Ep. 158 || Ask Us Anything! Spring 2020 Edition Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Laura: Hey friends, Laura here. I just wanted to pop in and see how you all are with the news about the Coronavirus pandemic. As everyone is saying, these are strange times, and like you, we’re praying and following the news. We get that it’s hard—the R|M team is made up of all moms, just like you. And like you, we’re finding ourselves at home, many of us homeschooling for the foreseeable future, for the very first time. We know it’s scary, but we want to encourage you and remind you that we follow a God who created all things, and has all knowledge and power. While we don’t understand the way he works or always see his goodness right away, we trust that his character never changes or fails.
Second, in case you missed the letter we sent out to our mailing list and posted on social media, we want to let you know that at Risen Motherhood, we typically pre-record and edit our podcasts months in advance. This means that the podcasts over the next few weeks were set in motion before Coronavirus and its widespread impact. We tell you this because we don’t want you to be caught off-guard by things we might be saying in our shows that don’t specifically speak to the gospel and Coronavirus, or might at times feel insensitive to the general mood of the moment. Today’s show is an Ask Us Anything show and we cover all sorts of things. Some heavy, some light. But we trust that God knew about the events of today even back when we were recording, and we trust he will meet you with gospel-hope in a variety of ways.
If you are interested in resources specifically related to the gospel and Coronavirus, we encourage you to check out our Instagram Stories. There we have a link to our statement about Cronoavirus with articles we’ve pulled together from other ministries that have produced helpful, specific, and timely content. In addition, we have a handful of free resources you might want to access during this time of social distancing.
Risen Motherhood community, our hope is not in our health—it’s in Christ. Cling to Jesus. This life and these present afflictions and hard things are preparing us for something we can’t see yet. Imagine how much we will rejoice when the new heavens and new earth appear, every tear is wiped away, and even viruses are no more. Thanks so much for joining us for today’s show. We’re glad you’re here.
Emily: Welcome back to another episode of Risen Motherhood. I'm Emily here with Laura.
Laura: Hey guys!
Emily: We are excited to jump into our Ask Us Anything show today. But before we get started, we just want to encourage you—if you have not yet—to follow us on social media: @risenmotherhood on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. If you listen to the podcast regularly and you enjoy the content that we put out here, we know you're going to enjoy following us because we share a lot of the same type of stuff online.
Laura: Yes, and that's also the best way to follow all the content that we put out and be alerted to new shows or articles or whatever else it is. Just remember too, today if we don't answer your question on the Ask Us Anything show—because we get literally hundreds of questions every time—we actually have a large working document that we push out and update every time we push out an Ask Us Anything show. It has all the past questions that have been asked and then where we have answered them.
Definitely go there. A lot of the questions that we get are very similar to ones we’ve gotten in the past. We typically try to select questions we've never answered before and there might even be a whole show on one of the questions that you asked. And that means that we have to talk about it a lot more in-depth and do a lot more thinking on that, so you're even going to be served even better in a way. If you head over there, see if there's a question of yours or a similar one and we can point you to that right resource.
Emily: Yes, and I think on stories this week, Instagram and Facebook, we'll probably be doing some rapid-fire, more fun, lighthearted questions that we received. Again, follow us for more of that type of content.
Laura: Yes, @risenmotherhood.
Emily: Okay, let's jump into today's show. If you've not listened to an Ask Us Anything before, we do these usually twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. As Laura mentioned, we gather questions from our community. This show is—
Laura: All over the place?
Emily: Yes. It's all over the place, it's super conversational. It's four times as long as our typical shows are.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Emily: So sit down, buckle up or listen to it in multiple sittings, but hopefully get to hear a lot of different things that we wouldn't typically dive into on a normal show.
Laura: That's right. Our first question, I'll start off with some lighthearted ones. What is your favorite non-spiritual activity, if you were gifted one hour to yourself? I like that caveat in there. Non-Spiritual. Isn't all of life spiritual, there's no separation of sacred and secular? But yes, we get what you mean.
Emily: Okay. I have two things I would do. One, I would go to the public library by myself. I'm really into the library right now. I would go sit and read, go check out new books. Yeah, I would really love walking around the public library, or I would like to go on kind of a hike outdoors, except there's—
Laura: Kind of a hike, not a real hike, just kind of a hike.
Emily: Well, because let's get real. There's no real elevation changes where we live. We do live in central flat Iowa. But I am trying to get more fresh air this winter and so when I have a sliver of time, assuming it's not below 15°, I can only tolerate so much. I would yeah, put on some boots and go on a little trail somewhere, get some fresh air.
Laura: I feel like yours are so good and intellectual and smart. I'm like literally, do you know what the first thing that crossed my mind was?
Emily: What?
Laura: Get a massage. Give me one hour of time to myself and it's gifted, so a prepaid massage. Yes! That's what I'm headed to do. I don't get to do very many of those.
Emily: I miss the gift part in it.
Laura: I just sort of inferred, the gifted part meant that it was expense-free. Therefore, I would definitely go get a massage and I would love it. I'd fall asleep, probably.
Emily: See that's the problem with massages is that you want to just stay there for a while.
Laura: I know, you have to do 90 minutes.
Emily: Then they're like, get up, you're just—you’re done. [laughing]
Laura: Get out. We're done here. [laughing]
Laura: Okay. Another question, another easy one to start us off. Are you a coffee or a tea girl?
Emily: Definitely coffee.
Laura: Coffee all the way.
Emily: Love my black coffee in the morning, but I do have a nice array of teas and we drink tea in the afternoon and evening, but I don't drink caffeine because I get the jitters.
Laura: Sames. I can't drink caffeine after 10:00 AM. I feel like it's really early, but I will be up until midnight if I drink caffeine after 10:00.
Emily: Yes. I found this year, I've tried peppermint tea and it's my new favorite.
Laura: Does it help you go to sleep?
Emily: I don't know. I would say it's pretty soothing though.
Laura: Oh, I love that Good Earth cinnamon tea or whatever it is. They have it in decaf if you can find it, it's kind of hard to find it. But it tastes like eating a red hot. It makes me very happy. I have a cup of that pretty much every afternoon. Okay. One product or life hack that you love and has impacted your life. Share one of those Emmy.
Emily: Okay.
Laura: Sorry, I'm making you go first on all of these.
Emily: I have so many little things. I would say recently, I’m still loving my alarm clock. It's just a digital clock with red numbers. I actually don't know what color they are, but I bought it last, I think end of October, November, and I now use that to tell the time. I set my alarm instead of my phone by my bed and it has been so nice. I'm reading so much more. The evenings feel so much more peaceful. Who would have thought a little alarm clock from Walmart would do the trick?
Laura: Big clunky, red-faced alarm clock.
[laughter]
Laura: Those things are so out of style. I love it. I love it. If you want some context for why Emily did that, listen to the social media show? Right?
Emily: Oh yeah!
Laura: You share on there a little bit of what the thought process was and that was earlier this year. We'll link it in the show notes, but, oh man, one product. I have many also that I feel I'm just in love with right now, but I would have to say I recently purchased a Bluetooth keyboard on Amazon. It was like $15 or $17. It's really cheap, but your phone just slips into it and you can type on your phone with this amazing Bluetooth keyboard and you guys, it has really, really helped save a lot of time. It's much more efficient. I feel my thumbs are not very talented. I don't know. I feel like compared to other people, they're just whizzing around with their thumbs on their phone.
My husband actually uses his pointer finger, like one pointer finger and one thumb. It's really bizarre, but he is super speedy. I'm like, man, I am clumsy, so getting a keyboard has been awesome. Just even responding to texts like I will sit down and batch put out texts or on Instagram responding to comments or respond to messages and I still can't get to them all. But it has been really helpful and just made me feel like I'm less on my phone because it's more efficient.
