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How and When to Talk to Your Kids About Sex | Mailbox Monday – 717

“Mom? How do babies get made?” This question often strikes fear into the hearts of parents, but it’s a great opportunity to build on a biblical view of sexuality and talk about why God’s design for male and female is so important. Listen in and be encouraged!

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    • God designed sex as a really good thing, and the world has perverted it.  It’s really important that we talk to our kids about God’s design for sex, so they learn from us rather than the world.  Someone will teach them!  In this podcast, I’m talking through several practical tips for how to talk to your kids about sex. I promise, you can survive it.
  • Sex, Lies, and Motherhood
    • A child’s first lessons about their bodies—everything from their appearance to what God says about human sexuality—come from their parents.  The messages we give them early in life have a deep, long-lasting impact on how they will see themselves as adults.  God has spoken life over each one of us when He created us, male and female, in His image. It’s powerful when we speak this as truth into the lives of our children.So where do we start? How do we pass on a godly perspective of sexuality and beauty to our kids? As in every other area of life, we start at the starting place: the Bible. We dare not trust human wisdom where these tender topics are concerned.  Listen in to this podcast and you’ll find encouragement for parents who are shepherding children in today’s changing culture.

TRANSCRIBED PODCAST BELOW

Good morning everybody. This is Heidi St. John, welcome to the podcast.

I’m glad you are here today. Today is Mailbox Monday, and it’s the 21st of January – episode 717.

I’m going to tackle a topic today that I get asked about a lot and that is this:

How do we talk to our kids about sex ?

How do we talk to them about it? When do we talk to them about it? If you’re wondering how you should handle this topic, and I know a lot of you are – stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

We just came back from a wonderful weekend at the conference in Abilene, Texas. Thank you to everybody who came out. It always encourages us when we see a generation of women in particular, stand up and say – we want to embrace what God says is important. We want to embrace God’s Word, God’s ways.

It’s amazing to me just what’s happening in the culture right now. I just want to encourage you, the way that we have been trying to encourage women around the country, to say: God’s commandments have been given to us for our protection. What’s happening in the culture right now. It is an identity crisis. We are having an identity crisis and the enemy is always after our identity – and he is certainly after this generation of children.

We want to start talking about sex early. We want to talk about it often. We want to talk about it in the context of God’s Word and of His ways. We want to talk about it as a good thing. And this is a difficult thing.

So if that’s you today,  and I’m going to address a question specifically from a sweet listener named Tiffany. Tiffany is a mom to three kids and her youngest is six months old. Her oldest is seven. She’s got a seven year old who’s starting to ask her questions. I’m impressed, Tiffany. If your 7 year old is just now starting to wonder how are babies made, how did that happen, and she’s just now starting to ask you – this is a great time for you to engage in that conversation.

A couple of things before I get started. If you are not joining us at MomStrong International we would like to to join us! We are very concerned. I’m not going to camp on this topic for very long but we are very concerned that it’s not going to be very long before the platform that we have over at Facebook, and other places on social media, will no longer be available to us. We are watching a tremendous amount of censorship continue to happen over there. The tide is turning.

So, I want to just encourage you – if you want to stay up with what I’m doing – Facebook is probably not the place to do it. We really want you to come over to the forums that MomStrongInternational.com.

It’s also a fantastic time for you to come and join the Bible Study there. It’s two dollars a week and a great way for you to support what we’re doing. It also encourages us as we continue to write every week about the very real things that are happening the culture. The reason why we started the whole thing in the first place, was to address in real-time what’s happening in the culture, and the culture is changing so quickly, in many ways.

We find ourselves going – man, this is a lot harder than we thought it was going to be – but we can stay up with it if we follow the Word of God and we’re continuing to talk about what’s happening.

There’s so much happening in the world today, which is why I had my friend Laura Gallagher on the show with me last Friday. She was talking about her book The Delusion and her fight to really encourage parents to teach their children that there is a spiritual war that’s happening – that the attack against this generation is spiritual in nature.

The same thing is happening with the transgender movement. This progressive social push to make parents swallow this bitter pill that we know is a lie from the enemy. Parents, I just want to encourage you talk to your children about what is happening.

I’m going to be in Coos Bay, Oregon coming up in just a couple of days. If you’re anywhere in the vicinity of Coos Bay, Oregon – come out! I’m telling you, it’s a weekend that will change your life. It’s a one day event. I’ll be there this coming Saturday with my people and we’re going to just encourage you. We’re going to talk about what’s going on the culture and we’re going to turn your eyes toward heaven, toward Jesus, who is the author and the finisher of our faith.

Also I’ve been talking about this. I am going to be all over the country this year in 2019, but something I’m really particularly excited about is coming to the Answers for Women Conference, Sacred: Embracing God’s Design for Sexuality. That’s April 5th and 6th in Williamstown, Kentucky. That’s at the Creation Museum at The Answer Center, which is their brand new center for conferences.

I’m telling you what, if the Lord has been pricking your heart over these issues – you are going to walk away with confidence and encouragement. We’re going to teach you how to stand on the foundation that God has given us in His Word, and help others to do the same. You’re going to get information that’s going to be invaluable in your effort to continue to speak the truth in love to a generation of young people who are very broken and very concerned about what’s happening around them. We’re going to give you compassionate answers for a fallen world. Come out and join me at the Answers for Women conference, Sacred, on April 5th and 6th in Williamstown Kentucky. This is a great opportunity for you, women, to bring a friend and join us there. I’m telling you what – it’s going to be a weekend that will change your life and encourage and empower you.

All right. Let’s get right to Tiffany’s question. Sweet Tiffany, first of all – thank you for writing to me. I love to get your letters. If you’re listening and you’ve been wondering about sending a question to us here at the podcast we love to hear from you. E-mail us anytime at podcast@thebusymom.com and we will try very hard to get your question on the air. I decided only to answer this one question today because it is such a multifaceted question. I hope that you leave with just a sense of bold encouragement that you can teach your children about sex. Not only can you, but you need to.

So here’s what Tiffany said:

Dear Heidi, I love being a mom. I’m a mom to three kids, ages 6 months to 7 years old, and so far parenting has been challenging but nothing that has made me step outside my comfort zone too far. Recently, my 7 year old child was exposed to talks about sex and human sexuality in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. And now she’s asking questions and I didn’t want to interrupt her childhood by answering these questions. I didn’t want to traumatize her or talk about sex, so we basically avoided it. And now I feel like it’s at my doorstep and I don’t know what to do. Can you help?

All right. Tiffany, here’s the thing. Yes I can help you, but I want you to know that the help I’m going to give to you today comes from God’s Word. It comes from the Word of God. There are lots of ways, and obviously nowhere in the Bible does it say – here’s how you talk to your kids about sex. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that. This is not a moral issue. I don’t want you guys to freak out. This isn’t a moral issue.

The timing of telling our kids about sex, about intercourse – is a strategic decision. It’s not a moral one. What we want to be doing is saying – Lord, help us to be in touch with our children so that we can be listening to them and listening to their heart. I’m going to be quoting from a couple of books today, I’ll just list them for you right off the front.

One of my favorite books on this topic is by Stan and Brenna Jones. They are probably one of the foremost speakers on this topic and this one’s called How and When to Tell Your Kids about Sex: A Lifelong Approach to Shaping Your Child’s Sexual Character. And I love that the heart for this book. I love that they’ve written in the first place. This book is really for parents. It’s going to give you an overview of how to talk to your kids.

Then, there’s a series of books that you can go through with your children. The first one that I’m going to mention is called Before I Was Born (God’s Design for Sex).This one is really written for children ages 5 to 8. Carolyn Nystrom is the author of that book. It’s illustrated, although not inappropriately. It’s a great book for you just to sit down and explain, in age-appropriate language, the basic nature of sexual intercourse between a husband and a wife. To talk about conception, fetal development, childbirth, breastfeeding, all these things. These are things that sometimes parents have a hard time talking about with their kids – because why in the world would you as a parent explain sexual intercourse to young children before they get near puberty? I’ve heard parents say – well that’s pushing it on your kids. It’s forced them to grow up too fast. It could traumatize them . Maybe they don’t actually need to know. So, we’re kind of on a need-to-know basis.

In our family, over these 27 years of raising seven children, each one of my kids has approached this differently. After about three times around the bend – this is not my favorite conversation. I didn’t really look forward to it with my kids. I started listening for, and watching, for them to exhibit signs that they were ready.

A sign that they’re ready might be that they’re just asking questions.  Remember I told you a minute ago – there’s not a divine revelation about this in the Word of God. So really, this is you watching for your child and answering their questions as it comes up, and not being afraid to do it. I think one of the ways that we do that is we educate ourselves. I want to just encourage you, I’ll link back to it in the show notes, to get How and When to Tell Your Kids about Sex by Stan and Brenna Jones.

This is one of my favorite books on this topic. I think it’s very well thought-through and also very direct – which is something we have tried to be with our children. Stan writes in this book that: whether children be traumatized by hearing about sexual intercourse depends entirely on how they’re told. Lurid, sensationalized, or overly graphic descriptions are not healthy for children – especially young children – which can lead a child to be preoccupied with sex.

This is increasingly a risk for today’s children because of our media-driven culture. There are teachers that are reporting that it’s a rule, rather than an exception, that 9 and 10-year-old students regularly watch R rated movies at home. Not in my house.

I think this is happening more and more, and the kids who don’t see these movies themselves are regaled on the playground with vivid descriptions of what these children are seeing.

So one of the best reasons for you, mom and dad, to be the first ones to tell your children about the sexual union that happens in marriage that God has designed for marriage – is to prevent them from getting an initial impression about sex that’s either distorted or destructive.

Some of my friends have told their children about sex at very very young ages. They just talk about it you know when they’re when their babies are born and they’re giving them baths or whatever. It’s a very natural conversation, an ongoing conversation, that parents are having with their children.

In our family, we are a little bit more reserved than that. We wait to see that our kids are asking questions, that they’re ready to hear those answers. But, I have to tell you guys – the more the culture spirals into this moral abyss that we are going into, I am encouraging parents now to get on this topic earlier rather than later because we don’t want our kids to get to get a view of sex that’s distorted or destructive.

All right, so this is just another application of one of the messages in the Jones’s book. And they say – you tell them early and you tell them explicitly. So they say the first messages are the most potent. It’s far more powerful to form a child’s view of sexuality from scratch than it is to correct the distortions that your children pick up from the world.

So trying to build a godly view of sexual intercourse and sexuality after children are exposed to the destructive messages and distortions of the world – is kind of like trying to teach your kids good nutrition after having allowed them to be raised for years on junk food. This is a great reason that we are going to urge you to tell your children about sexual intercourse between the ages of 5 and 7 –  between kindergarten and the second-grade years.

Now, ten years ago I said – oh wait till they’re in fourth or fifth grade. And honestly you guys, I can’t sound the alarm enough. You have got to tell them early. You have got to tell them early. I think too, the more accurate you are – not lewd, but accurate, the best.

Alright. So this is principle number six -taken from How and When to Tell Your Kids about Sex. I just picked this out of the middle the book because it’s one of my earmarked pages in my own book. It says:  

Principal Number Six: Accurate and explicit messages are best. Err on the side of providing too much information and being too explicit. By explicit we mean detailed, clear, and direct. We don’t mean indiscreet or lewd.

So you want to avoid using language that’s figurative, too technical, or obscure. Typically, little damage is done by giving too much information if the information is true, sensitively described, and offered in a positive spirit. Children absorb the information they are interested in and can understand and they seem to simply ignore or file away what they cannot grasp or are uninterested in.

What you want to do is strike a balance. If we bore the kids by drowning them with details that they don’t want, then we discourage them from coming to us for information. But asking about sexuality is hard for children. And if we make them feel like they’re pulling teeth to get information from us – then they will get the information when they want it, when it’s where it’s easier to get – which is nine times out of ten from children on the playground, children at church, or unfortunately the Internet. So we want to give our kids simple, direct, and explicit responses to their questions and give them about 20 percent more of the information than they seem to ask for.

I have done this with our children, and it has been remarkably effective. So when my child asks me, especially when she asked me three days in a row, then I’m going to look for a little bit of time to sit down with her. In fact, I just had this conversation with my seven year old. I’m going to look for I’m going to look for an opportunity, I’m going to get out my book. I like to go through and want to make sure I didn’t miss anything – because wouldn’t it be a bummer if I got nervous and I missed something that I really wanted to say. That’s why I love talking to my kids using books. That’s why I love Before I Was Born. I love that series.

I don’t know that I went past, I think book two, because at that point I’m really talking to my teenagers and really enjoying having those conversations with them. I quit as soon as my kids seem uninterested. I’ll talk to my daughter until she goes – okay, that’s enough – you can tell when they’ve had enough because they just kind of fidget, or they won’t look at you anymore, and that’s good.

Stan Jones says that he thinks elementary school kids are interested in sexuality but parents sometimes don’t know it because the kids tend to talk more to their peers and less to adults about the topic – especially if their parents are nervous about these conversations.  The question often comes up  – why is it so hard to talk to our kids about intercourse?

Well, we’re not used to talking about it – which is funny because it’s everywhere in the culture, but we don’t talk about it in a healthy way. It’s jokes, or we talk about what’s wrong in the culture – but we’re really not talking about sex in a healthy way. Also, there’s kind of a natural privacy around our sexual lives that’s difficult to deal with. This is another thing that Stan and Brenna say in their book they say that – when we begin to talk with our kids about sex we have a sense of invasion of that privacy. You know  – the little people in the bedroom next door – now they know what you’re doing! Right?

I remember my kids at one point, one of my older kids, were at breakfast one day – and I think Jay and I had gone to bed early. We’ve actually made a point of really protecting this part of our relationship because I have seen over the years, many times, in marriages and friends of mine and other places where I minister around the country – that this is one of the main areas where the enemy will attack a marriage. It’s by a lack of sexual intimacy between a husband and a wife. And this part of the relationship erodes and pretty soon you’ve got all manner of other problems. So we have tried very hard to protect that in our own marriage. I remember sitting at the breakfast table one day and one of the kids was saying – Hey Mom, I knocked on your bedroom door last night. Jay kind of looked up from his cereal and gave me this like, you know – don’t you love it when they bang on your door like?! for the love! leave us alone. 😉

One of the other kids was like like – Oh you do not want to know what’s going on in there. I think I blew my tea out my nose. It was so funny because then the little one was like – yes I do, yes I want to know.  This is family life, right? It’s family life.

I think parents sometimes feel conflicted about their own sexuality and so they avoid it. They avoid talking about it. You have to push past that fear and that angst with talking to your kids. We want our kids to believe what God says is true – and that is that sex is a wonderfully good thing. So our teaching as parents has got to be one of the first messages our kids ever get about sex. So be explicit, be direct, and make sure that you give them a positive message about sex. I remember the look in several of my kids eyes as we had different conversations with them throughout the years.

One of my kids in particular, who shall go unnamed, just looked me right in the eyes and said – that just sounds awful. Then I said – it’s actually awesome! But, it’s good that you think it’s awful right now because it’s not supposed to be awesome. You’re not married.

