SPEAKER_00: You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: What was the biggest surprise in a really happy, joyful way for you?
SPEAKER_05: Just the the joy of these little faces every day, and um they just had a lot of life, had a lot of energy, and it was a privilege actually to just be a part of what they were doing and them be a part of what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00: At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it is Mother's Day, and today I have three beautiful mothers up here with me that I've known for a number of years.
SPEAKER_01: I've known one in particular for a lot of years, and we're gonna talk about being a mom.
SPEAKER_01: So for all you fathers out there, you're gonna learn something too.
SPEAKER_01: All you women out there that are not mothers, you'll learn something too.
SPEAKER_01: And it's for everybody.
SPEAKER_01: But I feel like you guys, I really do, that the way the culture is going and really the devaluing of motherhood, we've got to address it sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: We've got to address it from the a biblical perspective.
SPEAKER_01: So thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for being here.
SPEAKER_01: And the first mom is my wife, Liz.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Liz, how long have we been married?
SPEAKER_05: 34 years, and seven children, four grandchildren.
SPEAKER_01: And so, how many years have you been a mom?
SPEAKER_01: 32.
SPEAKER_01: So 32 out of 34, you've been a mom.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that awesome?
SPEAKER_01: I think that's fantastic.
SPEAKER_01: Tiffin Perkins is an in-law in that her oldest son, Ethan, married my daughter, Deborah.
SPEAKER_01: So, how long have you and Sean been married and how many kids?
SPEAKER_02: So, Sean and I have been married for 30 years, and we have six kids and six grandkids.
SPEAKER_02: Now, Tiffin, how old is Ethan?
SPEAKER_03: Ethan is 29.
SPEAKER_01: So y'all, you guys went, I mean, you jumped right in, right?
SPEAKER_01: And started having kids.
SPEAKER_01: That's wow, it's like us, very similar.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we really wanted kids.
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: And Christy and Randy, how long have y'all been married and how many kids?
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we've been married for 25 years, and we have two kids.
SPEAKER_04: We have Nathan and Zach, and they're 14 and 12.
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm gonna start with you, Christy, with some of my questions.
SPEAKER_01: And the first one is you had expectations going into being a wife, getting married, but you also had expectations about being a mom.
SPEAKER_01: So um what was like the biggest surprise to you about motherhood?
SPEAKER_04: I so lots of surprises.
SPEAKER_04: Um, I will say pregnancy and the whole process of being pregnant was a big surprise.
SPEAKER_04: It's it was not easy for me.
SPEAKER_04: But um another thing that really surprised me was how tired I was and how little sleep I got.
SPEAKER_04: Um, but you know, like I said, that's like kind of a negative thing.
SPEAKER_04: But we love being parents.
SPEAKER_04: I love being a mom.
SPEAKER_04: So um I guess I was really surprised that I love it so much.
SPEAKER_04: It's really fulfilling it's the best thing I've ever done.
SPEAKER_01: That's so awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Different, what about for you?
SPEAKER_01: Like big surprises.
SPEAKER_03: So I think my biggest surprise is that I realized I didn't really know everything.
SPEAKER_03: But uh but if that kind of goes with my, you know, the thing that I think surprised me really the most was how fast kids change.
SPEAKER_03: How they they don't stay so so nothing lasted very long.
SPEAKER_03: By the time I'd figure something out, we'd be on to the next thing, you know, or or you would never there was not a lot of consistency.
SPEAKER_03: But it just definitely was a learning process for me all the way along.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_05: Liv?
SPEAKER_05: I think for me, just realizing how selfless I was forced to be all of a sudden.
SPEAKER_05: You know, you one day you can do what you want, and then you have a child, and it's never that that same thing again.
SPEAKER_05: It's just a very um selfless existence, and I think God is discipling um moms in the middle of that.
SPEAKER_05: And when I look at my daughter-in-law, my daughter doing that, I just can't imagine that I did that, especially when the kids are so little.