Emily: Yes, I love that. Laura was showing the keyboard to me before we got on here and it is super fancy.
Laura: It's lightweight. It's like 15 bucks though.
Emily: It's great.
Laura: Yes, it's lightweight, portable. You can stuff it in your bag. You can type on your lap. We will link it in the show notes and you all are going to want this. You are like, you're, you're just going to want it.
Emily: Okay, so another lighthearted one is: what is a trend you regret following now that you're looking back? It could be a hairstyle, design choice, music, anything.
Laura: Oh, man. I think if I would have to pick just one—because there are probably a lot, I feel like I don't think of myself as a trendy person, but then I think about this and I'm like, man, I have fallen into this quite a few times. I would say probably the biggest one is that—you remember when blogs were in their heyday, they had just started. Everyone was reading them and a lot of home design blogs were coming out and the color scheme at that time was very much like a white canvas, white walls and then tones of color, right? It was like aqua and orange and Chevron and just really, really bright. That was generally what all of the bloggers were pushing out.
I think at that time, I started reading these and getting into these. I just bought my first house. I was freshly married and really excited to design and do this stuff and I just duplicated it all. I used such bright colors in my home. It was just wild and maybe a little bit wacky at times. As I've matured and grown and changed my own personal taste, I think that I've settled into what I actually love instead of following—I was just doing it because I thought that was what was cool and what was trendy and what I should do instead of really understanding what my design style is.
I don't think I could have—at that time—done what I do now because I wasn't like secure in myself. I didn't know myself well enough. I was young. But it's been really nice to be able to feel like I don't have to follow every trend in home design that I see, but I can appreciate it for what it is and then do my own thing in my own home.
Emily: Nice. I remember Laura had this bright orange chair.
Laura: Let's not talk about it. It was leather, orange leather, like, what is happening? I don't even know where that chair is now. Rest in peace.
Emily: Oh man. Okay. Back in the day when I first got married, I had an Etsy business. I was an entrepreneur.
Laura: She was, and you know what? I supported her, saluted her, was very excited for her because I love entrepreneurship. So when she was getting into it, I was like, I am here for it.
Emily: But here's the thing, I sold something that was very trendy at the time.
Laura: Very trendy.
Emily: You guys, I made custom floral headbands.
Laura: Do you remember when those were popular, you guys?
Emily: They were so popular!
Laura: Like gigantic flowers on the side of your head, like bright-colored, like satin.
Emily: Go Google it— 2009, 2008 somewhere in there.
Laura: It was so cool.
Emily: I would have little pieces of satin and all these different fabrics and I’d cut them out and I'd burn the edges and layer them and I'd have special pearls that I would put on it.
[laughter]
I still occasionally see a niece running around with an original creation.
Laura: That thing needs to get in a museum somewhere. That's like an artifact now.
Emily: I guess so. I will try for social media to find a picture of a vintage headband product. You guess my business name, this is so embarrassing, was Elegant MJ. M.J, so cool. Laura designed my logo for my business.
[laughter]
Laura: Yes. I was there to design the logo, that's right. We talked about business stuff all the time. That was like the beginnings of Risen Motherhood, and we didn't really know it. We started working together on something. It was really Emily's business, let's be real, but I was cheering this on. It was exciting.
Emily: Yes. Well, this was not an evergreen business. It's a business that lasted about eight months. [laughs]
Laura: You can still buy something like that now.
Emily: I don't know. Look it up. Headbands are back.
Laura: Headbands are back, but—
Emily: Not with the big flowers.
[laughter]
Laura: I love it. Okay, so next question. Do you run errands with your kids in tow or by yourself after dad is home?
Emily: Yes. Honestly, I don't really run errands with all five of my children for a variety of reasons. Some of them logistical, some of them safety-related. [laughs] I don't know. If I don't have to, I choose not to. I will run errands with, one, two or three children at a time. But I try to get a lot of things online, or I will save errands when either my husband is home or maybe if I have childcare, I'll just go run them all in half the time that I would have done it with all of our children.
Laura: Yes. Grocery pickup forever and always.
Emily: Grocery pickup. Grocery pickup. Grocery pickup.
Laura: Yes, forever. I run with all my kids. Generally, I run with whoever I have, which could be one to three like Emily is saying. Generally, my son's school is about 20 minutes away from my home and so when I go and pick him up, we're in the heart of the town where I need to do errands, and so I end up typically with all three. I think it's what I've always known since a long time ago. In the past, I lived without family around or childcare, and it felt like that's just what we did. Yes, I really enjoy doing errands with my kiddos in general, but like Emily said, it is significantly faster if you don't have them.
Emily: I always think about Laura, sometimes if I have to take an extra kid or two somewhere that I don't want to. I'm like Laura does this, so think like Laura.
[laughter]
Emily: Speaking of that, you were getting into it. Our next question is just, what encouragement would we give to moms who don't have family support? Some moms never get a break to refresh, so that was the question. Laura, I know you have spent various portions of your motherhood living away from family and your husband has worked longer hours, so what would you say?
Laura: Okay. I would say first things first, get involved in a local church. Of course, that is really the family that God has given us. That's the way he's designed it to be and so for me, that was vital wherever we moved, wherever we lived. It felt like priority numero uno is to get involved in a local church and to begin building deep relationships there. It takes some time, of course, but that was so helpful for us. Especially, when we went through several large crises as we lived out in Chicago. It felt like I had a family even though my biological family was in some other states. We did have a family close by because it was through the local church.
I think another key for me has always been to be very honest with my husband about what I need and to not just be what probably my tendency is, self-sufficient, and to say, "I can do it all. I don't need anybody's help." But instead, to say, "This is what I need in order to be successful, or this is what I need in order to feel like I have my sanity at the end of the day." A lot of that is time to prioritize God's word and to be in scripture and to have that throughout the day. That might even be something like a subscription to a Bible app or something like that, to be willing to pay for something small like that, that's really helpful all throughout the day.
Another thing would be, saying, "Well, it would be really helpful to have childcare once a week so that I can do these errands." Or maybe it's having a house cleaner. Or maybe it's finding a mother's helper, somebody through the church that can come and learn from you and grow and also, they can help you with the kids. There are a lot of creative options depending on your budget and the time you have, but I think the key is really being honest. Because I think most husbands who love the Lord and who love their wives are going to say, "Yes, I want to help you," but they don't know how until you're willing to express those needs and to articulate them. They cannot read your minds as much as we very much wish that they could.
Emily: I think one thing I have observed about Laura, as well as watching her walk through some of these seasons is just her willingness to ask people for things. I'm sure that that is really, really hard, but asking friends to say, "Hey, I have a doctor's appointment I have to go to, can you watch my children?" Or having maybe an older woman or another couple step in that you feel like, hey, we trust them and we can do some child swap with them. Or this is a friend who I know I can call if somebody needs to go to urgent care or I need to do something unexpected.
I know that you worked really hard to have people to whom you could make your needs known. That if your husband wasn't able to come home from work, or you didn't have a mother-in-law, or a mom close by, you could pop in. I really feel like we are meant to live in community like that and we need other people. Actually, I've been reading quite a bit of historical fiction lately. One of the things that always strikes me when I read about just motherhood throughout history or motherhood in other cultures is how often people, maybe, had other helpers around.
Whether it was a sister, or an aunt, or a mother, or just different people that they live nearby that some of that responsibility was shared. I think that in our very individualistic, United States, American, Western culture, we don't always live life that way or view it that way. We feel guilty when we need help, but it's like moms have always needed help.
