Moms + Work 06: Be a Problem-Solver—An Interview with Phylicia Masonheimer Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Laura Wifler: I want to tell you about our interviewee, Phylicia Masonheimer. Phylicia is the owner of Every Woman a Theologian, and she is a blogger, author, speaker, and podcast host who teaches Christians how to know what they believe. You might be familiar with Phylicia from her blog, her podcast, or her Instagram account as she covers topics ranging from sexuality to motherhood to Bible study and faith in seasons of grief and loss. Her heart really is to just teach women the history and depth of the Christian faith and the "why" behind the Bible.
Phylicia is the author of several books, such as the national bestselling book Stop Calling Me Beautiful. Phylicia lives in Michigan with her husband Josh, and together, they have three children. To learn more about Phylicia, go to phyliciamasonheimer.com or just head to our show notes for all the links. As a heads up, Phylicia is a great friend of Emily and me. On the interview, you're actually going to hear us refer to her as Phy. It's the same person, I promise, but we did end up using her nickname that her friends call her. With that, let's get to the show.
My friends, today is an extra special episode because we have our dear friend Phylicia Masonheimer joining us on the show today. I could not be more excited to have you, Phy. Welcome to Risen Motherhood.
Phylicia Masonheimer: Thanks for having me, ladies. It's so fun to get to see your faces this afternoon.
Laura: Absolutely. We've been friends with Phy for a few years, and it's been fun, Phy, to watch you over the years, especially on Instagram, because we live far away—we live in Iowa, you live in Michigan. But we have just seen the beauty of how you have work and motherhood and the ways that it all intersects and interplays in your life. We wanted to have you on today to talk about how you think about work, the theology that undergirds it—some of the practicals. Before we get to that, can you give us just a little bit of a 101 of who you are and what a day looks like for you?
Phylicia: I do live in Northern Michigan, holler for the Midwest here. We have a small farm in the town I grew up in. My husband Josh and I have three kids and this small farm. Our kids are six, four, and one—two girls and a boy—and we homeschool. I am homeschooling about 15 to 20 hours a week, and then I'm working about 20 hours plus a week and then trying to be intentional about taking a Sabbath. With all of that going on, we, of course, have also church commitments and regular life commitments, but my job is as an author and a speaker. I write Bible studies and e-books and print books on theology.
My husband Josh runs the Every Woman a Theologian shop, which is a branch of my ministry, Every Woman a Theologian. It supports the ministry, and it supports our family and our staff. He runs all the shipping and logistics; I run the content creation and writing any written products. Then we have a designer and some other team members who create any design-based products like t-shirts and such. That runs out of one of our barns. It's much nicer than it sounds, I promise. [Laughter] Then we balance homeschooling and business and the farm and life together, and we're very blessed to get to do that.
Laura: Would you say, Phy, that you—this is just for a clarification—are the primary breadwinner of your family, or you guys are kind of a co—
Phylicia: I would say at first, I was a primary breadwinner when he first transitioned to working with Every Woman a Theologian—because my husband left a really unhealthy work environment to come home. It was very unexpected; I was pregnant with our third baby when it happened. He came into something I had built and didn't really know anything about it. He's an engineer. This is not his cup of tea, generally speaking, but the Lord has really gifted him as an engineer. It's been a really great transition. All that to say—yes, I was the primary breadwinner, but now we see it more as the two of us working together.
Emily Jensen: That's really helpful. I think, as you mentioned, theology is something you're super passionate about. We wanted to zoom in on that specifically and say: can you give us a little bit of your theology of work, your theology of motherhood, and how those intersect together as you're talking about your farm, your business, your family, your church life all being this holistic piece that is how you serve in the kingdom of God?
Phylicia: I love that question because it sounds like a lot of moving pieces, and we all have a lot of moving pieces. You don't have to live on a farm and homeschool to have that happen. We all have a lot going on. In Genesis 2:15, the Lord takes man, Adam, that he just made, and he puts him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. This means that work existed before the fall. I know this theologically and biblically, but I also know it because my dad would say this over and over when we were growing up, when we had to do chores. He would say, "Work existed before the fall." [Laughter] This is not a bad thing.
Laura: I'm going to start that—remind my kids.
Phylicia: Because we were always like, "It's because of sin. This is why we have to do chores." He was like, "No, actually Adam was working before the fall," and he would even tell us—good old dad—that in heaven we would probably work. He said, "Work is an image of God and is a way of imaging God." We see God working to create the world and then resting on the seventh day. The fall of man in Genesis 3 introduces resistance and corruption, but it does not introduce work. It makes all labor—that word "labor" is the same for Adam as it is for Eve when God talks to both of them. He said, "It's going to be more difficult now because of sin, but work itself is not a product of sin."
