S2S Sisters: Bonus Talk: "Navigating the Seasons: A Discussion on Purposeful Motherhood"

Lesson Transcript

Our prayer is that you will be filled with the knowledge of His will, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power. Welcome to Strength to Strength Sisters, and an extra special welcome to our panel discussion today on motherhood called Navigating the Seasons. The vision of Strength to Strength Sisters is to encourage women to be catalysts in advancing the kingdom through biblical teaching, testimonies of faithful women, and thought-provoking discussions.

And before we get into our thought-provoking discussion, here's a few notes before we begin. A recording will be available of this discussion later on our YouTube and podcast platforms. Today, we're not going to be having our typical Q&A session afterward, so you'll be muted the whole time, but feel free to put any questions you have in the chat anytime during our discussion. We're going to be taking all our questions through the chat today. And I'll introduce myself, first of all, to those of you who may not know.

I'm Jameela Kurtz, and I'm a mother of nine children living in Kenya, Africa, and I'll be the moderator for our discussion today. Joining me, assisting me in moderating, will be Lynelle Martin, and she's a mother of seven. And we have four mothers on our panel today. I'll let each of them give a short introduction. So go ahead, Janie. Hello, everyone. My name is Janie Wagoner, and it's a blessing to share with you on this important topic of mothering.

I'm a mother of four living children and 21 grandchildren, ranging from ages 18 years to one month. Kurt and I have been married nearly 44 years. He is a minister, and we have done lots of extensive traveling as a result of this. We sent our children to a private school for 12 years and then transitioned to homeschooling, which we did for another 12 years.

I have been involved in helping my daughters as a laundry maid, a dishwasher, a physical therapist, a babysitter, a teacher's aide, and currently, I am tutoring one of our grandchildren. I became an aunt at age eight and grew up mothering and interacting with my nieces and nephews. I grew up in a German Baptist home and community and gave my life to the Lord in my late teens. Hi, I'm Valerie. I'm married to Anthony Hearst for 28 years. We live in Berks County, Pennsylvania.

It's about an hour north of Lancaster, if you don't know where Berks County is. I have seven children. Two are not living at home. Our oldest is living in state college, and our second daughter is married and lives out in the state of Washington. So I have five living at home. Two sons and one daughter are 18, 20, and 22 years old. And then I have sort of a second family, a boy and a girl, nine and 11. Anthony's been a teacher for many years. Now he's still in education. He works for Christian Light.

And as a family, we love nature, family time together in the outdoors. We also love learning about other cultures and have done some travel. We also lived in South America for a couple of years. So we really enjoy other cultures and languages and all the wonderful things that God made. Hi, I'm Lindsay Kirkland, and I'm married to Bracken, and we have seven children. We have six boys, and we have one baby girl who's 14 months, and her name's Lydia.

So my children range from 14 is my oldest, and then they're about two years apart down to the baby. And we homeschool. We live in western North Carolina in the mountains, and we also, yeah, we just have a lot going on here with our local church body. And also, we make and produce music here at our home studio. We have some music on YouTube, and yeah, so that's a lot of what we do, and we stay very busy with our family here. So thanks for having me here today. Hi, I'm Christina.

I'm married to Sam Bair, and we have three children and a fourth one on the way. Our children are in the preschool years, although my oldest, he's six now. He's doing kindergarten right now, so next year he'll be in grade one, but I'm still in that preschool stage at the moment. My children are Elliott, he's six, Autumn is four, and Ivan is two. My husband, Sam, and I came to Christ shortly after the birth of our second daughter. So that was about four and a half years ago.

And God has been so good, and he has changed our home into such a wonderful place. It's full of love and grace and peace, and it's very different than it was with my firstborn. We are currently living in Boston. I grew up in Calgary, Alberta, and the plan is for in the summertime moving back home to Calgary. Thank you so much for that welcome to each of you. We are just honored to have you here to take time to share with us. And so we're really looking forward to this.

You know, when the angel came to Mary, she was shocked and didn't know how it could be possible for her to have a son, and she was a virgin. And you know, the angel never gave her any lengthy explanation, but simply said, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you.

Therefore, also that holy one who is to be born will be called the Son of God." You know, this is a verse that's with me many, many times in the midst of my own mothering journey, and it's a blessing that I want to share with the four of you panelists and all of us today. The Most High is upon you. Lynelle, would you please lead us in prayer? Sure, let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for being a great God.

And thank you for the way that you have created the family structure for creating motherhood, for blessing us with children, with these little ones to raise and point to you. And as we do this, this is an expansion of your kingdom. Father, we are here today because we want that well. We want to mother in a way that you designed it to be, and we want to lead our children to depend on you for all of their needs. Father, I pray that you would especially bless each one of the panelists.

I pray that you would bless Janie and Valerie and Lindsay and Christina as they talk to us about some of their experiences and practical ways that they've worked this out in their own lives and families. And I pray that you would bless them with calmness and that they would be able to share the things that you have laid on their heart.

I pray that you would be with each one of us as listeners too, that we would open our hearts and that we would allow you to show us areas that we need to grow in and just in areas that we need encouragement in, in ways that we can raise our children in a little bit better way. I pray that you would bless Jameela as she leads out as well with moderating. And Father, may this call be one that would bring much honor and glory to your name because that is what our highest goal is here.

Thank you for everything that you have done for us, and we want to honor you today in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for that prayer, Lynelle. So why don't we go ahead and get started? So today we're going to have a discussion. Now, it's amazing modern technology and how we can have this discussion. I'm here in Kenya. Some of you are in the United States. We have some in Europe, some in Australia.

But just envision for a little bit that we were all together in our living rooms, and we were just a group of mothers together, and we're talking about, and maybe mothers-to-be and maybe people who maybe someday will be mothers. But we were just having a discussion. So let's just do that. Let's relax and see what God can show us and what we can learn from each other. So let's go into our first question. How is your vision for mothering reflected in your goals?

And Christina, do you mind starting for us and just sharing your heart on that? For sure. Yeah. So my goal is to have a godly home. And so what does a godly home mean to me? It means a loving home. It means a peaceful home, and it means a joyful home. So in order to have a loving home, I need to have good relationships with my children and my husband, quality time spent together, and meaningful conversations.

And meaningful conversations with my husband as well, like for children to see you work through things with your husband and be able to communicate well. Really, children pick up on things like that, and I think it's healthy for them to see that kind of thing. And to have a peaceful home, to me, that means obedient children. I like schedule, and I like to have order. And then for a joyful home, to be pure-minded, have a pure mind and heart and a focus on the kingdom.

So I try to keep that in mind, and then my vision for how I run my home and how I associate with my children follows those three principles. So I'm not one of those mothers who finds it easy to write down their vision. I don't do mission statements and those kinds of things, but I do have aspirations. I do want my home to be a peaceful home, like Christina was saying. I have a note in my Bible that I got from a mother's seminar or devotional or something.

