Ask Us Anything! Spring 2022 Edition Transcript

Emily Jensen: Okay, let's talk a little bit about today's special episode. We have not done one of these in a while, but we used to do them periodically. This is an "Ask Us Anything" Show. What that means is that we sourced questions from all of you through social media. We try to answer as many as we can. This is a super conversational episode. We're going to have all of our questions listed in our show notes, as well as a link to all of the AUA questions we've had over the years and different answers and resources for you. Buckle up.

Some of you guys occasionally ask for longer episodes—this is an extra-long episode. We hope this is just a fun, bright spot in your spring as we wait for our next mini-series that will be dropping very soon.

Laura Wifler: All right, Emily, you're going first.

Emily: Okay.

Laura: Give me one hack that has changed your life.

Emily: I can think of one. There was an influencer—I think a year ago—that shared on Instagram stories that she bought these wristbands—athletic, old school, '80s style wristbands.

Laura: Okay. Like sweatbands.

Emily: Sweatbands, thank you. Sweatbands, that's what they're called. She puts them on her wrist and uses that to wash her face at night. I didn't know how much I was going to love this until I bought my own packet of sweatbands and I started to put them on my wrists every night. Now I wash my face every day because I don't get that disgusting like—

Laura: —It drips down your wrist, it goes in your shirt—it's awful. It’s terrible.

Emily: Yes! And I used to avoid washing my face because you have to bend over the sink and then it's on your elbows—

Laura: Yes, it's dripping everywhere.

Emily: —It's pooling down onto the floor. It was so intense. I was like, "I don't want to take a bath right before bed." [Laughter]

Laura: Well, yes, it's really annoying.

Emily: I do want to take a bath, but not because I'm washing my face.

Laura: Exactly.

Emily: It stops all of the water from running down your arms and it's amazing.

Laura: That does sound brilliant.

Emily: Now I like washing my face.

Laura: Okay. I still don't like washing my face. I don't use those all the time, but I should probably pull those back out because I saw the same thing. I definitely use the sweatbands, yes. Hilarious. Okay, that's a good one. I like that. Everyone, we will link to the sweatbands.

Emily: Yes, I think you can just get them on Amazon.

Laura: Yes, we'll link to them in our show notes.

Emily: They don't have to be pretty—just do the job.

Laura: No, yes, only your husband sees them probably.

Emily: All right, what about you, Laura?

Laura: Okay. A hack that changed my life. I don't know, I feel like there are probably—

Emily: Why don't you share something with your meal planning? You're really good at keeping organized with all of that.

Laura: Okay. Well, I feel that this is not a brilliant system, but Emily tells me this is a brilliant system.

Emily: I just write it on paper or it's in my brain. [Laughter]

Laura: I can't believe you live in the dark ages. How is that even possible?

Emily: I don't know. I did get a cute chalkboard, but it's not always updated.

Laura: That would kill me to have to update a chalkboard. Okay, my friends, I am not saying this is the most brilliant idea in the world—I'm truly not—but it has made my life and meal planning easier. I cook a lot from the internet. I think that that helps as well. I go to food blogs which are painfully laden with ads—

Emily: I was just going to say—help me hack how to use a recipe from a food blog without it crashing my computer.

Laura: What is with all the videos? Like 400 videos pop up and you're just like, "I'm going to go crazy. I'm going to go insane," when you look for the actual recipe, right?

Emily: Yes.

Laura: I cook a lot from the internet, and I also don't cook the same meal very often. I'm frequently changing it up. We're not just tacos, pizza. I feel like some moms—their hack—and it's a really good one—"I make pizza one night and I kinda switch up the toppings." No, not me. I like a new adventure every single night, something that I can explore and create with. Anyway, I take the URL and I just pop it into my Google Calendar. Just on that day, it becomes an all-day event. My husband can look and see what we're having for dinner. He likes to know sometimes. If we like that meal, I set it to recurring. If we really liked it, I'll recur it for every month.

Emily: You're meal planning for the future. I like it.

Laura: I'm meal planning for the future. It is amazing, actually, to have it like, "Oh, yes, I forgot about that meal," because again, I don't cook a lot of the same things.

Emily: What do you do if you're like, "Oh, I'm too busy to make that meal tonight—I'm going to make this other meal instead"?

Laura: That is the beauty of the Google Calendar.

Emily: You move it on your calendar?

Laura: I just move it on the calendar. Yes, because I still have those ingredients, so I just scoot it over on the calendar to the day that I can make it and it keeps it all in there, really handy. If I make something from a recipe book, I'll just say something like—I don't know: "Joanna Gaines, page 84," or whatever her Magnolia book is. I'll put in the page number and then I can go and get the book. Again, set it to recurring if you really like it. My whole life is organized on Google Calendar—my whole world is there. I might as well put the food that I eat there because that is the most important thing.

Emily: It's brilliant.

Laura: Yes. Well, I hope it helps someone out there. It is a good hack, I've been doing it for probably seven years—a long time—since I started using Google, which—I don't remember life before Google. It's a long one.

Emily: All right. Let's switch gears. We had a lot of questions about conferences and hearing us speak in person, and if we come do in-person motherhood talks and mom events.

Laura: Or if we're ever going to host an R|M conference.

Emily: If we're ever going to host an R|M conference.

Laura: That was a good one, yes.

Laura: The answer to the conference is probably not.

Emily: Oh, the Risen Motherhood conference?

Laura: Yes, Risen Motherhood. We have no plans, at least right now.

Emily: No plans for Risen Motherhood conferences.

Laura: Yes, because conferences are a beast. You just don't whip one of those out easily.

Emily: Huge thing to plan.

Laura: Yes, at this time, no plans, but you never know. The Lord knows; we don't know. We'll just leave that open in his hand. As far as other church events and conferences, I personally don't speak very often. It's just something in this season of life that I'm not able to do as well, just with being away from my kids. Emily, what about you? I'll let you speak for you.

Emily: I'm the same. I think a couple or few years ago, I was doing more of those events and just found that it was too much with kids. Now that all of our kids are in school, it feels like those evenings and weekends are just like super precious. I sometimes will do one or two events a year and try to prioritize something that's local or something that our whole team can go to. Just not very much. Maybe someday.

Laura: Well, we want to say too—we're super honored by how many of you do ask us. We receive requests really frequently, and it is such a gift to us that you guys would even consider us for your events. The answer isn't like a blanket "no," but we also want to be realistic of where we're at in life. For Emily and I—we've talked about before, you and I—that something beautiful about the podcast is that we are able to do it without ever leaving home. It's able to reach a lot of women and it's something that, for right now, feels like a good use of our time. There are so many great speakers out there.

Emily: There are.

Laura: Just so many really talented and gifted women, probably some right in your church. That's also where I feel like—at least, again, for me—I don't feel like that is a need that I need to meet, but by being on the podcast, I'm able to steward my gifts. Well, I don't know if this is making sense.

Emily: Yes, I think it makes sense.

Laura: Okay.

Emily: We are doing—

Laura: Oh, we do have an event, though, if you want to see us.

Emily: —a conference in June. We wanted to tell you guys about this. If you do want to see us in person, we occasionally do live podcasts and we are doing one in June at The Gospel Coalition Women's Conference: June 15th through 18th. It's called Remember Your Joy: Salvation Stories in The Old Testament. It is a huge, amazing conference with lots of speakers. It's a great thing to bring a group of women to. Make it a bonding trip even for you and your friends or people from church. It's just a really great thing.

