In this webinar, the Daniel and Megan Craig discuss with Scott and Deborah Brown the issue of mothers being overwhelmed? It is easy for a mother to feel unproductive and discouraged. In this video, the Browns share encouragement for mothers, what mothers really should be striving for, and what truly is important.

Well, the life of the young mother with lots of children can be a busy, busy work. It can be exasperating. She can be juggling lots of balls at the same time and it can be challenging to keep those all in the air, shifting from one thing to another and trying not to drop anything but it can be challenging sometimes at the end of the day to feel that we've gotten anything productive done in a day and it can be an overwhelming experience to try to sort through all of that. So if you are an overwhelmed mother, I know that this session is going to be really encouraging as Scott and Deborah Brown are joining us with some encouragement for us. Thank you so much for taking the time, Scott and Deborah, for joining us for this session.

Oh this is such a delight. Thank you for allowing us to be part of it. Well Scott Brown is the founder of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches and is a pastor of a church out in Wake Forest, North Carolina, and I can speak from experience that the Brown home is is the center of love and a haven of rest and joy and peace and is the center for a ministry that Scott and Deborah have together to many people as they as their mission together is helping people think through the two greatest evangelistic and discipleship institutions, and that's the church and the family. So thank you for the ministry, which you've blessed so many people with, including myself over the years. So we're excited about this session.

So let's jump into this. And I just wanna start off by asking the question, how would you describe the main difficulty facing the overwhelmed mother? Oh my there's there many of them you know for one thing she gets no respect in this world because you know the person who dedicates their lives to the raising of children gets no respect. You know she can get a lot of respect in this world you know if she if she goes and takes care of people all night long in a hospital and takes care of children in a pediatric ward, she'll get a lot of respect. If she stays up all night with her children, that isn't gonna happen.

If she goes to get a teaching degree and leaves her home and teaches children at a school, she'll get a lot of respect, but she won't get that same respect if she stays home and teaches her children. And I can just go on and on and on about that. There are all these professional duties that people get respect for that are absolutely duplicated in a home, but she gets no praise for that. So she kind of starts, she starts, you know, under under the water a little bit. Yeah.

And she, and she knows that. You think that there's any particular difficulty that moms have in terms of a wrong view of productivity or they feel like they have all of these things to get done and is there any particular challenge about the way they think about that particularly in light of the the world's influence as you were describing it? Oh yeah I think productivity is a really critical matter it's it's just easy as a mother to feel incredibly ridiculously unproductive yeah Because you know everything's fluid stuff is happening. I mean I have we have 17 grandchildren they're all under the age 10 okay all from three families So we've called our daughters to consult with us about this because they have way more children than we ever did and they have it a lot harder than we are. We have had it with four children and you know they're they're dealing with you know a lot of variation every day.

Someone's throwing up. Someone's hitting someone. Someone's crying. It's funny. Having 17 grandchildren in the same room, I found that on average, 10% of them are going to be crying at any given time.

I'm sure you've done the calculations. So emotion rolling around. A mom is just stretched, she's stretched to the hill. She's going from one brush fire to another. And she gets to the end of the day and she says I did nothing that's what she thinks and I've never met a young mother and a lot of children that didn't feel overwhelmed never it was and and they get discouraged and so I've got a lot of passion and mercy for young moms I really do my heart you know really goes out to them.

I know that I can echo that feeling. I can think of a number of times where we've called in bed at night and Danny says, well, how was your day, sweetie? And my answer is, well, it didn't feel like I got anything done. So it's, it's a, it's a real, real reality for all of us. So I think it's important for us to step back and ask the question of what is our end goal?

Can you bring a little bit of light to what is the end goal of mothering? Sure. And I think this whole wrong view of productivity is just critical to it. I want to talk about another problem that I'm pretty sure most young moms deal with, and it's the Instagramization of the world, you know, the Facebooking of your life. And one of my daughters is telling a story.

