Is It OK For Christians To Celebrate Easter? (Q&A EPISODE!)

Welcome back to With All Her Mind!

I've been going through Lyme Disease treatment right now, and it's been brutal, which, when combined with motherhood, Chris' new book launch, and the rest of life, means I haven't had the time or energy to create much content lately. 

I asked you guys on Instagram to submit your questions for me because I thought a Q&A would be a fun way to catch up and get back on the podcast, so thank you for all your questions!

I get through 10 questions in this one, ranging from whether Christians should celebrate Easter, to chronic illness, to my parents, and much more.

Let me know in the comments if you have other questions you'd like me to tackle.

Thank you for all of your prayers, God-willing I'll have another episode out this month, too!

In This Episode:

0:00 Intro

1:58 Q1: Desert Island?

3:12 Q2: Chronic Illness?

8:03 Q3: Our Son Online?

10:00 Q4: International Travel?

12:34 Q5: More Kids?

15:26 Q6: Scapegoats?

21:50 Q7: Your Parents?

25:31 Q8: Exposure in the Church?

30:56 Q9: Easter?

36:48 Q10: Marriage and Parenthood?

Resources:

Is God A Zionist by Chris Kuehl: https://a.co/d/04QXsy0r

Suffering Chronic Illness Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0B0epIZgCg

Easter Isn't Pagan (Wes Huff): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q31k28_rdTg

Feminist to Feminine by Justice Kuehl: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1957616512/

