stood in line and talked for a long time, and he said, I think you need to have my mom, Ash Marsh, on your podcast, and they run the Marsh Collective. And so we did. And tha tled to then Ash’s husband saying you should have Angela Correll who had just purchased a villa in Italy, you know, and all these different connections. But when you talk about, like, the vision of the Grand Canyon University and property management, it reminds me of the Marshes and their vision for hospitality and running that institute. And especially for the people who’ve been really burned in the hospitality industry, they can go there, be renewed and refreshed to then be sent out again.
- Kim Moeller [00:20:39]:So it’s such neat niches, you know, of, like you said, your whole career has been property management. So this GCU degree is so perfect. And then over here, their whole emphasis is hospitality. And I thought of you before you got here. And so it’s so fun to watch.
- Donna Summers [00:20:56]:I love that because redemptive real estate brought all those kinds of people together.
- Kim Moeller [00:21:00]:Yes. Right.
- Donna Summers [00:21:00]:All real estate. It’s not just multifamily. Right. And so you might find another part of real estate that you’re interested in, that you wanna be part of. And so it’s a beautiful connection and I’m very honored, very, very honored to be part of the board of both of these organizations because I believe and I’ve always believed that my career was just, like I said, a mission part of it’s my mission. It’s as if I was a missionary. So Yeah.
- Kim Moeller [00:21:25]:Your calling. Absolutely. Mhmm.
- Donna Summers [00:21:27]:And so what I always want to be open to doing is giving back and being part of any organization that helps give back to our industries. And so I know in any industry, you can usually find something like that. So I strongly encourage one of the things that I wanted to note at the last redemptive real estate is that there were a lot more men there than women. Now we all know that women, you know, we’re still new into the business world. If you think about it, for centuries, men have been running the business world. That’s great. Women have started making their place.
- Donna Summers [00:22:03]:And I just encourage women, this is a big passion of mine, encouraging women to step out and be part and use their voice and represent, you know, as Christian businesswomen because we have a lot to say and a lot to offer. And I believe men want us to be a part. Mhmm. Particularly Christian businessmen, you know, they want us to be a part. I don’t think it’s a men against women thing. I think it’s complimentary.
Waffles and Spaghetti
- Kim Moeller [00:22:35]:
Like we said, we think like spaghetti, men think like waffles, and we put it together. Exactly.
Donna Summers [00:22:42]:So women, you know, my encouragement is to stand up and be heard and be present and attend these conferences and these things. And I believe the Lord will continue to open doors and to change lives. I’m very passionate about mentoring other women. You know, when you get to my age, you do start to look back and see patterns. Mhmm. You know, someone had told me, Donna, you’re going to persevere. That’s going to be your thing. In my twenties, I might have given up.
Donna Summers [00:23:09]:Right? I might have names. I didn’t want that. You know? Perseverance needs trials. But on the other hand, I honestly wouldn’t trade a minute of what the Lord’s done every single second of a trial, and he’s given me the way and the light and the purpose through it. But we have to step up as women is what I’m saying.
Kim Moeller [00:23:31]:So good. And I agree. I think that there’s huge measure of perseverance for every individualfollowing the Lord because of the fallen world we live in. And I think He asks to have faith because that’s not what we’re going to need to have in heaven. It’s only while we’re here on earth that we need this faith. And if we keep the faith and we don’t give up, and like you said, we continue to persevere and mentally understand it is a long game. Just don’t quit. Just keep going.
Kim Moeller [00:24:07]:
- Donna Summers [00:24:08]:You make a really good point, Kim, that’s helped me more than once. Is that and I heard a pastor speak on this when he lost his wife, and he said, we’re all going to go through trials. And we know the Bible warns us that, right? I know it’s interesting how sometimes Christians think that just because we’re Christians, we shouldn’t have any trials. Well, that is not what the Bible says. But you make a good point that it it’s only on this earth. So how we respond to those trials on this earth is the only gift we’ll ever be able to give God on this earth. Mhmm. It is the gift we give him on how we use the faith that He’s given us and the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made on the cross.
- Donna Summers [00:24:53]:We use that on earth and we glorify Him through the trial, we won’t have that in heaven.
- Kim Moeller [00:24:59]:Right.
