Do you feel overwhelmed by what you hear and see in culture right now? It’s easy to feel that way but be encouraged! Today, my guest, Debbie Meador will be talking with me about how she got #offthebench and began to make a difference in her area. It’s a conversation about hope and freedom that you won’t want to miss!
Transcribed version of the podcast is below.
Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse
- Romans 13:1-3
Scripture Mentioned in Podcast
- 2 Corinthians 3:12
- Deuteronomy 30:19
- Romans 13
Resources Mentioned in Podcast
Join us at MomStrong International for our newest Bible Study and Scripture Writing!
Submit your questions to MailBox Monday: podcast@thebusymom.com
Debbie Meador is the mother of three and co founder of “Communities for Excellence in Education”. She is a very involved Pastor’s wife at West Linn’s expanding “Athey Creek Christian Fellowship”. She is married to Pastor Brett Meador.
Debbie is passionate about godly parenting, and loves to encourage mothers through God’s Word in her discipleship group called, “Momtime”. Her hope is to inspire women with practical training tips and honest talk regarding the call of motherhood.
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TRANSCRIPTION:
Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the Heidi St. John podcast. Today is Monday, July 15th this is episode number 792—moment of silence. You knew I was going to do that. I cannot even believe it. We are halfway through the month of July.
Today, my friend Debbie Meador is back on the show with me. We’re going to be hitting some of the topics that are hitting home with you guys as it relates to comprehensive sexed and what’s happening in the schools. We don’t just want to educate you, we want to encourage you.
So stick around, I think you’ll be encouraged.
All right, so thanks for tuning in today. I’m so glad you guys are here to join us. If you are not joining us over at MomStrong International, I want to encourage you to do that. We are doing the Scripture Writing Challenge over there—and as I’ve been saying for many years, just opening your Bible every single day, you guys— the Bible is life. There’s a reason why it is called Living Water. God’s Word is for you and it will encourage you. One of the reasons that we started MomStrong International is to answer some of the questions that I see happening in the culture today—with so many moms feeling overwhelmed by the questions that are coming at them in the culture, and they don’t know how to answer. But the apostle Paul said—we should be prepared to give an answer for the hope that lies within us.
I love what 2 Corinthians 3:12 says: because we have this hope, we are very bold. You guys. The boldness that God gives us comes from his holy spirit. It says, I am who God says I am. And today we’re going to tackle a little bit of a topic that is near and dear to my heart. You guys know I’ve been fighting comprehensive sexed over here at the podcast for quite awhile, and Debbie Meador is at the front of that battle in the state of Oregon, and Washington too. Well, and California. Well, the entire nation really. But I live here. So it matters to me. It is really struggling to see Christians influencing and impacting the culture. And last Friday, Debbie and I stopped our conversation talking about a culture of death that has really permeated the schools, absolutely.
But it’s also in the churches. It’s everywhere and it is the enemy. And we want to talk to you today about some ways that you can get off the bench and onto the battlefield, off of the sidelines and onto the frontline. So Debbie Meador, welcome back to the podcast.
[Debbie] Thank you so much. It’s my pleasure to be here.
[Heidi] I’m glad that you’re here. I want to just jump right into this, because I think it’s so important for parents to really have a handle on what’s happening. So let’s talk about what’s happening, as you and I are sort of seeing it unfold. Then, let’s talk about some remedies for it, and maybe some things that people can do. First of all, you and I share a passion for the culture to see that the gospel is what changes people, right? So I don’t know where I heard this, it might’ve been at Slavic Vote because you guys were there.
[Debbie] Yes.
[Heidi] Somebody said you can’t clean a fish until you catch it. Was that Brett?
[Debbie] Yes, that was Brett.
[Heidi] Yes, that was fantastic. I wrote that down. I was like— ooh, that was good. And I think sometimes we tend to do that in the culture, right? We’re trying to clean the fish before we catch it. But you can still, even if you can’t catch the fish, you can absolutely protect the other people that are around you. So if you see a fish and thing — boy, that fish needs cleaning and you can actually clean it, there are things that you can do to protect your children from coming in contact with something that’s going to hurt him. So, I want to start with Comprehensive Sex Education because I know that you’re familiar with it. Can you explain to listeners— first of all, is that real? Cause I had somebody write in, Amy wrote in last week and she said— I hear you talk about comprehensive sex education. Is this really happening? What’s the answer, Debbie? Is it really happening?