We want to teach our kids from the Word of God, positive things. Romans 2:1-16 teaches us that God’s law has been written for our protection and it’s written on the hearts of all people.

We trust, on this basis, that in their hearts – our children will be able to recognize the truth when it’s presented to them. The truth of the Christian view of sex is good. It’s healthy and it’s positive. Sex is a marvelous gift from God, and we want our children to see that good is more powerful than evil.

We want our kids to have a message about human sexuality, about intercourse between a husband and wife, that is positive and good and not frightening or scary. So Carolyn Nystrom’s wonderful book, which is what I was just talking to you about a minute ago Before I Was Born, is book 2 in the God’s Designed for Sex series. It’s a wonderful introduction. If you’re wondering how to talk about this with your kids, it’s a wonderful introduction to the topic of sexual intercourse.

After describing the nature of marriage, she offers the following direct, simple, tactful explanation of intercourse. This is beautiful. She says: friends bring gifts to a wedding. God has a special gift for new husbands and wives too. It’s called sex. God’s rules say that only people who are married to each other should have sex. It is God’s way of making families strong. Because the man and the woman are married, their bodies belong to each other. They enjoy holding each other close.

She’s going to go on, but I’m not going read that out loud – because some of your kids are sitting with you and you want to do this without me talking to into your ear. But, I’m telling you she’s she goes on to describe sexual intercourse in a very direct, very explicit way  – and then she ends by saying this is the way that babies are made. A husband can’t make a baby by himself a wife can’t make a baby by herself. But God made their bodies so they fit together perfectly, and together they can make a baby.

It’s a wonderful way for you to talk to your children about sex and point them back to Creator God. It’s God’s design. It belongs to Him and we give Him glory for it. I wrote a book about marriage several years ago – if you haven’t picked it up yet, I’ll link back to it in the show notes today. The idea was to remind husbands and wives that God’s gift really is just that – marriage should be a respite from the rest of the world. It should be a place where we can enjoy each other emotionally, and physically, and every other way and say – thank you God that you gave us the gift of marriage. Then, talk to your children about it in a way that makes them excited about their own marriage someday, not afraid.

For those of us who grew up in homes that were less than wonderful, or some of us grew up in homes where our parents divorced and we had a very unhealthy negative view of marriage – those unhealthy negative views really do translate into our lives as young adults.

So it’s even more important than ever to build into the heart of your children an understanding of God’s heart in the area of sexual intimacy. It’s the foundation for building a complete system of sexual morality, which our kids need now more than they have ever needed before.

I’m going to link back to these books in the series, in the show and today. I hope you guys have been encouraged. I hope that you take the opportunity to talk to your children. For those of you whose kids are older than this and you haven’t had the conversation – it’s never too late to start.

Talk to your kids about what’s happening the culture. Like I said before, we’re living in incredible times right now where the truth is really being picked apart and thrown at people in a way that I have never seen happen in my lifetime. The only way that I know to combat a bold lie is with bold truth, especially in the area of human sexuality. Talk to your kids about God’s heart for them. I’m telling you what – it’ll be a blessing to your children and also a blessing for you.

If you have a question that you would love to see addressed a Mailbox Monday, don’t be bashful! Shoot me an e-mail at podcast@thebusymom.com.

Also if you have not joined MomStrong International – now is a great time to do that. You can join us and do the Scripture Writing challenge over there. We have three versions of Scripture Writing challenges that are available for purchase at the store (here).

We hope that you will join us as we dig into the Word of God. That is where the answers that we are looking for are found.

All right love you guys, thank you so much for listening. We appreciate hearing back from you. We appreciate your feedback over at iTunes. If you’ve not yet rated this podcast or left a review for the podcast, please do that at iTunes. It’s very simple to do and it really does help us get the message out. Thanks for sharing this podcast on social media. Hope you guys have a fantastic day, and I’ll see you back here on Wednesday for the study: Finding Balance and Breathe – the January study at MomStrongInternational.com.

Opportunities vs Obligations: Find Balance and Breathe Week 2 of 4 – 715

Opportunities. We all have them. Sell Tupperware. Start a ministry at church. Take a new part-time job. Take on a new hobby.  Of course, none of these things are inherently wrong… in fact they look good! But even good things can rob us of the best things that God has for us. Listen in today as we talk about the importance of prioritizing your obligations over your opportunities, and the freedom that comes with it.  This is week two of the January Bible study at MSI. Join us at MomStrong International.

 

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    • Friends, lean in and listen: If there is one prayer only that runs through your mind, may it be, “Lord, grant me wisdom.” “Father, I need wisdom as I parent through this situation.” “Lord, what is my answer to be to this child right now?” “Holy Father, what is wisdom here?” “Jesus, YOU are wisdom. Give me more of You today.”
  • Managing Your Priorities
    • Our priorities are what drive us, and they matter. What do your decisions show are your priorities?

TRANSCRIBED PODCAST BELOW

Good morning everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Thank you for tuning into the podcast today.

Today is Wednesday, January 16th. This is MomStrong International day here at the podcast. It’s the day when we talk about what we’re studying at MomStrong International in the Bible Study. Today we’re gonna be talking about opportunities versus obligation.

Stick around, I think you’re gonna be encouraged.

Well you guys know that I am loving the Scripture Writing Challenge. I hope you guys are doing it with me. Today’s verse, if you’re following along, we are on Psalm 57:7

My heart, O God, is steadfast,
    my heart is steadfast;
    I will sing and make music.
Psalm 57:7

Wow, if that’s not the voice of somebody who is trusting in the name of the Lord. I love that the Psalmist says “my heart is steadfast” twice. How steadfast are you right now in your walk with the Lord? Whatever is happening around you, whatever you see happening in the government, whatever you see happening politically, whatever you see happening in your churches – how steadfast are you?

God says that we can be steadfast no matter what’s happening around us, and not only that – we can sing and make music because our hearts are steadfast in the Lord. This month at MomStrong International we’re talking about finding balance and what it looks like to just be able to breathe, to be surrounded by that white-space in our spirit – if not in our calendar. Because we know that we’ve embraced God’s priorities, that was last week that we studied this, and then this week we’re gonna study what it means to Embrace God’s Priorities when it comes to Obligations vs. Opportunities.

So the main passages that we’re gonna be studying for this particular week is 2 Timothy 1:9-10. So this is what it says:

9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
2 Timothy 1:9-10

Let’s go ahead and open this study up in prayer.

Father God, I thank you for the opportunity that you give us every day to choose to walk with you. Lord, as we think about the many decisions that we have to make, Father, we just want to lift up your name today, and say that You are worthy of our praise. Father, I pray that You would search my heart, reveal any idols that take Your place in my life, and show me that path to root them out. Father, we desperately need you to be on the throne of our lives. And so today as we talk just a little bit about what it means to embrace Your priorities in the face of every opportunity that comes our way – I pray that You’d show us where our priorities are out of line with Yours, and give us the strength to enact change. Forgive me, and helped me to grab hold of the opportunities that You place in front of me. Flow through me, Holy Spirit, that I will be generous with Your love, generous in my telling of Your gospel, and generous with the possessions that you’ve given me to reflect Your glory. Tune my heart to You, in Jesus name. Amen.

So how many times have you come up against something in your life, an opportunity that you have really wanted. Let’s say it’s an opportunity to take on a position at work, or an opportunity to start something new, and it’s in your heart to do it. And you look to you and thought – boy, I don’t know if this is the season of my life to do that. In 2 Timothy 1:9-10, which is the passage that we’re talking about, we learn a little bit about why God saved us. He saved us to live a holy life – not because of anything we did – but because of His own purpose and grace. God has a purpose for your life.

In Psalm 57:1 it says:

Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me!
For my soul takes refuge in you;
and in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
until destruction passes by.
Psalm 57:1

So we learn about the Lord in these two versus. He’s generous, He is the defender of the afflicted, He desires that we would come to repentance.

We’ve been studying these things at MomStrong and perspective is really what we need when it comes to deciding what it is that God wants us to do. And sometimes life is all about perspective. Have you ever witnessed a mom say – “I’m giving you the opportunity to make a right choice”,  and you know her kid knows that there actually is no way on earth that this is an opportunity. Her command-with-a-question-mark-but-definitely-a-command has left no room for questioning. You see, this is an obligation – and that kid has about 45 seconds to meet it – or else. And I mean – who are we kidding? Right? Well you know, and I know – I’ve been that mom at some point, possibly in the car on the way to MomStrong group today!

But there is a Bible-reading, Jesus-loving, spiritually mature woman who has walked with Jesus for many years. Several years back she realized her gifts to the Lord of generosity with her time, and talents, and tithe had gradually morphed into things she felt she had to do, or she wasn’t lovable to God. She felt she wasn’t meeting His standards, and wasn’t earning His love.

Hold up.

Now how do we get to that place? How do we get to the place of feeling like we have to earn God’s favor when we know full well that this is not what the Bible teaches? You see, there’s a slippery slope happening in today in North American evangelical churches. Opportunities to serve abound, and there are needs everywhere. And with the best intentions we so easily get involved in running a midweek God’s Girls program, helping sub in Sunday School “you know, just for a month while they find a new teacher” – and all of a sudden it’s six years later and you find out that you’re tired, and maybe a little bit bitter, and you’re convinced that nothing would get done right if you weren’t doing it. Right?

Anybody? Moment Silence.

Thank goodness the Lord has us there, right? Or no one would be saved. Nope, nothing new under the sun about that. Happens all the time. God is generous, and He lavishes His love in his grace on us without reward or cost.

Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you have no money come, buy and eat. Come, by wine and milk and money without cost.
Isaiah 55:1

You see God’s generosity extends to salvation. Romans 5:8

in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8

So where do you find yourself? Are you at just about at the end of yourself and so tired that you’ve forgotten why you’re in this thing in the first place? We can so easily forget the magnificent strength of God, and all the sudden, the beautiful opportunities that the Lord has given us – become what? Obligations. They become obligations and there are lots of different ways to look at this because Jesus wants to give us perspective – and we’re going to go deeper into this at the study.

I hope you guys will download it you can find it at MomStrongInternational.com – but I do want to sort of outline it for you. There’s two ways to look at this. We can look at the beautiful opportunities that God has given us and they become obligations because we’re doing it for the wrong reasons, or doing it with the wrong heart, or we’ve forgotten that that is actually the most important thing. Right? And then sometimes, we see the opportunities in front of us and they become more important than our obligations.

I was blessed a couple of months ago to talk with a seasoned homeschool dad in my office at the resource center, and he was noting my calendar and the things that were happening with my family. And he said – you know Heidi, just be very very careful never prioritize your obligations below your opportunities. Never prioritize your obligations below your opportunities.

In other words, take care of your your obligations first. You know what your obligations are. Your obligation is your children, it is your marriage, it’s walking a right relationship with the Lord. And we need to have a fresh perspective, a right perspective when it comes to walking in right relationship with the Lord – because we will always have opportunities, but we will not always have the opportunity to minister to the obligations that God has given us through His mercy and His grace. It’s an amazing opportunity that God has given us.

So, I want to ask you – would you choose to stay busy with washing your kids hands and scurrying through your fast food dinner because you got to finish up the last leg of a trip? Or, would you settle into a conversation that had life changing perspective?

We’re studying this idea in the context of the Samaritan woman which has found in John 4:5-43

See, early in John 4, Jesus and His disciples left Judea and they pass through Samaria, the Bible records, on the way to Galilee. So what’s Jesus doing there? He’s weary from His journey and the disciples are off buying food – and I’m thinking to myself as a mom. You know, I’ve traveled across the country with my husband and our kids many times. From Oregon all the way to Virginia, and down to Florida and back. We make a 35,000 mile road trip in a summer when we’re on a ministry trip. And I think how I feel at the end of the day, at the end of one of our road trips.

Now keep in mind that this is when the Samaritan woman enters the story. So why do you think that the Samaritan woman was surprised that Jesus spoke to her? First of all, Jews were not suppose to have any dealings with the Samaritans. They had incredible prejudice and Jesus decides to engage the woman. He takes advantage of the cultural precedent and He uses it to His advantage, and He engages her in conversation.

Jesus spoke with her and went way beyond small talk. Then the woman, you’ll see, after they spoke, she went back to the city to tell the people that she had found the Messiah. Now let’s stop for just a second and consider a couple of important things.

Jesus has traveled and He’s exhausted, yet He makes the decision to act according to His priorities. He’s generous with the gospel as He speaks the Samaritan woman and He chooses to act as a defender of the afflicted here rather than pass judgment on her life choices. He engaged her in honest, deep conversation – and did anyone notice in the story that Jesus had a couple of socially acceptable reasons to just mind his own business and be quiet? But instead, He acted on the Father’s priorities. He acted on the Father’s priorities.

You see, we want to have Jesus bring a vertical perspective into every moment of our life, into every moment of our life, and this is how God operates with us.

You see, Jesus could have chosen to indulge His trip-weary humanity and taken a pass on the conversation with a woman who was obviously needy. But instead, He chose to engage in the in the life of that woman. As a result, it changed her life. How many times, men and women, have we gotten to the end of our day. I mean, this story obviously is about Jesus and the Samaritan woman – but I’ll just take it a little jaunt to a different relationship.

I think of the relationships that we have with our young children. And at the end of a weary day, when you’re just thinking – if one more person asked me for one more thing I’m absolutely going to cotton-pick and lose it.

Anybody? Anybody?

I can’t think of how many times my kids have come to me, my little brown-eyed beauties, with books in their hands. Sometimes you gotta be discerning – right? Sometimes it’s a “can I have one more drink of water” – because they just don’t want to go to bed. But oh the opportunities that we have in the evenings, especially with teenagers. Because often, that’s when they wake up – when you’re getting tired and you think you’re gonna have to prop your eyes open with the toothpick and your kids want to come in and talk to you. Take advantage of the opportunity. These are the opportunities that you have to really make a difference. Instead of just looking at the lives of your kids as obligations, you want to choose what God would have you choose.

You see, as a result of Jesus looking the Samaritan woman in the eye and having a real conversation – Jesus stayed for two more days teaching the people who responded. The woman took the gift of life that Jesus offered with joy, and was generous in sharing it with other people. The result was a village that was changed because of the Gospel.

It was changed because Jesus had a vertical perspective, He had the right perspective, and the Samaritan woman caught His perspective and acted in tandem with Him  – and really, that’ what we want with our kids. Right? We want our kids to catch the vision for walking with the Lord and then follow us. Right? Follow me, kids, as I follow Christ. Let me show you what it means to have my priorities in order. You are my priority and it’s very hard.

I’m not saying that you sacrifice every ounce of your life. I’ve seen some parents that baby their children and their priorities are skewed – and in a different direction. We become helicopter parents and we want to answer our kids every whim and every whimper, and we lose perspective that way. And actually, I would classify that as idolatry.

But then the other side of that is – we’ve got kids who desperately need our attention but we’re just so tired because we focus on so many other things, that at the end of the day we won’t have time for many more. And if that’s you, if you’re struggling with that right now – can I just encourage you? Group hug, lean in. <3  

We need God’s perspective,  we need His perspective. A vertical perspective to fix our gaze heavenward.