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Follow Justice on IG: https://www.instagram.com/justicehopekuehl/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi guys and welcome back to With All Her Mind. Yes, we are yet again at a different location and this is the weirdest one yet. We're in my car. Actually, it's not even my car, it is just a car. Um guys, it's been way too long since I have created any content. Um, I've shared this on my social media, but I am going through Lyme disease treatment right now, and it has been brutal. It has been very brutal. And I have not felt well at all. I have been majorly just having to put every bit of energy that I have into just feeding myself and my child. And my husband, Chris, has a book coming out very, very soon. It's got a Zionist, and I've also been trying to help him with that. So that's why this content has been put on the back burner. And I said, today is the day that I've got to film. So here I am. This is when I could do it, this is where I could do it. Okay, not only that, guys, but I have my cute little mics right here that I was gonna record with, and then I discovered it is not compatible because I got a different phone, and here we are, we have iPhone audio, guys. So I'm really, really sorry. This is not the production quality that we're gonna usually have, but I was like, you know what, we just need to put out some content today. So here we are. Welcome to With All Her Mind. So, in case today's episode isn't already gonna be different enough, we are also gonna be doing something a little bit different, which is a QA. So I asked you guys to ask me anything on my Instagram, and we're gonna be answering some of your questions today. So let's get into it. What three books am I bringing? Honestly, I could not possibly narrow it down to three, so I'm just going to list three books that I really love. The first one, if you go to Desert Island, you gotta bring your Bible. And that feels like a cop-out answer, but you have to bring your Bible. Okay, so that's one of my books that I'm bringing. Um, another one, I think Uncle Tom's Cabin. Because if you're on Desert Island, you're gonna be suffering, you're gonna need encouragement to stay faithful to the Lord. Uncle Tom's Cabin does that for me. I think it is such a sad situation. We've turned the phrase Uncle Tom into like a slur when Uncle Tom is the Christian that we should all be striving to be. That's my hot take. Okay, so uh besides Uncle Tom's cabin, I'm gonna cheat and say the Little House on the Prairie series. So it's technically more than one book, but I'm bringing the whole series, and there's probably somewhere where they're all together in one book. And if I had those three books, I would be fine. I'd have enough to keep me entertained for however long that I was on a desert island. And if you're on a desert island, you don't need a lot else. Okay, the next question would love to hear you break down more theologically your thoughts on Christians that suffer through chronic illness. The name it and claim it theology that's been common, the church cultural belief. Um, okay. I have a lot of thoughts about this. If you want my full, like more drawn-out thoughts, you should watch my previous episode um where Chris and I talked about suffering and just some of my process with that. But I always have more to say about this. So I did not grow up like explicitly word of faith, but I think that if you grew up non-denominational charismatic, it is inevitable that your perspective on like the Lord and healing and faith and all those things is gonna be impacted and influenced by word of faith theology. And the word of faith theology, I'm sure I'm gonna slightly misrepresent this, so I apologize. But is basically like the way that you have faith is like by naming something and claiming it and like standing on it. Um I don't think that's a nuanced enough take. That's my first thing that I'm gonna say. So this whole idea, like I had a lot of fear, and I still sometimes like default back to this way of thinking of like, I don't want to get a diagnosis for something because then I then I'm naming that and claiming that. Or a lot of times people that I would interact with growing up would be like, oh, you seem like you're struggling with anxiety, and they'd be like, I don't claim that. And it's like, well, it's not necessarily claiming something, like in a spiritual identity sense, to recognize a very real thing that you are struggling with. Um, I think that's really, really beneficial to recognize what you're up against, to recognize the suffering or the cross that you have been called to embrace. Now, here's the thing, when I say that, a lot of times people are like thinking that I mean you should just embrace it and now also pursue healing. I think it's both. So you don't want to just like roll over this is my life now, like I'm just stuck like this forever. No, any moment the Lord can break through and miraculously heal us. But we have to trust him that if he doesn't, he is doing something better through our suffering. And so he gets the last word no matter what. Um, I think that one of the problems with the word of faith movement is that if healing doesn't happen, if like supernatural miracles don't happen in whatever situation you're talking about, it creates the idea that God lost. Or if you don't think God lost, then you think you did something that like made you lose God's favor or God's healing, instead of leaning into, he is able to make all things work together for our good. Things that we think are good and things that we think are bad. And what's really amazing is, or I don't know, something that's helped me, a perspective that's helped me, is thinking about in the Garden of Eden, what we lost and what we gained that was a net loss. So we gained