Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - Surrendering Control: Trusting God In The Chaos Of Motherhood | @M.is.for.mama
Episode Date: August 26, 2025No one tells you THIS about motherhood… 😳 Sleepless nights, endless laundry, and the tug-of-war between surrendering to God and trying to control it all.I sit down with Abbie Halberstadt—mom of... TEN and author of You Bet Your Stretch Marks—to unpack the raw, faith-filled realities of parenting, the tension between control and surrender, and how to find hope when it feels overwhelming.Thank you to our sponsors!CROWDHEALTH: Use code “CULTURE” to get your first three months for only $99/monthUTZY: Use code “LOWTOX” to save 30% on Microplastic Daily DetoxPALEOVALLEY: Use code “ALEX” for 15% off your first orderGEVITI: Use code “ALEX” to get 20% off your first purchaseNATURAL SLOTH: Use code “ALEX” for 15% offOur Guest:Abbie HalberstadtAbbie’s Links:WebsiteInstagramFacebookPinterestPreorder “You Bet Your Stretch Marks” by Abbie Halberstadt👗 Get Alex’s freshest fashion picks and exclusive guest recommendations—delivered straight to your inbox!Sign up for the newsletter HERE: WEEKLY NEWSLETTER SIGNUPFOLLOW ALEX:Instagram | @realalexclarkInstagram | @cultureapothecaryFacebook | @realalexclarkX | @yoalexrapzYouTube | @RealAlexClarkSpotify | Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark Apple Podcast | Culture Apothecary with Alex ClarkJoin the Cuteservatives Facebook group to connect with likeminded friends who love America and all things health and wellness! Join the CUTEservative Facebook Group!Subscribe to ‘Culture Apothecary’ on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. New episodes drop 6pm PST/ 9pm EST every Monday and Thursday.
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You don't have to play with your kids very often to be a good mom.
One of the best ways to enjoy your children is to like them.
One of the best ways to like your children is to set the kind of boundaries and model the kind of behavior
and teach the kind of principles that help them to understand what it means to be an enjoyable person to be around.
When the world tells us we would be better off prioritizing almost anything else, is it worth it?
The answer you bet your stretch marks.
Motherhood stretches women in ways no one talks about, beyond the physical, deep into our souls and faith.
In this episode, we unpack those soul-stretching moments with Abby Halberstadt, mom of 10,
and author of You Bet Your Stretch Marks.
You may remember Abby from my extremely viral episode I did on why gentle parenting isn't biblical,
back when the show was called The Spillover.
It was such a good episode.
You should listen to that one after this if you haven't yet.
Today, though, Abby is here to dive into the hard realities of parents' families of parents'clock.
parenting large families. She's a mom of 10 again. I got to just, I got to just stress that because
wow, that's incredible. The tension between surrender and control and how to find hope when the
day-to-day feels overwhelming. If you want an honest, faith-filled look at motherhood that is both
raw and encouraging, you will not want to miss this conversation. And if you're like me and you're
not a mom, this is still a beautiful episode to listen and learn from. Big thanks to Wyrify for letting
us film in their studio while my grandma is using mine to teach her hip hop class. Watch this episode on the
real Alex Clark YouTube or Culture Apothecary on Spotify. Please pause right now. Also, leave a five-star
review telling others why this is your favorite podcast. It is free and it takes less than 10 seconds and
really helps me out. Join the Keep Servitist Facebook group to make friends with other like-minded
women, attend meetups in your area, and continue in-depth discussions about what you hear on this show.
please welcome my friend and author Abby Halberstadt, aka M is for Mama to Culture Apothecary.
What do you mean when you say motherhood stretches our souls, not just our skin?
I think any mom probably knows what I mean simply because, I mean, if you're coming from a Christian perspective, the soul is the part that lives forever, right?
It is the thing that makes us human as opposed to just animal.
When you have this small child or a big child that is pushing you to,
to your limits every single day, whether it's intentionally, like when they're older and it's just
kind of exercising their autonomy and they're pushing their limits and finding their boundaries
or when they're little and they're just not sleeping well at night and you feel so stretched
physically, a lot of times you find yourself at your physical limit and you also feel like
you are spiritually being kind of just scraped like not enough butter across too much bread.
And so when you feel your soul being stretched so much of the time, it's because you're recognizing your need for the Lord.
Like you're recognizing, I have come to the limits of myself.
My soul needs Jesus.
All of me does.
But you start to recognize existentially, spiritually, just how depleted you are and how much this whole motherhood gig is pushing you right out to the very edge.
Sometimes I wonder if that is why, you know, scripture said, be fruitful, multisputful, multisage.
supply have children is because, you know, God knew the sanctification process that would happen with
having children. And I wonder with the amount of women by choice, you know, choosing not to have
children, just focusing on themselves, like the negative impacts that that could have on society,
like just not having someone else to challenge you, the opportunity to be selfless, to take care of
somebody else. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Well, and I don't think that children are the only thing
that stretches by any means. Well, of course not. They are certainly not the only means of sanctification,
but one thing that I always tell moms to be grateful for, which is a twist on what they really want to do,
which is be like, why, oh, why is this happening to me? You know, why can't he just sleep? Why can't he just
obey? Why can't he just get potty trained? Why can't he just come home on curfew without my
reminding him? Why can't he just clean his room? She, because it'll be she as well. And I remind them,
we are exhorted by scripture constantly, die to self, lose your life. So,
that you will find it in Christ. Take up your cross daily. Sometimes in Western culture particularly,
it's hard to find opportunities to do that because we could stay on our phones in our air-conditioned
houses all day long, never interact with anybody else, order our food in, get our entertainment
streamed constantly, go to online university. Like, we don't have to interact with other humans
in our current culture. Motherhood requires you to. And there is a built-in component of dying to self
that we can be thankful for. We have sanctification waking us up at 3 a.m. sometimes or keeping us up
till 1 a.m. And that's a good thing. The title is you bet your stretch marks, which some women might be like,
well, does this not apply to me? Because I don't have literal stretch marks. Well, neither do I.
Like, I have 10 physical children that have come out of my physical body. And for whatever reason,
that did not result in the obvious pregnancy stretch marks. I have plenty of other evidence on my body that I've had children.
have a leg-length discrepancy for my second one who was 24 inches long and nine pounds, two ounces,
and all kinds of other things. But I don't have the actual like marks of motherhood stretch marks
on my belly. That doesn't mean I'm not a legit mom. I do think that when we think about stretch
marks more as a metaphorical thing, then it applies to every mom, to bio moms, to foster moms,
to adoptive moms, to step moms, to grandmothers that are parenting the next generation because
they have to. Any situation where the Lord has placed these children in your care as their mother,
it is going to stretch you. You are going to have marks from that. What do you say to the mom who feels
like motherhood has broken me? I just got two of these messages last night. Literally, this message,
like, motherhood is testing my faith. I feel like it has ground me down to the very kind of
dust of who I was before. I don't know how to go on. And one,
I would really encourage that mom to step back and take a look at her current circumstances.
