Ep. 163 || Change is a Good Thing, Part 1 Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Laura: Hey friends, It’s me, Laura popping in again to just remind you all that today’s show was recorded quite a few months ago, well before Coronavirus affected all of our lives. You’ll hear us talk about this on the show, but today’s episode is actually part one of a two-part series on sanctification in the life of a mom. I think right now all of us can say we’re being sanctified by the changes and effects in our lives from Coronavirus :)—which is why you might find it weird that we don’t mention it on today’s show, if you didn’t know that we recorded it a while ago. Anyway, we just wanted to give you a heads up that you’re going to hear us talking about lighter, kinda “regular life” things sanctifying us and it might feel a little off for our current moment. But we trust that God can still use it and hopefully it will still be an encouragement to you. And actually, it’s been fun to hear from so many of you that you’ve appreciated that our content isn’t Coronavirus heavy and how you’ve been pleasantly surprised by how relevant it all still is—and that’s the same with us! :)
Okay, on a side note, we mention grabbing the Risen Motherhood book on today’s show and since I’m recording this just a few days before release, I wanted to let you know that it’s on great sale on several sites throughout the web. We’ll link the best deals on our show notes today as well as note the ones that can hopefully get to your door (Or the door of another mom you care about!) by Mother’s Day. There’s also a free downloadable card that you can print on our site that matches the book. You can fill this out with a sweet note to let the recipient know it’s coming.
Another idea for a Mother’s Day gift, if you’re looking, is to consider making a donation to Risen Motherhood in the name of a mother you care about. As a nonprofit, these donations are key for us to continue producing content and resources, and right now, if you make a donation of $50 or more, Risen Motherhood will send a note in your name to your designated recipient. Just head to risenmotherhood.com/dedicategift to learn more.
Lastly, I wanted to let you know what Emily and I have a new devotional on YouVersion that you can check out! It’s just five days long, so it’s nice and quick—and hopefully, an encouraging read leading up to Mother’s Day. It’s a great devotion to share with a mom-friend if they haven’t checked out our content before, so we’d love it if you considered sharing it with friends and read it with them or share it on your social platforms so more moms can hear about the hope of the gospel.
Okay that’s all from me - let’s get to today’s show.
Laura: Well, hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Risen Motherhood. I'm Laura and I have my sister in law Emily, here.
Emily: Hello.
Laura: Mother's Day is around the corner, and we want to encourage you guys, if you have not checked out the Risen Motherhood book yet, it would make an awesome Mother's Day gift if you're looking for something to add to your list—or to perhaps give to another mother in your life, a friend, a sister-in-law, your own mom, etc. The book is really beautiful. We're hopeful that it feels very giftable in a way and that it would be a blessing for any mom that receives it. You can buy that anywhere books are sold.
Emily: Yes, and there's also a Kindle version and an audio version as well, if either of those two are appealing for you. In today's show we're going to be talking about something related to the book because in the book, we're exploring the overarching vision for motherhood and in the way that we take the big story of the Bible, the gospel: creation, fall, redemption, consummation—and apply that into our very everyday lives. I think sometimes we can lose our bearings a little bit in the mundane responsibilities that we have.
Laura: It can often feel like what is the point of all of this? What are we pursuing? Maybe you wouldn't phrase it exactly like this, but I think deep in our core, we all are wondering, “Does all this matter?” The hard stuff, the mundane stuff, the light, the easy. I know, it can feel very cyclical, very routine, and we're wondering, “Is this going to be worth it?” Or, “Where are we headed?”
Emily: Yes, I feel that way a lot in meal planning. I'll spend time on the weekend and I'll try to get all these recipes, and I get all my groceries, and it'll feel like, "Well, nobody even really liked what I made," or, "Nobody ate it that night," or, "My husband ended up coming home from work late so he ate it cold." You're like, "I put in all this time and did that help anybody?" [chuckles]
Laura: I’m so curious what the number of hours a typical mom spends on meal planning and meal prep. It's got to be a significant portion of our lives! If you think about social media, they say, “Oh, you spend three hours a day on social media, that's seven years of your life.” What would it be for meal planning?
Emily: It's a lot more for food.
Laura: It's got to be like 50 years. [laughter]
Emily: It is a huge part of how we nourish our families.
Laura: It's important.
