S2S Sisters: "God’s Design for Nurturing: Cultivating Life in Those Around You" by Beth Byler:

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. We're so glad to have you join us today. We're excited for the talk that Beth is going to be sharing with us. My name is Lynelle Martin, and we are from the State College, Pennsylvania.

My husband, Bryant, and I have a café here, and we're part of the Followers of Jesus Congregation here in State College. And we're excited for this talk today. This is another talk in our God's Design for Womanhood series. And here are some of the questions that we gave to Beth in thinking about preparing for this talk. What are the unique ways that God has designed women to nurture life? What does that mean for mothers and also for unmarried sisters? How does nurturing apply in a spiritual sense? And what does it also mean in a physical sense?

Beth comes to us from Perry County. She lives there with her husband and now nine children. They have 11 children ranging in age from 23 to 3. Their two oldest daughters are married and each have a baby boy. Beth is enjoying the challenges of being a mom and grandma every chance she gets. She also helps to care for John's Down Syndrome brother, Luke, who lives with them and gives them lots of opportunity for laughter and fun.

And they attend Perry Believers Fellowship in Elliottsburg, Pennsylvania. She loves walks with her husband, homeschooling her children, baking sourdough bread, visiting a lonely neighbor, and rocking her baby. Beth is looking to Jesus every day to give strength and wisdom in this journey of motherhood and beyond. She longs to be a blessing to her sisters in Christ as we work together to nurture life.

So thank you so much, Beth, for joining us. I am looking forward to what you have to share with us. I know that you will have lots of rich truths for us, and we're glad to have you join us. Let's just pray before you get started.

Father in heaven, thank you for this chance to be together as sisters this afternoon. Thank you for being a great God, and we love you, and we're so undeserving of the privilege of being your sons and daughters. And Father, we look at you as our Father God, and we can see the ways that you have nurtured and cared for us. And we know that as we are here in the world that we live in, the realms that we walk in, we are to be your hands and feet, which means being like you. And so today we want to dig into a little bit of what that looks like with the thought of nurturing. How do we nurture like you do?

So I pray that you would be with Beth as she talks about some of these things. Pray that you would bless her with a clear mind and pray that you would fill her with your spirit. Thank you for your many blessings to us. We want to glorify you in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Okay, go ahead, Beth. Well, good afternoon, sisters. Thank you for your prayers and support. I definitely feel them today.

So today I get to talk to you about a subject that interests us as women very much because we are very involved in it. We do it all the time, and that is the subject of nurturing.

Yesterday, one of my friend's little girls came over. We were babysitting, and she brought this tiny baby bunny.

It wasn't super tiny. It had fur, and they were carrying it around. And my girls and her, they were taking care of this bunny. It was fun to—it was so fun to hold and try to feed it. And I was thinking about that. It's even in little girls to want to nurture. God made us as women to just love to nurture.

And I wasn't so sure that that bunny was feeling nurtured, but I guess I was thinking about it that I find myself

like those girls a lot of times. I want to nurture, but I'm not sure how. And oh, many times in raising children, I felt like, "God, you're going to have to show me how to do this because I don't know how to do it. I've never been there before."

And so do I really know how? And what do you think of when I say the word nurture? What comes to your mind? Do you have a friend that you just love to go to her house, and she invites you in and she says, "Sit down. How are you doing?" And she gives you a cup of tea, or maybe you go on a walk together. And I was just thinking about that. That is nurture.

Sisters nurturing each other as we talk and share and minister to each other physically and spiritually and emotionally. This is nurturing. And so how do we do it well? And it's not just about mothers because obviously when we are mothers, we are nurturing children every day, all the time. But this is about more than that too. Obviously, yeah, our husbands, our children, and our brothers and sisters.

And we want to be that for the people around us. We want to be able to give life. That's how I define nurturing. So the dictionary definition I found is to feed and protect or support and encourage, to bring up, train, educate. That sounds like a lot, right? That's a big job. And it is.

I have a quote here from Sacred Parenting that says, "A man or woman bent toward care and nurture no longer lives for himself or herself. They live for others."

And maybe that's why becoming a mom grows you up.

But at least for myself, because I'm sure I was very selfish and immature, and children have a way of growing you up, right?

Another quote from the same book, "Parenting," and I'd like to say nurturing, "invites us into a very complex process of sanctification. We'll mature or we'll collapse, but we won't remain unchanged." Nurturing is, yeah, it's going to change us.