We're doing both a live Risen Motherhood podcast, and both Laura and I are participating in individual panels, and we're having an auxiliary event, where we are getting together with some of our friends and having candid conversations.

Laura: Yes. There's a lot of ways to connect with us because we would love to meet you guys, and we love to talk with you and hear your stories and all that good stuff. I have to go back with this conference. I remember going to The Gospel Coalition Conference. It was before Risen Motherhood. It was probably a year before Risen Motherhood was even an idea at all.

Emily: 2014 maybe.

Laura: Yes, something like that. They had a conference in that—it's an every-other-year conference. You, guys, it was such a gift to me. I went with some friends when I lived in the Chicago area. I remember just soaking in so much knowledge. It's definitely a fire hose conference, where there are so many amazing things that are said and you're just taking notes like a mad woman but walking away—and I still remember some of the things that I learned at that conference, some of the things that the speaker said. It is wild, I think, for me to be on the other end of things at this point.

I guess I want to encourage you that I have been there on both sides and what I can say is that it is an amazing conference. It's authentic to the core now that we're on the other side too—being on the speaker side and seeing what some people might say is the back end. All the way through, the desire is to serve women and to help them know and love God. It's just a Bible conference about God. We just encourage you guys to go. Like Emily said, we have quite a few events there, but there are so many great speakers that you can go and see. Our breakout podcast, though, is on a fun topic. It's on fitness and working out—burpees, biceps, all the things which we don't have.

Emily: I know. I'm working on tiny biceps.

Laura: Tiny biceps.

Emily: Maybe we can talk about that more on the show.

Laura: It's quite motivating to be like, "Oh, man, I got to talk about fitness soon. I better go work out because I got to." We are excited to apply the gospel to fitness. We haven't really heard anybody do that, so we're going to do that live if you want to come see us. Again, June 15 through 18.

Emily: We're going to have a donor meet-up. If you donate to Risen Motherhood and you were going to be there—we got to do that last year. We got a little private room, and everybody got to come in and meet our team members that were there in person. We just got to chat. It's just a really, really sweet time. It was one of the highlights of the whole conference for us—just getting to meet all of those donors face-to-face and hear their stories. We would love to see you there. Be on the lookout for an email for details.

Laura: If you want to sign up for the conference, you can go to thegospelcoalition.org/tgcw22—and we will link that in our show notes too—but if you want to sign up, head there. Next question. This one is just a classic. "What time do you wake up in the morning and what time do you go to bed at night?" 

Emily: So, is this seasonal for you a little bit?

Laura: Oh my goodness. I didn't think this would be a complex question. [Laughter] I don't think it's seasonal for me. No, but go. I want to hear this.

Emily: I don't know that it is seasonal. I was just thinking whenever somebody asks a question like this, I always default to what I do during the school year—

Laura: That's fair.

Emily: —but then summertime—you're staying late at the pool.

Laura: That's very true.

Emily: More leisurely mornings. During the school year, I wake up between 5:45 and 6:15, and it varies a little bit based on like what time I went to bed. Did kids wake up in the night? Is it raining outside or not?

Laura: Please remember we do not have newborns.

Emily: Oh, I don't have a newborn, no.

Laura: So if you are listening to this and in shock and awe—we do not have little babies.

Emily: Right. Then our kids stay in their room until 7:00. Anytime between 5:45 and 7:00 is just reading the Bible, chatting with my husband, whatever. Then at night, in order to wake up in the morning, I usually go to bed between 9:00 and 9:30.

Laura: Absolutely. The key to waking up early is going to bed early.

Emily: I love it. I love going to bed at 9:00.

Laura: I love going to bed. Yes, I love going to bed too!

Emily: Are you in your jammies at 8:00 or no?

Laura: No. I know you guys hop into your bed sometimes, don't you—like you're in your bedroom?

Emily: Yes.

Laura: No, my husband and I are up until like 9:30 or 10:00, and then I go back and get ready for bed and I'm asleep. Then I get up at 5:00, and it's pretty consistent. I'm the weirdo that wakes up at 4:30 and it's like, "Wait till 5:00, wait till 5:00." I don't know why I am like this, my friends, but that is the way I am. This is the next question: "Give us some thoughts on how you've changed as you've gotten older or to a later family stage."

Emily: I think one of the biggest things I've noticed lately is: I feel more confident and less like second-guessing every decision that I make or looking over my shoulder all the time. I think, as the kids have gotten older, I've gotten maybe better at counting the cost of a decision or recognizing whether this is a big thing or a small thing, whether this is something that's easy to pivot from or hard to pivot from. Or, if I need to pivot, how I could do that in a way that is going to have not such a significant impact on everybody. I just remember in those really early years feeling like everything was such a huge deal.

Laura: Absolutely.

Emily: Everything was going to either wreck my child or bless my child. I think I just don't feel like that quite as much anymore. I see, like, okay, this is a marathon. Every decision is important. All these little moments do matter, but I don't have to feel like questioning myself 24/7 of—I don't know if that makes sense.

Laura: It absolutely makes sense. I think there is a leveling out as you get to a later stage of motherhood, and whether you became a mom at age 20 or age 30, there's something about being, I don't know, almost 10 years in now—for both Emily and I— into motherhood, where—that's a long time. When I say 10 years, I'm like, "That took a long time," but you even out, and, like you're saying, you're not quite as volatile. I think the highs are still really high, but the lows are not quite as low or as scary. I think you start to see—even in my own life, not even just in motherhood—but I have started to see a lot more sanctification. I was thinking the other day about how it's funny because I'm finally old enough—I'm 35—and I can see trends.

Emily: That's a good way to put it.

Laura: We are wearing clothes that I wore in high school again. I remember my mom saying, "That was popular when I was in school. I can't believe you're wearing that again," and I just thought, "Oh, you know nothing." All that young, youthful zeal I had at the time, and I'm like, "Oh, wow, I see how it goes around and comes around." It's funny to be old enough to see trends in clothing and design and things to come around. I feel like I sound like I'm the older woman.

I think that perspective is only gained by time. It's not something that you can just say, like, "I want this, I will be like this. I logically know this; therefore, I will embody this." There's something that comes with, I think, going through the hard—the suffering, the difficulty, the questioning, the processing with friends—all that stuff that you have to go through. And once you go through that, can you really, I think, understand and get to a point where you're somebody who just says like, "Okay, I know that there's hope on the other end," or "I know that we're going to get to another season. This isn't all there is." That kind of stuff.

Emily: I think that last bit that you were saying was what I wasn't saying very eloquently earlier—there's this greater hope that I have, this greater trust in the Lord that he is at work in our family and that—what you said—there are seasons for things, and it's okay if things feel tough right now. God is at work in the midst of that too. Yes, I think that's good.

Another thing—speaking of early bedtimes—is I think I take better care of myself than I used to. I focus, I think, a lot more on my health and pacing myself and recognizing that it's not always, in the long run, a benefit to others if I am just pouring out everything and not paying any attention to some of the really basic things that I need as a human, like sleep, nutrition, movement, and activity. I'm not talking about spa days—those are nice—or those extra things we all—

Laura: But it is self-care. It's a version of self-care.

Emily: Sure, but I think like just the basic—how did God create me? What are my limits? How is my body designed to need certain things? Certainly, there are moments—we've talked a lot about this in our book. I've talked about this on other podcasts. We have lots of other content on this. I'm just saying—I think that that's something I've learned, and I don't feel as guilty about making time for those things.

