Abundance 06: Accepting Limitations Transcript

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

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Emily Jensen: We wanted to talk a little bit about limitations and motherhood because limits are really those—almost circumstantial boundaries that God puts on our lives as moms. Maybe it has to do with your family size or a death in the family or a move or a job change or something that kind of happens that makes it feel like, "Ooh, I maybe can't do as many things as I thought I could,” “Oh, I can't really be exactly like I thought it was going to be,” “Our family is a little bit different," or "Hey, we're hitting our capacity maybe sooner than I thought." Those would be examples of limitations. I know for us, this has been really true as we've had a child with a disability. I know you guys have walked through that too.

Laura Wifler: Yes, we have experienced the same thing. [Laughter] Sorry. I'm here! I'm awake. I'm feeling limited.

Emily: I think there's just something maybe so visible about it when you go, "Hey, we have four kids who are typically developing and can go and do things, and we have one child that cannot stay up as late or cannot handle the same amount of stimulation, or his food is different." There are so many things that are different, and it has really shaped our family. Not totally—it's not in control of our family—but it has provided some limits, even in terms of my capacity, my husband's capacity. The types of things that we go and do are different as a result of that.

For me, there has been a real grief even as I have learned to accept, receive, and be content with the limitations that God has put on our lives and not be quite so mad or shaking my fist at God because of all the things that other families get to do that we wanted to do, but we can't do these things. Really going—"This is the life that God has given us with these kids."

There really is chronic stress that's accompanying it. There are care demands on my life and on my body and my physical and mental health that I did not imagine having. Caregiving and being a full-time caregiver in that—I don't disdain it, but it's been a huge sacrifice. It's meant that I'm more weak and need more care than I ever wanted to need. I think it's been a real wake-up call in terms of my own weaknesses.

Laura: Yes, well, I definitely can echo so much of what you said about having a child with a disability. I think with weaknesses and limitations, I mean—you and I were even just talking a little bit off air about not viewing all weaknesses as bad but knowing that there are bad ones. There are good ones. It's just a time where you recognize your insufficiency. I think for me, I often saw not only the traditional word of “weakness” in the sense of "Oh, you could try harder and get there or just learn how to lift more," or whatever it is—but also seeing limitations as bad things and feeling like "Well, those exist for some people, but I have a higher capacity."

That might be true, but it's not an endless, unlimited capacity. I would consistently feel like, "Well, I just need to be more tough, more organized, more resilient, and then I'll be able to get through it." My reasoning honestly felt pretty noble—like, "Well, I have everything Christ has, so that means that I can do this." It's sort of pulled from the Bible. “I'm trusting God with my season. God says he'll provide for me, so he will.”

There was an element of sort of twisting—I think in an ignorant way, not in a—I mean, it's prideful too, of course—but not in a known “I'm trying to do something a wrong way,” and yet it was very lopsided. It was very misguided. I felt like I was using these Christian truths in a way that didn't see the full picture of the Christian life and not realizing that we don't do the Christian life in a vacuum and that I am human and have limits, and they are far below—or they are far greater than—what I thought they were.

In the end, it really was an odd sort of pride and not depending on Christ's resources, at least not all of them—resources like Sabbath, resources like community, resources like trusting him for who he's created me to be and understanding my identity, resources like being able to cast all my cares on him, resources like not trusting him to have the power to meet needs where I couldn't.

All of these things have just been a growth process for me over the past few years—or ten years of being a mom—and I'm still learning. I'm still finding ways that pride pokes its head up, and I am saying, "Oh, okay, yes, here's another place where I have to cut it off at the knees or dig it out from the root."

I think that that's just the way of the Christian life, right? We continue to find things. It's that old saying of how you just keep seeing how sinful you are, even though you're like, "I feel like I've dealt with the big blocks.” But all of those little pebbles in there just are endless. It feels like that's kind of where I am with a lot of these things—"Okay, I've accepted limitations but not here and not there and not this little spot." [Laughter] It's like, "Okay, Lord." Anyway, it's a journey.