the ability to judge for ourselves what is right or wrong. And we don't always get that correct. Um, sometimes our judgment of what's right and wrong, good and bad, is contrary to the Lord and contrary to his understanding. So uh even if you experience like uh a health d struggle or a mental health struggle or whatever, a financial difficulty, you might be thinking this is like the enemy attacking you. And it actually could be that God is using this to do something even more important in your life. The problem is that as humans, we tend to look at in the natural what is happening here and now as our means of judging if something is like good or bad, or good or bad for us. Whereas the Lord is looking at like eternally, because we're gonna exist forever with him. And I think a lot of the formation that happens to our spirits on earth is something that somehow plays out in all of eternity. And so I want to become as much like Jesus now on this side of eternity as I can because I know that there's eternal value in that. And that's gonna involve suffering. That's gonna involve going through difficult things, it's gonna involve not always financially abounding, not always feeling like you're physically abounding, not always having things on the surface look positive, but that does not mean that it is a net negative. The Lord is able to work all things together for our good. When we are living and surrender to him, when we're walking, seeking him, he is able to work all those things together. So I hope that that's like a helpful explanation on what I think is going on with Word of Faith. All right, the next question was why don't we show our son's face online? And I think I've had different answers to this in different seasons. And in the various seasons, my conclusion has simply been that although the reasons have changed, I'm really, really glad and grateful that we chose to do it this way from the beginning. And I'm not saying that everybody has to do this, but I do think it's something to consider first and foremost during this time for Chris and I is that both of us have life passions and topics that are extremely controversial. And we wish we could just not talk about them, but we really feel like the Lord wants us to talk about these things. We really feel like it's a call on our lives. And we are really glad that random people out there don't know what our son's face looks like, especially in light of like what we're talking about, controversial topics. Um, we don't want him to face backlash because of the things that we're talking about. So I would say that's like my main reason right now why we don't show his face, but more general reasons would be for his privacy so that he can decide if he wants to be online when he's old enough to, and so that it's not a distraction. It also helps me have better boundaries in my life that social media becomes less of a parasocial relationship for me, where like random strangers don't have as much access to my heart and all the depths that exist in it, um, as maybe they used to when I used to like share everything. I I feel like I was super transparent in the past, and that was a season, and now it's really helped me to feel like I have a private life that's mine and Chris's and Kaleb's. And to feel like then what I want to share and process publicly, I'm able to, but there is a boundary there that's really, really um been helpful for me in life. The next question is when did I take my first international trip as a family? And I'm not sure if this question is about me when I was a child, or like Chris and I with Kalev. So I will answer both. Uh Chris and I took Kalev to Israel when he was around three months old. Which looking back, that's kind of crazy. Um, but we were going, we were going already. It was like everybody was going, my whole family was gonna be there. And like I shared recently, I had post-proto depression and anxiety. I needed to be around my people. And they had already scheduled this trip before we found out we were pregnant, and so I was like, cool, we're going wherever they are. And it ended up being such an amazing trip, a really, really amazing time. I actually think that I was thriving on that trip more than anybody else because I was just coming out of like this sleep deprivation bubble. I was actually still in it, so I was still like able to thrive while I was sleep deprived, and everybody else was like adjusting to the time. And I also started co-sleeping while we were in Israel. So then I started sleeping through the night for the first time. So I was doing great, and it was really special being able to take Club there when he was so little. Um, it's such a special place for Chris and I. Chris lived there for years, and um, I've been several times, and it's just it's a special place. Uh since then, we have taken him. I think Peru is the only other country that he's been to at this point, but we've taken him all over the country, and he's an amazing traveler. So I recommend if you are people who like traveling and you're nervous about traveling with kids, just do it. And the first time or two, it might be a little bit challenging, and then you just learn to roll with the punches, and it's really fun to be able to feel like you can go anywhere with your kids. So we also only have one at this point, so that makes it a little bit easier than if we had like four or five. As far as when I first traveled internationally, I don't even remember. I'm sure that it was Costa Rica because my parents were praying at that time when I was really young about becoming missionaries in Costa Rica. And so we spent a lot of time in Costa Rica when I was really little. Um, and I think around that time I also went to Dominican Republic and Nicaragua and Peru and several other places. So it kind of blurs together because once I