Laura: Remembering that it's a two-way street too, that then you can go and help other people. I remember I had a dear friend in Chicago and her family lived far away as well. We really did become each other's families. But there was a time when her husband was traveling for work and she ended up in the ER with one of her kiddos. I was like, "Well, here I come with my troop, we're going to the ER to visit our friend because she needs us and she is like our family right now." I dragged all three of my kids, an infant, and I don't know, the rest were—they were pretty young. We went to the ER and I grabbed her other kids and I watched them in the waiting room.
Was it hard? Kind of. It was a lot of kids to watch and it was hard for my friend, but I wanted to support her. I was willing to do a hard thing where it wasn't like, "Well, I can't come. I've got my kids." Well, I think that's okay to say at times, but in general, I was willing to move mountains to meet her needs and she was willing to move mountains to meet mine. I think that's part of the key, is that a lot of times we just think, for biological family, that's what we do. We move mountains, we will break down any barrier to help one another, but that's what we need to do for the family of God as well and to see that like, “I'm willing to make sacrifices to help you.”
Then later, they're probably going to be willing to make sacrifices to help you as well when you are in a time of need. It takes discernment obviously, for when those times are, but I also just want to encourage you to be willing to step out and say, "Oh man, here we go. We're all in it together."
Emily: Yes. I'm always amazed. Laura has done this for me, but I've had several friends through the church if they will hear that I'm sick, they'll call me to say, "Can I come take your kids? Can I bring you a meal?" and I'm just so moved by that. Even if I'm like, "Nope, somebody else took care of it," but just that willingness to say, I see a need and I'll come alongside and meet it. I just wanted to share a couple of verses really quick to encourage a mom who is feeling really weary and kind of, "I feel like I don't have the support I need."
You've heard this before, but Philippians 4:6–7, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Just remember, God sees, God knows, God cares. He wants to provide for you, even if that is his spiritual peace or providing in a way that you are not expecting.
Prayer matters, prayer changes things. I was reading recently in Psalm 147:7–11. This Psalm is so interesting. It talks about how God is the one covering the sky with the clouds. God is preparing rain for the earth. He is causing the grass to grow. He's giving animals their food. All these things that we would look out and just be like, "I don't know, it's just happening on its own." This Psalm is telling us, God is the one who provides for every living thing, and he's the one who's causing all of this to happen. Certainly, he cares for all of those things, he cares for us and he wants to meet our needs. That may not look exactly the way we think, but we can cry out to Him and trust Him.
Laura: That's good. That's really helpful, additional encouragement, Em. Here's someone who's writing to us and she says, "I was very involved in church activities before having a baby, but now I'm very stressed trying to keep it all up. What do I do?"
Emily: Totally normal. We totally get it. We have been there. Just a few quick tips. One thing I would say is that a “no” right now doesn't have to be a “no” forever. Sometimes when I go through a season where, maybe, I've had let's say a couple of kids.
[laughter]
I love kids. In 6 to 12 months, I'm going to reevaluate. Giving myself that time limit of maybe I am going to start back, but I am going to check in with myself, my husband, my church, after some period of time and say, "Now, what can I do?" Then I think too, communicating with, maybe, women's ministry leaders or other good friends in the church to let them know, "Hey, I'd like to participate, but I may be more hit and miss than normal this season. I may just show up and listen," or, "Hey, can you reach out to me and see what I've been learning about God, can we still have some spiritual conversations with one another because I can't be as involved as I'd like to be in this season?"
I got that idea that just because maybe you can't be as fully involved and as, "I did every single answer, and I did all this study, and I did all these things before," doesn't mean you have to completely pull out.
Laura: I think too, just picking a couple of things that are non-negotiables to church life, where you don't have to do it all or be as involved as you were in the past as Emily's saying, but think about, "Hey, what are the one or two things?" Probably corporate worship on a Sunday, really trying to make it there. Maybe it's being in your small group or in a Bible study, but selecting just a few things so that you're still staying connected, but you're not as deeply involved in every little thing as you were before.
Then, lastly, just remember that the most important thing is that you are staying committed to your personal time with the Lord, your own growth in the word, and I think that even your quiet time will probably look different than it did pre-new baby and that is okay. But to also remember that this is a season, and so if you can fit in God's word in the little bits of time that you have, and then just trust him to sustain you through that season. Like Emily is saying, the “no,” for now, doesn't have to be “no” forever and there will come a day, there will come a time when you can be more involved.
You can spend a longer time in God's word, all those kinds of things. But trust that God holds you in his hand, even when maybe your capacities aren't what they used to be or your attention is needed elsewhere. He will still sustain and provide.
Emily: Okay, next question. This is kind of an overarching one that brings together a lot of other types of questions we got on this topic but, do you have friends from other theological persuasions?
Laura: Yes.
Emily: Yes, tell us more, Laura.
Laura: Yes, I think that it is really important to have friends from other theological persuasions, but I think there are a few things to think through as we process this question. The first piece is just remembering that I think our core friends—the friends that we spend the most time with, that are most influential in our lives—that those friends do think in similar ways. That doesn't mean on every nuanced issue or every single thing, they live exactly the same way you do, but in general, that you can agree because those people are the people that are influencing you, and they are supporting you and helping call you out when you do something wrong.
I think being really careful about who those people are that have our ear, who those people are who we're really listening to, that we really trust, that we are doing what they say. Those are the people I think are important, that they're either real-life people— they're people that aren't on the internet, or bloggers or influencers or anything like that—and then also that they do align with you generally pretty closely in your theological convictions.
But I think that it's important outside of that kind of key crew that we do have friendships and relationships and associations with people who do very different things. I think part of it is that there are a lot of open-handed issues that I think there's freedom in some of those things to live them out differently or to feel different convictions that we don't need to get all up in arms.
I also think that it's helpful that as we live life with those people, or as we have conversations with them, it doesn't mean that you're always debating these theological topics all the time. In fact, there may be some relationships where it's actually quite important that you maybe don't talk about those things for a season or you do avoid those topics so that you can enjoy a relationship with them.
But I also think that there can be times where it's really helpful to have these conversations with people who believe different things, and you can learn from them and you can grow from them. You can also share with them about what the Lord has taught you. And I will say, as a caveat, I'm generally a pretty principled person. I'm pretty deep in my convictions and so, I really enjoy having conversations like this, but I know that not everyone has the same personality as I do or potentially they haven't studied the same things and so, you have to know yourself somewhat too, in your own spiritual maturity. I think that is a key piece here as you engage in other relationships.
But I have found it is very edifying to have relationships with people who believe different things than me, or even that are non-believers. I think that's a really important part of fulfilling the Great Commission and living out the things that God has called us to is that we're not just keeping our faith in a box or in a small little circle, but that we are spreading the gospel and we are living it out.
I think even without words or conversations about theological debates, as we live our lives, people will notice that something is different. They may bring that up to you or ask questions to you. I don't know, I think that that is-- I think it's a good thing.
Emily: Yes, it's like always be ready to give an answer that you have. Yes, it's definitely like a complex question and to Laura's point, I think a lot has to do with what types of friends you're talking about, what role they have in your life, what your own personality is. I think it's good to remember that sometimes the most loving thing that we can do is to point somebody to the truth and say, "You're in error here. I think that there's something that you're not interpreting correctly about the scriptures." That's one way that we love our friends is by pointing them to Christ and pointing them to the truth. It's just a tough thing to sort out sometimes.