The other day, you know, she had her children out, and they were going to a library and one of her children throws up in the library and they had another stop to make sure she went to Walmart, bought another change of clothes for this little one, went to another place, maybe threw up again and they had to go somewhere else. So she went to Walmart again and got another change of clothes for this kid. And after the end of this exhausting day, she turned around and took a picture of her children in the car. And the caption was, another beautiful day driving around with the children. And it was a beautiful picture.

Oh, the light was shining through the car window. It was just so idyllic. A mom with her children. But that was just the just the surface. There's a backstory to her life.

And so I think mothers they see these perfect lives that aren't yeah so you were speaking for a moment about the the wrong view of productivity. Can you can you give us a little more detail on how maybe that mindset seeps into our our minds on a on a daily basis and how that do you know and I'll tell you I want to I want to recommend a book that I read and it's it's called How Can I Feel Productive as a Mom? By Esther Englesma. And I read this book just a little while ago and I was very captivated by it. And I gave it to all my daughters and I just thought it was really helpful.

She talks about productivity in this book. Her question is, is getting things done the right priority? She talks about what's the end goal of mothering in terms of this whole matter of productivity. And she talks about mothers who are just driven by a checklist. If they don't get everything on their checklist done, they're devastated, or they feel unproductive.

And then she says this, and I'm going to quote her on page 7, nowhere in the Bible are we called to get as much done as possible. Instead we are told to redeem the time or to make the best use of the time. And she says, she talks about the things that happen, you know, the 100 things, distracting things that happen in a day. And she says, these things are not keeping you from your work. They are your work and that was just so helpful to me that the little the little interruptions that take place in life they are the stuff of motherhood.

Like when a mother is, you know, cleaning the face of her child, when she's breaking up a fight, when she's dealing with the throw up, when she is helping her children to make peace. This is the work. It's not a distraction from the work. The mess is the work. It's the way that a mother glorifies God.

And so this author, over and over again, and I think in really beautiful ways appeals to women to recognize that every moment of time is governed by God, it's the gift of God and it actually is your discipleship opportunity and so this book in fact I have I put this book on the NCFIC website, and you can get it, I think it's for $3 or something like that. It's a short book. Perfect for a mom. It's perfect for a mom. It's really thin, and it's totally awesome.

It encouraged me, and it just made me want to pray for my own daughters who are fighting with this, that they would just have a sense of the glory of God for every moment, every moment is appointed by God. And anyway, I just highly wanna recommend that book. Deborah, as you went through some of these difficult phases of motherhood, I know as well, and you had to deal with the world's perspective on what gets respect in life, what were some ways that you addressed that tension in your own mind to keep your heart and your mind focused on what really does matter most? Well, I think what's the most helpful is just to remember what God's called you to, the job that God's given you, that's a good work for not to grow weary doing. That's the place that never moves, the thing that God has given us to do.

But I was talking with with one of our girls and she said, you know, if I was gonna be a lawyer and I would be the best lawyer, I would work really hard, I would take the hardest cases, I would excel in the career of being an attorney. So she said what she does is that's how she looks at her life as a mom. She has a career. This is her career. She's gonna be the best mom she can.

She's gonna, she wants to give the Lord worshipers. That's her career. She's gonna take the hard cases. She's got some hard cases. She's got hard cases.

But that's, So that's how I looked at it also when I was a young mom. This is my career. This is my job. I'm equipped. God's given me all the equipment for it.

And it's not necessarily all about my productivity, my desires. It really is important to define productivity correctly. If productivity gets defined as the world defines it, you will never be, you'll fall into bed at night and your husband will say, what'd you do today, sweetie? And you'll say, I don't know. Instead of, if you have the right definition of productivity, you'll have a long list to tell your husband when you fall into bed.

Because those are the things that are a part of your career, a part of your job. That's how I kept my sanity, my happiness. How about that? That's even better. That's how I kept my happiness, Not just my sanity.