I would like to give you a picture of what I saw a few weeks ago. As we sat at a music program, some of my children were singing in a music program, and we sat there, and I looked across the aisle at a family that was sitting over there. And the father was holding a little baby, maybe eight months old. And the baby was just beaming and just so happy.

And I looked past and saw the mother sitting there, and she was holding this three-year-old, two-year-old Down Syndrome girl in her lap. And the thing that was so impressive to me, the mother was also beaming.

And I just thought about that picture that I saw. I was seeing nurturing. I'm sure that mother, I know that family just a little bit. I know they have been through hard things. And yet there they are with joy, and I just felt like she's doing a good job.

So I want to do something great for God.

And sometimes we can feel like that would be out there somewhere. But who are the people that God is putting in your life right here? What about our husbands, our children? What about maybe you're taking care of your father? And it seems like a drudgery, and it seems like a load. And it is sometimes. But we get an opportunity to nurture them and to give them life because God gives us life. And the same for our sisters at church. Yeah, we have a great opportunity to make a difference in their lives.

So I would like to look at a few different points, examples from the Bible on nurturing.

God created women to nurture. Are we as women just naturally nurturers? Can I nurture if I'm not being nurtured?

Nurturing takes courage. Why does it take courage to do something that God created us to do? It's because we could fail. What if I don't have what it takes? Do you know what I'm talking about? These fears. What if I'm not good at this? What if I don't know how?

And I feel like we can rest assured that God knows what we need when He gives us a new baby.

He gives us grace to get up at night and change the baby and nurse the baby and stay up more hours than we thought we could. But He doesn't give us grace for teenagers right there. We have grace for a new baby, but we don't have grace for the next step. And we have to know that God will give us that to be able to nurture teenagers when we get there.

Can you imagine the kind of courage it took for Moses' mother, Jacobed, to put her little baby in a basket and take him out and leave him there where wicked soldiers could find him? Exodus 2, a couple of verses. "And a man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi. So the woman conceived and bore a son. And when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him three months. But when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark of bullrushes for him, dabbed it with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river's bank."

That was a mighty act of faith in a good God. She believed that God was good. She did what was very hard to do. She let go of her baby. She trusted God completely with him, and God gave him back in a way. She didn't get to keep him maybe, but God saved his life. And another passage I have here in Mark, chapter 16, verse 8, "Now when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome bought spices that they might come and anoint him very early in the morning on the first day of the week. They came to the tomb when the sun had risen, and they said among themselves, 'Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?'

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, for it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. But he said to them, 'Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him, but go and tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you into Galilee. There you will see him as he said to you.' So they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid."

So these women, nurturing takes courage, right?

Imagine the kind of courage it took for them to get up early and go to the tomb. They had to invest. They bought spices. They had just been through the drama of the night before. They were going to the tomb where the Roman soldiers stood guard.

They didn't know what they were getting into.

So nurturing takes courage. They were heartbroken. They had lost their master, their Savior, Jesus. They were afraid, I guess. Nurturing doesn't mean that we're not going to feel afraid sometimes. We might feel like we're taking a leap in the dark, not knowing what we're doing.

What an act of devotion. They loved him. They couldn't just stay at home in bed. They knew where to go. They spent money, and they brought spices.

God created us to nurture. Think of how we are naturally made. God made us soft as women. I say maybe because I feel sometimes like I'm not very soft. Some of us are not very soft, and I've struggled with this one. My baby knocks their head on my bony shoulder.

Okay. But God did give us soft hearts, and that's what matters, right? Our bodies are made to carry life. Don't take for granted the joy of pregnancy. I really enjoyed pregnancy, feeling the baby inside of you. God gives us as women the privilege to carry a baby, and not everyone gets to do that.

So I guess I feel like when we're tired of it, tired of being uncomfortable and all that, to remember the miracle of it and the blessing and the privilege.

When a woman is pregnant, she is even more sensitive to what is needed. Am I eating the right things so this child will grow? Am I getting exercise? Should I be breathing this smell? Should I be lifting this much weight?

We are instinctively tuned into the fact that we are nurturing a baby, and we need to give them the best that we can give them. So even before they're born, we are already nurturing. A verse that I have from Isaiah that I really felt like was special to me when I was carrying babies, especially when I found myself in the hospital with a six-week early baby.