Emily: Yes. Well, I think that's what's interesting about the word “weakness”—because it's a relative term, in order for something to be lacking, you have to be measuring it against a bar of sufficiency. It's only in comparison to something else that you can be weak. It's one thing if we are comparing ourselves to another mom, and very quickly we can be like, "Okay, well, I guess I'm stronger than her" or whatever, but the second we compare ourselves to God and all that he has, it's like, "Whoa."

Our limitations compared to who God is and what he can do are just, I mean—the gap is so big, we can't even fathom it. That's what God says to Job at the end of all of the whole book. It goes on and on and on, then he's like, "Okay, do you want to talk about what people can do? Because I'll tell you what I can do."

Laura: Mic drop. Yes.

Emily: The minute we look at that, we just realize like, "Ooh, in my humanness, I am weak compared to God," but I think what's so encouraging is to know that—you and I are talking about very real, raw things that we've experienced in motherhood and accepting who we are and what God's put in our lives and trying to walk in faithfulness in that but just knowing that whenever we're at our lowest and most limited, we can always lean on and depend on God for help and guidance and protection and comfort.

All of those things are there and true for us. That life abundant is available in any season, even seasons where we're feeling like we're at the end of our capacity—we're burned out, we're not really sure what to do—even when we're walking through family situations that just feel impossible to bear. God is with us in that.

Laura: It reminds me a lot of what I was reading in Deuteronomy 8:1-3. Moses—he's talking to the Israelites, and he's given them instructions for entering the promised land and how to "live and increase"—which is what we all want, right? We all want to live and increase. I was like, "Yes." Yet, Moses reminds them that God gave them the suffering and the hardship of the forty years in the wilderness.

Why? That he might humble them and test them to know what was in their heart, and so they might learn that man does not live on bread alone but every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. I mean, if this does not speak to motherhood—that we end up in the wilderness so that we may be humbled, so that we may be tested, so that we may know what is actually in our hearts and learn that we don't live on our own sufficiencies, but we live from every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

This to me—I was just like, "Oh my goodness, Lord, this is where you have me in motherhood." I want to be tested. I want to be humbled, and it stinks, but I also want to know what's in my heart. I'm so thankful for the work that God has done to reveal in my life all of the areas where I'm not trusting him—of all the grossness that's in my heart. That comes through facing our limitations and accepting the very real realities of being a human being.

Emily: Yes. It's the upside-down kingdom. I mean, exactly what you're saying—we just look at our lives and are like, "Live and increase.”

Laura: Increase, increase, increase. 

Emily: Increase in followers, increase in bank account, increase in popularity, increase in my amazingness.

You want all that, but if you look at the Lord's followers in Scripture, more often than not, it's trials, suffering, testing, seasons of wilderness. Paul talks about the thorn in his flesh and how, ultimately, he was thankful for it because the thorn was what kept Paul right from getting prideful. It's what kept him humble. It's what kept him depending on Christ. It's what reminded him who was fueling his ministry because he was walking with this pain in his life.

That's true for us in motherhood. I think, when we look at our limitations, it's important to agree with God that his ways for our lives are better than our ways. His plans for our lives are better than our plans. That's really hard when we're talking about things like disability, or we're talking about maybe death in the family, or we're talking about marital struggles. I get how hard that is for us to reconcile, and yet, Scripture compels us to trust God's ways over our ways. We have to also trust our Savior, who says in Matthew 11, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” There's also this believing that there is rest available in Christ—in whatever circumstance we're facing.

Laura: Yes, I think often when we think of humility, we can quickly move towards feeling like we should be self-deprecating, or we should really zero in on our sin and just focus on all these ways that we're terrible and feel really bad about it. I know that's where I can kind of tend to go towards. Or we can have this self-talk—that it's going to keep ourselves in line, so we're going to say these things so that we don't get too big of a head—but really, all of that isn't the way of the cross. It isn't the way of the gospel. It's negative self-talk.