[Debbie] Well, yes. And it’s been happening.
[Heidi] In a short answer—yes.
[Debbie] It’s been happening. And Comprehensive Sex Education boils down to definition of terms.
[Heidi] Right. It’s called different things. It’s not called CSC all over the country. It’s called lots of things.
[Debbie] And even within the state of Oregon, you know, 10, 15 years ago what was listed as Oregon revised statutes and what should be included by ODE, which that’s the Oregon Department of Education, what their guidelines were changed in 2016. There was a revision. And it boils down to— it goes back into a lot of controversial laws that were passed. And we can go back to certain legislators that I don’t even really want to give credit because then that just gives them credit, you know?
But, I do feel overall— God is sovereign, and He’s given us an opportunity to respond. But basically, it used to be that protected class included religion, race, ethnicity— but now it’s gender. So it became about gender equality. And that is really at the heart of the Oregon Department of Education’s reach. Now the heart behind it initially was Erin’s Law. Erin’s Law is a beautiful motivation. It is to protect children from child abuse. And you know, we both come from crazy backgrounds. So…
[Heidi] We’re all about it.
[Debbie] No one wants anyone to be abused!
[Heidi] Right!
[Debbie] But what’s happened as what often does happen when God is not at the home, when you have people who are lost, or people who are even saved but maybe walking in fear— inevitably we’re going to make mistakes. And I just believe it boils down to, right now, there’s been a huge mistake made by the Oregon Department of Education. I believe their intentions are really good, but the outcome is going to be horrible.
[Heidi] Devastating.
[Debbie] Devastating. And so literally, if people can go online and look up the Oregon Department of Education Comprehensive Sex Education, and what the guidelines are, there’s hundreds of guidelines. The problem that many, many people have once you start taking a look at it, is that it undermines the authority of the home and the family. It questions that. And it causes kids at a very young age, even in kindergarten, to really start questioning— if they were made how they made, who they are, what they are. And then what’s even worse where it goes past the area of motivation and what could be interpreted as good— it clearly is agenda driven and Planned Parenthood is a part of it. Because…
[Heidi] Planned Parenthood I’m pretty much the front of it. I mean I would say that they’re driving it. I mean American sex-ed right now, because we’re talking about Oregon because you’re from Oregon. But I talk about this all over the nation. And the groups that are aligned with planned parenthood are pushing what is really a highly explicit sexualized curricula. And Planned Parenthood, like abortion— I know that in Washington state, in CSA here, abortion is mentioned as a normal healthcare practice 125 times.
[Debbie] Exactly.
[Heidi] It’s crazy.
[Debbie] And Oregon, here’s the thing in Oregon— the Oregon revised statutes actually say to teach abstinence as the preferred method of guaranteeing 100% avoidance from STDs and unwanted pregnancy. And yet we’re not seeing that.
[Heidi] Well, and you can’t even tell if your kid is getting comprehensive sex-ed or abstinence based a sexual risk avoidance because they interchange the terms. And really, the terms come from WHO’s doling out the money. So who’s behind it.
[Debbie] It’s very sad.
[Heidi] Yeah, very sad. My husband calls it oversexed-ed because it’s not sex-ed anymore. We’re not even talking to kids about just the birds and the bees, which used to— I mean, hello, we graduate from high school about the same time— it used to embarrass us. Right? So, these kids are getting stuff that even as adults, we’re like— do we have to talk about that? No, we actually don’t have to talk about it because, A: that’s a lie. And this whole idea of gender being interchanged and really it seems to me, and I’d love to hear your opinion, but it seems to me that it’s very, very much agenda driven now. And it’s not about the health of the kids. It’s about an agenda that an activist is pushing either from Planned Parenthood, or from a NAMBLA, or from some of these other places that are pushing agendas—and they’re doing it under the guise of sex education.