I'm going to go outside and get fresh air today or sunshine, or I'm going to go on a walk, or I'm going to read a book before bed—just things like that. I think realizing like, "Hey, I want to be around, Lord willing, for my great grandkids and for my grandkids." I want to have energy and be involved, and I recognize that I have to make some of those investments now.

Laura: I think it's because we see our bodies breaking down. You turn mid-30s and you are like, "Man, everything hurts. I get sick all the time." You really have to take care of yourself, and you realize, like, "I can't put my body through the things that I used to."

Emily: Yeah! You used to be able to stay up all night and then the next day you're like, "I'm tired, but I'm fine." I don't feel like that now.

Laura: I feel that for weeks. For weeks.

Emily: What else for you, Laura?

Laura: Oh, I think that's it. I'm sure there's lots, but—

Emily: Are you enjoying the middle ages?

Laura: I love them. [Laughter]

Emily: The middle ages?

Laura: Oh, I don't know.

Emily: The middle stages?

Laura: Yes, I love the middle stages of kids. Oh, you mean of childrearing, of children, or whatever?

Emily: Yes.

Laura: Well, I'm using really weird words.

Emily: I know.

Laura: I cannot tell you how fun it is. I have a seven—and one of my kiddos will turn nine next week—a seven and a nine-year-old, and I absolutely love this age. Getting to talk with them, getting to hang out with them. They tell jokes that are truly funny. They have actually real, interesting interests. We can talk back and forth. They're logical. They're fairly responsible.

I've never felt like I'm personally a baby person. I always wished I was a little more nurturing in that way and felt a little bit of guilt, but I know that that's okay. As my kids have gotten older and older, I've just felt like, "Man, this is my jam, and I love it." I've heard from so many moms lately—just good, awesome moms—who have said, "Hey, teenager years are even more fun." I think sometimes the world can give teens a really bad rap. It can feel really scary; it can feel really terrifying to go to those ages of 13, 16, 18, or whatever, but those moms that I have been talking to have been saying, "Oh, man, if you think 8 years old is fun, just wait till they're 14." I'm like, "Yes, I'm so excited," because I feel like I'm at a high point in the button of my motherhood. How could it get any better? I really, really do love this stage. I don't expect it to always be this fun—truly I don't—but I'm like, "I want to soak that up while I can." I truly am like, "How do I bottle my children up right now?" So fun.

Emily: Just a little plug to all of you who have babies and toddlers right now and are in the thick of it. I know it can be hard to hear—like, "Oh, I just want to fast forward to that point"—but I think some of what we're enjoying now in the middle years is a result of—a lot of what we're enjoying now is a result of what we were doing in those baby/toddler years. I think it's so hard to know and believe deep, deep down that the discipline that I'm doing is making a difference, the training that I'm doing is making a difference, the conversations that we're having, the culture that we're setting in our home, the prayers that we're praying, the rhythms that we're putting in place—a lot of that feels like you're not seeing any of the reward yet. Maybe you get little glimmers here and there, but it can feel very, like, "When is this going to pay off? When is this going to change their heart? When is this going to create a child that I have fun with, and I can have conversations with?" I can tell you—with us having 7, 8, 9, almost 10-year-olds—it's here. Don't give up those things that you're doing now because you're not seeing the results yet.

I think we started to see a lot more of that when they turn 5, 6, 7. Right in that stage, I remember a transition happening. They became really different and a lot more mature. And a lot of things that we'd spent years and years and years teaching and saying over and over and over again, feeling like they're never going to get this, I see them getting now, and I'm like, "Oh, it just wasn't time yet."

Laura: Yes, I know. I remember we went through a couple seasons where our kids, at different times, would go through a season of lying or deceit or whatever and another season of complaining a lot and grumbling, and I would just be like, "Oh my word." I remember you and I talking about this, like, "Are our kids going to grow up to be like lying criminals the rest of their lives?" Of course, we don't exactly know.

Emily: We don't know.

Laura: It's also such a good perspective to remember their behavior at these younger ages is not indicative of their future. We have seen our kids walk through those things and process through them, and we know that they're still sinful, there are still hard things that we're going to face. It is not going to be perfect, but, again, going back to what we talked about the beginning, having that perspective and seeing, oh, things change, seasons do in fact evolve and become different, I think it's such a good hope. Even when I see little things right now with my kiddos, where I'm like, "Ooh, we kinda need to work on that." It's not a—

Emily: —Not quite as discouraging.

Laura: It's not quite as discouraging. 

Emily: Yes, that's good.

Laura: Yes. Okay, here is another question. We're moving away from personal ones. "Can you share about mom comparison jealousy, particularly among church moms? Because we see each other so often and we see each other's kids grow up."

Emily: This is a good question. Okay. I think one thing I've learned over the years to keep in mind is that I don't know what's going on inside someone's house, and I don't know the whole story of their family or their motherhood. I feel like the theme of this show is time and perspective. Over the course of time, I've noticed, a lot of times, we just see a snippet of somebody. What may look like, in that moment, "Wow, they're doing such an amazing job in this one specific area," or "Oh, man, I've been to the park with them three times, and all three times their kid has had a huge meltdown and whatever."

You're just seeing such a small sliver, and you don't know all of the backstory. You don't know all of the moments. Also, you don't know what that mom is dealing with from her own childhood wounds to her own traumas and faith struggles and potentially marital struggles. A lot of times people are just doing the best that they know how. They're hurting. I just think there are so many factors. That's something I've backed off on more as I've gotten older—this comparison mindset of, like, "Is she good? Is she not good? I'm better, I'm worse," or "Her kid was so good," or "My kid was so bad." It's like, okay, let's spend some time being curious about what's going on and recognizing everybody's got a bigger story.

Laura: Yeah, and put in the God factor. What I mean by that is, I think—just like we were talking about—when my kids have gone through seasons of difficulty where I'm like, "Oh, their sin is on full display in front of all my mom pals" and stuff, I think there's an element of recognizing everyone's testimony is so different and the way that they come to the Lord is so different. Don't count anybody out for that and don't count yourself out for that.

When we get stuck in this comparison trap, a lot of times for me, it's because I'm spiraling, feeling like "Oh, no, this is the whole future," and like "They're doing a better job. They're already investing money better than I am," or "They already have better jobs than I do," or "They already have a better house than I do." You start putting all these things in. First of all, we're putting our value into things that we shouldn't be—the Lord doesn't ask us anyway—but also, you have no idea what the Lord's going to do.

Like you said, Em, with this theme being time, I do feel like having 10 years under my belt as a mom has shown like, man, some of those kids who were perfect toddlers have had more tough seasons as they've gotten older. Some of those kids who were really difficult, strong-willed toddlers are such obedient, kind, wonderful kids now. You just can't know how someone's going to turn out, even in spite of a parent's efforts, and a parent may be the best parent ever and their kid is just a wild one. The Lord knows. Sometimes you have a parent who isn't doing as good of a job, or maybe you had a big parenting failure, and yet God's grace covers that.

When we are comparing ourselves to other moms, we have to step back and say, "Do I have a bigger perspective here than just this one isolated moment at the gym, at the playdate where we're all pushing around these carts and there's basketballs everywhere?" Am I only looking at that? Can I step back and say, "Who knows where the Lord is going to take us in the next 10 years"?

Emily: Amen. I'm radically different than I was as a kid. I know a lot of people that, like you said, one way or the other, they were the model child growing up and they were sweet and churchy and memorized all their Bible verses and they're not walking with the Lord as an adult or vice versa. They came to Christ, or somebody who was a troublemaker as a kid ends up being an evangelist and a pastor and whatever.