Because so much of the time when we feel completely broken down, it has to do with what's going on right now.
It may not be a bird's eye view of what motherhood actually is.
Now, when I say what's going on right now, I have had seasons where I felt so stretched and so pushed to my limit and so desperate for the Lord and so like is any of this,
working that lasted for years. So I really am talking about zooming out and saying, am I so focused on
the hard right now and feeling broken right now that I'm not recognizing that this is actually
building me up for the future. That's huge, huge, huge encouragement for moms who are,
especially in the trenches of little years motherhood, where they're like, I can't imagine anything
other than wiping butts and making peanut butter sandwiches on repeat and repeating the same phrase
47 times a minute it feels like sometimes. And you can say, listen, it feels like brokenness now.
But if we believe that God's word is true, and it is, then we know that he's using even this,
even this mundane struggle, even this medical catastrophe because it could be one end or the other.
Right. It could be something that just feels like it's slowly chipping away at your sanity.
and you feel broken as a result of it, or it could be like, how will I ever make it through this?
Someone just messaged me yesterday saying, you talked about how the Lord is near the brokenhearted.
I don't feel that way.
And I lost my son two days before his due date.
I had a totally normal pregnancy and then I had a stillbirth.
Quite honestly, our family is doing okay.
Like, I'm functioning.
I'm reading the Bible.
I'm praying.
I just don't feel anything right now.
What do you say to a mom when she says, I just don't feel God's purpose?
presence in the broken parts. When she says to me, I don't, I don't emotionally have any connection
with God right now. But I am waking up each day, putting one step in front of the other,
I still have children to take care of. I think we have to recognize that God's nearness to us
may not be a feeling, but instead a practical daily mercy of getting out of bed, of breath in our
lungs, of the ability to put the oatmeal in the slow cooker the night before, of the ability
to have children pile around us and put their heads on us, and we can read books to them.
There is great mercy and grace in the daily allowances of what's called common grace or goodness that God gives us each day.
It may not look like what we thought being near to the brokenhearted was supposed to be, but we kind of don't get to define those terms.
Wow, yeah.
And we can be so thankful.
Like, Lord, thank you.
Then my eyes are open today and then I can swing my legs out of bed this morning.
thankful that I have children who are keeping me distracted from my grief. I do think that the Lord
comes to us and gives us peace and comfort and joy that is not from ourselves. But when we're not
feeling those things yet, being faithful to be grateful for those little everyday common graces
sometimes starts to shift us toward that emotional kind of reach that we need to get there.
And that's such an important reminder whether you're a mother or not. I mean, that
mindset applies to anybody in any season going through difficult things.
Yeah.
You've talked about how hard isn't bad in motherhood.
Can you talk about a moment where hard felt bad for you?
I experienced two miscarriages last year. That felt bad.
I say hard is not the same thing as bad. In other words, we can't automatically equate the
two, but sometimes heart is bad. Sometimes we live in a broken world. We always live in a broken
world, but sometimes we see that brokenness playing out in hard things that are bad. Death is bad. Yes,
yes, Christ has overcome it eternally, but we still have the effects of the fall and the curse.
And those are bad. Those aren't good things that man sinned and therefore we have death in this world.
But there can even be good that comes from things that are objectively bad, objectively evil.
the Lord can still use those for good in our lives as he draws us closer to himself, as he shows his character to us, as he grows us and matures us beyond anything we were capable of achieving in and of ourselves.
How has your understanding of God's sovereignty shaped the way that you approach parenting, especially during some of your harder seasons?
If God is sovereign, and I do believe he is over everything, then it takes a whole lot of pressure.
pressure off of me to be perfect, to get everything right the first time, to maneuver or manipulate
the outcome, right? Because if my hope is in my really good parenting to, quote unquote, produce a
child that will follow God, be successful, be community-minded, be a good parent themselves,
then if that doesn't come about, all of a sudden God's sovereignty comes crashing down because
he didn't fulfill things the way that I engineered them to be. But if I truly believe that my goal
is to honor God, to do all things to the glory of God, parenting, making meals, coming on a podcast,
writing a book, whatever he has placed in front of me, and that he is sovereign and powerful
overall to actually work and do according to his good pleasure, and that it is always good
what he determines. Even if it doesn't feel good, or even if there are things,
that are not going how I would plan, certainly, then I can take my hands off. It's not that you take
your hands off the wheel and say, okay, Jesus take the wheel and I'm just going to close my eyes and go off
the cliff. He calls us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. He doesn't call us to
work for our salvation. And there's a difference. In what ways has motherhood really stretched your
faith? And how has that stretching refined your trust in God? It showed me what a sinner I am.
I am no longer, there are people that say you are not a sinner because you've been redeemed by grace. Absolutely. I am not, that is not my identity anymore. Right. I am not a condemned sinner. Satan has no hold over me. Death has no hold over me ultimately. But I still struggle with things. And man, is motherhood of magnifying glass for your lack of patience, for your lack of gentleness, for your lack of self-control and self-discipline when you find yourself frustrated at your kids and you realize, uh, I didn't
do the mom math correctly and back this up far enough to be ready and time to go. And now I'm paying
for scrolling on my phone or taking too long to do this or, you know, the phones are a big one.
Yeah. That's for the modern day mom, that's going to be such a mirror of our self-focus and our
easy distraction and our excuse making and things like that, which people get upset when I say things
like that. But man, I'm talking about myself. And you start to recognize, oh, man, that whole I need
the every hour, every hour I need the, oh Lord, I need the, like, it's not trite. It's true. I'm doing
none of this in my own strength. And that's both freeing, but also really convicting.
Do you have tips and tricks that you're doing to help with screen time for yourself at home?
Yeah. Okay. So mine would probably not be great for other people. I know a lot of other people
will carve out time to sit and knock out all of their things at once. But I would feel crazy
if I sat down for an hour straight and answered DMs and stuff. So what I typically will do is I will
do something that I have to do and then do a load of laundry. Stick that phone in my back pocket,
not look at it while I'm doing something else. And then I'll have, I mean, I do walk around
with my phone with me most of the time or near me. I keep it on silent and I lose it all the time too.
Nobody can call it and find it. But I don't know that I have a perfect balance, but I do feel like as long as I'm good about like putting it aside face down so that I'm not looking at it while a child is talking to me, I do better with these bite-sized like take care of it and then put it away and get something done than if I were to like carve out two hours, then I start feeling kind of nervous energy of like this is too much time on this. So that's what works for me.
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One MRI.
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Yeah.
This is a child who's got a mystery brain issue and big insurance is like, let's circle back in Q4.
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just regret your entire life. You've talked about the tension between surrender and active parenting.
How do you balance trusting God's plan with daily responsibilities as a mom?
Oh, well, trusting God's plan is more of the big picture thing. I'm not going to quote,
trust God's plan when we have to be out the door in the morning for church. That feels like a
recipe for disaster. The Lord has entrusted certain privileges and responsibilities to me, right?