It goes like this: "May our homes be a palace of love for our children, a haven of peace for our husbands, and shelter for those who roam." And that sort of sums up what my aspirations are. In a practical way, one of my visions is to be close to my daughters and to raise daughters who see motherhood as honorable and just a stay-at-home mom, that it's an honorable thing to do. So what do I do to carry that out? When they were little, I tucked them in bed.

And one thing I wish I would have done more of, I'm doing it with my youngest daughter, and that is pray with them every night. We would pray as a family, but especially to bless them as I tuck them into bed. And that's been a blessing now with my youngest. My daughters didn't get jobs right away. I wanted them to be available to help other moms and just to learn housework and things. Sometimes it meant we just stood and talked when we should have been working. Yeah, those were some ways. Yeah.

Yeah, I like what you said about, yeah, just sometimes when there's things to be done, you take time to just connect because I feel like for me, just the season of life that I'm in with my family, I feel like I'm kind of in the thick of it, ages 14 down to baby. And yeah, so sometimes I appreciate this question because it did get me thinking, and I asked myself, "Well, what is my vision? What am I trying to accomplish here? Am I trying to just get through the day?

Am I just trying to get all these tasks done, or do I really care about the hearts of my children?" And I would say my vision as a mother, it would be that I want to cultivate relationships with my children. And not just, I think, yeah, on that heart level. I want to know what's going on in their hearts. I want to know how to disciple them and to walk their own relationship with the Lord.

And I don't know, I just recently, the biggest scripture that's come to my mind in cultivating my children's hearts is, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." And so I'm just listening all the time. What are they talking about? What kinds of things are they saying? Because that's what's in their heart. That's what's in their mind. And I think just taking that time to maybe because there is so much busyness in a day for me.

It's not always easy to sit down with one child at a time and just have individual time throughout the day, but just trying to be intentional to carve out those times with each one. And before bed, just asking them if there's anything they want to talk about or pray about, just to kind of help draw that out. And with some children, that's easier, and with others, it takes more work to see what's inside of their hearts. But I think just knowing that I want them to know that I'm available to talk.

And because I have boys, it's not like they're always just wanting to do that. But yeah, they are. I think just building that relationship with them is very important to me. And because that's kind of going to last a lifetime. I want that relationship to continue when they get older as well. Christina mentioned joyful was one of her words. And so the phrase from Psalm 113:9 is one of my visions as I pray for my daughters, that they would be a joyful mother of children.

And I think we all know that sometimes a mother can get overwhelmed, and in her overwhelming, she becomes negative. And we have seen this at the end of a stressful day and how this can actually become a habit for someone and how they interact, and even like a stronghold that could be hard to change or to reverse. And so that's something that we, as a supportive grandma, I want to do everything I can to make sure that my daughters don't get overwhelmed and slip into that mode.

And one way that I can do this is just to support them to be the best mother that they can be and a joyful mother of children. And the practical ways would be just helping out with the manual workload or babysitting, giving them that needed date night, or taking the children out for an outing to the park or to the zoo. It just gives everyone a chance to recharge. Thank you for that. That's amazing. First question, and I'm just like heard so much already.

And I should say this here at the beginning that in case you're wondering where I fit, my oldest daughter is 20 years old and youngest is three. So I kind of stretch across maybe a couple age groups. So heard a lot of good things. Let's go on to question number two. How do you meet God in the midst of your mothering? Janie, I'll let you start with this one. Well, my own private and personal devotions, they've always been a priority with me.

It's like, how can I expect God's blessing on my day and on my efforts if I don't have time for him? And prayer is a very big part of this. Even in my tutoring, I pray that the Lord will equip me, that I can equip the child. And when the children were little, we would work this in. Besides our family devotions, I would read Bible stories to them before their nap time. The Bible and pictures for little eyes was one for the younger children, the three-year-olds and like that.

And as they got older then in our home school, we would have devotions together at the beginning of each day. So that was some of our approaches. For me, it's definitely a rise early. I have children that like to get up a little bit earlier, especially my babies and young children, or really young children.

And I've learned that I just need to get up earlier because when I get up and I make time for God first thing in the morning and I'm able to pray and I'm able to read my Bible and do some of my journaling, my day is set right for the rest of the day. If for whatever reason I happen to sleep in or I think maybe I should sleep in because I went to bed late or I was up with my children a lot in the night and I sleep in, I think every single time I regret it. So I've just learned to be very disciplined.

I wake up early. I set my alarm. I don't hit snooze. I decide what time I'm going to get out of bed and I get out of bed. And it's been amazing how God blesses that, especially when you have kind of sleepless nights or things like that. Sometimes in the middle of the night, I just pray, "Father, please give me energy in the morning when I get up." And I get up when my alarm goes off, and He blesses me with energy.

Sometimes you're still tired when you first wake up, but after you put Him first, I've just been amazed so many times at how faithful He is in just making sure that you're able to get through your day because you did put Him first. Another thing I try to do as well is just talk to God throughout the day. I would be maybe talking to someone that's there in my home. I used to always get this idea that I have to go by my bed and kneel down and pray every time, and you don't. You're busy.

There's things to do, take care of children, housework, all that kind of stuff. And it's very easy just to praise Him or ask Him for help in this certain situation and things like that. So I try to really remember that throughout the day as well. And the last thing that we do is do family worship in the evening. So we sing songs with our children. Sometimes we'll read the Bible with them, and then we all pray as a family before our children go to bed.

That's a blessing to hear, and I appreciate your commitment to being disciplined. That's an area where I have had to really learn and grow in. I wasn't raised in a Christian home. And so later in life, coming to Christ and then learning how do I develop these disciplines in my life. And motherhood is a very busy season. It's a very busy and demanding time, especially when you have a lot of children. And so I do find that it is hard to have a quiet time, a quiet personal time.

But I believe that God has pursued me even in times where I haven't been as faithful to have my personal quiet time or Bible reading time. God has met me in those times. And so right now, what my personal devotional time looks like would be in the morning before people get up. I find it easier to learn through or I find it hard to read the Bible sometimes by myself. I'm more of an auditory learner, I guess.

And so putting on the audio Bible in the morning while I'm getting things ready has just really been a huge thing for me, very ministers to me. And just having even I'll listen to a lot of times like a chapter or something, a couple of chapters. But if I even just have a couple of verses, that just is food for me all day, and I have something to meditate on all day.

When I start to feel overwhelmed or I'm starting to get off track, I can go back to, "Okay, what was that thing this morning that God spoke to me?" So that really ministers to me. And there are seasons, I believe, God meets us in those seasons. There have been times where we've lived in very small spaces. And so it's like if I were to get up, it would wake everyone else up. And so you just have to kind of work with where you're at. And I believe God is faithful to meet us in those times.