I just think the story's not over 'til it's over. I try to challenge my heart in those moments where I feel either that type of comparison one way or the other of—I want to hope the best this child for their story, for that mom. I want to root them on, pray for them, have hope that God is still at work in their life, and, like you said, not make a judgment or an assumption, for my kids either, about whether they're going to be good or bad.

I think it's also good to remember—I like what you said about the gym—is that I don't want my kids judged by the random 30-minute interaction I had with someone. They were having an off day and did something weird or hard. I don't want that person thinking I'm a horrific parent and they're a horrific kid because I can't believe they did that. It's like sometimes you just catch people in a bad moment and sometimes you catch people in a good moment.

Laura: That's so true. They have the right words and you're like, "Oh, man, I'm the worst mom," because I could never have thought to draw that amazing gospel connection to our daily life. Yet it's like—maybe they've had more practice, maybe they have older kids, maybe the Spirit just worked in them in that moment. Don't ever think that he cannot work in you in that way. You did not get the short end of the stick from God. Don't believe that whenever you start getting into that comparison game.

Emily: I think another factor—this is switching gears, but we had sort of another question that was alongside this question. It had to do with differences in motherhood in gray areas. Differences with a friend don't necessarily mean we're doing something right or wrong or that something needs to change. I think that took me so long to remember, because every person has different strengths and weaknesses and different personalities and a different husband and a different financial situation and, again, different background and upbringing.

I think sometimes as moms, again, we want to be like each other, and we want to do everything exactly the same. We assume that when we see our friend parenting a little different or making choices that are different with activities or making choices that are different in screen time or whatever all these things are—that must mean either she's right and I'm wrong or vice versa.

It's like, actually, within the context of our lives, assuming it's not overt sin, we may both be making the right choice. Actually, it would be the wrong choice for me to get my kids enrolled in that exact same activity structure as my friend just because I felt pressured to do that. That actually might not be good for my kids even though it's good for her kids. I just feel like we have to get out of this black-and-white thinking of "If I'm not like my friend, then one of us has to be right or wrong."

Laura: I think that is so true. That is a huge and hard thing to understand. As friends, we can encourage one another too and just say, like, "Hey, this is the decision that I've made for my family." Sometimes I think we want our friends to do the same thing. We're trying to convince them to do the same things and realizing like—what is a gospel, salvific issue and what is just you recognizing where your life is at, what your circumstances are, what your personalities and interests are? I'm so here for that, Em.

Emily: Just remember the only person that has to live with your guys' choices is your family. I always have to remember I don't have to live with that family's choices, and they don't have to live with ours.

Laura: Praise the Lord. So often I will just be like, "I don't understand, but that's okay. I'm not accountable for that."

Emily: That's okay.

Laura: That's not in my zone. Get that outta here. Okay, another question that somebody asked is, "How do I encourage my kids to have godly friendships, and what role should a parent play in that?" I'm going to start this one, I think, because my parents really did a lot of this with me up growing up. They really encouraged that my closest circle of friends would be Christians. They literally just would explicitly say that—something like "Hey, we want you to have friends that are—any friends you want at school, we want you to have all of those friends, but your closest friends should be Christians."

It was interesting because just the other night, my oldest asked me, "Mom, why do you guys go to connection group all the time?" Every other Tuesday, we go to connection group. We have a babysitter come, and he was like, "Why do you do that?" It was this perfect moment to be able to talk to him about, like, "As Christians, we need friends that are going to spur each other on in the things that God loves and remind us of truth. Mom and Dad go to that because we know how much we need it. We know how important it is. This is of high value to us, to where we will pay someone to come watch you guys. We will leave and take time away from you because we know that friendships really, really matter in Christianity."

You can get—there’s so many great examples: the body, the church, all these things that you could pull in—but it was a great chance to just explain to him—I even brought it down and just said, "And that's why Mom and Dad really want you guys to have believing friends at school and believing friends in your circle, so that it's helpful when there's peer pressure or there's hard things. You can have friends who say, 'I follow Jesus too. Here is a decision, or I can support you in making a decision that honors God.'"

I think it's important to talk to your kids a lot about just the importance of Christian friends and let that just be something that swims in the water of your home so that they hear that over and over and see that in your own life. Another thing is just hospitality. That doesn't necessarily have to be in your own home. I think my parents made a really big effort when I was a kid to drive me even 20, 30 minutes away to a friend from church's house to foster that friendship. We got to spend time on the weekends with one another. When I was older, they let me drive perhaps further than they wanted so that I could go see a friend.

We live in small-town Iowa, where there's lots of small towns nearby, but you got to drive through a bunch of cornfields to get there. That's what I mean by letting me drive a little further. That also might mean like, if you have younger kids—I don't know—meeting up at the park, saying, "Hey, I'm going to organize this. I'm going to meet other moms. I'm going to have these kids over and they're just going to do an outside play date." Whatever you want but fostering that is huge.

Then I think as they get older—I'm just starting to learn a lot of this as my kids are in public school and navigating the different circles of friends that we have. A lot of it is like—I've just told my son, like, "I'm so excited to meet your friends! Will you introduce me?" We had a school concert and he just trotted me around. He's young enough to still be really proud of me at places. He introduced me to all his friends. Then I met the moms. Volunteer in the classrooms if you can and get to know the kids. Explain to your kids, "Hey, it's really important to Momma that I know your friends' moms before you go over for a play date. Let me talk with that mom."

I think some of it is just being willing to have an awkward email exchange or text exchange and then saying, like, "Hey, let's meet up together," and take time. What your kids are interested in or who your kids are interested in—be interested in that, get behind that, and then you can help sort out, "Hey, is this person a good influence on my child or is this someone that we should perhaps steer away from?"

I asked my husband this question and he said that sometimes his parents would just be like, "Nope, we're not going to hang out with them. Nope, you just can’t be friends with them." [Laughter] I personally never had that experience, but I do think as parents, it is absolutely okay for us to say, like, "Hey, that's somebody that we're not going to spend a lot of time with. They're not a good influence on you." You have authority to lay those rules down and those guidelines down. Your child may not understand, but looking back—I know my husband said, "I'm really glad they did that."

"There was weird stuff going on at that house" or "That friend was interested in things that I shouldn't have been a part of." He did say he was really thankful that his parents did so. Just remember: you are the parent, you are the authority, you can draw those circles, and you want to encourage in really natural ways your child to have great friendships, to be a good friend, and all that. But then also, there are spots where you can just say, like, "Hey, that's just not someone we're going to be with."

Emily: Another thing we've talked about is remembering that friends aren't just out there, they're also inside our house. That we can have friendships between siblings—that good, loving friendship starts with how you treat the people in your own home. You shouldn't be treating your brother worse than you would treat your friend from school. That's just not okay. That's not how that goes.

I know that we have really worked through problem-solving skills. We had spring break last week when we were recording this and we had so many conversations about, "What do you do when somebody is saying something or doing something to you that you don't like and makes you upset?" Their default is to run to me and say, "Mom, dah-dah-dah-dah, did this to me." It's like, "Okay, I understand that response, but let's practice this because this is going to happen to you a million times in life. Let's go through, okay, the first thing you're going to do is say, 'I don't like when you did this. This hurt my feelings. Will you please stop?' You don't have to be emotional. You don't have to be mean. In fact, do not be mean—be kind to them. The second thing is you need to set a boundary with them and let them know like, 'If you continue to do this around me, I'm going to go read over there.' If that's not working, then you come to an adult, but also make sure when you're coming to the adult that you haven't done anything to them too," because usually that's what I end up finding out.