And so when I talk about trusting God's plan, that's like how my kids are going to turn out, whether they're going to be safe when they start driving by themselves, whether they're going to obey the boundaries that we've set if I'm not there at home to enforce them.
How do you let go of that fear of needing to be in control of your kids as they need to have those independent growing moments?
I actually enjoy watching them grow. I don't feel a ton of anxiety or stress watching them learn and grow new things.
in new things. I also have been able to watch my kids make some poor choices in smaller things,
but then better choices and bigger things. And I think that's one of the strategies in parenting
is that you give them kind of the freedom to maybe be a little foolish without just opening
the floodgates to all kinds of influences that would be too much for a 14 year old or a 12 year old.
And then when they are a little foolish and experience some practical
consequences or natural consequences or mom-imposed consequences. Those are good, too. And they're able to
see like, okay, there's a reason why we've talked about this. Is there like an example that you can give
of a time where like zoomed out as the parent, you're like, that's not going to go the way they're
thinking, but you kind of let your kid make that small foolish mistake so they could learn a
bigger lesson? It would just be in things like watching them in a friendship where they're maybe not
making the best choices. And you have, you've given wise counsel, but then you see a situation
play out where you're like, yeah, you guys weren't good influences on each other. And now, like
said, you have consequences. And, you know, your coach, your teacher isn't thrilled with you
and you have to go apologize for something or, you know. And I'm never going to go to, I remember
my mom being so good about if there was something, I was kind of a goody to.
kid because I just liked the concept of the parent approval kind of thing. Yeah, I was the complete
opposite. So I was like a nightmare. Well, and I mean, that's, it has its own, it has its own
pitfalls when you're constantly trying to make sure, you know, everybody's happy with you and things
like that. So there are issues there. But when I see, for example, so I really didn't like, you know,
parents or coaches or teachers upset with me. And I knew like, like, how.
hard it was to go and have to like humble yourself. I remember one time, one time I panced a friend of
mine on the parking lot at our teeny, teeny, tiny private school, which was very much so not like me
and it was very much so like her. And she had been tugging on my shorts and I just got tired of it.
Okay, so I had hips at 12 years old. She didn't. So I got tired of it leaned over and gave a little
tweak to her shorts. Well, they just fell straight down. And that's when the coach looked over.
And I remember the principal, one, looking shocked when I walked in because it was totally not me.
And then my parents, understandably, being like, dude, we don't do this.
And I remember thinking back like, I know this.
You know I know this.
Like, this is an anomaly.
Like, we're okay.
And so, and they gave me, it's not like I got punished majorly or anything.
It wasn't the biggest deal.
But I think they were a little bit like, whoa, is this the beginning of rebellion?
But they didn't freak out.
Yeah.
And so when we see blips like that.
We go, hey, what were you thinking?
Like, walk me through the thought process.
You good?
Yeah, you good.
Exactly.
That's what my 17-year-old says to be all the time.
Mom, you good?
So my mom did not ever shield me from moments or other ones like that.
Like, if I didn't get the part in the community play, and it was because of favoritism,
she wasn't like, you should have gotten it.
You should have.
She didn't go to bat for me like that.
She said, there's something to learn from this.
Like, you're not going to be first all the time.
Even if someone actually was unfair, that's an opportunity.
for you to be grace-filled toward them. It's an opportunity for you to be humble. Like,
look at it this way. And so when my kids do make missteps, I'm not going to go around cleaning
up after their messes. They are going to have to own them, apologize, make restitution. And
those are all really great life lessons anyway. And then back to the balancing responsibilities,
but still trusting God's plan. Yeah. Because I totally took you off track. That's my fault.
But you got back on track. Good job. Yeah. So you were talking about how, like, well,
I'm not just saying I'm making a plan and then being like, well, I hope we get there.
We're trusting God.
No.
I think that there is a lot of biblical precedent for the Lord giving us responsibilities for his giving us roles that we're to fulfill and that there's a lot of biblical precedents for doing those with excellence.
And so when you're talking about the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.
gentleness, self-control. And the Bible is continually giving lists of things to do and things
not to do, things that bring blessing and things that bring cursing. And it's not a formula,
but it's a principle that is good to follow. So a good principle to follow would be that
if you would like to enjoy your children, and I really do think that that is one of the biggest
struggles that moms have today. I actually talk about that in my newest book, a whole chapter
on what to do if you don't really like your kid very much right now.
That's an epidemic? Oh, yeah.
Mom's not enjoying their children?
Very much so. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's in my DMs constantly. Like, I love him. I would
give him a life for him, but I don't really like him very much. He's annoying. How do you overcome that?
Okay, so back up for what I was just saying, which is one of the best ways to enjoy your children is to like them.
One of the best ways to like your children is to set the kind of boundaries and model the kind of behavior and teach the kind of principles that help them to understand what it means to be an enjoyable person be around.
Kids don't necessarily pop out winsome and wonderful.
In some ways, they absolutely do because you're 100% going to use that quote on your CISLOR and people are like, yes, they do.
She knows me.
I know you, Alex.
I know you.
On the one hand, they are amazing creatures from their first wrinkly-faced little moments to when
they're so big, like you have to reach up high to give them hugs.
They're amazing.
But on the other hand, they are frustrating.
They are selfish, just like we are.
They don't learn the first time, just like we don't.
Someone the other day was like, is it normal that I have to tell my two-year-old to do the same thing every single day?
And I was like, you know, there might be some things that God has to tell me to do every single day.
Like, shut my mouth when I want to make a smart comment or want to speak too harshly.
Like, little kids are just tiny versions of the same things we struggle with as adults.
So they haven't had as much time to practice.
So one thing we can do is view them how God views them.
He views them with great grace and mercy and kindness and everlasting love.
And we're short on a lot of those things.
two, we can show them the way.
If they don't seem like they know how to interact well with their peers, let's show them how.
Let's give consequences if we need to when they don't so that they remember the next time like,
I might want to do that a little differently.
Let's get down on their level and be willing to inconvenience ourselves, be willing to
have long conversations with them in the car.
I remember a conversation I had with one of my daughters where she was really struggling with
friendships. And she is one of the easiest people to get along with I have ever met. She has a wonderful
personality. She's cheerful. She's kind. She's funny. She's smart. Like, why would anyone not want to be
her friend? And yet, it was an awkward age. Lots of kids her age. Wonder if anybody likes them.
And so we had this whole conversation and I said, hey, just maybe don't try so hard. Maybe take a
deep breath and just recognize that you don't have to mold yourself to what you think that they
want you to be. Just if the Lord gives you something good to say, say it. Let the rest ride. Within
six months, she has a girl that went from being kind of a on and off again friend to close friend.