started traveling with my parents, I got to travel a ton and go all over the place. So it's really normal for me. Traveling as a child was very normal. Traveling with my child is very normal, and I'm very thankful for that. The next question is do we want to have more children? And boy, do we want to have more children. Um, yes. I'm only able to talk about this without crying because I've been working on my surrender of this process to the Lord a lot in the last several months. Um, but yes. So my dream has always been to have a big family, lots of kids, and our hope was that pretty soon after we got married, we'd have our first kid and then kind of have them back to back to back. And that happened with Kalev, and we are so thankful because um I have a lot of health things that could have precluded us from being able to conceive the first time, including I had endometriosis for like a decade that was undiagnosed, and then I had a major surgery for that when I was 24 years old. So we conceived very easily with Kalev, and we have been trying for over two years now to have another baby, and it just hasn't happened. So I know there are a lot of different opinions or perspectives about how you can deal with this. But for us, we're really wanting to always honor life and have a very pro-life perspective in how we go about pursuing having more children. And so we're going down the natural path of trying to go after root causes. And we're hoping that when my Lyme disease stuff is resolved, that we'll be able to conceive again. But the Lord knows. And it's been really, really, really painful and really, really difficult process to walk out because I think a lot of people just assume that we're trying to space our kids out or that we only want one. And the reality is that we would love to have two or three by now. And it's really difficult as friends are having their second, third, and fourth to not feel like behind and to not feel um just disappointed in how our story is playing out. Um, the Lord's been really, really faithful to comfort us in that and that um in that process. But it is really, really challenging. And this is a good reminder that if somebody only has one kid, don't assume that that is all that they want, because sometimes it is very easy to have the first baby and not easy to have any more after that for whatever reason. So whenever you finally hopefully see a pregnancy announcement from us, just know that that baby is a miracle and that we've been praying and trusting the Lord for that next life and for that next part of our family. And it's challenging, but we're just continuing to surrender that to the Lord as we pursue the parts that we can on our own. Okay, the next question is sorry, I'm looking at my iPad. How much do you think Christians use demons and spirits as a scapegoat for problems? My short answer to this is way too much. We had a term for this when I was in ministry school. We said that some people were more spiritual than Jesus, and that is true. Um, again, especially in the charismatic world for what for whatever reason, actually, it's very obvious for what reason. I think that the problem comes down to a lot of times I think people have this view that like the natural and the supernatural are like different things. Okay, they are different in a sense, but they're all connected, it's all interwoven. It's like how there's different spectrums of light, and human eyes only see like one spectrum of light, but there's also like ultraviolet light, which we can't see, and or infrared light. Sorry, maybe we do see UV light. Okay, I'm not a scientist, but there are spectrums of light that we cannot see. For sure, infrared is like one of those. And there are animals that can see those types of light. So just because we can't see it doesn't mean that it's not like totally interacting with us and a part of what's going on, but it's not more real than what we see with our eyes. It's just a different part of reality than what we see with our eyes. I think the supernatural, my understanding of it, is very, very similar. It's like a spectrum that we cannot see with our human eyes. It's interacting with us, it's affecting us, but it's not if affecting us separate from the natural at the same time. So, what I mean by that is that most things, especially in the charismatic world, we want to pray everything away. We want to cast everything away, we want everything to be a spirit. The reality is that even though spiritual things are influencing what's going on in our lives, the majority of things that are going on in our lives also require changes in the natural. So even if, okay, a phrase that is so overused or an idea that is so overused in the charismatic non-denominational world is like saying somebody has a Jezebel spirit, for example. Okay. Maybe some people do. Probably the majority of people that you're talking about, when you say this, they're just dysfunctional, toxic people emotionally. They might even have mental health things going on. And so, yes, there are spiritual things connected to that, but there's also natural things. And if you like went and cast out a demon out of that person, they'd probably still have the same messed up dysfunctional personality because it's their personality. So, that being said, that doesn't mean that people can't change or that the Lord can't deliver us from these things, but it usually is going to require an integrative approach. So we need an integrative approach to all things. So if your family struggles with a spirit of fear, for example, generationally, everybody's got a spirit of fear, it's gonna take more than just casting off a spirit of fear for you guys to stop walking in it. You're also going to have to learn how to regulate your nervous system, learn how to bring peace into the home, learn how to eat foods