Laura: Yes, I think that's a helpful addition. I often have to remind myself that I'm responsible for my faith, and they are responsible and accountable for their own, and that I can have these discussions and we can engage in them. I think what helps keep me tempered as I have conversations, that I don't have to win some holy war with them. I think that that can give some freedom as we have these conversations is to not only trust that God's working in you and will protect you and guide you, as we ask the Lord for wisdom, he will give it.
But then also that for these friendships that we have, we don't have to spiral downward into deep arguments or to allow it to drive barriers between us because we can trust that as we seek truth, as we seek the gospel, that the Lord will guide us in the right way and that we're not responsible for somebody else's faith.
Emily: All right, let's shift gears here. The next question is how can you protect your child from negative influences in the world, yet help them be lights in the world? First off, just want to say, Laura and I very much feel like we are right alongside you. We are learning and growing, our children are not older yet. We're not really the older, wiser women. Very much, these are things that we've tried that are paradigm-shifting for us right now, but very much hear them peer to peer—
Laura: In-process.
Emily: In-process. And as we were kind of talking through—Laura and I—like, "Hey, what do we do?" We were thinking about this, kind of three main categories came to mind, things that we do that are really protective and are about putting up some pretty firm barriers. Some things we do that are proactive, that we're like, "Hey, we're looking ahead to when they're going to be influenced by something negative. What are we going to do?" And some things that are reactive, like, "How do we respond after they have encountered a negative influence?"
Laura: So that first one, protective. This is pretty simple and straightforward but we don't just give them free rein on an iPad or hand them the remote control to do whatever they want to do, but we set boundaries or have different things in place so that they can't access different forms of negative influences or images. I think that that's a fairly simple one, and is a really easy one to set in place is to have some of this guidance, particularly around technology that can protect your children from seeing something that they aren't ready to yet.
Emily: Yes, and there might be people in your life who, just for a variety of reasons, you feel like, this is just a non-negotiable for us. And we are trying to protect our kids from the most, the things that would really impact them lifelong. That would be very, very harmful. There's just that protective barrier there.
Then, for the proactive things, I think this really boils down to family discipleship, the way that we're shaping their worldview and how they process things. This is everything from saying, "Hey, we go to church every Sunday and we listen to the preaching and the teaching of the word,” to we're putting them in Sunday school, and our kids go to a midweek program where they learn about a lot of different things—catechizing, scripture memory. Just talking in advance about, "Hey, how do we think about some of the issues that we know you're going to encounter in the world? How do we think about marriage? How do we think about friendships? How do we think about what we put into our minds and our hearts?" Just setting the groundwork for, how does a Christian live life, is basically it—that's proactive.
Laura: Yes. It's all about laying the foundation to give them the tools for when they enter those different spheres of negative influences. Then, the last one is reactive. This is when they do come in contact with things that maybe aren't appropriate. Words they heard at school, a song they heard somewhere, an advertisement or some other media that they came in contact with. Somebody they saw in public doing something weird. For those kinds of things, we really try to find a safe space, but then to talk about it as soon as we can.
A lot of times, I will also—and I know Emily does this too—we try to involve our husbands in this so that it feels like the parents are on the same page, have a unified front. So no matter who the child ends up talking to potentially, If there's something that's progressing or going on, we're both on the same page.
But this is where often we'll ask questions. "Well, what do you think as a Christian your response should be to that? Or do you think that God likes when that happens? Or do you think he doesn't like when that happens? Or how do you think that might have made that other person feel?" We'll ask a lot of questions, to just help have a conversation with them, and then we'll typically go into some sort of response training.
We might role-play with them, or we might give them the tools so that when this happens again, here are some things that you can do. You can go tell your teacher that you were uncomfortable with that. You can ask the other child to stop saying those words around you. You can walk away, you can blame mommy that you have to go home, whatever it might be. But we give them the tools so that when they encounter this again, they're not wondering what to do, or that their curiosity might get the better of them, or being goofy might get the better of them. But that instead they can know, okay, I know in this situation what to do.
Then, of course, praying with them. We always spend a lot of time in prayer and a lot of times my children will now say, "Mom, will you pray with me about this?" I love that and that's just because we've made it such a foundational part of the way that we disciple our children, they know that this is one solution to the difficult thing I'm facing.
Emily: I mean to Laura's point, I think you can pray in all of these areas. We can pray that the Lord would protect our children from things that really would harm their hearts and their minds that they would really have to heal from. Just praying for that very protection. We can pray for them before we go into situations and say, "Hey God, would you help our family here? Would you help us keep our eyes on Christ?" Then praying after something happens. Because I think a word you were using Laura, that I liked is like when this happens, when this happens, when this happens, because I think sometimes we can fail to train because we feel like, "Oh, maybe that'll never happen."
Laura: No, it will. It will.
Emily: My husband and I have really tried to say no, it's not if they hear these bad words, it's not if they see some of these things someday, it's not if they realize that, "Oh, the world does things differently than us," it's when and so how are we preparing them for when this happens, because it's going to happen.
Laura: One of the most common questions we receive at RM is just moms asking, how do I talk to my child about hard topics? And I think both Emily and I would say that, in general, we just tell them the truth. We just lay it out for them. It's in pretty simple terms, but I think people might be surprised at the amount of topics that I am willing to engage my children with. Like Emily said, it's about when, and so if my kiddo has a question about something, as much as possible, I want to tell them the truth because I want to be the space that they heard it from. I want to be the person that's able to frame it for them.
Even if some of it goes over their head or they get a little worried-seeming, it's going to be a lot better first coming from their parent than it is when they encounter it out in the world.
The second thing I often do is tell my kids, “There's nothing you can do to change my love.” What that means is that they can't earn any more love from me—they can't do something so good that suddenly, they're even more accepted and loved by mommy. And, there's nothing they can do that can stop my love. They can't sin so bad that I'm going to reject them and turn away from them. My hope is while I can't do it perfectly, it's to model the Christ-like love that I've been given to my kids. So I remind them, "Honey, there's nothing you can do that's ever going to change my love. I love you so, so much."
My hope is that they will know there is a safe space to come and talk to mom. That no matter what happened, no matter how scary that was or hard that was, or even how much they knew that they disobeyed, they can come to me and we can work together as a team to overcome things, and I can give the tools to equip them.
Emily: Good stuff. All right. The next question we have is, how do you both maintain privacy for your children and husbands on social media? So, Laura and I have had this question a lot in the past. We've probably been asked it in different ways throughout the last several years. It's taken us some time to get to a point where we're like, "Okay we're ready to answer it." Some of it has just been like working out our own language to describe, "Okay, why do I do what I do and where did—
Laura: Well, even figuring out what we do. It took years. [laughing]
Emily: Oh yeah, figuring out what we do, what we want to do. Some of that has just been because we realized there are so many different ways that Bible-believing, Christ-loving people who are honoring their family and loving their children play this out really differently. I guess we just want to say on the front end that this is just how Laura and I are processing this and the season and the situations that we're in, but it doesn't mean that you have to do it exactly like we do it. It doesn't mean that you're going to come to these exact same conclusions.
Laura: We're not really judging how other people are doing social media. We're just asking ourselves these questions and then seeing how they play out with our own use. Like Em said, it may look very, very different from the way we do it. It doesn't mean that's like unbiblical or something.
Emily: Just keep in mind, like Laura, I have public platform, public ministry, and we are coming from a little bit, maybe have a different perspective than somebody who has a private profile that their friends and family follow—which I also have and I manage and think about that a little bit differently than what I think about, hey, anybody can come visit my profile and see everything on my profile. Let's jump in with just some thoughts and some questions as we process what we post.