SPEAKER_01: So, what was what was the biggest surprise in a really happy, joyful way for you, Barbara?
SPEAKER_05: Biggest surprise.
SPEAKER_05: Um just the the joy of these little faces every day, and um they just had a lot of life, had a lot of energy, and it was a privilege actually to just be a part of what they were doing and them be a part of what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, they were just so funny, weren't they?
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
SPEAKER_05: I mean so fun.
SPEAKER_01: What about for you, Tiffin?
SPEAKER_01: What would you say was like a surprising joyful part that maybe you never expected?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: I would say that probably the most fun thing for me about having kids was now I had an excuse to do all the little things little kids get to do.
SPEAKER_03: I could go to the park and swing, I could go to the zoo, you know, it was just all of the the fun things, and then how much fun it was to just be around them, to teach them to swim, to you know, be see their changes, and and also also I think for me too, just realize I could love that much.
SPEAKER_03: You know, that I really I didn't know I could, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Christy, you you you mentioned joy.
SPEAKER_01: I I'm I'm really picking up on that, and and uh you you felt joy, but is there some some particular things that made you like more excited about being mom than you ever expected?
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I would say there's there's a lot.
SPEAKER_04: Um I one of the things about being a mom, I think I was not expecting this at all, but just how much they love me, and especially you know, when they're little, you're their everything.
SPEAKER_04: And how you can just transform a day, a look, you know, a moment with your love as a mom for them.
SPEAKER_04: And um, you know, so that just that just brought so much joy, but I I really like seeing them transform and and operate within the gifts that God's given them.
SPEAKER_04: So, like, you know, our kids we do music.
SPEAKER_04: So watching God do something, multiply something amazing in them that I didn't I didn't put that there.
SPEAKER_04: I taught them their scales and their chords when they were you know four.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and that's it.
SPEAKER_04: Like God has just multiplied like crazy, and that's a real joy to see what he's doing in them.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Tiffin, what would you say has been the hardest thing?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, um when we when we approach anything for the first time, um we don't know what we're getting into, right?
SPEAKER_01: And we have and we have examples of the way we were raised, pros and cons.
SPEAKER_01: So everybody comes with that kind of a field of experience.
SPEAKER_01: But what was what was the thing that God had really had to work in you is in being a mom that really changed your life?
SPEAKER_03: Well, I would say well, I mean I I do think the hardest thing about being a mom is when your kids get hurt.
SPEAKER_03: That's always hard.
SPEAKER_03: But but the thing that for me to grow in and change as far as that was super hard, is is I had to grow up.
SPEAKER_03: I had to to grow up, I had to make decisions, I had to be intentional about what I was doing, but but even more so I had to learn how to trust God to be my all sufficiency, that that I could turn to him, I could call out to him, and I I needed to really know big time that he forgave me because you know you're fully aware of all the times you're not patient or unkind.
SPEAKER_03: You know, and every night you'd go to bed and I would go, Okay, God, please help my kids remember anything I might have done right and forget all these other things so that they could really know the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, so I had to grow.
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
SPEAKER_05: What about you, I think um I had to work on anger.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_05: Um, I think when you have so many uncontrollable people around you and situations get out of control, um, you can I I would go to anger, and then I'd realize in the Bible it says that anger does not achieve the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_05: So you think, okay, back up, how did I get here?
SPEAKER_05: And learning even, and it didn't take just a day or two.
SPEAKER_05: It was sort of a long process of learning how do I take care of myself so that I don't go to those places and how do I defuse situations that will help me not go there.
SPEAKER_05: And I really think that you know, when when uh it says in James to be um quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.
SPEAKER_05: That's really important.
SPEAKER_05: And I've had to learn that just even lightly.
SPEAKER_05: So just just seeing my weaknesses has been challenging.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but then working on them and trying to ask the Lord, how do I change this?
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Christy, what would you say?
SPEAKER_01: Like the hardest thing.
SPEAKER_04: It's a lot like what you guys have said.