Sometimes for me, even just sitting in His presence and not necessarily reading, but just praying and just having His peace, just being still and knowing that He's with me and that He's God. I think ministers to me a lot just because of all the overwhelm that can come within my day, with the noise and all the demands, everybody needing me. So sometimes just having those times of quiet.

And sometimes I have to go in my room and shut the door and lock it sometimes and just tell them, "I just need a few minutes." And that really sometimes I really just need that. And I think that's what we all need, whether we're moms or not, but it's important. I really connect with what you said, Lindsay, that there are certain seasons when we can't have that, or at least not very many minutes of that quiet time.

I don't know if you know if you are familiar with the term the practice of the presence of God, but I would recommend this book by Brother Lawrence. Mine is all tattered and torn, you can see. I recommend all my children to read it. It's good for everyone. It's the idea of being aware of God's presence all the time and being in the attitude of prayer. And we can just sort of meet Him at any time. Things like when you walk outside and you feel the breeze, it becomes sort of a habit.

You right away think of God and, like you said, just sort of feel His presence and communicate with Him even when there's maybe a lot going on around you. Pray for your family members as you're doing your laundry and pray for the one who's under your folding or whatever. I've really found that to be a blessing, not to take the place of personal time, but I have felt really close to God sometimes when I wasn't even able to have my personal devotion that day. Right.

I think that's one of the ways that we can pray without ceasing is when we're practicing the presence and just giving our thanksgiving and our praise to God along with our Nehemiah prayers where we need some help and we need some guidance. Thank you. I really love that. And wow, what a challenge. I love what you said, Christina, about the discipline. And I was thinking in my own life that's something that varying seasons, I just have to, yeah. But I love what you all said about the presence of God.

I found that very real in my life too. Okay. For the next question, we're going to do one from the chat. And this question, I'm going to direct it to Lindsay because you talked about this a little bit, but how do you help to draw out children who are less prone to talk and to connect more with them and hear their hearts? Well, I guess I'm still learning how to do that, but yeah, I think it takes time.

I think for some children, they have to feel like it's okay for it to take time, that you're not in a hurry, even if they're not saying anything. I think just even being there and just letting them know. And yeah, because I have some children that you know exactly how they feel at all times. It's no secret. And so it's easy to know what's in their heart, but then there's others that are more under the radar.

And I know that there's a reason why either they don't want to ruffle any feathers or they just want to keep things kind of non-confrontational. And so, yeah, I think just asking questions like I have felt one way that, well, one of the questions you had sent, skipping ahead a little bit, was how have you become more like Jesus in your motherhood? But one of the ways, one of the things Jesus did was He asked questions. He asked very heart-probing questions.

And I think that that is one thing as a mother that we kind of need to learn to do sometimes is ask those heart-probing questions. Not in an accusatory way, like, "What are you thinking?" or, "Why did you do that?" But just like, "Yeah, what do you think about this?" Just kind of trying to draw them out and get their perspective in a way that they're not going to feel like you already have your mind made up about what they did or what they think.

Because, yeah, so I think, especially as they get older, it's just important to have those conversations because I don't know. I'm still a mother of a new teenager, but I'm just seeing how they have a lot going on. There's a lot happening in their hearts and in their minds development-wise. And so I think time is a huge part of it, making the time, being intentional to have connection.

This is one thing that my husband's been doing because we have so many boys and because as a dad, he feels more of the weight of that. And so he's been trying to—he has it on his calendar. Every other Saturday, he has one of their names written down, and he takes two hours out of the day, and he just sits with them or does something with them and just has that more intentional time of connection.

So, I mean, I feel like if I had—I try to do that with my boys too, but if I had daughters, I would probably need to be more intentional. Yeah. So I would say time and just maybe those more heart-probing questions just to kind of get them talking. I think that's a big part of it, is just getting them talking. I think the one-on-one time together is really important. And another thing is if you can learn what their love language is and what speaks to them.

I've heard of, for some children, maybe notes of affirmation or words of affirmation. You could put a little note under their pillow that would be like a surprise to them that would just give some affirmation to them. And then maybe even talk about it later, or maybe they would answer back. And so you kind of get this thing going between you where you're writing to each other. There are some children that really can respond to something like that if that speaks their love language.

But the one-on-one thing, like when it's their birthdays, just they are the only one that goes out for breakfast with Dad or with Mom and maybe trip to town and don't take everyone, just take one along as Mommy's helper and do a spatial stop at the Dairy Queen or something. Just work it into life. Right. I had one child who found it hard to express herself. And so I told her to write it to me. And I often found the note beside my bed. And she would tell me things that she couldn't say face to face.

She's learned now to talk. But yeah, that worked really good for her just to have her write it out. Lots of wisdom here. And I love how you brought in about the questions, just asking good questions. It can be a little deflating as a mother sometimes when you ask your son how his day was, and he just kind of goes, "Huh?" Not very much of an answer. But then if I ask them and they've learned, it's interesting. I say, "Okay, so what was the most important or the highlight of your day today?

Or what made you—what was the worst thing?" And I start getting a lot more feedback. So it's definitely a journey. Let's move on to the third question. How has your mothering helped you to become more like Jesus? And Lindsay, you already kind of answered a little bit of this. Did you have more you wanted to add? Let's start with you. Oh, sure. Yeah. I think I love this question because I really believe that mothers are just in such an honorable position. I believe that God has chosen women to really reflect Jesus.

And I think that's really beautiful and a very honorable position as a woman, as a mother. Yeah. I mean, in so many ways, I can think of so many. But as a mother, I remember being a young mother. I still feel like I'm a young mother, but when I had new babies and I remember just them waking up at night and just, "Oh, such an inconvenience to me." I wanted to sleep, and I didn't want them to keep waking up.

And I just had to learn to deny myself and to serve and to be thankful for the moments and realizing that they're not going to be there forever. But yeah, just some things I wrote down, like servant, denying self. I think as mothers, oftentimes we're healers. We're always tending to sick people and caring for them, praying for them. We're comforters. We're teachers and friends. Jesus embodied all of those things. And he was available to the multitudes.

There were times when he wanted to go and be alone, but yet he went and he poured himself out. He fed the multitudes. He spoke to them. He taught them. And even when he wanted to be by himself, be with his Father, he continued to be poured out. And so that, to me, I feel like as a mother, that's a big part of it, is just being a willing vessel that's willing to be poured out for your children, for your family, for your husband. And I think it's a beautiful thing.

And if we can embrace that that is Jesus, that is his calling for us, and that's how he lived, then we can embrace that and not see it as a burden. I think there's a lot of beauty in it. Yeah. So, yeah. Amen to that, Lindsay. I can't imagine being a mother and staying selfish and all that. It just would not work. And for me, it just seems like life has a way of just causing us to flee to Jesus. And the more we are with him, the more we become like him. And I'll just say, as a grandma, I have softened a lot.