Humility is simply recognizing that we are not God. We don't need to be. We don't have to be—he gets all the glory. He already has it all, and we're here to serve and obey him. It's really just understanding our right place before God. I'm sure everyone's thinking about the Tim Keller quote: “Humility is thinking of yourself less.” It's not thinking more highly. It's not thinking more lowly. It's just thinking less of yourself. I think that that's always been a really helpful way of synthesizing this.

I just really love—Paul talks about this in Philippians 2:5. He says, "Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus." Then he goes into this poem. It's kind of a famous passage of the Bible. Some people even call it a hymn, but he's talking about Jesus and how Christ didn't consider equality with God something that was to be grasped or to be gained, but to be—he was to humble himself and assume the form of a servant. Be obedient even to death.

Christ became human. He took on human flesh. He accepted a limited body that required sleep and required staying in one location. It required forming friendships with only a few people—not everyone—and taking on a job as a craftsman. He ate food. He drank water to maintain his energy. This unlimited God became limited in some ways for a time. He accepted this and showed us what it looked like to live within these limits with grace, love, and humility.

Out of that, when Paul says, "Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus," a lot of times, I think of myself as coming up underneath God and just modeling what Christ has already done. I thought it was really interesting—just this tangible line of “the same attitude.” That struck me because it felt so clear. It wasn't just a "Do as I do." It was: "No, do exactly the same thing. Don't just kind of try to do it."

I think, when we come up underneath someone, we think, "I'm going to add my own flair. I'm going to do it Laura style” or whatever because we don't want to be duplicates of one another, but this is: "No, be a duplicate. Adopt the exact same attitude as that of Christ Jesus." It reminds me of those WWJD bracelets we all used to wear in the nineties. It was just that moment—I don't know why—of clarity for me—and maybe it'll help someone out there—where I was like, "No, I can embody the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus and display humility." I think that that just helped crystallize what I'm to do instead of feeling like, "Yes, it's something sort of like this."

Emily: Yes, and then thinking about those words of like—what does that attitude look like? It's assuming the form of a servant, being obedient to God—like you're saying—accepting limitations, having an attitude that's willing to accept limitations. Whoa—because I feel like moms know a lot about attitude, right? [Laughter] What is your attitude right now? Because a kid can kind of obey you and on the outside do what's right, but you can tell that their attitude is stinky.

I think, for me, that's something I'm learning about humility—how closely it is tied to contentment. Again, not just going, "Okay, Lord, I accept what you give me. I don't like it, but I accept it," but actually getting to this point where I say, "I'm content in this. I'm actually grateful to you because you say to give thanks in all things." Sometimes that's what I have to focus on when I'm struggling, not only like, "Yes, Lord, I accept this,” but “I rest in this. I think this is good for me, Lord. I agree with you on that."

I heard someone say recently that one of the things God is asking his people to do throughout the Bible is "trust the story." I think that really resonated with me because we can look back and see, in all of these things that are happening throughout the Old Testament narrative, God never made any empty promises. Sometimes he would promise something and then lots of time would pass—generations would pass.

It probably—I'm positive—felt like to those people, nothing was happening in the story. "God has left us. The story is just left hanging. It's never going to be closed." Yet we can see with the whole counsel of God—looking back—no, God fulfilled and will continue to fulfill every one of his promises. Every one of those prophecies came true or will come true. Yet, if they would have trusted the story that God was writing, that would not have been a misplaced trust. They could've been content with where they were at in that story.

Sometimes I'll think that to myself, whenever I'm struggling or I'm accepting—coming up against my limitations—it's like, "God, I want to trust the way that you're writing my story. I trust your story. Even when it seems like my limitations are growing, my trust in what you're doing in my life is not misplaced."

Laura: We want to talk through a handful of things over the years that have really helped us as we've grown in this skillset in motherhood. Again, we have not arrived. We would never say that we have, but these are some things that we found each other consistently reminding each other of throughout the years as we've talked about different things, and they've helped us really stay the course and prioritize our priorities and, again, adopt that same attitude as Christ has.

