Gospel Mom 01: On Being A “Good Mom” + Other Things (GM - C1) Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Laura Wifler: Okay, Emily, a while ago—I don't know if you saw this too, but I saw a video on Instagram of a friend of ours—a mutual friend of ours—and she was talking about how people marvel at how different their children end up being, even though they're raised by the same parent. She was like, "But they are not raised by the same parent." She was like, “Case in point: my first kid got a raisin up their nose, and it was like, ‘Immediate ER!’” but then the other kid—her third child—stuck a Lego up his nose, and she plugged his other nose and made him push out—like breathe out and pop the Lego out. She's like, “Done.” She's like, “That is not the same parent.” I felt like in that moment, I was like, "Amen. This, this, this. This is how I have always felt."
Emily Jensen: Oh, it is so true. I remember seeing that video and being like, “Absolutely.” Because over time, we change. Even if our values and our love of the Lord and the things that we believe deep down have not changed, our toolbox gets so much bigger, and we know so much more, and our perspective shifts and changes.
It is so funny. I think that happens at our house all the time, where like—our oldest would be like, "You would have never done that with us." It's like, “You're right,” because I didn't know that at that time. It is interesting when you think about how many different stages and seasons you go through as a mom, just trying to get your footing in motherhood and figure out who you are as a mom and what kind of mom you are and all those different things.
Laura: Yes. I think that it's really interesting because it takes years to figure out who we are, like you were saying. The way that we make those decisions really changes because, for example, if it's like, "Hey, I want to go to the ER," well, maybe at the time, safety is your number one value, and you don't have experience. You're like, "Well, just in case I'm wrong," and there's fear mixed in. Then, a mom the third time around is like, "Oh, I've been around the block. I know what I'm doing. If this doesn't work, then we'll try the ER."
It's definitely a totally different mom. I think that this is just the essential question that we have to ask as moms, because no matter how much we hear that freedom-in-Christ idea, it can still feel like there are right ways to mother and wrong ways to mother. Not even talking about sin issues, right? We all know the definite wrong ways.
Emily: There are definitely wrong ways to mother.
Laura: Yes, but most of us—especially those of us listening to this podcast—in general, we're still struggling over things like school choice and giving your kid a phone. Do you have enough quality time with your kids, or are you feeding them the right nutrition, or are you exposing them too much or maybe even too little? It's this constant—I still feel the tension of “Am I doing too little here or too much there—not enough?” It's a constant battle, I think, in motherhood.
Emily: Yes, absolutely, because all of these things are—they are gray areas, and they are things that are not clearly spelled out in Scripture in this super detailed way. I think one of the things we've realized over the years, not only in our own motherhood but also just as we've listened to moms share and gone through this whole Risen Motherhood process, is how much we just want someone to tell us what to do.
Just give me a formula. Just give me a handbook. Just tell me exactly what school at what time. Just tell me exactly how many minutes of TV. Tell me when they can have an iPad. Just tell me what the formula is for loving my children well and for doing good things as a mom and for being a good mom. Then we think, “Then, I will just do that, and I will just follow that.” It's so interesting because that is not how God has us approach motherhood. It's so much more rich and complex, and it's about having faith and all these different things. It can be frustrating at first, and yet, it's freeing.
I think one of the things we get caught up in is our own image of motherhood and wanting there to be—I think an analogy we've used before is a manual. When you're putting together furniture, it's like where you can literally see everything so that you can copy it. We want there to be a category of mom or a lifestyle or a method or something that we can grab onto and just say, "Okay, that's it. That is good motherhood. That's godly motherhood. That's Christian motherhood."
Laura: Yes. It's super interesting because I think, whether you realize it or not, you start to cobble this together. Especially at the beginning of young motherhood, I know for me, I was really seeking—
Emily: —Yes, there's a whole bunch of "I'm never going to . . . ” and “I'm definitely going to . . . " [Laughter]
Laura: For sure. You're really thinking, "Okay, this is the mom that I want to be like, and this is the mom that I don't want to be like." We grab these stereotypes, and we create our own manual, right? It might be people that we admire—maybe some people that we know or that we follow on Instagram. Some famous person. We also follow techniques and methods.