SPEAKER_04: Um turning from the self-focus, um, you know, I I've I've talked to so many friends, and you know, it's it's very surprising how much you lose of yourself.
SPEAKER_04: You don't have your body, you don't have your sleep, you don't have your life, you know.
SPEAKER_04: Like I have I'm eating, you know, peanut butter and jelly instead of a plant-based diet, you know, like those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_04: Um, and so there's a lot of sacrifices that go in, and you kind of like God, God just uses motherhood with these guys.
SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, Randy would be reading downstairs.
SPEAKER_04: I'd be reading upstairs early in the morning.
SPEAKER_04: The kids would wake up and they'd see us, so they're seeing their parents modeling of Bible time, and then we required that they would do a very short, whatever they felt God leading them to, devo in their rooms where they would journal and do the PBJ, like what Steve talks about, the prayer Bible journal.
SPEAKER_04: And um, then they come down, we have breakfast, and then we go in a Bible time, we'd all sit around a round table and do that.
SPEAKER_04: And um, I've said this before, but we always used to especially have something sweet to eat um for Bible time because we wanted to make that a sweet time so they'd look forward to it and not dread it.
SPEAKER_04: And then our our family goes into worship and you know, two or three songs, and they get to choose the songs, they get to choose the instrument and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_04: And then also, like what Tiffin said, we do that blessing thing as well.
SPEAKER_04: So on Friday nights, kind of kicking off the weekend, everybody gets their grape juice and their cracker, and um, we have a communion time, um, but also the father blesses each of the kids.
SPEAKER_04: Um, and like at Passover time, I've said this probably on a video, we did the feet washing too, like what Jesus did for his disciples, just to model that.
SPEAKER_04: And the looks on their faces, I love it.
SPEAKER_04: When we're washing their feet, I mean, they're it's a humbling experience, and it really does show love.
SPEAKER_04: It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I just you guys remind me of Psalm 1, and we've we've certainly taught this so many times.
SPEAKER_01: I even recently had the kids, they're adults now, young adults in the room, and I said, You guys, this is this is so key again.
SPEAKER_01: I know you've heard me say it so many times, but Psalm 1, men and women, is really God's way of prosperity, and it's about the word, it's about our kids learning to delight themselves in the word.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what these precious moms are talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Let me read that.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night.
SPEAKER_01: He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither.
SPEAKER_01: And listen to this, whatever he does, he shall prosper.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the way of prosperity is that our kids are watching you model, meditating in the word day and night, and then you're showing them how, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I know that um Tiffin, you have a book here.
SPEAKER_01: This was really helpful to you.
SPEAKER_01: Tell me about that.
SPEAKER_03: So this is um Let's Hide the Word, and it's by Gloria Gaither and Shirley Dobson, and they wrote this for people like me who didn't grow up in a church and didn't grow up in a Christian family.
SPEAKER_03: And what it is is it's just all the fun little activities their parents did with them, and then they did them with their kids.
SPEAKER_03: And so um, so it just is real practical things, whether it's you know how to memorize a verse or making a pillowcase that is full of God's word to help you sleep better at night.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, just great ideas that it's full of that I never could have thought of, and I think you open up any page and just do it.
SPEAKER_03: I love that.
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
SPEAKER_01: You guys, we need resources, and you know, we can be mentored, right?
SPEAKER_01: We can be mentored through the authors of books.
SPEAKER_01: Christy, you're a big reader.
SPEAKER_01: I notice you've got a stack here.
SPEAKER_01: We're not gonna go through all of them, but give me a couple there that meant a lot to you.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, yes.
SPEAKER_04: Um, I'll start with this one.
SPEAKER_04: Uh, this is by Sally Clarkson, who I mentioned earlier, and she lives in Monument and she was my neighbor.
SPEAKER_04: I ended up out of desperation um at a mom group, her mom group.
SPEAKER_04: And you know, it was just so fulfilling to just be mentored by by somebody so wise and so into God's way, and so mission of motherhood um just encourages us to look at at being a mom as like a God-given um delight, like this something that's just our privilege.