Anyways, I just think we're working through a lot of those things, and so if you're somebody who's not yet to the stage where your kids are going out on a lot of playdates, I would just encourage, "Help your children see that their siblings can be their friends and that it's important how they treat their siblings."  I know my husband will often say, "Look around—these are the people you're going to know for the rest of your life."

Laura: My parents would say that to us. That's direct from my parents.

Emily: "These are your best friends right here, so you better be kind to them." Then I think, for us, we've done a lot of role-playing of "How do you work through a situation with a friend—maybe not a sibling—when they're lying, when they are unkind? When you hear this on the playground, how do you lovingly stand up for truth or confront your friends or reconcile? How do you be a leader and not just go along with the group? You know, trying to take responsibility for things. It is your responsibility to do the right thing even if you were the only one." And we've seen a lot of family scenarios—we live right next door to my parents—and a lot of times they'll want to say, "Well, grandpa came out and he was dangling these donuts in front of us"—

Laura: Of course he was. [Laughter] 

Emily: —after I said we're not going to have them. "It is your responsibility to know that your mom said you could not have a snack right then. It is on you." We know our kids and they're old enough and whatever, and that is training for real-life friendships. When somebody is dangling something in front of them saying, "Ooh, don't you want this?" It's like, no, it's up to you in that moment, by the power of the Spirit within you, to obey and to do the right thing. I just feel like all of those things are training ground for whatever their friendships are.

Laura: Those are really good tips because I think there is something to be said about teaching your child how to be a good friend in order to have good friends. You don't want just a moral friend, but somebody who loves what the Bible says and does what the Bible says. I think sometimes we have expectations for our kids, especially as they're getting older and forming their own friendships—so they're at that age where they're a little bit older.

You're starting to guide them in a lot of these things rather than pick their friends—which, I wish I could pick every single friend—but I think being cautious to not just demand something from your child like, "You have to have Christian friends," without really unpacking it for your child and helping them see like, okay, Proverbs 27:17: "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." Or Proverbs 13:20: "Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fool suffers harm."

So teaching them biblical truths about why we surround ourselves with other good friends and then teaching them like, "Let's be the wise friend, let's be an iron that sharpens someone else." The role-playing that you're talking about and the ability to stand up for what is right, even if you're standing alone—those are things that I think teach our children how to work through friendships. And, starting even now, at the ground level of 5, 6, 7, 8—I think it is really, really important as they learn to discern what a good friend is and then also how they can be a good friend to others.

Emily: All right. We had some questions about marriage, and people were wondering, "What were the top three lessons you learned in your first five years of marriage?"

Laura: Can I say that I'm still learning them?

Emily: I know, I had to go—I had to really dig back in my memory for this because I was thinking, "Oh, some of those lessons I am still building on today."

Laura: Absolutely. I think the biggest thing I learned in the first five years of marriage was to humble myself and tell my husband what I needed. It is so hard. It is like sucking down fire, sometimes I feel like. The thing that I realized, though, is that my husband does want to do the things that I need him to do or I want him to do, but they cannot read minds. And I know this is marriage advice that is as old as time, but I think there was something even with me being able and willing to say, "Hun, I feel like we're off. I don't even know why we're off anymore. I don't know why, but I think things feel weird. Can we not be weird anymore?" Even that was just a really big thing for me to learn how to articulate and say and being the first to go.

It was never like, "Huh, I don't think we're off at all." My husband would be like, "Yeah, we feel kinda weird. Let's talk about it." It would just break the ice, and being that first one to come forward and break the ice, I think, was huge. And he does it too—I don't want to say that—but I had to really learn to be willing to say those things because I work worse when we are off. I am usually more affected than he is. He's somehow compartmentalizing and all that stuff. I'm like, "No, this is affecting my whole life." [Laughter]

Emily: I think something similar that I learned was that timing matters in processing through issues or communicating about things that are on my mind or on my heart that are hurting my feelings. I think early on in marriage, I used to do two extremes. Either, one, I would try to be like, "I'm a good wife and I'm not going to bring this up, and I'm going to overlook this offense," but really I was just storing it in my heart and getting more and more bitter and upset about it over time. So I wasn't actually overlooking the offense. I was just not talking about the offense, and so then, eventually, of course, that would lead to tears and like, "Oh, I'm so upset about this. I can't believe you didn't know that this was going on in my heart for however long."

Or, on the other side, I think I would be too quick sometimes to speak or get upset about something right in the moment, like, "We're going to have this conversation and we're going to have it right now. We're just going to lay it out on the table, and we're going to work through this, and we are not supposed to go to bed angry. We're just going to stay up all night if we have to." That was often not productive either. I think just learning, on one extreme, sometimes it is good to just talk about something quickly, right away. Just get it out, then move on. Or choose that you're going to move on and then move on. Don't let it stew. 

In fact, we just had a thing this week where my husband and I didn't communicate well about when he was coming home and what was going on. He came home, and I was like, "This is such a sign that we've been married now for almost 13 years and not 2 years." I was like, "I'm just going to get this out there, just so this is not in my mind anymore. I really wish you would've just texted to say this." I was like, "It's not a big deal. I know you didn't mean to, but in the future, if you can even just let me know, that would really help me." I just said it and I was not upset. I didn't cry. It was not a big deal. Then he was like, "Oh yes, I understand. I'm sorry that that happened like that," and we moved on.

There are some issues, I think, that can just be resolved. They don't have to stew. But then there are other things that I'm like, "You know what? I need to pray about that first." I will almost just make myself say, "I'm going to take two weeks to pray before I bring this up." Oftentimes, God just does a work in my heart, or I get more information, or he does a work in my husband's heart. I am not the same on the issue two weeks later or the way that I approach it or the timing in which I bring it up or the tone in which I bring it up is really different. So I just think working through communication was a huge lesson for me.

Laura: Oh, communication is where it’s at. Oh, man. Okay, this is another one—and I know this is another thing that is as old as time—but that my spouse could not meet all my needs. It's very logical, right, but I think there is an element that we go into marriage and think, well, he is my best friend. He is my parenting partner. He is going to help me grow spiritually. He is going to help me know how to make decisions. He's going to dream with me. We make financial decisions together. Like you know that your lives are incredibly intertwined and, therefore, you assume that he is going to be your sounding board for literally everything. In reality, it's actually impossible for him to meet all of your needs and to be that person for you—only Jesus can do that.

With that, I've had to learn that like it is absolutely okay for me to have a mom friend that I talk to, and I'm like, "Hey, I'm kind of stressing over this thing—can you help me know what to do?" My husband, honestly, probably doesn't even know about it and it's not that I'm hiding it from him. It's just that, hey, this is something that I can process through with a friend, and she has experience in this, and she can offer this. She's got the time to talk about these things right now. If it were to come up in our marriage, we would talk about it too, but—to realize that, like, I don't have to get all my parenting processing out with him or all of my theological—I like to think deeply about theology with Emily.

I probably can't have those same exact conversations with my husband. I think for a little bit, I was like, "Oh, is that bad? Should I be concerned?" And realizing, no, Emily meets a different need for me than my husband does, and my husband meets the needs that he's supposed to and that the Lord has for him and the most important ones. It is absolutely okay for me to be talking about the eternal subordination of the Son with Emily and not necessarily feeling like I have to go do that with my husband now tonight too.