The first one is just accepting who God has made you to be. I know that I have really struggled with this over the years—feeling like I am in this constant fight with God, that I would like to be somebody different than he has created me to be. I'd rather be more demure and more quiet—just kind of low-key and laid back. I think everybody has that—their version of it.

If you are what I have aspired to be, you probably wish that you were more like me or something. It's this whole discontent element, but I think there is a point where we have to come to be able to say, "Lord, I accept how you have made me. I accept that you did a really good job and that I believe that I can be a faithful follower of God with the person you have made me to be." Because I think, for me personally, I thought, “I need to be those things so that I can be a good Christian.” That's what I thought it meant to be a Christian woman.

I was taking on maybe some of the things that I was raised by—the things that I had patched together, the things that I overheard, the things that I thought looked good— and cobbled together this Christian mom—that that is the best way to be. Sometimes we need to step back and say, "No, Lord. I accept who you have made me to be. I believe that there isn't a better personality to be as a Christian."

I think that that even plays into, "Okay, I accept, and I like that you made me to be somebody who needs to be at home and recharge by being alone. I accept that you made me to be somebody who enjoys being around other people and gets energy from people." The extrovert-introvert thing. I think sometimes we think that the other one looks better than the other. Instead, we can say, "No, these are both great ways to be. Neither one is a better personality to be. I think that that's really hard. I think that's a hard spot to get to.

Emily: It's hard to remember that whenever we're saying, "I want to be good at everything," or "I want to plan my life," or "I don't want to have these limits," or "I want to be this certain way." It's really, truly out of reach. We're not necessarily talking about areas of sin where we need to repent and trust God and improve. We're just talking about things that are neutral, and we're going, "I want to throw that off." It's another way of saying like, "I want to be God. I want to be you, God. I want to get to decide what people are like and what role they play in the kingdom and what their gifts and skills and abilities are. I want to determine that for me."

Ultimately, we know that that is pride and sin. Similar to that, along those same lines, I think, is remembering what God has called you to do or me to do or Laura to do— which I think is hard sometimes because we're on social media, and it's way different than back in the day when maybe you had your few neighbors that were around you. Yes, you could compare yourselves to a few moms here and there, but now we're comparing ourselves to hundreds—maybe thousands—of moms on a daily basis—a weekly basis.

We have all of this input of what good Christian motherhood should look like. Yet, that may not have anything to do with the actual life that God has us in right now. Yes, there are going to be some people who are kind of like the PTO mom, and she's super good at administration and super good at planning and super good at project management and all of those things. She really serves in that way. I would be a horrible PTO president.

Laura: She would.

Emily: I really would. I'm just acknowledging that, but there are other things that I'm good at doing, I think.

Laura: Absolutely. [Laughter]

Emily: I'm trying to think. I'm like, "No." I'm going, "But what do I do?"

Laura: You'd be a really good communication strategist for them. You'd be really good at strategizing vision and planning.

Emily: Oh, man.

Laura: Just don't give her any day-to-day task—

Emily: I'll show up—

Laura: —items without boundaries and deadlines. She needs deadlines, people.

Emily: Yes, I think it's good for us to realize God has called each of us to different things, and that's okay, and that's good. God has given us a husband that is different than her husband, so I can't live her life because that may totally put off my own husband. I've done that before—where I've tried to get really into something that my husband is like, "What are you even doing? We're not interested in that." You just realize a few years later, "Yes, we were not going to have chickens."

Laura: It's just an uphill battle.

Emily: I love it. I'm like, "Give me your eggs," but I'm not going to fight any more about the chicken coop because I don't really want one that bad, but I feel like I should have one.

Laura: Yes, totally. Well, even if people aren't on social media, I mean, we—what is it? Idol-making factories. That's what we are. We prop something up. I think that we have to remember that God has called us to good things, unique things, things that are often far more simple and straightforward than what we are trying to claw our lives into being. I know that for me—I think I talked about this on episode one of this whole series with abundance—but just sharing a little bit about how often I can feel like, “Am I really being a good Christian? Am I really being a good mom? Am I spending my time the right way?”