Also, you know, Deborah was, she was satisfied with a simple life. She was satisfied to be a keeper at home. She thought that was the greatest work in the world. And so she loved just executing the normal routines of life. My checklists were really short.

Because I, sorry, but I love checklists. Because that makes me feel like I got it done. So, but much I had to have the right things on my checklist so that I could check it off. I mean like the end of the day with things that weren't checked off. So my checklists were reading to my kids at 10 o'clock every morning and not falling asleep while I read to my kids at 10 o'clock in the morning.

That's a good accomplishment. It's a high accomplishment. Yeah. Taking my kids outside. That was my end goal, that I had to have a whole different productivity definition so that I could check those things off the list.

So, but it was simple. What would you say to the mom who's thinking right now, but it still feels mundane, tying the shoe, putting the bandaid on still feels mundane. It doesn't feel significant. And I want to do maybe, maybe I think, you know, even in our, in our situation, sometimes there's this thought of, it would be nice to be doing something more significant. What do we need to change in our thinking?

Well I found myself thinking that one time. I was in the kitchen, Claudia the youngest was probably two, and I was cleaning the stove again and I found myself thinking there has got to be more to life than this. Okay, when I heard myself think that, that was a shocker because I obviously was thinking wrongly about something if I had that thought. So I had to go back and say, okay Deb, what, Where have you been putting the values if that's what you're thinking right now? I had to renew my mind.

I had to tell myself the truth. And the truth was in that moment, somebody had to clean the stove. Why not me? Why not? Somebody had to do it.

I get to do it. And so I had to change my mind. It's very subtle, but I had to change my thinking about it. I had to look at some things as significant because they were, because I know what happens to a stove that never gets cleaned. I know it happens to laundry that never gets done.

And someone has to do it. And so it does become significant. I had to think about how Timothy's mother and grandmother poured into him, And we have letters to Timothy, a pastor. It says some mothers poured into him and taught him the word of God. I had to remember those things so that I didn't spiral down into, yeah, but look at her.

No, no, no. I had to tell myself the truth, which is where the Word of God always comes in. And if I am about producing children who love the Lord. And of course, only the Lord can do that. I have my job to do toward that end.

If I can do that, then I've succeeded. I've hit the end goal. But I have to keep my, I gotta keep my eyes on that end goal. That's the, I think that's the only way to not become overwhelmed with all the thoughts that come in from the world. My own sinful desires to quilt, to be a great gardener, to...

I don't know, the list is endless, are the things that my own sinful heart would rather have that will pass away next week. It will die in the winter time. That's where I had to go so that I didn't find myself thinking there's got to be more to life than this. Can you speak for a moment to the mom who's feeling overwhelmed with perhaps it's a good list of things that need to be done. It's part of her job.

It is part of taking care of her family, the laundry, the cooking, the dirty stove, the stack of laundry, all those things that are part of her wonderful home job description, but yet even that in and of itself is overwhelming. How do you deal with those overwhelming thoughts? I always prioritize my list. Like I said, I like lists, but I prioritize that list. And once you prioritize it, and I think we would all prioritize it the same, we all would say our kids are the most important thing.

If you ask any of us, we're all gonna say, what's most important is that our kids love the Lord. Not even that they're great mathematicians, or they know everything, they've read all of Calvin's works. Okay, We like that idea, but what we really want is for our kids to love the Lord. So that's going to be, I'm going to prioritize my list based on things that really are the most important. Now, the clean stove and the laundry are going to be underneath Preparing my children to love the Lord So if if if that day the stove doesn't get cleaned I'm alright with that because I prioritize my list and I had I remember one day we were all sitting around the table and we were doing math and I'm one of those people that says this is what we're doing today and we're gonna do it until it's done.

At that moment I was doing things until it was done. Oh pretty soon I had four kids. Claudia finally silent tears, just the silent tears. Okay, stop! It was time to just, I take all my kids, when I hit times like that, when I am overwhelmed and they're overwhelmed, I had all these little pieces of carpet that you can get at the carpet stores that you know is last year's carpet samples and I would give each kid a piece of carpet and I have one and we would all sit on the floor together and I was red.