This verse I said over and over, and I know it's a song, so I would sing it. "He shall lead his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those that are with young." And that's God nurturing us.

As women, we feel very deeply, and that works towards nurturing. It can. We feel what is needed. We can see the child that looks sick.

They aren't quite acting right. We see the youth that needs to talk. And that's all helping us to nurture. But our feelings can also hinder us too. So we have to be careful for that because we can be too afraid to do what's right. We can feel sorry for ourselves.

Why do I have to give so much? Why do I have to work so hard, get up at night? We can pity ourselves, which isn't helpful. But remember that being a blessing, being able to feel is a blessing and a gift that God gave us.

So that will be on our side when it comes to nurturing.

God made us to be at home. Nurturing happens at home. We are to be keepers at home. Titus, chapter 2, verse 3 to 5. "The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as become holy." What is it? "Not false accusers, not given too much wine. Teachers of good things, that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste keepers at home. Good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed." Women are good at creating a comfortable nest, a safe place at home.

To make a place like this, it takes energy. We have to be disciplined to be able to have order and restful in our spirits to be able to nurture. But we also have to be at home. We have to be there. If we are gone all the time, we are not creating a place to call home. My husband likes when I'm home. When he gets home from work, he likes when I'm there. And I like to be there.

I think my children like it if I'm home when they get home. They might not say that, but I think that they do. The younger ones are always yelling for Mom. And what do they want? They want the security of knowing Mom is there and they will be cared for. So let's be there and available and dependable.

God created us to mother. We won't all give birth and have our own children, but many of us do. I want to talk to mothers, but I also want to talk to those that are not mothers and they will never give birth. You can still be a mother, a nurturer. You can still nurture life. My mother-in-law was a woman that was a very good listener. She took many young men into their home and was a mother to them. She listened to them. She had such a good ear, and she had good advice. Because she loved the Lord, she had something to give them.

And she didn't have—she wanted to have a dozen children, but she didn't. God didn't give her lots of children. She had a couple. But I would say she had many children because she was able to give life and blessing to a lot of young people, especially young men that they had in their home.

So she might not have had time for that if she would have had a lot of children. God gave her a special gift, that's for sure. Galatians 4:27, "For it is written, 'Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not. Break forth and cry, thou that travailest not. For the desolate have many more children than she which hath an husband.'" So just an encouragement there that you don't have to have your own children to nurture. God will definitely use our gifts if we give them to Him in blessing other people. So you can feed and clothe your children and do all these outward things, but unless we are reaching them emotionally and spiritually, unless we're reaching them there, they're not truly being nurtured.

I mean, children need much more than food and clothes. I wanted to talk about my mother a little bit. I don't have my mother anymore. So she's been gone for five years or so. So if you have your mother, love your mother.

Who else remembers your birthday like your mother? Who else remembers that day? And of course, your father too. But my mother and father spoke of my birth with fondness and joy and made me know that I was wanted. She loved and affirmed me. She told me, "She told me a face without freckles is like a sky without stars."

And so that was just an encouragement that she gave me. I know freckles can be kind of—for some children, they hate it and they wish they wouldn't have freckles. But I didn't struggle with it. I don't know if it's because she encouraged me in that way, maybe. But we have a lot to give our children. She always asked me questions about my friends and our conversations, and I didn't always know what to say, but she asked.

She wrote me a beautiful letter when I was a teenager telling me that I was beautiful and valued and saying what she hoped I would become. Then when I was going through depression as a young girl, she was there as best as she could be for me.

Excuse me here.

So I was a difficult case when I was a teenager. I took a lot of my parents' time and attention, or I went to them many times a day sometimes, just so sensitive to something I might have done wrong or said wrong.

And it took me—I don't know. It felt like years. I'm not quite sure how long it took until I pulled out of that. So if you have a child like that, be patient. I felt like my parents were very patient with me, and they gave me good advice, and they were there for me. I'm sure they got tired of it.

But it's just a little bit of my testimony. Don't give up on your children when it feels like there's issues and will they ever be okay. There is hope. God came through for me. It wasn't a quick thing either. It gradually went away. But I'm very thankful for the nurturing of my mother and my father during that time.

Don't push your children away. It's easy to do this. They are demanding. They want to sit on you, lean on you.