I think just being open to saying, "Maybe this isn’t—it’s okay." Or dreaming. That's another one where—I do dream with my husband, but sometimes I'm with some other friends and we dream even higher and crazier and wilder and that's okay. It's fun to be able to exercise parts of my personality with other people, and my husband's in the room sometimes and sometimes he's not, but it doesn't mean that like—

Emily: Your unity is in jeopardy.

Laura: Exactly.

Emily: I just feel like I had a really weird idea of what being one flesh and unified meant. It took me a while to realize, no, the point is not that we become the exact same person. It's that we are both who God made us to be, but we are fully linked together and unified together, and we're on mission together. Expectations. I think expectations is just a huge one, realizing you're coming into marriage with all these ideas of what it should be, and you're not even sure where you got those ideas.

Laura: You're not even sure of the ideas.

Emily: You're not even sure what you're expecting, but you got very firm expectations. [Laughter]

Laura: Exactly. That is actually very true because it's like you can't really know what they were until you look back, and you're like, "I did think that," or "I wanted that." Okay, last one is a quick one for me. Don't be afraid to call an audible. Emily, you mentioned this really briefly, but, like, "We're not supposed to let the sun go down on our anger"—that kind of thing. Obviously, that verse does not mean that you cannot go to bed—

Emily: until you have solved—

Laura: —every problem in your marriage. I think that this was really helpful for us, though, because I am a person—if the horse is dead, I like to beat it even further. I just am, like—I want to go around and around and around and around and around. I realized that about myself that a lot of times things are resolved. Like you were saying, apologize, forgive, and let it be over. Sometimes I want to continue to fester and to talk through things or even they do need to be discussed.

I do tend to be a person that's like, "We should talk about this right now," because I'm always ready to talk about stuff. And realizing that I can ask for a pause or my husband can ask for a pause, but our rule is that if you are somebody who says, "Hey, I cannot talk about this right now. I need a break," you have to be the one to bring it back up and you have to let the person know, "Hey, I'm going to bring it up on Tuesday night at 8:00 PM." That's mostly for my sake because I want to know, "Hey, we have a game plan in place." It has really helped us, to where it's like, "Yes, absolutely. If you don't have time to talk about this right now, or we have other things we have to get to, it makes sense that we cannot hash out every issue all the time."

If you are the one asking for that break, you are showing the other person love and priority by saying, "I will bring this back up and here is when I will do it because you are valuable to me. And this issue, I don't want to let it fester between us, so no, it is on my mind." That has been really helpful for our marriage. I don't know if it's applicable to all marriages, but in the way that we work, it has been incredibly helpful to, in particular, allow my husband freedom to formulate thoughts and to process and to think about things. And then for me to feel seen and loved in the midst of it.

Emily: I think just even working through some of those details of like how you communicate best together and whatever that arrangement looks like. It's something that takes time. I think my last one is pretty short as well—I'm not "winning" if I had to nag, manipulate, or guilt my husband to get there. Sometimes I think—really early on I realized: sometimes you can get somebody to do what you want or come your way, but if you had to use any of those tactics, it doesn't feel good when they do it. You're like—they're only doing this because I made them feel horrible. I think something that helped me was somebody said, "Hey, you guys are both on the same side of the table facing the problem." 

We’re on the same team, so I want my husband's buy-in, and I want him to want to do things. You want to pray for things and be patient and say, "Hey, I care about the method of getting to this end. Not just like getting my way, because it's not me against him, it's us together." I think there was just like a real unity mindset that I needed that, like, it's not winning if I had to make the other person feel horrible or whatever. It's just not worth it.

Laura: It's so true. It might feel like a quick, good win in the moment but long term, it's just coming back around. I remember talking to my husband about something even this week and we were saying—it was funny because I just said to him, "I think we philosophically disagree on how this should go." We don't do that on very many things—like philosophically, we are very aligned. Our values are aligned, but there was just a small thing that we were working through that was infiltrating our life in different ways. I stepped back because we were talking around and around and around the topic. I was like, I think our philosophies are different on how this is. I think that's so important to get to—to recognize, "Are we really talking about the tactical, upper level of how this plays out? Or is there something below the surface of what our core value is in this moment?"

Emily: Yes. Oh, core values are huge.

Laura: Core values are huge. You think like, "We both love God so, therefore, it will work." But just like our friendships, right, we all love God, and we are reading the same Bible, yet we come to some different conclusions sometimes and they're all okay. There's an element of being able to say, in marriage, we probably do need unity on how that plays out. It was helpful to get to that point and we haven't resolved it.

It's not such a big thing that we have to resolve it right now, but we're both taking time now to think about, "Where do we land on this philosophically?" And to be able to talk to that core piece rather than how it plays out, because we can't really decide, "Oh yeah, this is right for our family, this is wrong for our family" at a high level until we've really dealt with the underneath value.

Emily: All right. Okay. Let's move on to more hard questions.

Laura: Let's do more!

Emily: How do you talk to your kids about some of the broken sides of life? This person says, "My son is five and has recently been asking all sorts of questions about armies, war, and death. I want to be honest with him, but a part of me also wants to keep him innocent about death and violence."

Laura: There's a lot to unpack in this. It's probably not easy to do in a quick AUA, to do it justice. But I think that there is probably a difference—Em and I have talked about this—of like your own personal story and some of the hardship that perhaps you're going through right now—whether that's a divorce or your child's adoption and some of the hardships they're facing or a death in the family—versus kind of the suffering and hardship that's happening outside of your family, like wars or politics and all of the hardships that are happening in the world. Those we look at as dealing with differently.

Emily: I feel like you might respond—like how you think through how you respond—might be different because some of the things that are super personal take a lot of wisdom and discernment and might be more delicate. You may even need to talk to like a pastor or counselor or a good friend to say, like, "Hey, what should the timing of this be? How many details are too many? What would be helpful to share with my child versus what might be too scary for the age that they're at right now?" I think those things for personal family situations are different, but when it comes to things that are out there and your kids see something in passing on the news—and this is how maybe it would happen for us is: a kiddo comes and looks over my shoulder while I'm scrolling through the news on the phone and they're like, "What's that? What happened there?"

That's the tone of their question. They're not coming with baggage and deep pain. They're just curious. In that, I have found that it just seems best to give a straightforward answer, engage it as much as they want to engage it, and just talk through things, not in a way that sounds like, "I'm scared that they asked, or I'm mad that they asked, or I need to hide that." Just meet them where they're at.

Somebody said one time, about more like puberty development-type things: give a factual, medical answer. I think that can be true for a lot of different categories. Just give a factual, age-appropriate response and just go along with some of their questions because I think a lot of times when kids are asking, "Hey, mommy, what happened there," you can kind of read their heart, like, are they worried about this or are they just curious? I think the curiosity can be dealt with a little bit more casually, with a little bit less like, "Oh, I'm so scared they're going to be really into death and violence now." It's like, that's not really why they were asking.

Laura: I've heard from some friends, and I've had a couple of parenting moments where I feel like they've said, "My daughter can't stop thinking about death." They're worried that their child is facing maybe some worry or anxiety over one of these harder topics. Not necessarily because it's personally happened but because they realize it's a possibility. Even with that, like we're going back to the time thing— seasons change. Walking your child through it and recognizing they're not always going to be incredibly concerned, some of that is just a natural part of a child waking up to the fallenness of the world.