SPEAKER_04: And you kind of touched on that too.
SPEAKER_04: You know, a lot of us feel like we're stuck in our house and we don't have our life, and you know, it really gets aggravating and hard a lot, you know, and a lot of people can struggle with anger too, because that I mean, you just feel like you've lost your whole life.
SPEAKER_04: Well, this book is really great because it gives a lot of um purpose to why why are we at home sitting on the floor playing with dolls or Legos or whatever?
SPEAKER_04: Um, and it puts it into God's view of what motherhood is.
SPEAKER_04: It's really good.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: Um, and then this, I'm just gonna show one more.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, um, I've heard you guys talk about this one, but how to really love your child has been priceless to me.
SPEAKER_04: It's very simply written, it has just a couple different points.
SPEAKER_04: Um I'll let you kind of talk about what you liked with it too, but it was very easy for me to go, oh, I'm gonna take that point.
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna do it with my child.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I actually like saw results.
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, yeah, the book is really interesting, written by a Christian psychologist about the four things that are key to your child feeling loved.
SPEAKER_01: Because children need to feel love, not just intellectually know that they're loved, but to feel it.
SPEAKER_01: So he talks about these four principles and it's eye contact and it's physical touching and it's and it's discipline and it's focused attention.
SPEAKER_01: And so these are key.
SPEAKER_01: And if you think about it, it's really good for your marriage, too.
SPEAKER_01: So, men, I would say you need to really learn how to love the child and your wife.
SPEAKER_01: And women, you need to really know how to really love the man of your life because those those principles work.
SPEAKER_01: But he's speaking specifically to what we would maybe classically think of adolescents and younger who they don't know um love unless they feel it, and so this this is what he's found to be key.
SPEAKER_01: So it's a great book, and Liz and I have loved it.
SPEAKER_01: Liz, what's been a favorite resource for you?
SPEAKER_01: Um Motherhood.
SPEAKER_05: I would say that book was great.
SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, I'm pretty simple and I just use God's word all the time.
SPEAKER_05: I remember that when I went through a miscarriage, I was struggling.
SPEAKER_05: I felt like I was suffering emotionally.
SPEAKER_05: So I just turned to 1 Peter, which is about suffering.
SPEAKER_05: A lot of it is about that, and I said, hey guys, we're gonna study this book.
SPEAKER_05: And so we did, and the kids actually had to write a little essay on the purpose of suffering.
SPEAKER_05: And I just felt like using this in an everyday way, the Bible, is a great way to show them it's so practical.
SPEAKER_05: It's our faith is to be used, not just to have, yeah, and have right here, but to use it.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Well, to close it out, what is one thing?
SPEAKER_01: We'll start with you, Christy.
SPEAKER_01: I'll set I'll I'll make my question long so you've got time to think since you're gonna be the leadoff.
SPEAKER_01: But what's the one thing that you would say if you could just bless moms, potential moms, maybe spiritual moms that are out there from your life and from your walk with God?
SPEAKER_04: Well, I'll say this um you're not gonna be perfect, but you can do this, and you know, God is your source.
SPEAKER_04: Um, a practical thing is that you you're teaching your child in your parenting how he or she's gonna experience God as an adult, as his or her parent, and um so you're modeling what that loving relationship is like, and so I just I just say go to God's word, just like Liz was saying, go to God's word and find out who you are in him and be that child to him and then remember that in your parenting.
SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
SPEAKER_03: Well, I would say um I would bless you with Thanksgiving that you could walk through each day.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, just walk through each day and find the things to be thankful for and see the things that God's doing in you, in your kids, you know, be able to celebrate the victories and just have that joy in in motherhood and just the adventure and the joy and the hope and the the because it's it like I know everybody says this, it goes away really fast, but it it's like you can choose it daily whether to have fun with it or be miserable in it.
SPEAKER_03: So I want you to have fun.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
SPEAKER_01: That's great, Liz?