I see this theology of work, then, as a good thing, as a way of imaging God's creativity. That applies to every area of life, whether I'm feeding my goats or washing dishes or writing a Bible study. I'm imaging God's creativity. Even though it's an imperfect image, I get to have that privilege by working.
Emily: Thanks, Phy. I think that's just really helpful—to go into that perspective where all of our work matters. I think one of the things we love watching you do on Instagram is piecing together all of the different types of work that the Lord is giving you and approaching your weeks and your days with intentionality. I'm just curious if you would share with us some of the biblical principles that undergird how you approach that each week, down to the way you set your schedule—maybe even the order of your days. What is undergirding that?
Then, in the midst of your week, we know that changes happen. We were just talking about sick kids and how that is—your deadlines don't go away or your meetings don't go away necessarily when you have sick kids. Tell us, then, how you would triage the reality of what happens versus your plans.
Phylicia: Let me address the first part: biblically, how am I thinking about this tension? There are two things that I come back to. First, a lot of it comes from Proverbs actually. Proverbs 16:9 says, "In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps." I think we sometimes see this verse as man's ideas versus God's, but I think that possibly the author may have had a different intent with the tension he presents here. The person who's planning his course—because it's using two different words: man plans his course; God ordains his steps. Man is actually setting this big-picture intention in the verse. He is planning—that's not presented as a bad thing—but he's planning by keeping in mind that God is establishing his steps.
God knows what those little day-to-day interruptions will be. He's providing the grace to face them. We still should plan, but we should not plan God out of our life and be super rigid and inflexible about the plan because then we miss the whole point. We can't live in grace towards our family because they're considered the interruption to the real work. I think it was C. S. Lewis—I may be misquoting, but—said that children are not an interruption to the real work; they are good work or the real work. That's the first thing I keep in mind is that plans are good, but flexibility is necessary.
The second thing for me is diligence. I think this really is a lost teaching today. I think, because of the extreme of hustle culture, we've now adopted as moms sometimes—not everybody, not all the time—sometimes we can adopt this idea that I deserve to do nothing, or I deserve to not try because "hustle culture." Yes, hustle culture is a real problem, but laziness is a real problem too, and diligence makes time for rest. That's the difference. Hustle doesn't, diligence does. Diligence and Sabbath are hand-in-hand. I really prioritize being diligent and acknowledging when I'm being lazy, because I do—I be lazy sometimes. [Laughter]
Laura: I think that that's really helpful. I know that, for me, sometimes it'll be like, "I need to go into the studio that day, or I need to go into the office." Like you said, a child will get sick, or a child will need me, and it is really tough. But for me, as someone who really enjoys work naturally, I think exactly what you're saying—of seeing our kids as the Lord's work and as just as important. God really is—he knows.
That has been a huge comfort to me as a mom to say, "Okay, the Lord knows that I've got a sick kiddo, that I'm not going to be as available as I wanted to be, that I have to reschedule these meetings," and to really just trust that what he wants you to get done, he's going to make a way for. What needs to get done, the Lord will provide. I think, a lot of times, we get in that scarcity or fearful mentality of like, "If I'm not available to do this, it's not going to get done, and then things are going to crash." That's really propping ourselves up as being God.
I just think that that's an important reminder that you shared there. As we order our days, to really be able to slow down and say, "No, this is a divine appointment from the Lord, and I can trust that what needs to get done will still get done." The rest—it's going to be okay.
Emily: Even to speak to the flip side of that, Phy, I really like what you mentioned about being diligent because I think that's been one of my struggles that we've also talked about on previous shows. It can be easy when you don't have specific deadlines or work on the table that you're like, "I have income-producing work. I have to get this done." It's like, "Okay, I can stay in my pajamas a little bit longer and I can take all day to do this task."
It's really helped me to think over the years, "No, my household—if that's what I have on my to-do list that day—is my job that day." I know you talk about that a lot on Instagram, and that's why you get dressed and do your hair. Maybe not everybody wants to put on hard pants, but whatever that is for you.
Laura: Phy's probably wearing yoga pants. I think she's wearing yoga pants.
Phylicia: Really stretchy jeans. [Laughter]
Emily: That mindset has helped me immensely, to go, "No, this is my 12, 13 hours that I'm putting in today is to do the work of the home." Then, what that's helped me with is to treat it like a job where I have to learn skills if I don't have the skills, or I have to grow in my craft, whether that is getting better at making meals for people or getting more organized. I don't like love planners and task lists but figuring out how I'm going to integrate those things into my life, so to say, "Okay, I'm not stuck with not knowing what to do." Just like any other job. If you don't know what to do, you have to get trained and figure it out. That's true in the work of the home as well.