[Debbie] Yeah. And the sad part is that even people who are school board members who are really wanting to do the right thing, they’re being driven by this agenda. And they can see, it’s very clear that our governor has appointed individuals who are making these rules and regulations and even the information that’s being put out there as research based and whatnot—I mean, I went to a school board meeting in Westland, Wilsonville— and it was insane to look at who the credentials were that went into this one particular curriculum. One of the contributors was a Frat. We had a parent that stood up and said— where’s the conservative? I mean, here’s the law that’s supposed to be balanced, it’s supposed to be neutral. This is not neutral. So that we were able to get a lot accomplished in Westland, Wilsonville. By no means perfected. It will take continued effort by the part of that community to stay engaged and to not give up. But that is how it is. If we want to change anything.
[Heidi] Well, and everybody’s tired. I mean, can we just acknowledge everybody getting tired. We’re tired. We’re tired of the battle. We’re tired of it. But, as I’ve been saying for a long time, I actually don’t know. I mean, are we tired in our mothering? Yes. Do we get to give up? No, we do not get to give up. We’re tired in our marriages. We get tired. I’m sure my husband’s tired of me right now. He’s looking at me through the control window— You don’t get to give up, baby. Yeah, see. You can’t give up. And I think our tendency is to just go— you know what this is… And I think this, Debbie, I really feel like— wow, I think the root of the issue is that parents feel overwhelmed.
[Debbie] They do.
[Heidi] They look at what’s happening and they just go— oh, for the love. I can’t affect that. I don’t know anybody on the school board. I don’t know who wrote CSE. I don’t understand. And so we feel overwhelmed. If I feel overwhelmed making dinner, I’m going to get out the cereal right? And my family’s going to eat it— it won’t be healthy for them.
[Debbie] We all get overwhelmed.
[Heidi] We all get overwhelmed.
[Debbie] We all get overwhelmed. And I mean, for me, I think that there’s a couple ways I look at that. For one, it’s always in my heart to get refueled— I know that I need Jesus. So I go back. One of the things that in fact that it’s the foundation of my MomTime Discipleship group that I have with some great, great sweet moms. I love working with moms at our church. So I always start it off with Deuteronomy 30:19 it says— 19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Deuteronomy 30:19-20.
You see, for me, the Lord is my life. The Lord is my life. It is not the rules. It’s not the government. It’s not. That’s not my life. So if I live my life thinking that’s going to be my identity, I’m going to freak out. But Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And that never changes. God’s Word remains forever. His Word will go on forever. All of this other stuff is going to pass away. So while I want to do things in my current place where I’m at in my life to help affect change, that will help my nieces and nephews and my children as they move into that season of their life of parenting and whatnot. I want to be off the bench in that way. But if I live and breathe by effectiveness of that, I will go down.
[Heidi] Yeah, yeah.
[Debbie] We all will go down. Thank God we have the hope of heaven. We are just passing through, but I want to pass through with my light actually shining. And so it’s just about meeting people where they’re at, acknowledging that there are problems and conflicts in our homes, and in between husbands and wives, and things don’t work out really all that awesome all the time. And you are tired at the end of the day and sometimes you want your kids to go to bed at six—because you’re so tired.
[Heidi] And as we all know bedtime’s not really about the kids. It’s about the Mama.
[Debbie] It’s about the Mama. Can mama survive?
[Heidi] I know mine used to be like— Why do I have to go to bed at seven, I’m not tired? And I would say— yes, but I’m tired of you.
[Debbie] And you get to have reading time.
[Heidi] So good.
[Debbie] I knew it was time for my kids to go to bed when I would be reading to them and I would fall asleep.
[Heidi] Exactly.
[Debbie] So I’ve been there and it’s such a joy to be able to reach out to those moms. Well guess what happens though? Those moms with babies, two, three, four, five, now a lot of those moms that I’ve worked with in the past have kids in junior high and high school and they’re saying— what are we supposed to do?
[Heidi] Right?
[Debbie] What exactly I was supposed to do?
[Heidi] What just happened? Yesterday my kid thought my sweater was cute in today she was like— I can’t believe you’re wearing that sweater out.
[Debbie] That’s where I come in. At least in our church church community, a lot of moms come to me and say— what do I do? And I can help them plug in. And so there’s people in all different kinds of communities. We have a large church and we have just a lot of networking going on right now. It was not how it started, but it inevitably has become that because we have all raised our families together and we’re problem solvers. We like to be problem solvers.