And I don't know. As a mother, I was probably more focused on correcting and controlling the situation at hand. But as a grandma, I'm more for hearing their hearts and caring for them. I just have a really strong belief that children should feel loved and secure and affirmed. And all this is done by just eye contact and just caring for their hearts and listening to them. So that's one way that life and a little bit of age and the grace of the Lord has kind of softened me. Yes.

I also agree that Jesus has transformed me into more of a servant. I wasn't raised in a godly home or a religious home by any means. And the world thinks that children are kind of a burden. And so then I became a Christian, and I realized that children are a gift from God, and they're wonderful little beings, these precious little things that God places in our care. And I have become definitely a servant. Before, I was a very selfish person, and now I've just learned to die to myself and put others before me.

My husband is included in that as well. I remember it was in Colossians reading, "And whatever you do, do it hardly, as to the Lord and not to men." And that stuck with me one day. And it doesn't matter if I'm doing laundry or washing dishes or taking care of sick children in the middle of the night, night after night, just do it as you're doing it to the Lord. And that has brought me so much joy and so much peace and so much purpose in the small, little, boring, mundane things that I do in my day-to-day.

That's really gotten me through a lot of things that, yes, I am doing this for my family, but more importantly, I'm doing it for the Lord. And there's just so much meaning and significance in that. So I would say that's the biggest thing that God has been doing in my life is, yeah, making me a glad servant. I really like that, Christina. That's inspiring. I believe that mothering has helped me to be more understanding, that people are on a journey, and I don't know their whole story.

There have been times we've had things to work through with our children, maybe with the school teacher, some school teacher, someone else for some reason. And I really wanted them to be understanding with my children. And of course, I knew why my children were the way they were. And I felt like they didn't know my children's whole story. And somehow that just made me more compassionate that I'm gracious with others on their journey, realizing that they have a good reason for what they're struggling with.

Thank you. That was a high call there that you shared with us. And I was thinking that for me, thinking about the areas in my life, like, "Wow, I have a lot of room to grow." And I thought how beautiful it is that it doesn't matter where you are in your mothering journey. We can start today. There's things we need to repent of. So as we're listening, let's not listen with shame and condemnation. Let's be excited. I just love hearing from all of you.

And this is just giving me a great list of things that I can start praying and asking God to help me with in my life. I'm really excited about our next question. One of my passions is serving alongside of our children. Sometimes in the practical, it can need some help to work it all out. So number four, our fourth question is, what are ways you can serve alongside your children? And Janie, do you mind starting with this? I'd love to hear from you. Yeah. Well, singing at rest homes, visiting shut-ins.

We have a comfort center, comforter center nearby that the children just love, grandchildren. And I took my own children. We would actually have a homeschool day where we would invite others, homeschoolers, and we would go and cut out squares and knot comforts. We've done hygiene kit packing, some of those kit packing things for CAM. Children love doing things like that. And now I wasn't good at this one, but children love to have their fingers in the mixing bowl.

And so if they can help you with stirring up cookies for the mom with the new baby, they love doing things like that. Now, we did a lot of traveling in our ministry, and we took our children along. So that was just part of their normal life, was traveling with ministry. I find in the stage of life that I'm in, my role is a lot to enable my children to serve and my husband.

It usually works best if I stay home, make sure everything is scheduled and under control, and allow my children and my husband to serve better, more a support role. Through the years, we've done things like singing for people, passing out Bible story books in cities, CAMs, 101 Bible story books. We served on the mission field together in South America. We've shoveled snow for our neighbor, landscaped our neighbor's yard. We still do that.

It seems as our children got older, they sort of have their own goals, ministries that they begin to get involved in. So I tend to be the one to stay home so they can go. Or maybe they want to bring city children out, and I help with that. One thing my daughter does for me right now is on Thursday nights, she makes supper so I can teach English to my neighbor who is from Kazakhstan. And my daughters have taken their turns. I have three wonderful daughters who have enabled me to serve other people at times.

They take over the house so I can go with Anthony. But as a whole, we like to do things as a family. We've taken our children to lots of strange churches and schools, and I think it was good for them. But yeah, like I said, right now, it feels like maybe my role is just a little bit more support. I love that, Valerie, because I think that is very true, and it encourages me. As I'm sitting here listening, I'm thinking about my family, and I'm thinking about children.

Sometimes I think, especially young children, my children tend to be more on the shy side. And I think sometimes if we go somewhere for the purpose of ministry or whatever, they might see themselves as not really a part of it. They're just kind of tagging along. But I think it's important, as we raise our children, to just show them it matters how you interact with people because they want you to talk to them too. They want to see your smile. They want to know that you're listening and that you care.

And so just little things like that, I think, getting your children involved. And yeah, we've tried to reach out to our neighbors around here just in different practical ways. Even just I think a lot of times people just are lonely, especially elderly who might live alone. And so just, yeah. And even going places with children is just ministers within itself without trying sometimes. And we just hear that so often. It's just such a blessing to see your family because people just love seeing children.

And so I think just telling your children, "You are a blessing, and it's a blessing to others when they see you and they see your smile," that shows them that they can be involved in blessing others. Yeah, I agree with you, Lindsay. There's something about Christian children that bring joy to people. Children bring joy to people anyways. But raised in a Christian home, they tend to be a little bit more obedient and joyful. And people notice that.

Our neighbors notice that, especially if you have them in your home and they sit. And you might think maybe the dinner's not going well, your children are a little bit naughty or something like that. But to them, it's most likely the opposite. And they think your children are acting wonderful. So I think that's a huge testimony. That's one way I do like to serve as well. My husband goes out, and he goes to work, and he meets people. He meets more people than I do. But then he brings people home.

And then I'm able to serve them a meal. Our children and I and all of us sit around the table, and we talk with them, and they make them feel welcome. So that's one way that we serve alongside our children. I also love to bring a meal or a loaf of banana bread or something like that to a troubled neighbor as well. And I always bring my children with me when I do things like that. We receive the Christian Aid Ministries, the CAM newsletters, and I read the stories to my children.

And then I get them to pick which one they would like to donate some money to. So I actually involve them as well when it comes to donating money. And then you can just be friendly at the playground with other people and other moms or at the grocery store as well, just being kind and friendly. I think that makes a difference when your children see that. And I loved also what Janie said about singing for the elderly.

My children and I actually have a monthly Zoom call with a lady that's in the retirement center that doesn't really have a family that talks to her very much. And this call brings her so much joy. The reason we're doing Zoom is because we started doing it over COVID, and it just kind of stuck that way. I don't live near her now. So if you want to bring your children to a retirement center, old people love children. It brings them joy. Encourage you to do something like that as well, so. That was all so well said.