I just read to them Because that was the experience we were having around the table at that moment was not productive. I needed, and we were all overwhelmed because They weren't getting it and I didn't know how to make them get it. I needed to, I just need to pull back because I was, we were all overwhelmed. But that just, we sat down and we just read and it just takes you into another world. You know, choose your books carefully but It took us into another place, into another world, and everybody, everybody's emotions were able to calm down, and then we went back at it.

And it was, we weren't overwhelmed anymore. But that was all part of it. I didn't look at that as, oh, we're an hour behind now. No, because on my priority list, that was the priority. I hit it.

It was okay. It took us two hours instead of 45 minutes. That was all right. I was hitting the number one priority. And so that's, even though I had only good things on my list, most of them were only good things, some of them were unnecessary things, and I think that is a place where moms can falter.

I just remember hearing R.C. Sproul Jr. Talking about that. His wife was just so intent on planting this border of pansies. That was a good thing.

That that had become, it had become too big for her. And he said to her, is this on your list of priorities? Is this what we agreed you would do with your time? So he helped her plant the pansies. But that was a good question for me to ask myself, okay, is this what my husband's asked for me to do?

Is what I want to get done? Is that what my husband wants me to get done? Is that important to him? Is that important to God that I have the border of pansies planted before the guests come that evening. And sometimes that's a hard one to answer because I wanna plant a border of pansies.

I want that. I don't want to do the laundry. I want to plant that border pant. So I think there are times we just, when I've talked to young moms, sometimes we've, I want you to make a list. What are the important things?

Well, it comes out, well, but I, I really want to raise horses. You have four little kids under eight. Maybe that's gonna have to wait to raise horses. And that's really hard for some of us to say, I don't get to do what I want to do. So I think there are times when we have to change our own priorities or we are going to feel overwhelmed.

When I feel overwhelmed, it's usually one thing I've lost my joy And I lose my joy when I try to take on more than I can do if I have little kids. You have little kids, I don't, it's just gonna be much narrower. Your focus is gonna be much narrower for a time. It's a season, that's a good thing to remember, is I'm in a season, the season won't last forever. And maybe plant the border of pansies in a couple of years.

You know what, it's your kids out there. And the problem is most of us, we have things that we want to do and the kids get in the way. Okay. You know what, I've talked to moms who do not want to let their girls in the kitchen because they'll make a mess. Okay, I go to war against that because that's that's the one of the goals.

You're homeschooling, you're teaching, even if you're not homeschooling, you're teaching your kids. Make a mess. I've talked to enough who, no, I don't wanna do that, okay. Knock it off, let them make a mess, let them make a mistake. We've had so much of that, my girls wanted to paint something one time.

They wanted to paint one of the rooms. And when they picked out the color, my mouth shut, because I thought, you know what? It's a stinking $15 can of paint. They will learn way more painting the room that color. And we did it together.

I helped them. I will look at it now and she says, why did you let us paint the room that color? Because you never would have known that that wasn't the right color to paint it unless you painted it. And so we look, we look back and it was a great memory. It was a fun time.

Instead of my not wanting them to make a mistake or to make a mess. Let them do it. Let them come and help you plant the border of pansies. They will be filthy. That's really helpful.

What would you say is the place for those things that you just want to do? What is the place for allocating time for the, or is it even appropriate to have such a thing as mom time? What would be your feedback on that? You gotta be really, really careful with it. That's the first thing I'm going to say is be really careful with that.