[Heidi] I love that you are teaching straight from the Word of God. You’re not dodging the tough issues. And as you and I were talking about before, you know, so much of what’s happening— we have got to look at this in the face and see it for what it is and say God has a solution.
[Debbie] And while at the same time just praying to God that we maintain a church community that is open and welcoming. Welcoming, because there are those who are coming starving and they are sitting in church and they are realizing— wow, I have lived my whole life deceived. So as we have that kind of tone and demeanor, and doing all things in love without compromise to the truth, there is a way to reach those who are hurting.
[Heidi] I mean, Jesus did it. It’s called speaking the truth in love. And you know, for the longest time, the tagline of the podcast was: Truth and Love is Spoken here. You can’t love people without speaking the truth, you know. So what we’ve done so often in the culture is we sacrifice truth on the alter of a misguided mercy. We think we’re being merciful. So we don’t say— Oh man, I love you so much. God loves you. What you’re doing is going to hurt you. I promise you this will hurt you. The end result is death. But as you noted, rightly noted, when we were talking about this on Friday is that— we are really living in a culture that has embraced in many ways, the opposite of what God says is true.
And so how do we as Christians, get ourselves off the bench, get onto the battlefield. You know, talking to some of these moms without feeling overwhelmed, without feeling…because it starts at home. And there’s so many moms who are listening to this and I always tell them— it starts with prayer. If your family, if you’re a nuclear family, you and your husband, your kids, if you guys are not doing okay, this is not the time for you to get on the front lines—because the front lines is hard work and it is a battle. But if your family’s doing well, and your marriage is doing well, and you’re—not that you’ve got the parenting thing dialed down because I’ve been doing it for 30 years and I don’t have a dial down—but that you’ve spoken truth to your children and you know your family’s okay, then you’ve got opportunity.
And one of the things I love about you is you’ve taken a stand as someone who’s in ministry. You’re a public figure, as is your husband— because that’s what happens, right? And you’ve said, we’re not going to shy away from this. Instead of shying away, we’re going to do what Jesus did, which is to come out and actually impact the impact the world is the truth. And the truth comes from God’s Word. It’s not found any place else. So when the moms and dads who are listening to this today and I know there are a lot of them, another question came in from Terry and she was saying— how do you reconcile Romans 13, where the apostle Paul is saying that we are to submit to governing authorities.
We talk about this a lot at the podcast. Paul’s talking about God’s order. And you were talking about it earlier when laws are passed, we’re not rioters, we’re not anarchists. And yet when we see something that’s happening that violates God’s law— whether it’s in the schools teaching little kids that they can transition, that they can change their gender, which really is abuse because they can’t change their gender. So it doesn’t matter if we’re telling them they can or they can’t, God said— I made a male and female and in my image. We go back to what we know is true.
[Debbie] Yeah.
[Heidi] How can we, as parents who are listening to this, in submission to governing authorities and still working to change it at the same time? What does that look like for people? There’s 100,000 people that are listening to this right now and the only few of them are in Oregon. So there’s people who are all over the world listening to this right now and they’ve got different issues that are happening, right? But it’s the same spirit, right? It’s that same culture of death. It might manifest itself in a different way, right? But how can we encourage these parents, where they are assuming that they’ve, that their marriages are intact and they’re doing the right work, which is to keep the home, you know, because you can’t—I mean, hello— how many pastors have we seen ministered to everybody else but their own family? And we don’t want to make that same mistake. So where do they start?
[Debbie] So I have to start with what I know, right? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind, but now I see. That is what I teach my kids. Guys, we’re all blind. We were all blind.
[Heidi] Born blind.
[Debbie] But we can lead people to Christ, but we will not lead people to Christ if we have a shutdown mentality. Right? So we have to be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.
[Heidi] Yeah. And parents need to be involved. And really getting in there. I was thinking about a letter that I got from a mom whose kids have gone to school. She’s pulled them out, but they were in school in Southern California. And she sent this to me and I thought it was so interesting. It says 59% of 12 to 17 year olds use snapchat regularly and it’s talking about how it is affecting our kids. So they’ve been sexualized on social media. And then they’re going to school and they’re being sexualized even more. So than not talking about birth control like they did when we were teens, and instead they’re teaching them all kinds of really unhealthy and unsafe practices. And this mom was like— I don’t know what to do.