Emily: I think at times, even though we know it's important, in the moment, it can still feel very futile. What about some deeper things?
Laura: Oh man, I think for me, I can feel the nights and days start to get really repetitive. I have a night-waker that is often in our bed for at least a few hours. That's definitely one of those things where I'm like, "What is the point?" Or "Does this even matter?" Then I think too when I feel brokenness in relationships with friends or family, that's an acute moment for me to feel like, "What am I pursuing? What's the goal?"
I think, "I'm so tired with this. I'm so tired of the ongoing griefs." There's this idea of trying to do life-on-life, and I'm continually investing in relationships and continually working out all the things that come up in relationships. Sometimes I can feel weary of that and—I don't know, it's easier to sit at home and keep to ourselves and watch Netflix than it is to keep pressing through and loving people well in relationship. Or I can feel this way about children sometimes being annoying or unreasonable with the requests or you feel like, "I put a lot of time to this. I'm really actually trying to train you up in the way of the Lord. I'm actually thinking about bringing new library books in the car so we can have a pleasant drive on the way home.” Trying to do things so they can flourish yet they don’t care can sometimes feel for not.
Emily: Yes, absolutely. I think for anybody who's listening, you can think of probably lots of your own things. Perhaps it's laundry for you, recipes, meal planning, coordinating childcare for your job or getting to work, redecorating your living room, feeling like the next second you're on Instagram, and you're like, "Well, that's out of style as of five seconds ago. Target fully restocked their decor section.”
Laura: Everything is better somehow, what I just bought. [laughter] Or maybe it's that you are trying to help your husband to lead your family and teaching your kids the Bible, but you're not seeing him show interest, or maybe there are a lot of griefs in your life, over and over again. I know sometimes I can feel I'm rolling from one grief to the next. Or maybe it's hearing bad news consistently and feeling like it never seems to get better for you. This is where I think all of us are saying like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, "I've seen everything that is done under the sun and behold, all is vanity and are striving after the wind."
Emily: Yes, It's really interesting to even read through Ecclesiastes and see all of the things that Solomon tries out. He was somebody with abundant riches and abundant wisdom. He had all this wealth and power and influence so he could say, "Okay, I'm going to try to find meaning and all these different things." If you read through the book of Ecclesiastes, you see him saying, "I'm going to try to find meaning in laughing more, and pursuing pleasure, and drinking great wine, and learning new things." He built big houses. He plants gardens. I think one of the verses talks about him planting a forest. "I'll enjoy the beauty of the outdoors." He has people that serve him.
He pursues it in sex and riches, social status, music and art, working hard, good food, good drink and even having children, having a large families. I think one of the verses says, "Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them." His conclusion after all of these in the end is “everybody dies.” None of these things in the end held that quenching power for the meaning of life, the purpose of life. He’s just like, "It's best to serve the Lord and follow Him and enjoy the good gifts He's given us in our lives while we can, because ultimately, it's only God that satisfies."
Laura: I think we can emulate Solomon. So often we're saying, "Well, what's the point? When am I going to finally be happy, have that fulfilling job, have a connected marriage, have more time for my own self-care, live a well-accomplished life or climb the corporate ladder, get to the bottom of that never ending to-do list?" We do the same thing that Solomon does—try to find meaning and purpose because we want to know that our life matters, we want to know that there really is a point to all of this. We invest our time and things, and what we really want to get to the heartbeat of today is, what's our destination and our goal as believers? We want to look for a moment at this passage in Revelation 21—perhaps we should read it.
Emily: Yes, let's read it!
Laura: It's Revelation 21:1-4, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who is seated on the throne said,’“Behold, I am making all things new.’”
That is really powerful.
Emily: I never get tired of hearing that passage. Actually this last fall, Laura and I heard Erin Davis give a really great talk on this passage. The point of her talk was to point out this reality that there's only a few things that are going to last. There's these two buckets. I think she talked about them like farm girl buckets, which we totally understood that imagery, [laughter] that there is no third bucket. The things that are going to last are God and his people and his word. Those are eternal things. Then there's going to be a whole bunch of former things.
In this passage, we see death is going to be no more, tears are going to be wiped away, mourning, crying, pain, all of those are going to be former things. Those are some of the things that we feel in that futility of everyday life, and sometimes, some of us cry over laundry or we cry over a diagnosis where we feel the pain alongside our children and we feel pain in our own bodies related to motherhood, and that reality is that those are former things. There are also eternal things that are important that we invest in.