that are gonna support a healthy body, a healthy nervous system. If your family generationally struggles with spirit of addiction, okay, and like you've got five generations of alcoholics, it's not enough to just break off a spirit. You also might need to go to celebrate recovery or alcoholics anonymous. You're gonna need professional help and you're gonna need to make changes, not just in the supernatural, but also in the natural. So I think sometimes as Christians, we want to like simplify things. It would be really nice if, like, when we have mental health struggles, we could just cast away the mental health demon. The reality is that we have natural reasons too that we are struggling with things. And so simply a spiritual approach is not enough the majority of the time. There are some times where that is the case and it requires discernment, but most of the time that's not the case. Most of the time we need an integrative approach. And again, I also think it comes back to this whole thing of like resisting suffering as Christians, as non-denominational charismatic Christians. We love to resist suffering because everything that's bad is an attack from the enemy in our minds. But that's not always the case. So circling back to the question to get a little bit more specific here. How often do I think Christians are misusing, like saying it's just like a spiritual thing? Probably so often it's not even funny. I wish that more Christians would take personal accountability for their dysfunction, for their struggles. Yes, take a spiritual approach, but part of a spiritual approach is in the natural making better decisions. In the natural, like if you're struggling with a spirit of lust and it's causing you to watch pornography, you can't just cast that away. You also are gonna need practical help and support. This is another one. This is a hot take, okay? If everybody else is always the problem, you're probably the problem. And it's probably not spiritual warfare, it's probably not all these other things. It could be some of those mixed in, but that should cause you to turn inward and go, okay, if the sky is always falling, if everybody else is always the problem, everybody always is doing wrong things to me and everything is going wrong in my life, you might be the problem. And that doesn't mean you are a problem, as in like your value, your value is infinite. Your value is you were created by God in love for a purpose. And so we have to take accountability because of that for our circumstances, for where we are, and go, okay, it might not be my fault that I struggle with these things. It might not be my fault that I a number of things. Your nature is not your fault. Like if you're like more good natured or bad nature, it's not your fault. You didn't like form that. Um, your struggle with mental health stuff is not your fault. Like, none of those things are your fault, but it is your responsibility to now, given your slot of circumstances, make the best of it. Be responsible, be a good steward. And the Lord absolutely will help us in that process supernaturally. But it's also going to require natural things. Okay, the next question, lest you think that it is disrespectful. It was from my mom. So she wants me to answer this question. She said, What is One thing that you think your parents did really well, and one thing you think your parents did not do so well in. And it's actually hard for me to think about what they didn't do so well, even though, of course, they're imperfect like everybody. Um, but the reason being they have grown so much, like as much as I have grown, uh, they have grown. And that's something that I love about my parents is that they're always growing. And when they realize that they did something in their parenting that wasn't great, they have repented for it. And I think that's really incredible. Okay, so that's one thing they've done really great, is that they've gone back and repented for ways that they let us down. And I think that's huge because it allows you as the child to really like heal in another way. And you can heal without you can heal and forgive without being repented too, of course. But it's really nice when they do that. Um, something that I think they didn't do as well with. Okay, so my parents traveled a lot without us when we were kids. They traveled a lot with us, but then they also travel a lot without us. And I think that there were times when my sisters and I were going through different things. Like for me specifically, I was going through mental health stuff. I um I've shared this before, but I've struggled with OCD on and off most of my life. And there was times in my like tween years, because of hormonal things changing and everything, that I was in a really, really bad place and I needed my parents there. And they still traveled a lot. And they like really regretted that and repented for that. And I'm so grateful because, you know, it's helpful in the forgiveness process. At the same time, it's really helpful for me to now, as a parent, be like, wow, they were really like doing their best and they had no idea, and there were not all the resources that we have today about mental health, especially from a Christian perspective. Um, it might even be better that I that none of us knew that's what was going on because the way that mental health things were treated when I was growing up was not the same way that we can look at things and do things now. Um, there just weren't all the Christian resources that there are now. So something else great that they did is that I always knew that my relationship with the Lord was taken seriously from a very young age. And because of that, I took it seriously. So I didn't feel like there were like levels of relationship with the Lord. It was like, no, the Lord can speak to me and He is