SPEAKER_05: Uh I would say um that I'm gonna turn to one of my favorite verses um as far as discipleship, and that's 1 John 5, 4.
SPEAKER_05: I just think that we have a lot of pressure from the world that we have to have kids that have so many accomplishments, um, whether it's sports or music or whether it's a good test score over here or good GPA or all these things that are so much pressure.
SPEAKER_05: And when I look at God's word, I see one thing that I really want my kids to get, and it's in this verse, and I really want to get it myself, and I want others to get it, and so hopefully it's great for us all.
SPEAKER_05: But it says this is 1 John 5, 4, for whatever is born of God overcomes the world.
SPEAKER_05: And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.
SPEAKER_05: And so, you know, when I go through a hard time as an adult, I don't look back at my SAT score and hope that'll help me.
SPEAKER_05: I go to God and I trust Him and I and I work out the problem I'm in with the Lord.
SPEAKER_05: So faith is the greatest thing we can give our kids and trying to just always nurture that is really a privilege, and it's really not that hard.
SPEAKER_05: It actually makes motherhood a little more simple than all these other goals that our culture says is so important.
SPEAKER_01: It's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks you guys.
SPEAKER_01: This has been so great.
SPEAKER_01: And what I want to do to close is let's let's bless everybody out there that are that's listening to this by by praying.
SPEAKER_01: And so why don't we go around and I'll go first.
SPEAKER_01: And then and I'll also close this.
SPEAKER_01: But would you guys pray a prayer blessing over all the women that are listening to this and their families and stuff?
SPEAKER_01: So let's extend our hands.
SPEAKER_01: You guys just close your eyes out there.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just say if you've never given your heart to Christ, if you've never surrendered your heart to him, you can do that right now.
SPEAKER_01: You can just open up your heart, you can invite him in.
SPEAKER_01: You can let the cross of Calvary forgive you of all your sins and begin the wonderful discovery and the adventure of knowing Christ personally.
SPEAKER_01: So, Lord, right now we just bless all our women out who are listening and some are mothers, some are not, but we bless the women of our church.
SPEAKER_01: We bless the women that are of other churches that are watching right now, and we thank you for them.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you that you have a unique calling on each one, and that they're blessed by you for something that you called them to do.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray, Lord, I just pray that through the things we've said, through our time today, there would be a passion for you, a desire for you and your word in a new way.
SPEAKER_04: And I just pray that each of the mamas out there that are listening right now would just know how loved they are in Christ, that they are they've been adopted and they are unique and they are beautiful in the sight of God, and that they would just pour that back into each of their kids.
SPEAKER_04: Um God, would you just do a mighty work of blessing in families?
SPEAKER_04: Would you just bring about delight in motherhood for these moms?
SPEAKER_04: That they would delight in their children in the way that God delights in them.
SPEAKER_04: That's right.
SPEAKER_03: And Lord, I I pray for a new perspective for for mom and women, that Lord, they would be filled up by you, Lord, and that would just spill over into everybody they encounter.
SPEAKER_03: Lord, I pray that the the your joy would go before them, that they would rejoice in what you've created and what you've done, they would see victory and power and miracles all around them, Lord.
SPEAKER_03: I pray most of all that they would just know, like like Christy said, pray, Lord, that they would know how much you really, really love them.
SPEAKER_05: And Lord, thank you that you can get us through all things.
SPEAKER_05: Lord, in our weakness, in our imperfections, in our um deep struggles, you you can come in when we invite you in, and you can do great and mighty things in spite of us.
SPEAKER_05: And Lord, you're um such an amazing God.
SPEAKER_05: And I just ask that all these moms and and people out there would find out in this year, 2020, how amazing you are in a more deep and um and life-changing way.
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we just love you.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for today.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for our families.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for those that are single out there for that they're single and that that there's a plan for their lives too, and it's and it's just it's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: And uh it's a blessing.
SPEAKER_01: So we thank you and bless you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you have been blessed by today's message.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Go to theroad.org, click on the Ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.