Why I Started This Podcast

“There is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:42 

New Revised Standard Version

Oh, hello, and welcome to The Better Part podcast with me, Carol.  This is going to be a little intro behind the reason for this podcast and a little bit of a background about me as well

I’m excited to finally be doing this after starting a podcast, and it was put on my heart sometime last year. It’s taken so long to happen because I was unsure of what I was going to share, was it going to be my mental health and my faith or just one of them?

I also needed a title and I felt that would help me decide what I would share on this podcast so primarily, I’m going to be sharing my journey as a new Christian as of late 2019.

So why, the better part, where did that name come from?  

Towards the end of last year, I had it put on my heart about the story of Martha and Mary in Luke chapter 10, which is their encounter with Jesus, where Martha is busy in the kitchen preparing the meal for all the unexpected guests of Jesus and his disciples, and Mary is just sat at his feet drinking in every word that Jesus is saying.

At that time, I was wanting to grow my relationship with Jesus. I was wanting to get to know him better, so I was spending more time with him and learning to sit at His feet as Mary was in this passage.

“Her sister Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught.”

Luke 10:39

New Living Translation.

I mentioned this story from the Bible to a friend at Church, and she recommended I read the book ‘Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World’ by Joanna Weaver, which I subsequently bought and began reading.  

It took me about six months to read the first half of the book, and then a few weeks ago, I took it into work to read as it was very quiet, don’t worry, the manager doesn’t mind us reading at work as long as we put the book away as soon as we get a customer, which I do. 

So I was reading a part of the book where it was talking about Mary choosing the better part, which was from the Bible passage that I read at the beginning of this podcast. I just loved that bit, the better part and I just couldn’t get it out of my head, and so there it was - the title. 

That night I went home from work, and I ended up designing possible logos for the podcast, and a few days later, I created an Instagram for it in an email for it; the links for those are in the description of this podcast.

Why was I so drawn to Martha and Mary in Luke chapter 10?  

As I said earlier, I’m a new Christian as of late 2019, and I was feeling that Jesus was wanting me to know Him better. He obviously knows me, but I don’t really know Him. 

So how do we get to know someone?  We spend time with them, and in this case, it’s spending time studying the Bible. 

I will share my testimony about how I became a Christian in another episode. 

Over the past few years, we’ve all slowed down because we weren’t allowed to do certain things and now that things have opened up again to a bit more normality than what we were used to pre-pandemic, we are suddenly expected to be back up to the speed that we once were.

Most of us have used the past few years to reevaluate our lives and are much more aware of what’s actually important. That there’s more to life than just work and we’re all aware of having a better life-work balance as well, and instead of working to live; living to work.

So, who am I?  What’s my story?

I’m Carol, and I live in Lancashire, England.  I've lived here for a few decades now, and I have a day job that pays the bills.  In 2018 I began sharing my mental health journey on a blog, which has grown into also sharing it on Instagram and YouTube.

Thirteen years ago, I walked away from an abusive relationship and over the following years, I was diagnosed with anxiety, depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of that relationship.

I have had counselling and therapy, as well as been on antidepressants on and off over the last thirteen years.  

My thoughts with this podcast is to have seasons as such made up of ten episodes, after which there will be a break where I can work on the following season. 

This gives me a bit of breathing room to hopefully be consistent with episodes. 

I have a few ideas for the next couple of podcasts, but if there’s something specific you’d like me to talk about from my journey, either DM the podcast on Instagram or email us at the better part podcast at gmail dot com. The links for both of those are in the podcast description.