Get so tired of being touched sometimes. Be careful. Right now, while I was preparing my talk in these months leading up to this, I was thinking a lot, nurturing. And here comes my three-year-old, always wanting to touch my neck, rub my neck, and that was comforting to her. And I found myself just like, "Ah." And it's okay. I think it's okay to say, "No, that's enough. You don't need to do that all the time." But I guess I realized with some of my older ones that I did push them away without thinking about it, without realizing what I was doing.

And it's easy to do this, okay, because we have a lot of children. When you have a row of children, your older ones have to grow up faster. They have to fend for themselves a little more, do what they can, and it's easy to neglect them. I feel like my oldest one, she got pushed off my lap so soon, and I needed her help.

And I'm not sure what all, but I found out later, I mean, years later, when I would sit down beside her, she wanted to scoot away from me. There was something that happened when I think that somehow I had pushed her away, and our relationship was harmed by that. And thankfully, God is able to take up the slack for us, right? God is merciful, and He has changed that. And my daughter and I have a beautiful relationship, and I'm very thankful for her and for our relationship that we have today.

But I feel like I have younger ones. Now I have learned. I can do something different. And I hope that I'm learning. I'm definitely still in the process.

So what do our children need? They need to be touched. We need to be together. We eat together. We read stories together. Every morning, I sit down with the children. And this is our routine. You don't have to try to copy my routine, but it just feels good to sit with the children. And we usually listen to some songs that we're memorizing.

We read stories together. It's Bible stories and history stories. And then we always have what we call our fun story and just have a little time together. And it connects us. And it's a good routine that it feels—I look forward to it. And I think they do too. But do what works for you. Don't try to fit yourself into somebody else's mold because it needs to work for you. Play games with them. Take time to do something together. I can get all caught up in my work. I do. And I forget to have fun.

And the children love it when you play games with them or whatever it is that they like to do with you. Take time to do it. I feel like it's very important. They grow up so fast.

Sometimes Daddy is gone, and they get to sleep in Mommy's room, light some candles, turn on the music, and just enjoy them. Another thing we can do for our children is love their father and work on a good relationship with him. Praise your children. Give them words of affirmation. Words are powerful. They will destroy or they will give life.

And it's easy to criticize. Correct your children. They need correction. Listen to your children. And these things are challenging because moms are busy. Trust your children. They can tell if you don't really trust them. And as they get older, give them space. Don't force them. God does not force us. And I'm not taken away from the fact that children need to learn to obey. They do need to learn to give up. And that's part of the nurturing that takes place. So what works against nurturing?

So I already said that, that we can make sure that they have everything physically, but emotionally, are we really nurturing them? Being stressed out. And I confess that I was stressed out yesterday. But when we are stressed out, we put the stress on them too, and they hate it. My older ones talk about that. They hated it when Mom was stressed out.

I think my children hear those words too often sometimes. And I think maybe we need to say something different instead of, "I am so stressed out."

I mean, I think it's fine to ask them to give you some time and to be quiet because now Mom needs to think, or maybe we need to cut something out. But if they hear those words too often, they might start repeating it.

Also, if we act out of fear or frustration, can we minister love and life to our children when we are worried or frustrated? I remember when a bunch of my children had ringworm. This was back when my oldest daughter was—we were getting ready for her wedding, and that was a hard time for me, or it seemed like a lot. I had a baby, and some of the children had ringworm, and I just had this fear.

It kind of consumed me that the ringworm was going to get away from us. And I felt like it was hard for me to minister life to them because I was fearful. I wasn't trusting God.

And so remind yourself.

Nurturing our husbands. Love your husband. This is huge for our children, for our family. It's important for our relationship. Love him. Look at him and admire him.

Take time to watch him work. Thank him for his qualities and his faithfulness. Sit close to him and touch him. Listen to him and be his friend. And yeah, and share your heart with him too.

So I have a little—I feel like this whole talk is kind of geared toward raising a family, but I want it to be for all of us. Maybe your family is done raised, or maybe you aren't married. Maybe you're young. Maybe you're single. What are ways that single women nurture?

Well, just because you don't have children doesn't mean you aren't nurturing. We nurture each other as sisters. Younger ones look up to you. I like how Anita Yoda was talking about sharing recipes and experiences. And that's nurturing. It gives us opportunities for nurturing too.