She feels confident in her relationships. She's got a larger friend group. That's not going to be the
truth for anyone, but she just needed to kind of relax her shoulders a little bit and recognize
this moment didn't define her friendship for the rest of her life. That wasn't anything groundbreaking,
but it was probably like close to an hour conversation just sitting in the car in the garage
with the car not running. I should note. That's good. Yes. That's that's an opportunity where
it's like I probably could have gone inside and gone to bed, right? Yeah. But that was more important.
And I am seeing her enjoy other people.
Other people enjoy her more.
And I enjoy her more, too, as we have these meaningful conversations where I can teach her,
but I can also learn from her too.
That's the thing is we can learn from our kids.
I have two burning questions.
I hope I don't forget each that I want to ask based on what you just said.
One is, as a mom of a large family, 10 kids, you know, you were perceptive enough to notice
in one of your children at that moment.
She needs some one-on-one time.
I need to pour into her.
I need to give her some advice on friendships.
How do you make sure that you are getting things done, all the, you know, your busy day,
dealing with a bunch of kids on task while also being able to see in different children,
oh, this person needs a little special attention here.
This person needs me, you know, for X, Y, and Z.
Like, how do you make sure that you're on task and getting all the busy day-to-day stuff
done while still getting those quality moments in with each of your 10 children?
Well, for one, we homeschool, so we're around each other a lot. And I do think that that's kind of a cheat code for allowing me to be able to see those moments and have those moments. So for example, yesterday I was flying out here for this podcast, but I wasn't leaving until the evening. And so during the day, I finished packing in the morning and did some laundry. And then I made breakfast. I probably made breakfast earlier than that, but made breakfast for some kids. Some kids like to make their own. The little kids need me to help them. And had breakfast with them. We did Bible reading as a family.
I caught up on something that I had to do on email for a little bit, and then I went and played pool with my middle kids.
And then one came and found me and wanted to read a book. So I stopped whatever I was doing and read a book.
We're not homeschooling right now. We take a break during the summer. So we have a little bit more leeway. You know, the day's a little more fluid.
And then at another point, somebody needed me to do something else with them. I think they wanted to play. Like we have a sport court. I think they wanted to play, pick a ball in the sport court. So I went and played a game with them for a little while. And then I talked to my daughter about the grocery order that we were going to do because she's getting.
really good at making dinner. And she was like, I got this mom. She also, she really likes to make
cool recipes, whereas like I'm down to my like 25 that I make all the time because I don't have
any more room in my brain. She was like, this is kind of boring mom. Can I make Asian food? I'm like,
go for it. So she's like, I got this. I'm going to place a pickup order. So we had that whole
conversation. And that's just an example of touch points throughout the day where, yes, I had things
I had to get done. I had content. I had to record. I had packing to finish, laundry to catch up on.
But there were also lots of opportunities to interact with my kids throughout the day because I'm there.
Yeah. I also think that there is a bit of a myth that if you have a large family, you view your kids like a blob or a herd.
And I think of my kids just as individually as a mom that has one or two. They are so unique to me. They never blend together.
That never feels like, you know, what's your name again? And who are you? That would be silly. But I do think there is a perception that moms of large families,
couldn't possibly see their children as individuals.
But we really do.
I think it's possible to fall in that trap,
no matter how big your family is,
especially if you are more,
if you catch yourself being more prioritized by your social media
or phone or whatever,
scrolling, you know, doom scrolling than paying attention to your kids.
Oh, yeah, doom scrolling is, no, that's out.
It's a waste of time and it will get you in your head,
and then you really won't be paying attention to people in your family.
So, no.
One of my guy friends in L.A.
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No, it's curated.
So now he's sitting there, starving, surrounded by people drinking mushroom lattes and discussing
their ancestral trauma.
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Use code low talks to save 30%. Here's my other question for you, because you were talking about
fruits of the spirit. If you are a mother and you realize I'm struggling so badly with one of the
fruits of the spirit, what is one of the best ways to work on that? So last time I was on this podcast,
I talked about something called the gentleness challenge because after my eighth baby, I was dealing with something called postpartum rage.
You could just say it's a condition and move on, but I really felt convicted that I needed to face it head on.
So I created this 30-day challenge, did a social media thing.
Nobody needs to do it that way by any stretch, but it's what I felt convicted to do.
Thousands of moms joined within hours.
And we did this whole focus on gentle speech or shredding your mouth altogether if you didn't have any general speech.
It was all gone. You just, just didn't say anything. And I've had people ask me, and then I turned it
into an e-book because people were like, but can you walk us through it? I've had people ask me to do that
for every fruit of the spirit. And I'm like, I could do that because it's a pretty simple formula
of focusing on the character attribute that the Lord has highlighted that you need to work on,
focusing on scripture about that character attribute. God's word is a lamp into our feet and a light into our path
That means that when it feels dark, we need his word to shine the light so that we can see where we should be going.
Wow.
And so what if it's patience?
Well, be careful what you pray for it, because if you ask God for patience, he's going to give you opportunities to practice.
He's not just going to magically give you patience.
But then when you have the opportunity to practice and you realize you're failing again and you go, Lord, help.
So many times it has gone from grinding my teeth and pulling out my hair to I can take a deep breath.
Like just a brief moment of clarity.
And recognizing that like I was talking about earlier for the grace that it is.
Right.
Instead of feeling like, oh, look, look, I'm getting better at patience.
Like, thank you, Lord, for that beat to think.
Swallow the words that I won't have to apologize for in five minutes.
Self control.
Self control is about repetition.
You do teeny tiny little habit changes over and over again, asking the Lord to give you strength each day to add maybe a little bit after a week.
And before long, you find that things that felt impossible to tackle, you have taken a little tiny
chomp out of until you've eaten the whole elephant. Or faithfulness. Let's say you just feel like you start
something and you drop it all the time. Pick one thing. Memorize God's word about that one thing
and do that one thing into the ground until you know you have faithfulness in that area and what that
feels like. It's like building a muscle and then flexing it. We don't even know what our tricep muscles are
until we start working them and they hurt. And then we start to feel the definition and we can
isolate what we should be flexing. I think when we are able to say, I don't have this thing,
but I want it badly enough to pursue it in Christ's strength, pray about it, memorize about it,
ask people to hold me accountable, work on it daily, that we recognize the Holy Spirit does
the true work in us, but he asks us to walk alongside him. How do you see the gospel intersecting
with the messy realities of motherhood? So the gospel is that we are sinners, all of us are sinners,
including our kids, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that we without Christ
are lost, that there is a chasm between us and our Father God, which we can never breach,
we can never cross, and that Christ died, gave himself up for us,
to reach that chasm, to make a way where there was no way. That's the gospel. When we recognize
that God did that for us, it informs how we are able to offer grace to our kids. If we think that the gospel
is just some heady concept, some one-and-done thing where I said a prayer when I was seven,
so I'm going to heaven, we have missed the full implication of what it means to daily live in the grace
of someone laying down their lives for us.
Because then that means we can do the same for our kids.
Maybe not literally, but man, are there opportunities to lay down our wishes and our wants
and our preferences and our time every day?
How do you give yourself grace as a mom?