The best way to do that is to get into the Word of God. In Micah 6:8 we know exactly what God wants us to do. Three things that Micah says God values more than proper sacrifice is to act justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with the Lord.

In 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 we find out that God comforts us in our afflictions and one of the ways that we reflect His image is by getting His priorities right, and comforting others with the comfort that we’ve received from God. And men and women, it starts at home. It starts with your family. You want to change the world? Stay home and love your family. Love your family first. Put your family first.

We talked about this last week. Out of an overflow of what God does in your marriage you pour into your children, and out of an overflow of what God does in your family you pour into your communities. I’m not telling you be myopic and just stay home and only ever focus on you. That’s selfish. No, I’m saying – get your priorities right so that when God gives you the opportune to minister to people outside of your home, you have the emotional and spiritual resource, the emotional spiritual boundaries set so that you can do it.

And maybe you grew up in a faith culture that taught you that you needed to earn God’s favor by doing good deeds or accomplishing things. Maybe you grew up in a good old fashioned Southern church who’s pop shook his finger at you and pointed the Good Book your way, but you didn’t live it.

God is not about either of these things. His Word is rich and full of His heart and His priorities. And we want to embrace God’s priorities and then make them our priorities. That is living a life that God blesses.

This week in Kids Strong, if you’re studying along with us at the MomStrong Bible Study –  my daughter Savannah who is a mother of two little boys – writes the  Kids Strong Bible Study every week. She’s been focusing the kids eyes on Jesus. Last week they talked about how Jesus is The King, and that He should be the center of our lives because He loves us. And so, everything we do is an act of love, back to Him. He’s our Savior, and since He’s our King, that means we are to follow Him and obey Him. But we need to be careful. Sometimes we think that we are saved by the good things that we do. If we obey God, if we’re kind. Right? If we share what we have.  

Then we ask our kids – do you think that’s true? And then let’s take them to the Bible.

Listen Mom and Dad. Open up your Bible, show your children that the answers that you are giving them come straight from the Word of God.

Straight from the Word of God.Your kids need to hear that out of you.

If you’re not taking advantage of looking at Kids Strong, especially forgot little ones, reading that with your kids – I want to just encourage you to do that.

If you haven’t signed up at MomStrong International, every month we turn out a beautifully illustrated, wonderfully thought-through Bible Study on different topics that are happening either in the culture – as we try to react to them in real time according to God’s Word – or based on passages, or even books of the Bible. So you can find us at MomStrongInternational.com.

I want to thank you guys for listening today. I want to just encourage you to embrace God’s priorities. As you embrace His priorities you will be able to make wise decisions. You will be able to understand the difference between an opportunity and an obligation, and ask the Lord to show you His heart in the whole thing because God wants to help you. And aren’t you glad? I don’t know what we would do, men and women, without the Lord – what would we do?

If you are not Scripture Writing with me, if your kids aren’t doing the copywork- can I just encourage you to do that? That part of the Bible Study is free. Always has been. It’s over at MomStrongInternational.com. All you need to do is create an account over there. You can start a MomStrong group at your church and study the Word of God together every week. There is power in the name of Jesus. There is power in understanding and studying the Word of God. And I am excited for you as you get to know the Lord of heaven’s armies and understand His heart for you, to see what God will do.

Thanks for listening everybody, I really appreciate it. And I’m going to come back here on Friday with a special guest.

In the meantime, we’re just a couple of days out from the Heidi St. John Conference that is happening in Abilene, Texas. I’m getting ready hit the road with my family and meet up with my staff down there. I always love coming to Texas. And I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. We’re gonna have a wonderful time! We have a beautiful facility reserved there. And we’re going to spend a whole day on Saturday the 19th just coming before the Lord, opening our Bibles.

I’ll bring in lots of resources with me – the jewelry from the Heidi St. John and Scripture Writing collection will be there for you. We’re gonna be worshiping the Lord together. We’ll have lunch together and  we’re going to do a question and answer together. So come! And expect the Holy Spirit to just be present there. Expect God to show up and do mighty things. That’s the 19th in Abilene, Texas.

If you’re interested in bringing my women’s conference to your neck of the woods, you can shoot me an email at podcast@thebuysmom.com and just let us know where you are and what date you’re looking at

The schedule for 2019 is pretty well full at this point. I think we’re looking at 2020 and beyond. Have a wonderful day you guys, and I’ll see you back here on Friday.

Unanswered Prayers, Homeschooling Special Needs, and Child Salvation | Mailbox Monday – 714

Today I will be answering several questions from listeners, including what to do when our prayers seem to go unanswered, homeschooling special needs children, and whether or not a young child is capable of accepting God’s gift of salvation. All things that matter to the Lord!

 

Mentioned In Podcast
 Scriptures

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  • Biblical Discernment
    • We’ve been given an opportunity to be ambassadors for Christ and to represent Him to a world that’s watching. Hope and change are never found apart from Jesus, and no one can make America great again apart from Christ. We are seeking the redemptive power of the cross, whether or not we know it.
TRANSCRIBED PODCAST BELOW

Hey everybody. This is Heidi St. John, welcome to the podcast. Today is Monday, January 14th.

I’ve got so many questions that I’m going to try to answer here today at Mailbox Monday. We’re going to talk a little bit about how you can know if your children are old enough to accept salvation a couple of homeschooling questions. And if I have time, we’re going to talk about special needs kids and whether or not you can homeschool a special needs child.

Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right. So I’ve got a lot to get to today. I’m going to try to go as quickly as I can through some of these. A couple of things – first of all, thank you, thank you, thank you for those of you who are leaving reviews for the podcast over at iTunes. Remember, you can rate the podcast and review it there. Also, I wanted to throw out if you have read Becoming MomStrong, Prayers for the Battlefield, The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight or To Romance – any of the books I’ve written — it would encourage us very much if you would take a moment and leave reviews for those books over at Amazon, Good Reads, at Barnes and Noble – anywhere the books are sold.

It really helps people get an idea of what is in the books and whether or not they would be appropriate to purchase for friends. And so we would love to see those reviews continue to come in. So thank you so much for doing that.

Also, you guys know that coming up here in just a few days I’m going to be in Abilene. So come on out! I’ll be in Abilene, Texas on the 19th of this month. That’s a Saturday, and I am really looking forward to doing to just being there with you guys and encouraging you in what the Lord is doing.

That is the Heidi St. John conference that’s coming up in the 19th, and that’s a Saturday in Abilene.

And then the following weekend I will be in Coos Bay, Oregon for my conference Miracle Worker. The Life Changing Power of Following Jesus.

All right so today is the 14th, and so I thought I would go ahead and read the Scripture from today’s read the scripture writing. So if you’re going along with me on the Scripture Writing Challenge on January 14th, the verses out of Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

I hope that you are writing these verses out with me. We actually had a little bit of a different format this month for January, and so the Scripture Writing challenge is very small – the verses are small this month. Next month we’ll get back to our regular – a little bit longer passages for you. But it was a good way for you to introduce your children, hopefully, to the cursive part of the Scripture Writing Challenge. It’s a great way to just augment their handwriting practice. So if you haven’t had a chance to do that you can find all that at MomStrongInternational.com.

I love this verse out of Galatians because it’s going to be a great segway into my very first question today here at Mailbox Monday. My friend Heather writes:

Hi Heidi, I wanted to get your opinion on the salvation of very young children. I accepted Christ when I was four years old, was raised in an amazing Christian home, and have truly loved the Lord my entire life. I’ve been through some really hard times and trials but I’ve always trusted my Savior – what a blessing to have been discipled like this by my parents. My husband and I are striving to train our kids in Christ as well.

Good job Heather!

So my oldest is four now, and she has started asking deeper questions. I have always diligently taught her Bible stories, and over the past year started to weave in the deeper purpose to include Christ death, resurrection, and sin. It’s funny though when a child is raised in a Christian home they just accept everything and think – well of course I would love Jesus. It’s just so exciting to see this growth in her, but it leads to my question below. Here it is.

All right Heather, let’s have it.

Can a child truly accept Christ at an early age with conviction and repentance? The Bible says to have a childlike faith, but I don’t recall any New Testament examples of child salvation. I also feel that early salvation is the cause of many many friends – myself included – questioning their salvation as they got older. I’ll be honest, I did a just-in-case prayer when I was 12.

All right. So Heather, this is a great question. First I love to hear that you are discipling your daughter, your children in the ways of the Lord. That is your primary responsibility as their mother – is to teach them the ways of the Lord. And I know that because you mentioned this further down in your email that you know that I accepted Christ at a very young age. Also, I do believe that the Holy Spirit can work in our children.

Children are – yes, they’re very impressionable – but also it’s the most important time to train them and teach them about the Lord. And so – do I think that a child can understand the basics of salvation and ask the Lord to be the Lord of their life at the age of four? Absolutely I do!

But here’s what happens. Here’s what you need to continue to do after that, and this is where so many churches are failing in many many ways with people who come to know the Lord at crusades or through outreaches that churches do – we  get them to a point where they are ready to accept the Lord, but then we don’t disciple them. And so part of what I hear in your question is a pretty natural fear. And that’s the fear — that your child is going to walk away from the Lord, and that maybe her salvation wasn’t real.

So a couple of things that you can do. By the way Heather, I also did the just-in-case prayer. I’m sure I’ve done it many times when I was younger. I’m not worried anymore.

But there was a point, and that part of that comes with maturity, right? And growing in our in our knowledge of the Lord, and growing in our relationship with Him. But the thing that you do, if your child wants to accept the Lord, then get on your knees with her and lead her a prayer of salvation. It’s a wonderful thing to do with your child – to lead them to the Lord and have them come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ right there on your on your couch. It’s a wonderful thing!

But then, you don’t want to stop there, right? You want to continue to disciple your children, so continue to pray for them. It’s such an important part of what you’re going to do with her as a mother. But here’s the thing that you want to do at that point – you want to continue to disciple your child. So let’s say your child, your four-year-old, says – Mama I want to pray to accept Jesus into my heart. Wow! Take the opportunity and do it. And then take it a step further for the rest of the time that they’re in your home.

And as long as you have influence, you do exactly what the apostle Paul talked about in Colossians 2:6.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him,

Don’t you love that? That’s God’s heart – that you would help your child to be rooted in the Lord, and continue to disciple them, and walk with them, continue to live your life in Him. 

rooted and built up in Him strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness
Colossians 2:7

So sweet Mom, don’t let your fear that your child might walk away from the Lord keep you from believing that that child can accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior at a young age. I think they absolutely can and it’s important that you allow them to do that and then continue in the discipleship process.

All right, the next question I got was from a sweet mom named Linay. She asked about the Scripture Writing that I’ve been doing at my blog for many many years. And she asked if I am still printing that. You know what I realized? I never talk about that on the podcast. So yes, we do – we have a laminated version of the Scripture Writing Challenge that is made into cards, they are a little bit about the size of five by seven cards or five by eight cards. They are small enough to fit into your purse or your diaper bag, and they are they’re held together by an O-ring. And so if you’re interested in that those are for sale at HeidiStJohn.com (search for the store in the menu).

So Linay, thanks for asking that question! It’s an important question and I’m glad you asked it.

Next question came from Rayda. Rayda said:

Should I be concerned with curriculum that is not Christian?

She was talking specifically about an LDS curriculum and she said the curriculum presents itself as Christian and non-denominational. And you guys have heard me talk about this on the podcast before – the LDS church are the Mormons. The Latter-day Saints are the Mormons who believe they’re Christians, but what they believe flies in the face of what the Bible itself teaches. As Christians, we believe we don’t need any other book except for the Bible. We don’t need any kind of additional study materials that have been inspired because we believe that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God. And, the Mormons take a lot of their beliefs from The Book of Mormon.

We could spend all day talking about it but. So she’s purchased an entirely Mormon curriculum and now she’s worried about having that curriculum be the entire source of schooling for her child. And actually, I would say I think that your that your question is good and that your fear is right on the money. But I want you not to overthink it.

So what you want to do is go through the curriculum. So what you’ve done is basically – you just made your life a little bit harder. Right? I’m not trying to bring you down. 🙂 But we use curriculum in our home. I don’t know that we’ve ever used an LDS curriculum, but we’ve used curriculum in our home certainly that was secular, and I will go through a lot of things that they say are just flat out wrong. Like they teach about evolution. Then I will probably read that to my children, but then we’re also going to talk about what God says in His Word which is that God created us. And we’re going to talk about the days of creation and how we know that we can have trust in the Word of God.

And so you’re right to be concerned about it. And I would say just before you go to the trouble of returning the curriculum or whatever. I would encourage you – look through it, see what’s in there that doesn’t line up with the Word of God, alone. God’s Word alone. God’s Word can stand alone. So look and see what doesn’t line up and then you can either take that out or maybe it’s so much that you decide you do need to return the curriculum. But, I would say look through it. It sounds to me like you got some good discernment. Discernment is the key.

There’s lots of things that we use in our homeschool that are not done by entirely Christian publishers. So like my cursive writing program – is it put out by Christian publishers? No it was put out by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – the first one that we did. Then we found a really awesome Christian curriculum, and we ended up using that because if my kids were gonna learn to write – for goodness sake, I want them to write the Word of God. Which by the way, takes me back to the Scripture Writing Challenge – which is why we do that.

You guys might notice that we’ve got a cursive program now that will help your children practice their cursive. It’s not going to teach them the right way to form the letters, so you still need to do that – but it’s a great way to practice. Once they’re used to the cursive it’s a great way to practice it and it’s free for the month of January. Then after that, it will be part of the Premium Bible Study Membership at MomStrong International. So be sure to check that out!

So Rayda, I hope that that answered your question. I do think you’re right to be concerned when you realize that that curriculum was not a Christian curriculum, and then at that point you need to just go through it and be really aware. I think parents need to be the primary educators of their children. So we want to be very aware of what our kids are learning all the time. So I loved your question!  

The last question I’m going to take on the podcast today came from a sweet Mama Sarah who wanted to know about homeschooling her special needs child. And Sarah I really appreciate you writing this. I meet moms out on the road all the time who are homeschooling their special needs children. In fact I looked up a blog post and that’s kind of where I’m going to take and frame my answer with you today. Because my friend, Wendy Hilton, has been on this podcast with me several times before. She is one of the owners of Hip Homeschool Mom’s, and is a friend of mine.

I absolutely love her and she has been homeschooling three special needs kids, and nobody knows more about this than Wendy does. And so, I’m going to read something that she posted because I thought it was beautiful and I will link back to it in the show notes today. And also, we’ve talked about this on my show – so if you were to Google Heidi St. John Special Needs Homeschooling, it will probably come up. But in the meantime, I thought I would go ahead and read this to you because I think it’s definitely worth talking about. Wendy says:  

Should you homeschool your special needs child? Are you up to the task? Or should you leave it to the “experts”? I get questioned often this time of year by parents who are considering homeschooling their special needs children for the coming school year. The decision to homeschool can be a difficult one to make for any family, but it is often especially important to families with special needs children. It can also be especially frightening to families with special needs children.

It is my firm opinion as the homeschooling mother of special needs children myself that the majority of special needs children would be far better off being homeschooled. It is also my opinion that almost any parent is capable and equipped to homeschool.
source

Wendy, I love that you give this advice. I’m telling you, this woman is a gem. I want to have her back on the show.