I have single lady friends that are a huge blessing to me. They take time to listen. They clean people's houses, and old people are very lonely. And it's such an opportunity to nurture and to be a blessing.

Some of them counsel, give counsel, long-form conversations, listening and caring.

They take time for children. They have time to hold them and give them sometimes extra time that our children need. And I'm so blessed by these dear sisters that God has given. Can I nurture if I'm not being nurtured?

Am I in good shape to nurture? So what if you're pregnant or nursing? I have these pills here. You can see prenatals. You take vitamins. You get plenty of sleep. You take walks for exercise. Nurturing is giving life. You don't just expect your body to have what it needs when you're pregnant. You know you have to do something towards nurturing that little one inside of you.

So in the same way, can I give out what I don't have? If my body is not healthy, I'm not going to be able to give my baby what it needs. If I'm not healthy emotionally and spiritually, can I nurture?

I have to receive life before I can give it. Have I allowed God to give me life? Have I been loved by him and filled so that life will flow out? So God nurtures us, and we need to receive that before we can give it. We also need people in our lives to nurture us. God made us to need people. Our husbands nurture us. Our friends nurture us if we let them.

And you could say maybe you didn't have the—maybe you didn't have the opportunity to experience nurturing when you were growing up, when you were young. And that's the case for some. They weren't nurtured very well, so they don't know. Maybe you can feel like you don't have what it takes. But God is now asking us to do something out of our reach.

He will give us. He will fill us, and he will give wisdom. And I think in some ways, it's a simple thing. God gives us life so we can give life. What else can keep us from being able to give life?

We will not be able to give life and be free and let people into our lives if we are holding big hurts. If you have a big hurt, a pain in your life, something that has caused you to put up a wall, you won't let people get close to you.

So you probably won't be able to receive nurturing very well. Neither will you be able to give nurturing, give life, and reach into other people's lives because you have this wall. That can keep us from being able to give life.

You will actually end up hurting people if you don't first deal with the pain that's in your own heart. You can hurt your children. You can hurt other people. And it will get in the way of being able to give Jesus to the people in our lives.

How do we know if it's there? I think that maybe we will notice that we aren't able to share what's really in our hearts. Or maybe it could come out over and over again that you're talking the same thing, the pain that happened in your past. And I'd say find somebody to talk to that can bring you to Jesus and somebody that can nurture you because we want to be able to give to our children. We want to be able to let God flow through us.

And something that I thought about here that will help us to be good nurturers is having a thankful heart. A few years back, I just realized that I am not a very thankful person. It's easy for me to complain. It's easy for me to see the negative. And I just asked God, and I had others asking God for me too, like, "Give me a thankful heart." And I feel like God has been working that in me. I mean, it's a process because I see it over and over again. But I think he started it, and I think he is continuing.

Having a thankful heart puts us in a place of blessing. We are taking from God's hand with acceptance and surrender when we choose to be thankful. And then we're in a good place to be able to give to others.

It's easy to be thankful for the good things, but God wants to teach us to have a thankful heart even when life is difficult, even when we are seeing hard situations. And I'm definitely still learning this.

When we pity ourselves, we are empty, and we're not accepting from our Father's hand what he is putting into our lives. 2 Corinthians 3:18. Here is a verse that kind of stood out to me as a way to be looking away from ourselves. "But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

So I was thinking about that, looking into a glass. What are we looking at? Are we looking at ourselves and our abilities? We don't have it. We really need to look at Jesus with an open face. And what is an open face? The pure in heart will see God. Are we holding on to past hurts and bitterness that will put up walls and end up hurting the people that we want to help?

How does God nurture us? How does God nurture me? Maybe can help us to get an idea of how we should be nurturing our children.

So he chastens me. That is nurturing. He gives me joy.

He enjoys me. He doesn't force me. And he sometimes removes himself and allows me to be tested.

That doesn't feel like a very easy thing, but it is part of nurturing. And I think we do the same with our children. We correct them. We love to give them joy.

We enjoy them. And again, we don't force them. And we also step back and allow them to be tested. So do we naturally nurture? Well, I was saying that God did put it in us as women to nurture, right?

And so we enjoy that. But nurturing gets hard. I mean, we're not going to naturally nurture, I think. We're going to naturally want to take care of ourselves. We're going to naturally be selfish.