I can't tell you how many times, especially when we were young moms—these are out of vogue now. You guys who are young moms are like, "What are you guys talking about?" The popular things were baby-led weaning or—"You're a Babywise mom,” or “You're a co-sleeper mom.” There were definite camps, and whether you identified in that camp or not, you started to follow the gurus, right?
The other day, I actually saw somebody on Instagram. It said “An authoritative parenting account.” Then, one of their first squares was like, "But it's actually gentle parenting." I was like, “What is happening?” They were explaining how being authoritative is being gentle. I'm not even in the gentle parenting movement. We’re both out of that.
Emily: We're like, “Don't even know.”
Laura: I remember literally thinking like, "Okay, that's one way to get everybody." [Laughter] I don't know—we create these stereotypes and, I don't know—there's probably other ways that we get these things.
Emily: Yes. It's interesting because I think it becomes an identity question. It's like—if I can just find what kind of mom I am—what label I identify with—there is a sense of security in that. There's a sense of belonging in that. There's a sense of “I can pat myself on the back because I found the better way.” And it can come out in things like—people probably don't—well, sometimes they do wear t-shirts with this—but things like, "Hey, I'm a homesteading mom," or like, "I really am into this urban lifestyle. We live in a city; I'm definitely an urban mom," or "I'm a missionary mom," or "I'm a crunchy mom." Now there's all these versions of crunchy that I don't know. Have you seen that?
Laura: I don't think I have.
Emily: Scrunchy, squishy, crackly. I don't know.
Laura: You're making that up!
Emily: No.
Laura: Really?
Emily: You don't have to. I don't know what they all are.
Laura: You'll have to send me it.
Emily: Squishy.
Laura: I'm a squishy mom. I don't want to be a squishy mom. [Laughter] I don't know what that means. All I can think about is my body.
Emily: Yes. “Homeschool mom.” “I'm trendy.” “I'm an influencer mom.” There can be all these different things. “Stay-at-home mom.” “I'm a working mom.” Then there's like a whole group of moms who are like, "You're not going to box me in. I don't fit into a box. I'm not-like-anybody-else mom."
We can put all of these things in front of the word “mom,” but the truth is, no matter how much we want to center our motherhood around an identity or some type of definition of good motherhood that we've either constructed or latched onto, one, we're not going to be able to execute that perfectly. Two, we're still not measuring ourselves up to the right standard or working within the paradigm that God gives us for motherhood. That's really, obviously, where Risen Motherhood was born and where all of these “aha moments” happened for us, especially as we were writing Gospel Mom.
Laura: Definitely. You were talking about all these labels—homesteading mom, crunchy mom, squishy mom—whatever that one is. Really, ultimately, we're called to be gospel moms. That is the impetus behind Emily’s and my book and what we're so excited for. Ultimately, whether or not you read the book, we hope that you take that home—that God actually does have a person he wants us to model our lives after. He actually does. It's not that girl on Instagram. It's not your mother-in-law. It's not that friend of yours. It's Jesus Christ.
We actually do have a model, and we do have a playbook. We do have someone to look up to. Yet sometimes, it feels like we're looking everywhere but to Christ. We want to just encourage you guys today of all of the gifts that you get when you are in Christ and what that means for you, because it is so much better than any other mom that you follow. Because those are all flawed moms; those are all flawed methodologies and techniques.
Life circumstances are going to come in. If you even execute something really, really well, eventually, hard stuff happens. Suddenly, this perfectly cobbled-together person on Instagram that you are like, "I do whatever they say. Oh, I just trust them so much. I just love them so much. Whatever they do, I want to do." Then suddenly, your life and their life don't match up anymore, and it's not going to work. Yet, if we look at Christ, his life and his model will apply transcendently no matter what is happening in our own lives.