- Donna Summers [00:25:00]:You won’t be able to do that in heaven. So you know, Paul said to see it as a gift almost, to see it as an opportunity. And the reason He did that is because I believe the Lord showed him that he wouldn’t have it in heaven. So he needed to do it here. And it builds us. And I don’t believe God brings bad things to us. I just believe we live in a fallen world and things happen. But He promised us that He would get us through it if we just don’t give up.
- Kim Moeller [00:25:27]:Right. And by not giving up, we can look back over the years, and we can look at how we approached the trial then and understand how those trials have prepared us for whatever it is we’re facing today. And maybe the current trial will come to an end and there’ll be this huge blessing. Maybe it won’t. Maybe it’s chronic. It goes on and on and on, this side of heaven. But either way, we’re not alone. And it’s really all about trust because if we believe in who our trust is in, then despite how we feel, we can keep going because we trust in Him and He’s a good God and He loves us and sent His son to die for us.
- Kim Moeller [00:26:10]:And for me that mentally gives me the perseverance to say, okay, intellectually, this is why Ineed to keep persevering. And sometimes the feeling, you know, follows when it’s a hard thing that, that we’re going through.
- Donna Summers [00:26:24]:And we have to ask the Lord. Sometimes he asks us to do hard things.
- Kim Moeller [00:26:28]:Absolutely.
- Donna Summers [00:26:29]:And that’s hard for some people to understand. And I’m not saying that’s always ever that he’s going to ask you to do hard things, but sometimes He’s gonna ask you to do hard things because it may lead to something you could never imagine that the Lord asked me to stay.
- Kim Moeller [00:27:13]:For sure. For sure. So how have you balanced all of the things over all these years?You know, you’re really so high up in management in your current role, and you’ve been married a long time. You’ve got your kids, your grandkids. What would you say to our friends listening about juggling motherhood, you know, because the pillars on this podcast are that we’re doing are family and faith. And I think you’ve done a remarkable job of juggling all the balls and would love any insights, wisdom you have to share.
- Donna Summers [00:27:49]:Man, I wish I had one perfect thing to say and everybody could just follow it.It’s not clean. Look. There were times in that forty years of marriage, my husband and I were just talking about it yesterday where we almost didn’t make it. And I just encourage any of you who are out there and you’re struggling and it’s hard and you’re in your thirties maybe and your marriage is rough and you’ve got kids, and it seems hard, it comes back to perseverance. And I’m very fortunate. I was not in any kind of abusive situation or anything like that.
- Donna Summers [00:28:19]:There were no affairs. There was nothing like that. It’s just sometimes people’s lives begin to grow apart. The devil gets in the middle of it. So we sought counseling, and we got help. We did a lot of praying, and the Lord changed our hearts and turned our marriage around.So it was rough, but I never wanted that for my children. Mhmm.
- Donna Summers [00:28:45]:And I never wanted it for my husband. I never wanted it for me. I came from a divorced family, and I didn’t want that. But in the middle of all that there’s also you know the job and the hours and the kids and how do you balance it and I think people talk a lot about balance. I don’t think the balance is perfect. I don’t think it’s clean. I think you have to get up every day and pray for the Lord to give you the grace and the guidance because some days you need to stay home because your kid’s sick.Mhmm.
- Donna Summers [00:29:14]:And that’s okay. And then some days you might have to miss a baseball game one day, but the next three I make up. Right. Right. I tried in my early career, there and maybe there’s not so much for younger women anymore because there are more women in business. But when my children were young, I got a lot of criticism for being a Christian woman who worked. And I had a lot of criticism that you don’t care about your children and you’re putting your job first and, you know, you’re not the homeroom mom making the cookies and, you know, when I wasn’t. But I did my very best to be there for them, to love them, and my balance just didn’t look perfect.
The Balancing Act
- Donna Summers [00:29:57]:I just had to do what the Lord called me that day. And if it was stay home with a sick kid, I stayed home with a sick kid. But if the next day meant working till midnight, I worked till midnight. Right.Right. I just had to work it out.
- Kim Moeller [00:30:09]:Well, that’s where I we live for that audience of one, and we can’t be listening to the chatter, the criticism, the sideline banter because your calling looks very different than her calling and looks very different than the one who is called to be the room mom.
- Donna Summers [00:30:27]:Right. There’s nothing wrong with it.