Laura: I think the first one that we both have taken into account is, what does my husband think? Does he care if we're really public about our lives or if we're really private? Emily and I's husbands land in different spots on this, and I think that's an important first step to take into account, is that your family and your marriage is unified on particularly any public account that's out there.
Emily: Absolutely. Another thing Laura and I have been aware of is the sinful tendency inside ourselves and inside the hearts of others to have an unnecessary amount of information or to really like peek into the privacy or the lives of other people. And in the Bible, sometimes we've heard the word “busybody” used, or it's just something that we've maybe become immune to because of reality TV, and then there's just a sense of like, I want to know what they eat for lunch and I want to know what they wore.
Laura: Why do we want this? But we do.
Emily: Where's that couch from? What's your recipe for that? That's not all bad, but I think we're just aware that that tendency is within ourselves and within others, and I think that there is wisdom in saying, just because something happened immediately doesn't mean we need to share about it immediately, or just because somebody had something doesn't mean I'm going to watch every single story that they have. I mean, I think some of it is on the consumer side too of being aware of that in my own heart—why do I want to know everything about that person's life? I don't know.
Laura: I think that we can get caught up in living a virtual life instead of living our real lives. When we're wanting to give play-by-plays. Like we need to know. The question for me is often, do I need affirmation that this just happened or this was just done? Is that why I feel like I need to post this out there?
Emily: Yes. I'm going a little bit on a tangent, but I remember one time Laura sent me something that somebody had just gotten out of a doctor's appointment and had found something out that was like not good news. The very first thing they did was go on Instagram live and they shared it with all of their followers and they were crying. There was part of it that was so eery and it made me so uncomfortable because you just felt like—
Laura: Does she not have a real-life person to turn to? Why does she turn to tens of thousands of people to tell them? It was so raw, and there's part of that when you see things like that. Because there's lots of people who have done something like this that's really beautiful and you feel like, I'm entering in and you start to like that person or they're endeared towards you. But there's also part of me that has to wonder, why didn't she have a flesh and blood person to cry with, and why did she choose that medium to share some very devastating, heartbreaking news?
She even said on this particular Instagram story, something along the lines of “because you're the first people I'm telling” and most of those people she didn't even know.
Emily: Right and there's like sometimes this space of being slow to speak and being slow to share something that—I don't know if you guys have experienced this, but I'm sure you probably have, where what you feel about something in the moment is not what you feel about it three days from now or three weeks from now or three years from now. Just that tempering and that wisdom to know like, why don't I give this some space to breathe and why don't I pray and why don't I talk to my friends? Why don't I talk to my husband about this before I share every single thing that I'm learning and download to the whole world? Because I may regret that later.
I may realize that there were some untrue things that I shared or that I did. But if you just let everybody in right away to everything, you're always backtracking or you're never backtracking and you're feeling like, well, I said what I said and now I've got to live with it, you know?
Laura: I've said this multiple times, but I have never regretted not posting something to social media, but I have at times, and probably maybe more frequently than I want to admit, regretted putting something up there because of exactly what Emily's saying—that maybe my opinion has changed or I was too brash or too quick or shared too much. I think one of the questions Emily and I often ask ourselves, and this is in all of our life, but what does it look like to live a quiet life? I think that question is something that, in general, so many of us want lives of fame now.
It seems so easy, it seems wonderful and fun to be famous. It seems like that's something that's almost attainable for all of us now. I think that this is something that we have to be really cautious of. I think every famous person will end up saying at some point, it isn't as fun—
Emily: Not satisfying.
Laura: —as it looks to be. The new Taylor Swift documentary that's on Netflix—I don't know if you've had a chance to watch the whole thing—but if you have seen it, she ends up basically saying that she got to the peak of her career, she achieved everything she ever wanted. She was the top artist in the world, had all these Grammys and all this stuff, and she had no one to share it with and it was empty. I just thought, man, isn't that the truth? For everybody who seeks fame and wants to get to the top, that it's not fulfilling in the end.
So when we think about what is the biblical framework for success and what is the biblical framework for our lives? Well, that is to live a quiet life, work with our hands to honor God, to fear the Lord, and at the end of the day, in Ecclesiastes, he says, the whole goal is to fear God and to obey his commands. Our desire for fame doesn't fit into “fearing the Lord” because God is the famous one—the Lord is the famous one. How do our actions on social media and in public spheres, how do they portray us saying God gets the glory, not me? I think we want to be really thoughtful and strategic about things that we do online and, for us, where Emily and I have landed, is erring on the side of privacy rather than over posting in order to be able to feel we're able to focus on living a quiet life and living a quiet life in our private ministry, living a very authentic life in our own homes.
Emily: Just to piggyback on that, another note we had was just about cultivating that same heart in our children and recognizing that for kids that temptation is there as well. "Mommy, post that to Instagram. That's so cute. That's so funny."
Laura: You have no idea what you're saying.
Emily: Yes, just realizing they want to be put out there too. I've heard my kids say after watching one of those weird YouTube videos where kids are opening a new toy, "I want my own YouTube channel," and say “no.” I think Laura and I both say the attitude and the heart we want to be cultivating in our kids is one of this quiet faithfulness, this obedience to God, this not seeking attention for ourselves and just being aware that even as we're putting our children up on social media, they can—
Laura: We do post pictures of our kids, for the record.
Emily: Yes, we do. Just being aware of that oversharing when a kid becomes conscious of that, and they're like, "I like that feeling. How many people like that? Mom, what do people say about me?" I can only imagine that gets more as they get older. I'm just aware of that temptation for our own kids. It's funny. Laura was saying, yes, we do post pictures of our kids online. That's where we both landed. We're comfortable with a limited amount of that, but I was thinking back in the '80s and '90s our parents had pictures of us on their desks.
Laura: [laughs] The first social media, the cubical.
Emily: [laughs] First posting of pictures in that brass frame right there on that office cubicle. Anyways, I think that's why we would say, "Hey, we're not taking this stance that says—which I think could be a valid stance—of saying, "Hey, I will never ever post a picture," but to say, this limited amount allows us to think about things before we do it. Sometimes, I know Laura does this, but she'll wait 24 hours. Or sometimes, I'll take a picture of kids and maybe what you see me post actually happened three months ago.
Laura: Absolutely.
Emily: I gave it that long to breathe and thought about it before I posted it.
Laura: Yes, totally agree. I think another piece is, really we never want anyone around us to feel like we're leveraging them for content. This might be a little more sensitive to us because we are content creators. It feels like we do share stories and we really try to share our own story. I think there's always a way that oftentimes these things that we share can be reframed so that it doesn't indict someone or it doesn't implicate somebody else in it.
If you can't reframe the story to be your own story to share, but instead you're leveraging your child or a friend or conversation that you had, then it seems like it might be the right move instead to just say, "You know what, that doesn't need to be shared because we don't want to feel like, ‘I just had a conversation with Laura and now she turned around, and she posted it all to social media. She didn't use my name, but my whole story's out there.’" That's just something we're really aware of that we don't want to feel like if someone confides in us or shares with us their own story, even if it's our own children, that it's not going to be turned around and put online.
Emily: Yes. To your point, Laura, sometimes, we can ask somebody, "Hey, can I share this?" or "I thought this was really helpful." It is like she just had a way to share it that maintained some level of privacy, but sometimes with our kids, they're really not at an age where they're able to understand what we're using this picture for, or what we're using this story for. I even look back on my own life. I'm like, "I'm glad there's not a billion pictures of me when I was growing up." There is some privacy to that and just thinking, "Hey, when they get older, are they going to look back and feel like, 'I didn't really know what you were doing with all of that. I don't really like it now, and I really wasn't able to consent to all those things you shared about me, Mom, and I don't really like that.'" This is uncharted territory.