Number one, the message you're sending to your children is, you're in my way, I need my time. Now, when I was in that, I was there, but I turned it around and what I asked myself was, someday, I might be privy to overhearing a conversation between my, say, 13-year-old daughter and her friend, and I hear her say, I have just got to get out of here. I've got, my mom's driving me crazy. I Just needed some time to go Do what I want to do My mom's in my way You know what guys I never wanted to hear those words I didn't want to hear that So I didn't want to give them this idea that, you guys, because of you, because I have to watch you and I gotta teach you and I gotta feed you and clean you and teach you to use the fork in the toilet, I can't. But life's always about that, right?

It's always about saying yes to something is going to say no to something else. Always. That's always it. And in our case, a lot of times it's saying yes to this really great thing and no to that other sort of great thing. That's a good thing too.

Going to counsel a young mom who's struggling with a Down's baby is a really, it's a good thing. I would, I would encourage moms to talk to their husbands and say, okay, I really want to do this. Is that something I should do right now or not? Is that something we as a family and you as my head say This is a good use of that time. I, so that I always default back to go talk to your husband about it and decide if that's a good, a good use of your time.

It's helpful. And I'll say this too, when you're, I know you're gonna hate this, but you guys, you busy, you moms with all these little kids, This is the easiest you will ever have it. If you want to take up quilting, do it now while your kids are little. Because believe me, you have more time now than when they get older. Because right now, my mom told me this.

I was so grateful that she told me this. She came over, I was washing peanut butter and jelly off the wall as you go up the stairs right and I wash it off and she said Deborah enjoy this because right now you have complete control your kids are little you can say knock it off don't you know never what the Lord says They supposed to treat one another as more important than yourself? Oh yeah. And off they go, right? Deborah, someday you will not be in control and they will be 16.

And you don't just say, don't you know that the Lord says to treat one, knock it off. Then All of a sudden you're not dealing with, Mom, can I keep this snake? No, you're not dealing with that. You're dealing with, Mom, the Bible doesn't say it that polygamy is wrong. Okay, that one took weeks, pointing to the scriptures and looking at the whole sweep of the scriptures.

Music, discuss music. Your little kids, oh, it's easy. We're gonna sing skidamarinkadinkadink, skidamarinkadink, great. Be careful little hands what you do, right? All of a sudden when you're 16 you're having this discussion about music.

Why mom? Why is this music wrong? We had weeks of conversations like this that I thought, oh, where are the days when I was washing peanut butter jelly off the wall? It was a good perspective when my mom told me, these are our beautiful days. You spoke a few minutes ago about prioritizing our time and redeeming our time.

What is a right view of redeeming our time? Well, one way is this. You have this job and it's your little, it's your kids, your children. And you have, you have a child that needs to learn to read, you've got a child that needs to learn to be potty trained. Ask yourself, I have this chunk of time, what's the best way to use it?

I get up in the morning and I'm having my coffee before my kids come down, ask yourself, how can I best use this time? Understanding, of course, what scripture says about your time. What's the best use of my time right now? Maybe it's to take your kids outside and go for a walk. Maybe it's everybody helped clean up the kitchen and you wipe the stove.

What's the best use? I have, I have, I have this time. How do I best use it? And even your moments. Nope, you feed your kids lunch and you have a small window of time while they're eating their lunch.

What's the best use of this? What do I want my kids to remember from my use of time? Would it be spent eating lunch with them? I read a book one time, and this was a father who was teaching his young son. And one thing he told him, he said, remember, you are writing a book and you are putting it on the shelf of a library.

And someday, everything you do, everything you love is getting written in a book. And you're gonna put it on a library shelf. And someday someone's gonna take that book off the shelf and they're gonna read it. And you're gonna hear your kids talk about what it was like at home. What was mom like?

One of the kids, one of the things my kids remember is that mama always had hot flashes. And I think, oh Lord is that all they're going to remember about me? I want my kids to remember that I did, I did read them books. I did sit with, sit and have lunch with them. How was the best use of my time when my kids were having lunch?

Was it to go get something else done? Maybe. But what do I want my kids to remember about my use of time at home when they were home? Her grandkids do remember this, her hot flashes because the other day one of her four-year-olds was zinging by on a bike at a hundred miles an hour Zinging right by us and he said I'm having a hot flash Yeah Not bad, you know. They'll remember, and they will remember.