I think the other thing that gets tricky about modeling our lives after other people is the reality that—typically where those two ditches end up being when we do that. We end up either in a ditch of being proud and patting ourselves on the back and feeling like, "Yes, I successfully did this. I am a good mom. I am perfect. I have achieved this epic motherhood level."
Or we, more often than not, fall into despair and guilt and just feeling like, "Man, I couldn't measure up. I couldn't buy the things that she bought. I didn't make the right decision. Oh, now this new research has come out, and I've been doing this thing all wrong." There's these constant feelings of a pendulum swing back and forth: "I'm nailing it. I'm not nailing it. I'm nailing it. I'm not." When our hope is steadfast and secure and our identity is in Christ, then we don't have to experience that pendulum swing.
Emily: Yes. You and I keep talking about where our loyalty is in motherhood. I think that's something that I have been coming back to a lot in different decisions that we're making. I am not loyal, we are not loyal, gospel moms are not loyal to a method or a lifestyle or an influence—an influencer or a strategy or a picture you have of what kind of mom you're supposed to be. We're loyal to Christ.
What that does is it frees us up to follow him in each and every situation and seek wisdom—seek biblical wisdom for what he would have for us to do in that situation—based on our unique circumstances, based on the family that he's given us, based on the place that he's put us and the mission field that he's given us.
That's just so freeing—to know that, as we follow Christ, we don't have to—maybe some days we are into homesteading a little bit more for a few years, or we are more into homeschooling, or we're more into different types of things, but that isn't the decision-maker. That isn't the axis around which we spin; it's Christ. We can be flexible, and then we don't have to be judgmental towards other moms, and we don't have to rise and fall based on that.
Like you said, if something comes up in our lives where we realize like, "Ooh, this isn't working anymore for X, Y, and Z reason," we don't have to be a big failure if we are pursuing and following Christ in the midst of that. I know you and I have talked about this a lot over the years, but there is just tremendous freedom in that. There's freedom because we're also free from guilt, and we're freed from shame as we trust in Christ. It's a whole different way of thinking about motherhood.
Laura: Yes. It's one of those things that—I think for you and I, Emily—this is the legacy we want to leave with moms. This is like—if we could give a mom one message, it's understanding that there is so much freedom when Christ is her all. When she starts to rightly understand what God's directives are for motherhood and what are not, it really transforms a mom's ability as she makes decisions. Then, maybe makes a decision that doesn't quite work out, and it's not the end of the world, right? She can pivot and she can change.
It's like, hey—that's an understanding of “That's just a part of life. That's a part of the fall.” There are all these promises, I think, that we have for a mom that follows God. You and I, in the book—we wrote down tons of them. I don't even know how many, but pages, it feels like. That was not even scratching the surface of promises that a mom has when she is in Christ.
Emily: We were like, “What can you for sure cling to if you are a mom who is living in light of the gospel?” We wanted to share a few of them on the show today if you haven't read the book, because we feel like they apply to every Christian mom, no matter what situation she's in.
Laura: Yes. I think the tricky thing with the promises, especially if you do go read the full list—sometimes it's easy for your eyes to glaze over at it and be like, "I've heard this before," or "This is churchy." Isn't very tangible, right? It can feel not—
Emily: It's such a good point.
Laura: I think, as we talk, we're just going to talk about three of them. I think to just try to, for one second, apply your mind—and I know that everyone's tired, and everyone was—many of you were probably up all night with a baby and things like that—but trying to apply your mind to these as we talk about them. Because when I look at these promises—and then Emily and I were talking through the application of them, the tangible parts—it's just stunning what you have in Christ.
I don't know. This first one—I'll just start it off. It says, “A gospel mom—a woman who trusts in Christ and follows God—she gains a new heart and a new nature with Christ's righteousness.” This means, as a mom, you do good not to earn anything but because good has been done for you, and you know you are capable of following and obeying God's commands.