John 12:24 says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, accept a corn of wheat, fall into the ground, and die. It abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." I just think it's an amazing privilege to be able to—God allows us to experience the joy of giving life, but we die first. And somehow, that is a beautiful thing. To be able to die to myself, even though it doesn't feel good many times. I remember when he made this verse very real to me. We were in Mexico, and my husband was doing an intense School of Christ, three weeks of a very intense Bible. They were listening to messages and spending a lot of time in prayer.

And I was there with him, and I was definitely supportive. But guess what my job was? I was the mom on the back bench and most of the time not even there. I had three little ones, and they needed me. And it was a severe struggle for me, I remember at that time. I guess God had a lot of breaking to do because I was feeling left out. I was feeling like, "This is not—I'm not getting anything, and he's getting all the good stuff."

I guess what I didn't realize at that time was when my husband was getting a hold of God, God was actually blessing me the whole time. And I didn't see it coming, but it was the way it was.

So I remember reading that verse then, "Accept a corn of wheat, fall into the ground, and die. It abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

So it's a privilege.

I think it's easy to find ourselves worrying about, "Are we really getting this done?"

for myself. And maybe I'm insecure. Maybe not everyone feels like I feel, but I can worry about this. Are my children going to receive the nurturing they need? Do I know how to reach out and minister to somebody that's hurting outside of my home? And well, God does.

And I think that God gives us each other too so that we can—we're not alone in it. We can ask advice. We can ask God for wisdom. He said he would give us wisdom, and he wouldn't scold us.

So we aren't big enough. We're not smart enough, but God is. And so the song that I wanted to sing today, I was thinking of just reading it, but guess what? My older girls came in today, and I have them here with me, and it's too good of an opportunity to miss. So the song that I want to sing today is called "Fret Not."

And I'm going to call the girls to come. Commit thy way unto the Lord. All you need, he will afford. Never fret or be oppressed. Commit and trust. Delight and rest. Fret not, he's watching over you. Fret not, the Lord will see you through. Fret not, you're sure to stand the test. Commit and trust. Delight and rest.

Trust in him, his word is true. He will do what's right for you. Praise the name you have confessed. Commit and trust. Delight and rest. Let the Lord be your delight. Delight in him both day and night. Him the host and you the guest. Commit and trust. Delight and rest.

Rest in him, wait patiently. God knows all, and he can see. In his answers, you'll be blessed. Commit and trust. Delight and rest. Fret not, he's watching over you. Fret not, the Lord will see you through. Fret not, you're sure to stand the test. Commit and trust. Delight and rest.

Wrote down a bunch of notes that stood out to me. And yeah, I think what I feel in my heart is just a finger pointing at some selfishness in my heart where I need to be unselfish to those around me.

So we're going to open it up for a Q&A. I might give some of these later, but I want to hear what you all have to say. What are your questions that you have for Beth regarding this subject?

Maybe while you're thinking about that, one question that came in on the chat for you, Beth. How would you help someone try not to focus on outward beauty more, but on inside beauty and nurturing? Thank you for your talk. May God bless you.

Yes, I think that's very important.

I think within the world that we live in, it's so focused on outward beauty. And I wonder if we could help them see—I mean, I know that for teenagers and for young ones especially, it's a temptation to want to try to measure up to somebody else. And we do. We compare ourselves, and that's not good.

But I know people that the physical beauty is not what you see. You see something that they're not physically beautiful, but there's beauty coming out of them because Jesus is in them. And I hope that we can help our children see, our girls, that that's where it's really at.

I think they are watching us, but peers are a strong pull sometimes. But what do they see in our lives too? Do they see us focusing on that? Or I know it's a temptation, especially for young ones.

Do you have any words to add?

Yeah, I think that's good. I think that there's a part of us as sisters that is going to struggle with that. Actually, I think there's a balance between focus on inside beauty and outside beauty because, yeah, it doesn't mean that we don't take care of our physical bodies.

So I think there's a balance there. And I think maybe God wants us to have some tension there on that point. There's a lot of things in the Christian life where it's a balance, right? You can't go on one ditch or the other. And I think this is probably one of those, but we tend to err towards the side of worrying about what people think of us instead of worrying about what God thinks of us.