You aren't going to shield them from that. I think, like Emily's saying, being as honest and direct as possible as questions come up—we're not like, "Oh, hey, son, did you hear about the war?" When he sees those things or brings it up, we do really explain that like, "Well"—thinking about the war in Ukraine right now—"there's a dictator that wants to take over a country. There are people that are suffering and hurting, and this is because of sin."

These are great opportunities, I think, to talk with your child—at an age-appropriate level—but to really talk with them about, "This is what it means when sin is unchecked and when somebody is not following Jesus. These are the sufferings and hardships that are in the world, and we grieve over this." We've had some serious conversations, particularly with our oldest—because he's hearing about these things at school, he has friends that are going through some harder suffering, and some things that come out and bubble over—and it’s really turned into some great discussions. I try not to put ideas in the mind but to answer the questions that he has and to really be somebody who—I think for us, we felt like we really want to be the place where the answers can come and that it's very safe. Never acting like—we don't want to give them pat answers—

Emily: —Like, "Where did you hear that? I can't believe that."

Laura: Right. Not freaking out when they ask or even acting like, "Oh, you're too young to understand." Because I think when they come to me, I want my children to feel like, "My mom will tell me."

Emily: She'll take me seriously.

Laura: She will take me seriously because, like we were talking about with a child who really is concerned about death—they need to see a parent as someone who is in control and can help them and can care for them through that and not someone who's just going to brush them aside and make their feelings feel small. Those are very real feelings for a child. Letting them know that those are okay and allowed—and maybe you even feel them too—but we have hope.

Emily: Yes! I was just going to say that! Because, I think, when we are willing to engage, it shows we have hope beyond this, and I am not scared of talking to you about this.

Laura: Exactly.

Emily: Because God is going to resurrect us from the dead through Christ, and we're going to live forever with him. He's going to wipe every single tear away, and I actually think that his grace is powerful to work in your life. I'm not afraid that giving you one wrong answer or even giving you the answer to this is going to turn you away from the Lord, or it's going to wreck you because I think his grace is bigger than that. I think his Spirit is more powerful than that.

So, I don’t have to walk on eggshells around this topic. I think that has been so powerful for me to remember—and also to point them to say, "You know what? The same thing that starts wars is the same thing that's at work in your heart." Bringing that connection because sometimes I think—and I fall into this mindset too, so I am pointing the finger at myself—I say, all that bad, scary stuff is out there, and then, in here, we're all insulated and protected and innocent, and that's just not true. The desires of the flesh are waging war in our house, in our kids.

The passions that are within us—the selfish ambition, the greed. All of that is in us, in our house, in our kids. They are dealing with that. I don't want to give them this mindset that it's like, "All the scary broken things are out there and you're fine, and you're not really broken," but it's like, "No, we all have this problem of sin, and we all need Christ. He can help us in that. That's what 'out there' needs too." Just drawing some of those connections, I think, is so incredible and important because, I think, if we're also talking to our kids about the gospel and saying the wages of sin is death— we've already brought death up.

Even if they don't cognitively, developmentally understand what that means yet, they've maybe already heard that word. That's just a part of the Bible. That's part of the gospel. I’m not saying, "Hey, let's push our kids beyond where they need to be and get into the nitty-gritty." These are the seeds and the things that we're talking about all along the way because we're talking about the gospel, and the good news includes bad news. The bad news is that there is death and that we are separated from God apart from Christ. That has to be part of our regular conversation in our household.

Laura: Amen to all that. I feel like my husband and I consistently talk about how we want these harder topics, even things like sexual purity and the difficulties in the world, to be a slow drip in our house rather than something that's like, "Okay, and now you shall be enlightened to the suffering of the world. You're old enough to understand how evil people can be." Instead, we just want to take these conversations as they come up and feel like—I know that I am not getting it all right.

Sometimes I'm telling my son something, and I will literally hear the words come out of my mouth, Emily, and be like, "I think that's theologically incorrect." It will come out and it's out there. It's probably small and a nuance. We're in a field where we try to be as theologically correct as possible. It's one of those things where it's like, "It's okay. God is sovereign over that. He is sovereign over the words that I speak, the way that I explained things. He knows these things."

I am always stunned by the amount of times that either A) my son just completely forgets, like, "Okay, we've moved on." Or that the Lord has just given whatever truths he needed in that moment, or my daughter—whatever truths they needed—and those have just settled in their hearts, and it's, like, okay. He covers all of my failures, all the ways that I didn't do it quite right, and there's going to be other opportunities in parenting to course-correct those things. That's why instead of having this momentous conversation, saying, "Okay. It's just built over the course of a lifetime." There's going to be a lot of opportunity to put a lot of good nuggets in.

Emily: I totally agree with that "lots of opportunity" statement, because I think that's the other benefit of having it be many, many, many conversations is you get to say, "I remember last time I said this. As I thought about it, I actually think it's a little bit more like this." Or you see that maybe they got the wrong idea and then you're able to come back in with another conversation and correct that or they respond inappropriately about something in front of their friends, about an issue that you talked about at home, and you're like, "Let's talk about how we would talk with other people about this difficult topic and how you may not want to share that." I think this is a huge thing. I will say—this is a side note in this conversation—that we do try to shield our kids from vivid images or media containing violence, death. Pictures and images that are going to stick in their mind and fester.

Laura: Even pretend. So we're not like talking about news. We're talking about movies and stuff and video games.

Emily: I'm talking about all that type of stuff. I think that is different than saying, "Oh, our kids are going to just naturally, as they talk with people in life and as they just coming in contact with hard things—they're going to have questions." That’s different than, "I'm going to let my kids watch and see anything that an adult would watch and see." We have pretty strong boundaries about not letting our kids see images that are really going to stick in their mind that are not developmentally appropriate.

Laura: I agree. We're the exact same way. Let's move on to another question. "Do you have any specific activities, phrases, etc. that you use to disciple your kids who have disabilities?" The answer is yes. The phrase that we say a lot in our home, and this, I think, did start with our child who has a disability, but we do say it to all of our kids. It's not just something reserved for her, but we say, "God made you. God loves you. God is kind to you." That was just a phrase that, for us, came, particularly, when she was an infant. It was almost truths that I needed as a mom going through—and processing and grieving—disability. We just said that over and over. It was catechism over her in a way. Is that a catechism?

Emily: Well, it could just be like a question and answer. I get what you're saying.

Laura: You guys know what I'm saying. Just a little liturgy. I don't know. I'm using too many words. This isn't right. [Laughter]

Emily: We're deep into the show at this point.

Laura: We have recorded for a long time. Anyway, we say this, and it's something that we say every time she goes down for a nap, every time she goes down for bed. The other thing that we are working through is a true catechism with my daughter. She's able to speak a little bit, not completely coherently or everything, but she's gaining a lot of skills. She can do a call and response type of thing. We do a catechism of "Who made you? God. What else did God make? All things. Then why did God make you? For his own glory."

We haven't gotten them all down yet. We've been working for almost probably a year on this. It's quite slow, but it is just these deep truths that I hope to have in her heart. Again, we do this with our regularly developing kids too. It's not just this special thing. In terms of just other ways that we disciple her—I know Emily's going to say the same thing as I—we really just try to communicate the things of God to her and with her and around her. We pray. She prays too in her own sweet way. It's just something that—she's pulled into the family discipleship of whatever we're doing. There's not necessarily a lot of specific outside things that we do, just because of maybe some of her abilities, I guess.