Laura: Yes. That is the key here. We do not know the effects on the kids.
Emily: We don't know.
Laura: We don't know.
Emily: There are actually a very few things of people that were maybe blogging about 10 years ago who now have teenagers or young adults who are saying, "Wow, I'm looking back. I'm reading all this stuff my mom wrote about me when I was 5, 6, 7 years old." It's making them uncomfortable. There's articles out there—you can go to the New York Times or whatever—that have talked about this issue, but this is uncharted territory. I always think when there's something cultural that we just really don't know the effects of yet, why not tread lightly, be careful, look with wisdom, err on the side of caution.
Laura: Absolutely. I think that we may find that it's more negative than we thought. Already, a lot of phone studies are coming out and social media studies that are saying, "Hey, there are more negative effects of engaging in these platforms." I recently saw something that said, "Is social media the new nicotine? Is it the new smoking?" Anyway, I didn't read the article but I thought the headline was quite provoking—is that what it is? It's cool, everybody does it and then eventually, something's come out about all the negative effects. Maybe more and more people say, we're not going to engage in that, but we don’t know. We don't want to live in fear either.
Emily: Yes, and we're not. I hope that this is like good conversation starters. Just as you're thinking about, "Hey, what am I going to post?" We can't tell you this is the number of pictures of your children that are okay or the stories. Everybody's going to come to different places on that, but I think considering what is our heart and what is our aim is really important.
Laura: We are actually going to be doing a panel at the Gospel Coalition Women's 2020 Conference on social media. It's also got Jen Pollack Michelle and Jackie Hill Perry. It's going to be super fun. We're really excited to chat about it. We hope that if you're there, you'll join us and come for the conversation where we'll be sharing even more about this and then also, we would just love to meet you.
Emily: Next question, when you're feeling in a hole with your kids, nothing you're doing is working, no matter how much you pray and try, there is still no movement in the challenge area, where do you go from there? We get this.
[laughter]
Emily: Totally understand, been there. There right now.
Laura: I think for me, the most important thing to start with is asking myself, where is my identity right now? What am I worshiping? What is most important to me? So often, when I do feel super frustrated, and I feel like nothing's working, and I begin to feel like a failure, I feel guilt or I feel frustration and those things, while there is a righteous anger, oftentimes it's rooted in the fact that I'm saying, "My identity right now, my worship is rooted in the fact that I need to be a good parent. I need to be the perfect parent for my child." To reorient that around, who are we truly worshiping? We worship God who is sovereign over my child's heart, over these behaviors. He knows what's happening, and that my role as a mom isn't to be perfect. It's not to strong-arm the right behavior out of my child. My role as a mom is to be consistent, to point them to Jesus. I think that that can help just as we set up some of these other things, shift our paradigm away from feeling so frustrated or exacerbated because we know sometimes these behaviors can last a long time. In fact— Well, we'll get to it in a minute.
[laughter]
Emily: That's good, because when I'm parenting out of a place that's like really angsty and embarrassed and self-conscious—
Laura: Yes, embarrassed.
Emily: —about their behavior and feeling like, "This is reflecting on me," I actually tend to make worse parenting decisions because they're coming from a place of "How can I fix this as soon as possible so that you stop embarrassing me" and less from like, "Let's think about scripture. Let's think about how to disciple you through this." I think that's really good, Laura. Again, this is an answer that feels like the Jesus Sunday school answer but we have to say it because it's so important—pray, pray, pray, pray and keep praying. Pray with them, pray when you're not with them and ask God. He has access to their mind and their body and their heart and everything inside of them. He can work in and through their lives. He's really the one who has the power to work. I often find as I'm praying that I'm praying for myself to God to give me wisdom. God is so faithful and good to give us wisdom. I cannot think of how many times I've been in a behavioral situation with my kid and I've just thought, "I don't have any more ideas. I'm to the end of my rope. I have nothing else creative." I pray and God will bring something to mind or God will bring up a conversation with a friend later that gives me an idea and I'm like, "The Lord is providing wisdom for this."
Laura: Amen. I think another thing is asking how long has something actually been working? I think sometimes, we expect our children to change in a few days, a few weeks, maybe a few months. LIke over the summer, they should just blossom and change. I think that it's been important for me to be reminded by other moms that A), a lot of things are phases and phases can last years, a long time, and B) that we can't have this expectation or timeline on how quickly things will change. Instead, we're just called to bear with them in grace and ask, how can we love them right now where they are today? Asking that question instead of just saying, “when are we going to get out of this?” But knowing that they need consistent love in the midst of it all.
Emily: Right, because I need consistent love—
Laura: Amen.
Emily: —for most of my lifelong phases.
Laura: I've been dealing with the same issues for 30 years.
Emily: Exactly. If we think about ourselves and what we're like even in our relationship with God, there are some types of sins for each one of us individually that it's like this is just something that's super hard for me, that I keep—
Laura: We just learn how to hide it a little more.
Emily: Right. You keep repenting. You keep coming back to it. It's just a sin issue you may struggle with for the rest of your life. I think even with our kids, there are some things in them that may be just a struggle throughout their life. We can come alongside them in that and say, "No, let's not give up. Let's keep repenting and keep turning to the Lord."
Laura: Don't think that just because they show some behavior for a few months that they're doomed forever.
Emily: I thought that before.
Laura: Totally, I did too. I've had children go through certain behavioral patterns and I am like, “They’re going to be a criminal.”
Emily: They're going to jail when they grow up. [laughing]
Laura: Yes, we go all the way and you just think there is no hope. That's not true. There is always hope, and I think for us to not get so burdened and extremist when we see this behavior. One of my biggest tips is to talk to moms who are just a touch further down the road. They'll remember what it's like. They’ll say, “Oh, yes. My kid did that too. It's okay, there is hope. This is how we came through it.” Or, “Man, yes, it's a long road, but you're going to make it.” I think involving some of those moms that are a little further down the path is helpful. Or maybe you need to seek a grandma who can say, “Yes, these children will grow up to be successful adults despite what you're seeing today.” And just to remind you of the long view that you are parenting not just a five-year-old or ten-year-old, but you are parenting all the way through. You can, quote, “launch them from the nest” and that you're not just tunnel vision towards the problem. You're not just parenting the problem but you’re parenting the whole child.
Emily: Think about how much we've changed. A great example is somebody who will say, “I never ate broccoli, I never ate vegetables, I never liked salads.” Now, they eat salads all the time. I think about things that I was maybe interested in as a child that I was really into and I'm like, “No, I'm not into that now as an adult.” Just remember, that is true of our children as well.
We do want to just provide a quick caveat that sometimes there is a medical issue or a counseling need that arises where we need to involve a professional or a doctor. That can be part of it. If you are hitting a wall over and over again, it may be time to bring in someone else and say, “Hey, this could be unique." It's not always but it could be.
Laura: Next question. This one, don't tune out here if you don't fit the category. We're going to flip this question a little bit. The question is what do you do when you feel overwhelmed by the longevity of caring for special needs? As we were thinking about this question, we really thought these are principles that we would offer for any fear that we might face of the future.
The future is unknown, we don't know what's coming. Especially, you feel that with special needs, but we know that a lot of you guys don't have kiddos with special needs, but you are facing unknowns in your future. Really, we want to change this question, just broader principles to what we do when we feel overwhelmed by what may or may not happen in the future. What we do with our fears.
Emily: I think this builds so much even off the last question of "I'm fearing that my child's behavior will never change" or that something will happen that would be devastating to us in the future. Maybe there is a certain transition or an unknown with the career. All of those things could be the case.