The most important thing you’ll need is love for your child and the desire to see your child do the best he or she is capable of doing.

For 18 years, I’ve homeschooled my oldest child who has severe autism, poor motor skills, and is totally non-verbal. I’m in my 13th year of homeschooling my son who has Asperger’s (ASD). And my youngest, who has ADHD, is now in her 8th year of homeschooling.  I’ve learned so much over the 18 years I’ve been homeschooling them, and I hope this information is helpful to those of you who are in the middle of making this very important decision!

There are many reasons why I think homeschooling is best for most special needs children.
source

All right. So Wendy went on to list some reasons why she thinks homeschooling is best for special needs kids. And I’ll just read them to you, and I’m not going to read all her definitions or her examples underneath – why she thinks that this is important. But I am going to go ahead and just spell it out for you. So the first one she says:

Most special needs children need extra time to learn.

So she says:

Whether your child has autism, Asperger’s (which is now more often being called Autism Spectrum Disorder–or ASD), Down Syndrome, ADHD, or another diagnosis, he probably needs more time than other children to process and learn new information.

In classrooms now, the teachers and students are expected to stay on a very strict schedule and to get a certain amount of work done each day/week/etc.

This can be very difficult for any child, and our special needs children often just cannot keep up.
source

Number two:

Our children need to learn in a low-pressure environment so they can enjoy learning and feel successful.
source

I think this is fantastic advice, and I’ve watched this play out absolutely in Wendy’s life, as she’s talked about this over the years, she says –

Besides just needing more time to learn, our special needs children need to learn in an environment that is as free as possible from stress and pressure. If our children are pressured to learn concepts or information that they just aren’t developmentally or cognitively ready to learn, they will not be successful and they will not be happy. My youngest child wasn’t ready to begin learning math concepts until about 3rd grade. She was very strong in reading and related subjects, but she simply didn’t “get” math until she was in about 3rd grade. Because we homeschool, I was able to wait until she was ready to really dig into math, and we’re both grateful for that!
source

Number three:

They need to be challenged to learn and do their best in a loving environment.

She says:

There’s a difference between challenging a child to do her best and frustrating her by requiring things she isn’t capable of learning or doing yet.

And boy, can I just say that goes beyond homeschooling a special needs child. I think that’s true of every child and parents. Sometimes we just need to mellow out a little bit.

Number four:

Our children need more freedom to take breaks and de-stress.

Number five:

They often learn better when they’re allowed to move around and be active.

But I think again, that’s very true of many children – not just special needs kids.

Number six:

Special needs children often “live down” to the expectations placed on them by teachers who don’t know what they’re capable of learning and doing.

Number seven:

Methods of teaching and learning can be tailored to fit the needs of your special needs child.

Number eight:

Special needs children usually learn better with fewer distractions.

Number nine:

Homeschooling makes it easier to work around appointments and therapies.

Number ten:

Homeschooling allows you to enjoy spending time with your child.

Wendy used to have four children in the public schools. Her special needs kids and she said:

When my oldest child attended a public school program for autistic children part-time during her early elementary years, it was hard for me to find time to just enjoy being her mom. By the time we went to therapy appointments, doctor visits, church activities, and school, I felt like I was always in a hurry to take her somewhere and get something done by a deadline. I didn’t have the time I would have liked to simply play with her or read to her. When I pulled her out of her part-time public school program to homeschool full time, we had much more time to spend together having fun and getting to know each other better.
source

So those are the 10 reasons why Wendy thinks that most special needs children can benefit from homeschooling. And I agree with her – she says at the very end of her article:

to be honest, most of these reasons apply to neuro-typical students too!

So I agree with her and I think it was a great question, Sarah, that you had. And very often now, whenever I meet parents who are homeschooling special needs children at home, the stories that I hear are heartwarming. Even in the difficulties, they’re glad they made that decision. So that was a really great question!

All right, the last question I’m going to answer today comes from a sweet listener. Her name is Juliana, and she says:

Heidi there’s an issue of my life. I’ve been praying over for about 10 years now with no resolution. It’s painful not to mention frustrating and sometimes I wonder if God hears me at all. I’ve asked for wisdom and discernment on this issue but I feel as confused about it as I did 10 years ago. How can I shift my battlefield prayer strategy and tune in to God’s will for this issue? I try to stay hopeful, and joyful, and keep my eyes on God’s goodness and His plan for me. But sometimes I get discouraged.

Juliana, thank you for being so honest in writing this email and absolutely I can understand where you’re coming from. I have been there. There are still some issues in my life that I am praying for that I have not yet got an answer from the Lord about – and I continue to pray. And when we’re praying, the first thing we want to do is just thank the Lord that He’s listening. We pray with faith, and we pray knowing that God’s Word is true, and demonstrating that – by the way that we pray. So we approach God boldly, through Jesus – who is our High Priest and understands our needs, right?

Hebrews 4:14-16 says:

14 So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. 15 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. 16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.
Hebrews 4:14-16

In 1 Peter 5:6-7, the Bible’s instructing us to cast all of our anxiety all of our care upon the Lord. It says –

6 So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. 7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.
1 Peter 5:6-7

And so Juliana, one of the things that I wanted to encourage you with is this. As I’ve grown in my walk with the Lord, grown as a mother, grown as a woman – coming up on 50 years old – one of the things I am learning to do is to say thank you to the Lord when He doesn’t answer my prayer in exactly the timing or exactly when I want Him to. Because God sees beyond what we can see. That’s why the Bible says –

In the right time He will lift you up in honor.
1 Peter 5:6

And so, if you don’t get an answer – it’s not the right time. And I think rather than allow the enemy come in and confuse you and worry you – cast your anxiety on the Lord.

Philippians 4:6 says:

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.
Philippians 4:6

So, often you’ll hear me say on the podcast that it’s important that we learn to turn our panic into prayer, turn our worry into worship. We crank up the worship music.

I think sometimes it’s easy for us to get self-absorbed and start to be a little bit myopic in what we allow ourselves to see – and if we want God’s will for this, for the issues that we’re facing, then we need to be willing to accept God’s timing as well.

So don’t worry – that’s what the apostle Paul says in Philippians – don’t worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for what He has done. And then you will experience God’s peace – which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. So He’s not saying you’re going to get His peace by doing anything other than living in Christ Jesus. 

We talked about that a couple of weeks ago for the MomStrong International Bible Study – what it means to put on Christ . And so, that means we give thanks in all of our circumstances. We pray with faith. We pray knowing that God is listening. We pray believing that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful.

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
James 5:16

I want to encourage you also to do what Elijah did. He prayed for great things. One of the stories I love to tell is the story of the Homeschool Resource Center here in Vancouver, Washington. It’s an amazing thing. Jay and I dared to pray for an incredible thing that we could not do on our own, and God answered in the most amazing way.

In James 5 we’re reminded of Elijah, right?  James 5:17-18 says

17 Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! 18 Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.

That is just one example of the many examples that we read about in Scripture of our amazing God who answers prayer.

His presence is available to you in Nehemiah 4:9

we pray to God, and because of them we set up our guard against them, day and night.

So we pray and we work using what God gives us. So keep walking the way that you’re walking and don’t allow yourself to wallow and get discouraged-  because the Lord wants you to use what He’s put in front of you, right now, to move forward.

When your prayers are answered, be sure to thank Him. Be sure to call on the Lord and just say – thank you Father, that you’re listening to me.

When your prayers don’t get answered thank Him – Thank you Father, that you’re listening to me.

In Acts 12:5 it says

Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.

We want to be praying for each other regardless of our situation, regardless of our circumstances.

so when he had considered this he realized that the angel had rescued him from prison he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John who was also called Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying.
Acts 12:12

There is power in prayer. When I think about what’s happening in the culture right now and I think about what’s going on in government – I get really discouraged. There’s power in prayer. Keep going back to it.

All right. I want to thank you guys for listening. I’m out of time for today but just know that I have been reading your comments. I love that you’re leaving reviews for this podcast over at iTunes. I love that you guys are reading the podcast! Thank you for sharing it on social media.

Don’t forget to get your tickets for the Heidi St. John conference coming up in just a few days in Abilene,Texas. And then following that in Coos Bay, Oregon.

All right you guys, thanks for listening – and I’ll see you back here on Wednesday.

Battling Burnout – 713

It’s that time of year… the time when we battle burnout. After all, the holidays are behind us and we’ve still got… well, months of school left. Listen today as I unpack some great wisdom on organization and scheduling from my book, “The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight.” Even if you’re not homeschooling, these timeless time management skills will bless and encourage you!

Mentioned in Podcast 

Scripture Mentioned

TRANSCRIBED PODCAST BELOW

Good morning everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the Heidi St. John podcast. Today is Friday! Woot-Woot! Moment of silence. We made it to Friday.

Today’s Friday the 11th of January. Today we’re gonna be talking a little bit to the mom who feels harried and and stressed out and burned out. It’s that time of year. This is the time when we battle burnout. So today I’m going to be talking about some ideas for wisdom and organization on scheduling from my book The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight. Even if you’re not homeschooling these timeless time management skills are going to bless and encourage you! So, stick around!

I’m reading the news! I decided that one of my New Year’s resolutions was going to be to stop reading the news. But you people keep sending me articles and I got to say – I’m battling. Boy you guys – in another life I’d run for office. In Washington D.C. on January 3rd, this came out of Life Site News – I realize it was last week, but this is going on.

Democrats wasted no time asserting their priorities upon taking over the U.S. House of Representatives this week, proposing legislation to fund the federal government which would at the same time reverse one of President Donald Trump’s earliest pro-life accomplishments.

Source: LifeStieNews

This is off of Life Site news.

The federal government has been partially shut down since Trump, facing pressure from conservatives, decided at the last minute in December to reject a government funding bill that didn’t include $5 billion to begin constructing the southern border wall he campaigned on. While the media is filled with distress over the shutdown and uncertainty over whether Democrats or Republicans will blink first, most of the government was already funded and remains in operation.

Following her return to the office of House Speaker Thursday, Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi announced that her party would be “offering the Senate Republican Appropriations [Committee] legislation to reopen the government later today,” Fox News reports. The proposal would fund the Department of Homeland Security until February 8 and other federal departments until the end of September.

The bill has been a political non-starter because it lacks wall funding, however, and pro-lifers are warning that it would also repeal the Mexico City Policy (now called Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance) that Trump reinstated shortly after taking office and later expanded. That would make foreign entities that commit or promote abortions once again eligible for foreign aid.

Source: LifeStieNews

I’m stunned. I really am.

The plan would also give $37.5 million to the United Nations Population Fund, from which Trump withdrew in 2017 over its participation in China’s forced abortion regime.

Source: LifeStieNews

You guys, these are leaders. Just let that let that sink in.

“This move shows the House Democrats are so radically pro-abortion that they are more concerned with pushing their abortion agenda on the American people than finding common ground to end the government shutdown,” Live Action president Lila Rose responded. While Trump and Senate Republicans “failed last session to pass a law preventing the American taxpayer from funding Planned Parenthood,” they “now have a duty to stand firm and block such outrageous attempts to have the American taxpayer fund and promote abortion programs across the globe.”

Source: LifeStieNews

This comes on the heels, by the way, of a video that was made. I don’t know if I commented on it last week or not. A video that was made the first week in January by the woman who started the Shout-Your-Abortion movement where she interviewed children and talked to them about abortion.

She’s had an abortion and they were like – well that’s probably OK. I think it’s OK and she said – really, it’s just like having a bad dentist appointment. Really? Taking human life now is about a bad dentist appointment?

I mean I just I’m horrified that we have such ridiculous people in our government. I’m horrified that Christians didn’t stand up and prevent this from happening and we need to pray because as the Democrats have taken control of the House they are introducing all kinds of legislation that is anti-life.

I’ve seen Congress women speaking so disrespectfully about our president that I couldn’t even share the links on social media. And if I ever needed to be reminded that we need to be in prayer for our country – now is the time. So I want to just encourage you – be praying for our president. I spent some time in prayer this morning just praying for Vice President Pence. I know that he knows the Lord and He is the closest adviser to The President. And so, I’m praying that he would be an influential person in President Trump’s life. I’m praying for our president. He needs our prayers. I don’t understand this obstructionist mindset that we would rather see the president fail. Do I love everything he does? no.

But oh my goodness he really has been the most pro-life president that we’ve had in a hundred years. So, we need to be praying for him. I don’t know about you but I am. I’ve been praying for many many years that abortion would not only become illegal in this nation, that it would become unthinkable. Unthinkable that we would take the life of an innocent human baby. It’s unbelievable to me.

Also, in other news, I’ve got a new book coming out – Bible Promises for Moms – releases in March. I am really excited about this. It’s like a handbook. It’s your go-to take-you-straight-to-the-Word-of-God for every issue that you’re facing as a mother. God’s word is not silent on the issues that we’re facing.

Someone told me the other day that they loved a quote that they had heard and never know who said it. I wish I did because I love to give them credit.

But he said: Don’t tell me that God is silent when your Bible is sitting closed on your desk.

Don’t tell me that God is silent. He’s not silent. He cares about what we’re going through right now. For those of you who are following along with me in the Scripture Writing Challenge, today’s verse comes out of James 1:5-6.

If any of you lacks wisdom you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to you. But when you ask you must believe and not doubt because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind.

I thought that was appropriate since I’m out on the sea on the open waters right now. My husband and I are speaking for the Florida Parent Educators Association. Today is our last day before we come into port, and this is our first cruise! I told you – we’re celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary all year until we actually hit it in September.

And so I thought – this is great. If you believe, then you won’t be like the one who doubts, who’s like a wave of the sea – blown and tossed by the wind. And where do we get wisdom? We get it from God. We talked about that last Wednesday for the MomStrong International Bible Study. And I told you I was going to come back on Friday and continue talking to you about priorities. We’ve been talking about them for the whole month of January. And I want to just frame it a little bit today to talk about them in the context of homeschooling. But even if you’re not homeschooling – these principles apply to you. So I’m going to read to you a little bit out of The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight. if you haven’t picked it up yet you can find it on Amazon, you can find it at HeidiStJohn.com – click on the store.

More frequently, I think than almost any other question I get when I’m speaking at conferences is – how do you do it all? How do you do homeschooling? How do you homeschool all your children? How do you write books? How are you blogging? blah blah blah.

Well here’s the thing. A couple of things actually that come to my mind right away. The first one is that there is a unique grace over my life for the thing that I’m doing. Just like there’s a unique grace over your life or the thing that God wants you to do. He’ll give you the grace to do it but it requires, on your part, that you seek Him for the wisdom that you need so that He can help you prioritize your time.

So this comes out of Chapter 1 in The Guide to Daylight. There’s a whole lot of great nuggets of information in here for you, but every single chapter is a different kind of daylight. So intentional daylight is chapter one, organized daylight, scheduled daylight, hungry daylight, discourage daylight, consolidated daylight, wasted daylight, and surrender daylight. Basically, I’m just talking about different aspects of surrendering your day to the Lord and the first part is about getting in touch with what God wants you to do — which is to learn to be intentional. So this is the first part:

‘Good morning Portland! 6:45 a.m. and traffic into downtown is at a virtual standstill this morning. Plan on taking an alternate route if you want to avoid the mess on I5 today.’