Those are perpetual questions that have plagued my life probably since I gave my life to Jesus at five years old. I'm pretty sure I've been wondering those things. I'm just like, "Am I doing enough?" That is something—I don't know why I often think about that, but there is an element of just remembering, “What is in front of you? That's what you're to be faithful in.”

I was thinking the other day about, "God, what should I do?" I was like, "I'll be a missionary. I should work for church. I should probably give all my money away." Those were all the thoughts that were going in my head. "Lord, I'll do it for you." Then, do you want to know what the Spirit brought to mind? The Spirit brought to mind, “Be patient with your husband. Be kind with your children. Spend a little more time with them.”

He brought to mind, "Hey, be a good neighbor. Keep doing that book club." Those are the things that the Spirit brought to mind. I was like, "Lord, I'm ready to just jump into something totally new for you and transform my life and move to a new country." What the Spirit brought to mind were these simple, ordinary, everyday things—these seemingly small things. He was like, "That's what's going to matter for eternity." You don't have to uproot your life and totally change it. Thank you for being willing. Thank you, but just be faithful in what's in front of you. It's way more simple. That is hard for me.

Emily: Yes, we tend to think like, "Hey, the more radical something looks, the more impactful it will be." Yet, you think about how radical it would be if we all just loved God and others and the life that we live. Honestly, in some ways, that is harder than uprooting our lives and moving. It is harder to persevere day in and day out over and over and over again in something that we're just kind of fed up with than it is to be like, "Okay, I'll just break from that and go jump into a new thing.” That will eventually also become mundane and eventually also become hard to do the right things in.

Laura: Totally. Another one to just think through is: do you have room to pivot or change as you think through your limits? This is the reality—that we all have limits. I think as moms, we're often saying, "Hey, how do I find that perfect balance?" That's the lingo that all of us like to use.

Over the years, Emily and I have talked a lot more about “What does stewardship look like?” If there is something such as balance, it is very, very active. It's something that requires us to constantly reevaluate and to think through “How do we make decisions or make changes based on what we know when we have at the time?” Our circumstances as moms—they're constantly changing. They are unpredictable. Our kids' attitudes, sicknesses, surgeries, funerals, a business opportunity, a new dream coming into our hearts at the wrong time—all these sorts of different things.

Do we have margin to make adjustments knowing that we are limited human beings and that maybe, "Hey, we do want to do something; it's a really good thing," but the realities of our life right now wouldn't allow us to steward what God has in front of us very well if we were to take on this new thing? Or do we have room in our schedule if the Lord brings something into our life like a sickness or disability?

Not that we need to leave this huge amount of margin in case lightning strikes, but just an element of—am I so busy that I cannot pause to feel the Spirit’s prompting in my life to be able to respond in a godly way? Or am I just zooming through life at such a fast pace that I will not even have eyes to see? I am saying this because this is me.

Emily: Yes, and just recognizing, like you're saying—your season does change. So, not having such tightly held fists, I think, to things that you were once able to do that now maybe you can't do, and your circumstances have changed, and it's not like, "Hey, I'm a totally different person," but there may be a season of life where someone is dealing with an autoimmune condition or something that is like, "Hey, this has brought on some significant health issues." No, you're not able to do and be all the things that you once were when that health issue wasn't as big of a thing. That's okay. 

The final principle we want to talk about is also leaning into the community that God has given you. We're not meant to do the Christian life alone, and not only do our limitations give us, obviously, an important reason to turn to the Lord but also to turn towards others and say, "This is where I'm needing help" or "This is where I need wisdom or counsel" or "I need other ideas from brothers and sisters in Christ. This is where I need people to come alongside me in prayer because I'm praying about this, but I need more people praying about this alongside me."

Just recognize that, yes, we're limited, but we're all part of one body, and God has made it so that we would depend on each other and help one another and that where one person is weak in the body, there may be another person who's strong in that area at one time. I mean, I know I've even experienced that in marriage—where sometimes I'm just kind of not in a great mood, and I'm not at my parenting best, and my husband is, and then there'd be another day where it's like kind of flip-flopped.