Laura: Yes, I have to remind myself with all of these that what is so sobering about this passage is that you cannot save stuff. You can't even save your own experiences or your days. You can't hoard it somewhere for later use. As Emily was saying with the two buckets, you have these former things and you have eternal things, there is no in-between. Peter writes, "Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, it's clear what people you should be in holy conduct and godliness as you wait for the day of God and hasten it's coming." This is the question Emily and I are constantly asking ourselves: “What bucket are we putting things into? Are we putting into the former or into the eternal? Are we hoarding things or are we saying, "No, I want to be holy in conduct and in godliness as we wait for God, as we get excited about His coming?”
Emily: I think as we're looking at this passage, and we're seeing the weightiness of the things that Peter is talking about, these are not things that we talk about on Risen Motherhood in this deep sobering way a lot, but let's make note for a minute that what this doesn't say is that, in the meantime, you should be striving to have a Magnolia-style decorated house and have a really great social media following, or have children that make good grades and go to an Ivy League school, or you should travel the world and eat the best food and be physically beautiful, and wear amazing clothing [laughter].
All of these things, that's not what our life is meant to be about, but a lot of us live like that's what our life should be about, thinking our destination is this illusive version of ourselves. We've talked about this on shows in the past, about this idea that we have of who we should be and, “If I can just make it to that point. If I can just look that way, if I can just get my life ordered that way, then I'll be happy and that's my purpose.” But that's not what the Bible says our purpose is.
Laura: Emily keeps using this word destination and I think it's such a helpful word. Romans 8:29 says, "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son so that he would be firstborn among many brothers and sisters." When we ask ourselves, “Well, what's our destination, where are we headed? Is it to be great at motherhood or have a nice house, job success, to save the Manatees?” [laughter] No! It's to follow Christ and to give it all for Him and we have a destination. “For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.” That, that right there: “To be conformed to the image of his son,” that is our destination!
Emily: Yes, it’s one of the things we ought to pause and do is ask ourselves, “Are we on that journey? Have we committed our lives to Christ?” We don't always have a super clear call for this in our show because we know that a lot of you who are listening have trusted in Christ, but if you haven't, there's limited time. We don't know how much time we have in our lives. If you hear the gospel today, do not harden your heart. Turn while there is still time. When we were on our Risen Motherhood retreat, one of the things we were looking at is the living water of Christ that's available to us right now.
He says, “Come and drink, thirsty, come and drink without price.” There will be a time when we die that we can't come and drink anymore. There isn't that opportunity. We’ve had it in this life. This is our time right now to repent of sin and turn to Christ. He wants to welcome us. He is full of mercy and grace. He wants the tired, worn down, broken people to come to him. If that's you today, we want to encourage you. Stop whatever you're doing, turn from your sin, pray, cry out to God and he will save you.
Laura: Amen. That is our prayer for every woman who listens to the show. That they would not only grow in their love of Christ but perhaps they would meet Him for the very first time. At this point, for those of you who are in Christ, this is something that is really, really encouraging, is that we can know that we have this destination in Christ. It's not, "Oh, this is maybe going to happen. If you do this, then you're going to get this." No, it's going to happen. It won't happen in full during your life on earth, but we are progressing towards being conformed into Christ, we're moving towards this.
Right now, we're in between that redemption and consummation phase, that “already but not yet,” as people say. We've had creation, we were made by God, and He gave us a design and purpose for our life. We had the fall and sin has impacted that and now keeps us from God's original design. Then we have redemption, where Christ conquered death, and now we have that restoration process where we’re being redeemed and we’re being conformed to the image of his son.
Emily: That's where we are! But the destination is consummation when God is going to make all things new, like that passage in Revelation said. He is going to make us fully new at that time, but right now, we're on the path. We're on the path and as we're on this journey and we're in our everyday life, in the midst of our griefs, and we're wondering, "Why does it matter that I'm facing this relational struggle? What’s the point of all this?" Well, we're servants of Christ! We’re busy doing the Master’s work. This is not our household, it's his.
This is tough for us to realize sometimes, but that has to be our posture like, "Yes, we're God's children. Yes we're his friends through Christ," but if Christ humbled himself and took on the form of a servant, then that's our role too. We're not seating ourselves in the place of honor and getting all of the things we want in this life but we're willing to do the hard, mundane, lowly work because that's what he does.