I think that we have to be careful with that word to make sure that we're using it correctly.
Grace is not the same thing as allowance.
So allowance says, I'm not particularly good at this and I don't really like it.
so I'm just not gonna. Grace says, this is something I struggle with and I just failed at it,
but God is great for that too. And there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
So condemnation and conviction are the opposite sides of this coin where conviction comes from the
Holy Spirit and we have the grace to respond to it because we have His spirit within us.
condemnation says give up now you're just not any good at this right that's from satan and we can push that
away and say that is a lie from the pit of hell i have been redeemed from that i have been made more than a
conqueror in christ therefore even if i'm not good at this yet i'm going to keep going down this narrow path
and when i mess up what an opportunity to show our kids the gospel when we're willing to say
i am confessing to you that i messed up i am repenting to you and asking you and asking you
your forgiveness and then I am committing to you to do excellently going forward as much as I have
the strength and Christ strengthen me. What is the biggest lie that moms believe about their bodies
after they have kids? That they are broken and not as worthy as they used to be. And that's one
aspect. Certainly stretch marks, the title, you bet your stretch marks, is not even primarily about
the physical marks, but we can't ignore them. I mean, I may not have the tiger stripes across my belly,
but I've got plenty of stretch marks on my hips. You know, everybody's like, what about breastfeeding
in your boobs? What about C-section scars? I have varicose veins that go all the way down this right
leg. They are not cute for years. I didn't wear shorts because I was like my leg is a monstrosity,
and nobody needs to see that. I wear shorts all the time now, because quite honestly, at a certain point,
you, one, recognize that your body was supposed to be a tool, not a treasure all along.
And two, no matter how much you tried to store it up, if you thought it was a treasure,
you were never going to be able to keep it.
You put it in that chest and somebody's going to bore a hole in the bottom.
That's what time and age and sickness and stress does to your body, regardless of whether you're a mom.
So I think we have this myth in our heads that motherhood ruins our bodies,
when in fact we were never going to have anything preserve it for all time anyway.
That's right.
So what an opportunity to bear the marks of motherhood proudly because I have something to show for it, right?
I have this amazing family the Lord has given me.
No, my body was never perfect by world standards to begin with.
Yes, I do steward it well.
Like I'm a fitness instructor.
I exercise daily.
I get out in the sunshine.
I drink my supplements.
I eat nourishing food.
I don't think we turn to asceticism and go, okay, none of it matters.
It's all going to fall apart anyway.
So who cares?
I quit.
Right.
That's not the answer.
But idolizing it or trying to obsessively preserve something that was never going to stay perfect to begin with,
eh, pass.
What was like the big overarching message that you really wanted to drive home in this new book?
The phrase came to me years ago.
And I first used it probably three or four or five years ago.
I don't even know how long, when I had so many people asking me like, okay, you've been a mom.
At that point, like, let's say it's five years ago. At that point, my oldest would have been 14.
So just entering teenagehood, had a bunch of little kids. I had 10 kids in 14 years. So I would
have had like little bitty baby twins. My second set of twins would have been newborns.
And just such a stretching season. And not a lot of help yet. Not a lot of kids that are, that are,
nobody can run to the grocery store for me or say, hey, mom, I'll make Asian food for dinner or anything
like that yet. And so I had these moms coming to me and saying, like, you're in the thick of it. I'm in the thick of it. Like, I feel like maybe I'm not even leaving a mark. Like, is this working? Please give me some hope that it's working. Is this worth it? Like, I'm pouring myself out every single day. And these dang kids are doing the same stuff every single day. Help, you know, give me some hope. And so the answer that this book is giving, resoundingly, the title,
is is all of this effort of pouring ourselves out and making motherhood a priority when the world tells us we would be better off prioritizing almost anything else in some cases, is it worth it? The answer you bet your stretch marks. It is. It has an impact on you now. It has an impact on your children now. And it has an impact on them for eternity and the legacy you leave to generations to come. Has parenthood changed it all the way you see God? Oh, yeah. Oh my goodness. Yes. Because,
when we aren't parents ourselves, and someone's going to say, well, then you don't think I can fully
understand the character of God if I'm not a parent. No, I think that the Lord reveals himself to us
the way that we need him to reveal himself to us. I don't mean that in a seeker-friendly way. I mean
that the Lord is capable of meeting us exactly where we are and our circumstances don't have to
change for us to have a full relationship with him. But when we have the benefit of seeing him as
Father God when we are being a parent. No, I'm not a father, but seeing like the level of patience
and long-suffering and gentleness and kindness that he is modeling for me, it absolutely changes
your view of just his love for you, if nothing else. I think American culture especially really
prioritizes productivity, perfection, busyness, that busyness is like a, you know, a trait we should
all strive for. And it kind of contradicts the biblical concept of prioritizing and making sure we make
room for rest and Sabbath. How do you balance having a Sabbath, having rest while still the busyness
of parenting 10 kids? I do think it is a balance in that that's meant to be there. We see that
God created the world in six days. And then on the seventh day, he rested. If you look at the
percentage-wise, you've got about 85 percent worth.
work, 15% rest. So it's not bad to be diligent. In fact, we're called to it. Proverbs talks all of the
time about what a sluggard is and how that that is ruinous to yourself and your family.
It says that a man who doesn't provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever.
Like there's some really strong language about slothfulness, about laziness, about not doing,
quote unquote, the work. It's just the right work. You know, it's the work of serving God and the daily
taking care of those he's given us to steward well, which is very fulfilling work, but a lot of times
it isn't very showy work. So it's not necessarily going to promote self. It's not going to get your
name on a billboard. It's not going to attract a lot of attention. It's those daily, quiet,
faithful acts of service that I think are what the Bible really lods as true and good work.
But then you're right. It 100% says at a certain point, you stop working. You stop working.
working and you take a day of rest and a day of worship. Now, as Christians, that day is Sunday.
That's the Lord's Day. And we have that day specifically to the Christian culture because that's
the day that Jesus rose again, the early church celebrated on that worshiping God together
communally on Sunday, not Saturday in the Jewish tradition. And so for our family, Sundays are
not necessarily a day where no work can happen. I mean, if we haven't gotten to the yard all week
and it's like up to our knees, then somebody will probably get on the lawnmore and go out and mow the lawn that afternoon, which is a certain kind of restfulness in and of itself. It produces some peace in our outside and they'll listen to a book while they do it or something. But the majority of the time at our house on a Sunday, we're going to church in the morning and then we'll either go out to eat or we will have something prepared at home that we'll come home and eat. We take naps and the kids that don't take naps, have rest time, and then we'll spend the evening together as
a family. And that is such a recharging day, and I look forward to it every single week. So I do think
we have to orient our brain toward that focus of being faithful and diligent most of the time.
And then trusting that God's sovereignty will take care of that 15% where we're just resting.
I walk into a friend's apartment, gorgeous place, reclaimed wood, herbal tea, the whole thing.