So I asked her, I said— did you go down to your school board? Did you go and talk to the teacher and say— I’d really like to see the curriculum? And she said that she really had a hard time seeing it. In fact, this is what she said— the program coordinator for CSC in the San Diego area, which is where she was living, was reluctant to show her the curriculum. And eventually she did it. And she saw a section called Rights, Respect, and Responsibility.
And what really shocked her was the sixth grade curriculum said that kids could be attracted to any gender. And she wrote this to me. She said this was the main quote. “We don’t choose our feelings, just like we don’t choose who we find attractive.” And so then it gave detailed information about every kind of sex you could possibly imagine. And what they’re doing is they’re confusing these kids.
[Debbie] It is.
[Heidi] Because feeling at that age is confusing. Can we all just agree?
[Debbie] And let’s just ask this question— who is the author of confusion, right?
[Heidi] That’d be Satan.
[Debbie] And where does that lead? To death, right? So anything that leads to death— I am not for. I am not about it. So here’s one thing that you can do for those parents all over the place. So we have a couple of amazing federal clearing houses for that. Everyone respects the Center for Disease Control and the National Institute of Health. Those are very neutral. Educators respect that. Physicians respect that. Our own health departments that we have use the stats from the CDC and the NIH in order to give out information. Really find a lot of those across the aisle moments, you know, and then they start to learn that, oh gosh, you’re not just a maniac— you actually are doing this because you care.
And once they see how much you care, then they’ll listen a little bit more. And then you can have some influence within those health departments and letting those teachers know that you’re on their side, that you’re rooting for them. Is there anything you can do? Can you come in? Can you feed them during conferences? Can you help them grade papers? Can you help them put together projects? Get yourself in the classroom.
Switching to another topic, something that’s become giant in the name of inclusivity, what has happened in Oregon, is the behavioral issues have just gone crazy. It’s all over the news. The poor teachers are not supportted. I mean, I know of teachers who have had broken arms who have had, I mean, actually, and something that I think is an interesting point to bring up is— where are the feminists on this? 90% of those teachers are women, right? But they’re being abused. You to talk about Erin’s law. Let’s turn that around a little bit. And who’s defending the teachers right now? Those are women who are in a classroom who are being told to remain silent. As a woman and as a mother of a daughter who’s a teacher— I do not want her to live in a climate where she is told you will remain silent about this. We know secrets like that are not to be kept. And that is the intention behind Erin’s Law being taught to kids— Hey, don’t keep secrets. And that’s all fine and good. We need to be doing that for teachers.
[Heidi] Well, the feminist movement is a movement of hypocrites because— why don’t they care about the women in the womb? Feminism is just sort of… I used to be all about equal pay for equal work. Right? Those kinds of things—I can get behind that. Let’s talk about that. But when we talk about women who are being abused in the classroom, where are the feminist? Where are the feminist worried about the women who were growing up in Istabul right now? Where are they? We’re not talking about those women, but we will talk about killing women in the womb through abortion. It’s a very messed up ideology, and you see it in the schools as well. I wondered too—several of my friends are teachers in the public schools here in the Pacific Northwest, and even around the nation.
And I know that they appreciate knowing that people are praying for them. So even if what parents are listening to, even if this is the thing that you can do because we can all do this, is to begin to pray, to really begin to pray. We serve the Lord of Heaven’s armies. We serve the Creator of the universe. Why are we running? Why are we running? We run from the fight when the Lord of Heaven’s armies says— you only need to be still and I’ll fight for you.
So we can pray. We have power in the heavenly realms. We have been given every authority under heaven because of Jesus and we can cry out to Him. I think sometimes, in our state of feeling overwhelmed, we don’t even do that.
[Debbie] I think we can be overwhelmed. The narrative is to be silent.
[Heidi] That’s it. They’re trying to make you feel overwhelmed.
[Debbie] And so, part of the problem with that is that you forget that— oh, you don’t have to be silent to God. And we actually don’t have to be silent in the way we walk. We have our freedom of speech and we have our freedom.