I think particularly with special needs, there have been a lot of questions when it's quiet, the snow is falling outside. I don't have anything else on my mind. I can think, “Man, what's going to happen if my child never gets potty-trained? How am I going to change adult diapers?” Or, "What am I going to do if he never talks and I can't communicate with him?” Or, "What about when he gets too big to carry? How am I going to lift him in and out of our van or in and out of our bed?”
Those things can just spiral and spiral and spiral, and they're not wrong or bad things to think about, but they are things that need to pretty quickly be met with truth. One of the first questions I ask myself and I think you can ask yourself about any fear is, is this on my doorstep today? If not, what do I need to do right now? What is right in front of me to do or to care about or to pursue?
A lot of times the best thing for me to do is to just give my heart in obeying the Lord right with what he has in front of me. For my son's case, right now, I'm not changing adult diapers. Right now, I'm not having to figure out how to lift him into a car. Right now, what he needs is practice walking. Okay, I can do that. I can go get his walker and I can help him practice walking.
Then just to trust that, I do that thing that's in front of me better when I am focused on the faithfulness in the moment and not all the things that I'm going to have to be faithful to do in the future.
Laura: Oh, man. Yes, so many thoughts here. I guess I would say, often my husband and I will remind one another that fear is really making a future possibility your present reality. That just means that for me, when I'm getting fearful, I'm taking something that isn't actually true yet and living in it. I don't know if it will be true because we don’t know how our kiddos with special needs will turn out, or we don't know what the future holds, whatever the grief maybe or the fear. We're living in it though and we're acting like it's very real in that moment.
That has been helpful for me to separate. As Emily said, when I get reflective and start thinking about these things, it feels so real that I could start to panic because it's so scary. Another piece with that, if you can separate those things, remember, no, that's in the future. That may or may not happen. That isn't a reality for me today. Then I think you can also remember God is going to give you the exact grace that you need at the exact moment that you need it. The reason it's so scary up ahead, the reason why that unknown future is so terrifying, it's because you haven't been given the grace to walk through it yet.
So often, I will see other moms doing really hard things and I will say, “Oh my goodness, how does she do that?” You talk to a mom who's trusting in Jesus, walking through something super hard, and you're like, “Wow, she is being sustained. She is giving God glory. She is trusting God. How does she do that?” Well, you know how she does that? By the grace of God alone.
If you look back over your life and think about when you've hit some bumps in the road it’s true that it’s been hard. I know for me, it's been very hard. But there's also been a companion along with all of it—a trust and a peace and a resting in God where it wasn't quite as bad as what my fears were. I think that that's been really comforting to look back on the past just like the Bible tells us, “Remember, remember, remember what the Lord has done.” That can sustain us as we walk through our present and we look to the future, to know that I don't have to be afraid of that because I haven't been asked to walk through that right now.
Emily: That trusting that God will equip you and give you the grace to face it if and when it happens. I think there's this practical side to—I think I had an article years ago that I wrote called "No Matter What Happens," which is funny to me now because a lot of things have happened since I've written that, things that I was not planning. Sometimes, I do need to look ahead and imagine our life with the challenging things that are going to happen and to say, "Okay. What would that look like?"
Laura: Yes, this is a good thing.
Emily: How would God sustain me if that thing happened? I sometimes will just use my (hopefully sanctified) imagination to picture. Let's say, okay, our son never moves out. We retire but we don't become empty nesters and we're caring for somebody who maybe has really low mobility or has a wheelchair. I’ll imagine the fun things we could do together as a family even with that, or I'll imagine God providing a resource for us that we didn't know. I don't linger there for too long because I think for some people that could be unhealthy. For me, it just reminds me. You know what? God is going to be with us and he's going to provide in ways we won't know.
We can still have a joyful life in Christ even if it doesn't look the way we thought. Having that picture in my mind helps me just have tempered expectations as I look to the future.
Laura: My husband will often ask me when I'm getting all riled up about, “Oh, we're going to have to take her to the ER or whatever.” He'll say, “Well, then what will we do?” I'll say, “Then we'll take her to the ER.” “Okay, then what will we do?” “We'll do whatever the doctor says.” “Then what will we do?” “Hopefully, we'll take her home or we'll stay in the hospital.” “Then what will we do?” “Then what will we do?” He keeps pushing me to answer exactly what you're saying, “What does the future hold?”
Eventually, I almost every time end up with, "We'll just rest in God's grace or we'll just be a family." I’ll end up somewhere like that no matter what. It's like the important things are there, and God's grace will still sustain us no matter what happens. I love the title, the article, Em, because I think we forget that no matter what happens, in the end, God's plan will go forward and we have Jesus. If we trust in Him and know Him, we have a bright and wonderful future, even if that means a lot of grief on the way to get there.
Emily: I had this pulled up on my computer and I want to read it.
Laura: Okay, read it.
Emily: I feel like the Holy Spirit is moving right now.
Laura: Yes, move Holy Spirit, move! [laughter]
Emily: This is Romans 8:31: “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” Then at the end verse 37 says, “No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We have that, no matter what happens.
Laura: Amen. I think a lot of it comes back to just learning to love the life you've been given. I was saying to Emily the other day on Voxer, I think that life sometimes can feel like it's just a series of griefs, it's just a series of sorrows. You just roll from one to another. Oftentimes, I think about the hardships in life and then I think ahead to eternity and how God is for us and nothing can separate us from him, like it says in Romans 8. I will think about how this life isn't really all that long compared to eternity and the glory that awaits us. I don't know, another 30, 40 years at most, for us at least where we're at, maybe 60, I don't know. I'm bad at math.
Emily: However long.
Laura: The point being, it's not very long and God promises to equip us for every good work that he has ahead of us, to sustain us all the way, and that compared to eternity, we can do hard things and we can learn to love this life. Not necessarily because of the hard things, but because they point us Jesus, to the One that is love and that has given everything for us.
I want to give everything to him. In the midst of these hard things that we work through, I am grateful because I know that these are the things that transform me and sanctify me to prepare me for eternity someday. That is a different perspective, I think, on grief than the world often offers. When we're fearing things, I think that we're embodying the world's thoughts of suffering. I don’t know. I don't know where I'm going with this, but—
Emily: It’s good.
Laura: [laughs] Emily's just “Amen” over there.
Emily: Yesterday I was telling Laura, I might've read this in a book somewhere, but I've been thinking about the Spirit and the Spirit being in us and how that makes us like a partaker of the divine nature. Then it's the Spirit in us that propels us forward each day into the good works that he has prepared for us.
I believe God is sovereign. He's going to do that with the Spirit. No matter what, but becoming more and more aware that whatever it is we're facing today, whatever grief or fear we're experiencing or whatever hard thing that is ahead of me, I have the Spirit in me propelling me forward to do the good work that hopefully looks like Christ that is ministering to the people that I come in contact with, like in me doing that for me, helping me with that. It's just so comforting to remember we're not alone in this. God has provided himself as a help and that he will sustain us.
Laura: Amen. We could go on and on, but I think that it is time to move on to the next question. This is going to be our last question that we're going to wrap up on and it is, what does a quiet time look like with kids for you?
We have talked about this before, we have a couple of shows, but we know that it's always really interesting to hear about what people are doing just to gather some ideas for your own life and hopefully, be encouraged in ways that you can do this at home.
Then also, one of our hopes with this was because it was so frequently asked, was also to show how our quiet time has changed over the years. Just like we talked about with that new mama question of, hey, my church life looks different. Your quiet times are going to look different in different seasons. It's great because God works in all different ways. Praise the Lord.