The voice of a local radio station personality woke me up from a deep sleep and I began to regret putting my alarm clear across the room. Is it already time to get up? Time to try this homeschool thing again? Time to see exactly how much resolve I could muster up to face another day? Daylight had come back again. I stumbled to the alarm clock and shut it off 6:45 A.M. and I was already feeling behind. Unanswered emails taunted me from my computer.

Which was a desktop, by the way.

And there on my side table side, a devotional book that I promised to read three weeks ago – was looking rather dusty. As I made my way to the shower I picked up the book, blew off the dust, and placed it back on the shelf where it wouldn’t remind me of all the things I wished I was doing, but wasn’t. As I walk past the dresser mirror I caught a glimpse of a pregnant woman I barely recognized. Whoever you are you better get a grip, I mused. I toyed with the idea of letting the kids sleep in for my sake. I wasn’t ready to face the day. Why was it so hard? I’ve been homeschooling for about a year and a half, and it was getting the better of me. This was certainly not what I had envisioned when the Lord so clearly changed my heart and directed my husband and me to bring our oldest daughter home from school – and begin the journey of homeschooling.

My kids didn’t look like the ones that graced the covers of those homeschool magazines. It seemed that just when I got something down in one area of the house, another would need improving. What about the mom I met at the homeschool convention this past June? I wondered how she was still breathing. She had something like 19 kids and I felt lazy for only having three.

There’s so much to do. Laundry called my name from several hampers in the house. I had no idea what I was going to do for dinner and forget about all the paperwork that was piling up in the office – bills to pay, forms to fill out. I was homeschooling all right, but that was it. The rest of my life was unraveling. I wondered if there was a better way to homeschool. Less stressful, more joyful, less burdensome, more life-giving. Often I found myself giving comfort to another mom and I felt in my own spirit.

I didn’t have much to offer. My time with the Lord was suffering terribly and in my heart I knew there had to be a better way. I had heard that His yoke was easy but I had yet to experience it. Something had to give. As I looked around my bedroom that morning I made a decision a monumental decision. Here it is: in the interests of self-preservation.

I decided to skip school for the day.

Can I get a witness?

After a few more moments of relative peace and quiet, and after savoring my morning cup of tea, I decided to go to the grocery store to clear my head. So I packed up the toddler and put my two older girls in the car. We headed into town even though I was feeling slightly guilty for skipping school. I figured the break would do me good however, and it was certainly better than the alternative – which may or may not have involved in-patient therapy. It was about 10:30 a.m. and we arrived at the grocery store. And in hindsight, I think staying home might have been a better idea.

‘Oh I could never do that.’ This was the wide-eyed response of the grocery store cashier. After she casually asked the children if they were taking a sick day from school.

The moment my children told her they were homeschooled it became obvious by the look in her eyes that she thought I was perfectly insane. ‘You got to have a whole lot more patience than me’ she stammered. ‘Because I’d have to be shipped off to the funny farm if I couldn’t put my kids in school. I don’t know how you people do it? How old are you? You must be exhausted. Well good luck. Thanks for shopping with us today.’

Well, maybe it was the fact that I was seven months pregnant with our fourth child. Or maybe it was the knowledge that I was going home to a messy kitchen complete with school books, pencils, markers, and papers all over the kitchen table. I’m not sure. But for some reason her remark stung more than they usually would. It wasn’t like I had never heard them before, but this time, this time I wanted to drop my bag of canned goods right there on the floor and give her the what-for. I know what stopped me frankly.

I like to think that I was just trying not to give other homeschool moms a bad reputation. Trust me, it would have stuck. I managed to half smile and said something to the effect of not having as much patience as she thought, and quickly left the store.

No, I don’t have the patience of Job, I muttered. It’s not about patience. If it was, I would have quit a long time ago.

Can you guys relate to being mistaken for a mom has supernatural patience? Because I’m thinking that you can, and most homeschooling moms know the truth about patience being a prerequisite for homeschooling. And in fact, any homeschool mom who’s been at this for more than five minutes will tell you that patience has nothing to do with it.

Longevity and homeschooling is not about patience. It’s the result of resolve and obedience. It’s about knowing why we’re homeschooling instead of just how.

See, here’s what I think – and I wrote this a while ago – and as I look back now, and I’m watching my own daughter coming up homeschooling her children – I’m having to remind myself to remind her that Spirit-led-homeschooling brings with it a quiet confidence that comes from knowing that: even on the days when I don’t feel like I’ve been successful at all – God’s got my back.

You guy, I said this to a couple days ago —  they belonged to God before they belong to you. This is why abortion grieves me so much. God knit each one of our children together with the foreknowledge that we would be their mother. He knew that you’d be homeschooling them. And you guys – His plan for you and for them is vastly more important than our dinner plans or our fancy scheduling. It’s really true! But it’s so important that you have a plan. We can’t just go into this thing without a plan. We got to understand that we’re not alone in doing this – you’re really not. There are other moms who are struggling just like you are. You’re not alone, but you gotta have a plan.

And I want to just encourage you today as you come up with that plan, and I’m going to give you a couple of ideas to take it one step further. But the first thing is – you want to come up with a plan to seek the Lord, and then you want to come up with a schedule. So if you’re not yet doing this, I hope you guys will join me. This is why I started MomStrong International. Any of you can do it. It’s it’s an opportunity for you to get into the Word of God every day and say – Lord, I need your help. I can’t do this without you. I can’t raise my kids without you. I can’t homeschool without you. I can’t even get dinner on the table without the Lord just saying – you can do this.

We need each other, and we need to walk in right relationship with the Lord. And I told you I am a Type A personality. I’m a scheduler – and so we’ll talk a little bit about that. I think schedules are very important. I’ll link back to The Guide to Daylight today. There are lots of different ideas for schedules in there. But, if you come up with a great schedule, and you come up with a great meal plan (which I’d also encourage you to do), and you failed to invite the Lord into your plans – you’re gonna be frustrated because they’re different strokes for different folks. And your schedule, as you come up with, it’s going to be as unique as you are. And there are lots of different ways to schedule for your family. And I’ve collected a bunch of them. I put them in The Guide to Daylight so that you can compare them and sort of contrast what works for you and what doesn’t.

But I’m telling you what – I think, mom’s — it’s going to be a whole lot easier for you to concentrate on academics in the morning when your kids minds are fresh and you haven’t been frazzled from a day of toddler taming. And children, I think, at least my kids have are usually at their best in the mornings. And so we can spend our afternoons in play time for the younger ones and independent study for the older ones. But I want to encourage you – bring your day before the Lord and ask Him to help you organize it.

And I’ve read a lot of books about this over the years, and many of the books that I’ve read prescribe particular methods for scheduling schoolwork – but from my experience, and I’m not trying to be critical — I don’t think that most moms fit into the “typical category”. And that’s really the beautiful part about homeschooling because you can fit it to meet the needs of your own family, and in order to get the most out of your days.

Remember I said this the other day – it’s not about time management, it’s about me management. But you gotta come up with a plan.

For some of you, that’s going to mean getting up earlier. If you’ve got a nursing infant home, or a baby still keeping you up at night – I’m not even talking to you. Just plug your ears right now. But for the rest of us, I think sometimes we can get into the habit of sleeping late, of staying up too late. Hello. Moment of silence. And when I was a brand new homeschool mom it was a big deal to me. I couldn’t find enough practical detailed information about how other people did it.

But then I discovered something, and this is why I wrote the book – when I compared what I was doing and brought in whether other people were doing – all the sudden I had fresh ideas, and fresh inspiration. It’s a good thing to do a schedule for your kids. It’s a bad thing – to have that thing run your life. For a while there my husband used to call our schedule: The Master. Some of you guys you’ve heard me talk about this before. Because I’d be like ‘Oh let’s see’. And he’d be like ‘you know, got some time for me tonight honey?’ ‘Nope, not on the schedule.’

That’s my type A personality. I know, I know – it’s a problem. Which is why I don’t do it like that anymore. But I just want to encourage you = come up with the plan. Come up with a meal plan, menu planning. Oh my goodness it’s a wonderful too. It’s a wonderful tool, it doesn’t have to be complicated either because here’s the thing  – when I am being diligent about planning my days – I really try to include some sort of a menu. And so even if I just spent a half an hour each week, I can plan meals for our family. It saves me money, it brings so many benefits of health and peace into our home.

I’m telling you – I don’t know about you, but at about four o’clock in the afternoon if I have no idea what my kids are going to eat for dinner – I start to become crabby , right? I call it the bewitching hour at our house at four o’clock. So the time that you spend planning menus for your family is going to be rewarded. And if the idea of devising a menu plan for the week makes you roll your eyes because it sounds exhausting  -just think about the stress it’s going to save in the long run! I promise you, Busy Mom, it’s worth it. And you can deviate from it – you don’t have to do it. But if you don’t have an idea of what to do – it’s already there, you’ve got an idea there, and you’ve gone shopping and you know you’ve got enough stuff in your refrigerator.

And sometimes I’ll make menus for just four nights because I know that out of seven we’re either going to have breakfast for dinner, or leftovers, we’re going to eat at a friend’s house, we’re gonna be running through Taco Bell. So think of it sort of like a schedule – and then just having that menu there is going to be a guide and it is a lifesaver.

A friend of mine, a long time ago, when I was a younger mom, and still kind of learning the ropes of how important it was to schedule things out – we came up with a creative idea. And that was to create a very loose menu with three easy meals — two that are a bit more time consuming, an evening for leftovers or eating out, and one for a new recipe that you’ve been wanting to try. And you do your grocery shopping with these things in mind, and so menu planning doesn’t mean that you have to assign days to your meals. It just means that you have a plan of meals and you know that you’ve got the ingredients to make them.

And so the beauty of planning ahead is that if you forgotten about a dentist appointment the late afternoon – that may or may not have been me – or you’ve had a busy week – everything you need for a quick meal is going to be ready to go. If the mealtime trifecta of time, energy, and creativity hits you all at once – then you can create one of the more time consuming dishes. It’s all about flexibility. Can I just encourage you to also – teach your children to cook. Teach your children to get in there and help you and they can start doing this when they’re very young. I’ve talked a lot about chores on this podcast, the importance of training your children to help you around the home.

When your kids are about four years old – they can start helping you. I know some of you are like ‘what? they’re supposed to enjoy their childhood’. Yes, and they’ll enjoy it even more if you teach them to be productive in their childhood and how to be a help to you. Your kids need to feel like they’re important and what they’re doing is important to you.

And part of the way we do that is by saying  – ‘hey, can you help me unload the dishwasher?’ I used to love to give my kids wet rags. When they were about 3 years old they would love to have wet rags and go round and just wash the baseboards. And sometimes it made more of a mess than it was worth. But just the look on their faces was worth it because they’re like – ‘Hey look at me, I’m helping mom. This is great!’

So come up with a plan. If you want more information on how you can find The Busy Mom’s Guide to Daylight – you can go ahead and look in the show notes today – but I’m telling you there’s a whole chapter in there on what to do when you’re discouraged. How to consolidate your time – some of your wasting time – there’s a whole chapter in The Guide to Daylight on wasted daylight. Which is really all about how to control your time with the Internet in particular. And the very last chapter is called surrender daylight. And I’m going to tackle that on Monday, in response to a question from a listener who is wanting to know how to surrender her time and her desires to what God wants when she’s at war with her own spirit.

Boy have I been there before, and I know many of you have too. I’m gonna close the podcast out today by just offering a word of prayer. I know that a lot of you are struggling this time of year, and it’s frustrating to watch the news, and it’s frustrating to see some of the things that are happening. But I want to just encourage you that God is at work, He can never leave you, He’ll never forsake you. He’s at work and His heart is for you.

Father, I thank you that you see everything that’s going on. You see the mom who’s in a puddle right now, who doesn’t think she can do this thing. And Father, I pray that you would just encourage her by the power of Your Spirit, I pray that you’d encourage her by encouraging her husband. Lord, I pray that we would sense and know how important it is to walk in right relationship with you in every area of our life – from meal planning to homeschooling, to our marriages, to raise our children, to being a voice for you in the culture, Lord. Show us what to say and when to say it lift us up, set our feet on the rock. We’re going to look to you. Thank you, Father, for the way that you love us. In Jesus name, Amen.

For those of you who have not yet purchased tickets, I will be in Abilene coming up January 19th. That’s just a few days away – it’s not too late to purchase your ticket! And then the weekend after that I’ll be in Coos Bay, Oregon. Also, we’ve got a brand new essential oils class coming up called I Can Be Well. You can join that right now at HeidiStJohn.com/oils.

Thanks for listening today everybody, and I hope that you’re encouraged again you can pick up The Busy Homeschool Mom’s to Daylight at Amazon or at HeidiStJohn.com.

Have a great day everybody, and I’ll see you back here on Monday

Feeling Overwhelmed? Mailbox Monday – 711

Feeling overwhelmed? You’re not alone! The struggles we face to get it “all” done boil down to one simple question: What’s important to you? But who defines “important?” For the Christian, the answer is found in the Word of God.

Mentioned in Podcast

Scriptures

TRANSCRIBED PODCAST BELOW

Hi you guys – Good morning! Welcome to the show! This is Heidi St. John.

I am so glad that you’ve joined me today. Today is Monday the 7th of January. It’s MailboxMonday here at the podcast and I’m going to be continuing something I was talking about on Friday – which is embracing God’s priorities. This is taken from a book I wrote several years ago called Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight Managing Your Days Through the Homeschool Years.

So if you’re feeling overwhelmed by everything that you have to do – stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged!  

All right. So a couple of things before we get started. First of all I want to say thank you to everyone who’s been leaving reviews over at iTunes for this podcast. It really helps us a lot if you rate the podcast, leave reviews for it, share it on social media, let your friends know about it.

We are so excited about what God’s doing over here and we’re coming up on a brand new series at MomStrong International. So if you’re not familiar with MomStrong International this is a ministry that we started a year ago – so it’s a relatively new – with the heart and hope of getting you into God’s Word on a deeper level than what you may have been doing already. So those studies start fresh every Monday. The first Monday in January is when we do it. And so that starts today. It’s not too late to join!

You can sign up there just two dollars a week at MomStrongInternational.com. This month’s study is called Find Balance and Breathe. Doesn’t that sound good in January? And speaking of finding balance and breathing – I’m going to be coming to Abilene to encourage you for the Heidi St. John conference – that is coming up on Saturday, the 19th of January. It’s not too late to get tickets for that.

Right after that, I will be in Coos Bay, Oregon for my women’s conference. You can bring your daughters! A lot of you been asking about how old do I think your daughters should be if you want to bring them. We’ve had girls come as young as 14 years old and have them bring their Bible. When come bring your Bible, bring a notebook – and be prepared to just soak in the Word. We’re going to worship and eat lunch together. I’m going to have an hour of questions and answers. We are just really looking forward to that. I’ll be traveling to see you with my entire staff, and my husband, and our two oldest daughters who helped me with worship. So it really is a wonderful time.