Phylicia: I think you bring up a really good point, Emily, about being a problem-solver, not being a victim. That's a big attitude shift. I go through my day thinking, "That was really frustrating." Just yesterday, I did have a child come down sick. Whole day had to be completely adjusted—a lot was riding on it. Really flexible there, like Elastigirl with my time.
What you bring up is being a problem-solver. Instead of saying, "Ugh, this happened to me," saying, "That's really frustrating. Lord, do you see this? How can I be a problem-solver in this situation? How can I adjust? How can I troubleshoot this?" Go from there and ride the wave, if you will. That's the key, I think, to truly feeling more fulfilled in the work of the home. I agree with you: all work, paid or unpaid, matters to God; all of it's valuable. I see all of it, no matter what I'm doing in those 12 hours, as my work. I think that attitude shift is very important to owning our work of motherhood and enjoying it.
Laura: Yes. I think it's one of those things where, for me, if I wake up with the expectation that I will be interrupted, I am far more peaceful throughout the day and I am far less provoked by those interruptions. Just to say, "My life is filled with interruptions," instead of, "My life is mine and it's going to go the way I need to go."
The other thing I wanted to bounce off of was: Phy, I've seen you talk about this—and Emily, you were just saying—of growing in our craft. This is just even a small example, but I think I'll never forget the time my mother-in-law taught me how to actually wipe down counters and wash dishes. She taught me the old, true way to do it, where you save water, and you wipe down these counters with soap and water. I was buying this lemon spray that was really expensive from Target, all-natural, whatever.
I just thought to myself, "This is a job where I want to grow, even in my non-income-producing work, and apply myself and be more efficient and be better and be diligent." Like you're saying—problem-solving. I think that that's important for all of us, especially those of us, I think, sometimes that have work outside the home. We can come home and think, "I just want to relax. I just need to chill. It's my turn now." Instead, to be able to say, "No, I want to grow in even my work of the home." There's always more things to learn and to get better at.
Phylicia: Yes. Your analogy or your story made me think of this friend of mine. She was the second youngest of 14 children. I met her mom when I was growing up. Her mom, if you met her, was—I don't even know. She's like a character from a book. You'd meet her, and you'd be like, "How do you have 14 children?" She was always put together. She had always had her nails done. She only wore skirts, and she always looked just pristine. Just an absolute enigma.
She actually learned from her husband who was pretty high up, I think, in General Motors or something how to manage her home. He brought home these work practices for managing employees—hundreds of them. They implemented a modified version in their home for managing chores, for managing food. I just remember meeting her and seeing just how much joy she had in her kids, how much she loved her husband and her family. Not all of us are going to do things the way they did, but it just stood out to me that she did see her home as her work, and treating it that way made her a very fulfilled mom when she was doing, goodness knows, so much stuff. [Laughter]
I think, looking to these older moms—that's another topic—but I think that that is a great way to actually learn how we treat our work in the home as something that matters immensely and become better at it. I just love that whole idea.
Emily: I think we don't have to feel too ashamed that we didn't go into life or motherhood knowing those things. I think one thing with our generation is we didn't necessarily obtain those skills growing up in the same way our grandmothers or great-grandmothers—women throughout time—have obtained those skills.
I think it's okay to say, "The reason why this is uncomfortable for me or the reason why I have a hard time treating it like my job is because I don't know how to wipe down my counters. I don't know how to manage my laundry. I've never learned that. I didn't learn that in college, or my mom didn't manage laundry well." Or whatever your response is, I think that's okay to say out loud and know that's probably not unique to you. Most women are feeling that going into taking care of a home and kids to some degree.
Laura: Phy, can you tell us a little bit more about one thing that you'd like to highlight for us that God has taught you in the journey of work in motherhood? We'd just love to hear. I'm sure there's a myriad of things, but just one thing that sticks out to you.
Phylicia: The thing that's made the biggest difference for me in being a diligent worker in my home, whether that's paid or unpaid, homeschooling or writing a book, is prioritizing rest. That may sound counterintuitive to some people who are listening, but I'm often asked—and this is not me bragging—but I am often asked, "How do you do so much? How do you have a farm and homeschool, yada, yada?" I don't actually do so much. I actually have a cap on what is done and can be done, and a stopping point every day. And on Sundays, I don't do anything. I even put my phone away for almost the entire day. Not just removing social media, but a hard stop.