Emily: I feel like this one, for me, is so impactful when I am in a rut in motherhood, or I recognize that I have some patterns that are not wise. It's those things that wake you up in the middle of the night. And you're lying there in bed, and you're thinking about how the day went or maybe some choices you've been making as a mom lately. You're like, "Ah, I know in my gut that we need to make a change here." It would be so defeating to feel like either I'm a victim to my circumstances and I'm trapped, or I'm stuck here—I'm a failure and I can never get out of this. There's no way forward. But I think what's so beautiful is that, in Christ, there is a way forward with the Spirit in us.
I know that that's the Lord working in my heart, and he's going to give me strength and power and motivation and creativity and new ideas to be able to move forward in obedience. It's not going to be perfect, but I don't know—I feel like I turn to this promise a lot when I have those moments in motherhood where I'm like, "I need to pivot here." But I have power to pivot in Christ. I have power to turn back—praise the Lord—and to do that without beating myself up. I can just literally just start over right now. Praise the Lord.
Laura: It is wild because I don't know of any other religion that allows and affords that type of an opportunity to just say, "Hey, you can start over—clean slate—right this moment." I often think of being a Christian and knowing this promise is the greatest habit tracker you could ever have because it's like, “Okay, we're just going to start over. I know that I have the power to complete this and do this thing in Christ—in his strength—when I walk by the Spirit as I'm trying to be faithful to him.”
I agree. I have a moment every night I just call “the replay,” and it's where you go over in your mind all the ways that you messed up in the evening. There is something really freeing about being able to say, "Okay, I receive that I didn't do it perfectly. I wish I wouldn't have spoken those words there, or I would have held my tongue there or served more in this part" or whatever it is that you're walking through. Then also to say, "Okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to lay those at the cross. I can lay those there and walk freely. I can go to bed not ruminating on those." What a gift as moms—as any person—to have that and be able to say, "I can rest freely because Christ already paid for that on my behalf. Tomorrow is a new day. Mercies are new."
Emily: Amen. Okay. Another promise is that a gospel mom understands the realities of a broken earth and the hardship of life east of Eden. Essentially, this is just knowing that there is suffering and sorrow and that that's going to unfortunately be a constant companion throughout our days on earth and that we don't expect that life is going to be easy or be perfect.
Laura: Yes. I have been surprised at a few times where I've heard a friend say, "I thought we had endured enough. I didn't understand why we had more suffering." It's usually from a nonbeliever—somebody who is like, "I thought enough bad things had happened. I thought maybe because nothing bad had happened yet, we were going to escape it." I've heard those words be spoken.
I think, as Christians, we have such a different paradigm to be able to say and expect—we know hard things will happen, but we also know that's not the end of the story. I think this is something that replays in my mind a lot to just give comfort, I think. Because people who are very surprised when hardships happen—that's a whole different type of way of processing, when you're like this—
Emily: —My default is, "This should be good. What happened that made this bad? What did I do?"
Laura: Yes. It really can lead you down to that—“I want to find the source of this.” Where, instead—there are unexplainable things that happen in life. As believers, there's maybe a holy discontentment with that that can happen. It doesn't mean that "Oh, just—this is horrible, and that's great. That's the way it's supposed to be—like more and more and more." That's not the attitude either, but the attitude can say, "Okay, I receive this. I'm not surprised by this, and I know what to do in the pain and in the hardship and the sorrow, and I know who to turn to. I have hope and a comfort."
Emily: Yes. I have just found it so freeing, I think, to accept the realities of the fall and just to know, yes, this is part of life. I think in the last few years, especially, I've been surprised at how far the effects of the fall actually go and how we truly cannot escape. There is no corner of creation left untouched by it. Even in our best efforts— even when we're trying to communicate, and we're being patient, and we have the Spirit working in us and all those things—we still don't do things perfectly. There's miscommunication that happens and all that stuff.
I was reading this article the other day about how they found basically traces of microplastics in everything. They're in your water—in every water—all over the world and every soil and organic soil and everything. It's just like—part of me, as a Christian, was like, "Yes, that's the fall." It's everywhere. You can't get away from it. You can't purify your food enough to get away from the toxins. That's a whole other discussion—like, of course, you can do things and try and whatever. There is just an acceptance that can come and go, "Yes, this is the world that we live in."