Laura: Yes, I think that has been a massive perspective shift for me in my motherhood and in my whole life. As I have grown in my understanding that my life is not my own—we’re called to lose our lives all for the sake of Christ. I think for me, as I have seen growth and change in my life, as I've seen myself grow into the image of the Son, that humility portion that Emily is talking about has undergirded everything.
Andrew Murray has a quote where he says, "Humility is not something that we bring to God or that he bestows. It's simply the sense of entire nothingness that comes when we see how truly God is everything. When the creature realizes this is a place of honor and consents to be with her will, her mind, and her affections, the vessel in which the life and glory of God are to work and manifest themselves, she sees that humility is simply acknowledging the truth of her position as a creature and yielding God to her place." What I love about that quote is that it talks about how this is a place of high honor, that the lowest path really is the place of highest honor as a believer.
When we can get that, which it's a mindset, it becomes something that God can work in, and that He uses. For me, I have personally seen the most growth in my patience as a mom, and my ability to handle my husband working long hours and being kind to him, iIn my joy that I can have while doing dishes or mopping the floors, my heart attitude. My circumstances haven't changed at all. As I've said, "Lord, I want to be more like you. Help me lose myself." That has been one of the biggest vehicles for me to be a canvas to change.
Emily: It's like knowing your destination and knowing that you're a vessel in the meantime allows God to work and use us and change us into the image of Christ. One of the examples I heard Jen Wilkin give a long time ago that I thought was so helpful to me is when she talks about going into a hotel room and saying we would never move into a hotel room and call the subcontractors, redo the floor, change the wallpaper, buy new furniture in there, because we're there temporarily. It’s not your permanent dwelling. It doesn't matter if the wallpaper isn't to your taste, and it doesn't matter if you don't love the floors that way.
You might get your clothes out of your suitcase and put them into the drawers, and you might try to make it as comfortable as you can or homey or enjoy what it is while you're there, but you're not viewing the hotel room as your permanent dwelling. As we're thinking about our lives, we have to remember we're sojourners. We’re aliens in this world. This is not our final home, this is not our final destination. Let's not set up shop here like it's all we've got, and everything better conform to our desires and better be the way that we want, and better give us all the things we want right now because this is all we have.
This life is not all we have. All that we have is coming, and we're walking and serving God day by day until we get to this final point where we get to dwell with Him forever like that Revelation talks about on the New Earth. That's what we're looking ahead to and living for and that's our destination!
Laura: Amen. I don't know the age of everyone listening, but you're probably anywhere from 20 to 60-years old right now, most likely, right? That means you probably got anywhere from 20 to 60 years left on this earth. You might have one more day. I might have one more day. We have no idea. At the end of your days, don't you want to say that you gave it all for the cause of Christ? You did everything you could, you gave every single piece of energy, of every piece of your mind, your heart-
Emily: Body, soul, spirit, strength!
Laura: Thank you! All those things! Everything about you to give it away because as Emily's talking about, we have eternity to look forward to, and that is so much longer, we can't even compare it to the short, tiny, minute thing that we are living for today! Karen Hodge, our board director, often says to us that you need to “live for the line, not the dot.” Often, I find myself living with tunnel vision, looking down at this day, this Monday, that I need to get all this stuff done. That's all I'm living for, but instead, how can I live to see all the way ahead to eternity?
If you can live for eternity with an eternal perspective, it will change how you live today. It will change how you order your time, who you spend your time with, how you talk, what you do. When that becomes your orbit, you can say, "I want to give it all for Christ because I know that I've got eternity, and glory awaits me there, true happiness, true joy—everything I've ever wanted, I will get someday. I don't have to have that here, because I've got Christ and He is worth it. This might not all be worth it, but Christ is worth it.”
Emily: So good.
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Emily: Hey there. Thanks for listening today. In case you're wondering where that conversation trail the hub, you can pick it back up next week. Laura and I got to talking and this was such a big topic, we had so much to say to each other and to say to you guys that we want to keep the conversation going. Come back next week. We are going to dive into how people can change into Christ-likeness. How do we actually do this boots on the ground? We're going to share a few things that we're learning about this personally, and we would love you guys to join us next week.
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