Also really quickly – I wanted to let you know I’ve got a brand new essential oils class coming up! YAY – I’m really excited about this. It’s a Facebook class and it starts on January 15th. So it’s next week – you’ve got a little bit of time. You can register and join us at the TheBusyMom.Com/Oils.

This time we’re gonna be doing a series called I Can Be Well. it’s a class about spiritual, and emotional, and physical wellness. And we’ll basically just going to be teaching things that the Lord’s been teaching us over these past few years. I’ve been using essential oils for about ten years. But obviously there’s a lot more to being well than just using essential oils. However, they have been a huge part of our family’s wellness. And so, I love to talk about it. My friend Dr. Eadie Wadsworth is going to be joining me. You may remember her she wrote a book called All The Pretty Things for Tyndale. She’s a physician who also loves to talk about natural ways to be healthy. And so she teaches on essential oils and I know you’re going to love her teaching as well. I love to talk about essential oils and intimacy – which is what I will be doing. But join us the classes free! January 15th through the 21st and again you can register at TheBusyMom.Com/Oils. I will link back to that in the show notes today.

All right. This is Monday and so I always talk about letters that I get. If you have a question that you would like to see answered, shoot me an e-mail at podcast@thebusymom.com.

You can e-mail me anytime – our staff loves to hear from you! And we love to organize your letters. The main thing is – it would help me if you would say MailboxMonday in the in the subject. So that’s the main thing.

So I want to kind of continue, but I’m going to start off with a letter that I got from a young mom. Her name’s Hannah. So sweet Hannah, this is for you.

So Hannah wrote to me several months ago – sorry it’s taken me so long. And she said:

Dear Heidi, I am a mother of five children. My youngest child is just two months old and our oldest child is nine. I am frustrated and discouraged. I feel overwhelmed. I feel inadequate and unable to do the things that God has asked me to do with regard to homeschooling, let alone taking care of my house. Can you encourage me?

Okay Hannah, I absolutely can encourage you! First thing I want to encourage you to do is if you guys haven’t picked up my book  Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight. I want to encourage you to do that. You can find it anywhere books are sold. You can find it on Amazon. I’ll link back to it in the show notes today. It’s is chock full of practical information for those of you who are trying to manage a busy household, and it’s not just good for homeschool moms – it’s good for any mom  – but it has a particular slant for homeschooling moms just because that has been my road for so many years.

And so, we talked about embracing God’s priorities and how important it is to put your relationships in the order that God says to put them in. And so, we talked about marriage on Friday-remember? We talked about the importance of being like the Wonder Twins. I know that I was dating myself a little bit – but I still love the analogy – “Wonder Twins Power Activate!” – right?

And when God brought you together as a husband wife. He did it with a Kingdom purpose in mind. God never does anything apart from a Kingdom purpose. So the main thing we do to keep our houses, to keep our homes rather, working the way that God designed them and wants them to run — is to embrace God’s priorities. We nurture our relationship with the Lord, and then we nurture our relationship with our spouse, and then out of the overflow we nurture our relationships with our kids.

And I often tell a story of something that happened to me many many years ago as I was homeschooling and my kids, sort of just sitting around said “mom, you’re no fun to be around anymore”

Anybody? Anybody? A moment of silence for all of us moms who are no fun anymore. Ouch! Right? And those were the words that were spoken from a teary eyed 9 year old after I asked the age old question – What’s wrong?

And it took some time for me to get the answer out of my tender hearted child. You see, things had been tense for weeks but I ignored most of the signs hoping that eventually the kids would adjust to my new and improved way of doing things. So at that point it had been about four months since I’d implemented a new routine. So, some of you are doing that right now for January – you’re implementing a new routine and you’re being kind of hardcore about it. That’s what I was doing. And as it turned out I was driving my household a little bit nuts with my hour-to-hour schedule. And I’m sad to say it wasn’t good on the relationship front. It wasn’t really working for us.

You see – I had reasoned and justified away any excuse for a walk to the park, or a day off on my schedule just by looking at the sheer amount of work that I had to do every day to get through my day successfully.

Right? There’s so much to do. Can you guys relate? There’s laundry to do, and dishes to wash, and dinner has to be made – and don’t forget about schoolwork! And my heart really was in the right place. But as I look back now, I can see an immaturity because I wasn’t keeping my eyes on what was really important.

You see, my reasoning didn’t leave very much time for relationships outside of the necessary, and oh-so-daily, character and obedience training that all moms are doing with their kids. And days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months – and I couldn’t remember when the last time was I’d bake cookies with the kids or did anything that wasn’t related to housework or schoolwork with them for more than five minutes.

I was so busy surviving our busy life that I wasn’t taking the time for the stuff that makes life great.

And this isn’t a guilt trip. So, some of you were like – “Oh man here we go – guilt tripped.” You know, this is not it. Get out, unpack your bags.I’m not trying to send you on a guilt trip because the fact is – being able to relax with my family wasn’t a priority for me. That’s really what I learned for myself  – and I learned it from my kids. My kids were the ones who really opened my eyes to this fact because, here’s the thing – I am a Type A personality. I still struggle with it. My Type A personality grates against a free afternoon at the park because I worry about things that feel are more “important” that I’m not going to be getting done.

But here’s the question, and Hannah, this is the question I want to ask you. Who defines important? Who defines it? You see, as our children have grown older I’ll confess that my definition of important has undergone several changes. Probably due to the fact that I’m recognizing that things I worried about as a younger homeschool mom were often the least important things. I’m telling you guys – I wrung my hands and fretted over whether or not there are big gaps in their education, right? Anybody? Prepositions, Algebra lessons, writing assignments – proving my homeschool savvy – that had become my focus instead.

And I’m here to tell you right now – I’m just gonna let you guys off the hook. I’m gonna answer an age old question – YES, there will be gaps in your child’s education. Here’s the thing – we want to embrace God’s priorities. Wherever your kids go to school – whether you put them in a Private School or Christian School, or you homeschool them – there will be gaps in your kid’s education. And I just want to encourage you. God will finish in your children when He’s begun in them through you – if you will be faithful to do what God has asked you to do. So God tells us in His Word what’s really important, right?  

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you as well
Matthew 6:33

And it’s easy to get busy doing the wrong things. And in fact – I think sometimes even the right things end up being wrong. So please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying you need to ditch your schedule. In fact the opposite is true! And I’m going to talk to you, probably on Friday I’ll continue this this conversation with you – and we’ll talk a little bit about scheduling. And I’m not saying don’t do school if you’d rather be playing a rousing game of Sorry either. What I’m saying is – keep your finger on the pulse of your family.

And so that means we’ve got to periodically make time for self of evaluation – so what’s working? So Hannah – what’s working in your home right now? What’s not working? Are the relationships in your home suffering because of something that you were doing that could be changed a bit? Ask yourself – When my children are grown, what do I want them to remember about their mom? What do I want them to remember about our homeschooling? Because my hunch is – you don’t want them to remember a hurried, harried, stressed out mom who wasn’t much more fun than a math assignment. Right?

And when our kids graduate from our homeschool – I’ve got almost four down and three to go – I want them to remember that I loved them. I want them to remember that their dad and I love them. And even on busy days – I hope they remember that we loved them. I don’t want my kids to look back and think of me as a mom who cared more about academics and housework than I did about dreaming with them, or enjoying the stage in phases of their lives. The days go by so fast. I’m just preaching to myself right now, you guys don’t even have to listen 🙂 I’m just talking to myself. 😉

Because this is still a struggle. It’s still a struggle. Even for a mom who’s been at this for a long time. And most of the moms I know are always trying to learn how to make the most of the precious daylight hours. But there’s a bigger picture that we want to keep in focus. So as we talk about planning our day – which we’re gonna do – I want you to keep this in mind – time is a gift and so are the children that God has given us to raise.

So try this. All right, close your eyes with me. When you think about homeschooling, and schedules, and housework, and dishes, or your car pool, or whatever it is that you got going on — ask the Lord to give you His perspective. We don’t need our own perspective. Everything else will fall into place when we know we’re doing what He’s asked us to do first.

You know, I went home the other night after a long day of working. And our kids had been helping us – I told you guys we started the Homeschool Resource Center last year. It’s wonderful, but it has added a whole new dynamic to our family and it’s easy for me – even though my husband they’re doing a really good thing – it’s still easy for us to forget what the best thing is and to get caught up doing the good thing and sacrifice the best thing.

So when I came home from the Resource Center last night – it was probably about 8:00 at night, and our kids been helping us get ready for something. And my littlest one, who is 8 years old now, she had gone upstairs to brush your teeth. And I said  – Hey would you like would like to read a story? And her eyes lit up! I’m telling you that those next 20 minutes that I spent – I put a blanket in the dryer- This might one of my favorite things to do in the wintertime because it is so cold in my neck of the woods. And so, I put a big blanket in the dryer for her while she finished brush your teeth, and I went and picked out a couple of picture books – and I just sat down with her and we started to read all snuggled up under that warm blanket from the dryer.

And when I went to bed that night, I think I slept a little bit better. Because my heart had been satisfied knowing that I had honored God’s priority – which was to nurture the heart of my child. And I truly believe that in Christian Homeschooling, for homeschooling moms – it’s really nothing short of a God-thing because apart from His leading – you could never do it. Apart from God’s leading in your life – we would never have His power, that’s perfected in weakness.

So if you’re feeling ill-equipped for the job right now if you’re struggling to know that what you’re doing is right can I just encourage you? God says His strength is made perfect in weakness. So whether you’re an accidental homeschooler like me, or you’ve always known you would homeschool, or you’re just thinking about it – the challenge that home-education provides us with is fertile soil in which to dig deep into the truths of God’s Word . And to find out just how powerful He really is. That’s what being a mother has been teaching me. That’s what being in the hordes of homeschooling has been teaching me, and I hope to pass on some of what I’m learning to other precious moms like you Hannah – and my hope is that you find encouragement as you listen to what I’m saying.

As you listen to what I’m saying, I want you to look at yourself in the mirror and just say: Lord, show me what you need me to do – what do you want me to do?

he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion
Philippians 1:6

He didn’t say – He might. He didn’t say – if He’s in the right mood He would. He said – He would see it through to completion. So whether you’re at the beginning of your journey as a mom, or you’re a veteran – you can feel a little bit lighter and a little bit more confident knowing God is gonna finish it. That’s why I’m saying – if you do your thing, if you do what God asks you to do, if you honor His priorities – which sometimes frankly, it means leaving your sink dirty. I know The Fly Lady would just be shakin’ in our boots at this – but sometimes it means you don’t shine your sink. Sometimes it means you go snuggle with a kid under a warm blanket from the dryer.

Precious Mom’s, let’s be known for going to Jesus to seek His priorities before we pencil in our own – because He’s the one who helps us maintain balance throughout the homeschool years, throughout the years of raising children. It’s not always easy, but it’s a journey worth taking. I’m always telling people that being a mom is the hardest best thing I have ever done. And being a homeschool mom the hardest best thing I’ve ever done with my children.

So come on, let’s be encouraged – because God wants you to be encouraged. He wants you to be intentional about how you spend your days, intentional about how you spend your time. And so often the questions that I get from moms are because they’re burned out because they haven’t embraced God’s priorities. And so one of the things I talked about in the The Guide to Daylight – every chapter in The Guide to Daylight was a particular kind of daylight. So I talked about intentional daylight – which is why you need a plan action A.S.A.P.

Right? We need to have a plan. I’m gonna come back on Friday and we’re going to talk about that. But I’ll give you just a little bit of a preview because I think plans are really important. But I don’t think that the plan should run you – I think you should run the plan.

Right? And so – oftentimes we get discouraged and we forget why we’re doing what we’re doing. And a crucial component to success in what you’re doing is coming before the Lord. It’s embracing His priorities.

Have you guys ever been mistaken for a mom was supernatural patience? Anybody ever seen you in the store in the middle of the day and said – “oh kids, why aren’t you in school?” and your kids say – “Oh, I homeschool!” And immediately the checker will say – “oh yeah I don’t patience for that.” And I was laughing. One time I told my friend – I just want want to punch her in the kisser.

It’s not about patience. It’s not about patience. It’s about perseverance.

It’s about resolve. And most homeschooling moms know the truth about patience. It’s not a prerequisite for homeschooling, it’s not a prerequisite for mothering. In fact, any mom that I know that has been at it for more than five minutes will tell you patience has nothing to do with it. Longevity and success in homeschooling is a result of resolve and obedience. It’s not about patience. It’s about knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing instead of just how.

So we can talk about the house all day long, but you gotta know why you’re doing it. And Spirit-led homeschooling, Hannah, I want you to hear this – Spirit-led homeschooling is going to bring with it a quiet confidence that comes from knowing that even on the days when you don’t feel like you’ve been successful at all – God has your back.

God has your back. After all – listen to me Mama – these kids belonged to Him long before they belonged to you. He knit at each one of them together with a foreknowledge that you would be their mom. And remember, I’m always telling you – you are the right Mom for your kids. And God’s plans for your children are vastly more important than your dinner plans or your fancy schedule. Do you believe it? You need to because God wants to work in your heart as you trust Him to finish the work He’s begun in you through the process of mothering your children.

I going to end today just talking really briefly about the goal of education because I think we forget. You guys remember when you were in school? I bet you do. And many, if not most of the moms I know who are currently homeschooling their kids. – they were not homeschooled themselves. I was not homeschooled. I went to a Christian School. My husband was not homeschooled – e went to a Public School. We attended school away from home. We were discipled by our teachers, and we often don’t think of education this way. But at the end of the day – here’s what is:

Education is discipleship. Discipleship is the goal of education.

Christian homeschooling should not be simply about teaching the ABC’s. Yes, academics are an essential component of it. But the foundation and power of homeschooling is found in the quiet resolve of two parents who are committed to teaching their children to be fully devoted, mature followers of Jesus. That comes first.

And by the way, I know there are a lot of single moms listening to this today and I just wanna encourage you right now – that if your husband has left you, either through his own decision or the Lord has taken him home – God said that He will never leave you or forsake you. That He will be your husband, that He will help you.

He said I’m going to strengthen you and hold you up – Isaiah 41:10. And I’m telling you what – I love my husband – but having God at the helm of your house has got to be better than any earthly person.  He doesn’t let you off the hook, He wants to hold you even tighter and hold you up.

So Hannah, I just want to encourage you today. The Lord has you. He loves you, has a plan for you. Nurture the relationships first in your home and then homeschool children out of an overflow of what God’s doing. Everything else will pale in comparison.

If you guys are enjoying this podcast it would encourage us greatly if you leave review for it over at iTunes. Also, I don’t want you to forget I’m going to be in Abilene. So come out and see me January 19th! You can register right now at HeidiStJohn.com/events.

Have a fantastic day everybody! I’ll see you back here on Wednesday for the first podcast of the new month of Bible Studies! Thanks for joining me. And you can sign up for the Bible study at MomStrongInternational.com.

Managing Your Priorities – 710

Our priorities are what drive us, and they matter. What do your decisions show are your priorities?

TRANSCRIBED PODCAST IS BELOW

Hey you guys this is Heidi St. John, welcome to the podcast.