That's definitely more of our tendency. And so the nurturing plays in here a lot because as the nurturer, we need to show that we're at rest with who God has created us to be. You talked about that. You talked about, "Don't let past hurts. Put up walls and hinder the people we want to nurture." So we need to be at rest ourselves in who we are, who God created us to be. And then that will come out in an inner beauty.

But yet God has created us with some physical beauty too, and we're to be stewards of that as well. And so nurturing also will be showing our daughters or the people around us, the ones that we get to work with, what that looks like too.

That's right. I feel like God does want us to be feminine. And I don't think being modest just means wearing drab, trying to be as drab as we can. I think God made us to love beauty, but to put too much focus on that, then we forget about what's inside.

Yeah, there's another question here for you in the chat that says, "I find that it is so difficult to nurture when I am not being nurtured. How can we talk to our family, most importantly to our husbands, that we also need and thrive when nurtured?"

So sometimes it feels like it's just all going out, right? And you run out. It can't be. And I think—I'm not sure. I feel like it's very important for me to have some time. I mean, I don't want to be selfish, but I need time to refresh. And I think if our children and our husbands see what that does for us, that they will be rewarded.

I think they would agree that it is helpful. When I come back from an anniversary day together with my husband, my children, they like that because they see that I'm refreshed. I'm excited to see them again. I think it's important. And also, even just maybe a morning with the sisters praying together, sharing is so refreshing.

And maybe we can't all—I mean, maybe not everyone has the opportunity to do that. But I think even if you just have a sister that you can talk to that is a nurturer that you can talk to, they listen, they care. It's very, very important for us as women.

Hi. I think what you're saying is so true. It is nice to have a sister that you can talk to or go for coffee in the morning and kind of pour your heart out too. But one thing to remember too is we are made differently than our husbands are made. And sometimes we think that they should know what we're thinking, but they don't.

And to just be open and to say to your husband, "Let's go on a date together," or, "I feel like we haven't connected very well. Can we just sit this evening and have a cup of tea together and talk?" Things like that. Sometimes the husbands just don't think about things like that. And so maybe that's all you need to do.

Or another thing too, and I know this might kind of sound cliché, but it's to pray about it. God cares how you feel. And it's amazing that sometimes we'll have an issue with someone, and instead of going to them, you just pray about it. It's quite amazing how maybe they'll realize that there's something wrong in their life or that just something. It's amazing how God works. And so don't ever underestimate the power of prayer and to pray that you want your husband to nurture you.

Amen.

I was thinking too that we can tend to be kind of dramatic as women, and our husbands, that sometimes triggers them, and they don't know what to do with our drama. So if we can come to them, specifically this question, "How can we speak to our family and our husband?" come at a time when you're not feeling particularly unnurtured and say, "Here's a practical way that you could help me be a better wife and mother," and then explain some of the things that would feel nurturing to you and talk to your husband about it in a way that's really logical, like, "This would be a good investment," very rational, because that's how they communicate. And so kind of go into that mode for a little while to be able to do that.

And while I'm unmuted, I just want to say, Beth, thank you so much for what you put into this talk today. I really was blessed. There were so many practical things that you brought out that this is nurturing. Patience is nurturing. Making your home a safe haven and nest is nurturing.

Allowing people to touch you even when you're done with being touched. I had to learn that big time. I mean, my skin would start to crawl because there's just so many people up against me. Those are all such good practical things. And the most encouraging was when you said, "Yeah, we're designed to be nurturers as women," but then you brought out that really it's not natural. What's natural in this fallen world is selfishness.

And just that reading that verse about the corn of wheat needing to die in order to bring forth fruit, I thought that was so encouraging because it's easy to assume that it comes naturally to everybody else except for me. And it's just so good to see that even a person who looks like such a natural nurturer, which you have always looked like to me, had to learn to die too. So thank you for being vulnerable and sharing that. That was a blessing.

Thank you.

Another question here for you, Beth. What is an adult daughter's responsibility in nurturing her anxious and stressed-out mother? I'm trying to be wise and not get drained in a difficult family season, but also serve and be unselfish.

I guess I would feel like it's not really the daughter's job to nurture her mother, maybe. I mean, yes, we always need to give life. And as we walk with Jesus, we will give life.

But I think pray for your mother and love her the best that you know how. I feel like as young girls, it's easy to take your mom for granted.

And when they're not here anymore, you realize what you miss. But yeah, I'm not sure. What do you say, Lene? Lynelle, sorry, call you.