But it smells like synthetic lavender and exasest,
Dread. I go, what candle is that? She goes, oh, it was on sale, 799. I flip it over. The ingredients list,
there isn't one, just the word fragrance, TM, which is legally allowed to mean we're not telling you.
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code Alex for 15% off. Light something that smells good and doesn't feel like a psychological
experiment. What was one season of motherhood that really wrecked you emotionally and what did
God teach you in that season? When we were building,
We've built a couple of houses together, and people always like, oh, sure, you built a house.
And oh, my husband actually built the house with his dad.
And so our first time that we did that, we had two children.
They were both tiny, like two and six months.
And it took about nine months.
And we lived in my parents' second floor, rented from them for about nine months.
Moved in, the house was definitely not finished.
It was stressful, but I wouldn't say anything wrecked me about that time.
second time around took about two years. It was more complicated build. We had more kids. We had more
responsibilities. And we went through a really hard friendship breakup with a family that we knew.
And I was pregnant during quite a bit of that build and then nursing a newborn, had six other kids.
We're homeschooling. We're doing all the life stuff. And I remember dealing with some pretty
intense anxiety after I had him, probably hormones out of whack, but also when we moved into that house,
there was red dirt everywhere.
Like, we, our first house sold to the first and only people that saw it.
And so we thought we would have like 60 days to get out.
And we had like 40.
Oh my gosh.
And my husband sat down and mapped out every day with the hours that we had to work.
And it was 16 hour days of like I was moving everything over here and taking care of kids and cleaning out like the barn and selling stuff and running errands.
And he was just, he was literally pouring concrete countertops and installing.
electrical lines and all the stuff. So down to the wire. And when we moved in, it still wasn't done.
And we had no landscaping, no grass, no anything. So all the moms out there are picturing
red dirt and seven kids. And it's in every crack and crevice. I remember one morning and my four-month-old,
which four-months sleep regression is common anyway, but he just like hardcore went from sleeping well
to waking up like every 30 minutes all night. So no sleep, new house, dirt everywhere, seven kids,
We've been doing this for two years.
So, you know, at a certain point, you kind of tell yourself, I can get through two years of this, but then you kind of want it to be done.
Yeah.
It wasn't done.
I remember at one point, I was sleeping on the floor of what would have been my husband's office, but we'd only been there for like two days.
And I wake up and there is a painter staring in the window down at me.
Oh, my gosh.
Like, because we don't have curtains.
We don't have anything.
And the baby's asleep in the little pack and play beside me.
And I'm just staring up at this man that I don't know.
like trying to remember what I'm wearing like I don't have a bra on what t-shirt am I
like what's going on um and then this friendship breakup we were going through and I just remember
such intense moments of like not being able to focus because I felt so anxious not being able to fix
anything because if the flooring wasn't down we couldn't put the furniture down so we couldn't
take it out of that room just shuffling things around and trying to keep from losing my ever-loving
You know, and also be a decent mom and also make food and also like make our appointments and things like that. Life didn't stop. And so I think that's the point in motherhood and life where I felt the most like, what is even happening?
Yeah, like just burn out. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good word. Has your idea of beauty changed at all since becoming a mom?
Define those terms a little more for me. Beauty physically, beauty and life.
I guess beauty physically.
Yes.
The Bible talks about that there is the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.
I'm not naturally gentle or quiet.
Me neither.
Me neither.
And I just did this whole episode with this woman talking about how like, I don't know,
that's just like such an important virtue as a wife and all this.
And I mean, that's very natural for her.
And I even said in the interview, I'm like, well, I could never talk like you.
I mean, she's just everything she says is so kind and are just gentle.
And I'm like, well, that's not natural for me.
So, yeah, it's funny you bring that up because I've been working through that.
Well, I don't think that it necessarily means that you have to naturally have mannerisms that mirror someone who has those kind of characteristics automatically.
I'm happy with who God made me.
I am grateful that he made me a truth teller and a direct speaker and that he gave me gumption.
I feel like that has served me well as a mom of.
of 10. However, there's a difference between just kind of personality expressions and being this
brash person who's constantly rolling over somebody and interrupting them, that your opinion has
to be the first known and nobody can disagree with you, that you don't read the room, that you
don't look for the forgotten person and go talk to them. There are lots of ways of being
gentle and kind and having that spirit that reflects the graciousness of God without smothering the
personality that God gave you. I find it really, really attractive when people smile a lot,
when they're just, and this is interesting because I smile a lot, but I also don't recognize
sometimes when I am like resting face. Oh yeah, oh my goodness. And I have bright blue eyes and
sometimes my husband's like, you look real intense right now. So just even
practicing, like, making your face welcoming. And I taught Spanish for years in high school. And I would
walk down the hall and my mom taught at the same school. And at one point, she was like, hey, just so you
know, it probably serves you about because I was really young when I started teaching. I was 19 when I
started teaching Spanish. And she's like, it's probably working for you. But the kids are like afraid
of you because your face is so severe when you walk down the hall. And I was just going to the bathroom
or something. I know. So I just find it really attractive when people have.
this warm, open, welcoming manner and face, and they smile a lot. And I think that's so beautiful.
And then I love it when people are, I remember one of my best friends and mentors, Jennifer Flanders,
she has long Auburn hair. And she was talking about how, like, in pictures, she'll be like,
look, she's almost 60 or 60. And she's like, look, I have some gray. I have some gray.
Like that she's just totally happy with who she is. And just not the least bit ashamed about the world.
saying like, no, you need to be preserved forever. She's like, no, I'm good.
How does your faith community support and shape your journey as a mother?
For years, I prayed for the community that I have now for years and years. And I always tell
moms because this is one of the DMs that I get most. This is one of the emails that I get most.
I feel so alone. I feel so isolated. I feel like nobody shares my values. I feel like I am
swimming upstream in a culture, which is trying to sweep me away into a sea of self-focus and
Godlessness, quite honestly. And I don't know how to do it alone. And my mom, I speak about her often,
and my dad as well, certainly, but my mom, because she's a woman and close to her, and she's my
example of motherhood, has been such a bastion of always speaking truth and always being direct
and always calling me out and always being kind and being servant-hearted. She's at my house today.
Well, I'm doing this taping. And she is running things just like I would run things.
It is such a gift to have that built in, and I think we've had that more in the past in our culture.
Yeah.
But moms really don't have it from their own parents or from their communities, and I always encourage them keep praying.
Because even though I had my mom, I didn't have a lot more in my early 20s and early 30s.
In the last 10 years, though, the Lord has brought along the kind of faith community that just makes your heart sing.
And I don't say that lightly.
I have, I started this group called Grace Girls about four years ago where my daughter, my oldest
daughter will be 15 in a couple of months and she was so like 11 at the time. And then I have,
all my girls are grouped in the middle. So I have a 14 year old daughter and two 13 year old twins.
And then boys on either side of them. And so I was like, I want something for these girls,
you know, community. And so I teamed up with a couple of other moms who are 10 to 15 years ahead of me.