speaking to me even from a young age. And so um I I've always had a very close prayer relationship with the Lord where just throughout the day I know that I can just speak to him. And if I'm experiencing some frustration in the moment, be like, oh Lord, please help me work through this or help me to respond more patiently, or oh, I'm sorry I shouldn't have said that. Just an immediate, like, conversational relationship with the Lord throughout my day. And I didn't realize until I was older what a gift that was because not everybody has that, and um, not everybody has been raised in that as believers. And I think that's something huge that I definitely want to instill in our children is just that conversation with the Lord throughout the day, involving him in everything that you're doing, um, just having the Holy Spirit as your guide, as your friend, and knowing that even when you mess up, you can just immediately go to him like, I messed up. And there's that grace and forgiveness there. Okay. The car idea was not my greatest idea because I am getting so hot. In case you haven't noticed, my face is getting so red. But we're gonna keep going on. Okay, the next question is would love your perspective on all the exposure going on in the body of Christ right now. Listen, I could go with some more exposure. I could let's get all the exposure. Um, no, I'm just kidding, that's maybe too gung-ho. Um, I think it's really great. I think it's really, really great. And it is very painful. Um, I have spent many, many hours crying, just watching little bits here and there from Mike Winger. I can't even watch the whole videos because it's just very, very upsetting to me. Um how many people that I was connected with and grew up listening to at various levels. Um, just how much is involved and the exposure that's happening right now. But I think it's so, so needed and so good because um integrity and character have been really downplayed in the charismatic world. We have cared more about like someone's anointing and gifting than we have about their character and integrity. And Chris calls this someone's living theology, and I think that's a really good way to say it. You might agree on paper with what a pastor is saying or what a leader is saying, or a prophetic voice, or whatever. But you have to look at their life. The problem is in today's day and age, most of us don't have the ability to do that because we're looking at people online. And so that's why this exposure has to happen online and in a public way, because we don't have the privilege of interacting one-on-one or interacting with others who have one-on-one interactions with these people, um, to let us know, hey, this person does not have the integrity and the character to uphold the gift that they have. And the thing is, we're all still gifted, even whether we're in sin or walking with the Lord. And so we really cannot look at those things as a sign of approval from the Lord. They're not approval from the Lord. We have to have our own um, first of all, we have to our own discernment personally for interacting with people. I would say that we need to have a lot more prudence in who we allow to speak things. I think sometimes people really like a prophetic perspective from somebody. And so they don't look at red flags because they want what they're saying to be true. I think that's a really unfortunate part of a lot of what's happened. But I'm very, very grateful for Mike Winger. And I'm really, really grateful for the work that he's done to bring accountability and to bring exposure and to hopefully bring more purity back into the church. I think that what has been happening is part of the reason that we see this huge shift of young people, young believers going into denominations, even going into like the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy and then the mainland Protestant denominations, because they want to be a part of something where the theology, the expectations are clearly spelled out. And that makes a lot of sense. Um, and you know, I've had a lot of conversations with people where they've been like, well, they still have brokenness there. They still have people who are abusive in those authority structures. That's true. I think the attraction is that at least there's an expectation. And I think that's something that we need more clarity about in the non-denominational world or in the charismatic world, is we've been unified purely based off the fact that we believe the Holy Spirit is still functioning today. Well, there's a wide range of other things, other perspectives. I mean, there are charismatics who are not trinitarian in their theology. There are charismatics who all different, there's all different charismatics. So we need more unifying principles where it's like, what are the expectations? The thing is, I think scripture makes it really clear, but then people try to explain that away. Um, the reality is scripture does make it clear. The type of person who is a leader, what they need to have, they need to have their household under control, they need to be a person of integrity, all those things. Um Jesus makes it very clear that there are going to be people who are performing miracles in his name, prophesying, casting out demons, and they don't go into heaven paradise. That's very sobering, and we should take that very, very seriously. And um, and not rejoicing in like the downfall of others at all, but in a very sober way of just like, thank you, Lord, that you're faithfully cleansing the church. Thank you, Lord, for bringing exposure. And if there's anything inside of me that's like that, expose it. That's a scary thing to pray, but it's an important thing. If there's double-mindedness in me, if there are places of compromise in me, Lord, expose it and help me walk away from that. So