[Heidi] You’re back to your First Amendment.
[Debbie] We do not have to be giving that up.
[Heidi] Do you carry that around? Just giving it to people?
[Debbie] Oh, they made me memorize that.
[Heidi] Here’s Debbie, like giving the First Amendment to the Starbucks Barista. Here’s your First Amendment.
[Debbie] I mean, the thing is we do have a God who wants to hear us, for us, who need to redefine what a good dad looks like and who we, you know, I’ve had in my heart that challenge and God has really just worked on me to realize— wow, my earthly father, it’s okay, He’s loved by God, but He’s not actually God. Right? You know what I mean? And, and, and sometimes as wide as we can transfer that same kind of pressure over to our husbands, you know, like, which is ridiculous because they’re not God either.
And we have this insatiable appetite within our hearts, right? But going to God with that is amazing. And as you asked about how can you help, whether it’s the libraries or whether it’s the schools or whether it’s whatever venue you’re looking at that maybe you see– Gosh, I think this needs a little bit of work. Pray first, and then go. And when you feel tired, pray again and watch God bring in people. Because that’s what I’ve been amazed by is— wow, I can’t do all this stuff. But God sure can bring people
[Heidi] Yes and He’s at work. I think sometimes we don’t realize this, but really it’s a position of arrogance when we start thinking— I gotta do this by myself. And God’s saying— no, actually you don’t. I can use lots of people. And He wants to do that.
[Debbie] How cool it is when I do.
[Heidi] Yeah. It’s amazing. Well you guys are here in the Homeschool Resource Center.
[Debbie] Yes.
[Heidi] In the studio, in this place, as we were walking around earlier, I was telling you this is a place that is an absolute beautiful example of God’s provisioning.
[Debbie] It is amazing. We need like 50 of these.
[Heidi] I know. Well, I’m working on it. We have groups, actually, all over the country now who are starting to want to start homeschool resource centers for parents who are pulling their kids out and just realizing— okay, there may be a better way for my family and for the parents who are at the jumping off place. Whether you look around and you start to feel overwhelmed and we say to you just as sisters in the Lord— come to the Lord in prayer, go before the Lord. He is the healer. He answers prayer. He’s the chain breaker, you know, and you can make a difference in your community because of the power of the Holy Spirit inside of you. Right? You are an ambassador.
[Debbie] Yes, yes. And the power of prayer is amazing. I know with our mom time group and our other women’s studies at our church, the format that we follow—we have time of worship, time in the Word, and then time of prayer and we circle up and sharing your heart and giving it to the Lord. And then, we journal those things. We write those things down—the prayer needs— because we’re able to go back later and see how God answers those things. And it gives you so much.
[Heidi] It’s weird how we forget.
[Debbie] It’s amazing.
[Heidi] Yeah. I always tell people, I like to believe that if I was there when Moses lifted up His staff and God parted the Red Sea— that I would never forget. I would love to think that everyday for the rest of my life, I’d be telling my kids and my grandkids— you are never going to believe what happened at the shores of the Red Sea. This is amazing. Like every day. You’d never get tired of telling the story. But the Bible records the Israelites for God that they forgot about God’s healing. They forgot about His blessing, they forgot about his power. And then they went right back into captivity, whether it’s the captivity of their own sin or captivity because they just disobeyed God and they wound up as a captive. And we do the same thing. And we need to be encouraging each other. You know, write those things down.
[Debbie] You know, and I think it’s so cool because once you figure out— Whoa, God doesn’t want me to be a captive. He doesn’t want my kids to be captives. He doesn’t want any of us to get hauled off into bondage. And I think that’s where my heart just breaks for our states right now collectively, is that you’re seeing an entire population of children going off into bondage. And it breaks my heart, but it is also totally preventable. And so God is able. I’m not sure how the outcome is going to be, but I know God is able, I’d never give up on that. You know? I mean, it’s the whole rewrite your story. You know what I mean? If you don’t like the way your story is going down— time to cross out some lines, do a little bit of editing, and do a rewrite. You know?
[Heidi] And if you don’t like what’s happened at the library, rewrite the story.