- Kim Moeller [00:30:30]:Right. And the unit of the family, like, some families have the grandma living close by and others have no extended family and some have the au pair living with them. And so I feel like when we started having kids and just looking at how do you balance career family and there’s no perfect way, like you said, and there’s no right way of choosing the school choice for your kids, like homeschool, public school, and private school. Yeah. You can’t say that one of those is the right way because even in a given family, one kid might be doing public school and then this switch to Christian school or private school and the other is doing I mean, it changes. Life is so, you know, ever changing and these hard and fast rules of, well, the shoulds of if you’re a good mom, you should do this. Like, that’s just a lie. A lie.
- Donna Summers [00:31:30]:And I’m so glad I didn’t listen.
- Kim Moeller [00:31:32]:Right.
- Donna Summers [00:31:33]:
- Exactly. But it was hard, but I’m glad I didn’t listen. And Mhmm. You know, there were times I didn’t know who’s going to keep my kids the next day or the next month or a nanny would quit or something. But God always brought good opportunities and good ways for me to care for my children outside of me being a stay home mom. So I encourage you, again, I encourage the women. It’s not perfect. It’s messy.
- Donna Summers [00:31:58]: But do what the Lord has called you to do and He will honor it. He will meet the need. He will bring all the powers of the universe to you when you’re doing His work and if you’re doing His work and it isn’t bigger than you, it’s not big enough. It’s got to be bigger than you. I’m sure when you started this podcast, you thought, what? But it’s bigger. And then all of a sudden you get all these people. Right?
- Donna Summers [00:32:25]:It’s so true. Bigger than you.
- Kim Moeller [00:32:27]:It’s so true. Because if it’s not, then it’s all in our own strength. And when it’s bigger, it’s so not us. We just realized it’s all Him doing it, and we just are this vessel. So I love that you called that out. That’s so good. Okay. So we ask, you you know, at the end of the podcast, like, the favorite book and Bible verse and bargain.
- Kim Moeller [00:32:47]:So how do you even incorporate reading in your life? And are you one of those, like, you’re going to read 50 books in a year? Or No.
- Donna Summers [00:32:56]:I’m actually a terrible reader, but I do read but mostly I use audio books. I have an hour and ahalf to two hour drive to work every night. I work in Dallas so I listen to lots of audio books or podcast or I have different pastors that I follow and I’ll listen to you know different things like that. So I try to mix something fun,something Christian like I try to mix them up, but there are two books that I read, and I highly recommend. These are two books. If you’ve ever heard me speak, you hear me talk about these two books if I’m talking about personal Christianity. And they’re both by a lady named Lori Beth Jones. Shout out to her.
- Donna Summers [00:33:38]:I adore her. She lives out in California or she used to. I assume she still does. Anyway, the one’s called The Path, and that book was given to me by a very good friend when I was going through a very hard time when I was first being diagnosed with my when they were really diagnosing me with that first round of autoimmune and this book helps you write your personal mission statement and that book gave me just the faith and some additional measure of faith that I needed to know that this is what God has called me to do and my mission statement has been and has still is to ignite, evoke and release potential in myself and others.
- Kim Moeller [00:34:20]:Say that one more time.
Ignite, Evoke, and Release Potential
- Donna Summers [00:34:21]:To ignite, evoke, and release potential in myself and others. Mhmm. Really, I kind of put in Christ centered potential a lot of times in there because that’s really what it is. But I just find great satisfaction and I see the Lord bringing opportunities for me to help people see their potential or reach their potential or and it can be potential in a person. It can be a potential in a situation but an encourager, really, and a coach, if you will. My nickname at work has been coach before. I’m constantly teaching, coaching, and encouraging. And when you know that’s where your heart is coming from and it helps lead you in your day to day, Then the second book is about the four elements of success.
- Donna Summers [00:35:12]:And this book talks about personality profiles. Now, many of us have taken many of those different personality profiles. There’s a lot of them out there. They’re all about the same. But this one, I really love because it’s simple, and it’s very sticky. It’s very easy to remember. You can read the book, and then you can take a little quiz online, and she gives you a whole output of it. It’s not expensive.
- Donna Summers [00:35:33]:It’s very easy to do and it gave me such insight to who I am as a person. Mhmm. And I’m a fire. She does earth, wind, fire, water. So I’m a fire and that’s a very intense personality. It’s very driven. It’s very focused and so I’ve been misunderstood a lot of my life and it is I have a whole thing that I do on perception is reality, which we won’t go into today, but it helped me realize how I was being perceived and that is other people’s reality and And so I had to learn. There’s other personalities out there, and you need to talk to them in their way when you can to try to communicate and to move further ahead in communication.