Emily: I thought this was a good question. I really had to credit my husband with this. I actually texted him this morning to make sure I got all the specific verbiage because he's really the one who has initiated this whole routine on the way to school. He takes our older boys to a different school. So they all ride with our son with disabilities to drop him off, and they talk to him during this time. I've only heard this second hand. I will probably explode into a puddle of tears if I ever saw it. Oh, I'm trying to remember—I feel like one day I was in the car, and they did this.

They just started doing it, and I was like, "What is going on?" And it just wells you over with emotion, but here's what they say—I should almost have you read this. I don't know if I'm going to get through it. This is what my husband texted me that they say: "Okay, Jones, you're loved, and you're cared for. You're known and understood. You are seen and heard. You are safe. God loves you. Mommy and Daddy love you. Lewis, Gabe, Cal, and Evie love you. Believe in God, Jones. Have a great day, Jones." I guess they say this to him every morning before he gets out of the car, and they pray. My husband said he just beams—

Laura: Aww!

Emily: —from ear to ear because the whole car turns and looks at him and says this to him. I just am so grateful that my husband has just come up with that. Those words to just let him know that we see him. I think sometimes, because he doesn't use words to communicate and speak, it's like—it can be easy to accidentally brush past him in things because he's not inserting his voice into the family. So I just really appreciate that he takes the time with all of our kids to say, "We are going to speak this into your life."

Then another thing that we tried to do that you just mentioned was just including him in our regular spiritual life as a family. He sits in church with us. He goes to Sunday school with an aide. We actually talked with our children's ministry leader and talked about what it was going to take for him to be able to attend Sunday school, and that was something that they went out to the church and said, "Is anybody willing to accompany him?"

It's just a tremendous gift to me that these two women alternate every other month, and they go to Sunday school with him, and they help him sit and all of those different things. He comes to small group with us, and I think it is hard—even sitting in church with him is hard. Sometimes he sits through most of the service. Other times we're in and out with him. He's making noise. He has a hard time sitting. Even sometimes church events can be difficult because there's a lot of stimulation. There's a lot of noise.

Sometimes we're in environments that he's just a little bit less familiar with because we're not there every day, and so it ends up being one of us pulling him aside, but I think we've just said, "No, it is important that he's here even if it's hard." Our church body, I think, has just done such a beautiful job of saying, "How can we accommodate you?" Or just not making us feel weird whenever it doesn't look the way it looks for other kids. I feel like people have just invited us and accepted that.

I even remember there was one Sunday when he was making noise in church and I had a friend come up to me afterward and say, "I just loved hearing his noises in church today because we've been praying for him in that." It was like, instead of me feeling like, "Oh geez, he's interrupting the whole service because he's having a meltdown," that it was like viewed as we want him to be—and he's part of our body and that's an important thing. I just feel like having that perspective has been good. I don't know how that's impacting his heart right now. I just really don't know, but I trust the Lord with it.

Laura: I trust the Lord that whatever they can understand and glean like he's doing that. I do think—I love the script that you guys—that Brad's using. I love just the three phrases. So Eden is more verbal than Jones. I can just say, for her—it was interesting because as she started to get more verbal, she, one day just finished that phrasing.

Emily: That's so cool.

Laura: You'll lose your mind. I just nearly gasped. I think I started crying whenever I was like, "It is in her. It was in her before she was able to articulate it." I believe that for any child who has disabilities—that isn't able to speak and articulate all of their thoughts in the ways that we can understand—like the Lord is hiding those truths in their hearts and they are Imago Dei. They are made in God's image. He has not forgotten them or overlooked them and that those truths are there in whatever way I think that that kiddo can understand, and so I trust that. Last question. Whew. We got here. We're going to go fast on this one. "What is your after-school routine with your kids and how do you reconnect with them?" Go ahead, Em.

Emily: Our kids go to different schools. I am either getting kids off the bus or I am driving to go pick up our other kids from private school. If I go get our kids from school, on the way home, we listen to songs in the car, we go around to each person, and they get to make a pick, and it's about 15 minutes. We have found that that creates just a nice peaceful drive, and it allows everyone to be quiet so that they are refreshed when they get home. We have a gigantic van and essentially what would happen was everybody would get in the van, and they would want to talk to me about their day. I can't really hear very well in the front seat. It's just hard to explain we could not talk to each other well, and so what would happen is everybody's yelling—like, this is not a good time for us to talk.

Then when we get home, they usually go play outside until five, or they go play in my parent's basement, and they have a toy room in there. Then sometimes we have TV time as well, usually like 30 minutes before dinner. Then if I get our younger kiddos off the bus, I just bring them inside, give them a snack—I don't know. My daughter, sometimes—she's in preschool. She needs time to decompress. She is crabby after school and I know she loves school, but I feel like she's holding it all together, following all the directions, doing all the things, and then she gets home, and she's just done.

It's just been really interesting because I find that, for our kids, after school hasn't necessarily been like this picturesque time for us all to sit around and talk and hear about each other's day. It could just be the quantity of our kids and just the ages and stages that they're at, so a lot of times we end up trying to talk at dinner and share high/lows, or I find other times to hear about their day. We have a special time after or around bedtime for our older kids and that is sometimes a time for us to reconnect, "How's this certain friendship going and how is this thing going at school?" I don't know. I feel like we're a little wild after school.

Laura: Yes. That's fine.

Emily: That's a little snippet of it, at least.

Laura: For us, up until March my kids—I picked them up every day from school, but in March they started riding the bus home because I literally can't beat the bus home. It's amazing. I go to school pick-up line, and I will still come home behind the bus, so they started riding the bus. They both wanted to, which felt like a big step in my parenting—my motherhood—but it's going really, really well. Now they get home around 3:30 and, for us, we do a snack, and we have mom chat, and they just know that we're going to talk, and I want to hear about their day, and so I try to make nice snacks. I do not always do that, but simple, but nice—feels like they get some food because we typically don't eat until like 6:00 or 6:30, so I want to keep them going.

We do that for like, I want to say 15 to 20 minutes. Sometimes it's shorter, sometimes it is longer. We will, in the winter, read by the fire. We always build a fire at night. If it's chilly out—it sounds idyllic, it kinda is—I don't know. I'm not going to deny it. [Laughter] I love it. It's a high priority for us to not have a lot of activities and to have our evenings, so that is one thing we prioritize and then they play outside a ton. We have a neighborhood with—we were counting the other day. We have nearly a hundred kids in this neighborhood. It's insane. There are kids everywhere, and they love and look forward to getting a chance to play with their friends.

So usually by about 4:00—if it's nice out—they're outside. I really do try to say only outside playing, even if it's cold. All you people in California and Southern states, I know you're dying, but we bundle them up, and they go outside for a few hours until it's dark. It's great because in the spring—right now, it doesn't get dark until seven. In the summer, it will be nine. Basically, that's what our bedtime runs at. A lot of times for the kids is when it gets dark out. They come in, we eat dinner, and then hang out. It's a good evening routine, but we've had to fiercely protect it.

It changes in seasons. This is the—you're catching what I'm doing right now, but we're going to start soccer here soon. We are doing some things and so stuff will change, but, in general, they know they're going to come home and talk with me. I just set that from the beginning. It was like, "This is our school routine. You will do this." They don't question it. It's just funny how someday they'll wise up and be like, "We want to go outside right now," so I'm enjoying it while I can.

Emily: All right. Well, if you have listened this far, you have made it to the end of a huge AUA show. For those of you who want longer episodes, this is your long episode.

Laura: You're welcome.

Emily: Enjoy. We hope that you'll check out even our other AUAs. We have done a lot of these over the years, as we mentioned. See ya later!

Laura: See ya, see ya.