I just realized, "Oh, God has given us to each other that, together, most of the time, somebody is strong. Somebody is able to kind of think clearly in this situation," and I think that's true in the body of Christ or in friendships—things like that.

Laura: To that end, we are going to be practicing what we preach and taking some steps to honor our own limits because we have some pretty awesome things in store for you. We are writing not one but two books. We are so excited to do that, but that also means that we need to do some things to honor our limits.

Emily: Yes, I think that, as Laura and I are talking about with our seasons changing—our families changing and growing—and looking back even on what it took for us to write the Risen Motherhood book the first time and what that meant for our lives and for our families and for our ministry, we just have found ourselves this time counting the cost a little bit more and going, "Hey, this is something that's really important to us. This is something we feel like God has laid on our hearts to do in our ministry."

Yet, we can't just add big chunk after big chunk after big chunk and never let anything else go, right? We are not unlimited. We're not super moms. We are not super Christians. We are normal humans with limits and families who have needs and local communities that have needs. I think we're just really wanting to recognize that in the midst of this process.

Laura: Yes, we're going to tell you what the books are in a minute, but I think that it was really interesting because—kind of classic author culture, just to give you a peep behind the curtain a little bit. Classic author culture is like: you write one book and then you basically immediately go into writing the next book, especially for how well the Risen Motherhood book did. The expectation was, "Okay, and now you're going to write another one."

We are super thankful that our publishers wanted another one from us. We didn't know if we'd ever write again, but we really, intentionally were like, "We're not ready." It wasn't necessarily a lack of ideas, although having something that didn't stick out to us really strongly was part of it, but in general for us, it was just a, "Hey, we need to take a breather." That took a lot out of us. The ministry demands a lot of time from us as working moms and our family takes the rest.

We felt like we didn't necessarily follow the traditional path. In fact, it'll be—what is it? Five years between our books coming out, which is probably pretty unusual. Now, of course, Emily and I—we spent some time talking about her new book coming out. I've written some kids' books. But in terms of a collaborative project, we really said, "Hang on a little bit. We are not certain when the right timing is, but we know it's not right now."

We're excited because it felt like the answer just was no, no, no for so long—or maybe it was just "I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure." Then there was one day, literally Em and I were on family vacation at the lake house, and we were both just like, "Yes."

Emily: Oh, yes, let's do this. [Laughter] It was very simple.

Laura: It really was. You'd think there'd be these trumpet blasts and confetti falling down, but there really wasn't. It was just like, "You're ready? You're ready? I'm ready? You're ready? This is it. This is the topic." We just really felt like the Lord made it very clear and our hearts were really—again, we had talked about a lot of different book topics over the years, but this next book—which maybe, Em, you can tell them a little bit about it—but this one—we both, when it came to us, we were like, "This is the one."

Emily: This book that's coming out first is going to be called Gospel Mom. At this time, we don't have a subtitle for it.

Laura: No, we're kicking around a lot. [Laughter]

Emily: Essentially, we were kind of grappling with “What are some of the big pieces of the puzzle that we haven't had a chance to share really clearly yet with our community?” One of these things was not just “Creation, fall, redemption, consummation. What is that? Watch us sift some of our life circumstances through that” but was this idea of like, "Okay, how do you actually think like this? What are all of the pieces in the puzzle?"

Even when Laura and I get together, and we're like, "Let's write a show or let's think through a topic through a gospel lens," what are all of those different categories that we're bringing to the table? Trying to compile—this sounds really complex, but I promise we've, I think, made it into something that feels very readable and approachable—but just really going, "We want to pull the curtain back all the way and show you exactly what we're doing—show you exactly our thought process, exactly the way that we are thinking through a gospel lens," and put it out there so that you could do this in your life, in essence, without needing us to come on and say, "Here's how you sift this through a gospel lens."