- Donna Summers [00:36:13]:So I strongly recommend those two books. Excellent. And ithey’re really good.
- Kim Moeller [00:36:18]:I have heard of her, and there’s another book. Isn’t there one like, Jesus My CEO?
- Donna Summers [00:36:25]:Or There’s Jesus The CEO. There’s Jesus in Blue Jeans. Yes. They’re all good. They’re allgood.
- Kim Moeller [00:36:31]:
- That does sound great. And I really like the shout out about doing your own personal mission statement. I like how you were able to articulate it in one sentence. It gives you your north star of why you’re doing what you’re doing every day.
- Donna Summers [00:36:44]:Right. Right.
Favorite Bible Verse, Book, and Bargain
- Kim Moeller [00:36:46]:Okay. What about Bible verses?
- Donna Summers [00:36:48]:So I also have two of those that I just have followed me my entire life, and I can’t get away from them. One is John 14:27. It talks about peace. It says the peace I’ll leave with you is not like the world gives. And that scripture actually came to me right before I married my husband and I was not sure if I should say yes and was really praying through it. I mean I loved him and I felt like that was God, but marriage is a big step And he was different than anyone I had ever he was nothing like what I thought I would marry. There were things in his life that I just didn’t think I would have. And this scripture was saying to me that the Lord was going to give me peace, but it might not look like you thought or like I thought and that has followed me my entire journey through this perseverance. It might not look like I thought, but he still promised me peace through every bit of it. Now, sometimes that peace comes with a little fear.
- Donna Summers [00:37:49]:I know that sounds counterintuitive, but I believe we walk messy. And so my second scripture is in 2 Timothey 1:7 about He has not given us a spirit of fear, but of peace and love and of sound mind. And I love that because I hang on to that sound mind one a lot. Right. It’s crazy. Sometimes you feel like you’re just going crazy. Mhmm. But the Lord has just promised me those two in tandem that I’m going to give you peace.
- Donna Summers [00:38:14]:It doesn’t look like the world, but I’m also going to lead you. Don’t be fearful, but I know He put don’t be fearful in there because He knows we’re fearful. So sometimes I just have to say, I know you said, don’t be fearful, Lord. I’m a little fearful.
- Kim Moeller [00:38:30]:I’m afraid.
- DonnaSummers [00:38:31]:I’m afraid, but I’m going to do it anyway. And then over time to your point, as He meets us and He gets us through it, then we’re a little less fearful the next time. Mhmm.So those are my two go to scriptures.
- Kim Moeller [00:38:48]:Beautiful. Beautiful. Okay. And your bargain of the day.
- Donna Summers [00:38:53]:Oh, I was telling you earlier, that this is my hardest one.
- Donna Summers [00:38:55]:I’m a big bargain shopper. You know, I don’t know. I do a lot of stuff online, but I did find aclothing line I really like, and so I thought I would share it. They’re not very expensive. I don’tbuy a lot of expensive things. I’m not that person. I like to buy nice things, but I don’t like to buy really expensive. So I found this online.
- Donna Summers [00:39:14]:It’s called OGL, like, Ogle, o g l. And I strongly recommend any women go look it up. Their clothing is extremely comfortable, and wears really well. Once some of you women go on and look at it, you’ll understand. One point that I really like about it. I won’t mention it on here, but you will you will like it.
- Kim Moeller [00:39:34]:So Oh, nice.
- Donna Summers [00:39:34]:This is a bargain. I think they’re moderately priced and a good buy.
- Kim Moeller [00:39:39]:That’s perfect. That’s great. The prior guest, said Quince is the company she likes and they have cashmere sweaters for $50. So, there you go. Well, such a privilege and treat to have this conversation with you, Donna, and I’m so grateful for the referral from Ryan. And God bless you on all that you’re doing in all of your spheres of influence. And just thank you for persevering and not giving up and being an example to all of us listening, watching you, especially those who know you closely and God bless you in this season in 2025, whatever the Lord brings your way and just pray for abundance and his blessing.
- Donna Summers [00:40:27]:Thank you so much, Kim. I appreciate it. It was an honor being on and meeting you.
- KimMoeller [00:40:31]:Oh, thank you so much. Bye. Bye. Thanks so much for joining us today on the Generous Girlpodcast. We’re so glad that you’re here. And if you know of someone that you think needs to bea guest on this podcast, please reach out to us. New episodes are released every other week,