Today is Friday, it is the 4th of January and today we’re going to be talking a little bit about priorities. And I’m going to take a bit of a homeschool slant, so if you’re a homeschool mom who’s weary or just a mom who’s surrounded with a lot of kids and you’re weary – and you need a little heart reset –  stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

Well, I hope you guys had a wonderful holiday season. I am a routine girl so I like to get back into routine. I’m looking forward to getting into our routine. I actually think my kids are looking forward to it also. And in an effort to do that, I thought – you know, I’m going to take several of the letters that I’ve received over the past couple of months that have to do with homeschooling and burnout and how to get all things done – you know – all the things that you want to get  done in a day – and I’m going to take a little bit of encouragement from a book I wrote several years ago called The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight.

So, even if you’re not homeschooling I think this will encourage you because what works for a homeschool mom also works for a mom who’s not homeschooling – because guess what? – God’s priorities are still apply. They apply whether you’re homeschooling or whether you’re not. But I want to just give a little bit of extra love to the homeschool moms out there who are listening – because I know, after 20 some odd years of experience with this – that January can be a very frustrating time. And I can remember very clearly coming into January and trying to get back into a routine, and trying to get the kids back on the homeschool train, and get myself, and my head, my heart, and my mind back into it — only to feel like I was already behind and already tired from the get go.

So if that’s you, and you’re kind of nodding your head – or maybe your quietly crying into your pillow right now – I’ve been there, I understand! So this episode really is all about that. And I might go ahead and carry it over to mailbox Monday depending on whether or not I feel like I get those questions answered.

Before I get started today, a couple of things that are coming up that I want you to know about. First of all the team and I are heading to Abilene, Texas for the Heidi St. John conference. We are very excited about that. We will be there on January 19th. So if you’re anywhere near Abilene – come on out! I’m telling –  it’s a day that will encourage and bless you. We’re gonna be walking very closely with each other that day through the Word of God, talking about God’s heart for you as it applies to your parenting and your mothering. But we’re gonna go even deeper than that and say – what is our role in the culture right now? What does God define it to be? And so, I think you’re going to be encouraged. You can bring your mom, your sister, your cousins, your Bible study group.

You don’t have to be a mom to enjoy this. I think you’ll be blessed by it. So that’s the 19th of January – in Abilene. You can find out more information at the show notes today or at HeidiStJohn.com/events. Tickets are still on sale and they’re only forty dollars a piece, and they include lunch for a whole day! So it’s absolutely worth it! Come on down and join me, and my family, and the staff of MomStrong International. We’re looking forward to seeing you!

The weekend after that I’ll be in Coos Bay, Oregon for Miracle Worker The Life Changing Power of Following Jesus. I cannot wait to see you there! I love Coos Bay because one of my favorite people in the whole world lives there – so we are very excited about that event also.

And one more thing – I thought I would just go ahead and give you a little bit of a preview. You guys have heard me talk about essential oils here on the podcast. Well I’m getting ready to do another class. We’re calling it: I can be well. And it’s a class about spiritual, and emotional, and physical wellness. So for an entire week – January 15 through the 21st, me and several of the leaders from a Young Living team, as well as my friend Dr. Eddie Wadsworth who’s been on the show with me before – I know a lot of you guys really appreciated her. She’s coming back and she’s going to be helping me teach some classes with with our staff about how to use essential oils. But we’re going to go beyond that and I will be teaching particularly about intimacy in marriage. And we’re gonna be talking about anxiety, and weight loss, and all kinds of things. I think you guys are going to really be encouraged. You can register for that right now at TheBusyMom.com/Oils. You will need to have a Facebook account to join the class. And so we’re excited about that. If you’ve got any questions, go ahead and shoot us an email at podcast@thebusymom.com.

All right, let’s get right to the topic today. So I’ve received several letters from you and some e-mails. And actually – you guys! – you’ve been sending me snail mail! You know that I have a particular love for getting cards and things like that in the mail so thank you for everyone who sent us Christmas cards over the Christmas holiday. If you’ve got extra cards sitting around and no one to send then to – you can send to me :). I’ll put my address out at the end.

But several of you’ve been talking about the frustrations that you’re having trying to manage all the things that are in front of you. And I think sometimes we make mistakes because we embrace things that God has not asked us to embrace. Like for example – how many of you have ever said yes to something and then five minutes later you’re like – That was a mistake.

Well, typically we do that because we don’t inquire of the Lord. And so I want to encourage you to do that and I wrote a book several years ago – if you haven’t picked it up I would encourage you to do that. It’s called The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight – Managing Your Days Through the Homeschool Years – or how to fit your size 16 day into a size 10. And I wrote in the very beginning the little introduction, which was sort of my fun. I’m going to read it to you and see if some of you mean this was me several years ago. But every time I read it I’m like – oh man, this takes me back. So here’s what I said:

This morning I was standing in my bathroom putting makeup on, our third grader was next to me doing her math: “Mom what’s greater than again?”. The first grader sitting next to the shower door: “Mom, I wrote my essay backward again?”. When I turned around I discovered the baby was crawling out of the room with a washcloth in her mouth. Fifth grader called in the kitchen table – “Mom I can’t find my grammar book!” … sigh. The ninth grader comes in and asks if he can take a break. It’s only 9 a.m.

And after 45 minutes – I have one I done! 9 a.m. and I was behind the a-ball. I looked at my third grader. She smiled at me. “Mommy?” Yes. “You only have one I fancy”. Can you relate? Homeschooling is a tall order. It can seem overwhelming and at times it is. I know – as a homeschool mom of seven children I’ve had my moments, believe me. There have been times when I have asked my sweet husband to watch the kids for an hour so I could go to the car and listen to – nothing.

And over the last 20 some odd years I have wanted to throw the homeschool towel in on numerous occasions. You guys, I will confess I have looked at the big yellow school bus as it’s passed by my front door with a longing in my eyes. I’ve wondered what it’d be like to put my kids on that bus just for a day and walk inside to a quiet house. I’ve fantasized about enjoying my morning tea before it got cold, or finishing a thought before it was interrupted – and I don’t think I’m alone in my fantasy land either because I’ve spoken to many of you over the years who’ve had that exact same dream from time to time.

And you know what? I think you can get off the the guilty train right now because it’s it’s OK. You don’t have to feel guilty. There isn’t a mom on the planet who hasn’t wondered on occasion – What in the world she got herself into?! And I don’t think homeschool moms are any different!

So if you’re at the end of your homeschool rope right now, or if you’re at the end of your mommy rope – tie a knot and hang on – because we’re going to spend a little bit of time today just talking about some practical ways to manage the daytime hours in your home – so that you can make the most of the precious years that God has given you with your children. But here’s the thing you guys, and I want you to lean in and listen to me, because the most important thing that you will ever do as you start this journey is to lay down your expectations…

I’m gonna say it again: You gotta lay down your expectations and ask the Lord to reveal His expectations. We want His heart for marriage, His heart for our children, His heart for our homeschooling. And we got to be honest about where we are. If you’re a homeschool mom – you need to know why you’re doing it. We’ve got to surrender our hearts if we want to find His.

And when I talk about surrender that, here’s what I mean. I mean we lay our burdens at his feet and we ask Him for peace. And guess what? He not only offers you peace but He offers you rest. The Bible says in Matthew 11 that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. So if the Lord has called you to homeschool, or if you’re on the fence right now and you’re thinking – oh man I can tell the Holy Spirit is talking me about this – but you’re too afraid or you just think you can’t do it. Hang on. Because if God’s calling you to do it, then he’s already equipped you with everything that you need to get the job done. And here’s the deal you guys – managing your day is really just about managing yourself. Let me say that again because if you’re taking notes you should write that down. Time management is really not about managing time. It’s about me management. It’s about managing myself. And we’ve got to make sure that our priorities are in order if we’re gonna be successful. So the first thing we’re going to do.

Man I can tell we’re going to have to carry this over to Monday because I’m so much I want to tell you guys!

The first thing that we want to focus on if we’re gonna be successful in our homeschooling is our marriages. And a lot of times I love to speak about marriage – one of my favorite topics in the whole world! Probably because I’ve been married to the love of my life – for going on 30 years. And I came from a broken home and I’ve watched as many of my siblings, and many of my dearest friends marriages – have collapsed under the weight of pressure from outside activities, from temptation that we allow into our homes — and most of the time you can trace it back to priorities they’re out of order. Because we’re not embracing what God says is His heart and His priority for our home. And so I when I talk about marriage, I often talk about it in the context of the The Wonder Twins. Anybody remember them? If you watched TV at all in the 70s, if you were like me and sat in front of the television at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning because your parents were sleeping in. I loved to watch the superheroes, right? So remember The Wonder Twins powers – remember they would get together and they would say “wonder twin power, activate!” and he’d be like, you know – “form of the…” you know, “a wash”. No, that’s all right. It’s been a while since I watched them . “Form of a mop” and she might be a bucket – but whatever it is they complemented each other, right?

And I know I’m dating myself just by talking you guys about this, but the analogy for marriage is so good that I’m actually willing to risk it. So if you’re wondering where I’m going with all this, here’s the point. And this might be the only redeeming thing that ever comes out of all the hours I spent watching The Wonder Twins. So according to Hanna Barbera, The Wonder Twins amazing superpowers could only be activated when they did two things. They had a touch each other and they had to speak the phrase “Wonder Twins Powers Activate!” right?

Listen this is cool and I was 10, so bear with me. Now as nice as it sounds, it’s not just enough to say the phrase “Wonder Twins Powers Activate!”, the physical contact was required. So if The Wonder Twins were out of reach of each other they were unable to activate their powers. Now I know some of you are disappointed as you were really wishing I was going to give you a really great Biblical analogy – but I really think this comes back to embracing God’s priorities! Because you see without being connected to each other – in these two very crucial ways – meaning communication and connectivity – they were just like ordinary people. And the swamp monster could beat them. And that would be terrible, right? So if you’re still wondering how this applies, keep listening because Jay and I have a little Wonder Twin joke.

So whenever we feel depleted or unable to function effectively as a team it’s usually because, like The Wonder Twins, we’re out of reach of each other! In either one or both of the ways that the dynamic duo couldn’t survive without.

And I wrote an entire book dedicated to the topic of marriage so I’m gonna touch on that in the next in the coming weeks also. But I think it bears repeating – that when it comes to relationships within your home, your marriage has got to be the first relationship that you nurture. Your marriage is the primary relationship in your home. Years ago I wrote about this on my Facebook page and I thought the moms to be so encouraged I said – Hey Mom, marriage comes before mothering. Your marriage comes before homeschooling. And man I was amazed at the backlash! People were angry.

They were frustrated. They said – hey your kids need you more than your husband. You guys listen — nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible says that the marriage is the priority relationship in the home and whatever it is that God does in your marriage we pour into our children from the overflow of what God’s doing in our marriages. Have you ever been at odds with your husband for very long? I have.

There have been seasons in our lives – and Jay and I’ve been married, like I said, for almost 30 years – and I’m telling you there have been seasons in our lives when we have been so frustrated at each other. And we have allowed the pressures that we were facing as parents, as home-educators, as a pastor and his wife, financial pressure – all kinds of things – to come in between that sacred relationship. I mean there were times when my husband was so frustrated that he’d come straight home from church and go to our room and leave me to wonder what was going on and feel helpless to do anything about it. Does that sound familiar? Yeah.

You see God created marriage so that we would come together as a husband wife a sort of dynamic duo for The Kingdom. And God is in the work of doing something with your marriage. And God is in the business of doing something with your marriage. And if you think that the enemy doesn’t know that full well – you don’t know the enemy. He knows that if he can create a little bit of distance between you and your husband it’s going to go a long way in undermining your marriage.

It’s amazing to me how lack of communication can affect a relationship between a husband and wife. And I mean oftentimes I am frustrated with how discouraging, and disorganized, and chaotic our days seem when a simple conversation with my husband reveal a side of the problem that I’d failed to discern before.

We need each other.  Sweet mom, communicate with your husband. Men who are listening to this – communicate with your wife. She needs to hear that you love her. And by the way, this applies across the board – but is particularly important for husbands whose wives are homeschooling. When you come home at the end of a long day and the house is a mess, and your wife hasn’t gotten dinner on the table, and you can see a math book is still open on the kitchen table – that’s the wrong time to say — what did you get done today? Just a little something I learned. I’ll just let that sit right there.

Your husband, mom, can meet you halfway. So moms communicate with your husband, let him into the places that you’re uncomfortable to talk about. Talk to him about your lack of organization, your fear of failing your kids. Talk to him about your discouragement – your husband can’t meet you halfway if he doesn’t know the road you’re on, right? So communicate – communicate with each other.

Another thing that we can learn from The Wonder Twins is the fact that it’s not just enough to communicate – “Wonder Twin Powers Activate!” doesn’t do any good if there’s no what? – physical contact. And I think sometimes we’re so busy that we don’t notice the distance that creeps in between us simply due to a lack of physical intimacy. And being a mom is challenging enough, and you add homeschooling to it and it takes it to a whole new level. And I think it’s easy to let homeschooling take priority in your life.

But you know what? Listen to me carefully – it’s dangerous to do that. And I’m not just talking about homeschooling – it can be anything that you have allowed it to take priority and push away that time that you should be setting aside for your marriage. And as much as you want to learn to manage your day — an even greater responsibility needs to come first. Your marriage needs to come first. Women, please do not neglect the sexual aspect of your marriage. Talk to your husband about it. Ask him to tell you honestly how he feels your marriage is doing in this important area. You guys you might be surprised by the answer that you hear.

I remember one time I asked my husband – you know, I’ve told you before – every once and a while while Jay and I will sit down and we sort of assess the state of our union. A long time ago this was an area in my life that we were really struggling with. We had several little kids at home and it was such a physically demanding job that it was easy for me to push my husband’s needs to the side. Because I was too too tired and I was practically comatose at the end of the day. AI remember an an older woman took me to lunch one day and it was a kindness that she sat me down and asked me how my marriage was and I said – well I’m doing okay. And she said – “How would your husband say that your marriage is doing?”. And it wasn’t that my husband talked to her. I really feel like the Holy Spirit was like – “you need to go talk to Heidi”. So she said – “go home and ask him”.

So I remember sitting down with Jay after dinner, all the kids were in bed, and I said – “so Jay, how would you rate our sex life say on a scale of 9 to 10”. I didn’t give him any room to say – “well it’s a four or it’s a six”. I just didn’t think I could hear it. I was afraid of being criticized for it – just one more thing that I wasn’t doing right.

And I want to just encourage you – talk to your husbands, open up that conversation. Think about what attracted you to your husband when you first married him. Ask him – what attracted you to me?

The first book I wrote called The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Romance – which in hindsight I wish I hadn’t called it The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Romance – because if you want to read a great book about marriage, that really is a wonderful book. The Lord just gave that to me and I wrote it from a place of pain in my own life. But God really used it, and I wrote about a girl that I used to know. I called her “That Girl”, and she was the girl that my husband married.

She was the one who couldn’t wait to romance her husband, to make him dinner, to dress beautifully for him. And busy mom – I just wanna encourage you you are still that girl . And that girl still needs to be part of your life and your marriage. So nurture your relationship with your husband. Husbands, nurture your relationship with your wife.