Things like helping you think through the unique circumstances God has given you in motherhood—helping you think through “What are gray areas? What are clear commands? What is God's design?” Answering all those questions. Thinking through things like "Okay, what does it look like to have spiritual disciplines in my life? How might that vary from season to season? What are some other things that Scripture would have me do that would help cultivate the gospel in my life?" There's so many facets, and we just really wanted to get our arms around all of those and then put them in a book for you.

Laura: Yes, essentially, think of it as a book that helps you discern how to make decisions in motherhood and helps you stay focused on the kind of mom you want to be. Our hope and prayer with this book is that after you finish reading it—and it really builds on itself. It's sort of a thesis or a manifesto of what we've done—but after you finish the book, and you close the last page, that you can say, "Okay, Lord, I don't know everything because I'm limited, but I do know how to determine what you have for me next. I do know how to think through hard topics in a way that honors you, is true to your Word, and that walks in the Spirit."

We're going to give you really practical tips, principles, guidelines for how we think about things and how we make decisions for ourselves through a biblical lens. We know that in motherhood, decisions, becoming, and sanctification—those are hard things and things that we're all grappling with. We wrote this book to meet you right where you're at in hopefully very straightforward layman terms to help you understand, "Oh, this is where my life could head. These are how I could make some decisions. This is who I want to be and how I can get there."

Emily: Yes, I think you and I, Laura, have found so much freedom and joy in the last few years of motherhood, despite all of our weaknesses that we've been talking about, but overall, I think there has been a real coming into our own of, "Okay, this is the motherhood that God has given me. I do want to live out the gospel right here where God has me."

I think in our ten-plus years of being moms, now we're going, "Okay, what are those things?" We hope other moms don't have to take ten years to get there. You could start out your motherhood with this mentality. You could start out your motherhood recognizing, “It's okay to not look like your best friend or your sister or so-and-so online.” It is okay from day one to accept the motherhood journey that God has given you and to figure out how you're going to apply those gospel principles in your life and live them out and know that that is faithfulness.

You don't have to conform to another woman in order to be faithful. I think we just really felt like, "Oh, we wish we would have known this earlier." Honestly, in however many years we've been doing this podcast and asking these same questions over and over again, we really came down to like, "Okay, what we're really asking is not what do we do, but who should we be?" I just think there is an answer to that. We're hoping to help clarify that.

Laura: Who we are defines what we do. It's getting it in the right order. That's what we want this book to do. There is going to be a workbook that goes along with it. It is going to be, I think, very important.

Emily: Intense, in a good way.

Laura: Yes, it's going to be an important piece of the puzzle, though, because, again, this book—we sort of consider Risen Motherhood as your primer book. That's our first book—the green book. This book is sort of going to be a level two book. This workbook that goes with it—we're working really hard on it to help make sure that what you're reading in the book, in Gospel Mom—it crystallizes for you. You have chances to practice. It's going to be much more detailed than—if you're familiar with our guided journal that we released for the Risen Motherhood book. This baby is just custom. It's very detailed. It's got a lot of really cool things to work through.

We're very excited about the workbook that we've got. We think those two books are going to be hopefully really, really helpful. We have kept you guys in mind the entire way. We have just been thinking about “How do we speak to you? How do we meet you guys where you're at? How do we make sure that this all makes sense?”

Like Emily said, this is the book that we wish we could have started Risen Motherhood with. It's the book that we learned through the hard knocks of motherhood that we're hoping to maybe save you a little bit of pain in. We have a second book coming out. Wait, hold on. Gospel Mom comes out one year from about now, we think.

Emily: October 2024.

Laura: No, I think it releases in September now. I think they're moving the date.

Emily: Early Fall 2024.

Laura: Let's go with Fall '24. That feels good. So, Fall '24—you guys will be hearing lots more about it, but that is when Gospel Mom comes out. We have another book coming out just six or so months later—seven months later—untitled—but tell us about it, Emily.