hopefully it's a it's a process that triggers humility in us where we're going, we're not like, oh, I'm so much better than them. I'm not doing any of that. Instead, we're going, okay, what areas am I like them? What areas am I having compromise and allowing the Lord to bring conviction and allowing him to bring purity and and to cleanse the church? This is a question that I love a lot because I have a lot of personal connection to it. The question is, is it okay for Christians to celebrate Easter? And if you had asked me this for most of the beginning of my adult years, I would have said no. I would have said no. Um, and the reasons that I would have said no is that I would have said it's a distraction from the holiday that the Lord started, which is Passover. It is named after a goddess, a pagan goddess. Um, the easier money and eggs are fertility symbols, pagan fertility symbols. And so that's what I would have said. I would have said, no, we can't do it. We got to call it resurrection Sunday. Better yet, call it Passover. And then a couple years ago, we started shifting in our theological understanding. Chris has been going through seminary. We learned how to read scripture in an appropriate way. We started learning more about context, all these things, and realize that maybe we were wrong about Easter. So, first of all, just um from a surface level, I think obviously we don't want to have unity just for the sake of unity, but the Lord does love for there to be unity in the body. And Easter is an amazing day of unification across the whole body of Christ, where we are all celebrating the resurrection of our Savior. We are all celebrating this together. And a lot of people come into the church at Easter. A lot of people, um, we see a lot of conversions around this time. We see a lot of people who are really impacted by this because the crucifixion and the resurrection are like the kingpins of the gospel of Christian theology. And so they're really, really it's it's beautiful and important that as the church, we're not fighting one another over semantics around this holiday, but we're unified around the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. Of course, we wouldn't want to do that if the cost of that was participating in something pagan. However, the um arguments for why Easter is pagan really fall short. Once you start looking into the actual research and the scholarship about Easter and it being pagan, you realize that a lot of the things that have been shared about Easter have been sensationalized and taken out of context. And so there's a great video from Wes Huff talking about Easter and why it's not pagan. And I'll link it down below. But basically, there is no um clear connection between the Easter bunny and Easter eggs and those being pagan symbols at all. And there's actually a lot of historical Christian connection to them. So people would fast during Lent, they still do in traditional churches, and one of the things that they would give up for Lent would be basically all forms of protein, including eggs. And so as the eggs would pile up, because people had chickens and ducks and things, they would set their eggs out on their counter. Uh, a reminder that they're sacrificing this, they're giving this up to participate in the suffering of Christ with him for these 40 days. And they started the tradition of decorating these eggs. So this is a Christian practice, like through and through from the beginning. Um, and so, yes, of course, like bunnies reproduce quickly, which is why people say that it's a fertility symbol, but it's not historically been known as a fertility symbol. Even the name of Easter people say comes from Ishtar. There's no uh scholarship that is makes any clear support of this whatsoever. So I'm gonna link that video down before below. Hopefully that's helpful. Um, but no, I don't think that Easter is taking away from the glory that belongs to Jesus. I think it is only increasing the glory that belongs to Jesus. And so I personally have no problem participating in Easter and calling it Easter as a Christian and doing an Easter basket with my son. The last thing I'll say about this is that I think um the fairy tales that are associated with holidays can be amazing tools for helping teach children truths. And that is why fairy tales were first developed. They were cultural ways of communicating values to the next generation. And so, um, like Santa Claus, yes, can be co-opted by consumerism just to sell you more things and to secularize Christmas, but it can also be, he can also be a great tool for helping teach about the gift that we received on Christmas in Jesus and helping take something that is very much like an adult understanding and helping children understand that gift in a language that makes sense to them. I think the same thing with the Easter bunny and Easter eggs. There are so many different like Easter advents you can do with Easter eggs and um talking about the the breaking open an empty egg and the empty tomb that Jesus left after he resurrected, things like that. Even the Easter bunny can be another way of talking. The Easter Bunny brings us, this is what I've been saying to our son, the Easter bunny brings us fun treats and toys. And I let him know that we're pretending. This is pretend I'm not personally gonna lie to him about it. Um, it's fun to pretend that the Easter Bunny is bringing us because Jesus brought us a gift. Jesus brought us the gift of eternal life. And so this gift of this Easter basket is a little reminder of the beautiful gift that Jesus has brought us in eternal life. So you can always take these things and use them to teach your child. Now, if these were clearly pagan practices, if this was, you know, taking new age spiritualism and trying to Christianize it, I would have a problem with that. Um, I