I know that my relationship with my in-laws isn't going to be smooth and perfect all the time and that I'm going to have to pray about that. I'm going to have to walk in faith for that. I'm going to have to get counsel on that sometimes. I know that my child is going to do wrong things. There are going to be moments in my parenthood where I'm going to be embarrassed. That's going to happen. Not to, like you said, feel like I have to decode every time and figure out, "What did I do? Is this karma?" I don't even know what people blame it on, but it's just like, yes—this is us, this is humans, this is the brokenness of the world. Now, we turn to God, and we ask for his help to work through it.
Laura: Okay. Last one we want to talk through is: a gospel mom rejoices because nothing can separate her from the love of God. This means that, when you fail, you can tell God. You can repent, and you can keep trusting in him. God isn't mad at you or disappointed. He loves you more than you can ever imagine. God promises to help you through the guidance of his word and his spirit and other people around you.
Emily: I really take a lot of comfort in this when I'm thinking about things like personal spiritual disciplines, even, and knowing that—especially in motherhood, sometimes, there are seasons where you just can't be—I don't know—as consistent as you want to be. Or maybe you're not reading the Word every single day. You're not praying as much as you want to. Knowing that, because of the grace of Christ, this relationship that we have with God is unbreakable. Nothing can separate us from his love.
I sometimes find that there are days where I'm like, “Okay, I didn't do all the disciplines that I wanted to do today. I wasn't meeting with you, but yet, you still love me, and I can still fully bask in that, and I can still fully receive your grace.” We don't want to cheapen that, but it's still—it's so comforting. It's thinking of it more from that parent-child relationship.
Laura: I was just going to say that.
Emily: That unconditional love of like—kids have good days, and kids have bad days and all the spectrum of things. Yet, as a mom, we know we love them. No matter what they do, we're still there for them. Someday, when my kids grow up, they won't call me from college for a week. I'm still going to be thinking about them all the time and loving them. It's not an exact parallel, but it's a really nice picture for us on those days where we feel a little lukewarm or we didn't do all the things that we wanted to do to show our love back to God.
Laura: Yes. I think that—going back to that parent-child relationship—I think the thing that I'm so grateful for is that we have a God that can handle our anger, our sorrow, our grief, our joy. There's no emotion we have that's too big for God or too scary for him. Just like, as a parent, you want your child to tell you those things, and you want them to be honest.
When I've gone through seasons of doubt and felt like, "Well, I guess I'll try to tell him"—and it feels strange because I always get a little scared that he's going to mic drop me and go back to—I'm like, "I don't want that either, Lord." But I also am so grateful for that freedom because nothing can separate us from the love of God. He wants to hear, and he wants to know. And it's like—it can be very—like release the pressure valve whenever we're really honest with him. I think when we keep it bottled up because we're afraid he won't care—that he'll smite us or smote us. Remember we've had this conversation on the show before? Smite, smote—we don't know which one it is.
Emily: Smoted me.
Laura: Oh, it's smoted.
Emily: No, I made that up.
Laura: Smotted. I don't know. We're afraid that God's going to reject us. We don't have that. We don't have that fear as gospel moms. I'm really grateful for that. What we want you to hear from these three tiny promises, friend—not tiny. These are huge. But these promises, friends—they really can change your life. They can change your motherhood, and that these are the things that we want you to ultimately be relying on, more than any influencer's advice, any methodology, any parenting technique.
While those can be really helpful, and I think offer some guardrails for ways that we want to do motherhood, ultimately, these are the trump cards. These are the ultimate things that we can look to and know that God has provided a source for us to go to and to look to for how to be a mom and to love our children. We have the Spirit in our hearts working in us. We have Scripture that we can search and mine for truths. You have everything you need to be a great mom when you trust in Christ and you follow him.