I believe that that's what God modeled at creation. You could call it a Sabbath. I'm not observing it in the Jewish way; I'm observing it in a restful way. Our whole family does. That's the reason that I can even do what God has given me to do because of his design for rest. Anything else would be buying into hustle and achieving on my own strength. I've done that, and I've been there, and it doesn't work. I'm pretty sure it caused a whole lot of health issues that I've had in the past.
I've seen what the Lord has done in my health. I've seen what he is saying with how to use our time. Creating those boundaries of saying, "Okay, I'm done working at 5:00" or "I'm not working at all on Sundays"—those are a way of saying, "God, I trust you to make up the time that I'm losing, and I trust you to provide for me and for my family, even though I'm not actively working for it."
Laura: Phy, I think that's super helpful, and I love that. I love that you practice rest. I know you and I even talked about that in our personal relationship and what that really looks like. I'm curious what happens when—let's say there is a mom. She's working full-time, she does have deadlines. Or she does have to pick up the extra shift, or she has to work Christmas. What gospel hope would you share with her, or what do you think about when you're in that position? I know you have deadlines, and I know you have people who are calling on you. We want to rest, and we want to have this healthy balance, but what if you're in that season where it's like, "This just doesn't feel possible?" What truth sustains you?
Phylicia: The truth is that sometimes seasons are harder and busier and more demanding, and I definitely have those. Our last fall was exactly like that, but, in that, I have to be realistic about which of those things actually have to be done and which of those things I'm saying have to be done. Sometimes, if you're going to work and you're working full-time, and then you have to get the kids to bed—those are things that have to be done. Make dinner—all that has to be done. I might be adding onto that "I have to scroll social media" or "I have to work out in the morning." I add things onto that that maybe I should be willing to pause in order for me to have more rest.
Another thing is—I want to revisit what I just said: that God sees it and he knew this was coming. He knew you were going to face a difficult season, and he sustains you in it. Practically, I would say, the highest priority for me in those really hard seasons is: if I have to cut the workout and I have to cut some social events for myself to be alone, to be with the Lord, or to go for a walk, that's usually my choice—to just go for a walk and be by myself. Even if it's dark, snowing, raining—I will go, after the kids are in bed and Josh is home with them. Creating margin and space, even when it means cutting some things that I feel like I deserve, or I feel like I need to have. Sometimes I think we can mix up what is actually necessary, and then we can create more margin for rest when we prioritize.
Emily: I think that's really helpful. Even that you're talking about—sometimes it can just be a season—and recognizing, "This is where I'm at right now." I might have to pause working out, or I might have to not sign up to volunteer to bring classroom treats or whatever those things are. Sometimes I've even had a season—even right now—where I haven't signed up for a formal Bible study at my church. It's like, "Well, it doesn't mean I'm not meeting with the Lord or reading his Word."
That's something in the past I felt like "I have to do that. If I'm not doing that, I'm not being faithful." No, there's principles underneath that that we need to uphold, but really evaluating those essential, necessary things is so helpful.
Phylicia: I was just thinking about what you're saying. So often we add those things. I add those things because I feel like they're what I should be doing in the eyes of other people. For the mom who is struggling, I would just encourage you to narrow in on what you are supposed to be doing, regardless of what anyone else thinks you should be doing at the school or at church, or anywhere else. What are you supposed to be doing? In-laws, friends—just cut out any opinion. What is God's opinion of what you should be doing? Often, we find that there's a lot less. The yoke actually is easier when we focus there. I have to preach that to myself very often.
Emily: Phy, any last word of encouragement you'd give to moms in their work?
Phylicia: I would just encourage them to recognize that they are creating beauty and order out of their day, whatever they're doing. You can create beauty and order out of the messy dishes becoming clean dishes. You can create beauty and order out of a dirty diaper becoming a clean one. [Laughter]
Laura: I don't know if diapers are ever beautiful, but okay.
Phylicia: Clean diapers are more beautiful than dirty diapers.
Laura: True. [Laughter]
Phylicia: You're imaging God by creating this beauty in any area that you're doing it. Whether you're writing something beautiful, or you're making beautiful art, or you're cooking a good meal, it's all creating beauty and leaving that as a legacy with your family every day that you do it. That's why, honestly, I think we can wake up excited for our homes and our days and our families because we get the opportunity to create that every single day. That, to me, is very exciting.
Laura: I love that. Well, thanks, Phy, for joining us today on the Risen Motherhood podcast. We so appreciated your time. If you guys are wanting more of Phylicia, head to our show notes, and you will see all the links to where she's at, the books she's written, and all the stuff that we mentioned at the beginning of the show. You can follow her work and just get some great peeks inside her motherhood and hear even more about how theology informs her everyday life. Thanks for joining us.