And was like, what if we did this thing like once or twice a month, we got together?
And I knew I wanted moms that could just take it and run with it as opposed to I would have to
organize everything and make plans. And these were the kind of moms that could because that's the kind
of moms the Lord have brought into my life. Yeah. And they did. And when I looked around the room
because they would invite people to be, oh, this person wants to come. This person wants to come.
Just organically, it became this community of moms who were encouraging each other genuinely.
Like, dream team. Moms would just.
die to be in a room full of this much wisdom, Titus II care and instruction and grace and
good personalities, fun. Like, it's been such a blessing to our family, but to me specifically
to get to know these women better, because I have something to look up to and to strive toward
without any of them being arrogant. Like, none of them are like, because I'm doing this right.
They're all just really kind people. It's been amazing. You've got these women who are longing for
that sense of community in friendships outside of the home, right? And then you have people who feel
like, I don't even feel like I have a community in my home. I don't feel like my husband is appreciative
of anything that I do. I'm starting to become really resentful. How should those moms handle that?
In the particulars, I don't know. Meaning there are so many things I can't coach moms through as far as
like a conversation to have because I don't know your husband's work schedule. I don't know
your personality. I don't know his personality.
I don't know how many kids you have. I don't know your parenting style. I don't know how well you sleep. I don't know what supplements you are or are not taking. There are so many variables that go into those hard seasons that we find ourselves in. And sometimes it isn't just a season. I've talked in my second book, Harder's not the same thing's bad about the fact that my dad is bipolar. And my parents have been married for almost 50 years. And it has been a struggle for my mom for much of their marriage. But she is committed to her marriage. And my dad has good character.
and their marriage is good, but it's hard. And so my mom is always speaking to what you can do
that you can control. Yeah. You cannot control your husband's behavior. You can pray like crazy
for change. And the Lord often honors that with prompting that in him. But even if you don't see
change this side of heaven in him, you will see it in you as you. As you,
you are faithful to ask the Lord to use this crucible of feeling unloved, of feeling unsupported,
of feeling unrespected, or whatever all it is, to drive yourself to the foot of the cross.
And it sounds so trite. People are like, what does that actually means? That means sometimes,
instead of immediately going to your girlfriends and telling them everything that he did,
either journaling or praying in the shower, Lord, my feelings are really hurt. Please
help me to know whether I should say something to him. Please help me to know whether I should
just keep going. Please help me to know if there is a practical decision to be made here.
The Bible tells us in James that when we ask for wisdom, the Lord gives it freely and without
reproach, meaning he's not like, really, you're here again. You need another cup of sugar?
You know, he's gracious to give us what we need. It's just sometimes, like I was saying earlier,
We don't recognize it as what we need because we don't see the actual circumstance change yet.
Elizabeth Elliott says, the difference is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.
Right.
That's a hard pill to swallow if your circumstances are really difficult.
Right.
But it doesn't change the principle.
Do you ever have moms asking you, like, how do I get my husband to just want to parent?
Yeah.
Oh, every day.
Yes.
And you can't any more than.
a husband could get his wife to want to parent because we have to acknowledge it's not just the
dads that are tapped out sometimes. And there are plenty of dads out there that are probably
wishing that their wives would get off the internet and parent, just like we wish our husbands
would get off their phones and parent. Yeah. I think it's a two-way street. Totally. There is a message
that women do all the work in parenting. And if you have a traditional breakdown where the husband is the
provider and goes to work outside the home for eight, nine hours of the day, depending on his commute,
and the woman is at home, that's going to be somewhat true, I mean, or a lot true. And I don't want to belittle that. But at the same time, there are ways, just like you were asking about earlier, like, how do you stay focused? How do you stay engaged? How do you stay intentional? There are plenty of ways to tap out throughout our day as moms as well. So I think one good question would be, am I holding myself to the same standards that I would like to see from him? Yeah. In other words, do I want him to step up, but I'm not stepping up?
Two, if we are indeed genuinely feeling like, hey, no, I am being faithful and invested here,
I would just like a partner. Pray like crazy and consistently and specifically. And not like you're
rubbing in the lamp of a genie, but the Bible tells us, I mean, it gives the example of a parable
of the unjust judge who kept denying a widow her just claim. And she just kept coming back
until he got tired of it. But the point is not that God is an unjust judge. It's like, if the
then just judge got tired. How much more will our father in heaven who loves us give us hope a way
to move forward? We just have to recognize them sometimes for what they are. It may be a very small
thing. I led Bible reading in our home for years before my husband felt comfortable to do it.
I didn't always not nag, but I tried for the most part to keep my mouth shut, pray about it,
and he did eventually become convicted that that was his role. And he's been doing it for years now.
But it took years of praying for that to change.
How do you find time to nurture your own spiritual life personally amidst the chaos and demands of a large family?
So I think there's kind of this misconception that unless you have a personal quiet time that looks like some sort of Instagram worthy, like real with colored pencils and pens and candles.
And, you know, your Bible cover has like a pretty drawing on it or something.
that you can't do quote unquote Bible reading right. I think it can be pretty messy. I think it can be
with a cold cup of coffee and a toddler on your lap crawling all over you. And it could be reading
loud to your kids. We do a lot of family Bible reading. And I think for some reason people don't
think it counts unless it's personal study. I know so much of what I do about God's word because
one, my parents read to me when I was younger and I read to my kids. So a whole lot of what I have
internalized was not in some prayer closet by myself and dim light with nobody bothering me.
It was 100% talking it through with my kids or my husband or with my parents.
I think that I'm also somebody that benefits from group talking it through.
Yeah.
You know, having someone to bounce off of and like kind of having like an intense heart to
heart and discussion and scripture reading.
That's one thing that my husband does a really good job of is he very much so
ask comprehension questions of different age levels.
So he'll ask the five-year-old, you know, if he understood.
the part that he could understand. And then the eight-year-old, like, but what does that actually
mean in this case? And then the 17-year-olds give an example of that. And it helps them to stay
engaged, but it also helps them to actually think through what's happening there as opposed to we
checked Bible reading off our list today. What do you say to the mom who is struggling and going?
Is this really worth it? I mean, I have the obvious book title, emphatic answer, but that's not
super helpful for someone that's in the nitty-gritty trenches just to say, oh yeah, yeah, it is.
You know, didn't you know this?
You bet your stretch works.
It makes her a good book title, but it doesn't necessarily help someone in their particulars.
Yeah, like maybe she's thinking, I don't know that I was cut out for motherhood.
Like, I feel like I don't have the gene or the personality.
Like, I don't love playing with my kids.
I get DMs about that all the time.
Like, I don't enjoy playing with my kids.
I love my kids.
Yeah, and so they think, like, I'm a bad mom.
I'm not cut out for this.
I wasn't made to do this because I don't like to go out and literally play pretend.
Well, I'll dress that in just a second.
But let me answer your first question about like what if you have gotten to the point where you feel like, what is this even worth it? Is this even working?