That's great. Yeah. You know, when it comes to those moments where you ask that question, that's hopeful, but sometimes, you know, the question might be, all right, what can I have some more more of a framework on how to evaluate what is the most important thing? You mentioned one thing which is what my kids will remember about the use of my time. But, you know, is there any other thoughts you can give us as to how to answer that question, what is the most important use of my time right now?

Yeah, I think it goes back to having your heart prepared. Your heart prepared to walk in wisdom in those times. For a mother, she's gonna have a lot of things happening to her and you know I think You want a mom who has said at the beginning of the day, let me hear your loving kindness in the morning, for I trust in you. You know, you want her to be a person who's being fed from above. You want her to have a heart toward the Lord, eyes lifted up to the hills from whence her help comes.

A mother's heart prepared for that is the most important thing. That's how she redeems the time when there's a you know a mass or a fight or whatever like that, that her heart is tender toward the Lord and she's ready to deliver the wisdom of God and the love of God into that, into that situation. And so she, her heart has to be prepared for that. And by the way, you know, when the Bible says redeem the time, There are two different words that could have been used. One is about the moments of time and then there are seasons of time.

And what the Apostle Paul is talking about were seasons of time. These eras where something is happening and redeeming that era. And I think that can be long eras like the era of motherhood. But I think it also has to do with these situations in time, redeem, buy those back, buy the time for the Lord. A redeem means to buy back.

And so her heart really prepared to be submissive, tenderhearted toward the Lord. It is the critical matter for redeeming the time. So that that means she's ready for anything because her heart is right. I was raised by a father who his most important thing to teach us was this about the sovereignty of God. I am so grateful that he did that.

Because that's the other thing, as shallow as it might seem, the things that happened to me during the day that I didn't expect because I have four children, I had to be able to say, God knew this. He knew that my one hour session was gonna take two and a half. He knew that and so that I wasn't gonna have time for whatever else I had. Even in those little things, he knew I was gonna have a sick child so that I couldn't whatever. He knew that I was gonna burn my dinner.

God is sovereign. For some reason he wants us to have scrambled eggs tonight. I had to be able to say that. I had to be able to look at even just the small things in my day and say God is sovereign. Even over these things he is sovereign.

Solomon said there's a time and a season for everything under heaven, a time to be born, a time to die, and you know I mean there's a time to have a child, there's a time to feed a child, there's a time of infertility, there's a time of all these are these seasons of time they're all governed by God and and I praise God that Deborah grew up in a home where it was believed that God was not only sovereign, but he was also good, and that there was a time appointed for everything. And these things that happen in your home, they're appointed by a sovereign God. God gave them to you, they are for you, designed for his own glory. Think how kids, the things that kids pick up, you know it's about you know osmosis right? They are gonna be learned by a lot of times by osmosis, not all the time, but you know so those unexpected things that happen Danny like you said what what's the what do I do in the moment?

How do I think? What do I tell myself? It's all the difference to become exasperated with the interruption or the what I didn't expect and to lose my cool and to pull out my hair and to blame everybody else. And that's what my children will learn to do. Or I can say, you know what guys, God is sovereign.

He knew that this disappointment was coming. He knew How do I want I mean put yourself? What how do you want your kids to respond once your kids to bash a hole in the wall? Because they're frustrated that things didn't go their way, kick the dog. It's really important how we deal with those, as a young mom, how we deal with those things.

Do We have a quiet and gentle spirit, which is precious in the sight of the Lord, which has a lot of unintended consequences, not just for the moment, but in your kids' lives, years down the road. How Do you want to see them exasperated with their children and thinking why in the world? What was I thinking? No, I mean you can't control everything I know that but just that example in the home of hey, God has ordained our days. We know that.