And I love what I heard. And what I've always believed is that we don't serve God in spite of our families, but we serve Him with our families. And our families are never, ever a detriment. That I've just seen how God has showed that true over and over again. So thank you. You all affirm that so well. Yes. So next, we're going to have a question from the chat. And I'm going to direct this to Christina and Lindsay, first of all, and then others can pitch in.

But what advice would you offer to parents who are new to a walk with Christ coming out of the world and stepping into the concept of community as a Christian and finding like-minded Christians to edify and have your children around? So what have you found that has been a blessing for you and has worked for you in regards to your children? Well, yeah, I would say, yeah, it's hard to answer that question, I guess.

But yeah, I think we're all on a journey, and especially for a new believer coming into a new understanding and then wanting maybe to change things. I'm assuming the question is maybe wanting to change maybe the way you've done things with your children or integrate with Christians. So yeah, I think we need God's grace in those times.

But I think just having a level of openness and vulnerability, not only just with your own family, but with others around you to say, "Hey, here's where we're coming from." We don't understand things maybe fully, yeah, because it does take time to grow in the Lord, and He's very patient with us. But yeah, for me, I kind of maybe Christina could answer more how that transition was for her because I've always kind of raised my children with the understanding of Jesus being the way and the truth.

And so yeah, I know that can be a challenging transition, especially taking children through that. So I don't know, Christina, if you would have any thoughts. My oldest was two when we came to Christ, and my second child was three weeks old. So they didn't really notice a difference in that sort of sense. But the first church that we went to when we came to the Lord was a very, what I'm going to call, worldly church. They weren't really obedient to Christ. It was basically a big social club, I would say.

And people were very friendly there. And we were very happy at first to have friends that had children that were good children. But then as we started growing in our journey, we kind of realized that maybe things aren't really the way that we want to be raising our children with things like just things that they watch and what they're able to wear and that kind of stuff. So how did we find like-minded Christian? That's a whole testimony in itself. It was a huge journey for my husband and I.

But what we started doing is with our Christian friends that we were going to church with is we were starting to read books or listen to messages that were really shaping how we think and how we feel. And then we would get them to watch that message and talk to them about it afterwards. Or we were handing out books and seeing kind of where people fall. And if maybe they were receptive to that, then we were trying to go deeper with them and see if they truly wanted to have an obedient relationship with Christ.

I don't know if this is answering your question at all, but it can be hard to find like-minded Christians. But like Lindsay said, everyone is on a journey, all of us, no matter what age or how long you've been a Christian for. So we need to give people time and grace to grow as well. Yeah. Sorry, I'm not sure if that really answered your question, but. Thank you for your input on those.

And I come from my perspective is I can remember the first time that my whole family stepped foot in a church, and I was 9 or 10 years old. I can remember my dad became a Christian. And to the mother who was really longing and wanting something different for her children, never underestimate the power of prayer. So I know my mother longed for something different. For many years, I went to public school for most of my school years.

And there are—I mean, obviously, I look at my own children, and I really value what they have been given. But God worked in my life too. And so never, ever underestimate the power of what you can teach your children and the power of prayer and how God can lead your journey. The age of the children would really make a big difference too. The older the child is, the harder the changes would be for them.

Of course, I grew up in a plain home, but I can remember going to public school and actually being embarrassed for my friends to know that I belong to this different-looking set of parents. That was in my teenage years. So definitely, if homeschooling had been an option to remove me from that environment, it would have saved some of the struggles that I had. Let's move on to our next question. And this is a question that we're faced with as parents in the world that we live in.

And so yeah, I'm looking forward to hear what you all have to say. How do you establish or model healthy technology use to your children? And then what boundaries have you set for your children? Valerie, why don't you start with your response? Okay. Well, I did not grow up with much technology. I didn't have a cell phone until we were married maybe, I don't know, pretty many years, 15 years maybe. No, maybe not quite that long. But an email would have been before that. So I'm probably a little bit strict.

I use my phone mostly for relationships, scheduling, planning. And I find that the challenge I have with my technology now is pretty much the same challenge as I had with my line phone and email. That tension between time for your children, time for other people, how much should your children sacrifice? Because you want them to learn to sacrifice and not just be demanding of your time all the time. So yeah, that tension is there no matter what, I think. I don't do Pinterest.

I use my smartphone some for recipes, small amount of music. By the way, Lindsay, I enjoy your family's music. Small amount of research, small amount of shopping, but I just mostly use it for relationships. Boundaries for my children. They don't get a phone, their own phone, until they're driving alone. So once they have their license, then we get them a phone, but that phone has no internet on it until they're older. We have a rule: no phones in the bedroom. They leave it downstairs when they go up to bed.

No phones during family times, meal times, driving. No texting the opposite gender. We make an exception for group chats where the youth are planning something or there's a singing group planning, whatever, those kinds of things. And as far as other technology, we don't do video games at all. Occasional educational videos, occasional tutorials. Yeah, that's about where we draw our lines. Yeah.

I think as we're faced with the wave of technology, and especially smartphones and internet, it's such a new challenge to this generation upcoming. And yeah, so I think we're learning how to navigate that as Christians, as people, and we want to be intentional. We don't want to just assume that our children will figure it out. It's sort of like my husband makes this analogy. You wouldn't give a five-year-old a chainsaw and just expect that they would be able to figure out how to use it.

It's like technology and internet, smartphones, they're a powerful tool. And if they're used for good, they can be really, really powerful, but they can also be used for a lot of evil. And so I think it's important that as our children are growing up, that as they get to an appropriate age, even before they are using these things, just educate them so that they understand what even this is. This is a piece of technology that these are all the things you can do on it.

These are all the harmful things that can happen on here. Not so that it's just this mystery, like, "Oh, I can't wait till I can get my smartphone so that I can do all these things that I really want to do." But so they can know, "Here is what this is." But we're not at the point yet where our children don't have phones. My oldest is 14. But there are times we don't allow them to look things up on the internet by themselves. Or if we want to pull up something for them to watch, we do it.

We don't let them pull it up. We have passwords on our computer and phones and things. And then we have an internet filter just because it's good to have that. And I would say my husband does enjoy watching educational things with the boys. They just enjoy doing that together. And so yeah, they are consuming things that way. But I think when we approach it as, "This is a tool. This can be used for good or for evil," I think that's an important way to approach it. Yeah.

I don't really have anything to add as far as our own personal experience because our children were cell phones were just a brand new thing coming out when our children were growing up. But I have seen in my daughter's home some of the rules that Valerie mentioned. I want to really endorse that. No phones in the bedroom and family time, meal time, and no phones.

Then they actually have—my daughter has a basket in the kitchen that the children—they have several older children that they keep their phones in the basket, and they can be charged from the basket. It's just good to have them there. For us, I try to just not be on my phone very much to model a healthy use of my phone. It's so easy to get caught up on your phone with responding to messages or emails or looking up something quick that you want to kind of learn about or this and that and the other.