[Debbie] Rewrite the story and— man, homeschooling is just such a beautiful avenue to go with that. Because I know for me, being able to really visit from God’s perspective, US History was huge, it was amazing. I was so thankful. I got to teach it three times.
[Heidi] Oh yeah. Did you ever read Joy Hakim History of the US?
[Debbie] No.
[Heidi] It is so good. Oh my goodness. It’s so good.
[Debbie] It sounds like it’d be amazing.
[Heidi] So good. Yeah.
[Debbie] Yeah. So my daughter is at a big, huge Christian history conference and I’ve been texting her for the past couple days— I need to be there with you next year. But when you get on Site Councils, and when you’re on the school board and Communities for Excellence in Education, actually she thinks I probably could go, but you know, those avenues when you go and you just see the handwriting of the Lord everywhere. You know, one of the things I took back from the Slavic evening that we had this past week was how much I feel that I owe— I actually have ancestors who fought. I’m a daughter of the American revolution, and Brett has Jacob Broom who signed the constitution.
[Heidi] Wow.
[Debbie] So when we have that kind of history for us to walk away is— I can’t do it.
[Heidi] No, I can’t either. You and I are both patriots. I mean, we love this country and want to see it flourish and want to see it grow. One of the things I love, I told my husband, and I found my new favorite tee shirt. It’s smokey the bear and it says Only You Can Prevent Socialism.
[Debbie] And Jesus was not a socialist.
[Heidi ] I know, he was not. Yeah. All these people are like— Jesus was a socialist. No. Wrong. No, he wasn’t. And it’s really just to educate people to say— get involved in the process, look around what’s happening and then use your voice. And the voice that you have as the one that God gave you. And so we bring God into everything that we do. And then we watch what happens. It’s amazing.
[Debbie] That’s right. And trust Him in the midst of it. You know, it’s not always gonna turn out our way, but He is worthy to be trusted. We will suffer loss and it will not be easy, sometimes. But sometimes, when you ask God— God take me, help me level up in my faith, help me level up in the way I live. Some of that is casting aside fear and then watching Him fill in the blanks with faith and then it blows your mind because you’re like— wow, this turned out better than I thought.
[Heidi] This could have gone really badly.
[Debbie] Yeah.
[Heidi] Well, and I think it’s also, it’s taking those thoughts captive and realizing that what Paul said to Timothy is right. God didn’t give us a spirit of fear. Fear is a spirit. It doesn’t come from the Lord. Because when we walk in that relationship with the Lord, there is that perfect love, it comes in and it casts out fear. It doesn’t mean we’re not afraid. Doesn’t mean we’re not afraid.
[Debbie] Yes, and I just listened to your podcast a couple of days ago and I loved it. I was like —AMEN! You don’t even know. It’s like you’re my twin. It’s a blessing.
[Heidi] Debbie, I love what you’re doing. If people want to find you online or they want to hook up—you’re in the West Linn area. Yeah, and there are people who are looking for a good church. And lots of churches in the Portland area that are not actually preaching the gospel anymore and people I know are hungry for truth. I see them all the time coming to my conferences. They’re starving for truth. And you guys are actually speaking life and truth at Athey Creek. How do they find you?
[Debbie] So it’s easy. AtheyCreek.com. You can go into women’s ministry. There’s previous teachings, but in the meantime, fighting to keep my husband out of jail.
[Heidi] Hey Man, I love that. That can be— that’ll be your new tagline. She’d be like, DebbieMeador.com— Fighting To Keep My Husband Out Of Jail. That actually makes me a hundred different kinds of happy.
All right you guys. Thanks for listening everybody. Debbie, thank you so much for coming on the show.
[Debbie] Thank you.
[Heidi] It’s been a joy to have you. For more information on Debbie Meador and the Ministry of Athe Creek, you can visit AtheyCreek.com today. Make sure you guys leave a review and leave a review using the #offthebench. For those of you who are looking for my schedule, you can find it at HeidiStJohn.com/events. I’ve got several coming up and then we’ll wrap up the season, so check it out. Heidi St john.com for research events. Thanks for listening everybody—I’ll be back here on Wednesday with the new study from MomStrong International.
Write to Heidi:
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682
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