If your hope is in it being worth it because your kids get whatever it is that you're working on with them quickly, then it will often feel like it's not worth it because a lot of times those are years-long processes.
And when you're in the midst of them, it feels like it will never end.
And then it doesn't feel worth it because you're not reaching the result.
You're not getting the reward, right?
And we love immediate feedback.
It's not just moms, humans.
Humans love immediate feedback.
And so you've got a mom that's maybe four years into motherhood.
Let's say she has three kids under four.
I was there and I know lots of moms who've been there.
That is not the time to ask yourself if motherhood is worth it.
You will not be able to fully answer that question from a,
a results perspective at all. However, when you zoom out and say not, when will I get my results
so that I know that this is working? But instead, what has this wrought in me? You often find yourself
recognizing things that have changed, that have grown, that have shifted in a good way. Or if they've
shifted in a negative way, you can say like, there's an opportunity to work on something,
as opposed to, well, motherhood just made me worse, obviously.
You know, like, going downhill because since I have these kids, you can say that, but that's not
completely honest. Most of the things in our lives, when we recognize an aspect where we're struggling
when you don't go, well, I mean, exercise made me more tired today, so it must not have worked,
you know. Instead, you say, okay, I'm tired today, but I'm going to keep going for a couple more
weeks and see how it goes. By a couple more weeks, you have some more energy, and you're like,
oh, this is kind of awesome. So that's a pretty quick turnaround.
But I think it's worth it to obey God, regardless of whether we produce results in our kids.
Because ultimately, I'm only responsible for one vertical relationship between me and the Lord.
I am responsible to faithfully invest in the children that he's given me to steward,
but I can't guarantee anything for them.
That's between them and Lord, ultimately.
I am responsible to stand alone without my husband or my children before my Savior one day
and hear him say, Lord willing, well done, good and faithful servant.
So if you can focus on that, I'm doing this for Lord, for the Lord, not for men.
The Bible talks about it all the time.
Doing it for the Lord, not for men.
It means not for humans.
That includes for your children.
We do it for them, but not necessarily because of them.
We do it because God has called us to.
What's your advice for the mom who says, I hate playing with my kids?
You don't have to play with your kids in the get down on the floor and play Legos with them very often or necessarily ever to be a good mom.
And that may be a controversial statement, like I said, you'll probably put that one on the sizzler too.
I'm taking them all away. And all the comments will go, wow, she's a terrible mom.
Here's what I mean about that. So my mom had two kids. We're four years of port. We're a boy and a girl. We look like the perfect American family. My mom would have happily had many more and she just could not.
I cannot conjure one single memory of my mom getting down on the floor and playing with me.
Yeah, my mom really didn't either.
And yet I have zero doubt that my mom was devoted to me, loved me, adored me, thought that I hung the moon.
She did other things with me.
She would take me out on errands with her and let me push the cart or pick the apples.
She would bring me beside her and let me stir the spaghetti sauce and show.
me how she made it. She would show me how to sew doll clothes. She would get my opinion on
something that she was thinking about doing. She would have a conversation with me. She would
take me, when I was a teenager, we would go thrifting together and go to subway and split a subway
sub, like, and have Pepsi. That was like our thing. I know, the horror. But like I have such
fond memories of all of these things. And at no point in my childhood with one sibling
considerably older than I am, did I ever think my mother is neglecting me? Woe is me.
never plays with me on the floor with these little characters or whatever.
I love putting that in that perspective because, yeah, my mom is the same. I really, I don't have
any memories of my mom like playing Barbies with me or anything, but a hundred, you know,
thousand memories of little things like exactly what you're talking about, her teaching
me to cook or one of my birthdays, you know, creating a picnic in our backyard amongst daffodils
for my eighth birthday or, yeah, running different errands or her taking us to different museums or
Play dates or whatever.
Well, and it's not that, I mean, I'm always encouraging moms to kind of push themselves past that point of inconvenience.
Where it's like, are you saying no because you really don't have time?
Or are you saying no because you just don't enjoy this and don't want to?
I have gotten on the floor and play with my kids.
And my mom probably did too.
It just wasn't the main way we interacted.
So it didn't stick in my brain.
And I had a best friend that I did most of the play on the floor with the Legos and the Dolls thing with.
So that's who I remember as being my partner in crime for that.
So I'm sure she did.
But I think it comes down to that conviction thing.
Like, if you find yourself with a child who would love nothing more,
it would just thrill their souls if Mama would get on the floor with them.
And you're just like, ick.
But you could?
Like, you have the freedom to do that.
And you're just like, ick, I'm not going to.
I think that would be a great opportunity to get down on the floor and play.
Yeah.
I just don't think that if you don't regularly,
that that's some sort of automatic button for bad mom.
If you could sit across from a 26-year-old mom who's a mom for the first time, what would you say to her?
Take a deep breath, shake your shoulders out, recognize that you have great responsibility and privilege here, but you're not ultimately the one in control.
Go to God's word first, every single time, regardless of what the quote-unquote experts say.
tune out the voices of culture that leave you feeling confused and stressed and like you need to do more and more and more in your motherhood.
Pair it down to the basics.
Love God.
Love your neighbor.
Your closest neighbors if you're married and have children are your husband and your children.
And they are your first ministry.
And as time goes on, the Lord may reveal ways that you can, you know, without abandoning your family, reach out.
to the community at large or bring them into your home and be hospitable. But especially right now
as a first time, mom, do the basics and do them well to the glory of God. It's going to be okay.
If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, physically, emotionally, or spiritually,
what would it be? It would be reading God's word. We have a biblically illiterate society
who is running around, flailing constantly looking for little T-truth. When Big T-Truth
is staring in the face. And in Western culture, we have it at our fingertips in every translation
possible, every store you could walk into. And it is like we are being, you know, totally dehydrated,
dying of thirst in the desert. Somebody's holding out the water of life and we're like, pass.
You know, I need to find a vending machine somewhere. It's so sad. Remind everybody about the name of
this book. You bet your stretch marks. And the subtitle is,
read it. Finding beauty and worth in the ways motherhood marks our bodies and souls. And who is this
book really for? Any mom. It is literally for the mom who's just getting started and desperate for some
direction and feeling like she doesn't have a clue what she's doing. And it's very much so for the mom
that's been doing this for a very long time or maybe has kids out of the house and is facing that
was it worth it question. And for the mom, very much so that wants to leave a legacy instead of just focus on
today. What is the name of your Instagram handle and also your podcast? I make it easy. So Instagram
handle is M is for Mama. It's m.d. is dot 4.mama. And the podcast is also M's for Mama. Abby,
thanks for coming on Culture Apothecary. Thanks for having me, Alex. I know that Abby is one of your
favorites. Don't forget to listen to my other episode with her from a few years ago on gentle
parenting and why it is not biblical. Please leave a five-star review and tell others why they should
be listening to Culture Apothecary. Tell them a Laboo.
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