There's so many things. And I don't want my children to think it's normal that the mom or father or whomever just is looking at their phone all the time because if they think that's normal, then that's probably the way that they're going to be as well. So I try to dedicate certain times throughout the day where I'm able to respond to messages and things like that. Another thing too that I try to keep in mind is my children don't know what I'm doing on my phone.

I could be playing a game, or I could be talking to someone important, having an important conversation. To them, it's no different. It's just me staring at this phone that's kind of that they want to play with too, right? So I just try to model healthy behavior in that sense. And we have the rule as well that no phones at the table. We're supposed to have family time then. My husband and I are not sitting on our phones. Our children are still young. They're not allowed to play with their phones.

Sometimes we will watch educational videos or things like that. But again, like Lindsay said, we look it up. We decide what it's going to be and that kind of thing. And yeah, I think that's all I have for that one right now. Oh, when it comes to movies and things like that, that was definitely a journey for us. I'm used to just watching whatever. And then I didn't really want my children to be like that when I became a mother.

But as we've gone on this journey, I just realized that a lot of entertainment is just not really healthy. Usually, it desensitizes your children to certain concepts, different things, divorce and remarriage, for example, or immodesty and things like that. So we have gone away from watching a lot of entertainment. And so now we kind of stick to things that are maybe more educational and stuff like that when the time comes. But yeah. Some good insight there. And I really like some of the things that you had to say.

And it's just a good discipline. I think it's become a spiritual discipline to know how to use your media well. So another question for the chat. And Janie, I'll direct this to you first. Says, "I really appreciate each one's honesty and wisdom in sharing. Praise God for this platform and the godly encouragement you all are. Each one today is in a healthy marriage, and I believe God is so good in His design of families in this way.

But I'm sure that someone may have experience to share with regards to a godly mother raising children on her own with an unchristian husband or no husband." I'm not sure I caught what the question was. Just. Yeah. So I'll just read the last part of that again. It says, "But I'm sure that someone might have experience to share with regards to a godly mother raising children on her own with an unchristian husband or no husband." Well, I think the Bible would teach that we do that respectfully to our husband.

Where it's not happening with the husband, we still want to respect him, but yet the children still have to—they have that need for teaching and instructing in God's word and hearing the Bible studies. And if it's done appropriately, I think the husband can appreciate the joy and the gladness that it brings to the home and just the loving atmosphere that it is. It can be a light to him, actually. I think that the wife would have to just lean on the Lord all the more since she can't lean on her husband.

I think you answered that question well, Janie. Janie, sorry. And yeah, it's a hard place to be in. And I have great compassion for—and it makes me realize how much I need to appreciate my own godly husband. But I would say if you are in a place where you can be under spiritual authority in a church and your children can be exposed to good role models, I think that's really valuable. I think we'll move on to our next question.

So what is one of your most challenging things about your motherhood right now in the season you're in? And how are you addressing it? And Christina, why don't we let you start with this one? Sure. So one of my biggest challenges is that I do a lot around the house and with everything because of the ages of my children. But I do believe that children, even young children, are able to do things to help out and have responsibility.

I'm trying to create ways to give my children more responsibilities right now, especially my six-year-old, but my four-year-old's very capable of doing things as well. So one of the things I just implemented recently is a little chore or responsibility chart. And so they have little things that they need to do. And it even includes, in the morning, taking your pajamas off, putting your clothes on, putting your pajamas either away or in the laundry, and making your bed.

And their bed doesn't look great, but they have to pull up their blankets. And then going to the bathroom, brushing their teeth, and things like that. And so that I'm not consistently asking them every step of the way every single day.

It's just, "That's what you do." I just ask them, "Go look at your responsibility chart and make sure you're doing everything that you need." So that's really helped with alleviating me feeling exasperated, I guess, in the morning and in the evening, especially, and throughout the day. And then when it comes to doing chores and stuff for young children, I really do believe that they can do a lot. Children at a young age, like my two-year-old, he just recently turned two. He picks up his toys. I help him, of course.

We sing a little song to make it fun. And my six-year-old still today sometimes will sing that song as he's picking up toys. And because I started doing it at a young age, my six-year-old is used to it. I just say, "Go clean up the toy room," and he runs and he cleans the toys up because that's just been part of his routine growing up. Other things that children can do is put clothes in the laundry. They can help empty the dishwasher.

Young children can put the utensils in the proper spots in a utensil tray, things like that. I was actually listening to a podcast by Elizabeth Elliott, and she says that we buy all these toys for our children now. We buy the little shape sorter, and you have to put the shapes into the right holes. And she goes, "They can do that with utensils too." So I thought that was pretty funny. And then even putting some of the groceries away, maybe they can put the cans on the shelf or things like that.

I think including your children in things like that is good. It helps them to learn responsibility and will help me or help the mother in the end as well when they're just used to doing things like that. They don't do it perfectly. The utensils don't look as nice as I would like them to, but it's just a phase and a season in life, and I know that it's going to—it will get better as well. So that's kind of what I'm working on right now. Yeah. I bless you in that, Christina.

I think you're doing a good job with the diligence, and that will really pay off in the years to come. Yeah, I would resonate with that. I would say probably the biggest challenge to me right now as a mother is just balancing every facet of life and specifically the homeschooling and then balancing that with all of my other daily responsibilities. And our family, we live in a very old house, and we're constantly renovating it. It just needs a lot of work. And so my boys are very much involved in that.

And so, yeah, I guess for me, it's just learning how to prioritize what is important for me to focus my time on. And yeah, but I believe that how I'm addressing that, the first place I need to start with that is asking God for wisdom. And yeah, I was really struggling with this around the new year. I was really feeling overwhelmed and just like I just really felt like I couldn't do any—I just couldn't do it. And I was just praying, asking God, like, "How do I need to reorder my life?

How do I need to reorder my days?" And I believe that God was showing me I just really need to—I just really need to let go of some things and just needing to just take more time to slow down because I can become very task-oriented throughout my day. And I can just get through the day and realize that I haven't even looked at one of my children in the eyes or I haven't connected with them other than telling them to do something because it's easy for me to just direct people. Or sometimes it's challenging to direct.

But if that's the only way I'm interacting with my children at the end of the day, that can just feel like we didn't really connect on an important way. And so I feel like God was showing me I just need to—I really do need to slow down and just let some things go. It's okay if the floor is a mess. It will be a mess again in 20 minutes, even if we sweep it. And so maybe we just need to sit down together.

And so I've felt a lot more peace just in the past few months with making some changes and letting go of some things. I'm a great supporter of charts for children, especially for morning routines. And one of the things that we always included on our chart when they were quite young, but just learning how to read, was just that they would have their daily reading time of a short little Bible story or something out of a simple book that they could read.