Emily: I was just thinking back as we had this question about seasons where I have read my Bible and met with God after breakfast. I've put on a show for my toddler so that I could sit with my Bible open. There have been seasons where I waited until everybody was down for a nap, and that is when I read the word. There have been seasons where I've done two to three days a week where I've had a more robust time with him, and then days where I haven't been able to have that robust time. It's just looked different.
If I look back over the last seven-plus years of being a mom, I would say about every three to six months, I have to shake up and say, “Okay, that was working for me before. It's not working for our schedule now. Now, how am I going to meet with the Lord and be sustained by him?” In my current season, our youngest child is now two and a half, and we still have people that wake up during the night occasionally or wake up early, but it's gotten a little bit more predictable.
I don't know if it's just the things that have happened in my life over the last few years or what really God has done to bring me to this place, but I just personally feel really committed to now every single morning I want to, I have to, I am compelled to spend the first part of my day with the Lord. My goal, this is just insanely lofty, you guys, and I'm not even at this mark right now, but is one hour a day every morning for the rest of my life.
Laura: I love that.
Emily: I'm not there yet. Right now, I feel I'm 20 to 30 minutes, five days a week. I want to get to know the Lord. I want to have a really robust relationship with him that is deep and private and rich, and I just don't know any other way.
Laura: Amen, I love that. What do you do?
Emily: What do I do? Okay.
Laura: —during the quiet time for the 20 to 30 minutes, and hopefully an hour? [laughter]
Emily: Yes, we're working towards that hour. I'll just give you guys a few quick thoughts. Some of this too has just been trial and error over the years. I've just learned to say, “That doesn't work for me. That's what I heard on a blog or on another podcast, but it's not working.”
One, I already said I stopped sleeping with my phone by my bed. I got that good old alarm clock and that really helps me be ready to focus on the Lord first thing in the morning. If you're not really sure what to do for that, you can head to our website, risenmotherhood.com/resources. We have Bible studies, we have devotionals, we have free downloadable inductive Bible study tools there, all those different things. Go check that out.
I am still working through a Bible reading plan that I started over a year ago and I literally just read the next thing on my list. I read some in the Word. I also typically will read a prayer from the Valley of Vision or from another prayer resource book. Sometimes, that gives me words for what I'm feeling. I will read a bit of a devotion, like a really rich devotion.
Sometimes, I will even read a chapter in a non-fiction Christian book that's helping me learn. It's not just one thing. At the end of that, I've been journaling my prayers. Anyways, it's just pretty amazing. If you just even break that out in 30 minutes, I can spend that 15 minutes reading my Bible and some of those other things I read, just take me five minutes.
It's a way to just really say, okay, I'm not meeting with the Lord so that I can create content and spit it out. I'm reading about things because I'm interested in him because I want to know him and I'm so curious about that and I want to grow in this and Lord, here's my prayer. That's what I've been doing.
It's interesting because lately our two-and-a-half-year-old has been waking up between 5:50 and 6:10 because she senses that I am awake in my bed just waiting to see her. I put her Bible by my bed and I put her notebook by my bed, and she sits next to me and I just say, “you can sit here as long as you're quiet.” You know, girl sits there and for a little bit, for a little bit—but it's been okay. This has been one of the first times that I've just said, "Lord, this makes me frustrated, but can you give me a spirit of patience?" He's been providing that one day at a time.
Laura: That's right.
Emily: Just one day at a time.
Laura: Just one day.
Emily: Okay, Laura. What about you?
Laura: I think that I'm fairly similar to you in what I do and how it looks, and I have been inspired by hearing Emily talk about one hour a day for the rest of her life. I love that. She shared that with me a little bit ago and I've definitely been thinking that sounds lofty, but that sounds awesome. I don't know. I'll probably steal that from her, like many things that I do. But I think that right now, and this has been going on for a pretty long time, I do about a half an hour every morning. I'm pretty faithful with it, I would say six days a week, seven days a week.
I wake up fairly early. I typically have the time. Sometimes, I have a kiddo that joins me for sure, and same rule as Emily. You can come on in, you have to sit quietly, you have to play quietly, scoot around quietly, whatever it may be.
That is part of my routine as well, and that I just do it and I do as much as I can in that morning. I do, similar to Emily, I have a planned study that I like to do. I have books that I like to read. I have the Val Marie Paper Prayer Journal. This is probably my best tip is that I really appreciate having a place for knowing what to pray for because so often I will tell someone, I will pray for you and then I never do.
That has been really helpful for me to provide some framework to just trigger my own memory. I don't often write a ton in it because usually if I just remember my friend's name, I'll remember what that request is. Sometimes, in the morning, especially when I'm really tired, I will forget. Then to go with that, I pray aloud. I know, in smaller homes, you feel like you might wake up kids, but it can just be like a tiny little whisper. For me, audibly pushing out those words helps my mind to stay focused because I get really distracted really fast, and I'm off to my to do list or I'm off to dreaming about whatever's going to happen tomorrow or whatever. Instead, if I am verbally speaking aloud to God, I stay so much more focused on what I'm asking him.
Often, things will come out because I'm a verbal processor that I didn't even know were in there, or my prayer will take shape to where I will see the Lord has answered it, or I will understand a truth more deeply, or somehow my quiet time—what I was reading—will apply. It's just been really cool to just give that time, and to speak aloud has been a game changer.
The last thing that I will say is: So often for us moms of little kids, we are feeling like we have to have perfection. It might be defined differently depending on who you are, but I would so encourage you to master that restart and to say, “It’s okay that I didn't get to it yesterday. It's okay that I haven't done it for three months. It's okay that I haven't had a quiet time in a year. I'm going to start today and I am going to keep restarting over and over again even if it's not perfect because I know that this is worth it and this is valuable.” Don't let your idolization of a quiet time prevent you from having one.
You need God's word. It is your very life. I think when I look back on my days, I know that I will never ever regret spending time in God's word. I'm not going to look back over the year and say, man, I really wish I wouldn't have spent so much time reading the Bible. I wish I wouldn’t have spent so much time praying. I might say that about TV. I might say that even about some books. I might say that about hobbies. I don't know, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am never ever going to look back and think, man, that was time that was wasted. It never is.
I would just encourage you guys today as we go out here from the show, we're done answering all of our questions, that perhaps this is the right time for you to pick up your Bible and to say, "I'm going to try again."
Emily: I love that because you were just saying this to me yesterday, Laura, we all usually know what we need to do. It's not that complicated. God has said that his word is sufficient for us. That's what we need. We can fight it and like squirm around like a toddler and whine about it and like it's too hard. At the end of the day, that is what we need. We know it. We must just do it. I don't know. I feel I've been in that phase for a while over the years of just like I know when I feel that parched feeling in my soul, in my heart, I'm worn down. It's not the extra little self-care thing I need. It's the word of God every day as much as possible. That's what I need and I just need to do it.
I just want to encourage anyone, as Laura is doing, if you know you need to do it, just do it. Make it happen. I don't mean that in a pull yourselves up by your bootstraps way, but this is your life. Run, go get it.
Laura: That’s right. Amen. This is your life. You got one life, what do you want it to count for?
Emily: I feel like I had some other stuff but we need to wrap up here before we—
Laura: Lord, I'm saying things. We're just letting the filters off.
Emily: Well, thanks for joining us if you made it to the end of Ask Us Anything Spring 2020. Again, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @risenmotherhood. Also go to risenmotherhood.com and check out our articles. We will have one sometime throughout this next week about the different resources you can find. And check out our show notes because we will have links to some of the things that we mentioned and more for you there.
Laura: Thanks guys for tuning in for this nice long show and we'll see you guys next week.