And so it must be good because God only does good things. By the way, that, you know, we wanted to communicate one thing, one thing, and that is that God was good and that he was sovereign. Everything in our educational, the homeschooling program, if it didn't lead there it didn't lead anywhere. And we wanted our children to know how good God was, all his ways are pleasant ways. We wanted them to know how perfect and wonderful Jesus was.

That's what we really wanted them to know. And so, and that he was sovereign over everything that was happening. And that those interruptions, I think that's where we get overwhelmed, right? That's where, and once we get overwhelmed, we begin to feel unproductive, and it leads to a, oh my goodness, I don't know what I did with my day sort of attitude, but it starts back here where if you if instead of becoming exasperated and overwhelmed, if you say this is ordained by God, this interruption is ordained by God, What can we do with it? How are we going to change our plans to accommodate the sovereignty of God and love it and say this is what's good.

You don't quite you'll get to overwhelmed nearly as quickly if you can look at it as from the Lord. Sounds like what you're saying just if I'm understanding correctly is we need to move our focus from getting things done to using our time well and going through the opportunities that God uses to trust him well. Yeah. And when you prayerfully, you know, cling that snotty nose and the other things that happen, you're glorifying God in that time. They're not interruptions, they're things that God has ordained and their moments of discipleship you know was Jesus life efficient I don't think so stuff happened If you read the gospels all kinds of stuff happens while he's just walking along the road.

Interruptions, but they aren't interruptions at all. And when you clean the face of that child, you know what, they're going to be cleaning your face someday. I mean, like that's where we are, right? We're on the other side of where you are. And now, you know, we have, you know, Scott's parents living with us.

And someday, someday your child is gonna do that for you. How do you want, how do you want that? Do you want them just to come by with a, you know, the hose and say, all right, douse you down, you're clean. Whew, like it's over. There's a time coming when you're gonna need somebody else to clean your nose.

Your children to clean your nose. It's coming. And to feed you and to be thoughtful about how they care for you. But it really does start. You know, why do you think we have the society now that, you know, the big thing is, you know, people become our age in there and so all the advertisements to us are, hey, you know you got to think of what you can do with your parents.

What do you do? So in other words, where are you going to put them? Well the reason that question is there is because as children they were put in a daycare too. They were in kind of in the way for my goals, my career, So they had to go to a daycare. Well, those kids have grown up to be in charge of us now.

And so the question is what daycare you put your parents in? Come on, get a good one. So come see this daycare, it's a good daycare, and you can be happy, you can feel good about your kids or your parents because this is a good elder care for your parents. Oh no, we want our kids to care for us and so we want to, we're caring for our kids because they're one of the reasons not just because of that but understand they will be caring for you hopefully we're gonna care for you and it'll be sweet and it'll be wonderful That's our experience as we care for Scott's parents. And as the grandkids come in and they're a part of it and they see it.

That's good. Sounds to me like what you're describing is something that is not going to be easy to be done in the strength of my own flesh. So what encouragements do you have in terms of walking in the power of the Spirit as it relates to biblical mothering perspective? For me, the most important thing was the time that our family had together in family worship before the day started. That was just how our family did it.

And Scott would lead us. We just read through the Bible every year. It was nothing, you know, big production. We just read through the Bible every year. Those times, I think that's what prepared me, because I didn't have a whole lot of time during the day to do a in-depth study of anything.

Not even what I was teaching. I learned it along with them. I mean, what do I remember from my high school algebra? But I learned it again along with them, right? So you only have so much time during the day to kind of close out the world and have an in-depth study into a meek and quiet spirit.

But what happened with us in the morning, that prepared me. God used his word every morning to prepare me. So I got along with our children, we got to read through the Bible every year and that was it. That's the thing that never changed. I could have read a lot of books and I did read books, but the best thing that it was was the thing that I could hang my hat on and I knew it was never wrong.