One thing we did for laundry would, I would say, everyone fold your own clothes plus 10 or plus 20 so they could start grabbing washcloths and whatever they wanted to fold. And that way, we could get the pile done pretty quickly. I'd say my most challenging thing about motherhood right now is the span of ages relating to daughters away from home, those at home, older ones, younger ones, to be a mentor and a disciple to the older ones, yet train the younger ones and spend time like I did with my older ones.

I remember when it just struck me that my younger ones aren't—I'm not reading to them. I'm not spending time with them because I'm so busy keeping everything going for my busy older children. And this year, just this school year, I started to homeschool for the first. We sent children to school for 20 years. And so I just have the two. But that has really helped me to connect with them. But there was a short time where I was focusing on reading to them. And I'm a little bit spoiled.

I have daughters who really care about that. And so they might say, "Go outside and play with them or go be with the little ones. I'll wash the dishes or whatever it is. I'll take care of the laundry." But yeah, I did things like making sure I went to pick them up at school. And we talked about the day on the way home or stopping along the way to pick a wildflower or go check out the eagle's nest that was on the way home from school that we could see. Those kinds of things. I'm not sure.

I feel like I'm still in that challenge. But I'm trying to just be deliberate about blessing my older children and my younger children at the same time, supporting my husband. I think in our time of life, middle age, we have more responsibilities and demands outside of the home, possibly. And so to balance that thing of saying no because our family comes first, yeah, it's a challenge. I think intentionality is really important.

Just like we have our lists that we're intentional about getting some of our work done, and we make a list for that. Sometimes it's good to make a list for those things that wouldn't happen but are very, very important, just like spending time or having a picnic, things that aren't really necessary, but yet they are. Thank you for that input. And yeah, it's interesting because I'm a little bit like Valerie, where I have a span of ages. And so I have the challenges.

And I know I find for myself, one of my challenges is, and I was thinking about as Christina was talking about her young children, that my children remind me quite often that our three-year-old doesn't quite know some of the tasks that they knew at that age. And they're right. And so that's one of the challenges that I can find is to not let some of that training slip with the younger ones. But thank you. Thank you. That was a lot of good things.

So another question that's related to that is how to teach diligence and I think maybe even initiation. So the question from the chat says, "How do I teach children diligence without a chart or a checklist?" It seems like there's willingness to just get it off the list and nothing beyond that. I want them to have the desire to go beyond the checklist. So how do you help to teach your children initiation? And Valerie, why don't you start with this one? That's a good question.

I do think that sometimes those externals of a chart, a guideline, maybe a timer, it does develop an internal motivation. I agree that you want them to do it. But I think reality is maybe it will take a long time of the chart and the encouragement, the incentive, and then they will internalize that. The chart, it forms the habit for them, but then they can begin to experience just the fulfillment of the blessing of having done that. Doesn't it feel good to have that done?

And that can prompt them and encourage them to how they're feeling about it and to want to do it. I'm not really sure exactly because I agree. I still have young children, but I wish that they would want to just kind of maybe do a little bit more.

And I think maybe I do expect a lot from my children at young ages, but just maybe being a lot of positive affirmation for them and showing them that you're proud of them when they do things like help out around the house or pointing out things when they do do good, just making note of that or paying attention to that.

I know I find if our home is we're having really good days and things are going very well and there's just the presence of God is just so strong in our home, I find then my children do seem to be a little bit more kinder to each other and want to do a little bit more. So just fostering a home that's full of love and joy, I think out of that, children have the desire to want to help a little bit more. But I also think that there's different personalities or there are different personalities.

And so depending on what personality your children or a specific child is, they might only want to just do that little checklist and nothing more. So I'm not sure exactly the situation you have there, but providing a healthy, loving, kind, fostering home does help, I think, with having a child wanting to do things for the mother or father. I think those compliments and that confirmation that you talk about, I think that's huge. Yeah. Thank you for that. And there's two things that I would add to that too.

And one is communication. Communicate to your children, "This is the things that I need to get done today. Is there something that you would like to help me with?" Or the other thing that I'll do for my children is say, "Okay, here's the list. Go ahead. You can pick which one you want to do," and let them look at it and decide. So that's something that I've personally done. We made it fun sometimes by just putting jobs into a bowl, like drawing names for Christmas. Only you draw jobs.

That just adds a little bit of suspense. And I think it was motivating too to draw a job. And it's like, "Okay, let's get it done." I know a friend, she lets her children listen to audiobooks while they're folding the big giant pile of laundry. They'll listen to a book while they do it. And that's fun for them. And it helps them be motivated to do it as well. Another thing I did for my children sometimes, and they loved it.

I didn't do it every time because I didn't want it to lose its enjoyment or whatever motivation. But I would tear a coloring book picture out of a coloring book and write a job on each of the spots, like on the mouse's ear and on a different job on his body and whatever. And as they did the job, they would come back and color it. And my older children still talk about that. They thought that made work so fun. And race. Race is another thing.

When you have this big, huge mountain of laundry to see who can fold 50 the best or, I mean, the fastest. Yeah, good. Those are awesome. Great ideas. I like that. Remember, my children were young and still getting in the groove of doing chores with young children.

And sometimes maybe if we were folding wash or some things and maybe it was wintertime and I had children who needed to burn off some energy, maybe I'd have them fold so many pieces of wash and then they did so many jumping jacks or maybe they would crawl across the room or. Sounds kind of chaotic now, but we had a lot of fun and the wash got folded and they're still folding wash. So it worked.

So I have a question that I like to ask, and you can just answer this one real quickly, but to each of you four, what's one practical tip that you found to help your day flow smoother? Just anything. And let me see. I'd love to start with Lindsay. I actually don't know if she's on the call. I think I don't see her up here. I think she got bounced off. She's back on now. Yeah. My battery had died, but I'm here now.

So yeah, there's a couple of things that come to mind, but there's some practical things, like always going to sleep, making sure things are picked up and kind of set in place for the next day. And then, yeah, just. But more than that, I find that if I can smile more, then my day goes smoother. If I can remember to smile at my children, it actually lifts my mood and it makes them feel happier. And so it's easy to just get really focused on what I'm doing and not even remember to have joy.

And so yeah, I would say just it goes smoother if I smile. I'll share a tip that my cousin gave to me one time. And it's been a blessing to me. I call it the one-minute rule. I tend to be a scatterbrain, not real routine managing kind of a person. So I tend to start on something and I get distracted. First thing I know, I'm in the middle of the laundry and here I'm cleaning out this drawer because I put something away and it's been bothering me for a long time. So I quick clean it out.