would have a huge problem with that. So to me, it seems very clear that that's not what's happened here, that these are not pagan holidays. And there's a lot of scholarship that supports that for both the Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, all the rest of them. And it was scholarship that I did not see and was never exposed to when I was anti-Christmas, anti-Easter. Those were not fun years, guys. Those were not fun years for me. This is gonna be the last question for today. So, from a single person here, how can I be more prepared for marriage and parenthood? There are both practical, emotional, and spiritual things that you can do to be more prepared. First of all, I would say if you are engaged or talking about marriage, it is never too early to start preparing practically for having children. Um, I hold the belief that we should be open to life. We should be open to that blessing from the Lord. That doesn't mean you have to have a million children or be unwise in that process. But um, I talk about this in my book. If you want more detail about what I mean in all of this, you can check out my book, Feminist to Feminine. I have a whole chapter about birth control and contraception and the culture surrounding those things. But um, the way that I view this part of life is that uh Chris and I are, to the best of our ability, want to discern when is the Lord's timing, and but we also want to always leave that door open for the Lord. So again, I go into more detail in my book if you want to know exactly what I mean by that. Um but essentially we use fertility awareness, uh natural family planning, which we've been dealing with infertility for two years, so not something we've had to think about a lot recently. Um but being prepared, like when you are married, you should be prepared for your love to reproduce. That is what it was created to do. That is 100% what it was created to do. So you need to be prepared to have a baby when you get married. And again, that doesn't mean that you have to like immediately pursue that or all those things. But what I am saying is like be wise and understand that it's not an accident if you get pregnant right away when you get married. It would be a very natural thing. Uh, it would be a very, very natural. Um I don't even like say consequence because it's a gift. It is a gift from the Lord that we our love is able to multiply, that he allows love to create new life. That is the purpose of our marital union, is that our love, first of all, that we would become more like Christ, that we would help each other become more like Christ. And part of becoming more like Christ is our love growing and creating new life. So be prepared practically, financially, being ready, having like be like so realistic. Sometimes we get so excited about this idealistic version of marriage that's coming and we're not preparing. I I was this way, okay. So there's no hate if you're this way. But be realistic with yourself. Like, what is it like to have a baby? What will it be like to have no sleep? What will it be like to not if we don't have like family around to help? What will we do? Will I have to keep working? Can we afford for me to stay home? All those questions, it is never too early. Start thinking about those things. Never too early. So practically, that's one thing. I'd also say learning about fertility awareness method, learning how your body works if you don't already understand, learning how to track your cycle, all the little details associated with it. First of all, those are markers of your health and your vitality. So it's really important to understand what different symptoms in your body mean. It's good to anatomically understand what's going on. All those things are great. I personally, if we have a daughter, we'll be teaching her that from the beginning of her first cycle is how to chart her cycle and understand her body based off this amazing design the Lord has created in our bodies for reproduction. It tells us a lot about our health as women. And that's such a gift that we have all of these signs that we can look at to see if something is off. And then I would also say, again, having those really, really honest conversations with one another about your expectations around finances, your expectations around faith, your expectations around church community, your expectations around how you want to eat, how you want to handle health, um, all of those things around family, all of that is really, really important. Even your expectations around, okay, if we have difficulty in our marriage, what are we gonna do? Are we open to having a counselor? Can we go ahead and have some uh a person selected for that? Or a couple that we can go to to talk about things where we're at an impasse. All those are really, really wise ways of preparing. Prepare for the worst. Not because it's gonna be the worst, but because when you are prepared and you're shiring up those walls of your relationship and you're looking at holistically your relationship, body, mind, and spirit, it's really gonna help you have the best go of things when you're going into marriage. Thank you guys so much for watching today. If you liked today's episode, comment down below what you liked about it. Comment a question for a future episode, like if you're not already, you could subscribe. All those annoying things that everybody says in the videos, but it really does make a difference and help a lot spread the message and help me be able to continue creating content for you guys. Thank you guys so much for watching. Hopefully, I'll have another episode soon and eventually I'll be getting back on my schedule. We're just not there yet. But Lord willing, I'm gonna be feeling better soon. Thank you guys so much for praying for me and for all your support. See you soon.