I didn't have to think, I wonder where this woman's coming from? Is this just a fad? Do I need to really think about this? The Bible, and that was okay, but the Bible always had the answers and I always knew I always knew what what I needed to do even if I didn't want to do it I needed to have I need to have words that were seasoned with salt in that moment when I came out and found my two-year-old had opened up the refrigerator, taken out every egg we owned, broken it, and was playing in the slide on the kitchen floor as I'm getting ready to make breakfast for everybody and start the day. Okay, my mom of course asked me if I got a picture, and you know I didn't.

I wish I did. But I didn't. That would have been Instagramable. The real world. That's the thing.

I think somebody needs to start an Instagram. Claudia and I have talked about that. She has something she calls keeping it real. Can we keep it real please? Those are the pictures we need to post.

But in those moments in those moments it was it was good to have had this time of worship and prayer as a family before I started that day. You know I think I think moms need to be satisfied with ordinary things. Everybody wants to be so transformational. Everybody wants to do such a great things for God. You know who wants you know who wants somebody said who wants to have a bumper sticker that said, my child is an ordinary student over at the high school, you know.

Nobody wants that, but God, God gives us ordinary rhythmic things in our lives, and I think mothers can be, they, I just ought to be satisfied. That's where the powerful things happen. I think that's what happened with Timothy and his mother and his grandmother they taught him the scriptures how ordinary is that So you know the motherhood is the greatest work in the world. Whoever said you know the hand that rocks a cradle rules the world was absolutely right. It's the best work and it happens in all these interruptions that don't seem to mean anything but they really do mean everything.

So we want to encourage young moms who don't think they got anything done today and realize that every moment was an opportunity for the love of God and the wisdom of God. Yeah. Well I'd love to ask you to give just a final concluding wrap-up thought in just a moment, but first do you have any resources, any sources of encouragement for moms with anything that you carry there at the National Center for Family Integrated Churches? You know we have we have different things. I mean, Deborah was talking about reading scripture.

We have a book called Building a God-Centered Family that really is an edited reprint that I did of something that Matthew Henry wrote. I think it's the best thing ever written on family life and how to focus your family life on God the Father the Lord Jesus Christ building a God-centered family. Okay. That's, we produce a lot of things. I wrote a book a while back called Family Reformation, which really talked about the reforms of the family that took place as a result of the Protestant Reformation.

We have a book called Theology of the Family. By the way, this is a great kind of family worship book. It's this thick, but it's 500 years of wisdom on family life. But here's the brilliant part of the book, not brilliant because of anything I did. It's broken up in really short sections, you know, 10-15 minute readings.

You don't have to read the whole thing and things about fatherhood motherhood family life fertility all this stuff but it's really concise and it's really powerful we have a bunch of things like that and again I would recommend this book here too I love this book for young moms. Oh here's another one Michelle motherhood by Gloria Furman that's a good one you know my daughters are good they really like that one they like they like that author and she's written some others that we don't carry him though you'll have to go to Amazon maybe you have it Amazon is probably the place to go for that one. Thank you. Yeah, very good. Well, do you have any concluding thoughts and words of encouragement for moms on this topic of overwhelmed motherhood.

An ordinary mom at home is extremely productive and valuable in the sight of the Lord. Don't ever forget that. It is the thing that will change your world, will change their world. That's what you want to remember, that those little kids won't be little forever. They're going to someday grow up to be some of your very best friends.

Remember that when they're little, when they're not your best friends. I have four kids that are my friends. And it was, I look back, it was worth every single moment of frustration or exasperation. It was, it has produced a really sweet life for us now because that was my priority. That was, his priority was keeping me at home and it was worth it it's worth it the Lord says that children are a blessing it's true and I'll just continue on the same theme here The Lord only commands what's beautiful and what's good and what's transformational and powerful and valuable and it was the Lord who said to women be a keeper at home.

It's the most, it's a beautiful thing. And so go for it. Be the best you can with every moment God gives you. And God is giving you every moment that you have. Amen.

Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate everything you've shared. It's been a real blessing. Thank you.