Emily: This is really going to be a collection of works and writings over the course of Risen Motherhood. I think it's going to have a devotional feel to it. By that, I think we just mean it's going to be approachable and relatable, and it's going to have that heartfelt element to it. If you have enjoyed reading some of our microblogs over the years, or our newsletter notes from the editor, or just different articles or devotions that Laura and I have written for Risen Motherhood over the years, and potentially even some excerpts from shows and things like that, we wanted to compile these in a way that was accessible.

I think, on social media, you scroll past something, and that's just lost in oblivion, and you can never kind of come back to it again, but we were really hoping to pull this together as something that, again, in your kind of most tired moments of motherhood—your moments where you just need a little bite of something, and that's going to help encourage you. We want to have a whole book of these bite-sized gospel pieces to just encourage you right where you're at and bring together a lot of the writings that we've done in Risen Motherhood over the years.

Laura: Yes. This—you said Legacy Collection, I think—and that's very much the heart of this book. Something that you guys can just—you can read through the whole book at once—you can read a little bit at once—but that it's something that just encourages you in your motherhood.

We are already starting to pull that together. It's been really fun to kind of revisit some things. Of course, we'll be updating things, making them fresh. Emily and I can never leave anything alone. We are not able to do that.

Emily: It'll be edited, revised, rewritten. [Laughter]

Laura: Yes, basically new. Anyway, get ready for that. We've got two fun books coming out, and in light of all of that, it's so hard because I think we are in this sort of world where you should just keep pushing, just keep growing, just keep getting—

Emily: —more content, more platforms, expand your media, do video, do all the things.

Laura: Yes. Anyway, we toyed with all those things. We constantly talk about—how can we make Risen Motherhood better? How can we reach more moms? How can we keep bringing content to you guys? Also, as we've been talking about throughout this whole series, there are just very real limitations. At the end of the day—and we believe you guys respect this from us—that our families will come first.

In order to be able to produce content for you guys that's maybe outside of the realm of our traditional, typical things that we do, something has to be cut somewhere. For now, we're going to be ending this season a little bit earlier than is normal for us— than is traditional for us in the past few years—but that is so that we are able to take time away to put these pieces together for you guys—to develop these things which we believe are going to serve moms—that is going to be a resource that hopefully will last far beyond the podcast. So we're shortening this season, and we're ending it with just six episodes or so in.

We'll be back in the spring—full-on, new episodes. Risen Motherhood content is still running strong, of course. You can go to social media and find encouragement there. You can go to our site, read the articles, check out our resources pages—which are constantly updated. None of that changes. But for the work that Emily and I do—because we so desire to make sure that we are able to give our families more than enough of us, as much as we can—but also, we do feel called to this. We're always just wrestling with where our time goes. That's sort of how this shook out. We hope that that is an answer you guys feel good about and feel okay with because we do care about you guys. We want to continue, like I said, putting out great content, but that's kind of where we're headed for the next couple of months.

Emily: Yes. I know along the way, Laura, you and I have talked many times about what a shame it would be if we had a successful ministry about gospel motherhood and we did not live it. That would be really horrific. [Laughter] I laugh because the reality of that is just so weighty to us.

Laura: It's so near. We've seen it happen to too many people.

Emily: I think just for us, as this ministry has gone on—and I think that there's continued pressure to do more and be more and put our faces out there more—we are just really sensing this desire to pull back closer to our families—to really stay true to the roots of this and to say, "Yes, these outward opportunities can never usurp the opportunities that are in our home," because if they do, then we've missed the point.

We're just grateful to you guys for understanding, and, like Laura said, we're going to continue to podcast. I think it's just less. We have some great projects coming out in the future that we hope will also help fill in the gap and be an equipping resource that will last you far beyond Laura and I.

Laura: Okay. For now, we're out until late winter/early spring of '25—'24, I mean. '24. Man, years.

Emily: '24. [Laughter] We don't know what year.

Laura: When you're an author, you live your life three years in advance, so I never know what year it is. I'm living in the future all the time, but anyway in the meantime, like we said, all sorts of great content that you can still find running at risenmotherhood.com, so go check out home base there, and we will be back soon with lots more details on the books as well.