You don’t need to have money for a babysitter to nurture your marriage. You know there were many times my husband and I were on such a tight budget when our kids were little. He was a pastor and we were single income family, homeschooling. We’d made this incredible decision to homeschool – which I couldn’t believe that I had actually said that I wanted to do — it’s totally the Lord. And I remember my husband just coming home from work and just said – hey, let’s put on four hours worth of vegetables on for the kids, and we’ll sit upstairs at the kitchen table and just have dinner, and get to know each other again. It’s so important.

I can honestly say that that effort that you will put into your marriage will reap dividends for years to come. Your marriage is the primary relationship in your home. This is the first of God’s priorities that we embrace outside of our relationship with Him.

So Monday we’re going to come back and I’m going to talk to you a little bit about how to nurture your relationship with your kids – even through busy homeschool years – but also how to kind of manage your home. When you’ve got a lot of kids around you – so important. This is the time of year to do it.

Also I want to just remind you that we start a brand new Bible study at MomStrong International on Monday. And so this January, we’re gonna be talking about finding balance in your life. The study is called Find Balance and Breathe. God has balance for you. And we’re gonna be studying the book of James – starting in James 3.  

It’s a great time for you to join the Scripture Writing Community which is free, and also for two dollars a week  -you can support the ministry of the podcast by simply joining the Bible study. We’ll  take you even deeper into the things we’ve been talking about here on the podcast.

All right I hope you guys will join me there. If this podcast is an encouragement to you, it would certainly encourage us if you would leave a review. Rate this podcast over at iTunes, share it on social media, let people know that we’re here and we want to encourage you.

And one last thing before I go – I know I said I would give you your address – if you wanna write to us. We love to get things in the mail. The address is:

Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir
Vancouver, Washington 98682

Have a great day everybody and I’ll see you back here on Monday.

Walking With God through Suffering – 706

This month at MomStrong International, we’ve been studying the topic of joy… but what happens when we’re walking through suffering? 1 Peter talks about suffering proportionately more than any other book in the Bible. In the passage we’ve been looking at, he draws on an illustration from Isaiah 43. Today, I will be teaching on the metaphor of the fire—but looking more closely at the “refiners” fire and the promise that comes with it. If you’re struggling to understand a purpose for your pain, listen in and be encouraged!

Mentioned in Podcast

Walking With God through Pain and Suffering, by Tim Keller

Scriptures

1 Peter:3-7
Isaiah 43:1-3
1 Peter 4:19
1 Peter 5:10
2 Corinthians 6:8-10
Jeremiah 29:13
Ephesians 1:18-20

TRANSCRIBED PODCAST BELOW

Hey everybody, welcome to The Heidi St. John Podcast!  Today is Wednesday the 26th  of December. It’s MomStrong International study day, and I hope that you guys will enjoy it.

Also, I hope you had a fantastic Christmas! We’re going to talk a little bit about what it means to walk with God in every season of our life, and how God uses suffering to make us more like Him.

Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right. So we are on the last week of the MomStrong International study for the whole year – for the year 2018. I hope you guys have been blessed by what God is doing at MomStrong International. We started this particular ministry to mothers, this time last year was when we turned out our first Bible Study. We’ve grown since then quite a bit. We have over 10,000 members now at the Scripture Writing community. And I just want to say-  thank you so much for being a part of what God is doing at MomStrong International.

Before I jump into this study I want to let you guys know I’m going to be traveling here pretty quickly and I want to invite you to join me at a MomStrong Conference near you. So I’m going to be in Abilene, Texas. Woot woot! Can I just get a shout out for my friends in Abilene?!  

I’m coming down to Abilene on the 19th of January. That’s just a couple weeks away and tickets are on sale for that event right now, so I want to just encourage you to bring a friend to that I’m telling you what — this conference is one day event is going to change the way you see your role in this generation and how God wants to use you.

The theme this year is Miracle Worker – The Life Changing Power of Following Jesus, and we’re going to spend a whole day digging into the word, talking together, going to eat together. It’s going to be a wonderful time! So if you’re anywhere near Abilene -can I just encourage you grab your women’s Bible Study Group, grab your mother, your mom in-law, or your sister in law, or your cousin, or your best friend and come on out to the Heidi St. John conference. I promise you it’s going to be a day that will change your life.

The next event I’m doing will be in Coos Bay, Oregon and tickets are on sale for that right now as well. That event is happening the very next weekend on the 26th of January. So come on out you guys! I can’t wait to see you and cannot wait to see what God does with you, and through you, as we study His word together.

This was part of, coming off of MomStrong International which was founded on the heels of the book Becoming MomStrong – which by the way, that book was written with the intention of launching a movement of mothers who said – you know what? I’m going to get off the bench, and back onto the battlefield, and recognizing that God has literally created you for such a time as this.

You were born for this women, you were born for this right now. God knew what was going to be happening in the culture in 2018 and 2019, and he chose to put you and I in this time of history, right now, to speak to the GLORY, and the MERCY, and the HEALING, and the GRACE of the Lord Jesus. And that’s really what we want to do at MomStrong International. So if you’re interested in studying the Bible with us I want to just encourage you to do that. You can become a member -it’s just two dollars a week and your two dollars goes a whole long way in supporting this ministry. I am really excited about what we’re going to be doing for 2019!

So the whole year studies have already been laid out. But for this particular month, for the month of January, we’re going to be studying what it means to Find Balance and Breathe – because when we understand and embrace God’s priorities, we can find balance. We can find that white space in our life, and we can enjoy what God has put in front of us.

So I want to just encourage you to do that for the month of January going to be studying starting the year off with a bang. Talking about God’s priorities and what it means to be committed to walking in right relationship with Him. And for today, I’m going to be finishing up the last week of this study.

As always, on Wednesday’s, I’m trying to give you a glimpse into the study, but the study itself is going to go a whole lot farther.

Your church can do it – by the way we’ve just started granting church licenses. So if your church is interested in having a ministry to women that is going to genuinely point them back to the Word —  I’m not interested in writing Women’s Bible stories where we just sit around and talk about what a hot mess we are. God did not send His Son into the world so that we could stand around in circles sing Kumbaya, talk about what a hot mess we are, and go home and repeat the same thing over again.

God wants us to grow. The gospel changes Us. It should change us. The message of the Cross never leaves us where it finds us. And that really is the heart at MomStrong International. So if you haven’t found us there yet – or you’re looking for a ministry for your church for 2019 – we have an incredible opportunity for you for just two dollars a week to get into and study the Word with us.

All right. We are in 1 Peter 1:3-4 and then we’re to skip over to vs 6 and 7. I’m going to read it for you really quickly and then we’ll talk about what it means for you right now.

So this is 1 Peter 1: 3-4, 6-7

3 According to his great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance 

6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter talks a lot about suffering, and in fact – it talks about it proportionately more than any other book in the Bible. So in this passage that we’re looking at, Peter is actually drawing on an illustration from Isaiah 43. So let’s go ahead and look at that really quickly. Isaiah 43. So here’s what it says. I’m going to read it first for you in the NIV.

But now, this is what the Lord says—
    he who created you, Jacob,
    he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters,
    I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
    they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
    you will not be burned;
    the flames will not set you ablaze.
3 For I am the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
    Cush and Seba in your stead.
Isaiah 43: 1-3

So this is a beautiful illustration of God’s love for you, and Peter’s going to take – because what is God promising His people right there? He is promising us that no matter what happens to us He is going to be with us.

He will never leave us alone. Even though we pass through the fire,- Isaiah is saying -you’re not going to be burned up. God is with you. He’s the Holy One of Israel. He loves you, men and women, He loves you. And Peter is going to take the metaphor of a fire one step further and compare it to the suffering of his readers or to that ever refiners fire like a furnace or a forge.

So the Greek word for trials refers to an attempt to learn the nature or character of something, a test. A furnace turns up the heat on precious metal and melts it down so that the impurities are destroyed or removed. So in a sense, the fire tries to destroy the metal put to the fire, but only succeeds in making it more pure and more beautiful. In one sense you could say that God only allows suffering to go far enough to accomplish the exact opposite of what it intends.

I going to say that for you again because I want you to get this deep down in your heart. All right?

You could say that God only allows suffering to go far enough to accomplish the exact opposite of what it intends. You see, we have many impurities in our character that need to be removed for us to experience the joy and confidence of Christ.

You guys see that in your children? Sure you do! And you know that as you discipline them they are going to become more and more tolerable to be around. Why? Because we are helping them to get rid of the impurities in their character so that they can walk in right relationship with the Lord and with other people. And you see, we have competing commitments in our hearts. We want to follow the Lord but our sinful hearts want comfort and ease.

We want to be filled with the fruit of the Spirit, but instead, our hearts tend to be filled with pride, and lust, and selfishness.

You see the problem is we’re usually blind to these things. Although my spouse usually isn’t ;).  It’s like dirt that’s buried inside a gold nugget, right?

But think about this. A furnace doesn’t make things better automatically. It depends on what’s put in the furnace and how it’s handled by the refiner – and in the same way, our response to suffering will determine how well the refining will work. So Peter is going on to encourage his readers not to be upset or shocked by suffering and not to give up hope. Instead in 1 Peter 4:19 he says – commit yourself to the faithful creator and continue to do good.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I’ve been going through a difficult time –  I can stop seeking to do good – because I’m so consumed with my own situation, and with self-pity, and expectation that others should be doing good works for me…that I can take my eyes off of the Lord. But Peter says that one of the ways out of a rut like this is simply to look for ways to do good for others.

And did you know what else? This is a great thing to teach your kids, you guys. This comes with a promise. 1 Peter 5:10:

10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

That is God’s promise to you. He’s saying: listen, this isn’t all there is after you’ve suffered for a little bit. I, the God of Heaven, the Lord of Heaven’s armies, the God of all Grace who is called you.

Remember I told you earlier Mom, you were born for this! You are born for such a time as this. He Himself is going to restore, and confirm, and strengthen, and establish you. You see, God’s not going to leave us to face the fire alone. You see, Jesus took the fire of God’s wrath not so that we could escape the flames — but so that He would be with us in the furnace.

That’s God’s heart for you. And there is a great paradox of our walk with Christ that Peter talks about here. See, the paradox is this – we can experience an abundance of joy in the midst of suffering and trials. So whatever you’re facing today know this – you can experience joy right in the midst of it. Remember, we talked about this last week?

Joy is not a product of your circumstances. Joy isn’t dependent on how many gifts you got for Christmas. It isn’t. Joy is not dependent on whether or not you’re completely healthy or how full your bank account is.

Joy is the unmistakable sign of the presence of God in our lives.

It’s not dependent on our circumstances. And as Christians we live in attention, right? We can be full of sorrow and full of joy at the same time.

For those of you who have ever had a baby – you know what I’m talking about. right?

That suffering, that struggle that we are experiencing as we’re preparing to birth a child — absolutely pales the moment you see that child, right? And we become full of joy.

In 2 Corinthians 6:8-10 Paul describes his experience as an apostle. But guess what? — he describes it with this sort of diametric reality thing going on. In verse 10.  He says we’re sorrowful but we’re always rejoicing. Peter is saying the same truth when he says

in this you rejoice though now you’ve been grieved by various trials.
1 Peter 1:6

Can you guys see how amazing that is? He doesn’t say you used to rejoice in Christ but now your suffering. He doesn’t say you can either rejoice or you can be grieved. He doesn’t say you’re grieving now but later you can rejoice. He says you can grieve AND rejoice.

And unlike some of the preachers that you hear on television right now, this isn’t the power of positive thinking. We’re not simply chipper. We don’t minimize suffering in a superficial way. We don’t offer religiously-hype-self-help.

It’s not the absence of a feeling – it’s the presence of God.

And the joy of God that accompanies it, in the middle of the trials – Tim Keller summed it up this way. He said:

This is a difficult concept for modern Western people, since we think our feelings as almost holy, sovereign things.

Tim Keller, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering

Have you guys noticed that in the culture? We are literally surrounded by young people who are being driven by their emotions, and we are so afraid of offending because we hold our emotions and our feelings in an incredibly high regard right now. We look at them as – Tim Keller’s absolute right – as almost holy, sovereign things, our feelings.

Tim went on to say:

We either feel happier or we don’t, and, we think, we can’t force our feelings. And that’s right; we must not deny or try to create feelings. But we must remember that in the Bible, the “heart” is not identical to emotions. The heart is understood as the place of your deepest commitments, trusts, and hopes. From those commitments flow our emotions, thoughts, and actions.
Tim Keller, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering

So Tim goes on to say:

… therefore we must not define rejoicing as something that precludes feelings of grief, or doubt, weakness, and pain. Rejoicing in suffering happens within sorrow. Here’s how it works. The grief and sorrow drive you more and more into God.

The weeping drives you into joy, it enhances the joy, and the joy enables you to actually feel your grief without it sinking you. In other words, you are finally emotionally healthy.

Tim Keller, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering

That’s from Tim Keller’s book. I’ll link back to it in the show notes us today,  Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering.

Moms, I want to encourage you as we get ready to enter into a new year – to give yourself fully to the Lord who suffered on your behalf. Commit to Him. Cry to Him. Trust Him. Walk with Him through the fire and see the beauty and the power He will draw out of you. That is His promise to you. God said: He will never leave you nor forsake you.

And the next time you feel like you don’t have any joy – can I just encourage you? Pray about it. Ask the Lord to give you His joy. Ask Him to show you what you are looking to instead of Him. Ask him to search your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13 says that if you seek Him with all your heart, He will let you find Him.

13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13

He wants you to seek Him and He will always come through. Life is a journey, isn’t it? It has its ups and downs, good days, bad days, homeschool days – simultaneously joy and sadness – but life’s a journey, isn’t it? But the Lord wants to use it all to bring you joy if you let Him. Seek Jesus, and Jesus alone. Let’s pray.

Father, I’m praying through Ephesians 1:18-20 right now. I pray that the eyes of my heart and the eyes of my children’s hearts would be enlightened – so that we would truly know the hope of Your calling. Father, we’re desperate for us to understand the riches of your glory, and if your inheritance in us, and to walk these out daily as a family.  

Lord, I feel as though my walk with you and my daily joy would be so vastly different if I had the surpassing greatness of Your power toward us believers in my mind. So Father, would you train my heart, train our hearts, as we train the hearts of our children – in spite of ourselves. Father, a great desires to be so grounded in an understanding of biblical joy that our children see your strength in us and are drawn to have a personal relationship with You themselves.

Train us up, Lord. Show us what it means to rest in your joy. In Jesus name, Amen.

I want to thank you guys for listening to the podcast today. if you’re interested in this study, we go much more in-depth over it MomStrong International. You can sign up today! The Scripture Writing challenge there is free, and you can find it at MomStrong International.com.

I also want to thank you for listening to this podcast. As always, I’m going to ask you to leave a review and rate this podcast over at iTunes. Help us get the word out by sharing this podcast with your friends and your relatives.

It is our hope to see an entire generation of Christian women come back to the authority and the trustworthiness of the Word of God. Thanks for listening everybody and I’ll see you back here on Friday.