Anyway, the rule is don't do it unless you can do it in a minute. So if you're cleaning up your kitchen and there's something that belongs in the basement, if you can do it in a minute, come back, sure. But if it's starting a project that will take longer, leave it for another day, plan it in another day. And that's really helped me. I didn't feel real qualified on this, so I asked my daughter. She has a very large family. And a thing that's been really helpful for them is meal planning ahead of time.

Right now, they're just doing lunch and supper, but a week at a time and to make sure that they have all the ingredients on hand so that the moment arrives, okay, it's time to fix our lunch. We're having this. It's on the refrigerator chart. And we have the ingredients. We can get it done. And so it can be assigned. And when the children were a little bit younger, I think maybe she did maybe a whole month at a time, and it would have just been the evening meal then.

One thing I do to make my day smoother or our day smoother is schedule and routine. If my children know what to expect because it's the same thing pretty much every day, then it just makes the house flow smoother. It makes them happier. I find children thrive off of schedule. I know that not everyone is maybe as particular as I am, and that's fine. You don't have to be if that's not really how you work or it stresses you out.

But I think having a structure to your day, kind of they expect the same thing in the morning and especially before bedtime, that really helps. And I love what Lindsay said about smiling. Sometimes it's hard for me to remember to smile, and it makes such a difference. Just look at your children and smile. Even if they did something wrong and you're trying to talk to them about it, just you're there with them. You're on their side, right? Yeah.

I should put little sticky notes up around my house saying, "Remember to smile." You've probably all heard that old saying, "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." Another part of my daughter's routine is just toy pickup in the house. And that would be before naps, they would pick up toys. And then the evening after supper, they would pick up toys. And usually, the approach for that was just assigning or children would pick a room. One child would pick the dining room. Another one would pick the living room.

Another picked the toy room. And that way, they don't have the whole house, and they just have one room, and it looks doable. Yeah. I have one more thing to say. I heard it somewhere, and it was great advice, and I would like to share it here. Telling your children, your young children especially, what you expect before you go into a store. So I'll stop them right at the door and say, "Okay, I expect you to stay with me in the cart. There's no running. This is what we're going to go do.

I'm going to go kind of here. This is maybe how long it's going to take." Just explain to them just a little bit. They don't need a lot of detail, especially too much detail sometimes kind of just goes over their head. But tell your children what you're going to expect of them. And it's amazing how your store trip will go.

And you think, "Okay, the next time we said that just the other day, they're going to remember." No, every single time before you go into the store, just say, "I expect you to stand near the cart. There's no running in the store," whatever other rules you might have. And it's amazing how they respond to that and listen. So that has helped me tremendously going places. Okay. I have really enjoyed our discussion. And we are getting to the point now where we should start thinking about closing.

But we have a couple of questions in the chat, and we're going to try to quickly run through those. So I think Linelle will ask one, and then I will. And what we'll do is we'll just ask one of you to answer the question so you don't have to all four of you feel like you need to answer. See if we can just give a little input to these questions. So go ahead, Linelle. Okay. So this one I'm going to give to you, Valerie. And this is the one on sitting still. So my children are two and three-year-old boys.

Do you all make them sit still? How do you do that with your children? Do you do it with reading, singing? I've heard this said a few times from other Christian moms. I'm curious how you do it. We practice in our family worship. It's hard to practice at church. So that's what we did. I think I remember sort of sitting off to the side because it would disturb our children or the other children. If there was a lot of crying because I was making the child sit still or whatever, sat on a chair.

I think Anthony already sometimes sat in front of our children, made everybody sit up straight. And when we all do it together, that worked good too. Okay. Thanks. That was a really great input. And now this question is, how do you help your children, most of all, to love God with their all? And Jamie, I'd love if you could give us some input on this.

Well, I think if we are rejoicing in the Lord and speaking of Him just as we go about our work, as we take walks and just share in His goodness, I think that our children will definitely respond to that and begin to just have that love that we have. We'll have to communicate it, though, to them. Thank you for that. And then the last question here. And Lindsay, I'm going to give this to you. I am a new Christian and planning on having children soon.

And I wanted to know, how do I go about homeschooling, more specifically about the curriculum? I have no idea where to start. Yeah. It can definitely be an overwhelming prospect getting started. But I would say, especially since you don't have children yet and just as you think about what your vision for homeschooling, I would say, especially when they're really little, the best way you can homeschool is just playing, reading.

Children, when they're really little, that's kind of their work, and that's the important thing. They learn so much just through exploring their environment, being outside. If you live in a place where you can be outside and just explore with them and show them things. But I think reading is a really important way to get your children ready for learning and just reading with them. But yeah, I would say even for myself, now I do have boys. And some people say that boys are a little bit less.

I wouldn't know because I've only schooled boys. But boys aren't always just wanting to sit and do school all day. So I think there's other ways that children learn, especially when they're little. And yeah, there's a lot of really good curriculum out there. But I would say just start with basics and don't get overwhelmed or stuck with thinking about curriculum.

Yeah, just exploring and enjoying God's creation with your children and just teaching them to just appreciate it for what it is and learning alongside them, spending time with them. And then as they get older, you start looking at curriculum. But keep it simple. Keep it basic. Don't try to overcomplicate or get overwhelmed. But yeah, I pray God will lead you as you go on that journey. Thank you all so much for your input and for sharing what the Spirit of God laid on your heart.

I just feel like we've all been richly blessed. It's been a very worthwhile hour. And I was thinking as I was listening to you all and just so much, yeah, and just even everyone who is on the call. And I was just thinking about the verse in Hebrews 12, how that we're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. And let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

And I know that's what each of these mothers would say today. They've shared, and we've been so blessed. And what I love is that I've seen Jesus in them. And so as we go forth, let's not become discouraged because we may not be able to attain to what we think somebody said. They were sharing what God laid on their heart. And now each of us, we can pray, we can read God's word, and he'll continue to shape us and to sanctify us and to make us each into the mothers that he wants us to be.

So thank you again to Jamie and Valerie and Christina and Lindsay. You have done well in sharing your heart with us. Thank you. God bless you. Before we close, I'd like to announce our talk next month. And it's going to be a talk by Janelle Glick on May 6th. And she is going to speak to us on intentional relationships, peace within, between, and among.

And she's planning to share from some women in the New Testament and then also just explore the different ways that we can be at peace among ourselves and our congregations. And yeah, you're all welcome to come back. And we'd love to have you. And we can continue just to seek God and to grow together. So before we close our call today, I'd like to ask Jamie, do you mind leading us in prayer, please? Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for your goodness, for being with us.

We pray, Father, that this can be a time that has greatly encouraged some mothers and that they have found some answers. We pray that you would have us remember what needs to be remembered and help us with the application of these things that we've heard. Just pray, Father, for your hand of anointing on what has gone forth. We know that your word doesn't return void. And so we do pray for fruitfulness and blessing to go with what has been spoken. And we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you so, so much.

God bless you all. Go in peace. Walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work.